Page:MacGrath--The luck of the Irish.djvu/186

 So he was going as far as Aden with them, en route for China? Was this the beginning of the bat or the wind-up? Would the fool have brains enough to keep out of sight until he was sober?

William took an old envelope from his pocket and tore off the back. Upon the clean side he scribbled: "Keep your cabin until you sober up.—Grogan." He laid this in the middle of the floor, put out the lights, and went out, closing the door softly.

"A souse!" he murmured. "Pah!"

In his own cabin the patriarchs were sound asleep. Carefully he opened the port, for the cabin was stuffy.

"The old Santy Clauses!"

A pair of clean old sports, and he was going to miss them when they hiked into the deserts for their eternal tombs. That was the way with life; just as you began to grow fond of something it died or went away. … He caught his breath sharply. What a chance! To go with these two old boys into the yellow wildernesses, to play the game as they played it, to take his life in his palm for an idea that only a baker's dozen in the world would understand! Why not? What was there to hold him? Why waste any more time coddling a dream that was never going to come true? It couldn't come true; they did not live in the same worlds; he was only a rough-neck, even if he did let his hair grow down to his collar-band. … A torn photograph and a chamois bag that might hold diamonds and rubies and pearls—the price