Part 51 (1/2)
Other guests had begun to gather at the promise of diversion: a bat-eared clerk froineer, a benzoin trader looking professionally neat and antiseptic, and two or three loafers looking considerably less so--but all entire gentlerateful for it
”Well, well A new specimen, then” The captain was pleased to assume a scientific interest as he propped hiarette smoke ”And a blasted poor specimen at that, I'd say Nohich tribe would you take him to be, just as he stands?”
Captain Silva had a reputation of the kind invaluable to a humorist; it assured him an audience Also, he had that rare immunity in tropic heats which uese strain was supposed to account for him--for his color, for his superior air, and for various ventures of his not easy to define since piracy went out of date Perhaps it did But the glea hich he studied the unfortunate Merry, in
”By God! A specimen for true!” he breathed, incredulous ”Zi infernally damned careless Since when has this front roo?”
The fat enta
”I can' help if he shoves in on me! 'Ow _can_ I help?”
”He wouldn't shove in by chance--on his nerve”
”Tha's it! Tha's jus' what he done, sir Nerve! He co with him--to buy off me? Eh--what?”
Zimballo blew out his wrath ”Twenty-five Batavia cents! Besides a lid'l fool parrot to do juggle-trick work!”
”Drink? Ah-ha Likely enough too But how does hehu confirmed his perception of the victim, Silva drove hois, Sula otten stripe--suppose you speak'u you? Where you hail from, anyway?”
Mr Merry stood there before them, dazed and helpless In one hand he held his rejected coin; in the other the lorikeet's cage and a few trifles wrapped with a kerchief He knehat these people one as to e contempt, and how it measured the distance he had traveled and the depth to which he had sunk But his head was hue, and his body was banked with unslaked clinkers, and he made his effort as best he could
”Friends,” he said, swaying on his feet ”I don't--I don't mind if soh to A It's true I do a bit with sleight o' hand to payBrandy Arrack or sagueir, if you say so It's--it's quite a while since I had any I--I want it pretty bad”
In the silence Silva softly held up a finger
”You,” he noted softly, ”are a dirty renegade!”
Above, the line of swinging punkahs fanned the thick air with regular beat It threw a constant flicker of shadow over the guests Otherwise they showed no change of expression They leaned against the tables and mopped their faces and drank and looked on The way in, have learned to look on at ions where that particular devil does business
”Pity,” suggested the engineer after a tilass deliberately--”a pity he can't pick a flask or two out that blooh”
One of the loafers snickered
”There's the river waiting for him Full of drinks And he could wash in it too”
”Turn hipens at the rear,” advised the bat-eared clerk
”Let hiames on the mixed lot inside, in the back roousty veto ”That sweep? He ain'