"Eh? . . . _You_'re a nice man to talk, I must say! Come to me, you do, and want me to get you anything up to twenty per cent without risk. How d'ee think that's done in these days, with every one cuttin' freights? I gave you credit for havin' more sense." 'Bias stared. "See here," he said slowly, "if I'd known that hundred pound was to be put into any such wickedness, I'd have seen you further before trustin' you with it. As 'tis, I'll trouble you--" "Hold hard, there!" Mr Rogers interrupted. "You're in a tarnation hurry every way, 'twould seem. Who told you as I'd put that hundred into any vessel below Plimsoll mark?" "I thought you hinted as much." "Then you thought a long sight too fast. If you must know, your money's in the old _Saltypool_, and old as she is, that steamship might be my child, the way I watch over her." "The _Saltypool!_ Why, she's the most scand'lous case as has gone out of harbour these three months!" "Eh?" "I saw her with my own eyes alongside No. 3 jetty, the evenin' before she sailed. A calm night it was too; and she with her Plimsoll well under and a whole line o' trucks waitin' to be shot into her. She went out before daybreak, if you remember, and God knows how low she was by that time." Mr Rogers's jaw dropped. "The idiots!" he muttered. "When I told 'em--" He broke off. "I say, you're not pullin' my leg?" "Saw her with my own eyes, I tell you," 'Bias assured him, wondering a little; for the old sinner's dismay was clearly honest. "Then all I say is, you can call Fancy and tell her to fetch me a Bible, if there's one in the house, an' I'll swear to you I never knew it, an' I never seen it. What's more, I'll sack the captain, an' I'll sack the mate. What's more, I'll cable dismissal out to Philadelphy. What's more--" "There, there!" interposed 'Bias. "You didn' know, and enough said! I don't want any man thrown out of employ. 'Tis the system I'm out to spoil." "Skippers are a trouble-without-end in these days," Mr Rogers muttered on, staring gloomily at the fire in the grate; "specially to a man crippled like me. . . . You spend years sarchin' for a fool, an' you no sooner get the treasure, as you think--one you can trust for a plain ord'nary fool in all weathers--than he turns out a _dam_ fool!" On his way from the ship-chandler's 'Bias ran against Mr Philp, who paused in the roadway and eyed him, chewing a piece of news and chuckling. "That friend o' yours is a wonnur!" preluded Mr Philp. "Meanin' Caius Hocken?" "Who else? . . . He's goin' a great pace in these days; but you won't tell me he has flown out o' _that_ range? Yes, 'tis Cap'n Hocken I mean; our Mayor, as you may call him; and there's some as looks to see a silver cradle yet in his mayoralty." "What's the latest?" 'Bias could not help putting the question, yet despised himself for it. "He's President of the Stevedores' Regatta this year." "Get along with your news--I heard it ten days ago."