“An' what you s'pose she have in her?” Live Wire Luiz demanded. “Oh, notheeng very much, Senor Ricks. Just two t'ousand tons of phosphate.”
“Worth ten or twelve dollars a ton, Cappy.”
“An' t'irteen hundred tons of the good coal to bring her to San Francisco, Ai, Santa Maria!” Live Wire Luiz blew a kiss airily into space and added: “I die weeth dee-light!”
“You haven't got her yet,” Cappy snapped viciously.
“No; but we'll get her all right,” Redell declared confidently.
“How'll you get her?”
“We've only one real competitor to buck—an Australian steamship company. They're crazy to get her; and as there are no French bidders on this side of the world, naturally and in view of the present condition of world politics the French authorities in Papeete are pulling for the Britisher. Jinks is now in Papeete and I'm about to start for there at one o'clock. Two bids, Cappy; I'll be the dark horse and file my bid at the last minute, after I've sized up the lay of the land. But, before I do so, I'm going to take the representative of that Australian steamship company into my confidence and find out what he's going to bid. For instance, now, Cappy, if you were bidding against me, how high would you go?”
“She's a long way from nowhere,” Cappy replied thoughtfully. “It means sending a wrecking steamer down there with a lot of expert wreckers, divers, mechanics and carpenters; it means lumber for cofferdam and pontoons; it means donkey engines, cables, pumps, the stress of wind and wave—”
“She lies in a protected cove, Cappy; the mean rise and fall of the tide, so close to the equator, is about eighteen inches, and the water is so clear you can always see what the divers are doing. Forget the stress of wind and wave.”
“Forty thousand dollars would be my top figure if I were the Australian bidder,” Cappy declared, and added to himself: “But, as Alden P. Ricks, seventy-five might not stagger me in view of the present freight rates.”