"I asks you, what authority they've got here? First place, you wantextradition papers. You can't have 'em. I won't give 'em to you.Trouble with you, Jessamine, is you're narrow. You're teeny, thereain't any vastness about you, Jessamine."

"J. R.," says Jessamine, remonstrating, "this isn't right, and youknow it."

"You don't expand, Jessamine," says Craney. "You don't permeate. Youain't got on to large ideas."

Craney here distributed cigars, lit a portly one himself, pushed backfrom the table, crossed his legs, stuck a thumb in the arm-hole ofhis plush vest, and went on unfolding his mind.

"It ain't the king's pleasure to leave this island, nor it ain't theways of monarchs, as I take it, to apologise. But putting aside allthat, and supposing you was expanded enough to take that in, I'mgoing on to state the way it appears. You says, 'J.R., how'd you cometo take the cash of parties that trusted you?' I answers, 'It comesfrom being romantic.' You ain't romantic, Jessamine? That's too bad.You don't look at it. You don't expand to my circumference. You don'tpermeate my orbit. You don't get on to me. It was this way. I got upand looked out on the world. I says: 'J. R., it's clear you haven'tenough cash for your ambitions. But you have got a opportunity. Throwit in. Be bold. If your conscience squirms, let it squirm. If itwriggles, let it wriggle. Take the risk. Expand to large ideas.' Itook it. Say, I made parties unwilling investors in me. Now, then,there they are, as delegated in you. Here's me, Julius R., monarch bypurchase and election of the sovereign state of Lua. You asks, 'Whatnext?' I says: 'This. I'll pay. I'll settle the claims withinterest on investment' But I've got to have time. Pay with what?Now there's the point. I've been investigating the produce of thisisland, the pearl-fishing, the coral, the hardwood. The pearl-fishingis good. As a business man, I tell you it can be done."