Dear friends:
I am sorry. I apologize to you, Gib, because I hurt your fealings. I also apologize to Bart for hurting the fealings of his dear friend. Speeking of hurts you and Gib hurt me awful with your kidden when you took the Chesapeake away from me so I jest had to put one over on you. To er is human but to forgive is devine. After what I done I don't expect you two to come back to work ever but for God's sake don't give me the dead face when we meat agin. Remember we been shipmates once.
P.P. Scraggs.
"Why, the pore ol' son of a horse thief," Mr. Gibney murmured, much moved at this profound abasement. "Of course we forgive him. It ain't manly to hold a grouch after the culprit has paid his fair price for his sins. By an' large, I got a hunch, Bart, that old Scraggsy's had his lesson for once."
"If you can forgive him, I can, Gib."
"Well, he's certainly cleaned himself handsome, Bart. Telephone for a messenger boy," and Mr. Gibney sat down and wrote:
Scraggsy, old fanciful, we're square. Forget it and come to breakfast with us at seven to-morrow at the Marigold Café. I'll order deviled lam kidneys for three. It's alright with Bart also.
Yours,
Gib.
This note, delivered to Captain Scraggs by the messenger boy, lifted the gloom from the latter's miserable soul and sent him home with a light heart to Mrs. Scraggs. At the Marigold Café next morning he was almost touched to observe that both Gibney and McGuffey showed up arrayed in dungarees, wherefore Scraggs knew his late enemies purposed proceeding to the Maggie immediately after breakfast and working in the engine room all day Sunday. Such action, when he knew both gentlemen to be the possessors of wealth far beyond the dreams of avarice, bordered so closely on the miraculous that Scraggs made a mental resolve to play fair in the future—at least as fair as the limits of his cross-grained nature would permit. He was so cheerful and happy that McGuffey, taking advantage of the situation, argued him into some minor repairs to the engine. The work was so far advanced by midnight Sunday that Scraggs realized he would get to sea by Tuesday noon, so he dismissed Gibney and McGuffey and ordered them home for some needed sleep. McGuffey's heart was with the Maggie's internal economy, however, and on Monday morning he was up betimes, leaving Mr. Gibney to snore blissfully until eight o'clock.
About nine o'clock, as Mr. Gibney was on his way to the Marigold Café for breakfast, he was mildly interested, while passing the Embarcadero warehouse, to note the presence of fully a dozen seedy-looking gentlemen of undoubted Hebraic antecedents, congregated in a circle just outside the warehouse door. There was an air of suppressed excitement about this group of Jews that aroused Mr. Gibney's curiosity; so he decided to cross over and investigate, being of the opinion that possibly one of their number had fallen in a fit. He had once had an epileptic shipmate and was peculiarly expert in the handling of such cases.