takin' a poke at you
myself but I'll be shot if I'll stand idly by an' see somebody
else do it. With your kind permission, Scraggs, I'll climb into
my dungarees an' make things hum in that engine room."

Captain Scraggs was truly affected. His weak chin trembled and
tears came to his little mean green eyes. He could not speak; so
Mr. Gibney hugged him and patted him on the back and told him he
was a good fellow away down low, if the truth were only known;
whereat Captain Scraggs commenced to sob aloud. McGuffey coughed
and tears as big as marbles cascaded down the honest Gibney's
rubicund countenance.

"I ain't wuth your sympathy after the way I treated you," Captain
Scraggs cried brokenly.

"Shet up, you little bum," Mr. Gibney cried furiously. "Or I'll
bang you in that other eye that's ready for bangin'."

"If you're shy a few bucks----" McGuffey began.

"I am," Captain Scraggs wailed. "I'm worried to death. I don't
know how I'm ever goin' to pay for that bloody boiler an' git to
sea with the _Maggie_----"

"Little sorrel-top," Mr. Gibney murmured, ruffling Scraggs's thin
blonde hair. "Forget them sordid monetary considerations. I'm
somethin' like forty jumps ahead o' the devil an' ruination for the
first time since me an' Bull McGinty organized the Brotherhood o'
the South Seas----"

"Leggo me," snarled Captain Scraggs and springing back, he bent
and looked earnestly into Mr. Gibney's happy countenance. "Good
land o' Goshen, if you ain't him!" Hate gleamed in his eyes.

"Ain't who, you shrimp!" Mr. Gibney was mystified at this abrupt
change of attitude.

Captain Scraggs blinked and passed his hand wearily across his
brow. "Forgive me, Gib," he answered humbly. "I was sort o' took
back, that's all."

"Took back at what?"

"We won't say nothin' more about it, Gib, except that while I'd
like to accept your kind offer an' put you back on the job again,
I--I just can't bring myself to do it. I'll have to forget
first."

"Forget what? Bart, is Scraggsy gone nutty?"

"Out with it, Scraggs," Mr. McGuffey urged. "Spit it out,
whatever it is."

"I'd rather not, but since you ask me I suppose I might as well.
Gib, ever since me an' you first hooked up together, away back in
the corner o' my head there's been lurkin' a suspicion that once
before, a long time ago, you an' me have had some business
dealin's, but for the life o' me I couldn't place you. One minute
I'd just be a-staggerin' on the brink of memo