“'Sides,” went on the skipper, chewing his cheroot, “I guess if I'd wanted that old corpse of yours, I'd have yanked Bolton overside, and set down the accident to bad weather. Better fur me to loot the case aboard than to make a fool of myself ashore. No, sir, H.H. don't run 'is own perticler private circus in that blamed way.”
“H.H. Who the devil is H.H.?”
“Me, you bet. Hiram Hervey, citizen of the U.S.A. Nantucket neighborhood for home life. And see, don't you get m'hair riz, or I'll scalp.”
“You can't scalp me,” chuckled Braddock, passing his hand over a very bald head. “See here, what do you want?”
“Name a price and I'll float round to get back your verdant corpse.”
“I thought you were going to the South Seas?”
“In three months, pearl-fishing. Lots of time, I reckon, to run this old circus I want you to finance.”
“Have you any suspicions?”
“No, 'sept I don't believe in that window business.”
“What do you mean?” Braddock sat upright.