greed of the other two that he felt as if he almost

Yet, such was the attraction of that shining shilling that the three of them stared with painfully beating hearts and feverishly working brains at objects within two feet of it . They stared in a painful silence that was as loud with sound as a violent and quarrelsome conversation.















The sun shone warmly, and there was excellent cool beer in Kelly's. And the salt, healthy smell of the sea awakened their thirst, so that not one of the three old men ever thought of the fact that the shilling belonged to somebody else. Indeed, each of them was so angry at the shameless  wished to kill them. Thus three minutes passed.















The two owners of the yacht had passed out of sight. Brian Manion and Mick Feeney were trembling, their mouths watering at the thought of the beer that they now wanted so much. Then Patsy Conroy bent down and picked up a small stone from the pier. He dropped it on to the deck of the yacht. The other two made a slight movement to intercept the pebble with their sticks, a foolish, unconscious movement.















The next thing that happened was so unexpected that their jaws dropped: Patsy Conroy was speaking .















"Hey there," he shouted between his cupped hands.















A palefaced sad-looking man stepped out of the cabin. "What do you want?" he said.















"Beg your pardon, sir," said Patsy Conroy, "but would you hand me up that shilling that just dropped out of my hand?"















The man nodded, picked up the shilling, said "Catch," and threw it on to the pier, Patsy touched his cap and dived for it.















The other two old men were so lost in amazement that they didn't even try to stop him getting it. They simply watched him put it in his pocket. Then they watched him walk up the pier, his long exhibition Hong Kong, thin, grey-backed figure with a yellow scarf around his neck, moving as straight and as solemn as a policeman.