There was a silence, broken at last by the youth.
"My name's Thompson," said he, "and I live in Sausalito."
"You got on the boat at Tiburon?"
Thompson was recovering his normal condition by swift degrees. He flashed a strange look of suspicion at Matt.
"Well, yes," he answered. "I've been staying there for a while; but I live in Sausalito. Give me a cigarette."
"You've come to the wrong shop for cigarettes, Thompson. I'm beginning to understand why you couldn't keep yourself afloat in the water better than you did—too many paper pipes. They play hob with a fellow's endurance."
The Sprite, by that time, was abreast of the docks, and off the unsavory quarter known as the "Barbary Coast."
Thompson paid little attention to Matt's remarks, but fixed his eyes gloomily on the shipping as they glided past.
There was something at the bottom of Thompson's mind, and Matt wondered what it could be.
"I suppose," Thompson continued, tiring of looking at the ships and the sweating stevedores, "that it's a lucky thing for me you happened to be around to pick me up."