“Now I feel right,” said Charlie, “and we’ll talk vessel. I didn’t say anything about the price, because this is all talk. We shouldn’t feel like doing anything,—at least I shouldn’t,—before asking father, Captain Rhines, and Uncle Isaac. They are the best friends we’ve got in the world, know every crook and turn, and ain’t like some old folks, who think everybody must be forty years old before they can do anything.”
“We might as well talk about price,” said Isaac, “as about the rest. What do you imagine she would cost?”
“The man I worked for in Portland sold a vessel of two hundred tons, hull and spars, for sixteen dollars per ton. He bought the stump leave of the timber, and hired it hauled six miles.”
“That would be three thousand two hundred dollars for the hull and spars.”
“Yes; what it would cost for rigging, sails, and the rest, you know better than I do.”
“It would cost about half as much more.”
Timber, labor, and board were cheap then—canvas, rigging, and iron extremely high.
“But then it ain’t a going to cost us near that to build the same number of tons.”
“Neither is it going to cost so much to rig and spar a sloop as a brig.”
“Nor so much for iron-work,” said John. “The more spars, the more chain-plates, blocks, bolts, bands, boom-irons to make, and caps to iron.”