“I’m sorry, but you’ll have to arrange that with the agent.  We make a charge, you know, just like a hotel.”

“I’m going to cable my old man for money.”

The officer shook his head with finality.  “Nothing doing, Mr. Locke.”

“Anthony.”

“I’ll take no chances.  If you don’t pay, I’ll have to.  Look here!  Do you want to know what I think of you, Mr.—­Anthony Locke?”

“I haven’t any special yearnings in that direction, but—­what do you think about me?”

“Well, I don’t think your name is either Locke or Anthony.”

“Marvellous!”

“And I don’t think you have any money coming to you, either.”

“Mighty intellect!”

“I think you are no good.”

“You’re not alone in that belief.  But what has all that to do with my sleeping aboard the Santa Cruz?”

“If you want to stay aboard, you’ll have to pay in advance.  You’re not so foolish as you try to make out.”

“Those are glorious words of praise,” Kirk acknowledged, “but I’ll make a bet with you.”

“What?”

“That you change your mind.  I am just as foolish as I appear, and I’ll prove it.  I’ll bet my ring against your shirts that my name is Anthony, and if I don’t come through with the price of a ticket to New York you can keep the ring.”

“Very well, but meanwhile I don’t intend to be stuck for your bill.”  The purser was a man of admirable caution.

“All right, then, I shall throw myself upon the mercy of strangers and take your belongings with me.”

By this time the ship was being warped into her berth, and the dock was crowded.  There were little brown customs inspectors in khaki, little brown policemen in blue, little brown merchants in white, and huge black Jamaicans in all colors of rags.  Here and there moved a bronzed, businesslike American, and Anthony noticed that for the most part these were clean-cut, aggressive-looking young fellows.

He was delayed but an instant by the customs officials, then made his way out through a barnlike structure to the street, reflecting that, after all, there are advantages in travelling light.  He came into a blazing-hot, glaring white street jammed with all sorts of vehicles, the drivers of which seemed perpetually upon the point of riot.  Before him stretched a shadeless brick pavement, with a railroad track on one side, and on the other a line of naked frame buildings hideous in their sameness.  The sun beat down fiercely.  Kirk mopped his face with the purser’s handkerchief and wondered if this were really December.