"You's broke, ain't you? What good does dis Soopreem man do you 'less you kin 'vest wid him? Git yo' job, an' when you has beginnin' money I meets you an' reveals whah at is de gol' mine."
"Meet you heah nex' Sat'dy night. 'At's pay night, I s'poses."
"You s'poses right. Ah meets you Sat'day."
"Sho' will. Podneh, whut name is you favored with? I goes by name Wilecat—by rights I was baptized Vitus Marsden." The Wildcat held out the hand of brotherhood.
"Call me Trombone when you calls confidential," his companion replied. "By rights I is Pike Canfield, but folks calls me Trombone eveh since me an' de name got famous. Mebbe you is heard of me. I plays de slip horn."
"Sho' I is—many's de time! So you is Trombone, is you? Sho' proud to meet up wid you. Sho' 'bliged fo' de knowledge concernin' de ten-dollah job. Soon as I 'cumulates some payday me an' Lily meets you heah nex' Sat'day night. Den us 'vests wid de Soopreem Leadeh an' mebbe has a gran' ruckus wid de profits."
That night the Wildcat slept free and chilly on a park bench, covered only with the blanket of fog which rolled in at midnight.
Shortly after dawn, with Lily at his heels, he walked to the entrance of the pier against which lay a cargo ship loading for a famine area in Europe. "Whah at is de man whut hires de han's?" he asked.
Two hours later the foreman of the dock gang was pointed out to him, and in ten minutes, with Lily tied to a barrel of nutritious pickles, the Wildcat took his place in the long line of stevedores that hustled freight out of the pier shed and into the nets under the cargo booms of the ship. "Lily—tonight us eats on credit, an' sleeps inside some place whah de fog weatheh don't git."
All the stevedore crew were members of the Wildcat's own race. Before noon he had affiliated with enough friends to make the matter of noontime lunch a simple business of accepting part of what was offered him, while Lily did the best she could on enough assorted nutriment to feed six mascots.