"You needn't be afraid of that," he answered. "What I meant was that Mascola is hammering the Fuor d'Italia to pieces with his trips to Diablo in that rough water."
"Does Mascola go often to Diablo?" Gregory questioned quickly.
Bronson shrugged his shoulders non-committally.
"Can't say," he answered. "Don't know how often he goes out there. But I do know that he brags that his boat can make it in two hours and a half. Diablo's a bad place for the Fuor d'Italia. She's built too light to stand the gaff."
The ride to Port Angeles proved all too short. Bronson was communicative in the extreme and regaled him of many evidences of Mascola's prosperity,
chief among which was the Italian's recent order to a firm of Norwegian boat-builders at Port Angeles of twenty large fishing launches of the most improved pattern. These boats, according to Bronson, were of sufficient tonnage and fuel capacity to enable them to cruise far down into Mexican waters.
As they rounded the light-house point and made for the breakwater, the wind increased, driving a choppy sea before it. Then it was that the Richard rose to the occasion and demonstrated her natural ability to cope with a head-on sea.
Arriving at the municipal docks, Gregory promised to call for the boat on the day following and hurried away to attend to his business. He had a real boat all right. Just what he wanted. Now all that remained to be done was to see the jobbers and get a few orders which he could convert into cash to pay for the Richard.
With elastic step he set out for the wholesale district imbued with a spirit of rosy optimism. The Western was first on his list. The chances were he would have to go no farther. A short talk with Mr. Eby, the resident manager, convinced him otherwise.
"Can't quite see your quotations, Gregory," that gentleman had crisply maintained. "We have been offered a similar line of goods at fully ten per cent. less."