k 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 th