But his troubles enlarged rapidly when Jack Nickerson came to his room later on.
"Well, old man," said that cheerful sceptic, looking Winn over, "you don't seem to have the odor of fish or any barnacles about you. You have had a hair cut, I see; and now if you will visit a tailor, you will soon be one of us again."
"Yes," laughed Winn, sarcastically, "I'm back where clothes make the man and put thieves and honest men on the same footing. But how is Rockhaven coming on?"
"It's not only coming, but it is here,—at least its only honest supporter is," answered Jack. "Where is your old fiddling friend, Hutton? I expected you would bring him along to look us swindlers over."
"No, I left him down at Rockhaven at peace with all the world and philosophizing on human depravity," answered Winn; "he would be as much out of place here as you would be there."
"Well, you'd best send for him, or else all the stock you sold on the island," asserted Nickerson, "and do it now. Matters have reached a climax, as I wrote you, and Page wants to 'do' old Simmons. We have held your stock for that purpose, and we want all we can get besides. The street is all short of it; and when they get scared, as they will soon, and Simmons tries to unload on them, we propose to be in the dance. Can't you wire the island?"
And Winn, once more in touch with the active life of the city, paused to collect himself.
"I might wire Captain Roby," he said, "and reach the island to-night. But Roby has bought one hundred of this stock, and if he realized the situation, he'd faint."
"Well, let him," answered Jack, "he'll come to quick enough when he understands his stock is worth fourteen dollars to-day and may not be worth one cent to-morrow. My belief is, if you wired him the price now, he'd point his old boat for the city and shovel coal under the boiler all the way himself."
"He wouldn't do that," replied Winn, "but he'd start for the island at once, and in ten minutes every one would know it."