land o' Goshen, if you ain't him!" Hate gleamed in his eyes.

"Ain't who, you shrimp!" Mr. Gibney was mystified at this abrupt
change of attitude.

Captain Scraggs blinked and passed his hand wearily across his
brow. "Forgive me, Gib," he answered humbly. "I was sort o' took
back, that's all."

"Took back at what?"

"We won't say nothin' more about it, Gib, except that while I'd
like to accept your kind offer an' put you back on the job again,
I--I just can't bring myself to do it. I'll have to forget
first."

"Forget what? Bart, is Scraggsy gone nutty?"

"Out with it, Scraggs," Mr. McGuffey urged. "Spit it out,
whatever it is."

"I'd rather not, but since you ask me I suppose I might as well.
Gib, ever since me an' you first hooked up together, away back in
the corner o' my head there's been lurkin' a suspicion that once
before, a long time ago, you an' me have had some business
dealin's, but for the life o' me I couldn't place you. One minute
I'd just be a-staggerin' on the brink of memory, as the feller
says, an' the next it'd slip away from me. But just now, when you
mentioned Bull McGinty an' the Brotherhood o' the South
Seas--well, Gib, it all come back to me like a flash. Bull