"Let him state his case," said Jefferson.
"I'll try. Our plan's like this," said Kit. "At daybreak Campeador steams up to a beach from which cargo can be shipped. Don Erminio and I get horses and go off to the hills, where nobody knows about the steamer. Don Erminio stops at a village wine shop and plays the guitar while I talk to the peons. They're an unsophisticated lot with the manners of fine gentlemen, and live on maize, bananas, and goat's milk cheese. Yet, for all their poverty, I must eat membrillo jelly and drink a cup of wine before we get to business. They have stacks of onions, and at Havana onions are short, but the peons don't know and my job's to buy their crop very cheap. The worst is, the fellows are grateful and try to make us a feast. If they got half the sum their goods are worth, they'd be rich. It's rather like robbing a trustful child."
"I am a merchant's daughter and doubt if I ought to sympathise," said Mrs. Austin. "To buy at the lowest price the seller will take is a sound business plan. Were you not a business man at Liverpool?"
"At Liverpool nobody I knew made a profit of a hundred per cent," Kit rejoined. "The thing's not honest; besides, one feels it's not sound."
Jefferson laughed. "On the whole, I reckon Musgrave's justified. You can fool people once or twice; you can't fool them all the time. When they find you out, they charge you double or sell to another."
Kit looked at Olivia. She was talking to two or three young men and the position of their chairs would make it awkward for him to join the group. Moreover, he imagined Mrs. Austin had not meant him to do so. By and by he looked at his watch.
"I must go. It's later than I thought, and I've got to stop at the Carsegarry."
"You said you were not going to the ball."
"I'm not going to dance. We sail at ten o'clock and I must get Macallister and Don Erminio on board."
"Then I allow you have undertaken something of a job," Jefferson remarked.