accepted my terms with a faint grimace. It seems that these people
could not exist without potatoes. I could. I didn't want to see a
potato as long as I lived; but the demon of lucre had taken
possession of me. How the news got about I don't know, but,
returning on board rather late, I found a small group of men of the
coster type hanging about the waist, while Mr. Burns walked to and
fro the quarterdeck loftily, keeping a triumphant eye on them.
They had come to buy potatoes.

"These chaps have been waiting here in the sun for hours," Burns
whispered to me excitedly. "They have drank the water-cask dry.
Don't you throw away your chances, sir. You are too good-natured."

I selected a man with thick legs and a man with a cast in his eye
to negotiate with; simply because they were easily distinguishable
from the rest. "You have the money on you?" I inquired, before
taking them down into the cabin.

"Yes, sir," they answered in one voice, slapping their pockets. I
liked their air of quiet determination. Long before the end of the
day all the potatoes were sold at about three times the price I had
paid for them. Mr. Burns, feverish and exulting, congratulated
himself on his skilful care of my commercial venture, but hinted
plainly that I ought to have made more of it.

That night I did not sleep very well. I thought of Jacobus by fits
and starts, between snatches of dreams concerned with castaways
starving on a desert island covered with flowers. It was extremely
unpleasant. In the morning, tired and unrefreshed, I sat down and
wrote a long letter to my owners, giving them a carefully-thought-