The native's face expanded into a broad grin, he cast an approving eye over the discarded trousers, and then started to hand up the flowers.
"How's that?" demanded Smith triumphantly, when the sampan had been emptied.
"It's very kind of you," answered the girl. "How much do I owe you for the trousers?"
"Owe me!" ejaculated the other. Then he smiled. "Well, I reckon I could have got a bob for them from a Whitechapel Sheeny."
"Then I owe you a shilling."
Smith nodded. He knew she would insist on paying him that shilling and was wondering how on earth she would raise it. He helped her to carry the flowers away and heap them on the bunk in her cabin.
"Oh, aren't they lovely?" she murmured.
"Um—m, I s'pose so," answered Smith, eyeing them critically, "but I'd rather have a cokernut myself," whereupon he departed.
Dora Fletcher, susceptible to beauty herself, was amused at the second-mate's polite contempt for the flowers. She began to arrange them about the cabin, and, while doing so, was struck by a whimsical thought.
What, she wondered, would the grim and taciturn Captain think if he came back and found his cabin full of tastefully arranged flowers?