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With reluctance Paullen said: "My father is an army officer; I was expelled from West Point. He told me to go away to some place where I wasn't known and take another name, and never to let him hear of me again."
"He gave you some money—an' you've lost it?"
"Yes."
"Umh!" McGuire appeared to be reflecting. He liked the boy. "Paullen, the South Sea trader I work for needs a man or two." McGuire got up from his chair and laid a dollar on the table. "Here's a dollar; you eat chowder till I get back. I'll go get some money to stake you till he sails. You wait."
McGuire went out. Paullen saw his blurred, shadow-like form pass along close to the moist window, and vanish.
2
Outside fog-dimmed gaslights spotted the street, and the yellow flames burned dispiritedly under their glass housings.
McGuire cut across Pacific Street, then hurried along a narrow alley into which rickety stairs opened, with faint blots of light lying at the entrance-ways. Behind half-opened street doors women's figures stood with motionless patience. He went along swiftly, but lonely watchers from the doorways glimpsed his shadowed passing, and called to him with quick words.