Chapter II

“Pat lived on Nobs Hill, and we fixed nine o’clock as the time to call on him, reckoning he’d be in then and maybe in a good humour after his dinner. We easy found the place, for everyone knew Pat, but the size of it put us off, till Buck took courage at last and pushed the bell.

“A darkie in a white shirt front opened and showed us across a big hall into a room all hung with pictures, and there we sat shuffling our feet till the door opened again and in come Pat, a little old, bald-headed chap in slippers with the butt of a cigar stuck up in the corner of his mouth, more like Mr. Jiggs in the comic papers than anyone else I’ve seen.

“He never said a word whilst Buck gave his credentials. Then:

“‘You’re Mary’s son,’ said he. ‘You’ve got her eyes. How long have you been in this town?’

“‘A fortnight,’ says the other.

“‘Why didn’t you call before?’ asks Pat.

“‘Didn’t like to,’ said Buck. ‘I was hard up and I didn’t want to cadge on you.’

“‘Why did you call to-night?’ he asks.

“Buck tells him and shows the paper. Pat ordered in cigars—we weren’t having drinks—then he put on a pair of old spectacles and looks at the paper back and front.

“Buck puts him wise on the business, and when the old man had tumbled to it, he asked Buck right out whether he was crazy to think that a Chink would give away an oyster shell let alone a shell lagoon, but when he heard the facts of the matter, and how Buck had risked being knifed to save Fong being kicked to death, he came round a bit in his opinions.

“‘Maybe I’m wrong,’ he says, ‘and here’s a spot of blood on the paper. You haven’t noticed that, have you? Looks as if the thing had been through the wars. Well, leave it with me for the night to sleep on and call again in the morning, and now let’s talk about the old country.’

“Then the old man sticks the paper in a drawer and begins to put Buck through his paces. Pat hadn’t been in Tralee for forty years, but there wasn’t a street he’d forgotten or a name, and he took Buck through that town by the scruff of his neck, cross-questioning him about the shops and the people and the places, and as he sat there with his old monkey face screwed up and his eyes like steel gimlets boring holes in us, I began to understand how he’d come to be a millionaire; then he got on family matters, and by the end of the talk he’d come to understand that Buck was his nephew all right and we lit, promising to call on him in the morning.

“‘Our fortunes are made,’ says Buck.

“‘Wait a bit,’ says I.

“Next morning we were on the doorstep to the tick and the darkie showed us in.

“‘Well, boys,’ says Pat, coming into the room dressed to go out, with a plug hat stuck on the back of his head and the butt of another cigar in the corner of his mouth. ‘Well, boys,’ says he, ‘you’re up to time and I’m waiting to meet you on this proposition; it’s not that I want to be into it,’ he says, ‘but for the sake of me sister Mary—God rest her soul—I’m going to give you a chance in life. I’m a bit in the shipping way myself, and I’ve got a schooner lying off Tiburon waiting for cargo, and I’ll give you the use of her to run down to the Islands, and,’ says he, ‘if you get the better of that Chink I’ll give you the schooner for keeps.’

“‘What do you mean by getting the better of him?’ asks Buck.

“‘Well,’ says Pat, ‘it’s in my mind, thinking things over, that he’s maybe got the better of you. Maybe I’m wrong—but there it is, and how do you like the proposition?’

“We liked it all right, but he hadn’t finished and goes on:

“‘Whilst you’re on the job,’ he says, ‘you can take a cargo for me down to Malakā to Sanderson, a chap I deal with, and bring back a cargo of copra; you won’t want any cargo space for pearls, and Malakā is on your way there or back.’

“We didn’t mind that and said so.

“I’d told Pat I was pretty well up in navigation, and we all starts out together to look at the schooner, taking the ferry boat over to Tiburon and Pat giving us his ideas as we went.

“Us two would be the afterguard, with five or six Kanakas for crew.

“The _Greyhound_ was the name of the schooner, and she was lying a bit out from the wharf, and Pat has the hellnation of a fight with a waterman as to the fare for rowing us off and back, beats him down from two dollars to one dollar fifty, and asked Buck to pay as he hadn’t any change.

“I was thinking it was easy to see how Pat had become a millionaire till we stepped on the deck of the Greyhound, and then I had no time to think of anything but the dirt. It wasn’t dirt you could sweep off her, it was ground in, if you get me; all the deck-bears and holystones from here to Hoboken wouldn’t have made those decks look respectable; it was like a woman with a bad complexion, even skinning would be no use.

“‘She’s been in the oil business,’ says Pat.

“‘I can smell it,’ says I, and we goes below after prodding the sticks and taking notice of the condition of the standing rigging. Down below it was dirtier, and the smell rose up like a fist and punched us in the nose. I don’t know if you’ve ever been below decks in one of them old Island schooners fitted with Honolulu cockroaches, and the effulgences of generations of buck Kanakas and Chinks, to say nothing of mixed cargoes—sort of dark brown smell—but we weren’t out to grumble, and Pat having showed us over, we all went ashore and put back for ’Frisco, Buck paying the fare.

“We parted from Pat on the landing stage, and next morning the _Greyhound_ was brought over to Long Wharf for her cargo. It took a fortnight getting the stuff aboard and hiring the Kanakas. Pat gave us a diving dress and pump that could be rigged in any boat; he borrowed them, or got them somewhere cheap, and then he gave us his blessing and twenty dollars for ship’s money, and we signed on, me as master, Buck as mate—seeing I was the navigator at a dollar a month, nominal pay—and six Kanakas as hands.

“Day before we started we were sitting in the cabin going over the list of stores when a long, thin chap by name of Gadgett came on board. He was a ship’s chandler and when he found no orders he opened out about Pat, not knowing he was Buck’s uncle, asking us what screws we were getting and didn’t we know the _Greyhound_ was condemned, or ought to be, but that she was certain to be insured for twice her value, and then he lit.

“When he’d gone I said to Buck: ‘Look here,’ I said, ‘I’m not grumbling, but it seems to me your uncle doesn’t stand to lose over this game. He’s got a captain and first officer for nothing. He’s dead certain we’re on a mug’s game, and he’s used our cupidity after pearls so’s to make us work for him, and he not paying us a jitney.’

“‘How do you make that out?’ he asks.

“‘Well,’ I said, ‘look at him. I reckon, without disrespect to you, that if there was an incorporated society of mean men he’d be the President. Did he even pay you back those dollars he borrowed from you? Not he. Well, now, do you think if he had any idea we were going to pull this thing off he wouldn’t have asked for a share? Course he would. He didn’t ask, even on the off chance, for if he had we might have asked for our screws as master and mate. Another thing. It’s on the charter that we can call at Malakā on the way out or back; if he had any idea of us touching this pearl island it’s my opinion he’d have bound us to call there on the way out.’

“‘Why?’ asks Buck.

“‘Because,’ I says, ‘this cargo of stuff we’ve got aboard is a darned sight more perishable than the cargo of copra we’re to bring home; if we strike that island we’ll be there months and months diving and rotting oysters with this stuff lying aboard with the rats and the roaches and weevils working over it. Do you see? If he had the faintest idea we had a million to one chance he’d have bound us to call at Malakā on the out trip. No, he’s just took us for a pair of chump fools and is working us as such.’

“‘Well, if he has I’ll be even with him,’ says Buck.

“‘Another thing,’ I went on, ‘do you remember he said he’d give you the schooner if you got the better of that Chink? Those words jumped out of him that first morning, showing how little he thought of the business. He never repeated them; afraid of putting us off. Buck, I’m not saying anything against your relations, but this old chap gives me the shivers, him with a million of money in the Bank of California and you with nothing, and him using you. It’s not me I’m thinking of, but you, Buck.’

“‘Never mind me,’ says Buck.”