"So it was you, Mr. O'Rourke," he sneered. "Now that's a gentleman's trick for you."
"Yes, it was I kicked you down the hatch, if that is what you are mentioning," replied O'Rourke, "and I think you know enough of me to obey my orders on the jump. I've eaten enough of your slush-fried grub to kill a whole ship's crew, you thieving sea-cook. I know you for too big a coward to step out on to the foot-rope, but brave enough to jab a marlinspike between a mate's ribs. So clear out of this."
The seaman shuffled his feet and grinned.
"Not so quick," he retorted; "'and over that dimund an' I'll go, Mister O'Rourke."
"Diamond, you longshore gallows-bird, I don't know what you are talking about, but I'll hand over something that'll make you hop, in a minute," cried O'Rourke, in a fury.
Hicks threw his Winchester to his shoulder. "Come right in," he said, "or I'll blow the third button of your dirty shirt, counting from the top, right through your chest."
The seaman pulled a hideous face, and spat into the dust.
"Guess I'll accept your kind invite," he said. "It's real civil of gents like you to treat a poor sailorman like this." But he did not move.
O'Rourke eyed him with a new interest, and Hicks squinted along the black barrel.
"Don't trouble about that knife. We will lend you one if we keep you to lunch," said O'Rourke.