back into his pocket.

"Not in mine," he announced. "No gettin' oryide for me, though there
ain't nothin' to stop me except I don't want to. I've ben drunk once
since I seen you last, an' then it was unexpected, bein' on an empty
stomach. When I work like a beast, I drink like a beast. When I live
like a man, I drink like a man--a jolt now an' again when I feel like it,
an' that's all."

Martin arranged to meet him next day, and went on to the hotel. He
paused in the office to look up steamer sailings. The Mariposa sailed
for Tahiti in five days.

"Telephone over to-morrow and reserve a stateroom for me," he told the
clerk. "No deck-stateroom, but down below, on the weather-side,--the
port-side, remember that, the port-side. You'd better write it down."

Once in his room he got into bed and slipped off to sleep as gently as a
child. The occurrences of the evening had made no impression on him. His
mind was dead to impressions. The glow of warmth with which he met Joe
had been most fleeting. The succeeding minute he had been bothered by
the ex-laundryman's presence and by the compulsion of conversation. That
in five more days he sailed for his loved South Seas meant nothing to
him. So he closed his eyes and slept normally and comfortably for eight
uninterrupted hours. He was not restless. He did not change his
position, nor did he dream. Sleep had become to him oblivion, and each
day that he awoke, he awoke with regret. Life worried and bored him, and
time was a vexation.

CHAPTER XLVI

"Say, Joe," was his greeting to his old-time working-mate next morning,
"there's a Frenchman out on Twenty-eighth Street. He's made a pot of
money, and he's going back to France. It's a dandy, well-appointed,
small steam laundry. There's a start for you if you want to settle down.
Here, take this; buy some clothes with it and be at this man's office by
ten o'clock. He looked up the laundry for me, and he'll take you out and
show you around. If you like it, and think it is worth the price--twelve
thousand--let me know and it is yours. Now run along. I'm busy. I'll
see you later."

"Now look here, Mart," the other said slowly, with kindling anger, "I
come here this mornin' to see you. Savve? I didn't come here to get no
laundry. I come a here for a talk for old friends' sake, and you shove a
laundry at me. I tell you, what you can do. You can take that laundry
an' go to hell."

He was out of