e _might_--there _ought_ to
be--good profit in a cash-trading voyage in a small schooner to the
harbours of White Bay and the French Shore. There are no shops in most
of these little settlements. Shops go to the people in the form of
trading-schooners from St. John's and the larger ports of the more
southerly coast. It is in this way that the fisher-folk procure their
flour and tea, their medicines and clothing, their tackle, their
molasses, pins and needles, their trinkets, everything, in fact, both
the luxuries and necessities of life. It is chiefly a credit business,
the prices based on credit; the folk are outfitted in the spring and
pay in salt-cod in the late summer and fall. Why shouldn't a
cash-trader, underselling the credit plan, do well on the coast in a
small way?

By and by, his face clearing, Sir Archibald sat down at the desk
again.

"How much do you want?" he asked, directly.

Archie took a grip on the arms of his chair and clenched his teeth. It
took a good deal of resolution to utter the amount.

"Well, well?" Sir Archibald impatiently demanded.

"A thousand dollars," said Archie, grimly.

Sir Archibald started.

"Two hundred and fifty dollars in cash," Archie added, "and seven
hundred and fifty in credit at the warehouse."

"What's the security?" Sir Archibald blandly inquired.

"Security!" Archie gasped.

"It is a customary consideration in business," said Sir Archibald.

Archie's house of cards seemed to be tumbling about his ears.
Security? He had not thought of that. He began to drum on the desk
with his finger-tips. Presently he got up and began to pace the floor,
his hands thrust deep in his pockets, his lips pursed, his brow drawn
in a scowl of reflection. Sir Archibald, recognizing his own habit in
his son's perturbation, smiled in a fatherly-fond way. The boy was
very dear to him; no doubt about it. But Sir Archibald was not
sentimental in the affection.

"Well, sir," said Archie, by and by, his face clearing as he sat down,
"I could offer you security, and good enough security, but it doesn't
seem quite fair."

Sir Archibald asked the nature of the bond.

"I have a pony and cart, a motor boat and a sloop yacht," Archie
replied, grinning. "I 'low," he drawled, with a sly drooping of his
eyelids, "that they're worth more than a thousand dollars. Eh, father?
What do _you_ think?"

Sir Archibald guffawed.

"The trouble is," Archie went on, seriously, "that you gave them to