"I saw you lookin' at my Chink," said Butler, with a grin on his fat, shining face.
"I should hate to meet him on a dark night," I said.
"He sure is homely," said the captain, and for some reason he seemed to say it with a peculiar satisfaction. "But he's fine for one thing, I'll tell the world; you just have to have a drink every time you look at him."
But my eyes fell on a calabash that hung against the wall over the table, and I got up to look at it. I had been hunting for an old one and this was better than any I had seen outside the museum.
"It was given me by a chief over on one of the islands," said the captain, watching me. "I done him a good turn and he wanted to give me something good."
"He certainly did," I answered.
I was wondering whether I could discreetly make Captain Butler an offer for it, I could not imagine that he set any store on such an article, when, as though he read my thoughts, he said:
"I wouldn't sell that for ten thousand dollars."
"I guess not," said Winter. "It would be a crime to sell it."
"Why?" I asked.