“We will not talk of these unpleasant details, if you please, Mr. Onslow. I—my heart is weak, I think, and they turn me sick. But at whatever cost, we must go through with the affair. It is necessary that I make a heavy _coup_ within the next month, or the consequences may be disastrous.” “Marmaduke Rivers and Shelf will go down? Quite so. I’m also at the end of my cash balance, so that money seems to be the impelling power for each of us. But come now, wake up, sir, and let’s get on with the business. I’m not so sweet on this City atmosphere of yours that I care to spend another morning down here if it can be avoided. How are you going to raise the specie?” “I’ll proceed about it at once,” said Shelf, pressing another of the buttons on his desk. “You may as well witness every step of the process.” In answer to the bell, Fairfax came into the room, nodded rather stiffly to Onslow, and turned to Shelf with an expectant: “Yes, Sir?” In terse, business-like phrase his principal touched upon the silver crisis in America, and the gold famine in the Southern States. Then he explained the external view of his projected enterprise. “The _Port Edes_,” he said, “is in the Herculaneum Dock, returned on our hands to-day. Wire Liverpool at once, asking for freights to Norfolk Virginia, Pensacola Florida, Mobile Alabama, or New Orleans, at lowest rates. New Orleans is her final port, and offer that at fifteen per cent. less. Captain Owen Kettle will be in command, and he sails in four days from this. When you have deputed your clerks to do this, go yourself to the bank and negotiate for half a million in gold, to be delivered on board the _Port Edes_ in dock. The insurance policy on the money will be deposited with the bank to secure them in full for the loan itself, and for their other charges the credit of the house will easily suffice. Is that clear?” “Perfectly,” said Fairfax; “but I should like to remind you of one thing: wharf thefts at New Orleans are notorious, and you’ll have to pay heavily to insure against them.” “I know—more heavily than for risks across the ocean and the run up the river. Underwriters are justly nervous about those all-nation thieves. But in this instance I propose to save myself that fee, and insure in a different way. Mr. Onslow is going out on the _Port Edes_ expressly as my representative, and I fancy that he and the captain together will be capable of seeing to safe delivery. The ship’s arrival will be reported by telegraph from the pass at Mississippi Mouth, and my New Orleans agent can calculate her appearance alongside the levee to a quarter of an hour. He will meet her with vehicles and a strong escort of deputy-sheriffs as she brings in to her berth, and will take the specie-boxes off by the first gangway which is put ashore, and carry them straight to a bank. Does this strike you as a sound course?”