"Good night, Harding," said Mr. Radford, in a low but still harsh tone; "what a time you have been. It will be one o'clock or more before I get back."
"Past two," answered the smuggler, bluntly; "but I came as soon as I could. It is not much more than half an hour since I got your message."
"That stupid boy has been playing the fool, then," replied the other; "I sent him----"
"Oh, he's not stupid," interrupted the smuggler; "and he's not given to play the fool either. More like to play the rogue. But what's the business now, sir? There's no doing anything on such nights as these."
"I know that--I know that," rejoined Radford. "But this will soon change. The moon will be dwindled down to cheese-paring before many days are over, and the barometer is falling. It is necessary that we should make all our arrangements beforehand, Harding, and have everything ready. We must have no more such jobs as the last two."
"I had nothing to do with them," rejoined the smuggler. "You chose your own people, and they failed. I do not mean to say it was their fault, for I don't think it was. They lost as much, for them, as you did; and they did their best, I dare say; but still that is nothing to me. I've undertaken to land the cargo, and I will do it, if I live. If I die, there's nothing to be said, you know; but I don't say I'll ever undertake another of the sort. It does not answer, Mr. Radford. It makes a man think too much, to know that other people have got so much money staked on such a venture."
"Ay, but that is the very cause why every one should exert himself," answered his companion. "I lost fifty thousand pounds by the last affair, twenty by the other; but I tell you, Harding, I have more than both upon this, and if this fail----"
He paused, and did not finish the sentence; but he set his teeth hard, and seemed to draw his breath with difficulty.
"That's a bad plan," said the smuggler--"a bad plan, in all ways. You wish to make up all at one run: and so you double the venture: but you should know by this time, that one out of four pays very well, and we have seldom failed to do one out of two or three; but the more money people get the more greedy they are of it; so that because you put three times as much as enough on one freight, you must needs put five times on the other, and ten times on the third, risking a greater loss every time for a greater gain. I'll have to do with no more of these things. I'm contented with little, and don't like such great speculations."
"Oh, if you are afraid," cried Mr. Radford, "you can give it up! I dare say we can find some one else to land the goods."