"Thought there wasn't no more slaves, eh?" inquired Mr. Barr
amiably, swallowing his coffee with a noise like water running out
of a bath tub, "wall, that's because yer young. When yer git older
you'll larn that there's money in everything here's a demand for,
and there's just as big a demand for slaves on some rubber
plantations I could tell yer of as there ever was in the old days of
the South--and more money in 'em on account of its being more
dangerouser."

"Do you mean to say that there is slave-running now?" asked Mr.
Beasley, while both Frank and Harry wondered and Lathrop looked
uncomfortable.

"Sure I do," chirped Mr. Barr, "but no more for me. There's too
many British gunboats and 'Merican gunboats and Dutch gunboats and
what not about now to make it comfortable or healthy. No, I've
retired from that business--but there's money in it," he concluded
with a regretful sigh.

Immediately Mr. Barr had concluded his breakfast--and with his
apparently slim accommodations it was a wonder to the boys where he
put it all--he snapped, with a flinty glint of his small pig-like
eyes:

"Now, let's git down to business. You boys want ter make a bit of
money?"

"'To be sure we do," replied Frank, "but we don't want to make any
that isn't honest money."