Doherty wriggled and grinned. “What’re yuh goin’ to do?” “Me?” “Shine” leaned on the shutter of the gangway and spat at the water. “I’m goin’ to Coney an’ back.” The smell of the past was sweet in his nostrils--that indescribable smell of an excursion steamboat’s lower deck--the bilgy smell of chill dampness, soiled paint and stale humanity. The churning of the paddle-wheels and the swish of water under the guard filled his ears with a remembered music. Hatless, coatless and in his bare feet, he took the sunshine on a guileless smile and watched the shores of Long Island gliding past in their old familiar way. If he had not been blinded by the light and by his own generous emotions, he might have seen something suspicious below the manner of his former messmate, who peered at nothing with shaded eyes that shifted cunningly and a smile that came and went. But Doherty talked in the voice of friendship, and “Shine” listened, without looking, basking in his own good nature. They did not refer to the trouble with Captain Keighley. “Shine” felt himself guilty of having deserted from that quarrel, and avoided the mention of it. Doherty had long since concluded that the fire-boat crew did not intend to avenge his injuries; and he was waiting for an opportunity to make the “quitters” suffer for having failed him. He explained that after he “quit handlin’ freight” for the Baltic-American line, he had gone “cappin’ fer a con man that was workin’ the hucks” on Coney--which is to say, he had been the confederate in a shell game. He had hoped to start a “graft” of some sort on the Island himself, but--as he put it plaintively--“a dip went through me fer all I’d put down, one night when I was paddin’ it in a doss-house on the Bow’ry.” “Shine” laughed good-naturedly at this tale of another man’s misfortunes, as tickled with the sound of his Coney thieves’ slang as an exiled Highlander who hears his native Scotch. Doherty licked his lips. “D’ yuh remember Goldy Simpson?” “Do I?” “Shine” cried. “Me an’ Pikey Moffat--” “Goldy’s back at Coney.” “G’ wan! No!” “Sure. He was up town yesterday lookin’ fer a ballyhoo man.” “No!” “Shine” laughed immensely. “By ----, I’d like to see him. I’d like t’ ask him if he remembers the time me an’ Pikey Moffat--” “Why don’t yuh?” Doherty cut in. “Yuh c’u’d go back by trolley just as well as not.” “Shine” looked doubtfully at his feet. “Borry a pair o’ kicks an’ a hat in the foc’sle.” “Shine” hesitated. “Come on,” Doherty cried. “Let’s blow off up the island together. I’m lookin’ fer a job boostin’ er ballyhooin’ er somethin’.” It was the voice of temptation sweetly tuned to “Shine’s” own inclination. He could, in fact, get back to the fire-boat more quickly by rail than by water; and even if he did not--if he “stopped over” long enough to call on “Goldy” and the “gang”--the _Leo_ would carry back word of his accident in the forepeak, and he could invent more excuses to explain his further delay.