cheap skates. They can take their rotten cities. The sea's the life for
us--you an' me, Killeny, son, an' the old gent an' Kwaque, an' Cocky,
too. We ain't made for city ways. It ain't healthy. Why, son, though
you maybe won't believe it, I'm losin' my spring. The rubber's goin'
outa me. I'm kind o' languid, with all night in an' nothin' to do but
sit around. It makes me fair sick at the thought of hearin' the old gent
say once again, 'I think, steward, one of those prime cocktails would be
just the thing before dinner.' We'll take a little ice-machine along
next voyage, an' give 'm the best.

"An' look at Kwaque, Killeny, my boy. This ain't his climate. He's
positively ailin'. If he sits around them picture-shows much more he'll
develop the T.B. For the good of his health, an' mine an' yours, an' all
of us, we got to get up anchor pretty soon an' hit out for the home of
the trade winds that kiss you through an' through with the salt an' the
life of the sea."

* * * * *

In truth, Kwaque, who never complained, was ailing fast. A swelling,
slow and sensationless at first, under his right arm-pit, had become a
mild and unceasing pain. No longer could he sleep a night through.
Although he lay on his left side, never less than twice, and often three
and four times, the hurt of the swelling woke him. Ah Moy, had he not
long since been delivered back to China by the immigration authorities,
could have told him the meaning of that swelling, just as he could have
told Dag Daughtry the meaning of the increasing area of numbness between
his eyes where the tiny, vertical, lion-lines were cutting more
conspicuously. Also, could he have told him what was wrong with the
little finger on his left hand. Daughtry had first diagnosed it as a
sprain of a tendon. Later, he had decided it was chronic rheumatism
brought on by the damp and foggy Sun Francisco climate. It was one of
his reasons for desiring to get away again to sea where the tropic sun
would warm the rheumatism out of him.

As a steward, Daughtry had been accustomed to contact with men and women
of the upper world. But for the first time in his life, here in the
underworld of San Francisco, in all equality he met such persons from
above. Nay, more, they were eager to meet him. They sought him. They
fawned upon him for an invitation to sit at his table and buy beer for
him in whatever garish cabaret Michael was performing. They would have
bought win