"Glad to see you, Captain. What? Going away? You haven't been
looking so well these last few days, I notice. Run down, eh?"

He was in his shirt-sleeves, and his words were in the usual course
of business, but they had a human note. It was commercial amenity,
but I had been a stranger to amenity in that connection. I do
verily believe (from the direction of his heavy glance towards a
certain shelf) that he was going to suggest the purchase of
Clarkson's Nerve Tonic, which he kept in stock, when I said
impulsively:

"I am rather in trouble with my loading."

Wide awake under his sleepy, broad mask with glued lips, he
understood at once, had a movement of the head so appreciative that
I relieved my exasperation by exclaiming:

"Surely there must be eleven hundred quarter-bags to be found in
the colony. It's only a matter of looking for them."

Again that slight movement of the big head, and in the noise and
activity of the store that tranquil murmur:

"To be sure. But then people likely to have a reserve of quarter-
bags wouldn't want to sell. They'd need that size themselves."

"That's exactly what my consignees are telling me. Impossible to
buy. Bosh! They don't want to. It suits them to have the ship
hung up. But if I were to discover the lot they would have to--
Look here, Jacobus! You are the man to have such a thing up your