you up with, than it would yere.  I ain’t sayin’,” he added as De Ferrieres was about to speak, “I ain’t sayin’ ez that child ain’t smitten with ye.  It ain’t no use to lie and say she don’t prefer you to her old father, or young chaps of her own age and kind.  I’ve seed it afor now.  I suspicioned it afor I seed her slip out o’ this place to-night.  Thar! keep your hair on, such ez it is!” he added, as De Ferrieres attempted a quick deprecatory gesture.  “I ain’t askin’ yer how often she comes here, nor what she sez to you nor you to her.  I ain’t asked her and I don’t ask you.  I’ll allow ez you’ve settled all the preliminaries and bought her the ring and sich; I’m only askin’ you now, kalkilatin’ you’ve got all the keerds in your own hand, what you’ll take to step out and leave the board?”

The dazed look of De Ferrieres might have forced itself even upon Nott’s one-idead fatuity, had it not been a part of that gentleman’s system delicately to look another way at that moment so as not to embarrass his adversary’s calculation.  “Pardon,” stammered De Ferrieres, “but I do not comprehend!” He raised his hand to his head.  “I am not well—­I am stupid.  Ah, mon Dieu!”

“I ain’t sayin’,” added Nott more gently, “ez you don’t feel bad.  It’s nat’ral.  But it ain’t business.  I’m asking you,” he continued, taking from his breast-pocket a large wallet, “how much you’ll take in cash now, and the rest next steamer day, to give up Rosey and leave the ship.”

De Ferrieres staggered to his feet despite Nott’s restraining hand.  “To leave Mademoiselle and leave the ship?” he said huskily, “is it not?”

“In course.  Yer can leave things yer just ez you found ’em when you came, you know,” continued Nott, for the first time looking round the miserable apartment.  “It’s a business job.  I’ll take the bales back agin, and you kin reckon up what you’re out, countin’ Rosey and loss o’ time.”

“He wishes me to go—­he has said,” repeated De Ferrieres to himself thickly.

“Ef you mean me when you say him, and ez thar ain’t any other man around, I reckon you do—­’yes!’”

“And he asks me—­he—­this man of the feet and the daughter—­asks me—­De Ferrieres—­what I will take,” continued De Ferrieres, buttoning his coat.  “No! it is a dream!” He walked stiffly to the corner where his portmanteau lay, lifted it, and going to the outer door, a cut through the ship’s side that communicated with the alley, unlocked it and flung it open to the night.  A thick mist like the breath of the ocean flowed into the room.

“You ask me what I shall take to go,” he said as he stood on the threshold.  “I shall take what you cannot give, Monsieur, but what I would not keep if I stood here another moment.  I take my Honor, Monsieur, and—­I take my leave!”

For a moment his grotesque figure was outlined in the opening, and then disappeared as if he had dropped into an invisible ocean below.  Stupefied and disconcerted a this complete success of his overtures, Abner Nott remained speechless, gazing at the vacant space until a cold influx of the mist recalled him.  Then he rose and shuffled quickly to the door.