“Nothing doing, Cappy.”
“I'll make it—let me see—I'll make it twenty thousand.”
“You waste your breath. She'll pay for herself the first year she's in commission.”
“I'll furnish the sinews of war, Gus, for a half interest in her. Let me add her to the Blue Star Fleet and you'll never regret it.”
“Sorry, Cappy; but Luiz and I are ambitious. We want to get into the steamship business ourselves.”
“Well, then, I've offered to do the fair thing by you two lunatics,” Cappy declared with a great air of finality. “So now I'll deliver my ultimatum: I'm going to keep the Valkyrie and not give you two as much as one little piece of her. Yes, sir! I'm going to send a representative to Papeete and match you and that Australian chap for your shoe-strings. Gus, you know me! If I ever go after a thing and don't get it, the man that takes it away from me will know he's been in a fight.”
“Indeed, I know it, Cappy—which is why I kept this information carefully to myself. However, I guess you'll not get in on this good thing.”
“Why?”
“You're too late for the banquet.”
“Not one leetle hope ees left for you, Cappy Reeks,” Senor Almeida asserted. “The Moana, on which my good partner have engaged passage to-day, ees the last steamer which shall arrive to Papeete before the bids shall be open. The next steamer, Capitan Reeks ees arrive too late.”