“Right-o,” added McGarver.

Pete scowled.  He was left powerless.  He puffed and grew dizzy as Bill Wrenn danced delicately about him, for he could do nothing without back-street tactics.  He did bloody the nose of Bill and pummel his ribs, but many cigarettes and much whisky told, and he was ready to laugh foolishly and make peace when, at the end of the sixth round, he felt Bill’s neat little fist in a straight—­and entirely accidental—­rip to the point of his jaw.

Pete sent his opponent spinning with a back-hander which awoke all the cruelty of the terrible Bill.  Silently Bill Wrenn plunged in with a smash! smash! smash! like a murderous savage, using every grain of his strength.

Let us turn from the lamentable luck of Pete.  He had now got the idea that his supposed victim could really fight.  Dismayed, shocked, disgusted, he stumbled and sought to flee, and was sent flat.

This time it was the great little Bill who had to be dragged off.  McGarver held him, kicking and yammering, his mild mustache bristling like a battling cat’s, till the next round, when Pete was knocked out by a clumsy whirlwind of fists.

He lay on the deck, with Bill standing over him and demanding, “What’s my name, heh?”

“I t’ink it’s Bill now, all right, Wrennie, old hoss—­Bill, old hoss,” groaned Pete.

He was permitted to sneak off into oblivion.

Bill Wrenn went below.  In the dark passage by the fidley he fell to tremorous weeping.  But the brackish hydrant water that stopped his nose-bleed saved him from hysterics.  He climbed to the top deck, and now he could again see his brother pilgrim, the moon.

The stiffs and bosses were talking excitedly of the fight.  Tim rushed up to gurgle:  “Great, Bill, old man!  You done just what I’d ‘a’ done if he’d cussed me.  I told you Pete was a bluffer.”

“Git out,” said Satan.

Tim fled.

Morton came up, looked at Bill Wrenn, pounded him on the shoulder, and went off to his mattress.  The other stiffs slouched away, but McGarver and Satan were still discussing the fight.

Snuggling on the hard black pile of tarpaulins, Bill talked to them, warmed to them, and became Mr. Wrenn.  He announced his determination to wander adown every shining road of Europe.

“Nice work.”  “Sure.”  “You’ll make a snappy little ole globe-trotter.”  “Sure; ought to be able to get the slickest kind of grub for four bits a day.”  “Nice work,” Satan interjected from time to time, with smooth irony.  “Sure.  Go ahead.  Like to hear your plans.”

McGarver broke in:  “Cut that out, Marvin.  You’re a `Satan’ all right.  Quit your kidding the little man.  He’s all right.  And he done fine on the job last three-four days.”

Lying on his mattress, Bill stared at the network of the ratlines against the brilliant sky.  The crisscross lines made him think of the ruled order-blanks of the Souvenir Company.