"Not a thing," said Gard.
"Well, a can of opium can be bought for five dollars in Jamaica, and sold for twenty-seven fifty in Philadelphia."
"That's a pretty good profit," said the special agent; "but a man would have to get more than two or three boxes past for it to amount to anything."
"If you had a trim little schooner and some one to show you how to get her past the authorities, and she was loaded with opium to the gunwales, you would not have to make a trip every other week to keep in cigarette money, would you?"
"Obviously not," assented the capitalist.
"And you may have noticed all these idle Chinamen about Sing Foo's place," continued the smuggler. "Somebody is going to get one hundred and fifty dollars apiece for running those fellows into the States. They are crossing in a steady stream and getting past. It is but around the corner of Cuba and a hundred inlets inviting. Twenty of the Chinks can live in a space as big as a dog's house, and they feed themselves. It's clear profit. The little schooner could carry a score or so of them every trip."
"It looks like a good proposition on paper," said Gard. "If it could be demonstrated, it would easily get a backer. But the trouble with all such schemes is that they are good on paper, but they can't be actually shown upon the basis that a business man with money demands."
"But this one can be shown," urged the smuggler.
"That is the way you fellows with fancy schemes always talk," argued Gard. "You can make all the money in the world if you only had the backing. Then a man with the money comes along and says 'show me.' You always fall down on the showing."
"Would you put up the price of a schooner and a cargo of opium if you were shown that my scheme would work?" asked the smuggler.