“What boat?”
“Well, you don’t propose to swim after the Dutchman, do you?”
“Well,” said Hank, “if one cog goes wrong in this business, we may both be swimming after him, begging to be took aboard and him using us for target practice—but I’m not going in a boat.”
“Then what the devil are you going in?”
“A yacht. Y. A. C. H. T. Sixty ton schooner, auxiliary engine, white-painted boat, turning a bit cream with wear, cabin upholstered in red plush, bird’s-eye maple panels let in with pictures of flowers—everything up-to-date, seemingly. She jumped into my head at the Club as I was talking about old Vanderdecken, that’s how things come to me. No sooner had I left the ’phone and began talking to you fellows than the whole of this expedition and how to do it hit me on the head like an orange.”
“Well, let’s get back to business. You have your eye on a yacht, but, from your specification, fifty thousand dollars is more like what you’ll want than five. What’s the name of this yacht?”
“She’s not exactly a yacht,” said Hank.
“Then what is she?”
“She’s more in the nature of an optical delusion.”
George had patience. He had also plenty of time and could afford to let Hank play about. It was the first time he had come really in touch with the town lot speculator’s mentality, and it interested him. His own position began to interest him, too. He had pledged himself to this expedition and he would no more draw out than old Harley du Cane would have drawn out of one of his frontal attacks on Jay Gould, however dangerous.