I don’t believe there’s another man but me in ’Frisco,” he cried, with a sudden fervor of self admiration, “who could have raised that last ten thousand!—­Then there’s another thing.  I had hoped you might have peddled that opium through the islands, which is safer and more profitable.  But with this three-month limit, you must make tracks for Honolulu straight, and communicate by steamer.  I’ll try to put up something for you there; I’ll have a man spoken to who’s posted on that line of biz.  Keep a bright lookout for him as soon’s you make the islands; for it’s on the cards he might pick you up at sea in a whaleboat or a steam-launch, and bring the dollars right on board.”

It shows how much I had suffered morally during my sojourn in San Francisco, that even now when our fortunes trembled in the balance, I should have consented to become a smuggler and (of all things) a smuggler of opium.  Yet I did, and that in silence; without a protest, not without a twinge.

“And suppose,” said I, “suppose the opium is so securely hidden that I can’t get hands on it?”

“Then you will stay there till that brig is kindling-wood, and stay and split that kindling-wood with your penknife,” cried Pinkerton.  “The stuff is there; we know that; and it must be found.  But all this is only the one string to our bow—­though I tell you I’ve gone into it head-first, as if it was our bottom dollar.  Why, the first thing I did before I’d raised a cent, and with this other notion in my head already—­the first thing I did was to secure the schooner.  The Nora Creina, she is, sixty-four tons, quite big enough for our purpose since the rice is spoiled, and the fastest thing of her tonnage out of San Francisco.  For a bonus of two hundred, and a monthly charter of three, I have her for my own time; wages and provisions, say four hundred more:  a drop in the bucket.  They began firing the cargo out of her (she was part loaded) near two hours ago; and about the same time John Smith got the order for the stores.  That’s what I call business.”

“No doubt of that,” said I.  “But the other notion?”

“Well, here it is,” said Jim.  “You agree with me that Bellairs was ready to go higher?”

I saw where he was coming.  “Yes—­and why shouldn’t he?” said I.  “Is that the line?”

“That’s the line, Loudon Dodd,” assented Jim.  “If Bellairs and his principal have any desire to go me better, I’m their man.”

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.”