Mr. Gibney's voice was a trifle husky as he concluded his tale.
He opened and closed his clasp knife and was silent for several
minutes. Presently he sighed.

"When a feller's young, he never stops to think o' th' hurt he
does," continued the erstwhile king of Aranuka. "Sometimes I lay
awake at nights an' wonder whatever became o' Pinky. I can see
her yet, standin' in th' moonlight, as fine a figger o' a woman
as ever lived. Savage or no savage, she was true an' beautiful,
an' I was a mighty dirty dawg." Mr. Gibney wiped away a
suspicious moisture in his eyes and blew his nose unnecessarily
hard.

"You was," coincided McGuffey. "You was all o' that. What became
o' Bull McGinty?"

"He married a sugar plantation in Maui. He's all right for the
rest o' his life. An' as for me as gave him his start, look at
me. Ain't I a sight? Here I am, forty-two years old an' only a
thousand dollars in my pocket. Instead of bein' master of a
clipper ship, I'm mate on a dirty little bumboat. I fall asleep
on deck an' dream an' somethin' drops on my face an' wakes me up.
Is it a breadfruit, Mac? It is not. It's a head of cabbage. I
grab something to throw at Scraggs's cat. Is it a ripe mango? No,
it's a artichoke. In fancy I go to split open a milk cocoanut.
What happens? I slash my thumb on a can o' condensed cream.
Instead o' th' Island trade, I'm runnin' in th' green-pea trade,
twenty miles of coast, freightin' garden truck! My Gawd!"