"Offer him seventy.

Good luck." He watched them up the road and then, with a mysterious grin, turned into the Jack Ashore, and taking a seat in the bar waited patiently for their return.
Half an hour passed.

The captain had smoked one pipe and was half through another.

He glanced at the clock over the bar and fidgeted as an unpleasant idea that the bargain, despite Mr.Tredgold's ideas as to the value of schooners, might have been completed without his assistance occurred to him.

He took a sip from his glass, and then his face softened as the faint sounds of a distant uproar broke upon his ear.
"What's that ?" said a customer.
The landlord, who was glancing at the paper, put it down and listened.
"Sounds like old Todd at it again," he said, coming round to the front of the bar.
The noise came closer.