"Oh." The captain considered. "I've never done anything illegal," he said. "In fact, now that I think upon it, I've never done most legal things."

    "What we're going to steal is the…"

    "Oh, dear! Stealing?"

    Gabe smiled in an honest and forthright manner. "Well," he said, "maybe that wasn't exactly the right word, Captain. You couldn't really call it stealing, not the way you'd think of what stealing actually is. What we have in mind to do is take the gold from the United States Mint up on the hill there."

    Captain Flagway looked at him doubtfully. "That does sound like stealing," he said.

    "Well, now, just a minute, Captain," Gabe said. "Let's consider this. If I take money away from you, that leaves you in direct trouble. Broke maybe, possibly hungry, or even with bills to pay."

    "Like dock fees," the captain suggested.

    "That's a good example right there," Gabe agreed. "So if you take something from a man that that man needs, that's stealing. Would you say I was right in that?"

    "It does sound right to me," the captain said.

    "Well, you can't leave the Government broke and hungry," Gabe said. "It just can't be done. The Government isn't a man. Think about it for just a minute here. What is the Government, anyway?"

    Captain Flagway shook his head in honest bewilderment. "I haven't the faintest idea," he said.

    "Why, my friend," Gabe said, "the Government is your Government, my Government, Vangie's Government, Ittzy's Government, and Francis's Government-even Roscoe's Government. The Government is nothing more nor less than the combined will of all the citizens in the nation… of the people, by the people, for the people."

    "That's a nice phrase," the captain said. He nodded, smiling, pleased with it. "You do have a knack for the phrase," he said.

    Gabe frowned, thrown off the track for a second. Francis, leaning forward into the conversation, said, "Captain, where were you in, say, sixty-four?"

    The captain stroked his jaw, trying to remember. "Let me see," he said. "Sixty-four. That would have been Brazil, I believe, although I may be mistaken."

    Gabe said, "Francis, that's neither here nor there. The point, Captain, is that the Government is the people, and we're the people. We're citizens, so we're part of the Government."

    The captain nodded, seeing the wisdom in that. Beside him, the girl Vangie was giving Gabe looks of astounded admiration, and now she said, "Why, Gabe, I never knew you thought deep thoughts like that."

    "I'm thinking all the time," Gabe told her. Back to the captain again, he said, "Getting back to the Mint for a minute-if we take gold from the Government, it's just exactly the same thing as if we switched our own money from one trouser pocket to another, isn't it?"

    The captain frowned. He felt all at sea suddenly, though not in any familiar way. He said, "Is it?"

    "Of course, it is," Gabe said.

    Still trying to work his way through the logic-pretty much like chewing a twenty-cent steak-the captain nodded and said, "I guess I just never looked at it that way."

    "In fact," Gabe went on, "the newspapers are saying exactly the same thing. Have you been reading the papers?"

    "No, I… I'm afraid I don't…"

    "Well, I'll tell you," Gabe said. "The papers are saying that since this so-called financial panic started it's the policy of our Government to get more cash money into circulation. And that's just what we're out to do, my friend."

    Francis joined the conversation again. "Why, Gabe, you're right," he said. He sounded surprised and pleased, as though he hadn't expected to find himself in agreement with his friend, though why that should be the captain had no idea. "I do see what you mean," Francis said. "It's actually patriotic, isn't it? Circulating the money."

    The captain found himself nodding along with Francis. It seemed to him he could make out light at the end of the tunnel. "It is, isn't it?" he said. "Patriotic. In a way."

    "A darn funny way, if you ask me," Vangie said.

    Gabe leaned toward the captain. "Then you're in?"

    "Well " Suddenly the captain had a familiar feeling. It was as though he was being crimped again-without the rough hands and the burlap sack, but just as effectively being whisked away into somebody else's plans. Trying to be cautious, he said, "I don't really know. I mean, what would it involve? I couldn't hit anyone on the head, you know, or anything like that."

    "No, no," Gabe said, "you wouldn't have to."

    "Not hold a gun," the captain went on, "or stab anybody."

    Francis and Vangie both looked a trifle green. Gabe, patting the air in a calming manner, said, "No no, not at all. Definitely not."

    "I couldn't strangle anybody with my bare hands," the captain explained earnestly. "Or cut them apart with an ax, or bury them in wet cement, or drown them in the sewer, or…"

    Francis and Vangie kept leaning farther and farther away, out of the conversation. Gabe too was looking green by now, and his voice was somewhat loud and shrill when he said, "Nothing like that. I promise you, Captain. You don't have to go on; I understand the kind of thing you're talking about. It won't be anything like that at all."

    "Well, that's good," the captain said.

    Ittzy said, "We just want your boat."

    "That's fine," the captain said. He felt great relief. "Then I wouldn't have to throttle anybody or…"

    "Just the boat!" Gabe said, fast and loud. Then he lowered his voice again. "Just the boat. To make our getaway in."

    "Very good," the captain said, nodding. Then he stopped nodding and frowned. "But I have no crew."

    "We'll take care of that part," Gabe said.

    Vangie gave him an odd look, one the captain couldn't quite fathom. "We will?" she asked.

    Gabe ignored her. To the captain he said, "The question is, will that boat of yours… I mean, I don't want to say anything against her, but she is sort of…"

    "A rotting old tub?" Captain Flagway asked.

    "Well, yeah. Now," Gabe said, "I figure a million dollars in gold…"

    The captain blinked. "A million dollars?"

    "… should weigh in at about two and a half ton. Will the San Andreas carry that much weight?"

    The captain considered the question, then shook his head. "To be absolutely truthful with you," he said, "I really don't know."

    "The thing is," Gabe said, "we wouldn't want it to sink with all that gold on board."

    "I can see that," the captain said.

    Gabe scowled, frowning toward the middle distance. "If there was only some way to test it," he said. "Get two and a half ton of something else on board ahead of time, and see if she kept on floating."

    "That would be very good," the captain said.

    "Hmmmmmm," Gabe said.

    Francis said, "Old cock, I might have a small suggestion."

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN