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Rh coldly. "If she went to sea, we all would n't be sittin' here enjoyin' life, for one thing."

Feet scuffed along the deck, and a new-comer, skirting the cabin, halted in the open space. He was a brown little man, of sun-dried aspect; under a drooping black rat-tail mustache his teeth gleamed in a row of golden "crowns;" and the dismal, hollow contour of his face seemed to denote a weary cynicism, until one saw the dull good-humor of his eyes. Sunken and opaque, they contained a smoky gleam, like bits of isinglass.

"Mornin', cap'n," he saluted, with an auriferous grin. "Say, the' ain't no weeck in the big lantrun. Kin I git one ashore, s'pose?" He spoke as if this schooner, idle for years, had just tied up at some bewildering foreign quay.

"Well, Zing," responded his captain, "you'd ought to know by this time. But I guess you can git a weeck;—what between Tommy Carroll's rum-shop an' the town lockup, I guess you might git a fortni't."

A heavy chuckle moved round the company, ending in a belated explosion of laughter