"Here, gimme the paper. You're drunk."
He read the telegram with protruding eyes.
"By the holy frost, but he must be a dandy, Say, Smith must know this."
He marched to Smith's bedroom and induced his boss to sit up and hear the news, after Smith had used more bad language with his eyes shut than most men in San Francisco could lay their tongues to when wide awake.
"Don't I tell you it's about the admiral," expostulated Billy; "it's about Dunn, as you shoved on the California."
But now Shanghai was wide awake. He looked at Billy with wicked eyes.
"As I shoved in the California, eh? Say that again and I'll get up and knock the corners off of you. You miserable Tarhead, if I hear you whisper that I had the last joint of the little finger of my left hand in the game, I'll murder you."
Billy fell back from the bed in alarm. Though he looked big enough to have eaten Shanghai Smith, he lacked the "devil" which had made his boss what he was—the terror of the "coast" and of sailormen, and a political power in his quarter of the city.
"Oh, very well then, Mr. Smith, but who done it?"
"Understand that no one knows who done it, you dog," said Smith, reaching for what he called his "pants," "but if any one done it, it was you. And don't you forget it. I hire you to do the work, and I'll see you does it. Don't get me mad, or you'll be runnin' to the penitentiary howlin' for ten years to get away from me."