"You'll pay me cash, of course," Captain Dove stipulated, as though he had been bargaining about a charter-party.
"I'll pay you cash," Slyne agreed, "the day Sallie marries me. And meantime I'll give you my note of hand at thirty days for the money." He listened intently, but Captain Dove, struggling fretfully with refractory buttons, maintained an ominous silence.
"I'll have it backed by a London lawyer, to keep you safe," said Slyne. "And listen! I'm not asking you to risk anything, or even to take my note at its face value. I want you to come ashore with me and find out for yourself from my lawyer that you can depend on the money. If you don't feel satisfied about that after you've seen him, you needn't go any farther, we'll call the bargain off; you can get back on board your ship at once and no harm done.
"And, even as regards Sallie, I'm going out of my way to keep you right. I'd give a great deal to get married at once, but—I'm willing to wait till the day I can hand you your hundred thousand in cash. Everything's fair, square, and above-board now. I'm not asking you to risk anything.
"And where in the wide world can you expect to do better for yourself!" he argued. "If you go East you'll get no more for the girl—and look at the expense! You'll be sorry all the rest of your life, too, for I know you'd far sooner see her decently settled than sell her to any dog-faced son-of-a-gun of a mandarin!
"You can say what you like," he concluded, although Captain Dove had said never a word. "Clean money's pleasanter to spend than dirty, any day. If I had been born wealthy, I'd never have needed to touch a marked card. And now's your chance, too, to pull out of a rotten rut that'll sooner or later land you among the chain-gang."
Captain Dove came forth from his cabin, indifferently clad, and eyed Slyne with a sarcastic interest which somewhat disconcerted that homilist.
"You don't look just like a Band o' Hope!" said the old man, "but—"
Slyne rose again, and bit his lip, in simulated impatience. "Oh, all right," said he. "If you're not interested—"
Captain Dove scowled at him. "I'm interested," he said grudgingly. "I'll see this lawyer-fellow of yours whenever you like to bring him aboard, and—if the money's there, you can count me in."