'Go it, cap!' cried Huish. 'Yoicks! Forrard! 'Old 'ard! There's your
style for the money! Blow me if I don't prefer this to the hother.'
'I do not understand,' said Herrick. 'I have to ask you to excuse me; I
do not understand.'
'Well now, see here, Herrick,' said Davis, 'I'm going to have a word
with you anyway upon a different matter, and it's good that Huish should
hear it too. We're done with this boozing business, and we ask your
pardon for it right here and now. We have to thank you for all you did
for us while we were making hogs of ourselves; you'll find me turn-to
all right in future; and as for the wine, which I grant we stole from
you, I'll take stock and see you paid for it. That's good enough, I
believe. But what I want to point out to you is this. The old game was
a risky game. The new game's as safe as running a Vienna Bakery. We just
put this Farallone before the wind, and run till we're well to looard
of our port of departure and reasonably well up with some other place,
where they have an American Consul. Down goes the Farallone, and
good-bye to her! A day or so in the boat; the consul packs us home,
at Uncle Sam's expense, to 'Frisco; and if that merchant don't put the
dollars down, you come to me!'
'But I thought,' began Herrick; and then broke out; 'oh, let's get on to
Peru!'
'Well, if you're going to Peru for your health, I won't say no!'
replied the captain. 'But for what other blame' shadow of a reason you
should want to go there, gets me clear. We don't want to go there with
this cargo; I don't know as old bottles is a lively article anywheres;
leastways, I'll go my bottom cent, it ain't Peru. It was always a doubt
if we could sell the schooner; I never rightly hoped to, and now I'm
sure she ain't worth a hill of beans; what's wrong with her, I don't
know; I only know it's something, or she wouldn't be here with this
truck in her inside. Then again, if we lose her, and land in Peru, where
are we? We can't declare the loss, or how did we get to Peru? In that
case the merchant can't touch the insurance; most likely he'll go bust;
and don't you think you see the three of us on the beach of Callao?'
'There's no extradition there,' said Herrick.
'Well, my son, and we want to be extraded,' said the captain.
'What's our point? We want to have a consul extrade us as far as San
Francisco and that merchant's office door. My idea is that Samoa would
be found an eligible business centre. It's dead before the wind; the
States have a consul there, and 'Frisco steamers call, so's we could
skip right back and interview the merchant.'
'Samoa?' said Herrick. 'It will take us for ever to get there.'
'Oh, with a fair wind!' said the captain.
'No trouble about the log, eh?' asked Huish.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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