"Four-seventeen-nine. I've given both Chips and the bo's'n a rare dressing down about it. They've no business to let anyone with Slade's reputation have as much tick as that. The bo's'n's new to the Coast--our bo's'ns always do seem to die, sir--but old Chips ought to know that's no way to run a fo'c'sle shop. They can chuck away their own money as they choose, but I told them both plainly that I can't afford to drop my share in a sum like that." "Nor can I," said the other sleeping partner. "You can let both Chips and the bo's'n understand that unless I see a good round sum in hard cash as my share of profits when we get back to Liverpool, they don't ride in the old _M'poso_ next trip. They can put their book debts where the monkey put the nuts. They don't pay me out with those. No, by Crumbs!" "Miss Kate, by the way, was mighty anxious to know what profits there were in fo'c'sle shops. Of course I said I'd heard of them on other boats, but we'd never allow such a thing on the _M'poso_." "Um," said Captain Image thoughtfully, "that tale's all right for most passengers, but I don't think I'd have risked it with Miss Kate. She strikes me as being a young woman who likes to hear one's opinion on things, but generally has her own information on the matter already cut and packed beforehand. I told her last night how sorry I was to see all that cargo waiting at the factory with no Krooboys to work it out of their creek to the steamboat. By Crumbs! Balgarnie, me lad, she'd nipped off back to the _M'poso_ here, and had hired our own blessed deck passenger boys for the job before you could say 'gin.' You know what an independent lot they are, going home with money in their pockets. I bet you a box of oranges you couldn't name me two white men on the Coast who could have persuaded them. But she did it, one-time, and only paid regular wages, too. Dressed for dinner in the evening when she'd finished, just as if she was merely a tripper going home from the Islands, and hadn't an object in life outside trying to tickle the boys with her looks. I tell you, Miss Kate's a very remarkable young woman, Balgarnie, me lad, and if she doesn't peg out here on the Coast, or go broke over floating a rubber swindle, or get married and chuck it, I shall feather my nest very nicely over the cargo she gets shipped." "I say, Captain, what's between her and Laura? They seem to know one another pretty intimately." "Met in Las Palmas when they were kiddies. Pass me the compasses off the chart table. My pipe's jammed. Thank you, me lad. Owe-it-Slade got two years' tick at that convent school out on the Telde road for Laura, and Miss Kate was running about the islands a good deal then with old Godfrey. Godfrey had a tomato farm out past Santa Brigida, and they used to have Laura up there for all her holidays. By Crumbs, Purser, me lad, how that little girl's shot up. It's a dashed pity she's a nigger." "D'you suppose Carter knows it?"