It was not long before Dag Daughtry was getting his twenty dollars a night for two twenty-minute turns, and was declining more beer than a dozen men with thirsts equal to his could have accommodated.  Never had he been so prosperous; nor can it be denied that Michael enjoyed it.  Enjoy it he did, but principally for Steward’s sake.  He was serving Steward, and so to serve was his highest heart’s desire.

In truth, Michael was the bread-winner for quite a family, each member of which fared well.  Kwaque blossomed out resplendent in russet-brown shoes, a derby hat, and a gray suit with trousers immaculately creased.  Also, he became a devotee of the moving-picture shows, spending as much as twenty and thirty cents a day and resolutely sitting out every repetition of programme.  Little time was required of him in caring for Daughtry, for they had come to eating in restaurants.  Not only had the Ancient Mariner moved into a more expensive outside room at the Bronx; but Daughtry insisted on thrusting upon him more spending money, so that, on occasion, he could invite a likely acquaintance to the theatre or a concert and bring him home in a taxi.

“We won’t keep this up for ever, Killeny,” Steward told Michael.  “For just as long as it takes the old gent to land another bunch of gold-pouched, retriever-snouted treasure-hunters, and no longer.  Then it’s hey for the ocean blue, my son, an’ the roll of a good craft under our feet, an’ smash of wet on the deck, an’ a spout now an’ again of the scuppers.

“We got to go rollin’ down to Rio as well as sing about it to a lot of cheap skates.  They can take their rotten cities.  The sea’s the life for us—­you an’ me, Killeny, son, an’ the old gent an’ Kwaque, an’ Cocky, too.  We ain’t made for city ways.  It ain’t healthy.  Why, son, though you maybe won’t believe it, I’m losin’ my spring.  The rubber’s goin’ outa me.  I’m kind o’ languid, with all night in an’ nothin’ to do but sit around.  It makes me fair sick at the thought of hearin’ the old gent say once again, ’I think, steward, one of those prime cocktails would be just the thing before dinner.’  We’ll take a little ice-machine along next voyage, an’ give ’m the best.

“An’ look at Kwaque, Killeny, my boy.  This ain’t his climate.  He’s positively ailin’.  If he sits around them picture-shows much more he’ll develop the T.B.  For the good of his health, an’ mine an’ yours, an’ all of us, we got to get up anchor pretty soon an’ hit out for the home of the trade winds that kiss you through an’ through with the salt an’ the life of the sea.”

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