wet hair, he joined the captain, doctor, purser, and myself at
breakfast. In the phrases of the Tenderloin, he told us cheerfully that
he had been grandly intoxicated, and to recover drank mixtures of raw
egg, vinegar, and red pepper, the sight of which took away every
appetite save his own. When to this he had added a bottle of beer, he
declared himself a new man. The new man followed me to the deck, and
with the truculent bearing of one who expects to be repelled, he asked
if, the day before, he had not made a fool of himself.

I suggested he had been somewhat confidential.

At once he recovered his pose and patronized me.

"Don't you believe it," he said. "That's all part of my game.
'Confidence for confidence' is the way I work it. That's how I learn
things. I tell a man something on the inside, and he says: 'Here's a
nice young fellow. Nothing standoffish about him,' and he tells me
something he shouldn't. Like as not what I told him wasn't true. See?"

I assured him he interested me greatly.

"You find, then, in your line of business," I asked, "that apparent
frankness is advisable? As a rule," I explained, "secrecy is what a--a
person in your line--a--"

To save his feelings I hesitated at the word.

"A spy," he said. His face beamed with fatuous complacency.

"But if I had not known you were a spy," I asked, "would not that have