"Let me tell you this: if you like to sit on that property for a month, you'll make a sheer profit of twenty thousand pounds. You can afford to do it—I can't. I tell you there isn't a vacant wharfage between Greenwich and Gravesend, and here you have a warehouse with thirty thousand feet of floor-space, derricks—derrick, named after the hangman of that name: I'll bet you didn't know that?—cranes, everything in—— Well, it's not in apple-pie order," he admitted, "but it won't take much to make it so. What do you say?"
Bones started violently.
"Excuse me, old speaker, I was thinking of something else. Do you mind saying that all over again?"
Honest John Staines swallowed something and repeated his proposition.
Bones shook his head violently.
"Nothing doing!" he said. "Wharves and ships—no!"
But Honest John was not the kind that accepts refusal without protest.
"What I'll do," said he confidentially, "is this: I'll leave the matter for twenty-four hours in your hands."
"No, go, my reliable old wharf-seller," said Bones. "I never go up the river under any possible circumstances—— By Jove, I've got an idea!"
He brought his knuckly fist down upon the unoffending desk, and Honest
John watched hopefully.