sea and brought her in here for salvage." And further, excited by the
felicity of his own wit, he offered to give five pounds for her--"as she
stands."

Before she had been quite an hour at rest, a meagre little man, with a
red-tipped nose and a face cast in an angry mould, landed from a sampan
on the quay of the Foreign Concession, and incontinently turned to shake
his fist at her.

A tall individual, with legs much too thin for a rotund stomach, and
with watery eyes, strolled up and remarked, "Just left her--eh? Quick
work."

He wore a soiled suit of blue flannel with a pair of dirty cricketing
shoes; a dingy gray moustache drooped from his lip, and daylight could
be seen in two places between the rim and the crown of his hat.

"Hallo! what are you doing here?" asked the ex-second-mate of the
Nan-Shan, shaking hands hurriedly.

"Standing by for a job--chance worth taking--got a quiet hint,"
explained the man with the broken hat, in jerky, apathetic wheezes.

The second shook his fist again at the Nan-Shan. "There's a fellow there
that ain't fit to have the command of a scow," he declared, quivering
with passion, while the other looked about listlessly.

"Is there?"

But he caught sight on the quay of a heavy seaman's chest, painted brown