“Your diver isn’t going down just yet,” I said, bending down to unlace my boots. “I’m going. I want to have a look at things.”
“It’s a loss to me,” said the captain sourly. “Are you prepared to make it good?”
“Certainly,” declared the Marquis, who seemed to understand the state of affairs. “We will pay you what is the value of the shell that your diver should bring up.”
“And what about the pearls?” demanded the captain.
“Oh, come off it!” I said. “How many pearls has the whole fleet got since it went to work here?”
“Uncommon few, and bad at that,” admitted the captain gloomily. “And what there is, no doubt the Malays and Japs poach for the most part.”
“Had any stealing?” I asked. I was getting myself into the diver’s heavy suit of woolen underwear now as quickly as I could.
“You’ve been down before, haven’t you?”
“Yes.” (I did not think it necessary to say that my experiences had been confined to a single trip, made in shallow water, for two or three minutes, over at Thursday, and that I had not liked it a little bit.) “About that stealing, now?”
“Well, I reckon the Greek has some idea of the kind, by the way he was keepin’ round after that Papuan diver, followin’ him along the street, and watchin’ him like a cat watches a mouse.”