--A twelve-year-old
girl, naked as Eve and, I've no doubt, thrice as handsome, stood
watching us from the mid-decks in a perfection of immobility, an empty
milk tin propped between her brown palms resting on her breast. Twenty
fathoms off a shark fin, blue as lapis in the shadow, cut the water
soundlessly. The hush of ten thousand miles was disturbed by nothing but
that grotesque, microscopic babbling:
"Say you play in bad luck. Well, you can't play in bad luck _f'rever_.
Not if you're wise. One time I get five good wheezes. Good ones! Sure
fire! One of 'em was the old one about the mother-'n-law and the doctor,
only it had a perfectly novel turn to it. Did I make? I did not. Why?
Well, a good friend o' mine lifts them five wheezes, writes a vaudeville
turn around 'em, and makes big. Big! What does that learn me? Learns me
to go bear on friendship. So next time I get an idea--"
The girl had put the milk tin down between her toes on deck and turned
her head.
"Digger!" I called to the mate. "Clear the vessel! Shove them all
overboard! Here comes the Dutchman!"
Before the advance of the trader's canoe, painted vermillion like his
establishment and flying over the water under the paddle strokes of his
six men, Signet took himself hastily overboard with the rest.
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