With these words Senor Charbonde swung on his carefully polished boot heel, and, twirling his stick gayly, started at his best pace to leave behind what was, to his fastidious taste, a very unsavory portion of the town. Hank, however, after a moment’s interval, had appraised the other’s prosperous appearance and pattered rapidly after him on his thin-worn shoe soles.
“Suppose you give me a little in advance?” he asked impudently.
The South American hesitated.
“Ah, well, perhaps it will bind him more closely to me,” he thought the next instant. Once more his jeweled hand dived into his pocket, and this time it produced a roll of bills—the same which was responsible for the pinkish mark on his yellow skin. Hank’s eyes glistened as they fell upon the dimensions of the roll. Eagerly he watched the other peel off a five-dollar bill.
“Thank you, thank you!” he exclaimed in a servile, fawning way, as Charbonde handed it to him.
“There is a fellow who would do anything for money,” thought the South American, as he resumed his way. “I have gained a valuable emissary.”
“That fellow’s a gold mine if he’s worked right. I’m in luck, and I’ll have a chance to get even with those two pious, psalm-singing lunk heads,” was Hank’s thought, as he shuffled off. An alliance had just been formed which boded ill for the Dreadnought Boys.
Hank made his way down the street past the gray walls fencing off the navy yard, and after walking two or three blocks turned into a drinking resort frequented by sailors and dock denizens. Hank flung down the bill he had just received in front of the proprietor.
“Take what I owe you out of that,” he said grandiloquently. The other lifted his eyebrows in some surprise, and then, abstracting from it the small amount for which he had allowed Hank to become indebted to him, returned the change. As the money and bills were shoved across to Hank, a heavy-set man, who had been seated at a table in one corner of the place, arose and came over to him.
“Hello! messmate,” he exclaimed, “in luck, eh?”