"Just the same, it doesn't seem fair. I can't adopt their standards. I've got to stick to my own."
Before many days elapsed, Alec had another opportunity to decide what standards he would follow. One of his competitors came to him and offered to pay him twenty-five cents a basket for the rattlers in his pile of shells.
"You'd be getting eight times as much for the rattlers as you would for the shells, and there'd likely be a basket or two a night in such a big pile of shells. That'd be twenty-five to fifty cents clear velvet every night."
Alec was suspicious. "What do you want them for?" he asked.
"To eat, of course. We can't make enough collecting shells to buy good oysters. These is all right, if we eat 'em soon."
"I'll think it over," said Alec.
When the man was gone, he saw at once the absurdity of the thing. There were only two or three shell collectors to eat the oysters. Only one of them had a family. With Alec's shells they would have access to all the shells in the place. If they could get a basket or two of rattlers from his shells, there must be a number of baskets among all the shells—several bushels in fact. It wouldn't be possible for them to eat all the oysters.
"There's something crooked about this," said Alec. Then he thought of what Hawley had told him of the enmity the other shell collectors had toward him. He decided to ask Hawley about the matter.
"Jim," he said, when he next saw his helper, "old Wallace offered to buy all our rattlers. Said he wanted them to eat. What do you suppose he's up to?"