And Norman, who was nothing if not highly respectable, resolved to shake off the troublesome “Dutchman” at once.  “I don’t know what you are up to now, but at home you are known as a thief.  So please let me alone, will you?” This Norman tried to say in an annihilating way.

The crowd looked for a fight.  August said loud enough to be heard, “You know very well that you lie.  I wanted to save you from being a thief, but you are betting money now that is not yours.”

The company, of course, sympathized with the gentleman and against the machine-oil on the striker’s clothes, so that there arose quickly a murmur, started by Smith, “Put the bully out,” and August was “hustled.”  It is well that he was not shot.

It was quite time for him to go on watch now; for the loud-ticking marine-clock over the window of the clerk’s office pointed to three minutes past twelve, and the striker hurried to his post at the starboard engine, with the bitterness of defeat and the shame of insult in his heart.  He had sacrificed his place, doubtless, and risked much beside, and all for nothing.  The third engineer complained of his tardiness in not having relieved him three minutes before, and August went to his duties with a bitter heart.  To a man who is persistent, as August was, defeat of any sort is humiliating.

As for Norman, he bet after this just to show his independence and to show that the money was his own, as well as in the vain hope of winning back what he had lost.  He bet every cent.  Then he lost his watch, and at half-past one o’clock he went to his state-room, stripped of all loose valuables, and sweating great drops.  And the mud-clerk, who was still in the office, remarked to himself, with a pleasant chuckle, that it was good for him; he declared it was; teach the fellow to let monte alone, and keep his eyes peeled when he traveled.  It would so!

The idea was a good one, and he went down to the starboard engine and told the result of the nice little game to his friend the striker, drawling it out in a relishful way, how the blamed idiot never stopped till they’d got his watch, and then looked like as if he’d a notion to jump into the “drink.”  But ‘twould cure him of meddlin’ with monte.  It would so!

He walked away, and August was just reflecting on the heartlessness of his friend, when the mud-clerk came back again, and began drawling his words out as before, just as though each distinct word were of a delightful flavor and he regretted that he must part with it.

“I’ve got you even with Parkins, old fellow.  He’ll be strung up on a lamp-post at Paducah, I reckon.  I saw a Paducah man aboard, and I put a flea in his ear.  We’ve got to lay there an hour or two to put off a hundred barrels of molasses and two hundred sacks of coffee and two lots of plunder.  There’ll be a hot time for Parkins.  He let on to marry a girl and fooled her.  They’ll teach him a lesson.  You’ll be off watch, and we’ll have some fun looking on.”  And the mud-clerk evidently thought that it would be even funnier to see Parkins hanged than it had been to see him fleece Norman.  Gus the striker did not see how either scene could be very entertaining.  But he was sick at heart, and one could not expect him to show much interest in manly sports.