"Where there?"

"Belfontaine."

"Does your father live there?"

"He's dead these twenty years. I live with my mother and my grandfather."

He seemed to be turning this over in his mind, and presently he asked--

"And they want you to go privateering?"

"I don't say they want me to. It's I want to go. They are willing--at all
events they don't object."

"And why do you go against their wishes?"

"Well, it's this way, Monsieur Torode. I've been four voyages to the West
and there's no great things in it. I want to be doing something more for
myself."

"Why don't you try the free-trading?"

"Ah, there! We have never taken to the free-trading, but I don't know why."

"Afraid maybe."

"No, it's not that. There's more risk privateering."

"Well, then?"