"Well, and why not?" asked 'Bias.
"Why not? For one thing you bet it isn' the Commissioners' business."
"It ought to be somebody's business to stop what's goin' on.
Say 'tis mine, if you like."
"Look 'ee here, Cap'n Hunken," said Mr Rogers, showing his teeth.
"If that's your game, better fit you was kickin' up a rumpus on the
Parish Council than puttin' a spoke into honest trade. I didn' make
room 'pon the Board for you to behave in that style."
"I don't care whether you did or you didn'," retorted 'Bias sturdily. "And 'honest trade' d'ye call it? robbin' the underwriters and puttin' seamen's lives in danger."
"Eh? . . . You're a nice man to talk, I must say! Come to me, you do, and want me to get you anything up to twenty per cent without risk. How d'ee think that's done in these days, with every one cuttin' freights? I gave you credit for havin' more sense."
'Bias stared. "See here," he said slowly, "if I'd known that hundred pound was to be put into any such wickedness, I'd have seen you further before trustin' you with it. As 'tis, I'll trouble you—"
"Hold hard, there!" Mr Rogers interrupted. "You're in a tarnation hurry every way, 'twould seem. Who told you as I'd put that hundred into any vessel below Plimsoll mark?"
"I thought you hinted as much."
"Then you thought a long sight too fast. If you must know, your money's in the old Saltypool, and old as she is, that steamship might be my child, the way I watch over her."