was one. He was that kind of kid. Not that I paid much attention to
him.

"You know there's a leper settlement on Penryn, off across the lagoon.
I ain't afraid of leprosy y'understand, because I've dealt with 'em
for years, ate with 'em an' slept with 'em, an' all that, like
everybody down here. But all the same I don't want to have 'em right
around me all the time. So one day the doctor come to look over the
natives, and he come an' told me the little kid, My Dog, was a leper.

"Now I wasn't attached to the kid. I ain't attached to nobody. I
ain't that kind of a man. But the kid was sort of used to me, and I
was used to havin' him around. He used to come in through the window.
He'd just come in, nights, and sit there an' never say a word. When
I was goin' to bed he'd say, 'McHenry, Your Dog is goin' now, but
can't Your Dog sleep here?' Well, I used to let him sleep on the
floor, no harm in that. But if he was a leper he'd got to go to the
settlement, so I told him so.

"He made such a fuss, cryin' around--By God, I had to boot him out
of the place. I said: 'Get out. I don't want you snivelin' around me.'
So he went.

"It's a rotten, God-forsaken place, I guess. I don't know. The
government takes care of 'em. It ain't my affair. I guess for a
leper colony it ain't so bad.

"Anyway, I was goin' to sell out an' leave Penryn. The diving season
was over. One night I had the door locked an' was goin' over my
accounts to see if I couldn't collect some more dough from the