"
"I wish I'd been took with paralysis first," Scraggs wailed
bitterly. "You'd best jump ashore, Gib, an' 'phone in. We're just
below the Cliff House and you can run up to one o' them beach
resorts an' 'phone in to the Red Stack Tug Boat Company."
"'Twouldn't be ethics for me, the registered master o' the
_Maggie_, to desert the ship, Scraggsy, old stick-in-the-mud.
What's the matter with gettin' your own shanks wet?"
"I dassen't, Gib. I've had a touch of chills an' fever ever since
I used to run mate up the San Joaquin sloughs. Here's a nickel to
drop in the telephone slot, Gib. There's a good fellow."
"Scraggsy, you're deludin' yourself. Show me a tugboat skipper
that would come out here on a night like this to pick up the S.S.
_Maggie_, two decks an' no bottom an' loaded with garden truck,
an' I'll wag my ears an' look at the back o' my neck. She ain't
worth it."
"Ain't worth it! Why, man, I paid fifteen hundred hard cash
dollars for her."
"Fourteen hundred an' ninety-nine dollars an' ninety-nine cents
too much. They seen you comin'. However, grantin' for the sake of
argyment that she's worth the tow, the next question them towboat
skippers'll ask is: 'Who's goin' to pay the bill?' It'll be two
hundred an' fifty dollars at the lowest figger, an' if you got
that much credit with the towboat company you're some high
financier.
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