"I can't take that, Captain Wilson. It is ten times as much as I
have earned. You took me on as a boy and I want you to pay me just
what you would have paid any other boy."

"Put that money in your pocket, Dick. You've done a man's work and
now you've got a man's pay and that's all there is to it. Lucky for
you, though, that the weather was good at the Lake. If it hadn't
been you wouldn't have got anything but your board. Now come ashore
and we'll hunt up a boat for Marco or Chokoloskee."

They stopped at an auction room in Key West for a minute, when
Captain Wilson sang out to a boy who was passing:

"Hi, Johnny! Where's the _Etta_?"

"Same old place, off the end of the dock."

"Thought yesterday was your sailing day."

"So it was, but Cap'n's in the calaboose. Got drunk yest'd'y and
had a fight. I got ter raise th' cash ter git him out."

"Why don't the boss bounce him? He's drunk most of the time."

"Boss says Cap'n Tom's a better sailor when he's drunk than any of
th' others when they're sober."

"Well, I'll get Tom out of limbo for you and charge it to the boss.
Only you must take this friend of mine with you to Chokoloskee."