you? That's wot I want to know--wot's it to you? Gawd blime me! do it
'urt you? Ain't it smug enough for the likes o' you? That's wot I want
to know!"

"No, no," Kent answered, sinking upon a stool with a sickly grin. "I was
just wondering."

"Did you ever see the like?" the other went on truculently.

"No."

"Ain't it a beute?"

"Yes." Kent nodded his head approvingly, intent on humoring this strange
visitor, but wholly unprepared for the outburst which was to follow his
effort to be agreeable.

"You blasted, bloomin', burgoo-eatin' son-of-a-sea-swab! Wot do you
mean, a sayin' the most onsightly thing Gawd Almighty ever put on the
face o' man is a beute? Wot do you mean, you--"

And thereat this fiery son of the sea broke off into a string of Oriental
profanity, mingling gods and devils, lineages and men, metaphors and
monsters, with so savage a virility that Jacob Kent was paralyzed. He
shrank back, his arms lifted as though to ward off physical violence. So
utterly unnerved was he that the other paused in the mid-swing of a
gorgeous peroration and burst into thunderous laughter.

"The sun's knocked the bottom out o' the trail," said the Man with the
Gash, between departing paroxysms of mirth. "An' I only 'ope as you'll