I went to sea in the merchant marine, and got my mate's
license, and when I flashed my credentials on the president of
the United States of Colombia he give me a job at "dos cienti
pesos oro" per. That's Spanish for two hundred bucks gold a
month. I've been through two wars and I got a medal for sinkin' a
fishin' smack. I talk Spanish just like a native, I don't drink
no more to speak of, and I've been savin' my money. Some day when
I get the price together I'm goin' back to San Francisco, buy me
a nice little schooner, and go tradin' in the South Seas. How
they been comin' with you, Scraggsy, old kiddo?"

"Lovely," replied Scraggs. "Just simply grand. I'll pull ten
thousand out of this job."

Mr. Gibney whistled shrilly through his teeth.

"That's the ticket for soup," he said admiringly. "I tell you,
Scraggs, this soldier of fortune business may be all right, but
it don't amount to much compared to being a sailor of fortune,
eh, Scraggsy? Just as soon as I heard there was a revolution in
Mexico I quit my job in the Colombian navy and come north for the
pickin's.... No, I ain't been in their rotten little army....
D'ye think I want to go around killin' people?... There ain't no
pleasure gettin' killed in the mere shank of a bright and
prosperous life ... a dead hero don't gather no moss, Scraggsy.
Reads all right in books, but it don't appeal none to me. I'm for
peace every time, so right away as soon as I heard of the
trouble, says I to myself: 'Things has been pretty quiet in
Mexico for twenty years, and they're due to shift things around
pretty much. What them peons need is a man with an imagination to
help 'em out, and if they've got the money, Adelbert P. Gibney
can supply the brains.' So I comes north to Los Angeles, shows
the insurrecto junta my medal and my honourable discharges from
every ship I'd ever been in, includin' the gunboat _Bogota_, and
I talked big and swelled around and told 'em to run in some arms
and get busy. I framed it all up for this filibuster trip you're
on, Scraggsy, only I never did hear that they'd picked on you. I
told that coffee-coloured rat of a Lopez man to hunt up Scab
Johnny and he'd set him right, but if anybody had told me you had
the nerve to run the _Maggie_ in on this deal, Scraggsy, I'd
a-called him a liar. Scraggs, you're _mucho-bueno_--that is,
you're all right. I'm so used to talkin' Spanish that I forget
myself. Still, there's one end of this little deal that I ain