Miss Fletcher, seeing Smith, asked if he would help her.
"Like a bird," answered the second-mate cheerfully, and, addressing the owner of the flowers, shouted something in the vernacular.
"Well?" queried the girl, when the man had answered.
"He says," answered Smith, "that you can have all those flowers for a pair of old trousers."
The girl stared at him with a look of astonishment that gradually gave place to amusement.
"It's the truth, straight," went on Smith, as though she had questioned the accuracy of his translation.
"What am I to do?" she asked helplessly. "I wanted those flowers."
"I dunno, unless—half a mo' though. I'll be back in a jiff," and the second-mate darted off towards his cabin.
He returned a couple of minutes later with a pair of greasy, paint-daubed trousers over his arm.
"Here, corffee-dial," he said, and flung the garments into the sampan.