"Let me tell it my own way," cried Wicks, loosening his
neck. "Let me get at it gradual or I'll explode. I've
not only sold it, boys, I've wrung out a charter on my
own terms to 'Frisco and back,--on my own terms. I
made a point of it. I fooled him first by making
believe I wanted copra, which, of course, I knew he
wouldn't hear of--couldn't, in fact; and whenever he
showed fight I trotted out the copra, and that man
dived! I would take nothing but copra, you see; and so
I've got the blooming lot in specie--all but two short
bills on 'Frisco. And the sum? Well, this whole
adventure, including two thousand pounds of credit,
cost us two thousand seven hundred and some odd.
That's all paid back; in thirty days' cruise we've paid
for the schooner and the trade. Heard ever any man the
match of that? And it's not all! For besides that,"
said the captain, hammering his words, "we've got
thirteen blooming hundred pounds of profit to divide.
I bled him in four thou.!" he cried, in a voice that
broke like a schoolboy's.
For a moment the partners looked upon their chief with
stupefaction, incredulous surprise their only feeling.
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