“Ah, well, perhaps it will bind him more closely to me,” he thought the next instant. Once more his jeweled hand dived into his pocket, and this time it produced a roll of bills--the same which was responsible for the pinkish mark on his yellow skin. Hank’s eyes glistened as they fell upon the dimensions of the roll. Eagerly he watched the other peel off a five-dollar bill. “Thank you, thank you!” he exclaimed in a servile, fawning way, as Charbonde handed it to him. “There is a fellow who would do anything for money,” thought the South American, as he resumed his way. “I have gained a valuable emissary.” “That fellow’s a gold mine if he’s worked right. I’m in luck, and I’ll have a chance to get even with those two pious, psalm-singing lunk heads,” was Hank’s thought, as he shuffled off. An alliance had just been formed which boded ill for the Dreadnought Boys. Hank made his way down the street past the gray walls fencing off the navy yard, and after walking two or three blocks turned into a drinking resort frequented by sailors and dock denizens. Hank flung down the bill he had just received in front of the proprietor. “Take what I owe you out of that,” he said grandiloquently. The other lifted his eyebrows in some surprise, and then, abstracting from it the small amount for which he had allowed Hank to become indebted to him, returned the change. As the money and bills were shoved across to Hank, a heavy-set man, who had been seated at a table in one corner of the place, arose and came over to him. “Hello! messmate,” he exclaimed, “in luck, eh?” “Why, hello, Jim Prentice!” exclaimed Hank, recognizing in the other a former fireman of the _Illinois_, “how goes it?” “Pretty well, shipmate, but low water here,” said the other, tapping his pocket suggestively. “Can you loan a fellow a few dimes?” “Loan!” exclaimed Hank, not best pleased at this encounter, “why, it may be months before I see you again. You’re going to sea soon, aren’t you?” He glanced toward where the other had been sitting and noted a battered telescope grip reposing beside his vacant chair. “Yes, and a fine old tea-kettle of a stoke hole I’m assigned to. Aboard the _Beale_, that destroyer, you know. To make matters worse, we’re for South America, I hear. It’ll fairly roast a man to work under forced draught in that climate.” “The _Beale_, eh?” mused Hank. “That’s the craft those two fellows are assigned to.” He said this in a low voice, and it escaped the other’s hearing altogether. Presently he added aloud: “When do you sail?” “Some time to-morrow. Why?” “Oh, I don’t know. Just curious, that’s all. So you need money, Jim?” “Need it!” burst out the other, “why, boy, if shoes were five cents a pair, I couldn’t buy a heel. There’s my sister, too, Hank,” he went on in a serious voice, “she’s sick, and the doc says that she’s got to get away to the country or he won’t answer for her life. Oh, I’m up against it, all right, I tell you.”