"To be sure—seven pound, eight-an'-four."
"That was on the Saltypool," Fancy nodded. "And oh! Cap'n Hocken, I am so sorry! but that hundred pound o' yours is at the bottom of the sea."
"Well, my dear," said Cai after a pause, pulling a wry face, "to do your master justice, he warned me 'twas a risk. There's naught to do but pay up un' look pleasant, I reckon. 'Twon't break me."
"Cut the loss, you mean. The shares was paid up in full, and there can't be no call."
"You're knowledgeable, missy: and yet you're wrong this time, as it happens. For (I may tell you privately) the money didn' belong to me, but to Mrs Bosenna, who asked me to invest it for her."
"Oh!—and Cap'n Hunken's hundred too?"
Cai reached a hand to the mantelpiece for the tobacco-jar, filled a pipe very deliberately, lit it, and drawing a chair up to the table, seated himself in face of her.
"I shouldn't wonder," said he, resting both arms on the table and eyeing her across a cloud of tobacco-smoke. "Though I don't understand what she—I mean, I don't understand what the game was."
"Me either," agreed the child, musing. "No hurry, though: I'll be a widow some day, please God—which is mor'n you can hope. But now we get to the point: an' the point is, you can pay the woman up. Cap'n Hunken can't."
"Why not?"