the hand of Bones, "I
hope we are going to be friends. I like you. That's my peculiarity--I
like people or I dislike them. Now that I've told you that we bought
two ships from your uncle for one hundred and forty thousand pounds
when we knew--yes, positively knew--they were worth at least twenty
thousand pounds more--now I've told you this, I feel happier."

"Worth twenty thousand pounds more?" said Bones thoughtfully.
Providence was working overtime for him, he thought.

"Of anybody's money," said Fred stoutly. "I don't care where you go,
my dear chap. Ask Cole--he's the biggest shipping lawyer in this
city--ask my brother, who, I suppose, is the greatest shipping
authority in the world, or--what's the use of asking 'em?--ask
yourself. If you're not Saul Tibbetts all over again, if you haven't
the instinct and the eye and the brain of a shipowner--why, I'm a
Dutchman! That's what I am--a Dutchman!"

He picked up his hat and his lips were pressed tight--a gesture and a
grimace which stood for grim conviction.

"What are they worth to-day?" asked Bones, after a pause.

"What are they worth to-day?" Mr. Fred frowned heavily at the ceiling.
"Now, what are they worth to-day? I forget how much I've spent on
'em--they're in dock now."

Bones tightened _his_ lips, too.

"They're in dock now?" he said. He scratched his nose. "Dear old Fred
Pole," he said, "you're a jolly old soul. By Jove that's not bad!
'Pole' an' 'soul' rhyme--did you notice it?"

Fred had noticed it.

"It's rum," said Bones, shaking his head, "it is rum how things get
about. How did you know, old fellow-citizen, that I was going in for
shippin'?"

Mr. Fred Pole did not know that Bones was going in for shipping, but he
smiled.

"There are few things that happen in the City that I _don't_ know," he
admitted modestly.

"The Tibbetts Line," said Bones firmly, "will fly a house-flag of
purple and green diagonally--that is, from corner to corner. There
will be a yellow anchor in a blue wreath in one corner and a capital T
in a red wreath in the other."

"Original, distinctly original," said Fred in wondering admiration.
"Wherever did you get that idea?"

"I get ideas," confessed Bones, blushing, "some times in the night,
sometimes in the day. The fleet"--Bones liked the sound of the word
and repeated it--"the fleet will consist of the _Augustus_, the
_Sanders_--a dear old friend of mine living at Hindhead--the
_Patricia_--another