His hat was torn and
broken, and his clothes, stained with tar and dirt, shrunken and
wrinkled by sea-water. His shoes were fastened with bits of tarred rope;
he was wearing a red flannel shirt with bone buttons which the
boatkeeper on the pilot boat had given him, tied at the neck with a
purple handkerchief of pongee silk; his hair was long, and a week's
growth of beard was upon his lip and cheeks.
"That's a fact," he answered grimly. "I do look queer. I was in a wreck
down the coast," he added hastily.
"The _Mazatlan!_" exclaimed Toby. "That's a fact; the papers have been
full of it. That's so, you were one of the survivors."
"The survivors!" echoed Vandover with wondering curiosity. "Tell me--you
know I haven't heard a word yet--were there many lives lost?" He
marvelled at the strangeness of the situation, that this bar waiter
should know more of the wreck than he himself who had been upon it.
"You bet there were!" answered Toby. "Twenty-three altogether; one boat
capsized; Kelly, 'Bug' Kelly, son of that fellow that runs the Crystal
Grotto, _he_ was drowned, and one of Hocheimer's--Hocheimer, the
jeweller, you know--one of his travelling salesmen was drowned; a little
Jew named Brann, a diamond expert; he jumped overboard and--"
"Don't!" said Vandover with a sharp gesture.
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