“Why, no,” said the Kid gently, “I reckon not. I never saw it before. I was just looking at it. Not thinking of selling it, are you?”
“Not this trip,” said the captain. “I’Il send it to you C. O. D. when I get back to Buenas Tierras. Here comes that capstanfooted lubber with the chewin’. I ought to’ve weighed anchor an hour ago.”
“Is that your ship out there?” asked the Kid.
“Why, yes,” answered the captain, “if you want to call a schooner a ship, and I don’t mind lyin’. But you better say Miller and Gonzales, owners, and ordinary plain, Billy-be-damned old Samuel K. Boone, skipper.”
“Where are you going to?” asked the refugee.
“Buenas Tierras, coast of South America—I forget what they called the country the last time I was there. Cargo—lumber, corrugated iron, and machetes.”
“What kind of a country is it?” asked the Kid—“hot or cold?”
“Warmish, buddy,” said the captain. “But a regular Paradise Lost for elegance of scenery and be-yooty of geography. Ye’re wakened every morning by the sweet singin’ of red birds with seven purple tails, and the sighin’ of breezes in the posies and roses. And the inhabitants never work, for they can reach out and pick steamer baskets of the choicest hothouse fruit without gettin’ out of bed. And there’s no Sunday and no ice and no rent and no troubles and no use and no nothin’. It’s a great country for a man to go to sleep with, and wait for somethin’ to turn up. The bananys and oranges
