"You didn't give her five dollars, did you?" gasped Captain Scraggs. "Why, Gib my dear boy, I thought you was sober."
"So I was."
"Then, Gib, all I got to say is that you're a sucker. You want to consult the rest of us before you go throwin' away the funds o' the syndicate on such tom-fool idees as——"
McGuffey saw a storm gathering on Mr. Gibney's brows, and hastened to intervene.
"Meetin's adjourned," he announced, "pendin' the issue o' the papers to-morrow mornin'. Scraggsy, you oughter j'ine the Band o' Hope. You're ugly when you got a drink in you."
Neils Halvorsen interfered to beg a cigar of Mr. Gibney and the affair passed over.
At six o'clock the following morning the members of the syndicate were awakened by a prodigious pounding at their respective doors. Answering the summons, they found Mr. Gibney in undress uniform and the morning paper clutched in his hand.
"Meetin' o' the Maggie Syndicate in my room," he bawled. "I've found our fortune."
The meeting came to order without the formality of dressing, and the commodore, spreading the paper on his knee, read aloud: