“But who will buy it? People must know it is stolen.”
“Sure they know it. They buy it because they are dishonest, like the bargeman himself.”
“But sooner or later some of them will be caught. Why do they run the risk when they can buy wool that isn’t stolen?”
“They can get this cheaper. When wool comes into this country, the importer has to pay a heavy duty or tax on every pound. On the coarse wool that is used in making carpets he pays no duty at all; but on finer grades he has to pay a heavy tax. The importer either pays the duty outright, or has the wool put in a bonded warehouse, where it is under control of the government, and pays the duty as he takes it out. The wool carried by these barges is largely on its way to bonded warehouses. No duty has been paid on it. So every time a bale is bled, the government is cheated out of its revenue and the owner loses his wool. The crooked wool merchants buy the stuff because they can get it cheaper this way than they could if they bought it from an honest dealer.”
“Shall we be going?” asked Willie, who was too impatient to delay any longer.
Sheridan chuckled. “It’s easy to see you don’t have cold feet,” he commented. “But we can’t go with you dressed up like that. Get on those duds you got yesterday from the newsy.”
“Gee!” protested Willie. “Do I have to dust up my pants again?”
The Secret Service man laughed. “Get some overalls on board your ship,” he advised.
Willie took a good look at his companion. In the dusk of the pier shed, he had not noticed particularly how the detective was dressed. Now he saw that he looked even more like a tramp than he had the previous day. Willie raced back to the ship and laid the matter before Roy, who speedily borrowed some overalls from a deckhand. Even Willie had to laugh at himself when he got them on and looked in a mirror. After he had turned up the legs several times, and taken a reef in each shoulder strap, the things would stay on him, but they fitted like a meal sack. He pulled on his ragged coat and cap, and taking a last look at himself in the glass, called out, “Now for the wool auction. Good-bye, Roy.”
By the time the two wool hunters had left the pier, it was dark. Rapidly they made their way down West Street, for a distance, and then they cut straight across the city. At some other time Willie would have been glad to pause and look at the tower of the Woolworth Building, now glowing like some fairy structure in the light of myriads of concealed electric lamps, or to gaze at the lofty spire of the Singer Building, or to study the great hulks of other huge sky-scrapers. But now he had a mind for one thing only: he was absorbed in thoughts of the wool auction.