"It's about that tale of yours," Hilliard said at length. "I've
been thinking it over."

He paused as if in doubt. Merriman felt like Alice when she had
heard the mock-turtle's story, but he waited in silence, and
presently Hilliard went on.

"You told it with a certain amount of hesitation," he said. "You
suggested you might be mistaken in thinking there was anything in
it. Now I'm going to make a SUGGESTION with even more hesitation,
for it's ten times wilder than yours, and there is simply nothing
to back it up. But here goes all the same."

His indecision had passed now, and he went on fluently and with a
certain excitement.

"Here you have a trade with something fishy about it. Perhaps you
think that's putting it too strongly; if so, let us say there is
something peculiar about it; something, at all events, to call one's
attention to it, as being in some way out of the common. And when
we do think about it, what's the first thing we discover?"

Hilliard looked inquiringly at his friend. The latter sat listening
carefully, but did not speak, and Hilliard answered his own question.

"Why, that it's an export trade from France to England - an export
trade only, mind you. As far as you learned, these people's boat
runs the pit-props to England, but carries nothing back. Isn't
that so?"