"So you could. To be sure you could," said Jordan. "That's a very good idea of yours, Smith. But fix up their berths. They will be aboard to-morrow mornin'."
He broke the news to the mates that the whole firm was coming on a little trip with them, and when he asked them if they had any objection to the fare that Smith proposed to give them for those few days they said they would be glad to see it on the table. They thought almost happily of the face that Gruddle would put on when he saw the measly and forbidden pork. They had visions of Shody, who was a wholesale grocer as well as a ship-owner, when he sampled the stores that he supplied the firm with. They smiled to think of Sloggett and Butterworth, the junior partners, who promised to be quite as bad as their elders by and by, and were known to be fond of high feeding. The only mistake they fell into about the whole body of the firm was that they took them for fools who did not know what sort of food they gave their officers and crews. For next morning at nine o'clock a number of fascinating-looking cases were brought on board, on which was the name of a well-known provision merchant. And with the cases which obviously contained provisions there were some which quite as obviously held champagne. The 'old man' and the two mates looked at this consignment and their jaws dropped.
"Our scheme ain't worth a cent," said Jordan sadly.
"It might be worse, though," said Thripp; "we'll get some of this lot, of course."
"Do you think so?" asked Jordan sadly.
"Of course I do," said Thripp indignantly. "Whatever kind of swabs they are, they ain't surely so measly as to grub on this in our very presence and see us eat the other muck?"
The skipper smiled a slow and bitter smile.
"Thripp, you are a good seaman, but as a judge of humanity you ain't in it with Cade. All you and me will get of this lot will be the smell of it."
An hour later the owners came on board, and were received with the humility due to such great men, who owned ships and shops and had houses in Croyden, and reputations which smelt in heaven like a tallow refining factory. The very deck hands who brought their luggage on board cursed them under their breath, and would have been glad to do it openly. Then as the tide served the Nemesis cast off from the wharf and made her way out into the stream, and started on her most memorable trip. If all the folks connected with the sea who knew the character of the men who owned her had also known that they were on board, and what was going to happen before they got back to England again, she and they would have got a more lively send-off than she did get.
The partners were in a very happy frame of mind, and showed it. They had got hold of the Nemesis cheap and were going to make money out of her. They had their officers and crew on the cheap as well, and it warmed their hearts to think of the price that they had provisioned her at in these hard times. Everything on board the Nemesis was cheap except the grub they had sent on board for their own use, and even that had been paid for by a creditor as a means of getting the firm to renew a bill. It was quite certain the firm knew their way about the dark alleys of this world. Gruddle had a cent.-per-cent. grin on his oily face, and fat Shody smiled like a hyena out on a holiday, and the two more gentlemanly-looking members of the firm laughed jovially.