Nevertheless, as he stood there, he was thinking to himself that he must have done with wandering; the old saw that a rolling stone gathered no moss was cropping up sharply, warningly, in his mind.  He had in the three years, however—­and this is rather remarkable—­accumulated about three thousand dollars.  Three thousand dollars!  Why, in this quarter of the world, three thousand dollars should be like three thousand of the scriptural mustard-seed—­they should grow a veritable forest!

What was puzzling him, however, was where to plant the seed.  He was to meet here a man who had a plan for planting in the islands.  There were wild rumours afloat of the fortunes that could be made in rubber and vanilla out in the Papuan “Back Beyond.”  Harber was only half inclined to believe them, perhaps; but half persuaded is well along the way.

He heard his name called, and, turning, he saw a man coming toward him with the rolling gait of the seaman.  As he came closer, Harber observed the tawny beard, the sea-blue eyes surrounded by the fine wrinkles of humour, the neat black clothing, the polished boots, and, above all, the gold earrings that marked the man in his mind as Farringdon, the sea-captain who had been anxious to meet him.

Harber answered the captain’s gleam of teeth with one of his own, and they turned their backs upon the water and went to Harber’s room, where they could have their fill of talk undisturbed.  Harber says they talked all that afternoon and evening, and well into the next morning, enthusiastically finding one another the veritable salt of the earth, honourable, level-headed, congenial, temperamentally fitted for exactly what they had in mind—­partnership.

“How much can you put in?” asked Harber finally.

“Five hundred pounds,” said the captain.

“I can match you,” said Harber.

“Man, but that’s fine!” cried the captain.  “I’ve been looking for you—­you, you know—­just you—­for the last two years!  And when Pierson told me about you ... why, it’s luck, I say!”

It was luck for Harber, too.  Farringdon, you see, knew precisely where he wanted to go, and he had his schooner, and he knew that part of the world, as we say, like a man knows his own buttons.  Harber, then, was to manage the plantation; they were going to set out rubber, both Para and native, and try hemp and maybe coffee while they waited for the Haevia and the Ficus to yield.  And Farringdon was ready to put the earnings from his schooner against Harber’s wage as manager.  The arrangement, you see, was ideal.

Skip seven years with me, please.  Consider the plantation affair launched, carried, and consummated.  Farringdon and Harber have sold the rubber-trees as they neared bearing, and have sold them well.  They’re out of that now.  In all likelihood, Harber thinks, permanently.  For that seven years has seen other projects blossom.  Harber, says Farringdon, has “the golden touch.”