The cabman sat with his back turned upon the party, smoking a meerschaum pipe. Not a word of Tommy's eloquence had missed him, and he now faced suddenly about with these amazing words:--"Excuse me, gentlemen; if you'll buy me the ship I want, I'll get you the trade on credit."
There was a pause.
"Well, what do YOU, mean?" gasped Tommy.
"Better tell 'em who I am, Billy," said the cabman.
"Think it safe, Joe?" inquired Mr. Bostock.
"I'll take my risk of it," returned the cabman.
"Gentlemen," said Bostock, rising solemnly, "let me make you acquainted with Captain Wicks of the Grace Darling."
"Yes, gentlemen, that is what I am," said the cabman. "You know I've been in trouble; and I don't deny but what I struck the blow, and where was I to get evidence of my provocation?
So I turned to and took a cab, and I've driven one for three year now and nobody the wiser."
"I beg your pardon," said Carthew, joining almost for the first time; "I'm a new chum. What was the charge?"
"Murder," said Captain Wicks, "and I don't deny but what I struck the blow. And there's no sense in my trying to deny I was afraid to go to trial, or why would I be here? But it's a fact it was flat mutiny. Ask Billy here. He knows how it was."
Carthew breathed long; he had a strange, half-pleasurable sense of wading deeper in the tide of life. "Well," said he, "you were going on to say?"
"I was going on to say this," said the captain sturdily. "I've overheard what Mr. Hadden has been saying, and I think he talks good sense. I like some of his ideas first chop. He's sound on traderooms; he's all there on the traderoom, and I see that he and I would pull together. Then you're both gentlemen, and I like that," observed Captain Wicks. "And then I'll tell you I'm tired of this cabbing cruise, and I want to get to work again. Now, here's my offer. I've a little money I can stake up, --all of a hundred anyway. Then my old firm will give me trade, and jump at the chance; they never lost by me; they know what I'm worth as supercargo. And, last of all, you want a good captain to sail your ship for you. Well, here I am. I've sailed schooners for ten years. Ask Billy if I can handle a schooner."
"No man better," said Billy.
"And as for my character as a shipmate," concluded Wicks, "go and ask my old firm."
"But look here!" cried Hadden, "how do you mean to manage?
You can whisk round in a hansom, and no questions asked.
But if you try to come on a quarter-deck, my boy, you'll get nabbed."
"I'll have to keep back till the last," replied Wicks, "and take another name."
"But how about clearing? what other name?" asked Tommy, a little bewildered.
"I don't know yet," returned the captain, with a grin. "I'll see what the name is on my new certificate, and that'll be good enough for me. If I can't get one to buy, though I never heard of such a thing, there's old Kirkup, he's turned some sort of farmer down Bondi way; he'll hire me his."
"You seemed to speak as if you had a ship in view," said Carthew.
"So I have, too," said Captain Wicks, "and a beauty. Schooner yacht Dream; got lines you never saw the beat of; and a witch to go. She passed me once off Thursday Island, doing two knots to my one and laying a point and a half better; and the Grace Darling was a ship that I was proud of. I took and tore my hair. The Dream's been MY dream ever since. That was in her old days, when she carried a blue ens'n. Grant Sanderson was the party as owned her; he was rich and mad, and got a fever at last somewhere about the Fly River, and took and died.
The captain brought the body back to Sydney, and paid off.
Well, it turned out Grant Sanderson had left any quantity of wills and any quantity of widows, and no fellow could make out which was the genuine article. All the widows brought lawsuits against all the rest, and every will had a firm of lawyers on the quarterdeck as long as your arm. They tell me it was one of the biggest turns-to that ever was seen, bar Tichborne; the Lord Chamberlain himself was floored, and so was the Lord Chancellor; and all that time the Dream lay rotting up by Glebe Point. Well, it's done now; they've picked out a widow and a will; tossed up for it, as like as not; and the Dream's for sale. She'll go cheap; she's had a long turn-to at rotting."
"What size is she?"
"Well, big enough. We don't want her bigger. A hundred and ninety, going two hundred," replied the captain. "She's fully big for us three; it would be all the better if we had another hand, though it's a pity too, when you can pick up natives for half nothing. Then we must have a cook. I can fix raw sailor- men, but there's no going to sea with a new-chum cook. I can lay hands on the man we want for that: a Highway boy, an old shipmate of mine, of the name of Amalu. Cooks first rate, and it's always better to have a native; he aint fly, you can turn him to as you please, and he don't know enough to stand out for his rights."
