“Go ahead, Shorty,” Smoke went on. “Cook them up for him. I can sympathize. I've seen the time myself when I could eat a dozen, straight off the bat.”
But Wild Water laid a restraining hand on the eager Shorty as he explained. “I don't mean cooked. I want them with the shells on.”
“So that you can carry 'em away?”
“That's the idea.”
“But that ain't hospitality,” Shorty objected. “It's—it's tradin'.”
Smoke nodded concurrence. “That's different, Wild Water. I thought you just wanted to eat them. You see, we went into this for a speculation.”
The dangerous blue of Wild Water's eyes began to grow more dangerous. “I'll pay you for them,” he said sharply. “How much?”
“Oh, not a dozen,” Smoke replied. “We couldn't sell a dozen. We're not retailers; we're speculators. We can't break our own market. We've got a hard and fast corner, and when we sell out it's the whole corner or nothing.”
“How many have you got, and how much do you want for them?”
“How many have we, Shorty?” Smoke inquired.