“Well, go ahead, then.”
“This is a business proposition I’m making. I was boarded by pirates last night, and I want you to see if you can’t catch them.”
“Boarded by—what?”
“Pirates—p-i-r-a-t-e-s—pirates. The real thing, too. Honest Injun, Nick! Did you ever read Cooper’s ‘Red Rover’? Well, I could take my oath that he has risen from the bottom of the sea and resumed business at the old stand. I hope to goodness he won’t hear me; he might think I am joking, and I was never more in dead earnest in my life.”
“Do you mean that the Goalong was boarded by pirates—really?”
“Do I mean it! Huh! Can’t you see that I’ve lost flesh? It takes a pretty good-sized man, with a mighty big proposition on his side of the question, to scare me, Nick, as you are aware; but that pirate chap did the act, without a hitch. I haven’t got over it yet.”
“You aren’t trying one of your jokes on me, are you, Kane?”
“No—on my honor, no!”
“Tell me all about it.”