“I don’t know yet,” returned the captain, with a grin. “I’ll see what the name is on my new certificate, and that’ll be good enough for me. If I can’t get one to buy, though I never heard of such a thing, there’s old Kirkup, he’s turned some sort of farmer down Bondi way; he’ll hire me his.”
“You seemed to speak as if you had a ship in view,” said Carthew.
“So I have too,” said Captain Wicks, “and a beauty. Schooner yacht Dream—got lines you never saw the beat of, and a witch to go. She passed me once off Thursday Island, doing two knots to my one and lying a point and a half better, and the Grace Darling was a ship that I was proud of. I took and tore my hair. The Dream’s been my dream ever since. That was in the old days, when she carried a blue ens’n. Grant Sanderson was the party as owned her; he was rich and mad, and got a fever at last somewhere about the Fly River and took and died. The captain brought the body back to Sydney and paid off. Well, it turned out Grant Sanderson had left any quantity of wills and any quantity of widows, and no fellow could make out which was the genuine article. All the widows brought lawsuits against all the rest, and every will had a firm of lawyers on the quarter-deck as long as your arm. They tell me it was one of the biggest turns-to that ever was seen, bar Tichborne; the Lord Chamberlain himself was floored, and so was the Lord Chancellor, and all that time the Dream lay rotting up by Glebe Point. Well, it’s done now; they’ve picked out a widow and a will—tossed up for it, as like as not—and the Dream’s for sale. She’ll go cheap; she’s had a long turn-to at rotting.”
“What size is she?”
“Well, big enough. We don’t want her bigger. A hundred and ninety, going two hundred,” replied the captain. “She’s fully big for us three; it would be all the better if we had another hand, though it’s a pity too, when you can pick up natives for half nothing. Then we must have a cook. I can fix raw sailor-men, but there’s no going to sea with a new-chum cook. I can lay hands on the man we want for that: a Highway boy, an old shipmate of mine, of the name of Amalu. Cooks first-rate, and it’s always better to have a native; he ain’t fly, you can turn him to as you please, and he don’t know enough to stand out for his rights.”
From the moment that Captain Wicks joined in the conversation, Carthew recovered interest and confidence; the man (whatever he might have done) was plainly good-natured, and plainly capable; if he thought well of the enterprise, offered to contribute money, brought experience, and could thus solve at a word the problem of the trade, Carthew was content to go ahead. As for Hadden, his cup was full; he and Bostock forgave each other in champagne; toast followed toast; it was proposed and carried amid acclamation to change the name of the schooner (when she should be bought) to the Currency Lass; and the “Currency Lass Island Trading Company” was practically founded before dusk.
Three days later, Carthew stood before the lawyer, still in his jean suit, received his hundred and fifty pounds, and proceeded rather timidly to ask for more indulgence.
“I have a chance to get on in the world,” he said. “By to-morrow evening I expect to be part owner of a ship.”
“Dangerous property, Mr. Carthew,” said the lawyer.
“Not if the partners work her themselves, and stand to go down along with her,” was the reply.