Gibney greeted his old shipmate of the green-pea trade.
Scraggs took him below at once and they pledged each other's
health in a steaming kettle of grog, while the _Maggie_, once
more on her course, rolled south toward Descanso Bay.
"Well, I'll be keel-hauled and skull-dragged!" said Captain
Scraggs, producing a box of two-for-a-quarter cigars and handing
it to Mr. Gibney. "Gib, my _dear_ boy, wherever have you been
these last three years?"
"Everywhere," replied Mr. Gibney. "I have been all over, mostly
in Panama and the Gold Coast. For two years I've been navigatin'
officer on the Colombian gunboat _Bogota_. When I was a young
feller I did a hitch in the navy and become a first-class gunner,
and then I went to sea in the merchant marine, and got my mate's
license, and when I flashed my credentials on the president of
the United States of Colombia he give me a job at "dos cienti
pesos oro" per. That's Spanish for two hundred bucks gold a
month. I've been through two wars and I got a medal for sinkin' a
fishin' smack. I talk Spanish just like a native, I don't drink
no more to speak of, and I've been savin' my money. Some day when
I get the price together I'm goin' back to San Francisco, buy me
a nice little schooner, and go tradin' in the South Seas.
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