“You know I’m a shipowner in a large way of business?”
Onslow nodded.
“Ships are occasionally lost at sea: steamers, even new steamers straight out of a builder’s yard, and well found in every particular.”
“So I’ve read in the newspaper.”
“And every shipowner insures his vessels to the full of their value.”
“Except when he has a foreboding that they will come to grief on a voyage. Then, so rumor says, he usually has the forethought to over-insure.”
Mr. Theodore Shelf passed a handkerchief over his forehead, and started what was apparently a new topic.
“There is a silver crisis on just now in the United States, and by this morning’s paper the dollar is down at sixty cents. American gold is not to be had. English gold is always worth its face value. What more natural financial operation could there be than to ship out sovereigns, and profit by the discrepancy?”
“Ah,” said Onslow, “so the new and valuable steamer, which, though over-insured, is likely to be reported lost, is evidently to have a consignment of specie on board. £500,000 I fancy you mentioned as the figure in the billiard-room this morning. Well, if one is going in for robbery—or piracy, I suppose it would turn out to be in this instance—there’s nothing like a large coup. It’s your niggler who usually fails, and gets laid by the heels. Drive on, and be a little more explicit.”
“Couldn’t the steamer be lost somehow in the Gulf of Mexico, and a boat containing the boxes of specie find its way through this channel of yours into the interior of Florida?”