"You look 'ere," he had said; "the thing to look out for is the barman. He keeps a gun, as they calls it 'ere, on a shelf under the bar. Smith, 'e'll 'ave one in his pocket. So when I says, 'This rum would poison a dog,' don't wait for no back answer, but lay the bar-keeper out quick, with a stone matchbox or anything 'andy. And the nearest to Smith does the same to 'im. He'll likely not be be'ind, but if 'e is, bottle 'im too, and not a word of jaw about it first or last." They stood up to the bar, and Benson ordered drinks for himself and three particular pals of his. "Ain't this Mr. Smith's?" he asked. "I'm Smith," said Shanghai. "'Ere's to you. I've often heard of you," said Benson. And three or four merchant seamen sitting about the room sniggered and passed a few sneering remarks among themselves about "Liberty Jack." Smith, who had taken enough that night to make him rash, referred to the admiral. "So your admiral has come back, has he?" "He has," said the _Triumphants_. "And Dicky Dunn is lookin' for the man that played that dirty game on him." And Smith shrugged his shoulders as he half turned away. "'Tain't half so dirty as this rum," said Benson; "it would poison a dog." And as the words left his mouth the ball opened with a sudden and tremendous crash. Two heavy matchboxes went for Tom behind the bar: one laid him out as quietly as if he had been hocussed; the other smashed a bottle which held a liquor known on the Barbary Coast as brandy, and starred the mirror behind the shelves. Thomas at the same moment stooped and caught Shanghai Smith by the ankles and pitched him on his head. He never had time to reach for his "gun." The merchant seamen jumped to their feet and made for the door. "Stop them!" said Benson, and half a dozen bluejackets hustled them back again. "No you don't, Johnnies; you can stay and 'ave free drinks, and look after the man behind the bar. Drag out that Smith and get 'im in the open air." And Thomas dragged Smith into the darkness by his collar. "There's to be no drinkin' for us," said Benson. "Smash what you like, and taste nothin'." And in less than a minute Shanghai's place was a lamentable and ghastly spectacle. "Sarves him right," said one of the merchant seamen, as he salved a bottle of poison. "Oh, ain't he a sailor-robbing swine?" "Fetch him in and let him look at it," said Benson, with a wink. Thomas had been primed. "He's come to and run like billy-oh!" he cried. But Smith was incapable of running. He was being carried by two bluejackets. "After 'im, after 'im," said Benson; and in another moment the whole house was dear. When Tom came to, he found the place a wreck, and four boarders too far gone in free liquor to offer any useful explanation of what had occurred since the rum had been pronounced fit to poison a dog. "All I know is," said the soberest, "that he fit and we fit and fit and fit, and then 'e run."