for in addition to being parsimonious he had very little ready
cash on hand and no credit.

When Mr. Gibney and McGuffey, wrapped in the calm thrall of their
new-found financial independence, arrived at the _Maggie's_
berth, they were inclined to levity. Indeed, they had come for
the express purpose of spoofing their late employer; to crow over
him and grind his poor soul into the dirt. Fortunately for
Scraggs, he was not aboard, but sounds of activity coming from
the engine room aroused McGuffey's curiosity to such an extent
that he descended thereto at great risk to a new suit of clothes
and discovered four men at work on the boiler. They had cut the
rivets and removed the head and at sight of the ruin disclosed
within, Mr. McGuffey was truly shocked--and awed. Why he hadn't
been blown to Kingdom Come months before was a profound mystery.

He came up and joined Mr. Gibney on a pile of old hemp hawser
coiled on the bulkhead. "Danged if I don't feel sorry for old
Scraggsy, for all his meanness," he declared. "It's goin' to cost
him five hundred dollars to patch up the old boiler an' keep the
_Maggie_ runnin' until he can ship a new boiler. The ol' fool
don't know a thing about the job himself an' there's four men
down there, without a foreman, soldierin' on him an' soakin' him
a dollar an' a half an hour overtime. He's in so deep now he
might as well jump into bankruptcy entirely an' put in a set o'
piston rings, repack the pumps an' the stuffin-box, shim up the
bearin's an' do a lot of little things the old _Maggie's_ just
hollerin' to have done."

"To err is human; to forgive divine," Mr. Gibney orated. "Come to