"What do you think o' that, young feller, my lad?" Stern triumph was striking now through Ginger's almost terrible detachment. "What do you think on it, eh?" The Sailor was not able to think anything of it at the moment. "None so dusty--what?" Ginger fairly glowed with a sense of victory. "Yep," said the Sailor feebly. "About fixes it--what?" "Yep," said the Sailor. He gave back the letter to Ginger with nervous guilt, neither knowing why it was none so dusty nor what it was that it fixed. "Yer silly perisher. Don't yer see what it means?" The Sailor nodded feebly. "Very well, then, why don't yer say so?" There was the light of contempt in the truculent eyes of Ginger. The Sailor simply could not meet them. "Blymy"--the scorn of Ginger was withering--"if you hadn't been nine times round the world afore the mast, I should say you was just a guy--I should straight. Don't you understand what Dinkie Dawson says?" The Sailor's stammer might be taken for, "Yep." "Very well, then," said Ginger, so savagely that he had to read the _Evening Mercury_ in order to calm himself. The Sailor began to wish he was dead. And then suddenly Ginger laid down the paper. "This touch is goin' to cost you money, young Mister Man," he said, magniloquently. The Sailor's face was haggard. "You'll have to lay out thirty bob on a new suit of clothes to start with." The Sailor nodded. "Of course, you can get a suit for less, but myself I'm all for quality." The Sailor nodded. "If you'll take my advice, young feller, you'll go to Dago and Rogers and get one o' them blue suitings as they shows in the winder, neat but not gaudy, cut in the West End style. I'm thinkin' o' gettin' one meself; you simply can't help lookin' a gentleman in one o' them, with a spotted tie and a double turnover collar." "Yep," said the Sailor, to whom all this was as intelligible as a play of Sophocles. "You'll also want a nice neat Gladstone." "Yep," said the Sailor abjectly. "Brown paper parcel and your boots tied on by string at the end o' it won't do in this scene, young feller." "No," said the Sailor. "Got to dress the shop winder a bit in this act." A strange inner light was beginning to gleam in the eyes of Ginger. "Nice new Gladstone, pair o' nice wide knickers cut saucy round the knee, and a set o' new laces in your boots. And I'm thinking one o' those all-wool white sweaters you can get at Tallow's might turn out a good investment." The Sailor nodded feebly. "Never spile the ship for a ha'porth o' tar. Allus dress the part. Never stint a coat o' paint for Mrs. Jarley's Waxworks." The Sailor nodded. "You've got to learn to knock the public silly," concluded Ginger, with a ferocity almost frightening, "if you are ever goin' to cut any ice on this bleedin' planet." Utterly nonplussed, the Sailor went early to bed with his shame. IX