"I bet twenty to fifteen on Jeffries before we left Gloucester." This was from the cook, who, having read all about the fight, was now mixing a pan of bread, with his sad eyes directed to a deck beam. "Yes, twenty to— Cæsar Zippicus!" he brought his fist down bff! in the lump of dough. "And I left ten more—I just remember—with Billy Mills to bet for me at the same odds."
Professor, lying in a lower bunk, took the trouble to roll over and say: "And why did you do that?"
"Why? Why?" The cook glared at the lower bunk. "You people— Caesar Zippicus!" and, raising the bread pan high above his head, he brought it down smash atop of the galley-locker. Whang!
The cook looked ashamed. "I just remember I left another twenty with Jerry McCarty to place on Jeffries, too," he explained.
"Never mind, cook," said Tom, "you wouldn't 'a' lost nothing if it'd been Dan Magee."
"To blazes with you and Dan Magee!" whooped the cook.
"And that's what I says, too, cook." This was from Fortune Bay. "I been hearin' more o' Dan Magee this night! It's Dan Magee this an' Dan Magee that. And what did ever the man do?"
"Do?" Tom held a reverential hand high. "A book wouldn't tell th' half Dan did. Where's Jack?"
"Gone for'ard."
"Too bad—if Jack Ferris wasn't aft playin' cribbage with the skipper in the cabin, you'd hear a few things more of Dan Magee. But he'll be for'ard by'n'by for his turnin'-in mug-up, an' then——"