“Yes. That is the name the papers have given to the whole organization, and the organization, of course, is me.”
“Would you mind talking rather slowly? I know shorthand, but I'm decidedly out of practice at it.”
“Certainly not. Suppose I explain the organization in a few words.”
“That 'll do first-rate.”
“If I forget and get to going too fast, just stop me. You see, as master of the Schmidt, doing a tramp lumber business all around Lake Michigan and Lake Huron, I was able to run the whole thing at both ends and still keep about my business. I didn't have to use the mails—I didn't have to do a thing that didn't look as solemn and proper as the Methodist minister and his parish calls.”
“I see. It was ingenious—no doubt about it.”
“To be on the safe side, I located my stills over in Canada.”
“I know,—at Burnt Cove.”
“Yes; it was about as inaccessible there as any place on the Lakes. And as we didn't try to sell the stuff over there, but shipped it all across to the States, we were really safe enough. I don't know what either country could have done about it, so far as the stills are concerned.”
“Suppose I take it up here, Mr. Smiley, do you mind?”