It would never do to get you all ready to start, and then have
an injunction clapped on you by some unforeseen stockholder who was not
satisfied with the terms offered you; nor can I ever let it be said of me
that to retain my position as janitor of your organization I sacrificed a
trust committed to my charge. I'll gladly lend you my private launch,
though I don't think it will aid you much, because the naphtha-tank has
exploded, and the screw slipped off and went to the bottom two weeks ago.
Still, it is at your service, and I've no doubt that either Phidias or
Benvenuto Cellini will carve out a paddle for you if you ask him to."
"Bah!" retorted Raleigh. "You might as well offer us a pair of skates."
"I would, if I thought the river'd freeze," retorted Charon, blandly.
Raleigh and Hamlet turned away impatiently and left Charon to his own
devices, which for the time being consisted largely of winking his other
eye quietly and outwardly making a great show of grief.
"He's too canny for us, I am afraid," said Sir Walter. "We'll have to pay
him his money."
"Let us first consult Sherlock Holmes," suggested Hamlet, and this they
proceeded at once to do.
"There is but one thing to be done," observed the astute detective after
he had heard Sir Walter's statement of the case. "It is an old saying that
one should fight fire with fire.
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