“How much did you get out of last night?” he asked me.
“Only six hundred,” I told him.
I don’t know whether he believed me or not.
“Don’t I share in it?”
“That’s your share,” I told him. “What I just told you, and if you ever open your mouth about last night I’ll hear of it and I’ll do away with you.”
“You know I’m no squealer, Harry.”
“You’re a rummy. But no matter how rum dumb you get, if you ever talk about that, I promise you.”
“I’m a good man,” he said. “You oughtn’t to talk to me like that.”
“They can’t make it fast enough to keep you a good man,” I told him. But I didn’t worry about him any more, because who was going to believe him? Mr. Sing wouldn’t make any complaints. The Chinks weren’t going to. You know the boy that sculled them out wasn’t. Eddy would mouth about it sooner or later, maybe, but who believes a rummy?
Why, who could prove anything? Naturally it would have made plenty more talk when they saw his name on the crew list. That was luck for me, all right. I could have said he fell overboard, but it makes plenty talk. Plenty of luck for Eddy, too. Plenty of luck, all right.
Then we came to the edge of the stream and the water quit being blue and was light and greenish and inside I could see the stakes on the Long Reef and on the Western Dry Rocks and the wireless masts at Key West and the La Concha hotel up high out of all the low houses and plenty smoke from out where they’re burning garbage. Sand Key light was plenty close now and you could see the boathouse and the little dock alongside the light and I knew we were only forty minutes away now and I felt good to be getting back and I had a good stake now for the summertime.
“What do you say about a drink, Eddy?” I said to him.
“Ah, Harry,” he said, “I always knew you were my pal.”
The End
