e goes to Tahiti, and from Tahiti to
Suva, and in general gives them adventurers as nice a little
summer vacation as they could have wished for. Bull was for
dumpin' the lot at Suva an' gettin' down to business--said he'd
fooled away enough time on the gang--but I argued that we'd took
their money--$50,000 of it, and they was entitled to some kind of
a run, an' if we marooned them, like as not they'd send a gunboat
after us, an' the fat'd be in the fire. Bull gave in to me
finally, though he growled a lot about the profits bein' all et
up by the brotherhood, appetites increasin' considerable at sea,
an' all that.

"Just after we leave Suva we butts into a mild little typhoon,
an' Bull scuds before it under bare poles, with just a wisp o' a
jib to steady her. An' when the brotherhood was pea-green with
seasickness I goes down into the bilges with a big auger an'
scuttles the ship. In about two hours the brother at the wheel
begins to complain that she's heavy an' draggin' like blazes, an'
he fears maybe her seams has opened up under the strain.

"'I shouldn't wonder a bit,' says Bull McGinty, 'she's been
jumpin' like a dolphin', and he goes below to investigate. Two
minutes later he prances up on deck like a lunatic.

"'All hands to the pumps,' he yells; 'there's four feet o' water
in the hold.' Aside he says to me, 'Gib, my boy, you're a jewel.
Not a drop of water in that forward compartment where we piled
the trade.'

"It was a terrible sad sight to see the seasick Brotherhood of
the South Seas staggerin' below to the pumps. We had four pumps,
an' feelin' that they might be able to pump her dry too soon, I
had removed the suction leather from two of them. What a howl
went up when Bull McGinty, roarin' like a sea lion, announces
that all hands is doomed, because two of the pumps is nix
comarous! Just about that time we ships a sea or two, and all
hands lets go the pumps and starts to pray or weep or whatever
they was minded to do under the circumstances. In the general
excitement I slips below an' plugs up one hole, an' forces two
men, at the point of a revolver that wasn't loaded, to pump ship.
They just managed to hold the water level, while up on deck Bull
is tearin' his hair an' cursin' somethin' frightful.

"Well, Mac, we kept that thing up for two days an' two nights,
while the gale lasted, an' when we finally gets under the lee of
an island, all hands are for throwin' up the sponge an' goin'
back home. S