"Gib, my dear boy. You're the most sensitive man I ever sailed with. Can't you take a little joke?"
"Sure, I can take a little joke. It's the big ones that stick in my craw an' stifle my friendship. Gimme a fountain pen an' a leaf out o' the log book an' I'll draw up the affydavit for your signature."
Scraggs complied precipitately with this request; whereupon Mr. Gibney spread his great bulk over the chart case and with many a twist and flip of his tongue on the up and down strokes, produced this remarkable document:
At Sea, Off Point Montara, aboard
S.S. Maggie, of San Francisco.
June 4, 19—.
This is to sertify that A.P. Gibney, Esq., and Bart McGuffey, Esq. is law-abidin' sitisens of the U.S.A. and the constitootion thereof, and in no way pirates or such; and be it further resolved that the said parties hereto are aboard said American steamer Maggie this date on the special invite of Phineas P. Scraggs, owner, as his guests and at their own risk.
Witness my hand and seal:
Captain Scraggs signed without reading and the new mate and Neils Halvorsen appended their signatures as witnesses. Mr. Gibney thereupon folded this clearance paper into the tiniest possible compact ball, wrapped it in a piece of tinfoil torn from a package of tobacco, to protect it from his saliva, tucked it in his cheek and with a sign for McGuffey to follow him, started crawling over the cargo aft. By this time, the Maggie was within a hundred yards of the distressed bark and was ratching slowly backward and forward before her.
"In all my born days," quoth Mr. Gibney, speaking a trifle thickly because of the document in his mouth, "I never got such a wallop as Scraggs handed me an' you last night. I don't forget things like that in a hurry. Now that we got a vindication o' the charge o' piracy agin us, I'm achin' to get shet of the Maggie an' her crew, so if you'll kindly peel off all of your clothes with the exception, say, of your underdrawers, we'll swim off to that bark an' give Phineas P. Scraggs an exhibition of real sailorizin' an' seamanship."
"What's the big idee?" McGuffey demanded cautiously.
"Why, we'll sail her in ourselves—me an' you—an' glom all the salvage for ourselves. T'ell with Scraggs an' the Maggie an' that new mate an' engineer. I'm off'n 'em for life."