“After that?”
“I know—there is some deviltry behind it. But still he is a good man. You 'll have hard work finding a better. And honest, I would kind of hate to face Cap'n Stenzenberger myself with this story.”
“Why? I can't have a man around that's going to steal my schooner in my sleep.”
“Oh, well, he could never do that again. I can't see what he was thinking of. Do you see into it at all?”
Dick had been staring at the cabin table. At this question he raised his eyes, for an instant, with an odd expression. “I know all I want to. The whole thing is so outrageous that I am not going to try to follow it up.”
“He talked to your man about a rake-off, didn't he?”
Dick nodded.
“What do you suppose he was going to rake?”
Dick, whose eyes were lowered, and who was therefore unconscious of the pallor of his cousin's face, said nothing.
“I know we don't look at some things quite the same, Dick,” Henry went on. “But if anybody on my schooner is going to do any raking, he has got to see me first. A dollar's a dollar, my boy. When you are my age, you will think so too.”