“What do you mean?” asked Tommy.
“I’ve sold the trade,” answered Wicks; “or, rather, I’ve sold only some of it, for I’ve kept back all the mess beef, and half the flour and biscuit, and, by God, we’re still provisioned for four months! By God, it’s as good as stolen!”
“My word!” cried Hemstead.
“But what have you sold it for?” gasped Carthew, the captain’s almost insane excitement shaking his nerve.
“Let me tell it my own way,” cried Wicks, loosening his neck. “Let me get at it gradual or I’ll explode. I’ve not only sold it, boys, I’ve wrung out a charter on my own terms to ’Frisco and back,—on my own terms. I made a point of it. I fooled him first by making believe I wanted copra, which, of course, I knew he wouldn’t hear of—couldn’t, in fact; and whenever he showed fight I trotted out the copra, and that man dived! I would take nothing but copra, you see; and so I’ve got the blooming lot in specie—all but two short bills on ’Frisco. And the sum? Well, this whole adventure, including two thousand pounds of credit, cost us two thousand seven hundred and some odd. That’s all paid back; in thirty days’ cruise we’ve paid for the schooner and the trade. Heard ever any man the match of that? And it’s not all! For besides that,” said the captain, hammering his words, “we’ve got thirteen blooming hundred pounds of profit to divide. I bled him in four thou.!” he cried, in a voice that broke like a schoolboy’s.
For a moment the partners looked upon their chief with stupefaction, incredulous surprise their only feeling. Tommy was the first to grasp the consequences.
“Here,” he said in a hard business tone, “come back to that saloon: I’ve got to get drunk.”
“You must please excuse me, boys,” said the captain earnestly. “I daren’t taste nothing. If I was to drink one glass of beer it’s my belief I’d have the apoplexy. The last scrimmage and the blooming triumph pretty nigh-hand done me.”
“Well, then, three cheers for the captain,” proposed Tommy.
But Wicks held up a shaking hand. “Not that either, boys,” he pleaded. “Think of the other buffer, and let him down easy. If I’m like this, just fancy what Topelius is. If he heard us singing out, he’d have the staggers.”