“Who, Mike? They don’t grow ’em any better. Sure I know him. I was here in a cruiser for the Fleet maneuvers last winter. The Navy swears by Mike. Stick around and you’ll hear him bawl me out if I’m liable to overstay my liberty to-night and get in trouble. He’s a regular daddy to us young gobs.”
Just then the musicians in the café across the hall began to bang and blare and tootle in a barbaric frenzy of syncopated discords. The voluble patrons of the bar deserted it almost to a man. Mike was given a respite to put the shrine of Bacchus in order and to rest his weary frame. Having instructed his assistants, he donned a fresh jacket and apron, and found a chair and a newspaper at a little table near the bar.
“Come on, Rube, if you want to chew the rag with him,” said the gunner’s mate. “Now’s the time. This cease-firing interval won’t last long. Some of those rum-hounds will be romping in as soon as they dance ’emselves dusty.”
Rubio Sanchez complied with a fluttering timidity. This smooth, sophisticated bartender had an eye like a hawk. For him the proper study of mankind was man. He removed the glasses from his fleshy nose, puckered his brows, and heartily exclaimed:
“Glad you shook them hard-boiled pals, Steve. They ain’t your class. An’, mind, you drink no more hard stuff to-night, understand?”
“All done, Mike. Meet my friend Señor Rube Sanchez, a sailorman like myself.”
“Howdy, señor. Set down, boys. What’s on your chests? I’m flattered to have you prefer me company to the wild women in the cabaret yonder.”
Rubio’s clear voice trembled, but it held its contralto pitch as he said:
“I have an errand of much importance to me, Mr. Mike. I want to find a steamer that belongs to my uncle, Señor Ramon Bazán of Cartagena. He is an old man as wrinkled as a monkey. He sailed in this vessel, which is a little tramp named the Valkyrie and flies the flag of Colombia. She was at Balboa not long ago, bound to Buenaventura, but she didn’t go there at all.”
The benevolent Mr. Mike was interested. He laid down the newspaper and assumed his habitual manner of patient and tactful deference.