Page:Frank Packard - Greater Love Hath No Man.djvu/239

 I dunno but four hundred pounds. Well, I swan! Say, what's your name?"

The whimsical smile that had spread over Varge's face gave place to a sober and earnest expression.

"Peters," he said quietly.

"Peters?"—the skipper repeated the name slowly. "Ain't of the Peterses from down Mascoit way, be you?"

"No," said Varge, quite seriously.

"Well," said Jonah Sully profoundly, "of course, there's lots of Peterses. Had an aunt married into 'em down there. Thought mabbe you might be one of 'em. What might you be doin' 'raound here?"

"Why," said Varge, smiling quickly at the other, "I came down this morning to ask you if you wouldn't ship me for the trip?"

"Haow?"—the skipper tilted his sou-wester very far back and rubbed the flat of his hand caressingly backward and forward over his bald head. "Ship on the Mary K.?" "Yes," said Varge.

"You don't look much as if you knew much 'baout sich things," observed Jonah Sully critically, "even if I be a hand short."

"I don't," admitted Varge. "But I can make myself handy, and you haven't got to pay me anything but what you find I'm worth."

"Yes," said the skipper confidentially to his whiskers, "ought to make himself handy, that's a fact. Pesky strong he is."

"You'll take me, then?" asked Varge.

"Well, I dunno, I dunno," said Jonah Sully