“You will never know anything of literature,” said I, when Jim had finished.  “That is a good, honest, plain piece of work, and tells the story clearly.  I see only one mistake:  the cook is not a Chinaman; he is a Kanaka, and I think a Hawaiian.”

“Why, how do you know that?” asked Jim.

“I saw the whole gang yesterday in a saloon,” said I.  “I even heard the tale, or might have heard it, from Captain Trent himself, who struck me as thirsty and nervous.”

“Well, that’s neither here nor there,” cried Pinkerton.  “The point is, how about these dollars lying on a reef?”

“Will it pay?” I asked.

“Pay like a sugar trust!” exclaimed Pinkerton.  “Don’t you see what this British officer says about the safety?  Don’t you see the cargo’s valued at ten thousand?  Schooners are begging just now; I can get my pick of them at two hundred and fifty a month; and how does that foot up?  It looks like three hundred per cent. to me.”

“You forget,” I objected, “the captain himself declares the rice is damaged.”

“That’s a point, I know,” admitted Jim.  “But the rice is the sluggish article, anyway; it’s little more account than ballast; it’s the tea and silks that I look to:  all we have to find is the proportion, and one look at the manifest will settle that.  I’ve rung up Lloyd’s on purpose; the captain is to meet me there in an hour, and then I’ll be as posted on that brig as if I built her.  Besides, you’ve no idea what pickings there are about a wreck—­copper, lead, rigging, anchors, chains, even the crockery, Loudon!”

“You seem to me to forget one trifle,” said I.  “Before you pick that wreck, you’ve got to buy her, and how much will she cost?”

“One hundred dollars,” replied Jim, with the promptitude of an automaton.

“How on earth do you guess that?” I cried.

“I don’t guess; I know it,” answered the Commercial Force.  “My dear boy, I may be a galoot about literature, but you’ll always be an outsider in business.  How do you suppose I bought the James L. Moody for two hundred and fifty, her boats alone worth four times the money?  Because my name stood first in the list.  Well it stands there again; I have the naming of the figure, and I name a small one because of the distance:  but it wouldn’t matter what I named; that would be the price.”

“It sounds mysterious enough,” said I.  “Is this public auction conducted in a subterranean vault?  Could a plain citizen—­myself, for instance—­come and see?”

“O, everything’s open and above board!” he cried indignantly.  “Anybody can come, only nobody bids against us; and if he did, he would get frozen out.  It’s been tried before now, and once was enough.  We hold the plant; we’ve got the connection; we can afford to go higher than any outsider; there’s two million dollars in the ring; and we stick at nothing.  Or suppose anybody did buy over our head—­I tell you, Loudon, he would think this town gone crazy; he could no more get business through on the city front than I can dance; schooners, divers, men—­all he wanted—­the prices would fly right up and strike him.”