“Eight souls,” sighed the chief. “Where they comes from. Gawd only knows. Where they’re bound, Gawd don’t care; speakin’ more exact, nine. For I’d forgot Sparks.”
Drake glanced forward. The tall radio man was in his hencoop, a scant twenty feet away. The door was open.
“Why him?”
“Another bird o’ passage. D’ye notice his duds?”
“New and fancy.”
“Know what the pay is? Man, dear, if he bought them out of wages, he’s never had smoke nor drink in years. Ever see a tramp’s wireless wonder before? No. Know what I think? He’s an absconding Scot. He figured we’d soak him hard for an unconventional passage. You know what you paid, so—”
The chief closed his eyes and gave the details of his imaginative romance in a few low words:
“Sparks gets him a uniform. Eighty bob, mebbe; or steals one. He finds out we’re gettin’ a new radio man this voyage. An’ then, back in port some poor dub brass pounder is wakin’ up, mebbe in hospital. And this sport—well, he’s on the papers as Sparks, but we lose our dividend on his passage thereby.”
“So you figure him, as you might say, a jailbird of passage.”
Drake had raised his voice. The chief clutched his arm.