"There's some that are surprised when they see a diver tight; but I'm only surprised when I see one sober!"
"But surely there's some regulation about divers going out who are not fit?"
"Bless
you, yes. The regulations are all right. But, you see, the doctor's a
white man and probably a friend of the boss, and he knows that a
pearling-lugger laid up for want of a diver is not earning her keep. He
passes the Jap as fit, and everybody's happy. Then before the lugger's
been out more than a couple of days, back she comes, perhaps, flag at
half-mast. Or he's brought back paralyzed for life. He'd have been
better dead, though."
"That's one reason why pearls are not cheap," I commented.
"They're never half paid for," he said contemptuously, "whatever the price."
That
the big boss pearl-buyers did not look with favor upon the newcomer I
could well understand. Three out of the four big established concerns
took the intrusion as a matter of course. Their resistance was merely
passive. But Simmons, who was acting manager for Roth, his absent
millionaire brother-in-law, used every means in his power to down any
new pearl-buyer who tried to set up in town.
As
I had presented him with a letter of introduction on my arrival in
Broome from one of his London associates, he could do no less than ask
me to dine with him. But the meal had not proceeded far when he began
to show the cloven hoof. Seeing that I could not dodge talking shop, I
took the occasion to explain that I was only a small man and not likely
to prove a dangerous competitor. "As a matter of fact what I want to
buy is what you big buyers scorn as too poor for your attention—the
meanest baroque and seed pearls."
"I
don't want to know your plans," he said, more peevishly than the matter
warranted. "And you don't need to tell me your means. This is a free
country. But Broome is only a small spot in big Australia, and I don't
see why everyone who thinks
