As related in “The Adventures of Billy Topsail.”
CHAPTER XXXI
In Which the “Spot Cash” is Picked up by Blow-Me-Down Rock In Jolly Harbour, Wreckers Threaten Extinction and the Honour of the Firm Passes into the Keeping of Billy Topsail
The Spot Cash made for the French Shore with all the speed her heels could command. The seventh of August! How near it was to the first of September! The firm of Topsail, Armstrong, Grimm & Company, with the skipper and cook, shivered to think of it. Ten more trading days! Not another hour could they afford if the Spot Cash would surely make St. John’s harbour on the specified day. And she would––she must––Archie declared. His honour was involved––the honour of them all––of the firm of Topsail, Armstrong, Grimm & Company. Had not Sir Archibald said so?
So in the harbours of the Shore Bill o’ Burnt Bay once more tussled valiantly with “The Lost Pirate,” and the flags flew, and the phonograph ground out inviting music, and Bobby North 267 shook the hornpipe out of his active toes, and Bagg double-shuffled, and the torches flared, and “Kandy for Kids” and “Don’t be Foolish and Fully Fooled” persuaded the populace, and Signor Fakerino created mystification, and Billy Topsail employed his sweet little pipe most wistfully in the old ballad of the coast:
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“Sure, the chain ’e parted, An’ the schooner drove ashore, An’ the wives of the ’ands Never saw un any more, No more! Never saw un any mo-o-o-re!” |
It was all to good purpose. Trade was even brisker than in White Bay. Out went the merchandise and in came the fish. Nor did the Spot Cash once leave harbour without a hearty, even wistful, invitation to return. Within seven days, so fast did the fish come aboard, the hold had an appearance of plethora. Jimmie Grimm and Bagg protested that not another quintal of fish could be stowed away. It was fairly time to think of a deck-load. There was still something in the cabin: something to be disposed of––something to turn into fish. And it was Archie who proposed the scheme of riddance. 268