"Pooh, pooh!" he muttered; "I can't consider such a thing. If you think to speculate in flour in this country, you will miss it, and lose your money."
"Perhaps I shall; but as flour has risen in price since I purchased, I don't see why I should not reap the benefit of it."
I bowed courteously to the merchant, replaced my veil, (for during the summer months, when the ground is dry, and the wind blows strong, it is necessary to wear a veil, to protect the eyes from the dust which rises in heavy clouds, and at times obscures the sun like a thunder squall,) and walked off, hoping that I should hear his voice calling me back, but in this I was disappointed. Mr. Hennetit thought that I would repent, and come to his terms, and so determined to stand the pressure one day more, at all hazards.
I walked directly to the river, and found that the wind was blowing off shore like great guns. This elated me, although I remembered the words of the tarry mariner, and wondered how it was out upon the broad ocean.
For two days I had not slept an hour's time, or eaten more than a crust of bread; but when I saw how the wind was blowing, I returned to my hotel, and supplied my nearly exhausted system with food.
No sooner had I finished dinner than I was told that a gentleman wished to speak to me in the bar room. I went there, and saw one of the merchants from whom I had purchased one hundred sacks of Chilian flour, and one hundred barrels of American brand.
"Well!" he exclaimed, shaking hands with some warmth, "you have dished us, and no mistake! Who, in the devil's name, would have supposed that those two ships could have made such long passages—did you?" and then, without waiting for me to answer, he marched up to the bar and called for drinks, and I must confess that I gratified him, and pleased myself, in taking a very good glass of wine and water at his expense.
"Come, now to business," my acquaintance said, wiping his lips on a richly embroidered handkerchief, imported from Manilla.
"Very well, to business it is," said I.