"It should not be," he declared. "There is never a time that I lay out a gold piece and get a pallid collection of silver bits in exchange that I don't feel I've been robbed. I have no grudge against silver as a metal, mark you; for as such it has its uses. It is only when you put a stamp upon disks of it and tell me it's money that I rise up against you. For then it's a cheat; it's a cold unencouraging thing; and for all its pretense it's not quick; the only life it has is that given it by the efforts of men like you." "Might not the same be said of gold?" asked the other man. "Never," said he of the hook-nose, positively. "Impossible. For gold, sir, possesses something more than the natural chemistry of its composition. And, in spite of the general belief, learned men of other years did not give their minds to transmuting the duller metals only because of the profit it might bring them." "What, then, was it?" asked the comfortable man. "If the truth were known," said the other, "we'd find that they sought for a life principle which nature had hidden from us, and which gold possesses. It is a thing which the eye can see and the hand touch, but for which we have not a proper understanding." "Ah!" said the comfortable man tolerantly. "You give a kind of magic to it." "I do not," denied the man with the hook-nose. "To prove to yourself that there's rare virtue in gold, you have only to note its effect upon dulled, whipped, and joyless things. Put a piece of it into the pocket of a poor man, and it at once begins to warm him; his eyes see things not visible before; his mind dreams dreams. Many a man has crept, shabby and ashamed, before the face of day; and the touch of gold has brought his eyes to a level, and put some of that curl into his lip that makes life possible." A number of persons were speaking through the smoke of their pipes at a round table at Anthony's elbow. "By God!" said one, "she came racing home, two weeks before her time, and looking as fit as a queen! And until she let go her anchor in the stream, opposite my wharf, she'd never taken in a sail." "What does your master report?" asked another. "Are there many English or French war-ships in the trade paths?" "He sighted some sail of them," said the first man, "but they were too far away to give him any worry." "Two days out from Antwerp the ship _Huntress_ had her foremast splintered by a six-pound shot." "The British are brisk with their shots," grumbled the second man. "Too brisk," said the third. "And the French are as bad. If they must cut each other's throats, why can't they do it quietly? Here we are at peace with the world and making shift to get our fair share of its trade, and they must set to popping away at each other, and churning the sea all into a muddle."