"The Saltypool! Why, she's the most scand'lous case as has gone out of harbour these three months!"
"Eh?"
"I saw her with my own eyes alongside No. 3 jetty, the evenin' before she sailed. A calm night it was too; and she with her Plimsoll well under and a whole line o' trucks waitin' to be shot into her. She went out before daybreak, if you remember, and God knows how low she was by that time."
Mr Rogers's jaw dropped.
"The idiots!" he muttered. "When I told 'em—" He broke off.
"I say, you're not pullin' my leg?"
"Saw her with my own eyes, I tell you," 'Bias assured him, wondering a little; for the old sinner's dismay was clearly honest.
"Then all I say is, you can call Fancy and tell her to fetch me a Bible, if there's one in the house, an' I'll swear to you I never knew it, an' I never seen it. What's more, I'll sack the captain, an' I'll sack the mate. What's more, I'll cable dismissal out to Philadelphy. What's more—"
"There, there!" interposed 'Bias. "You didn' know, and enough said! I don't want any man thrown out of employ. 'Tis the system I'm out to spoil."
"Skippers are a trouble-without-end in these days," Mr Rogers muttered on, staring gloomily at the fire in the grate; "specially to a man crippled like me. . . . You spend years sarchin' for a fool, an' you no sooner get the treasure, as you think—one you can trust for a plain ord'nary fool in all weathers—than he turns out a dam fool!"
On his way from the ship-chandler's 'Bias ran against Mr Philp, who paused in the roadway and eyed him, chewing a piece of news and chuckling.