“‘You helping to work the beds,’ said Johnstone.
“‘I’m with you,’ says the other.
“Old Jack Bone, who was listening, cocked his ear at this.
“It seemed to him more than ever that Logan was too much of a Christian angel over the hull of this business. He knew the chap by instinc’ to be a dam thief, or maybe worse, but he said nothing, and then a noise brought them up on deck, and they found the island Kanakas had all put off in canoes with fruit and live chickens and was wanting to trade.
“It was just after sundown, but that didn’t matter to them; they lit up torches and the place was like a regatta round the old Heart.
“Two of the chiefs came aboard and brought their goods with them and squatted on their hams, Johnstone doing the bargaining, and, when the bazaar was over, Johnstone turns to Logan, and says he: ‘Lord love me,’ says he, ‘where did these chaps learn their business instinc’s? Chicago I shud think. Where in the nation will we be when it comes to paying them for the diving work? They’ll clear us out of goods before a month is over, and that knocks the bottom out of the proposition. It’s the Labour problem over again,’ says he, ‘and we’re up against it.’
“‘We are,’ says Logan, ‘sure. These chaps aren’t Kanakas; they’re Rockfellers, virgin ones, maybe, but just as hard shelled. I’ll have to do a think.’
“The Chinks had all congregated down into the fo’c’sle to smoke their opium pipes, and Logan, he lit a cigar and sat down on deck in the light of the moon that had just risen up, and there he sits like an image smoking and thinking whiles the others went below.
“It was a tough proposition.
“The Chinks were no use for diving. They’d been questioned on that subject and risen against it to a man. The island Kanakas were the only labour, and, taking the rate of exchange, the pearls would have had to be as big as turnips to make the game pay.