“I hope you don’t think I didn’t appreciate your father’s lovely offer.  You will never know how grateful I really was to him—­and to somebody else, too, who, I think, had something to do with it.”

“Of course I don’t think you were ungrateful, but I did hate to see you at work down in that hot place and I don’t see why you couldn’t have come up in the cabin and been comfortable and not had to wear such greasy clothes.”

“How did you know where I was at work?”

“I happened to be looking at the big engine and I walked along a little way and saw you way, way down near the bottom of the boat in front of a hot furnace, shoveling coal into it.”

“Now I know where that offer came from,” said Dick, “and I want you to see why I couldn’t accept it.  I wanted very, very much to get to Key West and I was very glad of the chance to work my passage.  Perhaps it was wrong to come aboard the way I did.  I guess it was.  But Captain Anderson gave me a job and made it all right.  Now I’m not ashamed to look anyone in the face, even when I have on my fireman’s clothes, while if I gave up my work and let a stranger give me what I could earn myself I would feel like a charity scholar and I don’t think I’d have the cheek to speak to you or any one else on board.”

Molly told her father of her talk with Dick and he said: 

“I can use that kind of a boy in my business.  I’ll have a talk with him when we get to Key West.”

Three days later the great steamer lay beside her wharf in Key West.  Dick was paid the full wages of a fireman for the trip and when he said he wasn’t worth so much, was good-naturedly told to shut up and advised that if he refused to take money that was offered him in that town he was likely to be caught and exhibited as a freak.  He shed his jumper and overalls and exchanged hearty good-byes with the whole crew of the steamer.  He walked through the saloons, but it was early, most of the passengers were yet in their berths and neither Molly nor her father was to be seen.  Dick went out on the dock to inquire for a boat to Chokoloskee, Caxambas or Marco.  He was referred to a Captain Wilson, who told him that the boat for Chokoloskee had just sailed, was beyond hailing distance and wouldn’t leave again for a week, and that there was no Caxambas or Marco boat in port.  Dick found the captain so genial and friendly that he told him something of his story.

“I’ll fix you out,” said Captain Wilson.  “I own a sponging outfit and am just starting out on a cruise, but I’m one man short.  So you come in his place.  It will be a short trip, not over four weeks.  You’ll make good wages and I’ll find you a chance to get to Chokoloskee when we get back.  You can live on board till I find it.  If you stay here you are bound to lose a week and your board anyhow.”

“I’d like to go first rate, but I don’t know anything about sponging.”

“You’ll learn fast enough.  Can you scull?”