He banged the chiffonier with his great fist. "Meetin' o' the Maggie Syndicate," he announced. "Meetin'll come to order. The first business before the meetin' is a call for volunteers to furnish a money-makin' idee for the syndicate."
Neils Halvorsen shook his sorrel head. He had no ideas. B. McGuffey, Esquire, shook his head also. Captain Scraggs wanted to sing.
"I see it's up to me to suggest somethin'." Mr. Gibney smiled benignly, as if a money-making idea was the easiest thing on earth to produce. "The last thing I remember before we went to that Turkish bath was us four visitin' a fortune teller an' havin' our fortunes told, past, present, an' future, for a dollar a throw. Anybody here remember what his fortune was?"
It appeared that no one remembered, not even Mr. Gibney. He therefore continued:
"The chair will app'int Mr. McGuffey an' himself a committee o' two to wait on one o' these here clairvoyants and have their fortunes told agin."
McGuffey, who was as superstitious as a negro, seconded the motion heartily and the committee forthwith sallied forth to consult the clairvoyant. Within the hour they returned.
"Members o' the syndicate," the commodore announced, "we got an idea. Not a heluva good one, but fair to middlin'. Me an' Mac calls on this Madame de What-you-may-call-her an' the minute she gets a lamp at my mit (it is worthy of remark here that Mr. Gibney had a starfish tattooed on the back of his left hand, a full-rigged ship across his breast, and a gorgeous picture of a lady climbing a ladder adorned the inner side of his brawny right fore-arm. The feet of the lady in question hung down below the fringe of Mr. Gibney's shirt sleeve) she up an' says: 'My friend, you're makin' a grave mistake remainin' ashore. Your fortune lies at sea.' Then she threw a fit an' mumbled something about a light-haired man that was' goin' to cross my path. I guess she must have meant Scraggsy or Neils, both bein' blondes—an' she come out of her trance shiverin' an' shakin'.
"'Your fortune lies at sea, my friend,' she kept on sayin'. 'Go forth an' seek it.'
"'Gimme the longitude an' latitude, ma'am,' I says, 'an' I'll light out.'
"'Look in the shippin' news in the papers to-morrower,' she pipes up. 'Five dollars, please.'"