Every third moment or so his cap appeared through the doorway and there was the noise of plates being washed or something. And the shilling was within two feet of the doorway Yoga Hong Kong. Besides, the old men, except perhaps Patsy Conroy, were too old to climb down the ladder and climb back up again.

Furthermore, each knew that even if there were nobody in the cabin, and even if he could climb down the ladder, the others would prevent him from getting the shilling, since each preferred that no one should have the shilling if he couldn't have it himself.

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 reenex. 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 greed of the other two that he felt as if he almost 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.  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 interceptthe pebble with their sticks reenex, a foolish, unconscious movement.

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