a crusty-looking old lobster, and the minute he laid eyes on me he brought up all standing.
"I've seen this man before," says he. "What's your name?"
I told him one of those I'd traded under.
"Huh," says he. "Don't know it." But he kept on staring at me, and I thought that maybe he had known my father and saw the likeness. So I pipes out, "Maybe you knew my father, sir." And I told him his name.
He scowled at me for a moment, then his face got purple. You are a liar and a scoundrel!" says he. "I know the son of that man! You are not he, though you do look alike, and no doubt you have found out the resemblance and tried to work a relationship."
I stared him straight in the eye. "Could you account for all of your own children—legitimate and illegitimate?" I asked. Then I turned to the gangway. While I was beckoning to my nigger the old fellow sings out:
"Hold on a minute. Captain, give that man twenty dollars and let him go!"
But I didn't wait for the twenty. Somehow, charity has always been out of my line. I don't mind taking it by force or stealth, but as a gift—nit!
A week or so later I got a billet on a boat bound for New York, and once there I was all right-o, as I had a grub-steak salted away where I could get it; and as soon as I was rested up a bit and some of the sugar-fields fever rinsed out of me I was back on my old job again. Butler? Not on your life! Thief
