"Have you ever cared a lot for one girl, Flynn?" repeated Joe.
"I have cared—once," I replied, and, obeying the impulse of the moment, I told Joe the story. He looked grave when I had finished.
"They're all the same," he said; "all the same. I cared for a wench myself one time and I intended to marry her."
I looked at my mate's unshaven face, his dirty clothes, and I laughed outright.
"I'm nothin' great in the beauty line," went on Moleskin as if divining my thoughts; "but when I washed myself years ago I was pretty passable. She was a fine girl, mine, and I thought that she was decent and aboveboard. It cost me money and time to find out what she was, and in the end I found that she was the mother of two kids, and the lawful wife of no man. It was a great slap in the face for me, Flynn."
"It must have been," was all that I could say.
"By God! it was," Moleskin replied. "I tried to drink my regret away, but I never could manage it. Have you ever wrote a love song?"
"I've written one," I said.
"Will you say it to me?" asked Joe.