"Oh, you might've.... More than a year, seeking support for the greatest venture a man's spirit ever conceived. I was ignored, laughed at, brushed aside. I sought out the merchants, for behind all the pious canting they've become the rulers of your Boston and I suppose you know it. Sought 'em out one after another, and spilled my heart, the while they looked at my poor clothes and shuffled their feet and remembered important business. I sought audience with your Governor Dudley himself--Mother of God, would he even admit me to the bloody presence? Queen Anne's man, body and soul.... Somehow, Ben--and mark this, I pray you--at some time that miserable year, the story was passed about that I had been with John Quelch. And--why, damn their souls, so I was, for a while. I did ship with him, being penniless and starving, and escaped him as soon as I might. He was evil, Ben, a common pirate, it was right he should hang. I served him briefly, I did that, having no choice, and the rumor of it was made a cause why I should be persecuted, ignored, laughed at, brushed aside. Compassed about.... And still, didn't I ask far less than was asked by Cabot, Drake, Magellan? A trifle of support, mind you, a tiny fleet, a sound crew, a charter to explore--don't you see any man of them might have compounded his fortune a hundred times and written his name in history beside my own? But would they? You know the answer, and they shall know the whole of it too, in time.... And somehow, Ben--while I went from one to another wearing my heart out--somehow a few of them did finally understand a little of what I so recklessly told concerning this venture. Certain of them began to think: Why not the venture without the man? You see? Have you ever heard of such a thing as stealing a man's dreams?" "What has this to do with Captain Jenks?" "Surely it's plain? The man you childishly call Captain was one of those who began to ask themselves: What if this wild, shabby, tedious Irishman hath glimpsed something of value after all? What if there _are_ new lands for the taking in the western sea, and why should this miserable noisy Sligo man, this old Shawn, why should _he_ have any part of it?... Why, I couldn't believe this of Peter Jenks myself for a long time--never came to me that he was one of 'em, till he hired that man Hanson in the room of me--and that in despite of your great-uncle." "But----"