Yet this same man had made money out of ward politics and in twenty other ways in which one would have fancied education necessary to success.
They left Fanning and Christmas Island three hundred miles to starboard, passed the equator, and, entering the great, empty space of sea bounded by the Phœnix Islands on the north and the Penrhyns on the southeast, headed toward the Navigators.
One sweltering morning, the Captain, coming up to Wolff, who was seated in his pajamas under the double awning that had been rigged up, said:
“We’re just on the cable line.”
Wolff rose up, called for the steward, and, having sent for his panama, put it on and came up on the bridge.
The sea was smooth, surface smooth, but underrun by the long, endless swell of the Pacific.
“This is the spot,” said the Captain, who had been poring over the cable chart which he had brought up on the bridge. “And it’s pretty deep. All a mile.”
“Good!” said Wolff. “With this calm sea, we ought to work well and quickly. We are in luck; and now, if you will come into the chart house, we will talk for one moment.”
They went into the chart house, and Wolff shut the door.
“This is a purely business proposition,” began Wolff, “and I must tell you, to begin with, that it is not a business which a man of a certain type of mind would call on the square. But, my dear Captain, can you show me any business proposition that is truly on the square? Not one. I want the use of a cable, and I am going to take it for business purposes. That is all there is to it, you understand.”