hey had made this
side expedition up a tributary, in search of country not so thoroughly
exploited; without much success in their venture, it seemed. The old
lady, her head wrapped in a dirty shawl, sat down on an empty box, and
stroked a large and dirty Angora cat, another member of the family,
the while she bitterly and profanely complained. It was now dusk, and
she did not notice anything out of the way in her son's rather swollen
nose and lips.

I explained to Lafitte and L'Olonnois that we were now come into the
neighborhood of possible treasure, and the sight of a few pearls, none
of very great worth, which the old crone produced from a cracker box,
was enough to set off Jimmy L'Olonnois, who was all for raiding the
place.

"What!" he hissed to me in an aside. "Did we not spare his life? Then
the treasure should be ours!"

"Wait, brother," said I. "We shall see what we shall see." And I
quieted Lafitte also, who was war-like at the very sound of the word
pearl. "Them's what they take from the Spanish ships," said he.
"Pearls is fitten for ladies fair. An' here is pearls."

"Wait, brother," I demanded of him. For I was revolving something in
my mind. I presently accosted the clammers.

"Listen," said I, "you say business is bad."

"It certainly and shorely is," assented the old dame, fishing a black
pipe out of her pocket, and proceeding to feed it from another pocket,
to the discomfort of the soiled Angora cat.

"Well, now, let me make you a proposition," said I, taking a glance at
the heap of fresh shell which lay beyond the racks of trolling lines
and their twisted wire hooks, by means of which dragging apparatus the
mussels are taken--shutting hard on the wire when it touches them as
they lie feeding with open mouths--"you've quite a lot of shell
there, now."

"Yes, but what's in it? Button factories all shut down with a strike,
and no market: and as for pearls, they ain't none. Blame me for
carryin' a grouch?"

"Not in the least. But what will you take for your shells, and agree
to open them for us, at wages of five dollars a day?"

"Both of us?" he demanded shrewdly. I smiled and nodded. "It's more
than you average, twice over," said I, "and you say the stream is no
good. Now I, too, am a student of the great law of averages, because I
am or was a director in a great life insurance company. You say the
luck is bad. Like other adventurers, I say that under the law of
averages, it is time for the