"If that were true a hundred times over, I should still require compensation from you, on account of the lucrum cessans. Do you know what that means? If you do, you can understand that your ten thousand gulden will go to the last kreutzer."
"So be it," answered Timar, quietly. "We will speak of that another time; there's time enough. But what we have to do now is to decide what is to happen to the sunken cargo, for the longer it remains under water, the more it will be spoiled."
"What does it matter to me what happens to it?"
"So you will not take it over? You will not be personally present at the discharge of cargo?"
"The devil I will! What should I do with ten thousand measures of soaked grain? I am not going to make starch of ten thousand measures of corn; or shall I make paste of it? The devil may take it if he wants it!"
"Hardly; but the stuff must be sold. The millers, factors, cattle-dealers, will offer something for it, and the peasants too, who want seed-corn; and the vessel must be emptied. In that way some money may be got out of it."
"Money!" (This word could always penetrate into the cotton-stuffed ears of the merchant.) "Good. I will give you a permit to-morrow to empty the vessel and get rid of the cargo in bulk."
"I want the permit to-day. Before morning everything will be ruined."
"To-day! You know I never touch a pen at night; it is against my habits."
"I thought of that beforehand, and brought the permit with me. You have only to sign your name to it. Here are pen and ink."