"When a feller's young, he never stops to think o' th' hurt he does," continued the erstwhile king of Aranuka. "Sometimes I lay awake at nights an' wonder whatever became o' Pinky. I can see her yet, standin' in th' moonlight, as fine a figger o' a woman as ever lived. Savage or no savage, she was true an' beautiful, an' I was a mighty dirty dawg." Mr. Gibney wiped away a suspicious moisture in his eyes and blew his nose unnecessarily hard.
"You was," coincided McGuffey. "You was all o' that. What became o' Bull McGinty?"
"He married a sugar plantation in Maui. He's all right for the rest o' his life. An' as for me as gave him his start, look at me. Ain't I a sight? Here I am, forty-two years old an' only a thousand dollars in my pocket. Instead of bein' master of a clipper ship, I'm mate on a dirty little bumboat. I fall asleep on deck an' dream an' somethin' drops on my face an' wakes me up. Is it a breadfruit, Mac? It is not. It's a head of cabbage. I grab something to throw at Scraggs's cat. Is it a ripe mango? No, it's a artichoke. In fancy I go to split open a milk cocoanut. What happens? I slash my thumb on a can o' condensed cream. Instead o' th' Island trade, I'm runnin' in th' green-pea trade, twenty miles of coast, freightin' garden truck! My Gawd!"
Mr. Gibney stood up and dusted the seat of his new suit. He was dry after his long recital and Captain Scraggs was too long putting in an appearance, so he decided not to wait for him. "Let's go an' stow away a glass of beer," he suggested to McGuffey. "I'm thirstier'n a camel."
McGuffey was willing so they left the bulkhead for the more convivial shelter of the Bowhead saloon.
CHAPTER XV
Had either Gibney or McGuffey glanced back as they headed for their haven of forgetfulness they might have seen Captain Scraggs poking his fox face up over the edge of a tier of potato boxes piled on the bulkhead not six feet from where Gibney and McGuffey had been sitting. Upon his return to the Maggie, about the time Mr. Gibney commenced spinning his yarn, he had almost walked into the worthy pair, and, wishing to avoid the jeers and jibes he felt impending, he had merely stepped aside and hidden behind the potato boxes in order to eavesdrop on their plans, if possible. Had Mr. Gibney been less interested in his past or Mr. McGuffey less interested in the recital of that past they would have seen Scraggs.
The owner of the Maggie shook his fist in impotent rage at their retreating backs. "You think you've suffered before," he snarled. "But I'll make you suffer some more, you big brute. I'll hurt you worse than if I caved in your head with a belayin' pin. I'll break your heart, that's what I'll do to you. You wait."
In the course of an hour Gibney and McGuffey returned, and Scraggs met them as they leaped down on to the deck of the Maggie. "Gentlemen," he remarked—"an' at that I'm givin' you two all the best of it, even if you two have got a quit-claim deed that you ain't pirates—I wish to announce that if you two have come aboard my ship for the puppose o' havin' a little fun at my expense, I'm a-goin' to call the police an' have you arrested for disturbin' the peace. On the other hand an' futher, if your mission's a peaceful one, you're welcome aboard the Maggie. I may have a temper an' say things that sounds mighty harsh when I'm het up, but in my calmer moments my natural inclination is to be a sport."