“As bad as it is on a freighter, I reckon you ain't sorry you're off that yacht, son?”
“I'm not sorry, sir.”
“From what you told me, the owner was around meddling all the time.”
“I don't remember that I ever said so, sir.”
“Oh, I thought you did,” grunted Captain Wass, and he covered his momentary check by sounding the whistle.
“Now that you are back in the steamboat business, of course you're a steamboat man. Have the interests of your owners at heart,” he resumed.
“Certainly, sir.”
“It would be a lot of help to the regular steamboat men—the good old stand-bys—if they could get some kind of a line on what them Wall Street cusses are gunning through with Marston leading 'em—or, at leastways, he's supposed to be leading. He hides away in the middle of the web and lets the other spiders run and fetch. But it's Marston's scheme, you can bet on that! What do you think?”
“I haven't thought anything about it, Captain Wass.” “But how could you help thinking, catching a word here and a word there, aboard that yacht?”
“I never listened—I never heard anything.”