Then all of us were quiet, for there stood Captain Hammar himself.
"Why, Mark, I thought you'd gone down the Cape!" said Conboy.
"I lost the train," he answered.
"Well, what about that vessel you was going to buy in Gloucester?"
"I got to sail over," said Captain Hammar.
Conboy glanced out of the window. The bay was ringed around with heavy clouds; weather was making. Storm signals were flying up on Town Hill, and down the harbor a fleet of scared vessels were making for port.
"You can't go out in that, Mark," says Conboy.
"I've got the money," says Mark Hammar, "and I'm going to go. If I don't get down there that crazy Portygee'll have sold that vessel to some one else. It ain't every day you can buy a vessel like that for the price. He let me know about it first, but he won't wait long, and he's got to have the cash in his hands. He's up to some crooked work or he wouldn't 'a' sent the boy down with the letter; he'd 'a' sent it by post, or telegraphed even. He's let me know about it first, but he won't wait. It was getting the money strapped up that made me late. I had to wait for the old cashier to get back from his dinner."
"You and your money'll be in the bottom of the bay, that's where you'll be," said Conboy.
"If I'd taken in sail for every little bit o' wind I'd encountered in my life," said Mark Hammar, "I'd not be where I am now. So I just thought I'd come and run in on Deolda before I left, seeing as I'm going to marry her when I get back."