THE SIAMESE CAT
serted, in a voice of slow, tolerant conviction. Then, as his glance came back to the deck, his eyes flashed: "Wrong? Why, the fellow's a rotter! A confounded waister! Shouldn't have allowed him aboard my ship, sir! What the devil do those ladies let him tow round after them for, eh? Biggest bloomin' rascal in the East—notorious! Ask Newton about the elephants on his teak concession, or poor old Gatcomb how he lost his billet, over one scheme. Was an I. D. B. in Kimberley once, they say. Bah!—"
The Captain meditated again.
"You seem to know them—nice girl, too … Put them near, as you Americans say. He's working some squeeze or other now, mind you—"
Beside them there bobbed up an umbrella of yellow paper, glossily varnished, from beneath which a pigtailed compradore in claret-coloured robes peered up at them with slant eyes and
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