s or
such; and be it further resolved that the said parties
hereto are aboard said American steamer _Maggie_ this
date on the special invite of Phineas P. Scraggs, owner,
as his guests and at their own risk.

Witness my hand and seal:

Captain Scraggs signed without reading and the new mate and Neils
Halvorsen appended their signatures as witnesses. Mr. Gibney
thereupon folded this clearance paper into the tiniest possible
compact ball, wrapped it in a piece of tinfoil torn from a
package of tobacco, to protect it from his saliva, tucked it in
his cheek and with a sign for McGuffey to follow him, started
crawling over the cargo aft. By this time, the _Maggie_ was
within a hundred yards of the distressed bark and was ratching
slowly backward and forward before her.

"In all my born days," quoth Mr. Gibney, speaking a trifle
thickly because of the document in his mouth, "I never got such a
wallop as Scraggs handed me an' you last night. I don't forget
things like that in a hurry. Now that we got a vindication o' the
charge o' piracy agin us, I'm achin' to get shet of the _Maggie_
an' her crew, so if you'll kindly peel off all of your clothes
with the exception, say, of your underdrawers, we'll swim off to
that bark an' give Phineas P. Scraggs an exhibition of real
sailorizin' an' seamanship."

"What's the big idee?" McGuffey demanded cautiously.

"Why, we'll sail her in ourselves--me an' you--an' glom all the
salvage for ourselves. T'ell with Scraggs an' the _Maggie_ an'
that new mate an' engineer. I'm off'n 'em for life."

Pop-eyed with excitement and interest, B. McGuffey, Esquire,
stood up and with a single twist shed his cap and coat. His
shirts followed. Both he and Gibney were already minus their
shoes and socks. To slip out of their faded dungarees was the
work of an instant. Strapping their belts around their waists to
hold up their drawers, the worthy pair stepped to the rail of the
_Maggie_.

"Hey, there? Where you goin', Gib? I give you that clearance
paper on condition that you was to tell me how to salvage that
there bark without havin' to shift my cargo to get at the small
boat."

"I'm just about to tell you, Scraggs. You don't touch a thing
aboard the _Maggie_. You leave her out of it entirely. You just
jump overboard, like me an' Mac will in a jiffy, swim over to the
bark, climb aboard, and sail her in to San Francisco Bay. When
you get there you drop anchor an' call it a