make themselves at home on the bridge, in the chart-room, and
even in my living-quarters, to say nothing of consuming my
expensive wines, liquors, and cigars."

"Meaning me?"

"I'm a brutal seafaring man, and you'll have to make allowances
for my well-known brusqueness. Maybe I did mean you. But I'll say
that next to you Curtis Gordon is the worst grafter I ever saw."

"You don't like Gordon, do you?" O'Neil queried with a change of
tone.

"I do not! He went up with me again this spring, and he had his
widow with him, too."

"His widow?"

"You know who I mean--Mrs. Gerard. They say it's her money he's
using in his schemes. Perhaps it's because of her that I don't
like him."

"Ah-h! I see."

"You don't see, or you wouldn't grin like an ape. I'm a married
man, I'll have you know, and I'm still on good terms with Mrs.
Brennan, thank God. But I don't like men who use women's money,
and that's just what our friend Gordon is doing. What money the
widow didn't put up he's grabbed from the schoolma'ams and
servant-girls and society matrons in the East. What has he got to