“Listen,” said I, “you say business is bad.”
“It certainly and shorely is,” assented the old dame, fishing a black pipe out of her pocket, and proceeding to feed it from another pocket, to the discomfort of the soiled Angora cat.
“Well, now, let me make you a proposition,” said I, taking a glance at the heap of fresh shell which lay beyond the racks of trolling lines and their twisted wire hooks, by means of which dragging apparatus the mussels are taken—shutting hard on the wire when it touches them as they lie feeding with open mouths—“you’ve quite a lot of shell there, now.”
“Yes, but what’s in it? Button factories all shut down with a strike, and no market: and as for pearls, they ain’t none. Blame me for carryin’ a grouch?”
“Not in the least. But what will you take for your shells, and agree to open them for us, at wages of five dollars a day?”
“Both of us?” he demanded shrewdly. I smiled and nodded. “It’s more than you average, twice over,” said I, “and you say the stream is no good. Now I, too, am a student of the great law of averages, because I am or was a director in a great life insurance company. You say the luck is bad. Like other adventurers, I say that under the law of averages, it is time for the luck to change.”
“The luck’s with you,” growled the clammer, “it’s ag’in me.” Unconsciously, he put a finger to his swollen nose. “What’ll you gimme?” he demanded.
“One hundred dollars bonus and ten dollars a day,” said I promptly; and he seemed to know I would not better that.
“Who are ye?” he queried: “a buyer?”
“No, a pirate.”