Page:Amazing Stories Volume 16 Number 06.djvu/169



THE small smoky space-port saloon was jammed with its usual crowd of battered humanity, when Captain Ebenezer Scragg, Master of the garbage scow, Sweet Pea, shoved open the swinging doors and shouldered his way to the bar.

He managed to find six inches of space between a huge-shouldered Martian and a slight Venusian whose pale green features were flushed from the vile concoction he was drinking.

When he attracted the attention of the bartender he ordered a drink and downed it neat. Smacking his lips he turned and nodded to several of his friends and acquaintances who were scattered about the dingy room.

The captain was a gnarled, whiskered little man with bright snapping eyes and a stubborn outthrust chin. A prominent Adams apple bobbed up and down his scraggly neck. The scant hair that stuck obstinately up from his