with me?"

"It's a young lady, Bos'."

The bosun started back as though in horror at these words.

"Is that the way the wind blows?" said he. "Well, this is what you'd
better do...."

"Can we get a boat at that place?"

"We might, easy enough. She can come in by the garden and there's a boat
in the old boat-house, if she had any help. Where's she goin' to sleep?"

"In my cabin."

"And all that work I done down there for a stranger?"

"No, you done it for me. And I done it for this lady friend o' mine.
She's goin' to meet her sweetheart in Athens, you understand."

The bosun, whose eyes had gradually assumed an expression of having been
poked out by the method he had spoken of, and replaced by an unskilful
oculist, now gave an enormous smirk and drew himself into an attitude of
extreme propriety.

"Oh-ho! But the captinne...."

"Never mind him just now. I have a reason for thinking he won't mind. In
fact, I believe he knows all about it but pretends he don't, to save
himself trouble. Skippers do that, you know, Bos'."

"You bet they do!" said Joseph Plouff with immense conviction. "And then
come back at you if things go wrong. I been with hundreds o' skippers
and they was all the same."

This of course was a preposterous misstatement and of no significance
whatever, a common characteristic of people who are both voluble and
irresponsible. Mr. Spokesly let it pass. The riding-light threw the
bosun's features into strange contortions as he stood with his round
muscular limbs wide apart and his arms, tattooed like the legs of a
Polynesian queen, crossed on the bosom of his blue-and-white check
shirt.

"Well, what are you going to do about it?" asked the chief officer
calmly. "You talk a hell of a lot, Bos', but you haven't said much yet."

"Because you ain't give me a chance. You ask me all about that American
bar where there ain't any American drinks and I had to tell you, didn't
I? And I was goin' to sugges' something, only you wouldn't listen."

"What?"

"Go yourself. Come with me. You can get out into the street by the
garden. It used to be a movin' picture place, but they stopped it
because of the lights. And it's mostly French sailors go there. American
bar, see? What the _matelots_ call _hig' lif'_. I speak French, so I go
there. Now you come along and see what we can do."

"And leave the ship?"

"The ship won't run away, I can promise you that. And the watchman's
there in the galley, ain't