agreed. He refrained from saying more, for instinct told him Mr.
Gibney was about to grow reminiscent and spin a yarn, and B.
McGuffey had a true seaman's reverence for a goodly tale, whether
true, half-true, or wholly fanciful.

Mr. Gibney sniffed again the subtle tang of the South Seas
drifting over from the _Tropic Bird_, and when a Kanaka, scantily
clad, came on deck, threw a couple of fenders overside and
retired to the forecastle singing one of those Hawaiian ballads
that are so mournfully sweet and funereal, Mr. Gibney sighed
again.

"Gawd!" he murmured. "I've sure made a hash o' my young life."

"What's bitin' you, Gib?" Mr. McGuffey's voice was molten with
sympathy.

"I was just thinkin'," replied Mr. Gibney, "just thinkin', Mac.
It's the pineapples as does it--the smell of the South Seas. Here
I am, big enough and old enough and ugly enough to know better,
and yet every time the _City Of Papeete_ or the _Tropic Bird_ or
the _Aorangi_ come into port and I see the Kanaka boys swabbin'
down decks and get a snifter o' that fine smell of the Island
trade, my innards wilt down like a mess o' cabbage an' I ain't
myself no more until after the fifth drink."

"Sorter what th' feller calls vain regrets," suggested McGuffey.

"Vain regrets is the word," mourned Mr. Gibney. "It all comes
back to me what I hove away when I was young an' foolish an'