O, I couldn't ever, ever!' 'Very well, dear, it shan't be done.' Next day, after a silence, she asked a question: 'If they were to go with you it would make a great deal of difference, I suppose, to the profit ?' ''Twould treble what I should get from the venture single-handed.

Under my eye they would be as good as two more of myself.' Later on she said: 'Tell me more about this.' 'Well, the boys are almost as clever as master-mariners in handling a craft, upon my life! There isn't a more cranky place in the Northern Seas than about the sandbanks of this harbour, and they've practised here from their infancy.

And they are so steady.

I couldn't get their steadiness and their trustworthiness in half a dozen men twice their age.' 'And is it _very_ dangerous at sea; now, too, there are rumours of war ?' she asked uneasily.
'O, well, there be risks.

Still.