Seeing as you are the
boss, though, how'd you like to trade your pack for my cargo--lobsters
for groceries? Both of us might make a good thing out of it. Eh?
I'll take all the risks, and neither of us needn't pay no duty."
"Can't do it," replied Cabot promptly, "because, in the first place,
I'm not in the smuggling business, and in the second our whole pack is
engaged by parties in St. Johns."
"As for the smuggling part," responded Captain Bland, "I wouldn't let
that worry me a little bit. Everybody smuggles on this coast, which is
neither British, French, nor Newfoundland. So a man wouldn't rightly
know who to pay duties to, even if he wanted to pay 'em ever so bad,
which most of us don't. If you have engaged your goods to St. Johns,
though, of course a bargain is a bargain. Same time I could afford to
pay you twice as much as any St. Johns merchant. But it don't matter
much one way or another, seeing as the idea of trading was only an idea
as you may say that just popped into my head. Well, so long. It's
coming on dark, and I must be getting aboard. See you to-morrow,
mebbe."
As the Yankee skipper took his departure, Cabot and White turned into
the factory, where all night long fires blazed and roared beneath the
seething kettles.
Until nearly noon of the following day the work of canning lobsters was
continued without interruption, and pushed with all possible energy.
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