know what a good steward you've missed, sir," Daughtry
responded airily.

"I guess there's plenty more stewards on Sydney beach," the captain said
briskly. "And I guess I haven't forgotten old days, when I hired them
like so much dirt, yes, by Jinks, so much dirt, there were so many of
them."

"Thank you, Mr. Steward, for looking us up," the Jew took up the idea
with insulting oiliness. "We very much regret our inability to meet your
wishes in the matter--"

"And I saw it go under the sand, a fathom under the sand, on
cross-bearings unnamable, where the mangroves fade away, and the coconuts
grow, and the rise of land lifts from the beach to the Lion's Head."

"Hold your horses," the wheat-farmer said, with a flare of irritation,
directed, not at the Ancient Mariner, but at the captain and the Jew.
"Who's putting up for this expedition? Don't I get no say so? Ain't my
opinion ever to be asked? I like this steward. Strikes me he's the real
goods. I notice he's as polite as all get-out, and I can see he can take
an order without arguing. And he ain't no fool by a long shot."

"That's the very point, Grimshaw," the Jew answered soothingly.
"Considering the unusualness of our . . . of the expedition, we'd be
better served by a steward who is more of a fool. Another point, which
I'd esteem a real favour from you, is not to forget that you haven't put
a red copper more into this trip than I have--"

"And where'd either of you be, if it wasn't for me with my knowledge of
the sea?" the captain demanded aggrievedly. "To say nothing of the
mortgage on my house and on the nicest little best paying flat building
in San Francisco since the earthquake."

"But who's still putting up?--all of you, I ask you." The wheat-farmer
leaned forward, resting the heels of his hands on his knees so that the
fingers hung down his long shins, in Daughtry's appraisal, half-way to
his feet. "You, Captain Doane, can't raise another penny on your
properties. My land still grows the wheat that brings the ready. You,
Simon Nishikanta, won't put up another penny--yet your loan-shark offices
are doing business at the same old stands at God knows what per cent. to
drunken sailors. And you hang the expedition up here in this hole-in-the-
wall waiting for my agent to cable more wheat-money. Well, I guess we'll
just sign on this steward at sixty a month and all he asks, or I'll just
naturally quit you cold on the next fast steamer to San