"Thank you, sir; I should like it very much."

"I wish you were coming too, Tom," he went on when the officer moved
away. "That is one of the nuisances, Collet never letting us go ashore
together."

"It is a nuisance," the other said, heartily. "Of course, Allen is a
very good fellow, but one can't have any larks as one could have if we
were together."

"Well, there are not many larks to be had here, at any rate, Tom. It is
about the dullest place I ever landed at. It is a regular Mexican town,
and except that they do have, I suppose, sometimes, dances and that sort
of thing, there is really nothing to be done when one does go ashore,
and the whole place stinks of hides. Even if one could get away for a
day there is no temptation to ride about that desert-looking country,
with the sun burning down on one; no one but a salamander could stand
it. They are about the roughest-looking lot I ever saw in the town.
Everyone has got something to do with hides one way or the other. They
have either come in with them from the country, or they pack them in the
warehouses, or they ship them. That and mining seem the only two things
going on, and the miners, with their red shirts and pistols and knives,
look even a rougher lot than the others. I took my pistol when last I
went ashore; I will lend it you this evening."

"Oh, I don't want a pistol, Tom; there is no chance of my getting into a
row."

"Oh, it is just as well to carry one, Dick, when you know that everyone