Doctor Luke paused.
"Ay," said Billy Topsail. "I've seed that way o' doin' business."
"We all have, Billy," said Doctor Luke. And resumed: "In dull times Sam's conscience irks him into overhauling his ledgers. 'Tis otherwise in seasons of plenty. But Sam's conscience apparently keeps pricking away just the same—aggravating Sam into getting richer and richer. There is no rest for Skinflint Sam. Skinflint Sam must have all the money he can take by hook and crook or suffer the tortures of an evil conscience. And as any other man, Sam must ease that conscience or lose sleep o' nights.
"And so in seasons of plenty up goes the price of tea at Skinflint Sam's shop. And up goes the price of pork. And up goes the price of flour. All sky high, ecod! Never was such harsh times (says Sam); why, my dear man, up St. John's way (says he) you couldn't touch tea nor pork nor flour with a ten-foot sealing-gaff. And no telling what the world is coming to, with prices soaring like a gull in a gale and all the St. John's merchants chary of credit!
"''Tis awful times for us poor traders,' says Sam. 'No tellin' who'll weather this here panic. I'd not be surprised if we got a war out of it.'
"Well, now, as you know, Billy, on the north-coast in these days it isn't much like the big world beyond. Folk don't cruise about. They are too busy. And they are not used to it anyhow. Ragged Run folk are not born at Ragged Run, raised at Rickity Tickle, married at Seldom-Come-By, aged at Skeleton Harbour and buried at Run-By-Guess. They are born and buried at Ragged Run. So what the fathers think at Ragged Run, the sons think; and what the sons know, has been known by the old men for a good many years.
"Nobody is used to changes. They are shy of changes. New ways are fearsome. And so the price of flour is a mystery. It is, anyhow. Why it should go up and down at Ragged Run is beyond any man of Ragged Run to fathom. When Skinflint Sam says that the price of flour is up—well, then, it is up; and that's all there is about it. Nobody knows better. And Skinflint Sam has the flour. You know all about that sort of thing, don't you, Billy?"
"Ay, sir," Billy replied. "But I been helpin' the clerk of an honest trader."
"There are honest traders. Of course! Not Sam, though. And, as I was saying, Sam has the pork, as well as the flour. And he has the sweetness and the tea. And he has the shoes and the clothes and the patent medicines. And he has the twine and the salt. And he has almost all the cash there is at Ragged Run. And he has the schooner that brings in the supplies and carries away the fish to the St. John's markets.