“Trouble getting away?”
“Shelled us right up to the last minute.”
A little woman, wife of the speaker, broke into a light laugh.
“Kept on shellin’, too, when we got the boats clear. Dan here, he says to me, ‘Sarah, you stand right up and let ’em see there’s a woman in the boat.’ So I stood up, and crack, they let go with a shot that jumped the bonnet from my head. Polite, aren’t they?”
“Don’t tell that at home: they’ll say you ex—aggerate!” said a large, swarthy man, who was shuffling the cards. “Civilized folks don’t do such things; that’s what they’ll say!”
“Well, Sarah and I ain’t got no kick coming,” said the skipper philosophically. “We got away with six trips and landed the last cargo, too. Risky—but big money, and I guess we’re on easy street for a while.”
“Say, if this war goes on another year, boy, we’ll have all the money in the world.”
A short, stockily built young fellow, keen as a vulture, derby pushed back, removed a fat cigar and nodded to his neighbor, a type of world peddler, Armenian or Levantine, who was chewing a toothpick in a drowsy interest.
“All the money in the world! And after? Say—I’ve been over cleaning up some contracts, believe me; but that’s nothin’ to what’s comin’—nothin’! Say—when this little war’s over, any fellow who’s got somethin’ to sell is goin’ to cash in so fast a crooked gamblin’ wheel won’t be in it.”
“Oh, got a pretty good line, myself.”