Adventure, July 1, 1928 — page 74: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

68 GEORGE ALLAN ENGLAND sey, es, yes.” - “Pll pick up a few hands myself, too. They'll be proper good uns!’ And Bohannon grimaced in a manner intended to be humorous. His scar tawtened with that grimace. “There was tinkers and tailors, And sodjers and all. They all shipped for sailors Aboard the Black Ball!” he quoted the old sea rhyme. “That’ll be us, all righto!”’ “Pick as poor trash as you can,” sug- gested Jason. “T’ll do the same. Any riffraff will do, just so you can work ship with it. We don’t want to sacrifice decent lives.” “Conscientious, ain’t you?” sneered the captain. “Well, you’re one fine, double riveted, copper bottomed old hypocrite, Pll say! But never mind. When do we sail?” “Call it about a fortnight from today?” “Right! And—my twenty thousand?’ “You'll get it, cash in hand, when the tug’s alongside. Not before!’ Old Jason’s eye glinted craftily. “I’m taking no chances of your Jumping ship with it, and leaving me on my beam ends. Under the circumstances, I couldn’t very well recover.” “You’re damned right, you couldn’t!” laughed Bohannon. “Sly old barnacle, ain’t you? But don’t let it chafe you. I won't throw you, by crook. I’m honest, I am! Burn me, yes! And when I’m hired to do a job, I do it. Yes, sir, even if it means sailin’ pretty dogfired close to the wind, like this time. And this here job is sure like a winter’s day—short and dirty. Ill take my davy on that!” “T don’t know,” mused Jason. “‘What’s a few riffraff lives, after all? Too many bums in the world, anyhow. As for the China Girl, I'd rather she came to a proper sea burial than have her really get round to the Coast and sell her to the salmon fisheries in Frisco or the timber trade between there and Chile. Or have her cut down to a coal barge or a scow. Besides my needing the money.” “Don’t get mushy!” growled Bohannon. “It’s the coin you’re set on, like iron. Nothin’ but. Well, you’ll get it, by the Law Clink! Your ship’ll get her bring-up at old Cape Stiff, don’t worry. She’s as good as on the rocks of the roarin’ Hern this very minute—or to the bottom. That’s all, now. You know where I berth. Now I'll pull away.” He stood ~ up, stretched mightily and jammed a peaked cap on his baldish head. “So long!’ “A fine lad to raise money for, fair means or foul,” the old ship owner re- verted, sagging in his twine patched chair by his desk. “Finest that ever spliced a halyard or cussed a raynick. Worth fifty gutter jumpers—a hundred! If there’s a better sailorman on all the Seven Seas than Roderick Tyson, I don’t know where you’d cross his hawse!”’ Already at the door, Captain Bohannon baused, turned round. His gray and upshy brows contracted sharply. “What? he demanded. ‘“‘What’d you say his name was?” . “Tyson,” answered the old shipmaster. “Roderick Tyson. Why? Know him, do you?” “Er—no. I thought—thought you said Hyson. Well, Pll bear away!” And Bohannon was gone. The door, closing behind him, left Mellish still engloomed among the musty memories of other and better days. On the twisty, unclean stairway, Cap- tain Bohannon paused to relight his pipe. The grip of his jaw was very grimly set on it, with the match flame revealing his scarred nose and cheekbone, the hard salience of his chin. As evil a light as ever glinted lurked in his pale blue and dangerous eyes. “Smash my eternal old bobstay!” he muttered. ‘‘Well, by the Law Clink, can you beat that? Know him, do I? Well, by God!” He flung down the match, savagely trod upon it, and with sundry profane mutterings clumped down the stair to mingle with the crowd along the drizzly sidewalk of the waterfront. comilicloooks.com