take as many of your confounded potatoes as my money will buy, on
condition that you go off at once down to the wharf to see them
loaded in the lighter and sent alongside the ship straight away.
Take the invoice and a signed receipt with you. Here's the key of
my desk. Give it to Burns. He will pay you.

He got up from his chair before I had finished speaking, but he
refused to take the key. Burns would never do it. He wouldn't
like to ask him even.

"Well, then," I said, eyeing him slightingly, "there's nothing for
it, Mr. Jacobus, but you must wait on board till I come off to
settle with you."

"That will be all right, Captain. I will go at once."

He seemed at a loss what to do with the girl's shoe he was still
holding in his fist. Finally, looking dully at me, he put it down
on the chair from which he had risen.

"And you, Captain? Won't you come along, too, just to see--"

"Don't bother about me. I'll take care of myself."

He remained perplexed for a moment, as if trying to understand; and
then his weighty: "Certainly, certainly, Captain," seemed to be
the outcome of some sudden thought. His big chest heaved. Was it
a sigh? As he went out to hurry off those potatoes he never looked
back at me.