was a hunchback? How was he dressed?"

"'E had on his go-ashore togs," said the bosun. "'E's a proper toff, is Little Billy, when 'e's dressed up. Yes, 'e's a 'unchback, but you don't notice 'is 'ump after you know 'im. 'E's a lot straighter than some without a 'ump—'e's a white man, is Little Billy. And 'e's a proper toff—'e's eddicated. Swiggle me, 'ow 'e can chew the rag! And sing! Sings like a blessed angel!"

"Did he wear a black suit and a green velvet hat?" asked Martin.

"Yes, 'e did," answered the boatswain excitedly. "'Ave you seen him?"

"Yes, this afternoon," laughed Martin. "You need not worry about your Little Billy. Neither the police nor the Japs have captured him. He is improving his chance to pursue the avocation of book salesman."

Martin recounted his meeting with the purveyor of universal knowledge. The boatswain listened silently and his red-shot eyes glinted suspiciously. It seemed to Martin he was not so drunk as a moment since.

"But, say," finished Martin, "who is this Ichi you mentioned? Do you know Dr. Ichi?"

"Do I know Dr. Ichi?" echoed the boatswain. "Do I know——"

He glowered at Martin. The query seemed to inflame his temper.

"Do you know Ichi? Hey? Say, do you know Ichi? That's what I want to know!" His manner became threatening. "Why, swiggle me stiff, you must be one o' them, yourself!"

Assault seemed imminent. Martin backed hurriedly away.

"No, no, you are quite mistaken," he assured the boatswain. "You may be sure I am not one of them, whoever they are. I am your friend."

The boatswain subsided growlingly. He was plainly suspicious—of what, Martin could not guess. But it was evident that any mention of the name of Ichi peppered his temper.

If Martin had been a cautious young man he would have let well enough alone. The boatswain seemed a hasty and a heavy-fisted man. But Martin's interest was more than piqued. Here seemed a chance to learn something about that mysterious Japanese. This sailor appeared to know him. Some light might even be thrown upon his errand to the Black Cruiser. The papers in his inside pocket oppressed him with their secret.

"Perhaps Little Billy is down on the waterfront," he remarked casually. "He mentioned to me that he was going to look up a friend on the Embarcadero—a fellow named Carew. Do you know Captain Carew? At a place called the Black Cruiser?"

The boatswain received the remark in a most disconcerting manner. He stiffened and stared at Martin, mouth agape, for an appreciable instant. He seemed breathless. The semi-paralysis of drunkenness seemed to flee his face.

"Carew! Did you say Carew?" he at last exclaimed. "Strike me, 'e says Carew!"

It seemed that the boatswain had received some momentous morsel of information difficult to digest. Suddenly he smote the bar with his clenched fist. "Carew—'Wild Bob' Carew!" he cried. "And Wild Bob Carew takes a 'and in this!"

This was progressing!

"Oh, so you know Captain Carew?" prompted Martin.

The boatswain turned. He regarded Martin strangely. His face was set and stern. He seemed a man for whom the moment of badinage is past and the moment of action is come.

"You talk of Ichi, and then you talk of Wild Bob Carew!" he said to Martin. "Swiggle me stiff, young man, you are one o' them!"

His great hands reached toward Martin. There was annihilation in his eye. His attitude was a sudden and complete declaration of war.

Martin did not await that onslaught. He started for the door. Fortune favored him—uncounted potations, perhaps, had rendered the boatswain a bit unsteady on his pins, and, as he left the support of the bar rail and lurched for his victim, he lost his balance. He sat down on the floor with a crash that shook the building.

The boatswain swore, Johnny Feiglebaum emitted a wail as three glasses bounced off their rack, and Martin kept on going. As he passed through the door, the boatswain was scrambling agilely to his feet. Martin was a young man in a hurry.

He sprinted for, and boarded a passing street-car, just as the boatswain reached the curb. He paid his fare, passed inside the car, and sank thankfully into a seat. He was aglow with his adventure. Something to remember, that affair with the weeping boatswain! But what was the fellow so sudden about?

Thus did Martin consign the boatswain to the limbo of memory. He was inside the street-car, so he did not see the automobile, driven by a figure in a gray overcoat and cap, that drew up at the curb beside the boatswain. Nor did he observe that automobile's consequent strange behavior in persistently keeping half a block behind the slowly moving street-car the whole distance to the waterfront.

CHAPTER III

THE HAPPY HUNCHBACK

The clock on the tower of the ferry building showed fifteen minutes past nine when Martin dropped off the car at the foot of Market Street. He paused a moment on the corner, enjoying the never-ending bustle about the city's gateway. He had plenty of time—Green Street and the Black Cruiser, was but a quarter hour's leisurely walk distant, and it was then forty-five minutes till ten o'clock. He turned and walked slowly northward along the Embarcadero.

The wide street was swept by a keen wind, and Martin found the night even rawer than he had anticipated. But overcoated, he was protected, and the walk was anything but lonely and uninteresting. To his lively mind, this night stroll along the famous East Street was a fitting complement to his strange encounter with the red boatswain of the brig Cohasset, a fitting prelude to the secret business he was engaged upon.

The very breath of the street was invigorating—the salt tang of the breeze, the pungent, mingled smell of tar and cordage from the ship chandleries, the taste of the Orient from the great warehouses, even the gross smells of the grog-shops, and it set Martin's blood a-coursing. It conjured visions of tall ships, wide seas, far ports.

Across the way, at the wharves, great steamers were disgorging. The rattle of their winches filled the air. On his side of the street, the sidewalk was thronged with stevedores, stokers, sailors, what not. Each of the innumerable saloons he passed possessed its wassail group, and rough ditties boomed out through swinging doors. Great loaded trucks rumbled by. It was a world that worked and played both night and day.

But as Martin continued northward, the street's character changed. The kens and cheap eating-places gave way for the most part to the warehouses—great brick and concrete fortresses that turned a blank dark face to the night.

Pedestrians became few, mainly straggling seamen bound for their ships. Across the way, the steamers at the wharves were smaller, and here and there loomed the spars of a sailing vessel, a delicate tracery upon the blue-black starlit sky.

Martin speculated upon these last. The intricate, woofed masses of wood and cordage captured his fancy. He wondered if by any chance the boatswain's ship was over there. He wondered what the brig Cohasset was like. He wondered what the "blessed little mate" was like. He visioned that surprising person who had such influence over rough boatswains—a prim little man with mutton chop whiskers, he decided. Yes, the 'blessed little mate' of the brig Cohasset would be a little, white-crowned, bewhiskered old gentleman, perhaps somewhat senile and decrepit. It was inherent respect for old age that inspired the boatswain's affection.

So musing, Martin came to a by-street that divided two warehouses. He crossed the alleys, but lingered on the far curb.

The alley was dark, but he noticed some distance down it the outline of an automobile standing with its lights hooded. He had a passing wonder at the presence of an apparently deserted machine in such a location, but it was a subconscious interest.