"That's so," was the captain's answer, "but you see we should have a good deal less value in your company. Besides, you'd get your boxes ex territorio a great deal quicker."
He had by this time become so interested in the game he was playing that the beating of the collector seemed in itself a thing worth straining every nerve to gain.
"They're ex territorio now," Mr. Wrenmarsh said, "as they're on a foreign yacht. But no matter about that. What'll you take to set me over to Gibraltar?"
"Oh, that would cost you three hundred and fifty, because there you're so much nearer England than you'd be at Malta."
He glanced again at Jerry, with an inward chuckle at the utter balderdash he was talking and a consciousness how closely it resembled the nature of the arguments with which Wrenmarsh had beguiled Tab. For a minute there was silence, and then the archæologist spoke angrily.
"You're too commercial," he said, with an unconcealed sneer. "I see no way in which we can come to an agreement. I never was equal to trading with a dollar-getting Yankee."
Tab started and looked to hear Jack break out at an insult so gross, but the captain merely smiled.
"As you are our guest," he said, "there's no chance for me to answer you properly, but you must remember we're not looking for a job. Shall I send you ashore now, or would it suit you to take a boat with me in half an hour? Or perhaps," he added, his manner most elaborately courteous, "on account of your boxes, it would suit you better to be set ashore after dark."
"Give you one hundred pounds," the collector said, still fighting, and ignoring the captain's words entirely.