“It's a fair question I have asked. So far as you are concerned in anything which may be in those papers--and that's mostly my own reports--you will be squared and more, captain. You can have the _Triton_ with a ten-years' contract as master, contract to be protected by a bond, your pay two hundred and fifty dollars a month. Of course that trade includes your reinstatement as a licensed master and the dropping of all charges in the _Montana_ matter. There is no indictment, and the witnesses will be taken care of, so that the matter will not come up, providing you have enemies. This is man's talk, Mayo! You'll have to admit it!” “There's another thing which must be admitted, Fogg! I have been disgraced, hounded, and persecuted. The men along this coast, the most of them, will always believe I made a mistake. You know what that means to a shipmaster!” Mr. Fogg wiped the moisture off his cheeks with a purple handkerchief. “You were put in devilish wrong. I admit it. I went too far. That's why Marston is making me the goat now. I shall be dumped if this matter isn't straightened out between us!” “I was in this very room one day, Mr. Fogg, and saw how you dumped one Burkett. You seemed to enjoy doing it. Why shouldn't I have a little enjoyment of my own?” “I had to dump him. He was a fool. He had bragged. I had to protect interests as well as myself. But you haven't anything to consider, right now, but your own profit.” “Is that so?” inquired Mayo, sardonically. “You seem to have me sized up as one of these mild and forgiving angels.” “Now, look here, Mayo, don't let any fool notions stand in the way of your making good. It isn't sense; it isn't business! You have something we want and we're willing to come across for it.” “What other strings are hitched on?” asked the young man, feigning intractability as his best resource in this puzzling affair. “Well, of course you give up that fool job you're working on. Quit being a junkman!” “I'm not a junkman. We're going to float the Conomo.” “Mayo, talk sense! That job can't be done!” “So you've been telling every outfitter and banking-man in this city, Fogg! But now you are talking to a man who knows better. And let me say something else to you. I'll do no business with the kind of a man you have shown yourself to be.” “Don't be a boy, Mayo. I'm here with full powers. We'll take that wreck off your hands.” “Want to kill her as she stands, do you?” “It's our business what we do with her after we pay our money,” declared Fogg, bridling. “There's something more than business--business with you--in this matter.” “Yes, I see there is! It's your childish revenge you're looking after. I'll give you ten thousand dollars to divide among that bunch of paupers. Send them along about their fishing, and be sensible.”