25 25 Hank agreed. “Well, what’s your terms?” said he at last. “Ten thousand dollars,” said Tyrebuck. “Is she insured?” “She’s insured for ten thousand dollars. I pushed her through with the insurance agents that do my steamboat work.” “But I don’t want to buy her. I want to charter her.” “Well, I can’t charter boats, not even to you, Hank, it’s against my principles. Why, if I were to charter the old Wear Jack and the fact got round, I’d be guyed out of ’Frisco. Can’t you hear them at the Club asking me how the long-shore business was doing and what price the hire of canoes. No, sir, I’ve had enough of the joke business over that damned sieve. There she sticks till I sell her and the price is ten thousand, not a cent under.” George du Cane felt the lifting of a weight from his mind. The deal was evidently off. He had only to put his hand in his pocket, so to say, and fetch out the ten thousand, but the idea of a cruise in the Wear Jack had begun to fill his mind with frank and honest alarm. Besides, he knew that Hank would accept no outside financial help or interference. This was his show, to be engineered and run by himself. Feeling safe, he indulged in a little show off. “That’s a pity,” said he, “I shouldn’t have26 minded risking it; besides, we’d have had the whale boat, but I suppose it can’t be helped.” 26 He spoke without knowledge of the intricacy and subtlety of the rat trap inventor’s mental works. “I’ve got it,” said Hank, “you can loan her to me.” Tyrebuck, who seemed suddenly to remember that he had been smoking an unlighted cigar all this time, was in the act of striking a match. He lit the cigar, blew a cloud of smoke and placed the dead match carefully on a tray by the Billikin on his desk. Then he said:
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