“Hope not?” asked Welfare. “But don’t you see that every penny we make out of her then will be pure bunce?”
“Is that what they call ‘scrap price’?” I asked.
I saw at once that I had said the wrong thing.
“Scrap price? Why, we’re not going to sell her!”
“Oh no. Of course not. Yes, of course, it’s a splendid idea. I don’t quite see where the extra money comes from. Wouldn’t it pay better to keep her in repair?”
“Well, I don’t know! Of course, we keep her in repair.”
“That’s all right then. I didn’t quite follow.”
“The point is, she stands at nothing in the books.”
“I see; and sticks at nothing on the sea, eh?”
I laughed at my own pleasantry, and was surprised to see a look of quick suspicion and annoyance on Captain Welfare’s usually genial face.