"Why not? Tell me that!"
"M-m-my name is N-n-noah!" exclaims the boy.
"Ho! ho!" laughs Corkey. "Let's see them fingers! Got any more in your pockets?"
"N-n-n-noah," answers the boy.
"Got six toes, too?"
"Y-y-yes, sah!"
"A dead mascot!" says Corkey. It is an auspice of the most eminent fortune. Corkey from this moment rejects the collectorship, and stakes all on going to Congress. Thoughts of murdering Lockwin out here in this wilderness come into the man's mind.
"I wouldn't do that, nohow. Oh, I'll never be worked off--none of that for me!"
In Corkey's tongue, to be worked off is to be hanged.
"Nixy. I'll never be worked off. But it would be easy to throw him from the deck to-night. Some of the boys would do it, too, if they knew him."