“Why the craft being little more than in good ballast trim, I keep the hatches off to air her; and the spray might spit down upon the flour at odd times but for them ’ere sails.”
“Ay, a prudent caution. So you think Uncle Sam’s people will be after this flour as soon as they learn you have got it snug in at Key West?”
“What more likely, sir? You know how it is with our government—always wrong, whatever it does! and I can show you paragraphs in letters written from New Orleens, which tell us that Uncle Sam is paying 75 and 80 per cent. more for flour than any body else.”
“He must be a flush old chap to be able to do that, Spike.”
“Flush! I rather think he is. Do you know that he is spendin’, accordin’ to approved accounts, at this blessed moment, as much as half a million a day. I own a wish to be pickin’ up some of the coppers while they are scattered about so plentifully.”
“Half a million a day! why that is only at the rate of $187,000,000 per annum; a mere trifle, Spike, that is scarce worth mentioning among us mariners.”
“It’s so in the newspapers, I can swear, lieutenant.”
“Ay, ay, and the newspapers will swear to it, too, and they that gave the newspapers their cue. But no matter, our business is with this flour. Will you sell us a barrel or two for our mess? I heard the caterer say we should want flour in the course of a week or so.”
Spike seemed embarrassed, though not to a degree to awaken suspicion in his companion.
“I never sold cargo at sea, long as I’ve sailed and owned a craft,” he answered as if uncertain what to do. “If you’ll pay the price I expect to get in the Gulf, and will take ten barrels, I don’t know but we may make a trade on’t. I shall only ask expected prices.”