A sudden thought, a sudden fear, shot into my mind. What if I had been right? What if my childish pleasantry had frightened the principal away, and thus destroyed our chance? Shame closed my mouth; I began instinctively a long course of reticence; and it was without a word of my meeting with Bellairs, or my discovery of the address in Mission Street, that I continued the discussion. "Doubtless fifty thousand was originally mentioned as a round sum," said I, "or, at least, so Bellairs supposed. But at the same time it may be an outside sum; and to cover the expenses we have already incurred for the money and the schooner--I am far from blaming you; I see how needful it was to be ready for either event--but to cover them we shall want a rather large advance." "Bellairs will go to sixty thousand; it's my belief, if he were properly handled, he would take the hundred," replied Pinkerton. "Look back on the way the sale ran at the end." "That is my own impression as regards Bellairs," I admitted; "the point I am trying to make is that Bellairs himself may be mistaken; that what he supposed to be a round sum was really an outside figure." "Well, Loudon, if that is so," said Jim, with extraordinary gravity of face and voice, "if that is so, let him take the _Flying Scud_ at fifty thousand, and joy go with her! I prefer the loss." "Is that so, Jim? Are we dipped as bad as that?" I cried. "We've put our hand farther out than we can pull it in again, Loudon," he replied. "Why, man, that fifty thousand dollars, before we get clear again, will cost us nearer seventy. Yes, it figures up overhead to more than ten per cent, a month; and I could do no better, and there isn't the man breathing could have done as well. It was a miracle, Loudon. I couldn't but admire myself. O, if we had just the four months! And you know, Loudon, it may still be done. With your energy and charm, if the worst comes to the worst, you can run that schooner as you ran one of your picnics; and we may have luck. And O man! if we do pull it through, what a dashing operation it will be! What an advertisement! what a thing to talk of and remember all our lives! However," he broke off suddenly, "we must try the safe thing first. Here's for the shyster!" There was another struggle in my mind, whether I should even now admit my knowledge of the Mission Street address. But I had let the favourable moment slip. I had now, which made it the more awkward, not merely the original discovery, but my late suppression to confess. I could not help reasoning, besides, that the more natural course was to approach the principal by the road of his agent's office; and there weighed upon my spirits a conviction that we were already too late, and that the man was gone two hours ago. Once more, then, I held my peace; and after an exchange of words at the telephone to assure ourselves he was at home, we set out for the attorney's office.