"Enery," said Ginger, choosing his words carefully, "if I was you, do you know what I'd do?"
Enery didn't.
"I'd very seriously be considerin' how I could earn my four quid a week."
The Sailor smiled sadly. He knew from cold experience that such a remark was sheer after-supper romance. Still it must be very nice to own a mind like Ginger's, which could weave such fantasy about the facts of life.
"If I was you," proceeded Ginger, "I wouldn't sleep in my bed until I was earnin' my four quid a week, winter and summer."
The Sailor who knew the price exacted in blood and tears to earn a pound a month could only smile.
"I'm goin' out for it meself," said Ginger. "And I'm not so tall as you. And I haven't your make and shape, I haven't your turn o' the leg, I haven't your arms an' wrisses."
Ginger might have been speaking Dutch for all that the Sailor could follow the emanations of his remarkable intellect.
"See here,"—an unnecessary adjuration since the Sailor was looking in solemn wonder with both eyes—-"my pal Dinkie Dawson has just been engaged for three years by the Blackhampton Rovers at four thick uns a week. Fact."
The Sailor didn't doubt it. The very genius of scepticism would have respected such an announcement.