Outside Schlinsky’s place they were confronted by a slovenly jointed man whose little, red-rimmed eyes seemed to be looking at ghosts. “Thousand devils!” the fellow gasped in his long throat. Va Di straightened the left lapel of his coat and flicked a damp curl from his forehead. No one enjoyed this sort of thing more than he. “Hello, Costa! How’s fishin’--good? Any the boys done good this year?” “But for Gawd’s s-a-k-e!” Costa stretched out an absurdly long finger to touch the flannel stuff. “And is that Stiff Peter?” His eyes wabbled about in a grotesque fashion. “Say, you fellahs is _drowned_!” He closed his eyes tight and mopped the sweat from his brow with the back of a wrist. “I was onto the _Arbitrator_ myself las’ fall when she picked up your wreckage. Me and Tony Silva catched a dory-load o’ corpses ourselves. The hull o’ you’s got good granite stones up to the graveyard. And here you come tackin’ up to me in broad daylight.” He popped his eyes very suddenly at the conclusion, as if to give nature a chance. “And you never _knowed_?” Va Di demanded, losing his dramatic composure. “Knowed _what_?” “Knowed we was picked up, me and Peter, and took to Brazil.” Costa shook his head uneasily, still a little suspicious of them. “But looky here, didn’t--Who was it I sent that letter to, Peter? Mamie Cabral? Say, man, didn’t Mamie get no letter offa me? Eh?” “N-n-naw.” Costa’s face changed abruptly from pale brown to brick color and his unmanageable fingers fussed with his beard. “Mamie’s went--” “_Went?_ Went _where_?” “Nowheres. Only she went an’ got married.” “Got _married_?” “Got married.” “Onto _who_?” “Onto that old storekeep, Henny Lake--you know.” “Old Henny Lake with the crooked leg? Looky here, Costa--” Costa backed away a step, licked his lips, fumbled uneasily in and out of his pockets, and after a moment spoke in a voice unnecessarily loud: “Come on up an’ have a drink, Va Di, old fellah.” He slapped the other on the back crying: “There’s other fish into the water, man!” “You go straight to hell!” Va Di stood for a long time after Costa had retreated up the stairway, scowling into the yellow sun of evening, his teeth playing with his nether lips, his hands tormenting the frail Malacca. “They--they’s other fish into the water,” Peter stammered, desperate to shift the great man’s humor. Va Di wheeled with out-flung hands. “Other fish! Well, I _guesso_. Mary Virgin! but I got a dozen girls in town, right here, better ’n that run-around slut that jumps after an old man’s money the minute I get out o’ sight. Fish? I _guesso_! Come on up, Stiff Peter. I’ll show ’em.”