“Not me!” grunts Spiller. “I can make all the music I want myself.”
“How about plays, then?” says Chunk. “Now, wouldn’t you like to see the best show on Broadway?”
“No, sir,” says he, prompt and vigorous. “I ain’t never seen any shows, and don’t want to seen one, either.”
And, say, along about that time, what with the stale cookin’ and bilge water scents that was comin’ from the stuffy cabin, and this charmin’ mood that old Spiller was in, I was gettin’ restless. “Say, Chunk,” I breaks in, “you may be enjoyin’ this, all right; but I’ve got enough. It’s me for shore! Goin’ along?”
“Not yet,” says he. “Have the boat come back for me in about an hour.”
It was nearer two, though, before he shows up again, and his face is fairly beamin’.
“Well,” says I, “did you adopt the old pirate, or did he adopt you?”
“Wait and see,” says he, noddin’ his head cocky. “Anyway, he’s promised to show up at my office to-morrow afternoon.”
“You must be stuck on entertaining a grouchy old lemon like that,” says I.
“But he’s a genius,” says Chunk. “Just what I’ve been looking for as a head liner in a new vaudeville house I’m opening next month.”