Chapter V

“From the day we passed that freighter till the day we lifted Howland Island, which lies nor’-west of Nanuti, we only sighted three ships hull down and beyond signalling.

“After passing Howland we passed a brig bound for Java and a freighter from Rangoon bound for South American ports—Nothing for anywhere near ’Frisco.

“Billy like a good many landsmen seemed to fancy that ships were all over the sea close as plums in a pudding. He got to know different by the time we reached Nanuti and, more than that, he got to know that every ship wasn’t bound for ’Frisco.

“‘Why,’ he says one day, ‘if I’ve got to wait for a ship back,’ he says, ‘I’m thinking it’s an old man I’ll be before we sight one.’

“‘And you’re thinking right,’ says Buck. ‘You had your chance and you missed it because the sea was a bit rough and your head was stuffed with that blessed petticoat and the idea it was going to drown you. You’ll just have to stick to the old _Greyhound_ till she fetches up again at Long Wharf and that’s God knows when, for we don’t run by time-table.’

“And that was the fact; we touched at Nanuti and discharged cargo and took on copra. Then we came along down by the New Hebrides and shaving New Caledonia put into Sydney and discharged and took a cargo along to Auckland, and then from North Island we took a cargo down for Dunedin. The only way to make money with ships is to know where to go for your cargoes. Buck had some sort of instinct that way and he was backed with friends in the shipping trade, but it wasn’t for eight months from starting that he got the chance of a cargo to ’Frisco, and it wasn’t till two months later that we passed the whistling buoy and saw the tumble of the bar.

“I looked at Billy that morning and I thought to myself that it was worth it to him. He looked twice the man he was when he fetched on board and, more than that, he could handle sails and steer and take an observation as good as me or Buck, besides which Buck had treated him well about payment and he’d have a good few dollars waiting for him when we tied up at the wharf.

“Which was that day. I’d business which kept me running about all the day after and it wasn’t till the day after that Billy took heart and come to me and asked me to go with him to Los Angeles so’s to break him to his wife, so to speak.

“I’d got to like the chap and I agreed. I won’t say that I wasn’t anxious to see how he’d make out when he got back and what Mrs. Billy would say to him, but however that may be, I packed a bag and Billy shouldered his dunnage and off we started by the night train, getting into Los Angeles next morning.

“It wasn’t as big a place in those days as it is now. We left our traps at the station and set off on foot to find Mrs. B., Billy back in his old nervous state and almost afraid to ask questions as to how his wife and the shop had been doing in his absence. The shop was on Pine Tree Avenue, and half way along to it Billy’s nerves got so bad we stopped at a restaurant for some breakfast, fixing it that I should go off after the meal and hunt up Mrs. B. and find out what had become of her. Billy could scarcely eat his food for talking of what might have happened to her, fearing maybe she might have committed suicide or gone bankrupt or starved to death or gone out of her mind at the loss of him. The woman that ran the restaurant served us at table and it came to me sudden to ask her did she know anything of a Mrs. Broke of Pine Tree Avenue who had a dry goods store.

“‘Burstall, you mean?’ said she. ‘She’s married again since Broke ran off and left her. He was a little no good chap and skipped with all the money they had, which wasn’t much, and she got a divorce against him for illegally deserting her or incompatibility of temper or something and ran the store herself and made it pay. Y’ see, he’d been boss of the thing up to that, and near made it bankrupt, but once she took charge, she made it pay. I’ve never seen Broke, I only came to the town six months ago, but I’ve seen Burstall often. He’s a fine man and between them they’re making that store hum.’

“I got Billy on his feet and out of that place and wanted to get him to the station to see about the next train for ’Frisco, but he said he wanted to see things for himself and make sure; so the funeral procession started for Pine Tree Avenue.

“‘That’s the place,’ said Billy, pointing to a big shop with J. Burstall and Co. painted along the front in gold letters. ‘There’s my old home—Well, I wish her happiness.

“That seemed to me a pretty weak thing to do, and I says to him: ‘Ain’t you going to kick Burstall?’

“He didn’t hear me, he was so occupied looking at his old home, till a big fellow in his shirt-sleeves comes out and begins looking at the contents of the shop window to see how they showed.

“Billy goes up to him.

“‘You belong to this store?’ says Billy.

“‘Yep,’ says the chap.

“‘Then will you give Mrs. Broke, I mean Burstall, this parcel,’ says Billy, ‘and ask her to see me about it, there’s been a big mistake.’

“‘No use troubling her,’ says the big chap. ‘I’m Burstall and running this store. What’s this you’ve brought back—we don’t change no goods once bought.’

“‘It’s a petticoat,’ says Billy.

“‘Well, what’s wrong with it?’ asks the other, taking the goods.

“‘What’s wrong with it!’ cries Billy, then he begins to laugh like a crazy man, till I thought Burstall would have gone for the both of us.

“‘Come on, Billy,’ I says, catching him by the arm, then I turns to Burstall: ‘You big stiff,’ I says, for all my bristles were up at the beefy look of the chap and the carried on. ‘You big stiff,’ I says, ‘for two pins,’ I says, ‘I’d kick you from here to Santa Barbara.’

“Burstall drops the parcel to go for me, when along comes a policeman, and explanations begins; Burstall saying how we’d been trying to land him some old goods we’d never bought in his shop and the policeman asking us for our address.

“‘We don’t belong here,’ I says. ‘We’ve come from ’Frisco.’

“‘Well,’ says the bull, ‘if I find you about town trying any more of your dodges by noon to-day. I’ll run you in, sure as my name’s Bill Adams. Pick up your parcel and off with you.’

“I picked the damned thing up and stuffed it in the side pocket of Billy’s coat and led him off, the bull following us two or three blocks to make sure we were moving.

“We found a train was starting at the station, and I got Billy in, all broke down. Getting towards ’Frisco he pulled himself together, he’d been thinking a lot on the journey, and I got the surprise of my life to find him cheerful all of a sudden.

“‘Do you know what I’m thinking?’ says he. ‘I’m thinking this thing is my mascot, and I’ve been trying to get rid of my luck all this time. It got me free of that woman, for we never pulled together proper, it got me in with you and Slane, and you’ve made a man of me. Every time I tried to lose it, bad luck came to me, and look at the luck she’s had since she lost it, married to that brute of a Burstall. It’s my luck I’ve been trying to get rid of, and now I know, I’m going to do big things.’

“I left him at the station, and met him a year later all broke down and half in rags.

“‘Why, Billy.’ I said, ‘what ails you?’

“‘I lost my mascot,’ says he. ‘I was getting on fine and making money hand over fist when a damn landlady pinched it out of my wardrobe, though I never could bring it home to her. It took all the heart out of me and things went wrong all round.’

“I gave him a dollar and never saw him again,” finished Brent, “and I’ve just told you about him to show you what nerves and fancies and such like may bring a man to.—Now as to that dead Chink.”

But I wasn’t bothering any more about the Chink, maybe because of the fresh air of the harbour, maybe because of the awful warning contained in the story of Billy Broke.

XII—THE MAKING OF A MILLIONAIRE