"Perhaps to give you one. Did not I hear don Stefano say something about your looking out to buy a pleasure vessel?"
"I even thought that I might make a yacht of—"
"Of the goleta in the port, of the Burlonilla—of my vessel?"
"There is no other worth a biscuit, certainly! Why the question now?" inquired the European with some surprise.
"I tell you what; if you will consent, I will add the Little Joker, all standing, to my pile, against twenty-five thousand dollars. What do you say to that proposition?"
[CHAPTER IX.]
THE WAY LAYERS.
"What do I say to that offer?" returned Gladsden; "That it is a queer one, not to say a mad one! Señor, I am morally certain that you would lose your ship."
"You mean, you refuse," triumphantly, whilst the auditors smiled flatteringly on their leader for having "bluffed" the foreigner.