Or suppose anybody did buy over our head--I tell you, Loudon, he would think this town gone crazy; he could no more get business through on the city front than I can dance; schooners, divers, men--all he wanted--the prices would fly right up and strike him." "But how did you get in ?" I asked.

"You were once an outsider like your neighbours, I suppose ?" "I took hold of that thing, Loudon, and just studied it up," he replied.
"It took my fancy; it was so romantic, and then I saw there was boodle in the thing; and I figured on the business till no man alive could give me points.

Nobody knew I had an eye on wrecks till one fine morning I dropped in upon Douglas B.Longhurst in his den, gave him all the facts and figures, and put it to him straight: 'Do you want me in this ring?
or shall I start another ?' He took half an hour, and when I came back, 'Pink,' says he, 'I've put your name on.' The first time I came to the top, it was that Moody racket; now it's the Flying Scud." Whereupon Pinkerton, looking at his watch, uttered an exclamation, made a hasty appointment with myself for the doors of the Merchants' Exchange, and fled to examine manifests and interview the skipper.

I finished my cigarette with the deliberation of a man at the end of many picnics; reflecting to myself that of all forms of the dollar hunt, this wrecking had by far the most address to my imagination.

Even as I went down town, in the brisk bustle and chill of the familiar San Francisco thoroughfares, I was haunted by a vision of the wreck, baking so far away in the strong sun, under a cloud of sea-birds; and even then, and for no better reason, my heart inclined towards the adventure.