Nelson yanked off his pants, threw them at Swede and sat down beside me in his underdrawers.
“I’m through with this game and so are you,” he said.
“But I want to win back your pants for you,” I pleaded with him. Bulgar, the sly bully of the lot, spoke up. “I know how you can stay in the game without taking off anything, Skipper.”
“How?”
He smiled craftily: “Pay your losses out of the slop chest.”
The slop chest is the sea-going term applied to the Captain’s ship store of gumboots, sailors’ overalls, shirts, socks, sou’westers and shoes, and tobacco. Father invested some of his own money each trip to stock up with supplies and the expenditure was often a big sacrifice for him to make, for money was as scarce as hen’s teeth. There was always something to eat up his profits: the ship had to go into drydock, then there were new canvas, ropes, and paint to be bought, bail for drunken sailors in foreign ports, to say nothing of cargo lost or damaged by storms. As a result Father kept a jealous eye on his slop chest. At sea when a sailor wanted to buy something the cost of the article was deducted from his pay at the end of the voyage.
This precious slop chest was stowed under the bunk in my cabin, and many a time in the night when a sailor had to get a sou’wester or warm socks or something because of sudden inclement weather, I would be routed from my bunk while Father dug under my mattress to get it for him. I had absolutely no sense of the economic value of things, for I never saw any money. Everything to me was an article of trade, and I would just as soon have given a fifteen dollar pair of rubber sea boots in exchange for a pineapple as a three cent piece of calico. The idea that the things in the slop chest were Father’s stores and important never occurred to me.
Naturally, therefore, I hailed Bulgar’s suggestion with delight. Nelson wouldn’t play but the others agreed I could stay in the game and pay my losses from the slop chest. But the next hand was no better for me. I got a pair of kings and I was so delighted with them that I grinned like a full moon as I bet. With one accord Swede, Oleson and Bulgar folded up their hands and wouldn’t bet with me. I was licked either way—if I bluffed they called me, or if I had them they wouldn’t come in, and in an hour of playing I lost three pairs of sea boots, one jersey sweater, ten pairs of socks, four shirts and eleven plugs of chewing tobacco.
“We want our winnings NOW!” they warned me, and I knew it wouldn’t be healthy to hold out on them. Nelson made no further attempt to help. He was evidently disgusted with me.
I went aft to raid the slop chest, but I didn’t trouble to let Father know I was doing it. I lugged my losings forward and paid them to the sailors and sneaked back into my bunk, where I fell asleep with no twinge of conscience.