It was right on the point of Marcy's tongue to reply that he would be glad to do it; but he checked himself in time, for the thought occurred to him that perhaps this was another attempt on the part of Captain Beardsley to find out something about the state of his mother's finances. So he looked down at the carpet and said nothing.
"There's money in it," continued Beardsley. "Suppose you take out two bales of cotton, sell it in Nassau for three times what it was worth a few months ago, and invest the proceeds in quinine; why, you'll make five hundred percent. Of course I can't grant all the hands the same privilege, so I will make the bargain for you through my agent, and Tierney and the rest needn't know a thing about. What do you say?"
"I don't think I had better risk it," answered Marcy.
"What for?" asked Beardsley.
"Well, the money I've got I'm sure of, am I not?"
"Course you are. Didn't I say you could have it any minute you had a mind to call for it?"
"You did; but suppose I should put it into cotton, as you suggest, and the Osprey should fall into the hands of one of those war ships outside. There'd be all my money gone to the dogs, or, what amounts to the same thing, into the hands of the Yankees. I may want to use that money before the war is over."
"But didn't you hear the agent say that we ain't going to have any war?
We've licked 'em before they could take their coats off."
"But perhaps they'll not stay whipped. My teachers at the academy were pretty well posted, and I heard some of them say that a war is surely coming, and in the end the Southern States will wish they had never seceded."
"Well, them teachers of yourn was the biggest fules I ever heard tell of," exclaimed Beardsley, settling back in his chair and slamming a paper-weight down upon the table. "Why, don't I tell you that we've got 'em licked already? More'n that, I don't mean to fall into the hands of them cruisers outside. I tell you that you'll miss it if you don't take out a venture. And as for your mother needing them seventeen hundred dollars to buy grub and the like, you can't pull the wool over my eyes in no such way as that. She's got money by the bushel, and I know it to be a fact."