mething else
I want to say. When we have finished, I trust there will be no need to
mention the other."

"If it's advice you're wanting to give, I'll tell you right off that
I've had enough of it. What I need is time on that mortgage you and your
crooked lawyer put over on me."

"There may be lots of money in what I have to propose. In fact, there
is, if you do as I say. How badly do you want a ship to man and
command?"

"See here, Jim, I ain't in no frame of mind to be fooled with to-night.
If you don't mean just what you're going to say, you'd best not say
it."

"I mean every word of it, but I shall expect more consideration and
respect from you before I open my mouth again."

"If you're in dead earnest, Jim, I beg your pardon. This damn mortgage
has got on my nerves purty bad. Heave over your proposition, and get it
off your chest."

"I shall have to exact one promise from you."

The Captain took one step toward the Elder's chair, his swarthy old face
alight with anticipation and hope. One promise! He would give a hundred,
and keep them all. The Captain was fine-looking at all times, every span
of him a man and a seaman. But when his face was bright with eagerness,
and his muscular body tense with anticipation, he was superb. To those
less steeled against human magnetism than Mr. Fox, he was irresistible
at such times. The Elder merely waved him back to the vacated chair.

"That one promise will bind us both," he said coldly. "In fact, it is
to your interest as well as to mine to make it. You will not see it at
first, but time will prove that I am right in asking it."

"I'll promise anything that's reasonable if you'll only swing me the job
of skipper."

"Very well." The Elder began to shuffle some papers with deft fingers.

"But that there mortgage, Jim, is soon due, and----"

"We shall not speak of that for the present. There are other ways of
disposing of mortgages than by paying them," he remarked, striking a
match and holding it significantly beneath a piece of paper which the
Captain recognized as the one displayed by the lawyer yesterday.

Captain Pott did not take his eyes from the face of the man across the
table. A suspicion was forcing its way into his mind, and it was as
unpleasant as it was unwelcome.

"How do I know that you'll keep your end of the promise, Jim?"

"You have my word."

"I had that afore, at the time you give me that money, but it didn't get
me nothing."

"I do not