Charley stopped peeling a potato to ask her name.
"The Southern Cross."
"Bark?"
"Yes, a bark."
"Well, p'r'aps now that ain't queer," Charley continued. "That's her moored just astern of us. Never broke bulk; ship and cargo sold at auction to pay freight and charges. Went dirt cheap. My boss, he bought 'em in on a spec. And a mighty poor spec it's turned out. Why, everybody's got lumber to burn."
Charley seemed so glum over it that Walter was about to drop the subject, when Charley resumed it. "You see, boys," he began, "here's where the shoe pinches. I had scraped together a tidy little sum of my own, workin' on ship work at big wages, sometimes for this man, sometimes for that. I was thinkin' all the while of buying off those folks at home who fitted me out (Walt here knows who I mean), when along comes my boss and says to me, 'I say, young feller, you seem a busy sort of chap. I've had my eye on you some time. Now, I tell you what I'll do with you. No nonsense now. Got any dust?' 'A few hundreds,' says I. 'Well, then,' says he, 'I don't mind givin' you a lift. Here's this Southern Cross goin' to be sold for the freight. I'll buy it in on halves. You pay what you can down on the nail, the rest when we sell out at a profit. Sabe?' Like a fool I jumped at the chance."
"Well, what ails you?" growled the irrepressible Bill; "that 'ar ship can't git away, moored with five fathoms o' chain, can she? Pine boards don't eat nor drink nothin', do they?"
"Who said they did?" Charley tartly retorted. It was plain to see that with him the Southern Cross was a sore subject.
"Waal, 'tain't ushil to cry much over bein' a lumber king, is it?" persisted Bill, in his hectoring way. "Down East, whar I come from, they laugh and grow fat."