The stranger made a wild leap as he spoke, was up the runway in two bounds, it seemed, and clutched the lower rail of the main deck bulwarks just as the two men holding the crackling gangway up, dropped it in fear of the wrath of their superior officer. The man in the fur coat dived down in his pocket and fished out a yellow-backed ten-dollar bill.
“Divide it,” he said in a slightly foreign accent. Suddenly he whirled round on his heel. The old wharfinger was bellowing from the wharf that the man in the fur coat would have to wireless his address and his baggage would be forwarded. There were several pieces of it on the taxi. A steamer trunk, two suit-cases and a big Saratoga. These, however, seemed to give the new addition to the Aztec ship’s company no concern.
“My bag. My black bag,” he fairly shrieked, running forward along the deck to a spot opposite where the wharfinger and the taxi-cabby stood.
“My black bag. Throw me my black bag,” he repeated.
With trembling fingers he managed to get out a bill from his wallet. He wrapped it round a magazine he carried with a rubber-band which had confined his bill roll.
“This is yours,” he shouted, holding the bill-wrapped magazine high, so that the taxi-cabby could see it. “Throw me the black bag.”
The taxi-cabby, like most of his kind, was not averse to making a tip.
He dived swiftly into his cab and emerged with a small black grip, not much bigger than a lady’s satchel, bound at the corners with silver. It was a time for quick action. By this time the sharp cutwater of the Aztec’s bow was at the end of the wharf. In another moment she cleared it. The tide caught her and majestically she swung round into midstream, while the tugs lugged her stern inshore.
The chauffeur poised himself on the stringpiece at the extreme outer end of the wharf.
“Chuck me the money first,” he shouted at the gesticulating figure on the Aztec, “I might miss your blooming boat.”