"What's 301? This here, off the Mexican coast?"
The President, unable to remember, turned to his one clerk: "Hyers, what's 301? Isn't that Peterson?"
The clerk ran his finger down a column: "No, sir; 301 is the Whisky
Ship."
"Ah! So it is. I remember. You remember, too, Joe. Little schooner, the Tropic Bird—sixty days out from Callao—five hundred cases of whisky aboard—sunk in squall. It was thirty years ago. Think of five hundred cases of thirty-year-old whisky! There's money in that if I can lay my hands on the schooner. Suppose you try that, you boys—on a twenty per cent. basis. Come now, what do you say?"
"Not for five per cent.," declared Hardenberg. "How'd we raise her? How'd we know how deep she lies? Not for Joe. What's the matter with landing arms down here in Central America for Bocas and his gang?"
"I'm out o' that, Joe. Too much competition."
"What's doing here in Tahiti—No. 88? It ain't lettered."
Once more the President consulted his books.
"Ah!—88. Here we are. Cache o' illicit pearls. I had it looked up.
Nothing in it."
"Say, Cap'n!"—Hardenberg's eye had traveled to the upper edge of the map—"whatever did you strike up here in Alaska? At Point Barrow, s'elp me Bob! It's 48 B."