The river hands laughed at this.
“I reckon he's somethin' of a hand for the ladies, Dick Smiley is, with them blue eyes o' his'n,” said one. “I ain't a-tellin', you understand, but there's boys in town here that could let you know a thing or two if they was minded.”
As a matter of fact, Dick was at that moment in an up-town jewellery shop, fingering a necklace of coral.
“I want a longer one,” he was saying, “with something pretty hanging on the end of it—there, that's the boy—the one with big rough beads and the red rose carved on the end.”
“Must be somebody's birthday, Captain,” observed the jeweller, with a wink.
And Dick, who could never resist a wink, replied: “That's what. Day after to-morrow, too, and I haven't any too much time to make it in.”
“Here's a nice piece—if she likes the real red.”
Dick took it in his hands and nodded over it. “I think that would please her. She likes bright colors.” He drew a wallet from a hip pocket and disclosed a thick bundle of bills.
“I shouldn't think you'd like to carry so much money on you, Captain, in your line of work.”
“It isn't so much. They are most all ones.” But the jeweller, seeing a double X on the top, only smiled and remarked that it was a dark day.