"I'm willin' to pay for it," answered the high-voiced youth, with a quietness not altogether divorced from sulkiness.
"Then what're we wastin' good time over?" inquired the man known as Redney. "This ain't a case o' milkin' coffee-bags from a slip-lighter. This haul's big enough for three."
"Well, what is your haul?" demanded the bass voice.
Again there was a silence of several seconds.
"Cough it up," prompted Redney. The silence that ensued seemed to imply that the younger man was slowly and reluctantly arriving at a change of front. There was a sound of a chair being pushed back, of a match being struck, of a glass being put down on a table-top.
"Chuck," said the treble-voiced youth, with a slow and impressive solemnity that was strangely in contrast to his earlier speech, "Chuck, we're up against the biggest stunt that was ever pulled off in this burg of two-bone pikers!"
"So you've been insinuatin'," was the answer that came out of the silence. "But I've been sittin' here half an hour waitin' to get a line on what you're chewin' about."
"Chuck," said the treble voice, "you read the papers, don't you?"
"Now and then," acknowledged the diffident bass voice.
"Well, did you see yesterday morning where the steamer Finance was rammed by the White Star Georgic? Where she went down in the Lower Bay before she got started on her way south?"