The disdain I had learned for money from the oyster pirates had never left me.

I didn't care over-weeningly for it for personal gratification; and in my philosophy I completed the circle, finding myself as equable with the lack of a ten-cent piece as I was with the squandering of scores of dollars in calling all men and hangers-on up to the bar to drink with me.
But how to get a girl?
There was no girl's home to which Louis could take me and where I might be introduced to girls.

I knew none.

And Louis' several girls he wanted for himself; and anyway, in the very human nature of boys' and girls' ways, he couldn't turn any of them over to me.

He did persuade them to bring girl-friends for me; but I found them weak sisters, pale and ineffectual alongside the choice specimens he had.
"You'll have to do like I did," he said finally.