"As to that"--the agent pursed up his full moist lips--"it is true; the
kind who looked for money were never your kind. And yet that kind
sometimes cost men a hundred times more in the end."

Captain Blaise bent deferentially toward the agent. "You think that,
Rimmle--truly?"

Rimmle bowed wisely.

Captain Blaise continued to regard him in the most friendly way, and yet
with an air of doubt, as if debating how far to discuss matters of this
kind with him. And then, leaning yet further forward and speaking
rapidly, energetically: "And agreeing that it is so, who is it that ever
regrets the price? D'y' think that I, even though I be what I be, that
I--Why, Rimmle, even you who live to amass money"--Rimmle flushed--"even
you have had your days when--To be sure you have had." Rimmle beamed.
"And so, Rimmle, you can believe possibly that Captain Blaise may yet
have his immortal hour, and cherish the hope none the less dearly in his
heart because his head, from out the experience of bitter years, tells
him that it can never be. And it may be that I go this time for neither
money nor drink, nor anything else in which traders ashore or aship
commonly bargain. But, hah, hah!"--he grinned suddenly, sardonically, at
the agent. "Think of us, Rimmle, sitting in the cabin of a West Coast
slaver and smuggler discoursing in this fashion--two gallant gentlemen
who trade in human misery."

Ten years since Captain Blaise had done any slave-running, and Rimmle,
who knew that, was slave-running still, and so he did not quite know how
to take this outburst.