'Half a dollar a tin.'
'Half a dollar it is. Got that down, Mr. Wallis?'
'Yes,' said Tom, 'seventeen dollars;' and he counted out seventeen pebbles.
'Six bottles of pickles, two bottles of chutney, and two bottles of green things like plums, one bag of oatmeal, and a tin box of raisins. How much for that lot?'
Bill was not sure. 'Say ten dollars.'
'Fourteen-pound box of "Two Seas" tobacco--Mr. Chester, you has a right noble mind to think of it,--three hanks twine, palm and sail-needles, one box fish-hooks, four pair dungaree pants, six dozen packets Swedish stinker matches, lot o' clay pipes all broken, three clasp-knives, and one tin o' mustard. How much?'
After a little discussion the lot was valued at forty dollars; and then the contents of the next bag were turned out. They consisted of about fifty pounds of biscuit, some tins of German sausage, a rug belonging to Mr. Kelly, a bag of bullets, a fan-tail hatchet, a bundle of fishing-lines, a burning-glass, a Dutch cheese in a tin, ten boxes of percussion-caps, and one bottle of Edinburgh ale.
'Put them down at twenty dollars, Mr. Wallis.'
The next 'lot' was rolled up in the steward's own blankets, and carefully seized round with spun yarn--three Snider carbines with three hundred or four hundred cartridges, the steward's own razor, glass, and comb, Tom's gun (that given him by the captain of the Virago at Noumea), some more tins of powder, caps, a bag of No. 3 shot, a bottle of one 'Kennedy's Medical Discovery for the Cure of all Diseases,' a bag of salt, a piece of New Zealand bacon, Mr. Harvey's revolver with case and fittings, a roasted fowl, and a sextant-case without the sextant.
'About a hundred and fifty dollars will square that lot,' said Maori Bill, thoughtfully.