“You must take it,” ses Joe.  “The ghost said if you didn’t it would come to me agin and agin till you did, and I can’t stand any more of it.”

“I can’t ’elp your troubles,” I ses.

“You must,” ses Joe. “‘Give Bill the fifteen bob,’ it ses, ’and he’ll give you a gold watch and chain wot I gave ’im to mind till it was paid.’”

I see his little game then.  “Gold watch and chain,” I ses, laughing.  “You must ha’ misunderstood it, Joe.”

“I understood it right enough,” ses Joe, getting a bit closer to me as I stepped outside the gate.  “Here’s your fifteen bob; are you going to give me that watch and chain?”

“Sartainly not,” I ses.  “I don’t know wot you mean by a watch and chain.  If I ’ad it and I gave it to anybody, I should give it to Sam’s widder, not to you.”

“It’s nothing to do with ’er,” ses Joe, very quick.  “Sam was most pertikler about that.”

“I expect you dreamt it all,” I ses.  “Where would pore Sam get a gold watch and chain from?  And why should ’e go to you about it?  Why didn’t ’e come to me?  If ’e thinks I ’ave got it let ’im come to me.”

“All right, I’ll go to the police-station,” ses Joe.

“I’ll come with you,” I ses.  “But ’ere’s a policeman coming along.  Let’s go to ’im.”

I moved towards ’im, but Joe hung back, and, arter using one or two words that would ha’ made any ghost ashamed to know ’im, he sheered off.  I ’ad a word or two with the policeman about the weather, and then I went inside and locked the gate.

My idea was that Sam ’ad told Joe about the watch and chain afore he fell overboard.  Joe was a nasty customer, and I could see that I should ’ave to be a bit careful.  Some men might ha’ told the police about it—­but I never cared much for them.  They’re like kids in a way, always asking questions—­most of which you can’t answer.

It was a little bit creepy all alone on the wharf that night.  I don’t deny it.  Twice I thought I ’eard something coming up on tip-toe behind me.  The second time I was so nervous that I began to sing to keep my spirits up, and I went on singing till three of the hands of the Susan Emily, wot was lying alongside, came up from the fo’c’sle and offered to fight me.  I was thankful when daylight came.

Five nights arterwards I ’ad the shock of my life.  It was the fust night for some time that there was no craft up.  A dark night, and a nasty moaning sort of a wind.  I ’ad just lighted the lamp at the corner of the warehouse, wot ’ad blown out, and was sitting down to rest afore putting the ladder away, when I ’appened to look along the jetty and saw a head coming up over the edge of it.  In the light of the lamp I saw the dead white face of Sam Bullet’s ghost making faces at me.

[Illustration:  In the light of the lamp I saw the dead white face]