"An' that means that there's men aboard the Elsinore right now
financially interested in my taking-off."
At this moment the steward, bound aft from the galley, paused in the
doorway and listened, grinning. As for Charles Davis, the man had
missed his vocation. He should have been a land-lawyer, not a sea-
lawyer.
"Very well, sir," he went on. "I'll have you testify to that in
Seattle, unless you're lying to a helpless sick man, or unless you'll
perjure yourself under oath."
He got what he was seeking, for he stung me to retort:
"Oh, I'll testify. Though I tell you candidly that I don't think
I'll win my bet."
"You loose 'm bet sure," the steward broke in, nodding his head.
"That fellow him die damn soon."
"Bet with'm, sir," David challenged me. "It's a straight tip from
me, an' a regular cinch."
The whole situation was so gruesome and grotesque, and I had been
swept into it so absurdly, that for the moment I did not know what to
do or say.
"It's good money," Davis urged. "I ain't goin' to die.
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