It was Captain Image returning red and wrathful from an unsuccessful cargo foray amongst the southern and eastern factories that Carter met the day after his arrival at the Coast. The mariner had heard of the deal at Mokki, and felt personally affronted that a nest of cargo which he had already looked upon as his own should have been handed over once more to the Germans. "So you're on the beach, are you," said he, looking Carter up and down with vast disapproval. "I must say you look it. I've seen old Swizzle-Stick Smith come down after a jaunt in the bush and I thought he couldn't be beat for general shagginess and rags. But you give him points. What did Miss Kate bounce you for?" "I believe I resigned." "Same thing. And now you've come to ask me to take you home as a distressed British subject, I suppose. Well, Carter-me-lad, a deck passage is your whack according to consular understanding, but you've sat in my chart house and you've sent me cargo, and so I'm going to put my hand in my own breeches pocket and take you home in the second class. And I tell you what: Chips and the bo's'n have got a shop in the foc's'le that I'm not supposed to know about, and if you care to go in there and get enough rig out to see you home, I'll foot the bill." "You're very good----" "I know I am. It puts me about five weeks further off that hen farm outside Cardiff that I want to retire onto, being good like this. There, run away out of this chart house, me-lad, and tell the chief steward to give you a square blow-out of white-man's chop one-time. I'm sure you need it. I never saw a man with so much of the lard stewed off him." Carter laughed. "Will you let me slip a word in? I've cargo for you." "What! You!" "I'm afraid you won't hook much commission out of it, Cappie, as you'll have to take it at ballast rates." "Catch me." "But there'll be about seventy tons of it as far as I can reckon." "My Christian Aunt! do you tell me, Carter-me-lad, that you've scratched up seventy tons of cargo? Here, sit down. No, sit down. Don't talk. I'm not going to have you going away and calling the _M'poso_ a dry ship." Captain Image had no tariff rate for tin ore, but he invented one with great readiness, and then knocked off ten per cent. by way of encouraging a new industry. "Now, where is this mine of yours?" he asked genially. "Tell me, and I warrant I'll find you an easier way to bring your produce than paddling it in dugouts." "Up the river." "Well, let's look at your charts, me-lad." Carter shook his head. "Why, how's that? Haven't you made one?" "Oh, I've made one right enough, but it's inside my skull and out of public view." "H'm," said Image. "Don't want any competitors, eh, Carter-me-lad?" "Why should I?" "Well, drink up, and let me fill your glass. Here, have another squirt of bitters."