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+Project Gutenberg's The Wrecker, by Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Wrecker
+
+Author: Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
+
+Release Date: February 11, 2006 [EBook #1024]
+Last Updated: March 2, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WRECKER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Tony Adam and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+THE WRECKER
+
+by Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
+
+
+
+
+PROLOGUE.
+
+
+
+
+IN THE MARQUESAS.
+
+It was about three o'clock of a winter's afternoon in Tai-o-hae, the
+French capital and port of entry of the Marquesas Islands. The trades
+blew strong and squally; the surf roared loud on the shingle beach; and
+the fifty-ton schooner of war, that carries the flag and influence of
+France about the islands of the cannibal group, rolled at her moorings
+under Prison Hill. The clouds hung low and black on the surrounding
+amphitheatre of mountains; rain had fallen earlier in the day, real
+tropic rain, a waterspout for violence; and the green and gloomy brow of
+the mountain was still seamed with many silver threads of torrent.
+
+In these hot and healthy islands winter is but a name. The rain had not
+refreshed, nor could the wind invigorate, the dwellers of Tai-o-hae:
+away at one end, indeed, the commandant was directing some changes in
+the residency garden beyond Prison Hill; and the gardeners, being
+all convicts, had no choice but to continue to obey. All other folks
+slumbered and took their rest: Vaekehu, the native queen, in her
+trim house under the rustling palms; the Tahitian commissary, in his
+beflagged official residence; the merchants, in their deserted stores;
+and even the club-servant in the club, his head fallen forward on
+the bottle-counter, under the map of the world and the cards of navy
+officers. In the whole length of the single shoreside street, with its
+scattered board houses looking to the sea, its grateful shade of palms
+and green jungle of puraos, no moving figure could be seen. Only, at
+the end of the rickety pier, that once (in the prosperous days of the
+American rebellion) was used to groan under the cotton of John Hart,
+there might have been spied upon a pile of lumber the famous tattooed
+white man, the living curiosity of Tai-o-hae.
+
+
+His eyes were open, staring down the bay. He saw the mountains droop,
+as they approached the entrance, and break down in cliffs; the surf boil
+white round the two sentinel islets; and between, on the narrow bight
+of blue horizon, Ua-pu upraise the ghost of her pinnacled mountain tops.
+But his mind would take no account of these familiar features; as he
+dodged in and out along the frontier line of sleep and waking, memory
+would serve him with broken fragments of the past: brown faces and
+white, of skipper and shipmate, king and chief, would arise before his
+mind and vanish; he would recall old voyages, old landfalls in the hour
+of dawn; he would hear again the drums beat for a man-eating festival;
+perhaps he would summon up the form of that island princess for the love
+of whom he had submitted his body to the cruel hands of the tattooer,
+and now sat on the lumber, at the pier-end of Tai-o-hae, so strange
+a figure of a European. Or perhaps from yet further back, sounds and
+scents of England and his childhood might assail him: the merry clamour
+of cathedral bells, the broom upon the foreland, the song of the river
+on the weir.
+
+It is bold water at the mouth of the bay; you can steer a ship about
+either sentinel, close enough to toss a biscuit on the rocks. Thus
+it chanced that, as the tattooed man sat dozing and dreaming, he was
+startled into wakefulness and animation by the appearance of a flying
+jib beyond the western islet. Two more headsails followed; and before
+the tattooed man had scrambled to his feet, a topsail schooner, of some
+hundred tons, had luffed about the sentinel and was standing up the bay,
+close-hauled.
+
+The sleeping city awakened by enchantment. Natives appeared upon all
+sides, hailing each other with the magic cry “Ehippy”--ship; the Queen
+stepped forth on her verandah, shading her eyes under a hand that was
+a miracle of the fine art of tattooing; the commandant broke from his
+domestic convicts and ran into the residency for his glass; the harbour
+master, who was also the gaoler, came speeding down the Prison Hill; the
+seventeen brown Kanakas and the French boatswain's mate, that make up
+the complement of the war-schooner, crowded on the forward deck; and the
+various English, Americans, Germans, Poles, Corsicans, and Scots--the
+merchants and the clerks of Tai-o-hae--deserted their places of
+business, and gathered, according to invariable custom, on the road
+before the club.
+
+So quickly did these dozen whites collect, so short are the distances
+in Tai-o-hae, that they were already exchanging guesses as to the
+nationality and business of the strange vessel, before she had gone
+about upon her second board towards the anchorage. A moment after,
+English colours were broken out at the main truck.
+
+“I told you she was a Johnny Bull--knew it by her headsails,” said an
+evergreen old salt, still qualified (if he could anywhere have found
+an owner unacquainted with his story) to adorn another quarter-deck and
+lose another ship.
+
+“She has American lines, anyway,” said the astute Scots engineer of the
+gin-mill; “it's my belief she's a yacht.”
+
+“That's it,” said the old salt, “a yacht! look at her davits, and the
+boat over the stern.”
+
+“A yacht in your eye!” said a Glasgow voice. “Look at her red ensign! A
+yacht! not much she isn't!”
+
+“You can close the store, anyway, Tom,” observed a gentlemanly German.
+“Bon jour, mon Prince!” he added, as a dark, intelligent native cantered
+by on a neat chestnut. “Vous allez boire un verre de biere?”
+
+But Prince Stanilas Moanatini, the only reasonably busy human creature
+on the island, was riding hot-spur to view this morning's landslip on
+the mountain road: the sun already visibly declined; night was imminent;
+and if he would avoid the perils of darkness and precipice, and the
+fear of the dead, the haunters of the jungle, he must for once decline
+a hospitable invitation. Even had he been minded to alight, it presently
+appeared there would be difficulty as to the refreshment offered.
+
+“Beer!” cried the Glasgow voice. “No such a thing; I tell you there's
+only eight bottles in the club! Here's the first time I've seen British
+colours in this port! and the man that sails under them has got to drink
+that beer.”
+
+The proposal struck the public mind as fair, though far from cheering;
+for some time back, indeed, the very name of beer had been a sound of
+sorrow in the club, and the evenings had passed in dolorous computation.
+
+“Here is Havens,” said one, as if welcoming a fresh topic. “What do you
+think of her, Havens?”
+
+“I don't think,” replied Havens, a tall, bland, cool-looking, leisurely
+Englishman, attired in spotless duck, and deliberately dealing with a
+cigarette. “I may say I know. She's consigned to me from Auckland by
+Donald & Edenborough. I am on my way aboard.”
+
+“What ship is she?” asked the ancient mariner.
+
+“Haven't an idea,” returned Havens. “Some tramp they have chartered.”
+
+With that he placidly resumed his walk, and was soon seated in the
+stern-sheets of a whaleboat manned by uproarious Kanakas, himself
+daintily perched out of the way of the least maculation, giving his
+commands in an unobtrusive, dinner-table tone of voice, and sweeping
+neatly enough alongside the schooner.
+
+A weather-beaten captain received him at the gangway.
+
+“You are consigned to us, I think,” said he. “I am Mr. Havens.”
+
+“That is right, sir,” replied the captain, shaking hands. “You will find
+the owner, Mr. Dodd, below. Mind the fresh paint on the house.”
+
+Havens stepped along the alley-way, and descended the ladder into the
+main cabin.
+
+“Mr. Dodd, I believe,” said he, addressing a smallish, bearded
+gentleman, who sat writing at the table. “Why,” he cried, “it isn't
+Loudon Dodd?”
+
+“Myself, my dear fellow,” replied Mr. Dodd, springing to his feet with
+companionable alacrity. “I had a half-hope it might be you, when I found
+your name on the papers. Well, there's no change in you; still the same
+placid, fresh-looking Britisher.”
+
+“I can't return the compliment; for you seem to have become a Britisher
+yourself,” said Havens.
+
+“I promise you, I am quite unchanged,” returned Dodd. “The red
+tablecloth at the top of the stick is not my flag; it's my partner's.
+He is not dead, but sleepeth. There he is,” he added, pointing to a bust
+which formed one of the numerous unexpected ornaments of that unusual
+cabin.
+
+Havens politely studied it. “A fine bust,” said he; “and a very
+nice-looking fellow.”
+
+“Yes; he's a good fellow,” said Dodd. “He runs me now. It's all his
+money.”
+
+“He doesn't seem to be particularly short of it,” added the other,
+peering with growing wonder round the cabin.
+
+“His money, my taste,” said Dodd. “The black-walnut bookshelves are Old
+English; the books all mine,--mostly Renaissance French. You should see
+how the beach-combers wilt away when they go round them looking for a
+change of Seaside Library novels. The mirrors are genuine Venice; that's
+a good piece in the corner. The daubs are mine--and his; the mudding
+mine.”
+
+“Mudding? What is that?” asked Havens.
+
+“These bronzes,” replied Dodd. “I began life as a sculptor.”
+
+“Yes; I remember something about that,” said the other. “I think, too,
+you said you were interested in Californian real estate.”
+
+“Surely, I never went so far as that,” said Dodd. “Interested? I guess
+not. Involved, perhaps. I was born an artist; I never took an interest
+in anything but art. If I were to pile up this old schooner to-morrow,”
+ he added, “I declare I believe I would try the thing again!”
+
+“Insured?” inquired Havens.
+
+“Yes,” responded Dodd. “There's some fool in 'Frisco who insures us, and
+comes down like a wolf on the fold on the profits; but we'll get even
+with him some day.”
+
+“Well, I suppose it's all right about the cargo,” said Havens.
+
+“O, I suppose so!” replied Dodd. “Shall we go into the papers?”
+
+“We'll have all to-morrow, you know,” said Havens; “and they'll be
+rather expecting you at the club. C'est l'heure de l'absinthe. Of
+course, Loudon, you'll dine with me later on?”
+
+Mr. Dodd signified his acquiescence; drew on his white coat, not without
+a trifling difficulty, for he was a man of middle age, and well-to-do;
+arranged his beard and moustaches at one of the Venetian mirrors; and,
+taking a broad felt hat, led the way through the trade-room into the
+ship's waist.
+
+The stern boat was waiting alongside,--a boat of an elegant model, with
+cushions and polished hard-wood fittings.
+
+“You steer,” observed Loudon. “You know the best place to land.”
+
+“I never like to steer another man's boat,” replied Havens.
+
+“Call it my partner's, and cry quits,” returned Loudon, getting
+nonchalantly down the side.
+
+Havens followed and took the yoke lines without further protest. “I am
+sure I don't know how you make this pay,” he said. “To begin with,
+she is too big for the trade, to my taste; and then you carry so much
+style.”
+
+“I don't know that she does pay,” returned Loudon. “I never pretend to
+be a business man. My partner appears happy; and the money is all his,
+as I told you--I only bring the want of business habits.”
+
+“You rather like the berth, I suppose?” suggested Havens.
+
+“Yes,” said Loudon; “it seems odd, but I rather do.”
+
+While they were yet on board, the sun had dipped; the sunset gun (a
+rifle) cracked from the war-schooner, and the colours had been
+handed down. Dusk was deepening as they came ashore; and the Cercle
+Internationale (as the club is officially and significantly named) began
+to shine, from under its low verandas, with the light of many lamps. The
+good hours of the twenty-four drew on; the hateful, poisonous day-fly
+of Nukahiva, was beginning to desist from its activity; the land-breeze
+came in refreshing draughts; and the club men gathered together for the
+hour of absinthe. To the commandant himself, to the man whom he was then
+contending with at billiards--a trader from the next island, honorary
+member of the club, and once carpenter's mate on board a Yankee
+war-ship--to the doctor of the port, to the Brigadier of Gendarmerie, to
+the opium farmer, and to all the white men whom the tide of commerce,
+or the chances of shipwreck and desertion, had stranded on the beach of
+Tai-o-hae, Mr. Loudon Dodd was formally presented; by all (since he was
+a man of pleasing exterior, smooth ways, and an unexceptionable flow of
+talk, whether in French or English) he was excellently well received;
+and presently, with one of the last eight bottles of beer on a table
+at his elbow, found himself the rather silent centre-piece of a voluble
+group on the verandah.
+
+Talk in the South Seas is all upon one pattern; it is a wide ocean,
+indeed, but a narrow world: you shall never talk long and not hear the
+name of Bully Hayes, a naval hero whose exploits and deserved extinction
+left Europe cold; commerce will be touched on, copra, shell, perhaps
+cotton or fungus; but in a far-away, dilettante fashion, as by men
+not deeply interested; through all, the names of schooners and their
+captains, will keep coming and going, thick as may-flies; and news
+of the last shipwreck will be placidly exchanged and debated. To a
+stranger, this conversation will at first seem scarcely brilliant; but
+he will soon catch the tone; and by the time he shall have moved a
+year or so in the island world, and come across a good number of the
+schooners so that every captain's name calls up a figure in pyjamas or
+white duck, and becomes used to a certain laxity of moral tone which
+prevails (as in memory of Mr. Hayes) on smuggling, ship-scuttling,
+barratry, piracy, the labour trade, and other kindred fields of human
+activity, he will find Polynesia no less amusing and no less instructive
+than Pall Mall or Paris.
+
+Mr. Loudon Dodd, though he was new to the group of the Marquesas, was
+already an old, salted trader; he knew the ships and the captains; he
+had assisted, in other islands, at the first steps of some career of
+which he now heard the culmination, or (vice versa) he had brought
+with him from further south the end of some story which had begun in
+Tai-o-hae. Among other matter of interest, like other arrivals in
+the South Seas, he had a wreck to announce. The John T. Richards, it
+appeared, had met the fate of other island schooners.
+
+“Dickinson piled her up on Palmerston Island,” Dodd announced.
+
+“Who were the owners?” inquired one of the club men.
+
+“O, the usual parties!” returned Loudon,--“Capsicum & Co.”
+
+A smile and a glance of intelligence went round the group; and perhaps
+Loudon gave voice to the general sentiment by remarking, “Talk of good
+business! I know nothing better than a schooner, a competent captain,
+and a sound, reliable reef.”
+
+“Good business! There's no such a thing!” said the Glasgow man. “Nobody
+makes anything but the missionaries--dash it!”
+
+“I don't know,” said another. “There's a good deal in opium.”
+
+“It's a good job to strike a tabooed pearl-island, say, about the fourth
+year,” remarked a third; “skim the whole lagoon on the sly, and up stick
+and away before the French get wind of you.”
+
+“A pig nokket of cold is good,” observed a German.
+
+“There's something in wrecks, too,” said Havens. “Look at that man in
+Honolulu, and the ship that went ashore on Waikiki Reef; it was blowing
+a kona, hard; and she began to break up as soon as she touched. Lloyd's
+agent had her sold inside an hour; and before dark, when she went to
+pieces in earnest, the man that bought her had feathered his nest. Three
+more hours of daylight, and he might have retired from business. As it
+was, he built a house on Beretania Street, and called it for the ship.”
+
+“Yes, there's something in wrecks sometimes,” said the Glasgow voice;
+“but not often.”
+
+“As a general rule, there's deuced little in anything,” said Havens.
+
+“Well, I believe that's a Christian fact,” cried the other. “What I want
+is a secret; get hold of a rich man by the right place, and make him
+squeal.”
+
+“I suppose you know it's not thought to be the ticket,” returned Havens.
+
+“I don't care for that; it's good enough for me,” cried the man from
+Glasgow, stoutly. “The only devil of it is, a fellow can never find a
+secret in a place like the South Seas: only in London and Paris.”
+
+“M'Gibbon's been reading some dime-novel, I suppose,” said one club man.
+
+“He's been reading _Aurora Floyd_,” remarked another.
+
+“And what if I have?” cried M'Gibbon. “It's all true. Look at
+the newspapers! It's just your confounded ignorance that sets you
+snickering. I tell you, it's as much a trade as underwriting, and a
+dashed sight more honest.”
+
+The sudden acrimony of these remarks called Loudon (who was a man of
+peace) from his reserve. “It's rather singular,” said he, “but I seem to
+have practised about all these means of livelihood.”
+
+“Tit you effer vind a nokket?” inquired the inarticulate German,
+eagerly.
+
+“No. I have been most kinds of fool in my time,” returned Loudon, “but
+not the gold-digging variety. Every man has a sane spot somewhere.”
+
+“Well, then,” suggested some one, “did you ever smuggle opium?”
+
+“Yes, I did,” said Loudon.
+
+“Was there money in that?”
+
+“All the way,” responded Loudon.
+
+“And perhaps you bought a wreck?” asked another.
+
+“Yes, sir,” said Loudon.
+
+“How did that pan out?” pursued the questioner.
+
+“Well, mine was a peculiar kind of wreck,” replied Loudon. “I don't
+know, on the whole, that I can recommend that branch of industry.”
+
+“Did she break up?” asked some one.
+
+“I guess it was rather I that broke down,” says Loudon. “Head not big
+enough.”
+
+“Ever try the blackmail?” inquired Havens.
+
+“Simple as you see me sitting here!” responded Dodd.
+
+“Good business?”
+
+“Well, I'm not a lucky man, you see,” returned the stranger. “It ought
+to have been good.”
+
+“You had a secret?” asked the Glasgow man.
+
+“As big as the State of Texas.”
+
+“And the other man was rich?”
+
+“He wasn't exactly Jay Gould, but I guess he could buy these islands if
+he wanted.”
+
+“Why, what was wrong, then? Couldn't you get hands on him?”
+
+“It took time, but I had him cornered at last; and then----”
+
+“What then?”
+
+“The speculation turned bottom up. I became the man's bosom friend.”
+
+“The deuce you did!”
+
+“He couldn't have been particular, you mean?” asked Dodd pleasantly.
+“Well, no; he's a man of rather large sympathies.”
+
+“If you're done talking nonsense, Loudon,” said Havens, “let's be
+getting to my place for dinner.”
+
+Outside, the night was full of the roaring of the surf. Scattered lights
+glowed in the green thicket. Native women came by twos and threes out of
+the darkness, smiled and ogled the two whites, perhaps wooed them with
+a strain of laughter, and went by again, bequeathing to the air a
+heady perfume of palm-oil and frangipani blossom. From the club to Mr.
+Havens's residence was but a step or two, and to any dweller in Europe
+they must have seemed steps in fairyland. If such an one could but have
+followed our two friends into the wide-verandahed house, sat down
+with them in the cool trellised room, where the wine shone on the
+lamp-lighted tablecloth; tasted of their exotic food--the raw fish, the
+breadfruit, the cooked bananas, the roast pig served with the inimitable
+miti, and that king of delicacies, palm-tree salad; seen and heard by
+fits and starts, now peering round the corner of the door, now railing
+within against invisible assistants, a certain comely young native lady
+in a sacque, who seemed too modest to be a member of the family, and too
+imperious to be less; and then if such an one were whisked again through
+space to Upper Tooting, or wherever else he honored the domestic gods,
+“I have had a dream,” I think he would say, as he sat up, rubbing his
+eyes, in the familiar chimney-corner chair, “I have had a dream of a
+place, and I declare I believe it must be heaven.” But to Dodd and his
+entertainer, all this amenity of the tropic night and all these dainties
+of the island table, were grown things of custom; and they fell to meat
+like men who were hungry, and drifted into idle talk like men who were a
+trifle bored.
+
+The scene in the club was referred to.
+
+“I never heard you talk so much nonsense, Loudon,” said the host.
+
+“Well, it seemed to me there was sulphur in the air, so I talked for
+talking,” returned the other. “But it was none of it nonsense.”
+
+“Do you mean to say it was true?” cried Havens,--“that about the opium
+and the wreck, and the blackmailing and the man who became your friend?”
+
+“Every last word of it,” said Loudon.
+
+“You seem to have been seeing life,” returned the other.
+
+“Yes, it's a queer yarn,” said his friend; “if you think you would like,
+I'll tell it you.”
+
+Here follows the yarn of Loudon Dodd, not as he told it to his friend,
+but as he subsequently wrote it.
+
+
+
+
+THE YARN.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. A SOUND COMMERCIAL EDUCATION.
+
+
+The beginning of this yarn is my poor father's character. There
+never was a better man, nor a handsomer, nor (in my view) a more
+unhappy--unhappy in his business, in his pleasures, in his place of
+residence, and (I am sorry to say it) in his son. He had begun life as a
+land-surveyor, soon became interested in real estate, branched off into
+many other speculations, and had the name of one of the smartest men in
+the State of Muskegon. “Dodd has a big head,” people used to say; but I
+was never so sure of his capacity. His luck, at least, was beyond doubt
+for long; his assiduity, always. He fought in that daily battle of
+money-grubbing, with a kind of sad-eyed loyalty like a martyr's; rose
+early, ate fast, came home dispirited and over-weary, even from success;
+grudged himself all pleasure, if his nature was capable of taking any,
+which I sometimes wondered; and laid out, upon some deal in wheat or
+corner in aluminium, the essence of which was little better than highway
+robbery, treasures of conscientiousness and self-denial.
+
+Unluckily, I never cared a cent for anything but art, and never shall.
+My idea of man's chief end was to enrich the world with things of
+beauty, and have a fairly good time myself while doing so. I do not
+think I mentioned that second part, which is the only one I have managed
+to carry out; but my father must have suspected the suppression, for he
+branded the whole affair as self-indulgence.
+
+“Well,” I remember crying once, “and what is your life? You are only
+trying to get money, and to get it from other people at that.”
+
+He sighed bitterly (which was very much his habit), and shook his poor
+head at me. “Ah, Loudon, Loudon!” said he, “you boys think yourselves
+very smart. But, struggle as you please, a man has to work in this
+world. He must be an honest man or a thief, Loudon.”
+
+You can see for yourself how vain it was to argue with my father.
+The despair that seized upon me after such an interview was, besides,
+embittered by remorse; for I was at times petulant, but he invariably
+gentle; and I was fighting, after all, for my own liberty and pleasure,
+he singly for what he thought to be my good. And all the time he never
+despaired. “There is good stuff in you, Loudon,” he would say; “there
+is the right stuff in you. Blood will tell, and you will come right in
+time. I am not afraid my boy will ever disgrace me; I am only vexed he
+should sometimes talk nonsense.” And then he would pat my shoulder or
+my hand with a kind of motherly way he had, very affecting in a man so
+strong and beautiful.
+
+As soon as I had graduated from the high school, he packed me off to the
+Muskegon Commercial Academy. You are a foreigner, and you will have a
+difficulty in accepting the reality of this seat of education. I assure
+you before I begin that I am wholly serious. The place really existed,
+possibly exists to-day: we were proud of it in the State, as something
+exceptionally nineteenth century and civilized; and my father, when he
+saw me to the cars, no doubt considered he was putting me in a straight
+line for the Presidency and the New Jerusalem.
+
+“Loudon,” said he, “I am now giving you a chance that Julius Caesar
+could not have given to his son--a chance to see life as it is, before
+your own turn comes to start in earnest. Avoid rash speculation, try
+to behave like a gentleman; and if you will take my advice, confine
+yourself to a safe, conservative business in railroads. Breadstuffs are
+tempting, but very dangerous; I would not try breadstuffs at your time
+of life; but you may feel your way a little in other commodities. Take
+a pride to keep your books posted, and never throw good money after bad.
+There, my dear boy, kiss me good-by; and never forget that you are an
+only chick, and that your dad watches your career with fond suspense.”
+
+The commercial college was a fine, roomy establishment, pleasantly
+situate among woods. The air was healthy, the food excellent, the
+premium high. Electric wires connected it (to use the words of the
+prospectus) with “the various world centres.” The reading-room was well
+supplied with “commercial organs.” The talk was that of Wall Street; and
+the pupils (from fifty to a hundred lads) were principally engaged
+in rooking or trying to rook one another for nominal sums in what was
+called “college paper.” We had class hours, indeed, in the morning, when
+we studied German, French, book-keeping, and the like goodly matters;
+but the bulk of our day and the gist of the education centred in the
+exchange, where we were taught to gamble in produce and securities.
+Since not one of the participants possessed a bushel of wheat or a
+dollar's worth of stock, legitimate business was of course impossible
+from the beginning. It was cold-drawn gambling, without colour or
+disguise. Just that which is the impediment and destruction of all
+genuine commercial enterprise, just that we were taught with every
+luxury of stage effect. Our simulacrum of a market was ruled by the real
+markets outside, so that we might experience the course and vicissitude
+of prices. We must keep books, and our ledgers were overhauled at
+the month's end by the principal or his assistants. To add a spice
+of verisimilitude, “college paper” (like poker chips) had an actual
+marketable value. It was bought for each pupil by anxious parents and
+guardians at the rate of one cent for the dollar. The same pupil, when
+his education was complete, resold, at the same figure, so much as was
+left him to the college; and even in the midst of his curriculum, a
+successful operator would sometimes realize a proportion of his holding,
+and stand a supper on the sly in the neighbouring hamlet. In short,
+if there was ever a worse education, it must have been in that academy
+where Oliver met Charlie Bates.
+
+When I was first guided into the exchange to have my desk pointed out
+by one of the assistant teachers, I was overwhelmed by the clamour and
+confusion. Certain blackboards at the other end of the building were
+covered with figures continually replaced. As each new set appeared, the
+pupils swayed to and fro, and roared out aloud with a formidable and
+to me quite meaningless vociferation; leaping at the same time upon
+the desks and benches, signalling with arms and heads, and scribbling
+briskly in note-books. I thought I had never beheld a scene more
+disagreeable; and when I considered that the whole traffic was illusory,
+and all the money then upon the market would scarce have sufficed to
+buy a pair of skates, I was at first astonished, although not for long.
+Indeed, I had no sooner called to mind how grown-up men and women of
+considerable estate will lose their temper about half-penny points, than
+(making an immediate allowance for my fellow-students) I transferred
+the whole of my astonishment to the assistant teacher, who--poor
+gentleman--had quite forgot to show me to my desk, and stood in the
+midst of this hurly-burly, absorbed and seemingly transported.
+
+“Look, look,” he shouted in my ear; “a falling market! The bears have
+had it all their own way since yesterday.”
+
+“It can't matter,” I replied, making him hear with difficulty, for I was
+unused to speak in such a babel, “since it is all fun.”
+
+“True,” said he; “and you must always bear in mind that the real profit
+is in the book-keeping. I trust, Dodd, to be able to congratulate
+you upon your books. You are to start in with ten thousand dollars of
+college paper, a very liberal figure, which should see you through the
+whole curriculum, if you keep to a safe, conservative business.... Why,
+what's that?” he broke off, once more attracted by the changing figures
+on the board. “Seven, four, three! Dodd, you are in luck: this is the
+most spirited rally we have had this term. And to think that the same
+scene is now transpiring in New York, Chicago, St. Louis, and rival
+business centres! For two cents, I would try a flutter with the
+boys myself,” he cried, rubbing his hands; “only it's against the
+regulations.”
+
+“What would you do, sir?” I asked.
+
+“Do?” he cried, with glittering eyes. “Buy for all I was worth!”
+
+“Would that be a safe, conservative business?” I inquired, as innocent
+as a lamb.
+
+He looked daggers at me. “See that sandy-haired man in glasses?” he
+asked, as if to change the subject. “That's Billson, our most prominent
+undergraduate. We build confidently on Billson's future. You could not
+do better, Dodd, than follow Billson.”
+
+Presently after, in the midst of a still growing tumult, the figures
+coming and going more busily than ever on the board, and the hall
+resounding like Pandemonium with the howls of operators, the assistant
+teacher left me to my own resources at my desk. The next boy was posting
+up his ledger, figuring his morning's loss, as I discovered later on;
+and from this ungenial task he was readily diverted by the sight of a
+new face.
+
+“Say, Freshman,” he said, “what's your name? What? Son of Big Head Dodd?
+What's your figure? Ten thousand? O, you're away up! What a soft-headed
+clam you must be to touch your books!”
+
+I asked him what else I could do, since the books were to be examined
+once a month.
+
+“Why, you galoot, you get a clerk!” cries he. “One of our dead
+beats--that's all they're here for. If you're a successful operator, you
+need never do a stroke of work in this old college.”
+
+The noise had now become deafening; and my new friend, telling me that
+some one had certainly “gone down,” that he must know the news, and
+that he would bring me a clerk when he returned, buttoned his coat and
+plunged into the tossing throng. It proved that he was right: some one
+had gone down; a prince had fallen in Israel; the corner in lard had
+proved fatal to the mighty; and the clerk who was brought back to keep
+my books, spare me all work, and get all my share of the education, at
+a thousand dollars a month, college paper (ten dollars, United States
+currency) was no other than the prominent Billson whom I could do no
+better than follow. The poor lad was very unhappy. It's the only good
+thing I have to say for Muskegon Commercial College, that we were all,
+even the small fry, deeply mortified to be posted as defaulters; and the
+collapse of a merchant prince like Billson, who had ridden pretty high
+in his days of prosperity, was, of course, particularly hard to bear.
+But the spirit of make-believe conquered even the bitterness of recent
+shame; and my clerk took his orders, and fell to his new duties, with
+decorum and civility.
+
+Such were my first impressions in this absurd place of education; and,
+to be frank, they were far from disagreeable. As long as I was rich, my
+evenings and afternoons would be my own; the clerk must keep my books,
+the clerk could do the jostling and bawling in the exchange; and I could
+turn my mind to landscape-painting and Balzac's novels, which were then
+my two preoccupations. To remain rich, then, became my problem; or, in
+other words, to do a safe, conservative line of business. I am looking
+for that line still; and I believe the nearest thing to it in this
+imperfect world is the sort of speculation sometimes insidiously
+proposed to childhood, in the formula, “Heads, I win; tails, you lose.”
+ Mindful of my father's parting words, I turned my attention timidly to
+railroads; and for a month or so maintained a position of inglorious
+security, dealing for small amounts in the most inert stocks, and
+bearing (as best I could) the scorn of my hired clerk. One day I
+had ventured a little further by way of experiment; and, in the sure
+expectation they would continue to go down, sold several thousand
+dollars of Pan-Handle Preference (I think it was). I had no sooner
+made this venture than some fools in New York began to bull the market;
+Pan-Handles rose like a balloon; and in the inside of half an hour I saw
+my position compromised. Blood will tell, as my father said; and I stuck
+to it gallantly: all afternoon I continued selling that infernal
+stock, all afternoon it continued skying. I suppose I had come (a frail
+cockle-shell) athwart the hawse of Jay Gould; and, indeed, I think I
+remember that this vagary in the market proved subsequently to be the
+first move in a considerable deal. That evening, at least, the name of
+H. Loudon Dodd held the first rank in our collegiate gazette, and I and
+Billson (once more thrown upon the world) were competing for the same
+clerkship. The present object takes the present eye. My disaster,
+for the moment, was the more conspicuous; and it was I that got the
+situation. So you see, even in Muskegon Commercial College, there were
+lessons to be learned.
+
+For my own part, I cared very little whether I lost or won at a game so
+random, so complex, and so dull; but it was sorry news to write to my
+poor father, and I employed all the resources of my eloquence. I told
+him (what was the truth) that the successful boys had none of the
+education; so that if he wished me to learn, he should rejoice at my
+misfortune. I went on (not very consistently) to beg him to set me up
+again, when I would solemnly promise to do a safe business in reliable
+railroads. Lastly (becoming somewhat carried away), I assured him I was
+totally unfit for business, and implored him to take me away from this
+abominable place, and let me go to Paris to study art. He answered
+briefly, gently, and sadly, telling me the vacation was near at hand,
+when we could talk things over.
+
+When the time came, he met me at the depot, and I was shocked to see
+him looking older. He seemed to have no thought but to console me
+and restore (what he supposed I had lost) my courage. I must not be
+down-hearted; many of the best men had made a failure in the beginning.
+I told him I had no head for business, and his kind face darkened. “You
+must not say that, Loudon,” he replied; “I will never believe my son to
+be a coward.”
+
+“But I don't like it,” I pleaded. “It hasn't got any interest for me,
+and art has. I know I could do more in art,” and I reminded him that
+a successful painter gains large sums; that a picture of Meissonier's
+would sell for many thousand dollars.
+
+“And do you think, Loudon,” he replied, “that a man who can paint a
+thousand dollar picture has not grit enough to keep his end up in
+the stock market? No, sir; this Mason (of whom you speak) or our
+own American Bierstadt--if you were to put them down in a wheat pit
+to-morrow, they would show their mettle. Come, Loudon, my dear; heaven
+knows I have no thought but your own good, and I will offer you a
+bargain. I start you again next term with ten thousand dollars; show
+yourself a man, and double it, and then (if you still wish to go to
+Paris, which I know you won't) I'll let you go. But to let you run away
+as if you were whipped, is what I am too proud to do.”
+
+My heart leaped at this proposal, and then sank again. It seemed easier
+to paint a Meissonier on the spot than to win ten thousand dollars
+on that mimic stock exchange. Nor could I help reflecting on the
+singularity of such a test for a man's capacity to be a painter. I
+ventured even to comment on this.
+
+He sighed deeply. “You forget, my dear,” said he, “I am a judge of
+the one, and not of the other. You might have the genius of Bierstadt
+himself, and I would be none the wiser.”
+
+“And then,” I continued, “it's scarcely fair. The other boys are helped
+by their people, who telegraph and give them pointers. There's Jim
+Costello, who never budges without a word from his father in New York.
+And then, don't you see, if anybody is to win, somebody must lose?”
+
+“I'll keep you posted,” cried my father, with unusual animation; “I did
+not know it was allowed. I'll wire you in the office cipher, and we'll
+make it a kind of partnership business, Loudon:--Dodd & Son, eh?” and
+he patted my shoulder and repeated, “Dodd & Son, Dodd & Son,” with the
+kindliest amusement.
+
+If my father was to give me pointers, and the commercial college was to
+be a stepping-stone to Paris, I could look my future in the face. The
+old boy, too, was so pleased at the idea of our association in this
+foolery that he immediately plucked up spirit. Thus it befell that those
+who had met at the depot like a pair of mutes, sat down to table with
+holiday faces.
+
+And now I have to introduce a new character that never said a word nor
+wagged a finger, and yet shaped my whole subsequent career. You have
+crossed the States, so that in all likelihood you have seen the head
+of it, parcel-gilt and curiously fluted, rising among trees from a wide
+plain; for this new character was no other than the State capitol of
+Muskegon, then first projected. My father had embraced the idea with a
+mixture of patriotism and commercial greed both perfectly genuine. He
+was of all the committees, he had subscribed a great deal of money, and
+he was making arrangements to have a finger in most of the contracts.
+Competitive plans had been sent in; at the time of my return from
+college my father was deep in their consideration; and as the idea
+entirely occupied his mind, the first evening did not pass away before
+he had called me into council. Here was a subject at last into which I
+could throw myself with pleasurable zeal. Architecture was new to me,
+indeed; but it was at least an art; and for all the arts I had a taste
+naturally classical and that capacity to take delighted pains which some
+famous idiot has supposed to be synonymous with genius. I threw myself
+headlong into my father's work, acquainted myself with all the plans,
+their merits and defects, read besides in special books, made myself
+a master of the theory of strains, studied the current prices
+of materials, and (in one word) “devilled” the whole business so
+thoroughly, that when the plans came up for consideration, Big Head Dodd
+was supposed to have earned fresh laurels. His arguments carried the
+day, his choice was approved by the committee, and I had the anonymous
+satisfaction to know that arguments and choice were wholly mine. In the
+recasting of the plan which followed, my part was even larger; for I
+designed and cast with my own hand a hot-air grating for the offices,
+which had the luck or merit to be accepted. The energy and aptitude
+which I displayed throughout delighted and surprised my father, and I
+believe, although I say it whose tongue should be tied, that they alone
+prevented Muskegon capitol from being the eyesore of my native State.
+
+Altogether, I was in a cheery frame of mind when I returned to the
+commercial college; and my earlier operations were crowned with a full
+measure of success. My father wrote and wired to me continually. “You
+are to exercise your own judgment, Loudon,” he would say. “All that I do
+is to give you the figures; but whatever operation you take up must be
+upon your own responsibility, and whatever you earn will be entirely
+due to your own dash and forethought.” For all that, it was always clear
+what he intended me to do, and I was always careful to do it. Inside
+of a month I was at the head of seventeen or eighteen thousand dollars,
+college paper. And here I fell a victim to one of the vices of the
+system. The paper (I have already explained) had a real value of one
+per cent; and cost, and could be sold for, currency. Unsuccessful
+speculators were thus always selling clothes, books, banjos, and
+sleeve-links, in order to pay their differences; the successful, on the
+other hand, were often tempted to realise, and enjoy some return upon
+their profits. Now I wanted thirty dollars' worth of artist-truck, for
+I was always sketching in the woods; my allowance was for the time
+exhausted; I had begun to regard the exchange (with my father's help)
+as a place where money was to be got for stooping; and in an evil hour
+I realised three thousand dollars of the college paper and bought my
+easel.
+
+It was a Wednesday morning when the things arrived, and set me in
+the seventh heaven of satisfaction. My father (for I can scarcely say
+myself) was trying at this time a “straddle” in wheat between Chicago
+and New York; the operation so called is, as you know, one of the
+most tempting and least safe upon the chess-board of finance. On the
+Thursday, luck began to turn against my father's calculations; and by
+the Friday evening, I was posted on the boards as a defaulter for the
+second time. Here was a rude blow: my father would have taken it ill
+enough in any case; for however much a man may resent the incapacity of
+an only son, he will feel his own more sensibly. But it chanced that, in
+our bitter cup of failure, there was one ingredient that might truly be
+called poisonous. He had been keeping the run of my position; he missed
+the three thousand dollars, paper; and in his view, I had stolen thirty
+dollars, currency. It was an extreme view perhaps; but in some senses,
+it was just: and my father, although (to my judgment) quite reckless of
+honesty in the essence of his operations, was the soul of honour as to
+their details. I had one grieved letter from him, dignified and tender;
+and during the rest of that wretched term, working as a clerk, selling
+my clothes and sketches to make futile speculations, my dream of Paris
+quite vanished. I was cheered by no word of kindness and helped by no
+hint of counsel from my father.
+
+All the time he was no doubt thinking of little else but his son, and
+what to do with him. I believe he had been really appalled by what he
+regarded as my laxity of principle, and began to think it might be
+well to preserve me from temptation; the architect of the capitol had,
+besides, spoken obligingly of my design; and while he was thus hanging
+between two minds, Fortune suddenly stepped in, and Muskegon State
+capitol reversed my destiny.
+
+“Loudon,” said my father, as he met me at the depot, with a smiling
+countenance, “if you were to go to Paris, how long would it take you to
+become an experienced sculptor?”
+
+“How do you mean, father?” I cried. “Experienced?”
+
+“A man that could be entrusted with the highest styles,” he answered;
+“the nude, for instance; and the patriotic and emblematical styles.”
+
+“It might take three years,” I replied.
+
+“You think Paris necessary?” he asked. “There are great advantages
+in our own country; and that man Prodgers appears to be a very clever
+sculptor, though I suppose he stands too high to go around giving
+lessons.”
+
+“Paris is the only place,” I assured him.
+
+“Well, I think myself it will sound better,” he admitted. “A Young Man,
+a Native of this State, Son of a Leading Citizen, Studies Prosecuted
+under the Most Experienced Masters in Paris,” he added, relishingly.
+
+“But, my dear dad, what is it all about?” I interrupted. “I never even
+dreamed of being a sculptor.”
+
+“Well, here it is,” said he. “I took up the statuary contract on our new
+capitol; I took it up at first as a deal; and then it occurred to me it
+would be better to keep it in the family. It meets your idea; there's
+considerable money in the thing; and it's patriotic. So, if you say the
+word, you shall go to Paris, and come back in three years to decorate
+the capitol of your native State. It's a big chance for you, Loudon; and
+I'll tell you what--every dollar you earn, I'll put another alongside of
+it. But the sooner you go, and the harder you work, the better; for
+if the first half-dozen statues aren't in a line with public taste in
+Muskegon, there will be trouble.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. ROUSSILLON WINE.
+
+
+My mother's family was Scotch, and it was judged fitting I should pay a
+visit on my way Paris-ward, to my Uncle Adam Loudon, a wealthy retired
+grocer of Edinburgh. He was very stiff and very ironical; he fed me
+well, lodged me sumptuously, and seemed to take it out of me all the
+time, cent per cent, in secret entertainment which caused his spectacles
+to glitter and his mouth to twitch. The ground of this ill-suppressed
+mirth (as well as I could make out) was simply the fact that I was an
+American. “Well,” he would say, drawing out the word to infinity, “and
+I suppose now in your country, things will be so and so.” And the whole
+group of my cousins would titter joyously. Repeated receptions of
+this sort must be at the root, I suppose, of what they call the Great
+American Jest; and I know I was myself goaded into saying that my
+friends went naked in the summer months, and that the Second Methodist
+Episcopal Church in Muskegon was decorated with scalps. I cannot say
+that these flights had any great success; they seemed to awaken little
+more surprise than the fact that my father was a Republican or that I
+had been taught in school to spell COLOUR without the U. If I had
+told them (what was after all the truth) that my father had paid a
+considerable annual sum to have me brought up in a gambling hell, the
+tittering and grinning of this dreadful family might perhaps have been
+excused.
+
+I cannot deny but I was sometimes tempted to knock my Uncle Adam down;
+and indeed I believe it must have come to a rupture at last, if they had
+not given a dinner party at which I was the lion. On this occasion, I
+learned (to my surprise and relief) that the incivility to which I had
+been subjected was a matter for the family circle and might be regarded
+almost in the light of an endearment. To strangers I was presented with
+consideration; and the account given of “my American brother-in-law,
+poor Janie's man, James K. Dodd, the well-known millionnaire of
+Muskegon,” was calculated to enlarge the heart of a proud son.
+
+An aged assistant of my grandfather's, a pleasant, humble creature with
+a taste for whiskey, was at first deputed to be my guide about the city.
+With this harmless but hardly aristocratic companion, I went to Arthur's
+Seat and the Calton Hill, heard the band play in the Princes Street
+Gardens, inspected the regalia and the blood of Rizzio, and fell in love
+with the great castle on its cliff, the innumerable spires of churches,
+the stately buildings, the broad prospects, and those narrow and crowded
+lanes of the old town where my ancestors had lived and died in the days
+before Columbus.
+
+But there was another curiosity that interested me more deeply--my
+grandfather, Alexander Loudon. In his time, the old gentleman had been a
+working mason, and had risen from the ranks more, I think, by shrewdness
+than by merit. In his appearance, speech, and manners, he bore broad
+marks of his origin, which were gall and wormwood to my Uncle Adam.
+His nails, in spite of anxious supervision, were often in conspicuous
+mourning; his clothes hung about him in bags and wrinkles like a
+ploughman's Sunday coat; his accent was rude, broad, and dragging: take
+him at his best, and even when he could be induced to hold his tongue,
+his mere presence in a corner of the drawing-room, with his open-air
+wrinkles, his scanty hair, his battered hands, and the cheerful
+craftiness of his expression, advertised the whole gang of us for a
+self-made family. My aunt might mince and my cousins bridle; but there
+was no getting over the solid, physical fact of the stonemason in the
+chimney-corner.
+
+That is one advantage of being an American: it never occurred to me to
+be ashamed of my grandfather, and the old gentleman was quick to mark
+the difference. He held my mother in tender memory, perhaps because
+he was in the habit of daily contrasting her with Uncle Adam, whom he
+detested to the point of frenzy; and he set down to inheritance from
+his favourite my own becoming treatment of himself. On our walks abroad,
+which soon became daily, he would sometimes (after duly warning me
+to keep the matter dark from “Aadam”) skulk into some old familiar
+pot-house; and there (if he had the luck to encounter any of his veteran
+cronies) he would present me to the company with manifest pride, casting
+at the same time a covert slur on the rest of his descendants. “This is
+my Jeannie's yin,” he would say. “He's a fine fallow, him.” The purpose
+of our excursions was not to seek antiquities or to enjoy famous
+prospects, but to visit one after another a series of doleful suburbs,
+for which it was the old gentleman's chief claim to renown that he had
+been the sole contractor, and too often the architect besides. I have
+rarely seen a more shocking exhibition: the bricks seemed to be blushing
+in the walls, and the slates on the roof to have turned pale with shame;
+but I was careful not to communicate these impressions to the aged
+artificer at my side; and when he would direct my attention to some
+fresh monstrosity--perhaps with the comment, “There's an idee of mine's:
+it's cheap and tasty, and had a graand run; the idee was soon stole, and
+there's whole deestricts near Glesgie with the goathic adeetion and
+that plunth,”--I would civilly make haste to admire and (what I found
+particularly delighted him) to inquire into the cost of each adornment.
+It will be conceived that Muskegon capitol was a frequent and a welcome
+ground of talk; I drew him all the plans from memory; and he, with the
+aid of a narrow volume full of figures and tables, which answered
+(I believe) to the name of Molesworth, and was his constant pocket
+companion, would draw up rough estimates and make imaginary offers on
+the various contracts. Our Muskegon builders he pronounced a pack of
+cormorants; and the congenial subject, together with my knowledge of
+architectural terms, the theory of strains, and the prices of materials
+in the States, formed a strong bond of union between what might have
+been otherwise an ill-assorted pair, and led my grandfather to pronounce
+me, with emphasis, “a real intalligent kind of a cheild.” Thus a second
+time, as you will presently see, the capitol of my native State had
+influentially affected the current of my life.
+
+I left Edinburgh, however, with not the least idea that I had done a
+stroke of excellent business for myself, and singly delighted to escape
+out of a somewhat dreary house and plunge instead into the rainbow city
+of Paris. Every man has his own romance; mine clustered exclusively
+about the practice of the arts, the life of Latin Quarter students, and
+the world of Paris as depicted by that grimy wizard, the author of the
+_Comedie Humaine_. I was not disappointed--I could not have been; for
+I did not see the facts, I brought them with me ready-made. Z. Marcas
+lived next door to me in my ungainly, ill-smelling hotel of the Rue
+Racine; I dined at my villainous restaurant with Lousteau and with
+Rastignac: if a curricle nearly ran me down at a street-crossing, Maxime
+de Trailles would be the driver. I dined, I say, at a poor restaurant
+and lived in a poor hotel; and this was not from need, but sentiment.
+My father gave me a profuse allowance, and I might have lived (had I
+chosen) in the Quartier de l'Etoile and driven to my studies daily.
+Had I done so, the glamour must have fled: I should still have been
+but Loudon Dodd; whereas now I was a Latin Quarter student, Murger's
+successor, living in flesh and blood the life of one of those romances
+I had loved to read, to re-read, and to dream over, among the woods of
+Muskegon.
+
+At this time we were all a little Murger-mad in the Latin Quarter.
+The play of the _Vie de Boheme_ (a dreary, snivelling piece) had been
+produced at the Odeon, had run an unconscionable time--for Paris, and
+revived the freshness of the legend. The same business, you may say,
+or there and thereabout, was being privately enacted in consequence in
+every garret of the neighbourhood, and a good third of the students
+were consciously impersonating Rodolphe or Schaunard to their own
+incommunicable satisfaction. Some of us went far, and some farther. I
+always looked with awful envy (for instance) on a certain countryman of
+my own who had a studio in the Rue Monsieur le Prince, wore boots, and
+long hair in a net, and could be seen tramping off, in this guise, to
+the worst eating-house of the quarter, followed by a Corsican model, his
+mistress, in the conspicuous costume of her race and calling. It takes
+some greatness of soul to carry even folly to such heights as these; and
+for my own part, I had to content myself by pretending very arduously
+to be poor, by wearing a smoking-cap on the streets, and by pursuing,
+through a series of misadventures, that extinct mammal, the grisette.
+The most grievous part was the eating and the drinking. I was born with
+a dainty tooth and a palate for wine; and only a genuine devotion to
+romance could have supported me under the cat-civets that I had to
+swallow, and the red ink of Bercy I must wash them down withal. Every
+now and again, after a hard day at the studio, where I was steadily and
+far from unsuccessfully industrious, a wave of distaste would overbear
+me; I would slink away from my haunts and companions, indemnify myself
+for weeks of self-denial with fine wines and dainty dishes; seated
+perhaps on a terrace, perhaps in an arbour in a garden, with a volume
+of one of my favourite authors propped open in front of me, and now
+consulted awhile, and now forgotten:--so remain, relishing my situation,
+till night fell and the lights of the city kindled; and thence stroll
+homeward by the riverside, under the moon or stars, in a heaven of
+poetry and digestion.
+
+One such indulgence led me in the course of my second year into an
+adventure which I must relate: indeed, it is the very point I have been
+aiming for, since that was what brought me in acquaintance with Jim
+Pinkerton. I sat down alone to dinner one October day when the rusty
+leaves were falling and scuttling on the boulevard, and the minds of
+impressionable men inclined in about an equal degree towards sadness
+and conviviality. The restaurant was no great place, but boasted a
+considerable cellar and a long printed list of vintages. This I was
+perusing with the double zest of a man who is fond of wine and a lover
+of beautiful names, when my eye fell (near the end of the card) on that
+not very famous or familiar brand, Roussillon. I remembered it was a
+wine I had never tasted, ordered a bottle, found it excellent, and when
+I had discussed the contents, called (according to my habit) for a final
+pint. It appears they did not keep Roussillon in half-bottles. “All
+right,” said I. “Another bottle.” The tables at this eating-house are
+close together; and the next thing I can remember, I was in somewhat
+loud conversation with my nearest neighbours. From these I must have
+gradually extended my attentions; for I have a clear recollection of
+gazing about a room in which every chair was half turned round and every
+face turned smilingly to mine. I can even remember what I was saying at
+the moment; but after twenty years, the embers of shame are still alive;
+and I prefer to give your imagination the cue, by simply mentioning that
+my muse was the patriotic. It had been my design to adjourn for coffee
+in the company of some of these new friends; but I was no sooner on
+the sidewalk than I found myself unaccountably alone. The circumstance
+scarce surprised me at the time, much less now; but I was somewhat
+chagrined a little after to find I had walked into a kiosque. I began to
+wonder if I were any the worse for my last bottle, and decided to steady
+myself with coffee and brandy. In the Cafe de la Source, where I went
+for this restorative, the fountain was playing, and (what greatly
+surprised me) the mill and the various mechanical figures on the rockery
+appeared to have been freshly repaired and performed the most enchanting
+antics. The cafe was extraordinarily hot and bright, with every detail
+of a conspicuous clearness, from the faces of the guests to the type of
+the newspapers on the tables, and the whole apartment swang to and fro
+like a hammock, with an exhilarating motion. For some while I was so
+extremely pleased with these particulars that I thought I could never
+be weary of beholding them: then dropped of a sudden into a causeless
+sadness; and then, with the same swiftness and spontaneity, arrived at
+the conclusion that I was drunk and had better get to bed.
+
+It was but a step or two to my hotel, where I got my lighted candle from
+the porter and mounted the four flights to my own room. Although I could
+not deny that I was drunk, I was at the same time lucidly rational and
+practical. I had but one preoccupation--to be up in time on the morrow
+for my work; and when I observed the clock on my chimney-piece to have
+stopped, I decided to go down stairs again and give directions to the
+porter. Leaving the candle burning and my door open, to be a guide to me
+on my return, I set forth accordingly. The house was quite dark; but as
+there were only the three doors on each landing, it was impossible to
+wander, and I had nothing to do but descend the stairs until I saw the
+glimmer of the porter's night light. I counted four flights: no porter.
+It was possible, of course, that I had reckoned incorrectly; so I went
+down another and another, and another, still counting as I went, until
+I had reached the preposterous figure of nine flights. It was now quite
+clear that I had somehow passed the porter's lodge without remarking
+it; indeed, I was, at the lowest figure, five pairs of stairs below
+the street, and plunged in the very bowels of the earth. That my hotel
+should thus be founded upon catacombs was a discovery of considerable
+interest; and if I had not been in a frame of mind entirely
+businesslike, I might have continued to explore all night this
+subterranean empire. But I was bound I must be up betimes on the next
+morning, and for that end it was imperative that I should find the
+porter. I faced about accordingly, and counting with painful care,
+remounted towards the level of the street. Five, six, and seven flights
+I climbed, and still there was no porter. I began to be weary of the
+job, and reflecting that I was now close to my own room, decided I
+should go to bed. Eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen flights
+I mounted; and my open door seemed to be as wholly lost to me as the
+porter and his floating dip. I remembered that the house stood but
+six stories at its highest point, from which it appeared (on the most
+moderate computation) I was now three stories higher than the roof. My
+original sense of amusement was succeeded by a not unnatural irritation.
+“My room has just GOT to be here,” said I, and I stepped towards the
+door with outspread arms. There was no door and no wall; in place of
+either there yawned before me a dark corridor, in which I continued to
+advance for some time without encountering the smallest opposition. And
+this in a house whose extreme area scantily contained three small rooms,
+a narrow landing, and the stair! The thing was manifestly nonsense;
+and you will scarcely be surprised to learn that I now began to lose
+my temper. At this juncture I perceived a filtering of light along
+the floor, stretched forth my hand which encountered the knob of a
+door-handle, and without further ceremony entered a room. A young lady
+was within; she was going to bed, and her toilet was far advanced, or
+the other way about, if you prefer.
+
+“I hope you will pardon this intrusion,” said I; “but my room is No. 12,
+and something has gone wrong with this blamed house.”
+
+She looked at me a moment; and then, “If you will step outside for a
+moment, I will take you there,” says she.
+
+Thus, with perfect composure on both sides, the matter was arranged.
+I waited a while outside her door. Presently she rejoined me, in a
+dressing-gown, took my hand, led me up another flight, which made the
+fourth above the level of the roof, and shut me into my own room, where
+(being quite weary after these contraordinary explorations) I turned in,
+and slumbered like a child.
+
+I tell you the thing calmly, as it appeared to me to pass; but the next
+day, when I awoke and put memory in the witness-box, I could not conceal
+from myself that the tale presented a good many improbable features.
+I had no mind for the studio, after all, and went instead to the
+Luxembourg gardens, there, among the sparrows and the statues and the
+falling leaves, to cool and clear my head. It is a garden I have always
+loved. You sit there in a public place of history and fiction. Barras
+and Fouche have looked from these windows. Lousteau and de Banville (one
+as real as the other) have rhymed upon these benches. The city tramples
+by without the railings to a lively measure; and within and about you,
+trees rustle, children and sparrows utter their small cries, and the
+statues look on forever. Here, then, in a seat opposite the gallery
+entrance, I set to work on the events of the last night, to disengage
+(if it were possible) truth from fiction.
+
+The house, by daylight, had proved to be six stories high, the same as
+ever. I could find, with all my architectural experience, no room in its
+altitude for those interminable stairways, no width between its walls
+for that long corridor, where I had tramped at night. And there was yet
+a greater difficulty. I had read somewhere an aphorism that everything
+may be false to itself save human nature. A house might elongate or
+enlarge itself--or seem to do so to a gentleman who had been dining.
+The ocean might dry up, the rocks melt in the sun, the stars fall from
+heaven like autumn apples; and there was nothing in these incidents
+to boggle the philosopher. But the case of the young lady stood upon a
+different foundation. Girls were not good enough, or not good that way,
+or else they were too good. I was ready to accept any of these views:
+all pointed to the same conclusion, which I was thus already on the
+point of reaching, when a fresh argument occurred, and instantly
+confirmed it. I could remember the exact words we had each said; and I
+had spoken, and she had replied, in English. Plainly, then, the whole
+affair was an illusion: catacombs, and stairs, and charitable lady, all
+were equally the stuff of dreams.
+
+I had just come to this determination, when there blew a flaw of wind
+through the autumnal gardens; the dead leaves showered down, and a
+flight of sparrows, thick as a snowfall, wheeled above my head with
+sudden pipings. This agreeable bustle was the affair of a moment, but it
+startled me from the abstraction into which I had fallen like a summons.
+I sat briskly up, and as I did so, my eyes rested on the figure of a
+lady in a brown jacket and carrying a paint-box. By her side walked a
+fellow some years older than myself, with an easel under his arm; and
+alike by their course and cargo I might judge they were bound for the
+gallery, where the lady was, doubtless, engaged upon some copying.
+You can imagine my surprise when I recognized in her the heroine of my
+adventure. To put the matter beyond question, our eyes met, and she,
+seeing herself remembered and recalling the trim in which I had
+last beheld her, looked swiftly on the ground with just a shadow of
+confusion.
+
+I could not tell you to-day if she were plain or pretty; but she had
+behaved with so much good sense, and I had cut so poor a figure in
+her presence, that I became instantly fired with the desire to display
+myself in a more favorable light. The young man besides was possibly her
+brother; brothers are apt to be hasty, theirs being a part in which
+it is possible, at a comparatively early age, to assume the dignity
+of manhood; and it occurred to me it might be wise to forestall all
+possible complications by an apology.
+
+On this reasoning I drew near to the gallery door, and had hardly got in
+position before the young man came out. Thus it was that I came face to
+face with my third destiny; for my career has been entirely shaped
+by these three elements,--my father, the capitol of Muskegon, and my
+friend, Jim Pinkerton. As for the young lady with whom my mind was at
+the moment chiefly occupied, I was never to hear more of her from that
+day forward: an excellent example of the Blind Man's Buff that we call
+life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. TO INTRODUCE MR. PINKERTON.
+
+
+The stranger, I have said, was some years older than myself: a man of a
+good stature, a very lively face, cordial, agitated manners, and a gray
+eye as active as a fowl's.
+
+“May I have a word with you?” said I.
+
+“My dear sir,” he replied, “I don't know what it can be about, but you
+may have a hundred if you like.”
+
+“You have just left the side of a young lady,” I continued, “towards
+whom I was led (very unintentionally) into the appearance of an offence.
+To speak to herself would be only to renew her embarrassment, and I
+seize the occasion of making my apology, and declaring my respect, to
+one of my own sex who is her friend, and perhaps,” I added, with a bow,
+“her natural protector.”
+
+“You are a countryman of mine; I know it!” he cried: “I am sure of it
+by your delicacy to a lady. You do her no more than justice. I was
+introduced to her the other night at tea, in the apartment of some
+people, friends of mine; and meeting her again this morning, I could not
+do less than carry her easel for her. My dear sir, what is your name?”
+
+I was disappointed to find he had so little bond with my young lady;
+and but that it was I who had sought the acquaintance, might have been
+tempted to retreat. At the same time, something in the stranger's eye
+engaged me.
+
+“My name,” said I, “is Loudon Dodd; I am a student of sculpture here
+from Muskegon.”
+
+“Of sculpture?” he cried, as though that would have been his last
+conjecture. “Mine is James Pinkerton; I am delighted to have the
+pleasure of your acquaintance.”
+
+“Pinkerton!” it was now my turn to exclaim. “Are you Broken-Stool
+Pinkerton?”
+
+He admitted his identity with a laugh of boyish delight; and indeed any
+young man in the quarter might have been proud to own a sobriquet thus
+gallantly acquired.
+
+In order to explain the name, I must here digress into a chapter of
+the history of manners in the nineteenth century, very well worth
+commemoration for its own sake. In some of the studios at that date,
+the hazing of new pupils was both barbarous and obscene. Two incidents,
+following one on the heels of the other tended to produce an advance in
+civilization by the means (as so commonly happens) of a passing appeal
+to savage standards. The first was the arrival of a little gentleman
+from Armenia. He had a fez upon his head and (what nobody counted on) a
+dagger in his pocket. The hazing was set about in the customary style,
+and, perhaps in virtue of the victim's head-gear, even more boisterously
+than usual. He bore it at first with an inviting patience; but upon one
+of the students proceeding to an unpardonable freedom, plucked out
+his knife and suddenly plunged it in the belly of the jester. This
+gentleman, I am pleased to say, passed months upon a bed of sickness,
+before he was in a position to resume his studies. The second incident
+was that which had earned Pinkerton his reputation. In a crowded studio,
+while some very filthy brutalities were being practised on a trembling
+debutant, a tall, pale fellow sprang from his stool and (without the
+smallest preface or explanation) sang out, “All English and Americans to
+clear the shop!” Our race is brutal, but not filthy; and the summons
+was nobly responded to. Every Anglo-Saxon student seized his stool; in
+a moment the studio was full of bloody coxcombs, the French fleeing in
+disorder for the door, the victim liberated and amazed. In this feat of
+arms, both English-speaking nations covered themselves with glory;
+but I am proud to claim the author of the whole for an American, and
+a patriotic American at that, being the same gentleman who had
+subsequently to be held down in the bottom of a box during a performance
+of _L'Oncle Sam_, sobbing at intervals, “My country! O my country!”
+ While yet another (my new acquaintance, Pinkerton) was supposed to have
+made the most conspicuous figure in the actual battle. At one blow, he
+had broken his own stool, and sent the largest of his opponents back
+foremost through what we used to call a “conscientious nude.” It appears
+that, in the continuation of his flight, this fallen warrior issued on
+the boulevard still framed in the burst canvas.
+
+It will be understood how much talk the incident aroused in the
+students' quarter, and that I was highly gratified to make the
+acquaintance of my famous countryman. It chanced I was to see more of
+the quixotic side of his character before the morning was done; for as
+we continued to stroll together, I found myself near the studio of a
+young Frenchman whose work I had promised to examine, and in the fashion
+of the quarter carried up Pinkerton along with me. Some of my comrades
+of this date were pretty obnoxious fellows. I could almost always admire
+and respect the grown-up practitioners of art in Paris; but many of
+those who were still in a state of pupilage were sorry specimens, so
+much so that I used often to wonder where the painters came from, and
+where the brutes of students went to. A similar mystery hangs over the
+intermediate stages of the medical profession, and must have perplexed
+the least observant. The ruffian, at least, whom I now carried Pinkerton
+to visit, was one of the most crapulous in the quarter. He turned
+out for our delectation a huge “crust” (as we used to call it) of St.
+Stephen, wallowing in red upon his belly in an exhausted receiver, and
+a crowd of Hebrews in blue, green, and yellow, pelting him--apparently
+with buns; and while we gazed upon this contrivance, regaled us with
+a piece of his own recent biography, of which his mind was still very
+full, and which he seemed to fancy, represented him in a heroic posture.
+I was one of those cosmopolitan Americans, who accept the world (whether
+at home or abroad) as they find it, and whose favourite part is that
+of the spectator; yet even I was listening with ill-suppressed disgust,
+when I was aware of a violent plucking at my sleeve.
+
+“Is he saying he kicked her down stairs?” asked Pinkerton, white as St.
+Stephen.
+
+“Yes,” said I: “his discarded mistress; and then he pelted her with
+stones. I suppose that's what gave him the idea for his picture. He has
+just been alleging the pathetic excuse that she was old enough to be his
+mother.”
+
+Something like a sob broke from Pinkerton. “Tell him,” he gasped--“I
+can't speak this language, though I understand a little; I never had any
+proper education--tell him I'm going to punch his head.”
+
+“For God's sake, do nothing of the sort!” I cried. “They don't
+understand that sort of thing here.” And I tried to bundle him out.
+
+“Tell him first what we think of him,” he objected. “Let me tell him
+what he looks in the eyes of a pure-minded American”
+
+“Leave that to me,” said I, thrusting Pinkerton clear through the door.
+
+“Qu'est-ce qu'il a?”[1] inquired the student.
+
+[1] “What's the matter with him?”
+
+“Monsieur se sent mal au coeur d'avoir trop regarde votre croute,”[2]
+said I, and made my escape, scarce with dignity, at Pinkerton's heels.
+
+[2] “The gentleman is sick at his stomach from having looked too long at
+your daub.”
+
+“What did you say to him?” he asked.
+
+“The only thing that he could feel,” was my reply.
+
+After this scene, the freedom with which I had ejected my new
+acquaintance, and the precipitation with which I had followed him, the
+least I could do was to propose luncheon. I have forgot the name of the
+place to which I led him, nothing loath; it was on the far side of the
+Luxembourg at least, with a garden behind, where we were speedily set
+face to face at table, and began to dig into each other's history
+and character, like terriers after rabbits, according to the approved
+fashion of youth.
+
+Pinkerton's parents were from the old country; there too, I incidentally
+gathered, he had himself been born, though it was a circumstance he
+seemed prone to forget. Whether he had run away, or his father had
+turned him out, I never fathomed; but about the age of twelve, he was
+thrown upon his own resources. A travelling tin-type photographer picked
+him up, like a haw out of a hedgerow, on a wayside in New Jersey; took
+a fancy to the urchin; carried him on with him in his wandering life;
+taught him all he knew himself--to take tin-types (as well as I can make
+out) and doubt the Scriptures; and died at last in Ohio at the corner
+of a road. “He was a grand specimen,” cried Pinkerton; “I wish you could
+have seen him, Mr. Dodd. He had an appearance of magnanimity that used
+to remind me of the patriarchs.” On the death of this random protector,
+the boy inherited the plant and continued the business. “It was a life
+I could have chosen, Mr. Dodd!” he cried. “I have been in all the finest
+scenes of that magnificent continent that we were born to be the heirs
+of. I wish you could see my collection of tin-types; I wish I had them
+here. They were taken for my own pleasure and to be a memento; and they
+show Nature in her grandest as well as her gentlest moments.” As he
+tramped the Western States and Territories, taking tin-types, the boy
+was continually getting hold of books, good, bad, and indifferent,
+popular and abstruse, from the novels of Sylvanus Cobb to Euclid's
+Elements, both of which I found (to my almost equal wonder) he had
+managed to peruse: he was taking stock by the way, of the people, the
+products, and the country, with an eye unusually observant and a
+memory unusually retentive; and he was collecting for himself a body of
+magnanimous and semi-intellectual nonsense, which he supposed to be the
+natural thoughts and to contain the whole duty of the born American.
+To be pure-minded, to be patriotic, to get culture and money with both
+hands and with the same irrational fervour--these appeared to be the
+chief articles of his creed. In later days (not of course upon this
+first occasion) I would sometimes ask him why; and he had his answer
+pat. “To build up the type!” he would cry. “We're all committed to that;
+we're all under bond to fulfil the American Type! Loudon, the hope of
+the world is there. If we fail, like these old feudal monarchies, what
+is left?”
+
+The trade of a tin-typer proved too narrow for the lad's ambition; it
+was insusceptible of expansion, he explained, it was not truly modern;
+and by a sudden conversion of front, he became a railroad-scalper. The
+principles of this trade I never clearly understood; but its essence
+appears to be to cheat the railroads out of their due fare. “I threw my
+whole soul into it; I grudged myself food and sleep while I was at it;
+the most practised hands admitted I had caught on to the idea in a month
+and revolutionised the practice inside of a year,” he said. “And there's
+interest in it, too. It's amusing to pick out some one going by, make up
+your mind about his character and tastes, dash out of the office and hit
+him flying with an offer of the very place he wants to go to. I don't
+think there was a scalper on the continent made fewer blunders. But I
+took it only as a stage. I was saving every dollar; I was looking
+ahead. I knew what I wanted--wealth, education, a refined home, and a
+conscientious, cultured lady for a wife; for, Mr. Dodd”--this with
+a formidable outcry--“every man is bound to marry above him: if the
+woman's not the man's superior, I brand it as mere sensuality. There was
+my idea, at least. That was what I was saving for; and enough, too! But
+it isn't every man, I know that--it's far from every man--could do what
+I did: close up the livest agency in Saint Jo, where he was coining
+dollars by the pot, set out alone, without a friend or a word of French,
+and settle down here to spend his capital learning art.”
+
+“Was it an old taste?” I asked him, “or a sudden fancy?”
+
+“Neither, Mr. Dodd,” he admitted. “Of course I had learned in my
+tin-typing excursions to glory and exult in the works of God. But it
+wasn't that. I just said to myself, What is most wanted in my age and
+country? More culture and more art, I said; and I chose the best place,
+saved my money, and came here to get them.”
+
+The whole attitude of this young man warmed and shamed me. He had more
+fire in his little toe than I had in my whole carcase; he was stuffed to
+bursting with the manly virtues; thrift and courage glowed in him; and
+even if his artistic vocation seemed (to one of my exclusive tenets) not
+quite clear, who could predict what might be accomplished by a creature
+so full-blooded and so inspired with animal and intellectual energy? So,
+when he proposed that I should come and see his work (one of the regular
+stages of a Latin Quarter friendship), I followed him with interest and
+hope.
+
+He lodged parsimoniously at the top of a tall house near the
+Observatory, in a bare room, principally furnished with his own trunks
+and papered with his own despicable studies. No man has less taste for
+disagreeable duties than myself; perhaps there is only one subject on
+which I cannot flatter a man without a blush; but upon that, upon all
+that touches art, my sincerity is Roman. Once and twice I made the
+circuit of his walls in silence, spying in every corner for some spark
+of merit; he, meanwhile, following close at my heels, reading the
+verdict in my face with furtive glances, presenting some fresh study for
+my inspection with undisguised anxiety, and (after it had been silently
+weighed in the balances and found wanting) whisking it away with an open
+gesture of despair. By the time the second round was completed, we were
+both extremely depressed.
+
+“O!” he groaned, breaking the long silence, “it's quite unnecessary you
+should speak!”
+
+“Do you want me to be frank with you? I think you are wasting time,”
+ said I.
+
+“You don't see any promise?” he inquired, beguiled by some return of
+hope, and turning upon me the embarrassing brightness of his eye. “Not
+in this still-life here, of the melon? One fellow thought it good.”
+
+It was the least I could do to give the melon a more particular
+examination; which, when I had done, I could but shake my head. “I am
+truly sorry, Pinkerton,” said I, “but I can't advise you to persevere.”
+
+He seemed to recover his fortitude at the moment, rebounding from
+disappointment like a man of india-rubber. “Well,” said he stoutly, “I
+don't know that I'm surprised. But I'll go on with the course; and throw
+my whole soul into it, too. You mustn't think the time is lost. It's all
+culture; it will help me to extend my relations when I get back home;
+it may fit me for a position on one of the illustrateds; and then I can
+always turn dealer,” he said, uttering the monstrous proposition,
+which was enough to shake the Latin Quarter to the dust, with entire
+simplicity. “It's all experience, besides;” he continued, “and it seems
+to me there's a tendency to underrate experience, both as net profit and
+investment. Never mind. That's done with. But it took courage for you
+to say what you did, and I'll never forget it. Here's my hand, Mr. Dodd.
+I'm not your equal in culture or talent--”
+
+“You know nothing about that,” I interrupted. “I have seen your work,
+but you haven't seen mine.
+
+“No more I have,” he cried; “and let's go see it at once! But I know you
+are away up. I can feel it here.”
+
+To say truth, I was almost ashamed to introduce him to my studio--my
+work, whether absolutely good or bad, being so vastly superior to his.
+But his spirits were now quite restored; and he amazed me, on the way,
+with his light-hearted talk and new projects. So that I began at last
+to understand how matters lay: that this was not an artist who had been
+deprived of the practice of his single art; but only a business man
+of very extended interests, informed (perhaps something of the most
+suddenly) that one investment out of twenty had gone wrong.
+
+As a matter of fact besides (although I never suspected it) he was
+already seeking consolation with another of the muses, and pleasing
+himself with the notion that he would repay me for my sincerity, cement
+our friendship, and (at one and the same blow) restore my estimation of
+his talents. Several times already, when I had been speaking of myself,
+he had pulled out a writing-pad and scribbled a brief note; and now,
+when we entered the studio, I saw it in his hand again, and the
+pencil go to his mouth, as he cast a comprehensive glance round the
+uncomfortable building.
+
+“Are you going to make a sketch of it?” I could not help asking, as I
+unveiled the Genius of Muskegon.
+
+“Ah, that's my secret,” said he. “Never you mind. A mouse can help a
+lion.”
+
+He walked round my statue and had the design explained to him. I had
+represented Muskegon as a young, almost a stripling, mother, with
+something of an Indian type; the babe upon her knees was winged, to
+indicate our soaring future; and her seat was a medley of sculptured
+fragments, Greek, Roman, and Gothic, to remind us of the older worlds
+from which we trace our generation.
+
+“Now, does this satisfy you, Mr. Dodd?” he inquired, as soon as I had
+explained to him the main features of the design.
+
+“Well,” I said, “the fellows seem to think it's not a bad bonne femme
+for a beginner. I don't think it's entirely bad myself. Here is the best
+point; it builds up best from here. No, it seems to me it has a kind of
+merit,” I admitted; “but I mean to do better.”
+
+“Ah, that's the word!” cried Pinkerton. “There's the word I love!” and
+he scribbled in his pad.
+
+“What in creation ails you?” I inquired. “It's the most commonplace
+expression in the English language.”
+
+“Better and better!” chuckled Pinkerton. “The unconsciousness of genius.
+Lord, but this is coming in beautiful!” and he scribbled again.
+
+“If you're going to be fulsome,” said I, “I'll close the place of
+entertainment.” And I threatened to replace the veil upon the Genius.
+
+“No, no,” said he. “Don't be in a hurry. Give me a point or two. Show me
+what's particularly good.”
+
+“I would rather you found that out for yourself,” said I.
+
+“The trouble is,” said he, “that I've never turned my attention to
+sculpture, beyond, of course, admiring it, as everybody must who has a
+soul. So do just be a good fellow, and explain to me what you like in
+it, and what you tried for, and where the merit comes in. It'll be all
+education for me.”
+
+“Well, in sculpture, you see, the first thing you have to consider
+is the masses. It's, after all, a kind of architecture,” I began, and
+delivered a lecture on that branch of art, with illustrations from
+my own masterpiece there present, all of which, if you don't mind,
+or whether you mind or not, I mean to conscientiously omit. Pinkerton
+listened with a fiery interest, questioned me with a certain
+uncultivated shrewdness, and continued to scratch down notes, and tear
+fresh sheets from his pad. I found it inspiring to have my words thus
+taken down like a professor's lecture; and having had no previous
+experience of the press, I was unaware that they were all being taken
+down wrong. For the same reason (incredible as it must appear in
+an American) I never entertained the least suspicion that they were
+destined to be dished up with a sauce of penny-a-lining gossip; and
+myself, my person, and my works of art butchered to make a holiday
+for the readers of a Sunday paper. Night had fallen over the Genius of
+Muskegon before the issue of my theoretic eloquence was stayed, nor did
+I separate from my new friend without an appointment for the morrow.
+
+I was indeed greatly taken with this first view of my countryman,
+and continued, on further acquaintance, to be interested, amused, and
+attracted by him in about equal proportions. I must not say he had a
+fault, not only because my mouth is sealed by gratitude, but because
+those he had sprang merely from his education, and you could see he had
+cultivated and improved them like virtues. For all that, I can never
+deny he was a troublous friend to me, and the trouble began early.
+
+It may have been a fortnight later that I divined the secret of the
+writing-pad. My wretch (it leaked out) wrote letters for a paper in the
+West, and had filled a part of one of them with descriptions of myself.
+I pointed out to him that he had no right to do so without asking my
+permission.
+
+“Why, this is just what I hoped!” he exclaimed. “I thought you didn't
+seem to catch on; only it seemed too good to be true.”
+
+“But, my good fellow, you were bound to warn me,” I objected.
+
+“I know it's generally considered etiquette,” he admitted; “but between
+friends, and when it was only with a view of serving you, I thought it
+wouldn't matter. I wanted it (if possible) to come on you as a surprise;
+I wanted you just to waken, like Lord Byron, and find the papers full of
+you. You must admit it was a natural thought. And no man likes to boast
+of a favour beforehand.”
+
+“But, heavens and earth! how do you know I think it a favour?” I cried.
+
+He became immediately plunged in despair. “You think it a liberty,” said
+he; “I see that. I would rather have cut off my hand. I would stop it
+now, only it's too late; it's published by now. And I wrote it with so
+much pride and pleasure!”
+
+I could think of nothing but how to console him. “O, I daresay it's all
+right,” said I. “I know you meant it kindly, and you would be sure to do
+it in good taste.”
+
+“That you may swear to,” he cried. “It's a pure, bright, A number 1
+paper; the St. Jo _Sunday Herald_. The idea of the series was quite my
+own; I interviewed the editor, put it to him straight; the freshness of
+the idea took him, and I walked out of that office with the contract in
+my pocket, and did my first Paris letter that evening in Saint Jo. The
+editor did no more than glance his eye down the headlines. 'You're the
+man for us,' said he.”
+
+I was certainly far from reassured by this sketch of the class of
+literature in which I was to make my first appearance; but I said no
+more, and possessed my soul in patience, until the day came when I
+received a copy of a newspaper marked in the corner, “Compliments of
+J.P.” I opened it with sensible shrinkings; and there, wedged between an
+account of a prize-fight and a skittish article upon chiropody--think of
+chiropody treated with a leer!--I came upon a column and a half in which
+myself and my poor statue were embalmed. Like the editor with the first
+of the series, I did but glance my eye down the head-lines and was more
+than satisfied.
+
+     ANOTHER OF PINKERTON'S SPICY CHATS.
+
+     ART PRACTITIONERS IN PARIS.
+
+     MUSKEGON'S COLUMNED CAPITOL.
+
+     SON OF MILLIONAIRE DODD,
+
+     PATRIOT AND ARTIST.
+
+     “HE MEANS TO DO BETTER.”
+
+In the body of the text, besides, my eye caught, as it passed, some
+deadly expressions: “Figure somewhat fleshy,” “bright, intellectual
+smile,” “the unconsciousness of genius,” “'Now, Mr. Dodd,' resumed the
+reporter, 'what would be your idea of a distinctively American quality
+in sculpture?'” It was true the question had been asked; it was true,
+alas! that I had answered; and now here was my reply, or some strange
+hash of it, gibbeted in the cold publicity of type. I thanked God that
+my French fellow-students were ignorant of English; but when I thought
+of the British--of Myner (for instance) or the Stennises--I think I
+could have fallen on Pinkerton and beat him.
+
+To divert my thoughts (if it were possible) from this calamity, I turned
+to a letter from my father which had arrived by the same post. The
+envelope contained a strip of newspaper-cutting; and my eye caught
+again, “Son of Millionaire Dodd--Figure somewhat fleshy,” and the rest
+of the degrading nonsense. What would my father think of it? I wondered,
+and opened his manuscript. “My dearest boy,” it began, “I send you a
+cutting which has pleased me very much, from a St. Joseph paper of
+high standing. At last you seem to be coming fairly to the front; and
+I cannot but reflect with delight and gratitude how very few youths of
+your age occupy nearly two columns of press-matter all to themselves.
+I only wish your dear mother had been here to read it over my shoulder;
+but we will hope she shares my grateful emotion in a better place. Of
+course I have sent a copy to your grandfather and uncle in Edinburgh;
+so you can keep the one I enclose. This Jim Pinkerton seems a valuable
+acquaintance; he has certainly great talent; and it is a good general
+rule to keep in with pressmen.”
+
+I hope it will be set down to the right side of my account, but I had
+no sooner read these words, so touchingly silly, than my anger against
+Pinkerton was swallowed up in gratitude. Of all the circumstances of my
+career, my birth, perhaps, excepted, not one had given my poor father so
+profound a pleasure as this article in the _Sunday Herald_. What a fool,
+then, was I, to be lamenting! when I had at last, and for once, and
+at the cost of only a few blushes, paid back a fraction of my debt
+of gratitude. So that, when I next met Pinkerton, I took things very
+lightly; my father was pleased, and thought the letter very clever, I
+told him; for my own part, I had no taste for publicity: thought the
+public had no concern with the artist, only with his art; and though I
+owned he had handled it with great consideration, I should take it as a
+favour if he never did it again.
+
+“There it is,” he said despondingly. “I've hurt you. You can't deceive
+me, Loudon. It's the want of tact, and it's incurable.” He sat down, and
+leaned his head upon his hand. “I had no advantages when I was young,
+you see,” he added.
+
+“Not in the least, my dear fellow,” said I. “Only the next time you wish
+to do me a service, just speak about my work; leave my wretched person
+out, and my still more wretched conversation; and above all,” I added,
+with an irrepressible shudder, “don't tell them how I said it! There's
+that phrase, now: 'With a proud, glad smile.' Who cares whether I smiled
+or not?”
+
+“Oh, there now, Loudon, you're entirely wrong,” he broke in. “That's
+what the public likes; that's the merit of the thing, the literary
+value. It's to call up the scene before them; it's to enable the
+humblest citizen to enjoy that afternoon the same as I did. Think what
+it would have been to me when I was tramping around with my tin-types to
+find a column and a half of real, cultured conversation--an artist, in
+his studio abroad, talking of his art--and to know how he looked as he
+did it, and what the room was like, and what he had for breakfast; and
+to tell myself, eating tinned beans beside a creek, that if all went
+well, the same sort of thing would, sooner or later, happen to myself:
+why, Loudon, it would have been like a peephole into heaven!”
+
+“Well, if it gives so much pleasure,” I admitted, “the sufferers
+shouldn't complain. Only give the other fellows a turn.”
+
+The end of the matter was to bring myself and the journalist in a more
+close relation. If I know anything at all of human nature--and the IF
+is no mere figure of speech, but stands for honest doubt--no series
+of benefits conferred, or even dangers shared, would have so rapidly
+confirmed our friendship as this quarrel avoided, this fundamental
+difference of taste and training accepted and condoned.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. IN WHICH I EXPERIENCE EXTREMES OF FORTUNE.
+
+
+Whether it came from my training and repeated bankruptcy at the
+commercial college, or by direct inheritance from old Loudon, the
+Edinburgh mason, there can be no doubt about the fact that I was
+thrifty. Looking myself impartially over, I believe that is my only
+manly virtue. During my first two years in Paris I not only made it a
+point to keep well inside of my allowance, but accumulated considerable
+savings in the bank. You will say, with my masquerade of living as a
+penniless student, it must have been easy to do so: I should have had no
+difficulty, however, in doing the reverse. Indeed, it is wonderful I did
+not; and early in the third year, or soon after I had known Pinkerton, a
+singular incident proved it to have been equally wise. Quarter-day came,
+and brought no allowance. A letter of remonstrance was despatched, and
+for the first time in my experience, remained unanswered. A cablegram
+was more effectual; for it brought me at least a promise of attention.
+“Will write at once,” my father telegraphed; but I waited long for his
+letter. I was puzzled, angry, and alarmed; but thanks to my previous
+thrift, I cannot say that I was ever practically embarrassed. The
+embarrassment, the distress, the agony, were all for my unhappy father
+at home in Muskegon, struggling for life and fortune against untoward
+chances, returning at night from a day of ill-starred shifts and
+ventures, to read and perhaps to weep over that last harsh letter from
+his only child, to which he lacked the courage to reply.
+
+Nearly three months after time, and when my economies were beginning
+to run low, I received at last a letter with the customary bills of
+exchange.
+
+“My dearest boy,” it ran, “I believe, in the press of anxious business,
+your letters and even your allowance have been somewhile neglected. You
+must try to forgive your poor old dad, for he has had a trying time; and
+now when it is over, the doctor wants me to take my shotgun and go
+to the Adirondacks for a change. You must not fancy I am sick, only
+over-driven and under the weather. Many of our foremost operators have
+gone down: John T. M'Brady skipped to Canada with a trunkful of boodle;
+Billy Sandwith, Charlie Downs, Joe Kaiser, and many others of our
+leading men in this city bit the dust. But Big-Head Dodd has again
+weathered the blizzard, and I think I have fixed things so that we may
+be richer than ever before autumn.
+
+“Now I will tell you, my dear, what I propose. You say you are well
+advanced with your first statue; start in manfully and finish it, and if
+your teacher--I can never remember how to spell his name--will send me
+a certificate that it is up to market standard, you shall have ten
+thousand dollars to do what you like with, either at home or in Paris.
+I suggest, since you say the facilities for work are so much greater
+in that city, you would do well to buy or build a little home; and
+the first thing you know, your dad will be dropping in for a luncheon.
+Indeed, I would come now, for I am beginning to grow old, and I long to
+see my dear boy; but there are still some operations that want watching
+and nursing. Tell your friend, Mr. Pinkerton, that I read his letters
+every week; and though I have looked in vain lately for my Loudon's
+name, still I learn something of the life he is leading in that strange,
+old world, depicted by an able pen.”
+
+Here was a letter that no young man could possibly digest in solitude.
+It marked one of those junctures when the confidant is necessary; and
+the confidant selected was none other than Jim Pinkerton. My father's
+message may have had an influence in this decision; but I scarce suppose
+so, for the intimacy was already far advanced. I had a genuine and
+lively taste for my compatriot; I laughed at, I scolded, and I loved
+him. He, upon his side, paid me a kind of doglike service of admiration,
+gazing at me from afar off as at one who had liberally enjoyed those
+“advantages” which he envied for himself. He followed at heel; his laugh
+was ready chorus; our friends gave him the nickname of “The Henchman.”
+ It was in this insidious form that servitude approached me.
+
+Pinkerton and I read and re-read the famous news: he, I can swear, with
+an enjoyment as unalloyed and far more vocal than my own. The statue was
+nearly done: a few days' work sufficed to prepare it for exhibition; the
+master was approached; he gave his consent; and one cloudless morning
+of May beheld us gathered in my studio for the hour of trial. The
+master wore his many-hued rosette; he came attended by two of my French
+fellow-pupils--friends of mine and both considerable sculptors in Paris
+at this hour. “Corporal John” (as we used to call him) breaking for once
+those habits of study and reserve which have since carried him so
+high in the opinion of the world, had left his easel of a morning to
+countenance a fellow-countryman in some suspense. My dear old Romney
+was there by particular request; for who that knew him would think
+a pleasure quite complete unless he shared it, or not support a
+mortification more easily if he were present to console? The party
+was completed by John Myner, the Englishman; by the brothers
+Stennis,--Stennis-aine and Stennis-frere, as they used to figure on
+their accounts at Barbizon--a pair of hare-brained Scots; and by the
+inevitable Jim, as white as a sheet and bedewed with the sweat of
+anxiety.
+
+I suppose I was little better myself when I unveiled the Genius of
+Muskegon. The master walked about it seriously; then he smiled.
+
+“It is already not so bad,” said he, in that funny English of which he
+was so proud. “No, already not so bad.”
+
+We all drew a deep breath of relief; and Corporal John (as the most
+considerable junior present) explained to him it was intended for a
+public building, a kind of prefecture--
+
+“He! Quoi?” cried he, relapsing into French. “Qu'est-ce que vous me
+chantez la? O, in America,” he added, on further information being
+hastily furnished. “That is anozer sing. O, very good, very good.”
+
+The idea of the required certificate had to be introduced to his mind
+in the light of a pleasantry--the fancy of a nabob little more advanced
+than the red Indians of “Fennimore Cooperr”; and it took all our talents
+combined to conceive a form of words that would be acceptable on
+both sides. One was found, however: Corporal John engrossed it in his
+undecipherable hand, the master lent it the sanction of his name and
+flourish, I slipped it into an envelope along with one of the two
+letters I had ready prepared in my pocket, and as the rest of us moved
+off along the boulevard to breakfast, Pinkerton was detached in a cab
+and duly committed it to the post.
+
+The breakfast was ordered at Lavenue's, where no one need be ashamed
+to entertain even the master; the table was laid in the garden; I had
+chosen the bill of fare myself; on the wine question we held a council
+of war with the most fortunate results; and the talk, as soon as the
+master laid aside his painful English, became fast and furious. There
+were a few interruptions, indeed, in the way of toasts. The master's
+health had to be drunk, and he responded in a little well-turned speech,
+full of neat allusions to my future and to the United States; my health
+followed; and then my father's must not only be proposed and drunk,
+but a full report must be despatched to him at once by cablegram--an
+extravagance which was almost the means of the master's dissolution.
+Choosing Corporal John to be his confidant (on the ground, I presume,
+that he was already too good an artist to be any longer an American
+except in name) he summed up his amazement in one oft-repeated
+formula--“C'est barbare!” Apart from these genial formalities, we
+talked, talked of art, and talked of it as only artists can. Here in the
+South Seas we talk schooners most of the time; in the Quarter we talked
+art with the like unflagging interest, and perhaps as much result.
+
+Before very long, the master went away; Corporal John (who was already a
+sort of young master) followed on his heels; and the rank and file were
+naturally relieved by their departure. We were now among equals; the
+bottle passed, the conversation sped. I think I can still hear the
+Stennis brothers pour forth their copious tirades; Dijon, my portly
+French fellow-student, drop witticisms well-conditioned like himself;
+and another (who was weak in foreign languages) dash hotly into the
+current of talk with some “Je trove que pore oon sontimong de delicacy,
+Corot ...,” or some “Pour moi Corot est le plou ...,” and then, his
+little raft of French foundering at once, scramble silently to shore
+again. He at least could understand; but to Pinkerton, I think the
+noise, the wine, the sun, the shadows of the leaves, and the esoteric
+glory of being seated at a foreign festival, made up the whole available
+means of entertainment.
+
+We sat down about half past eleven; I suppose it was two when,
+some point arising and some particular picture being instanced, an
+adjournment to the Louvre was proposed. I paid the score, and in a
+moment we were trooping down the Rue de Renne. It was smoking hot; Paris
+glittered with that superficial brilliancy which is so agreeable to the
+man in high spirits, and in moods of dejection so depressing; the wine
+sang in my ears, it danced and brightened in my eyes. The pictures that
+we saw that afternoon, as we sped briskly and loquaciously through the
+immortal galleries, appear to me, upon a retrospect, the loveliest
+of all; the comments we exchanged to have touched the highest mark of
+criticism, grave or gay.
+
+It was only when we issued again from the museum that a difference of
+race broke up the party. Dijon proposed an adjournment to a cafe, there
+to finish the afternoon on beer; the elder Stennis, revolted at the
+thought, moved for the country, a forest if possible, and a long walk.
+At once the English speakers rallied to the name of any exercise: even
+to me, who have been often twitted with my sedentary habits, the thought
+of country air and stillness proved invincibly attractive. It appeared,
+upon investigation, we had just time to hail a cab and catch one of the
+fast trains for Fontainebleau. Beyond the clothes we stood in, all were
+destitute of what is called (with dainty vagueness) personal effects;
+and it was earnestly mooted, on the other side, whether we had not time
+to call upon the way and pack a satchel? But the Stennis boys exclaimed
+upon our effeminacy. They had come from London, it appeared, a week
+before with nothing but greatcoats and tooth-brushes. No baggage--there
+was the secret of existence. It was expensive, to be sure; for every
+time you had to comb your hair, a barber must be paid, and every time
+you changed your linen, one shirt must be bought and another thrown
+away; but anything was better (argued these young gentlemen) than to
+be the slaves of haversacks. “A fellow has to get rid gradually of all
+material attachments; that was manhood” (said they); “and as long as you
+were bound down to anything,--house, umbrella, or portmanteau,--you were
+still tethered by the umbilical cord.” Something engaging in this
+theory carried the most of us away. The two Frenchmen, indeed, retired,
+scoffing, to their bock; and Romney, being too poor to join the
+excursion on his own resources and too proud to borrow, melted
+unobtrusively away. Meanwhile the remainder of the company crowded
+the benches of a cab; the horse was urged (as horses have to be) by an
+appeal to the pocket of the driver; the train caught by the inside of
+a minute; and in less than an hour and a half we were breathing deep
+of the sweet air of the forest and stretching our legs up the hill from
+Fontainebleau octroi, bound for Barbizon. That the leading members of
+our party covered the distance in fifty-one minutes and a half is (I
+believe) one of the historic landmarks of the colony; but you will
+scarce be surprised to learn that I was somewhat in the rear. Myner,
+a comparatively philosophic Briton, kept me company in my deliberate
+advance; the glory of the sun's going down, the fall of the long
+shadows, the inimitable scent and the inspiration of the woods, attuned
+me more and more to walk in a silence which progressively infected my
+companion; and I remember that, when at last he spoke, I was startled
+from a deep abstraction.
+
+“Your father seems to be a pretty good kind of a father,” said he. “Why
+don't he come to see you?” I was ready with some dozen of reasons, and
+had more in stock; but Myner, with that shrewdness which made him feared
+and admired, suddenly fixed me with his eye-glass and asked, “Ever press
+him?”
+
+The blood came in my face. No; I had never pressed him; I had never even
+encouraged him to come. I was proud of him; proud of his handsome looks,
+of his kind, gentle ways, of that bright face he could show when others
+were happy; proud, too (meanly proud, if you like) of his great wealth
+and startling liberalities. And yet he would have been in the way of my
+Paris life, of much of which he would have disapproved. I had feared to
+expose to criticism his innocent remarks on art; I had told myself, I
+had even partly believed, he did not want to come; I had been (and still
+am) convinced that he was sure to be unhappy out of Muskegon; in short,
+I had a thousand reasons, good and bad, not all of which could alter one
+iota of the fact that I knew he only waited for my invitation.
+
+“Thank you, Myner,” said I; “you're a much better fellow than ever I
+supposed. I'll write to-night.”
+
+“O, you're a pretty decent sort yourself,” returned Myner, with more
+than his usual flippancy of manner, but (as I was gratefully aware) not
+a trace of his occasional irony of meaning.
+
+Well, these were brave days, on which I could dwell forever. Brave,
+too, were those that followed, when Pinkerton and I walked Paris and the
+suburbs, viewing and pricing houses for my new establishment, or covered
+ourselves with dust and returned laden with Chinese gods and brass
+warming-pans from the dealers in antiquities. I found Pinkerton well
+up in the situation of these establishments as well as in the current
+prices, and with quite a smattering of critical judgment; it turned out
+he was investing capital in pictures and curiosities for the States, and
+the superficial thoroughness of the creature appeared in the fact, that
+although he would never be a connoisseur, he was already something of
+an expert. The things themselves left him as near as may be cold; but he
+had a joy of his own in understanding how to buy and sell them.
+
+In such engagements the time passed until I might very well expect
+an answer from my father. Two mails followed each other, and brought
+nothing. By the third I received a long and almost incoherent letter
+of remorse, encouragement, consolation, and despair. From this pitiful
+document, which (with a movement of piety) I burned as soon as I had
+read it, I gathered that the bubble of my father's wealth was burst,
+that he was now both penniless and sick; and that I, so far from
+expecting ten thousand dollars to throw away in juvenile extravagance,
+must look no longer for the quarterly remittances on which I lived. My
+case was hard enough; but I had sense enough to perceive, and decency
+enough to do my duty. I sold my curiosities, or rather I sent Pinkerton
+to sell them; and he had previously bought and now disposed of them so
+wisely that the loss was trifling. This, with what remained of my last
+allowance, left me at the head of no less than five thousand francs.
+Five hundred I reserved for my own immediate necessities; the rest I
+mailed inside of the week to my father at Muskegon, where they came in
+time to pay his funeral expenses.
+
+The news of his death was scarcely a surprise and scarce a grief to me.
+I could not conceive my father a poor man. He had led too long a life
+of thoughtless and generous profusion to endure the change; and though I
+grieved for myself, I was able to rejoice that my father had been taken
+from the battle. I grieved, I say, for myself; and it is probable there
+were at the same date many thousands of persons grieving with less
+cause. I had lost my father; I had lost the allowance; my whole fortune
+(including what had been returned from Muskegon) scarce amounted to
+a thousand francs; and to crown my sorrows, the statuary contract
+had changed hands. The new contractor had a son of his own, or else a
+nephew; and it was signified to me, with business-like plainness, that I
+must find another market for my pigs. In the meanwhile I had given up my
+room, and slept on a truckle-bed in the corner of the studio, where as I
+read myself to sleep at night, and when I awoke in the morning, that now
+useless bulk, the Genius of Muskegon, was ever present to my eyes. Poor
+stone lady! born to be enthroned under the gilded, echoing dome of the
+new capitol, whither was she now to drift? for what base purposes be
+ultimately broken up, like an unseaworthy ship? and what should befall
+her ill-starred artificer, standing, with his thousand francs, on the
+threshold of a life so hard as that of the unbefriended sculptor?
+
+It was a subject often and earnestly debated by myself and Pinkerton.
+In his opinion, I should instantly discard my profession. “Just drop it,
+here and now,” he would say. “Come back home with me, and let's throw
+our whole soul into business. I have the capital; you bring the culture.
+Dodd & Pinkerton--I never saw a better name for an advertisement; and
+you can't think, Loudon, how much depends upon a name.” On my side, I
+would admit that a sculptor should possess one of three things--capital,
+influence, or an energy only to be qualified as hellish. The first two
+I had now lost; to the third I never had the smallest claim; and yet I
+wanted the cowardice (or perhaps it was the courage) to turn my back
+on my career without a fight. I told him, besides, that however poor
+my chances were in sculpture, I was convinced they were yet worse in
+business, for which I equally lacked taste and aptitude. But upon this
+head, he was my father over again; assured me that I spoke in ignorance;
+that any intelligent and cultured person was Bound to succeed; that I
+must, besides, have inherited some of my father's fitness; and, at
+any rate, that I had been regularly trained for that career in the
+commercial college.
+
+
+“Pinkerton,” I said, “can't you understand that, as long as I was there,
+I never took the smallest interest in any stricken thing? The whole
+affair was poison to me.”
+
+“It's not possible,” he would cry; “it can't be; you couldn't live in
+the midst of it and not feel the charm; with all your poetry of soul,
+you couldn't help! Loudon,” he would go on, “you drive me crazy. You
+expect a man to be all broken up about the sunset, and not to care a
+dime for a place where fortunes are fought for and made and lost all
+day; or for a career that consists in studying up life till you have it
+at your finger-ends, spying out every cranny where you can get your
+hand in and a dollar out, and standing there in the midst--one foot on
+bankruptcy, the other on a borrowed dollar, and the whole thing spinning
+round you like a mill--raking in the stamps, in spite of fate and
+fortune.”
+
+To this romance of dickering I would reply with the romance (which is
+also the virtue) of art: reminding him of those examples of constancy
+through many tribulations, with which the role of Apollo is illustrated;
+from the case of Millet, to those of many of our friends and comrades,
+who had chosen this agreeable mountain path through life, and were now
+bravely clambering among rocks and brambles, penniless and hopeful.
+
+“You will never understand it, Pinkerton,” I would say. “You look to the
+result, you want to see some profit of your endeavours: that is why you
+could never learn to paint, if you lived to be Methusalem. The result
+is always a fizzle: the eyes of the artist are turned in; he lives for
+a frame of mind. Look at Romney, now. There is the nature of the artist.
+He hasn't a cent; and if you offered him to-morrow the command of an
+army, or the presidentship of the United States, he wouldn't take it,
+and you know he wouldn't.”
+
+“I suppose not,” Pinkerton would cry, scouring his hair with both his
+hands; “and I can't see why; I can't see what in fits he would be after,
+not to; I don't seem to rise to these views. Of course, it's the
+fault of not having had advantages in early life; but, Loudon, I'm so
+miserably low that it seems to me silly. The fact is,” he might add with
+a smile, “I don't seem to have the least use for a frame of mind without
+square meals; and you can't get it out of my head that it's a man's duty
+to die rich, if he can.”
+
+“What for?” I asked him once.
+
+“O, I don't know,” he replied. “Why in snakes should anybody want to be
+a sculptor, if you come to that? I would love to sculp myself. But what
+I can't see is why you should want to do nothing else. It seems to argue
+a poverty of nature.”
+
+Whether or not he ever came to understand me--and I have been so tossed
+about since then that I am not very sure I understand myself--he soon
+perceived that I was perfectly in earnest; and after about ten days
+of argument, suddenly dropped the subject, and announced that he was
+wasting capital, and must go home at once. No doubt he should have gone
+long before, and had already lingered over his intended time for the
+sake of our companionship and my misfortune; but man is so unjustly
+minded that the very fact, which ought to have disarmed, only embittered
+my vexation. I resented his departure in the light of a desertion; I
+would not say, but doubtless I betrayed it; and something hang-dog in
+the man's face and bearing led me to believe he was himself remorseful.
+It is certain at least that, during the time of his preparations, we
+drew sensibly apart--a circumstance that I recall with shame. On the
+last day, he had me to dinner at a restaurant which he knew I had
+formerly frequented, and had only forsworn of late from considerations
+of economy. He seemed ill at ease; I was myself both sorry and sulky;
+and the meal passed with little conversation.
+
+“Now, Loudon,” said he, with a visible effort, after the coffee was
+come and our pipes lighted, “you can never understand the gratitude and
+loyalty I bear you. You don't know what a boon it is to be taken up by
+a man that stands on the pinnacle of civilization; you can't think how
+it's refined and purified me, how it's appealed to my spiritual nature;
+and I want to tell you that I would die at your door like a dog.”
+
+I don't know what answer I tried to make, but he cut me short.
+
+“Let me say it out!” he cried. “I revere you for your whole-souled
+devotion to art; I can't rise to it, but there's a strain of poetry in
+my nature, Loudon, that responds to it. I want you to carry it out, and
+I mean to help you.”
+
+“Pinkerton, what nonsense is this?” I interrupted.
+
+“Now don't get mad, Loudon; this is a plain piece of business,” said he;
+“it's done every day; it's even typical. How are all those fellows over
+here in Paris, Henderson, Sumner, Long?--it's all the same story: a
+young man just plum full of artistic genius on the one side, a man of
+business on the other who doesn't know what to do with his dollars--”
+
+“But, you fool, you're as poor as a rat,” I cried.
+
+“You wait till I get my irons in the fire!” returned Pinkerton. “I'm
+bound to be rich; and I tell you I mean to have some of the fun as I go
+along. Here's your first allowance; take it at the hand of a friend; I'm
+one that holds friendship sacred as you do yourself. It's only a hundred
+francs; you'll get the same every month, and as soon as my business
+begins to expand we'll increase it to something fitting. And so far from
+it's being a favour, just let me handle your statuary for the American
+market, and I'll call it one of the smartest strokes of business in my
+life.”
+
+It took me a long time, and it had cost us both much grateful and
+painful emotion, before I had finally managed to refuse his offer and
+compounded for a bottle of particular wine. He dropped the subject at
+last suddenly with a “Never mind; that's all done with,” nor did he
+again refer to the subject, though we passed together the rest of the
+afternoon, and I accompanied him, on his departure; to the doors of the
+waiting-room at St. Lazare. I felt myself strangely alone; a voice told
+me that I had rejected both the counsels of wisdom and the helping
+hand of friendship; and as I passed through the great bright city on
+my homeward way, I measured it for the first time with the eye of an
+adversary.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. IN WHICH I AM DOWN ON MY LUCK IN PARIS.
+
+
+In no part of the world is starvation an agreeable business; but I
+believe it is admitted there is no worse place to starve in than this
+city of Paris. The appearances of life are there so especially gay,
+it is so much a magnified beer-garden, the houses are so ornate, the
+theatres so numerous, the very pace of the vehicles is so brisk, that a
+man in any deep concern of mind or pain of body is constantly driven in
+upon himself. In his own eyes, he seems the one serious creature moving
+in a world of horrible unreality; voluble people issuing from a
+cafe, the queue at theatre doors, Sunday cabfuls of second-rate
+pleasure-seekers, the bedizened ladies of the pavement, the show in the
+jewellers' windows--all the familiar sights contributing to flout his
+own unhappiness, want, and isolation. At the same time, if he be at all
+after my pattern, he is perhaps supported by a childish satisfaction:
+this is life at last, he may tell himself, this is the real thing;
+the bladders on which I was set swimming are now empty, my own weight
+depends upon the ocean; by my own exertions I must perish or succeed;
+and I am now enduring in the vivid fact, what I so much delighted to
+read of in the case of Lonsteau or Lucien, Rodolphe or Schaunard.
+
+Of the steps of my misery, I cannot tell at length. In ordinary times
+what were politically called “loans” (although they were never meant to
+be repaid) were matters of constant course among the students, and many
+a man has partly lived on them for years. But my misfortune befell me
+at an awkward juncture. Many of my friends were gone; others were
+themselves in a precarious situation. Romney (for instance) was reduced
+to tramping Paris in a pair of country sabots, his only suit of clothes
+so imperfect (in spite of cunningly adjusted pins) that the authorities
+at the Luxembourg suggested his withdrawal from the gallery. Dijon, too,
+was on a leeshore, designing clocks and gas-brackets for a dealer; and
+the most he could do was to offer me a corner of his studio where I
+might work. My own studio (it will be gathered) I had by that time lost;
+and in the course of my expulsion the Genius of Muskegon was finally
+separated from her author. To continue to possess a full-sized statue,
+a man must have a studio, a gallery, or at least the freedom of a back
+garden. He cannot carry it about with him, like a satchel, in the
+bottom of a cab, nor can he cohabit in a garret, ten by fifteen, with
+so momentous a companion. It was my first idea to leave her behind at
+my departure. There, in her birthplace, she might lend an inspiration,
+methought, to my successor. But the proprietor, with whom I had
+unhappily quarrelled, seized the occasion to be disagreeable, and called
+upon me to remove my property. For a man in such straits as I now found
+myself, the hire of a lorry was a consideration; and yet even that I
+could have faced, if I had had anywhere to drive to after it was hired.
+Hysterical laughter seized upon me as I beheld (in imagination) myself,
+the waggoner, and the Genius of Muskegon, standing in the public view of
+Paris, without the shadow of a destination; perhaps driving at last
+to the nearest rubbish heap, and dumping there, among the ordures of a
+city, the beloved child of my invention. From these extremities I was
+relieved by a seasonable offer, and I parted from the Genius of Muskegon
+for thirty francs. Where she now stands, under what name she is admired
+or criticised, history does not inform us; but I like to think she
+may adorn the shrubbery of some suburban tea-garden, where holiday
+shop-girls hang their hats upon the mother, and their swains (by way
+of an approach of gallantry) identify the winged infant with the god of
+love.
+
+In a certain cabman's eating-house on the outer boulevard I got credit
+for my midday meal. Supper I was supposed not to require, sitting
+down nightly to the delicate table of some rich acquaintances. This
+arrangement was extremely ill-considered. My fable, credible enough at
+first, and so long as my clothes were in good order, must have seemed
+worse than doubtful after my coat became frayed about the edges, and
+my boots began to squelch and pipe along the restaurant floors. The
+allowance of one meal a day besides, though suitable enough to the state
+of my finances, agreed poorly with my stomach. The restaurant was a
+place I had often visited experimentally, to taste the life of students
+then more unfortunate than myself; and I had never in those days entered
+it without disgust, or left it without nausea. It was strange to find
+myself sitting down with avidity, rising up with satisfaction, and
+counting the hours that divided me from my return to such a table. But
+hunger is a great magician; and so soon as I had spent my ready cash,
+and could no longer fill up on bowls of chocolate or hunks of bread,
+I must depend entirely on that cabman's eating-house, and upon certain
+rare, long-expected, long-remembered windfalls. Dijon (for instance)
+might get paid for some of his pot-boiling work, or else an old friend
+would pass through Paris; and then I would be entertained to a meal
+after my own soul, and contract a Latin Quarter loan, which would keep
+me in tobacco and my morning coffee for a fortnight. It might be thought
+the latter would appear the more important. It might be supposed that a
+life, led so near the confines of actual famine, should have dulled the
+nicety of my palate. On the contrary, the poorer a man's diet, the more
+sharply is he set on dainties. The last of my ready cash, about thirty
+francs, was deliberately squandered on a single dinner; and a great part
+of my time when I was alone was passed upon the details of imaginary
+feasts.
+
+One gleam of hope visited me--an order for a bust from a rich
+Southerner. He was free-handed, jolly of speech, merry of countenance;
+kept me in good humour through the sittings, and when they were over,
+carried me off with him to dinner and the sights of Paris. I ate well;
+I laid on flesh; by all accounts, I made a favourable likeness of the
+being, and I confess I thought my future was assured. But when the bust
+was done, and I had despatched it across the Atlantic, I could never
+so much as learn of its arrival. The blow felled me; I should have
+lain down and tried no stroke to right myself, had not the honour of
+my country been involved. For Dijon improved the opportunity in the
+European style; informing me (for the first time) of the manners of
+America: how it was a den of banditti without the smallest rudiment of
+law or order, and debts could be there only collected with a shotgun.
+“The whole world knows it,” he would say; “you are alone, mon petit
+Loudon, you are alone to be in ignorance of these facts. The judges of
+the Supreme Court fought but the other day with stilettos on the bench
+at Cincinnati. You should read the little book of one of my friends: _Le
+Touriste dans le Far-West_; you will see it all there in good French.”
+ At last, incensed by days of such discussion, I undertook to prove to
+him the contrary, and put the affair in the hands of my late father's
+lawyer. From him I had the gratification of hearing, after a due
+interval, that my debtor was dead of the yellow fever in Key West, and
+had left his affairs in some confusion. I suppress his name; for though
+he treated me with cruel nonchalance, it is probable he meant to deal
+fairly in the end.
+
+Soon after this a shade of change in my reception at the cabman's
+eating-house marked the beginning of a new phase in my distress. The
+first day, I told myself it was but fancy; the next, I made quite sure
+it was a fact; the third, in mere panic I stayed away, and went for
+forty-eight hours fasting. This was an act of great unreason; for the
+debtor who stays away is but the more remarked, and the boarder who
+misses a meal is sure to be accused of infidelity. On the fourth day,
+therefore, I returned, inwardly quaking. The proprietor looked askance
+upon my entrance; the waitresses (who were his daughters) neglected my
+wants and sniffed at the affected joviality of my salutations; last and
+most plain, when I called for a suisse (such as was being served to all
+the other diners) I was bluntly told there were no more. It was obvious
+I was near the end of my tether; one plank divided me from want, and now
+I felt it tremble. I passed a sleepless night, and the first thing in
+the morning took my way to Myner's studio. It was a step I had long
+meditated and long refrained from; for I was scarce intimate with the
+Englishman; and though I knew him to possess plenty of money, neither
+his manner nor his reputation were the least encouraging to beggars.
+
+
+I found him at work on a picture, which I was able conscientiously
+to praise, dressed in his usual tweeds, plain, but pretty fresh, and
+standing out in disagreeable contrast to my own withered and degraded
+outfit. As we talked, he continued to shift his eyes watchfully between
+his handiwork and the fat model, who sat at the far end of the studio
+in a state of nature, with one arm gallantly arched above her head. My
+errand would have been difficult enough under the best of circumstances:
+placed between Myner, immersed in his art, and the white, fat, naked
+female in a ridiculous attitude, I found it quite impossible. Again and
+again I attempted to approach the point, again and again fell back on
+commendations of the picture; and it was not until the model had enjoyed
+an interval of repose, during which she took the conversation in her
+own hands and regaled us (in a soft, weak voice) with details as to her
+husband's prosperity, her sister's lamented decline from the paths
+of virtue, and the consequent wrath of her father, a peasant of stern
+principles, in the vicinity of Chalons on the Marne;--it was not, I say,
+until after this was over, and I had once more cleared my throat for
+the attack, and once more dropped aside into some commonplace about the
+picture, that Myner himself brought me suddenly and vigorously to the
+point.
+
+“You didn't come here to talk this rot,” said he.
+
+“No,” I replied sullenly; “I came to borrow money.”
+
+He painted awhile in silence.
+
+“I don't think we were ever very intimate?” he asked.
+
+“Thank you,” said I. “I can take my answer,” and I made as if to go,
+rage boiling in my heart.
+
+“Of course you can go if you like,” said Myner; “but I advise you to
+stay and have it out.”
+
+“What more is there to say?” I cried. “You don't want to keep me here
+for a needless humiliation?”
+
+“Look here, Dodd, you must try and command your temper,” said he. “This
+interview is of your own seeking, and not mine; if you suppose it's not
+disagreeable to me, you're wrong; and if you think I will give you money
+without knowing thoroughly about your prospects, you take me for a fool.
+Besides,” he added, “if you come to look at it, you've got over the
+worst of it by now: you have done the asking, and you have every reason
+to know I mean to refuse. I hold out no false hopes, but it may be worth
+your while to let me judge.”
+
+Thus--I was going to say--encouraged, I stumbled through my story; told
+him I had credit at the cabman's eating-house, but began to think it was
+drawing to a close; how Dijon lent me a corner of his studio, where I
+tried to model ornaments, figures for clocks, Time with the scythe, Leda
+and the swan, musketeers for candlesticks, and other kickshaws, which
+had never (up to that day) been honoured with the least approval.
+
+“And your room?” asked Myner.
+
+“O, my room is all right, I think,” said I. “She is a very good old
+lady, and has never even mentioned her bill.”
+
+“Because she is a very good old lady, I don't see why she should be
+fined,” observed Myner.
+
+“What do you mean by that?” I cried.
+
+“I mean this,” said he. “The French give a great deal of credit amongst
+themselves; they find it pays on the whole, or the system would hardly
+be continued; but I can't see where WE come in; I can't see that it's
+honest of us Anglo-Saxons to profit by their easy ways, and then skip
+over the Channel or (as you Yankees do) across the Atlantic.”
+
+“But I'm not proposing to skip,” I objected.
+
+“Exactly,” he replied. “And shouldn't you? There's the problem. You
+seem to me to have a lack of sympathy for the proprietors of cabmen's
+eating-houses. By your own account you're not getting on: the longer you
+stay, it'll only be the more out of the pocket of the dear old lady at
+your lodgings. Now, I'll tell you what I'll do: if you consent to go,
+I'll pay your passage to New York, and your railway fare and expenses
+to Muskegon (if I have the name right) where your father lived, where he
+must have left friends, and where, no doubt, you'll find an opening. I
+don't seek any gratitude, for of course you'll think me a beast; but I
+do ask you to pay it back when you are able. At any rate, that's all
+I can do. It might be different if I thought you a genius, Dodd; but I
+don't, and I advise you not to.”
+
+
+“I think that was uncalled for, at least,” said I.
+
+“I daresay it was,” he returned, with the same steadiness. “It seemed to
+me pertinent; and, besides, when you ask me for money upon no security,
+you treat me with the liberty of a friend, and it's to be presumed that
+I can do the like. But the point is, do you accept?”
+
+“No, thank you,” said I; “I have another string to my bow.”
+
+“All right,” says Myner. “Be sure it's honest.”
+
+“Honest? honest?” I cried. “What do you mean by calling my honesty in
+question?”
+
+“I won't, if you don't like it,” he replied. “You seem to think
+honesty as easy as Blind Man's Buff: I don't. It's some difference of
+definition.”
+
+I went straight from this irritating interview, during which Myner had
+never discontinued painting, to the studio of my old master. Only one
+card remained for me to play, and I was now resolved to play it: I
+must drop the gentleman and the frock-coat, and approach art in the
+workman's tunic.
+
+“Tiens, this little Dodd!” cried the master; and then, as his eye fell
+on my dilapidated clothing, I thought I could perceive his countenance
+to darken.
+
+I made my plea in English; for I knew, if he were vain of anything, it
+was of his achievement of the island tongue. “Master,” said I, “will you
+take me in your studio again? but this time as a workman.”
+
+“I sought your fazer was immensely reech,” said he.
+
+I explained to him that I was now an orphan and penniless.
+
+He shook his head. “I have betterr workmen waiting at my door,” said he,
+“far betterr workmen.
+
+“You used to think something of my work, sir,” I pleaded.
+
+“Somesing, somesing--yes!” he cried; “enough for a son of a reech
+man--not enough for an orphan. Besides, I sought you might learn to be
+an artist; I did not sink you might learn to be a workman.”
+
+On a certain bench on the outer boulevard, not far from the tomb of
+Napoleon, a bench shaded at that date by a shabby tree, and commanding
+a view of muddy roadway and blank wall, I sat down to wrestle with my
+misery. The weather was cheerless and dark; in three days I had eaten
+but once; I had no tobacco; my shoes were soaked, my trousers horrid
+with mire; my humour and all the circumstances of the time and place
+lugubriously attuned. Here were two men who had both spoken fairly of my
+work while I was rich and wanted nothing; now that I was poor and lacked
+all: “no genius,” said the one; “not enough for an orphan,” the other;
+and the first offered me my passage like a pauper immigrant, and the
+second refused me a day's wage as a hewer of stone--plain dealing for
+an empty belly. They had not been insincere in the past; they were not
+insincere to-day: change of circumstance had introduced a new criterion:
+that was all.
+
+But if I acquitted my two Job's comforters of insincerity, I was yet far
+from admitting them infallible. Artists had been contemned before,
+and had lived to turn the laugh on their contemners. How old was Corot
+before he struck the vein of his own precious metal? When had a young
+man been more derided (or more justly so) than the god of my admiration,
+Balzac? Or if I required a bolder inspiration, what had I to do but turn
+my head to where the gold dome of the Invalides glittered against inky
+squalls, and recall the tale of him sleeping there: from the day when a
+young artillery-sub could be giggled at and nicknamed Puss-in-Boots by
+frisky misses; on to the days of so many crowns and so many victories,
+and so many hundred mouths of cannon, and so many thousand war-hoofs
+trampling the roadways of astonished Europe eighty miles in front of
+the grand army? To go back, to give up, to proclaim myself a failure, an
+ambitious failure, first a rocket, then a stick! I, Loudon Dodd, who
+had refused all other livelihoods with scorn, and been advertised in the
+Saint Joseph _Sunday Herald_ as a patriot and an artist, to be returned
+upon my native Muskegon like damaged goods, and go the circuit of my
+father's acquaintance, cap in hand, and begging to sweep offices! No, by
+Napoleon! I would die at my chosen trade; and the two who had that
+day flouted me should live to envy my success, or to weep tears of
+unavailing penitence behind my pauper coffin.
+
+Meantime, if my courage was still undiminished, I was none the nearer to
+a meal. At no great distance my cabman's eating-house stood, at the
+tail of a muddy cab-rank, on the shores of a wide thoroughfare of mud,
+offering (to fancy) a face of ambiguous invitation. I might be received,
+I might once more fill my belly there; on the other hand, it was perhaps
+this day the bolt was destined to fall, and I might be expelled instead,
+with vulgar hubbub. It was policy to make the attempt, and I knew it was
+policy; but I had already, in the course of that one morning, endured
+too many affronts, and I felt I could rather starve than face another. I
+had courage and to spare for the future, none left for that day; courage
+for the main campaign, but not a spark of it for that preliminary
+skirmish of the cabman's restaurant. I continued accordingly to sit
+upon my bench, not far from the ashes of Napoleon, now drowsy, now
+light-headed, now in complete mental obstruction, or only conscious
+of an animal pleasure in quiescence; and now thinking, planning, and
+remembering with unexampled clearness, telling myself tales of sudden
+wealth, and gustfully ordering and greedily consuming imaginary meals:
+in the course of which I must have dropped asleep.
+
+It was towards dark that I was suddenly recalled to famine by a cold
+souse of rain, and sprang shivering to my feet. For a moment I stood
+bewildered: the whole train of my reasoning and dreaming passed afresh
+through my mind; I was again tempted, drawn as if with cords, by
+the image of the cabman's eating-house, and again recoiled from the
+possibility of insult. “Qui dort dine,” thought I to myself; and took my
+homeward way with wavering footsteps, through rainy streets in which
+the lamps and the shop-windows now began to gleam; still marshalling
+imaginary dinners as I went.
+
+“Ah, Monsieur Dodd,” said the porter, “there has been a registered
+letter for you. The facteur will bring it again to-morrow.”
+
+A registered letter for me, who had been so long without one? Of what
+it could possibly contain, I had no vestige of a guess; nor did I delay
+myself guessing; far less from any conscious plan of dishonesty: the
+lies flowed from me like a natural secretion.
+
+“O,” said I, “my remittance at last! What a bother I should have missed
+it! Can you lend me a hundred francs until to-morrow?”
+
+
+I had never attempted to borrow from the porter till that moment: the
+registered letter was, besides, my warranty; and he gave me what he
+had--three napoleons and some francs in silver. I pocketed the money
+carelessly, lingered a while chaffing, strolled leisurely to the door;
+and then (fast as my trembling legs could carry me) round the corner
+to the Cafe de Cluny. French waiters are deft and speedy; they were not
+deft enough for me; and I had scarce decency to let the man set the wine
+upon the table or put the butter alongside the bread, before my glass
+and my mouth were filled. Exquisite bread of the Cafe Cluny, exquisite
+first glass of old Pomard tingling to my wet feet, indescribable first
+olive culled from the hors d'oeuvre--I suppose, when I come to lie
+dying, and the lamp begins to grow dim, I shall still recall your
+savour. Over the rest of that meal, and the rest of the evening, clouds
+lie thick; clouds perhaps of Burgundy; perhaps, more properly, of famine
+and repletion.
+
+I remember clearly, at least, the shame, the despair, of the next
+morning, when I reviewed what I had done, and how I had swindled the
+poor honest porter; and, as if that were not enough, fairly burnt my
+ships, and brought bankruptcy home to that last refuge, my garret. The
+porter would expect his money; I could not pay him; here was scandal
+in the house; and I knew right well the cause of scandal would have to
+pack. “What do you mean by calling my honesty in question?” I had cried
+the day before, turning upon Myner. Ah, that day before! the day before
+Waterloo, the day before the Flood; the day before I had sold the roof
+over my head, my future, and my self-respect, for a dinner at the Cafe
+Cluny!
+
+In the midst of these lamentations the famous registered letter came
+to my door, with healing under its seals. It bore the postmark of
+San Francisco, where Pinkerton was already struggling to the neck in
+multifarious affairs: it renewed the offer of an allowance, which his
+improved estate permitted him to announce at the figure of two hundred
+francs a month; and in case I was in some immediate pinch, it enclosed
+an introductory draft for forty dollars. There are a thousand excellent
+reasons why a man, in this self-helpful epoch, should decline to be
+dependent on another; but the most numerous and cogent considerations
+all bow to a necessity as stern as mine; and the banks were scarce open
+ere the draft was cashed.
+
+It was early in December that I thus sold myself into slavery; and
+for six months I dragged a slowly lengthening chain of gratitude and
+uneasiness. At the cost of some debt I managed to excel myself and
+eclipse the Genius of Muskegon, in a small but highly patriotic Standard
+Bearer for the Salon; whither it was duly admitted, where it stood the
+proper length of days entirely unremarked, and whence it came back to me
+as patriotic as before. I threw my whole soul (as Pinkerton would have
+phrased it) into clocks and candlesticks; the devil a candlestick-maker
+would have anything to say to my designs. Even when Dijon, with his
+infinite good humour and infinite scorn for all such journey-work,
+consented to peddle them in indiscriminately with his own, the dealers
+still detected and rejected mine. Home they returned to me, true as
+the Standard Bearer; who now, at the head of quite a regiment of lesser
+idols, began to grow an eyesore in the scanty studio of my friend. Dijon
+and I have sat by the hour, and gazed upon that company of images. The
+severe, the frisky, the classical, the Louis Quinze, were there--from
+Joan of Arc in her soldierly cuirass to Leda with the swan; nay, and
+God forgive me for a man that knew better! the humorous was represented
+also. We sat and gazed, I say; we criticised, we turned them hither
+and thither; even upon the closest inspection they looked quite like
+statuettes; and yet nobody would have a gift of them!
+
+Vanity dies hard; in some obstinate cases it outlives the man: but
+about the sixth month, when I already owed near two hundred dollars
+to Pinkerton, and half as much again in debts scattered about Paris, I
+awoke one morning with a horrid sentiment of oppression, and found I
+was alone: my vanity had breathed her last during the night. I dared
+not plunge deeper in the bog; I saw no hope in my poor statuary; I owned
+myself beaten at last; and sitting down in my nightshirt beside the
+window, whence I had a glimpse of the tree-tops at the corner of the
+boulevard, and where the music of its early traffic fell agreeably upon
+my ear, I penned my farewell to Paris, to art, to my whole past life,
+and my whole former self. “I give in,” I wrote. “When the next allowance
+arrives, I shall go straight out West, where you can do what you like
+with me.”
+
+It is to be understood that Pinkerton had been, in a sense, pressing
+me to come from the beginning; depicting his isolation among new
+acquaintances, “who have none of them your culture,” he wrote;
+expressing his friendship in terms so warm that it sometimes embarrassed
+me to think how poorly I could echo them; dwelling upon his need for
+assistance; and the next moment turning about to commend my resolution
+and press me to remain in Paris. “Only remember, Loudon,” he would
+write, “if you ever DO tire of it, there's plenty of work here for
+you--honest, hard, well-paid work, developing the resources of this
+practically virgin State. And of course I needn't say what a pleasure
+it would be to me if we were going at it SHOULDER TO SHOULDER.” I marvel
+(looking back) that I could so long have resisted these appeals, and
+continue to sink my friend's money in a manner that I knew him to
+dislike. At least, when I did awake to any sense of my position, I awoke
+to it entirely; and determined not only to follow his counsel for the
+future, but even as regards the past, to rectify his losses. For in this
+juncture of affairs I called to mind that I was not without a possible
+resource, and resolved, at whatever cost of mortification, to beard the
+Loudon family in their historic city.
+
+In the excellent Scots' phrase, I made a moonlight flitting, a thing
+never dignified, but in my case unusually easy. As I had scarce a pair
+of boots worth portage, I deserted the whole of my effects without
+a pang. Dijon fell heir to Joan of Arc, the Standard Bearer, and the
+Musketeers. He was present when I bought and frugally stocked my new
+portmanteau; and it was at the door of the trunk shop that I took my
+leave of him, for my last few hours in Paris must be spent alone. It
+was alone (and at a far higher figure than my finances warranted) that
+I discussed my dinner; alone that I took my ticket at Saint Lazare;
+all alone, though in a carriage full of people, that I watched the
+moon shine on the Seine flood with its tufted islets, on Rouen with her
+spires, and on the shipping in the harbour of Dieppe. When the first
+light of the morning called me from troubled slumbers on the deck, I
+beheld the dawn at first with pleasure; I watched with pleasure the
+green shores of England rising out of rosy haze; I took the salt air
+with delight into my nostrils; and then all came back to me; that I was
+no longer an artist, no longer myself; that I was leaving all I cared
+for, and returning to all that I detested, the slave of debt and
+gratitude, a public and a branded failure.
+
+From this picture of my own disgrace and wretchedness, it is not
+wonderful if my mind turned with relief to the thought of Pinkerton,
+waiting for me, as I knew, with unwearied affection, and regarding me
+with a respect that I had never deserved, and might therefore fairly
+hope that I should never forfeit. The inequality of our relation struck
+me rudely. I must have been stupid, indeed, if I could have considered
+the history of that friendship without shame--I, who had given so
+little, who had accepted and profited by so much. I had the whole day
+before me in London, and I determined (at least in words) to set the
+balance somewhat straighter. Seated in the corner of a public place, and
+calling for sheet after sheet of paper, I poured forth the expression of
+my gratitude, my penitence for the past, my resolutions for the future.
+Till now, I told him, my course had been mere selfishness. I had been
+selfish to my father and to my friend, taking their help, and denying
+them (which was all they asked) the poor gratification of my company and
+countenance.
+
+Wonderful are the consolations of literature! As soon as that letter was
+written and posted, the consciousness of virtue glowed in my veins like
+some rare vintage.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. IN WHICH I GO WEST.
+
+
+I reached my uncle's door next morning in time to sit down with the
+family to breakfast. More than three years had intervened almost without
+mutation in that stationary household, since I had sat there first, a
+young American freshman, bewildered among unfamiliar dainties, Finnan
+haddock, kippered salmon, baps and mutton ham, and had wearied my mind
+in vain to guess what should be under the tea-cosey. If there were
+any change at all, it seemed that I had risen in the family esteem. My
+father's death once fittingly referred to, with a ceremonial lengthening
+of Scotch upper lips and wagging of the female head, the party launched
+at once (God help me) into the more cheerful topic of my own successes.
+They had been so pleased to hear such good accounts of me; I was quite
+a great man now; where was that beautiful statue of the Genius of
+Something or other? “You haven't it here? not here? Really?” asks the
+sprightliest of my cousins, shaking curls at me; as though it were
+likely I had brought it in a cab, or kept it concealed about my person
+like a birthday surprise. In the bosom of this family, unaccustomed to
+the tropical nonsense of the West, it became plain the _Sunday Herald_
+and poor, blethering Pinkerton had been accepted for their face. It is
+not possible to invent a circumstance that could have more depressed
+me; and I am conscious that I behaved all through that breakfast like a
+whipt schoolboy.
+
+At length, the meal and family prayers being both happily over, I
+requested the favour of an interview with Uncle Adam on “the state of
+my affairs.” At sound of this ominous expression, the good man's face
+conspicuously lengthened; and when my grandfather, having had the
+proposition repeated to him (for he was hard of hearing) announced his
+intention of being present at the interview, I could not but think that
+Uncle Adam's sorrow kindled into momentary irritation. Nothing, however,
+but the usual grim cordiality appeared upon the surface; and we all
+three passed ceremoniously to the adjoining library, a gloomy theatre
+for a depressing piece of business. My grandfather charged a clay pipe,
+and sat tremulously smoking in a corner of the fireless chimney; behind
+him, although the morning was both chill and dark, the window was partly
+open and the blind partly down: I cannot depict what an air he had of
+being out of place, like a man shipwrecked there. Uncle Adam had his
+station at the business table in the midst. Valuable rows of books
+looked down upon the place of torture; and I could hear sparrows
+chirping in the garden, and my sprightly cousin already banging the
+piano and pouring forth an acid stream of song from the drawing-room
+overhead.
+
+It was in these circumstances that, with all brevity of speech and a
+certain boyish sullenness of manner, looking the while upon the floor,
+I informed my relatives of my financial situation: the amount I owed
+Pinkerton; the hopelessness of any maintenance from sculpture; the
+career offered me in the States; and how, before becoming more beholden
+to a stranger, I had judged it right to lay the case before my family.
+
+“I am only sorry you did not come to me at first,” said Uncle Adam. “I
+take the liberty to say it would have been more decent.”
+
+“I think so too, Uncle Adam,” I replied; “but you must bear in mind I
+was ignorant in what light you might regard my application.”
+
+“I hope I would never turn my back on my own flesh and blood,” he
+returned with emphasis; but to my anxious ear, with more of temper than
+affection. “I could never forget you were my sister's son. I regard
+this as a manifest duty. I have no choice but to accept the entire
+responsibility of the position you have made.”
+
+I did not know what else to do but murmur “thank you.”
+
+
+“Yes,” he pursued, “and there is something providential in the
+circumstance that you come at the right time. In my old firm there is a
+vacancy; they call themselves Italian Warehousemen now,” he continued,
+regarding me with a twinkle of humour; “so you may think yourself
+in luck: we were only grocers in my day. I shall place you there
+to-morrow.”
+
+“Stop a moment, Uncle Adam,” I broke in. “This is not at all what I
+am asking. I ask you to pay Pinkerton, who is a poor man. I ask you to
+clear my feet of debt, not to arrange my life or any part of it.”
+
+“If I wished to be harsh, I might remind you that beggars cannot be
+choosers,” said my uncle; “and as to managing your life, you have tried
+your own way already, and you see what you have made of it. You must now
+accept the guidance of those older and (whatever you may think of it)
+wiser than yourself. All these schemes of your friend (of whom I
+know nothing, by the by) and talk of openings in the West, I simply
+disregard. I have no idea whatever of your going trekking across
+a continent on a wild-goose chase. In this situation, which I
+am fortunately able to place at your disposal, and which many a
+well-conducted young man would be glad to jump at, you will receive, to
+begin with, eighteen shillings a week.”
+
+“Eighteen shillings a week!” I cried. “Why, my poor friend gave me more
+than that for nothing!”
+
+“And I think it is this very friend you are now trying to repay?”
+ observed my uncle, with an air of one advancing a strong argument.
+
+“Aadam!” said my grandfather.
+
+“I'm vexed you should be present at this business,” quoth Uncle Adam,
+swinging rather obsequiously towards the stonemason; “but I must remind
+you it is of your own seeking.”
+
+“Aadam!” repeated the old man.
+
+“Well, sir, I am listening,” says my uncle.
+
+My grandfather took a puff or two in silence; and then, “Ye're makin' an
+awfu' poor appearance, Aadam,” said he.
+
+My uncle visibly reared at the affront. “I'm sorry you should think
+so,” said he, “and still more sorry you should say so before present
+company.”
+
+“A believe that; A ken that, Aadam,” returned old Loudon, dryly;
+“and the curiis thing is, I'm no very carin'. See here, ma man,” he
+continued, addressing himself to me. “A'm your grandfaither, amn't I
+not? Never you mind what Aadam says. A'll see justice din ye. A'm rich.”
+
+“Father,” said Uncle Adam, “I would like one word with you in private.”
+
+I rose to go.
+
+“Set down upon your hinderlands,” cried my grandfather, almost savagely.
+“If Aadam has anything to say, let him say it. It's me that has the
+money here; and by Gravy! I'm goin' to be obeyed.”
+
+Upon this scurvy encouragement, it appeared that my uncle had no remark
+to offer: twice challenged to “speak out and be done with it,” he twice
+sullenly declined; and I may mention that about this period of the
+engagement, I began to be sorry for him.
+
+“See here, then, Jeannie's yin!” resumed my grandfather. “A'm goin' to
+give ye a set-off. Your mither was always my fav'rite, for A never could
+agree with Aadam. A like ye fine yoursel'; there's nae noansense aboot
+ye; ye've a fine nayteral idee of builder's work; ye've been to France,
+where they tell me they're grand at the stuccy. A splendid thing for
+ceilin's, the stuccy! and it's a vailyable disguise, too; A don't
+believe there's a builder in Scotland has used more stuccy than me. But
+as A was sayin', if ye'll follie that trade, with the capital that A'm
+goin' to give ye, ye may live yet to be as rich as mysel'. Ye see, ye
+would have always had a share of it when A was gone; it appears ye're
+needin' it now; well, ye'll get the less, as is only just and proper.”
+
+Uncle Adam cleared his throat. “This is very handsome, father,” said he;
+“and I am sure Loudon feels it so. Very handsome, and as you say, very
+just; but will you allow me to say that it had better, perhaps, be put
+in black and white?”
+
+The enmity always smouldering between the two men at this ill-judged
+interruption almost burst in flame. The stonemason turned upon his
+offspring, his long upper lip pulled down, for all the world, like a
+monkey's. He stared a while in virulent silence; and then “Get Gregg!”
+ said he.
+
+The effect of these words was very visible. “He will be gone to his
+office,” stammered my uncle.
+
+“Get Gregg!” repeated my grandfather.
+
+“I tell you, he will be gone to his office,” reiterated Adam.
+
+“And I tell ye, he's takin' his smoke,” retorted the old man.
+
+“Very well, then,” cried my uncle, getting to his feet with some
+alacrity, as upon a sudden change of thought, “I will get him myself.”
+
+“Ye will not!” cried my grandfather. “Ye will sit there upon your
+hinderland.”
+
+“Then how the devil am I to get him?” my uncle broke forth, with not
+unnatural petulance.
+
+My grandfather (having no possible answer) grinned at his son with the
+malice of a schoolboy; then he rang the bell.
+
+“Take the garden key,” said Uncle Adam to the servant; “go over to the
+garden, and if Mr. Gregg the lawyer is there (he generally sits under
+the red hawthorn), give him old Mr. Loudon's compliments, and will he
+step in here for a moment?”
+
+“Mr. Gregg the lawyer!” At once I understood (what had been puzzling me)
+the significance of my grandfather and the alarm of my poor uncle: the
+stonemason's will, it was supposed, hung trembling in the balance.
+
+“Look here, grandfather,” I said, “I didn't want any of this. All
+I wanted was a loan of (say) two hundred pounds. I can take care
+of myself; I have prospects and opportunities, good friends in the
+States----”
+
+The old man waved me down. “It's me that speaks here,” he said curtly;
+and we waited the coming of the lawyer in a triple silence. He appeared
+at last, the maid ushering him in--a spectacled, dry, but not ungenial
+looking man.
+
+
+“Here, Gregg,” cried my grandfather. “Just a question: What has Aadam
+got to do with my will?”
+
+“I'm afraid I don't quite understand,” said the lawyer, staring.
+
+“What has he got to do with it?” repeated the old man, smiting with his
+fist upon the arm of his chair. “Is my money mine's, or is it Aadam's?
+Can Aadam interfere?”
+
+“O, I see,” said Mr. Gregg. “Certainly not. On the marriage of both
+of your children a certain sum was paid down and accepted in full of
+legitim. You have surely not forgotten the circumstance, Mr. Loudon?”
+
+“So that, if I like,” concluded my grandfather, hammering out his
+words, “I can leave every doit I die possessed of to the Great
+Magunn?”--meaning probably the Great Mogul.
+
+“No doubt of it,” replied Gregg, with a shadow of a smile.
+
+“Ye hear that, Aadam?” asked my grandfather.
+
+“I may be allowed to say I had no need to hear it,” said my uncle.
+
+“Very well,” says my grandfather. “You and Jeannie's yin can go for a
+bit walk. Me and Gregg has business.”
+
+When once I was in the hall alone with Uncle Adam, I turned to him, sick
+at heart. “Uncle Adam,” I said, “you can understand, better than I can
+say, how very painful all this is to me.”
+
+“Yes, I am sorry you have seen your grandfather in so unamiable a
+light,” replied this extraordinary man. “You shouldn't allow it
+to affect your mind though. He has sterling qualities, quite an
+extraordinary character; and I have no fear but he means to behave
+handsomely to you.”
+
+His composure was beyond my imitation: the house could not contain
+me, nor could I even promise to return to it: in concession to which
+weakness, it was agreed that I should call in about an hour at the
+office of the lawyer, whom (as he left the library) Uncle Adam should
+waylay and inform of the arrangement. I suppose there was never a more
+topsy-turvy situation: you would have thought it was I who had suffered
+some rebuff, and that iron-sided Adam was a generous conqueror who
+scorned to take advantage.
+
+It was plain enough that I was to be endowed: to what extent and upon
+what conditions I was now left for an hour to meditate in the wide
+and solitary thoroughfares of the new town, taking counsel with
+street-corner statues of George IV. and William Pitt, improving my
+mind with the pictures in the window of a music-shop, and renewing my
+acquaintance with Edinburgh east wind. By the end of the hour I made my
+way to Mr. Gregg's office, where I was placed, with a few appropriate
+words, in possession of a cheque for two thousand pounds and a small
+parcel of architectural works.
+
+“Mr. Loudon bids me add,” continued the lawyer, consulting a little
+sheet of notes, “that although these volumes are very valuable to the
+practical builder, you must be careful not to lose originality. He tells
+you also not to be 'hadden doun'--his own expression--by the theory of
+strains, and that Portland cement, properly sanded, will go a long way.”
+
+I smiled, and remarked that I supposed it would.
+
+“I once lived in one of my excellent client's houses,” observed the
+lawyer; “and I was tempted, in that case, to think it had gone far
+enough.”
+
+“Under these circumstances, sir,” said I, “you will be rather relieved
+to hear that I have no intention of becoming a builder.”
+
+At this, he fairly laughed; and, the ice being broken, I was able to
+consult him as to my conduct. He insisted I must return to the house,
+at least, for luncheon, and one of my walks with Mr. Loudon. “For the
+evening, I will furnish you with an excuse, if you please,” said he, “by
+asking you to a bachelor dinner with myself. But the luncheon and the
+walk are unavoidable. He is an old man, and, I believe, really fond of
+you; he would naturally feel aggrieved if there were any appearance of
+avoiding him; and as for Mr. Adam, do you know, I think your delicacy
+out of place.... And now, Mr. Dodd, what are you to do with this money?”
+
+Ay, there was the question. With two thousand pounds--fifty thousand
+francs--I might return to Paris and the arts, and be a prince and
+millionaire in that thrifty Latin Quarter. I think I had the grace, with
+one corner of my mind, to be glad that I had sent the London letter: I
+know very well that with the rest and worst of me, I repented bitterly
+of that precipitate act. On one point, however, my whole multiplex
+estate of man was unanimous: the letter being gone, there was no help
+but I must follow. The money was accordingly divided in two unequal
+shares: for the first, Mr. Gregg got me a bill in the name of Dijon to
+meet my liabilities in Paris; for the second, as I had already cash in
+hand for the expenses of my journey, he supplied me with drafts on San
+Francisco.
+
+The rest of my business in Edinburgh, not to dwell on a very agreeable
+dinner with the lawyer or the horrors of the family luncheon, took the
+form of an excursion with the stonemason, who led me this time to no
+suburb or work of his old hands, but with an impulse both natural and
+pretty, to that more enduring home which he had chosen for his clay. It
+was in a cemetery, by some strange chance, immured within the bulwarks
+of a prison; standing, besides, on the margin of a cliff, crowded with
+elderly stone memorials, and green with turf and ivy. The east wind
+(which I thought too harsh for the old man) continually shook the
+boughs, and the thin sun of a Scottish summer drew their dancing
+shadows.
+
+“I wanted ye to see the place,” said he. “Yon's the stane. Euphemia
+Ross: that was my goodwife, your grandmither--hoots! I'm wrong; that was
+my first yin; I had no bairns by her;--yours is the second, Mary Murray,
+Born 1819, Died 1850: that's her--a fine, plain, decent sort of
+a creature, tak' her athegether. Alexander Loudon, Born Seventeen
+Ninety-Twa, Died--and then a hole in the ballant: that's me. Alexander's
+my name. They ca'd me Ecky when I was a boy. Eh, Ecky! ye're an awfu'
+auld man!”
+
+I had a second and sadder experience of graveyards at my next
+alighting-place, the city of Muskegon, now rendered conspicuous by
+the dome of the new capitol encaged in scaffolding. It was late in the
+afternoon when I arrived, and raining; and as I walked in great streets,
+of the very name of which I was quite ignorant--double, treble, and
+quadruple lines of horse-cars jingling by--hundred-fold wires of
+telegraph and telephone matting heaven above my head--huge, staring
+houses, garish and gloomy, flanking me from either hand--the thought of
+the Rue Racine, ay, and of the cabman's eating-house, brought tears to
+my eyes. The whole monotonous Babel had grown, or I should rather say
+swelled, with such a leap since my departure, that I must continually
+inquire my way; and the very cemetery was brand new. Death, however, had
+been active; the graves were already numerous, and I must pick my way
+in the rain, among the tawdry sepulchres of millionnaires, and past the
+plain black crosses of Hungarian labourers, till chance or instinct led
+me to the place that was my father's. The stone had been erected (I
+knew already) “by admiring friends”; I could now judge their taste in
+monuments; their taste in literature, methought, I could imagine, and I
+refrained from drawing near enough to read the terms of the inscription.
+But the name was in larger letters and stared at me--JAMES K. DODD.
+What a singular thing is a name, I thought; how it clings to a man, and
+continually misrepresents, and then survives him; and it flashed across
+my mind, with a mixture of regret and bitter mirth, that I had never
+known, and now probably never should know, what the K had represented.
+King, Kilter, Kay, Kaiser, I went, running over names at random, and
+then stumbled with ludicrous misspelling on Kornelius, and had nearly
+laughed aloud. I have never been more childish; I suppose (although the
+deeper voices of my nature seemed all dumb) because I have never been
+more moved. And at this last incongruous antic of my nerves, I was
+seized with a panic of remorse and fled the cemetery.
+
+Scarce less funereal was the rest of my experience in Muskegon, where,
+nevertheless, I lingered, visiting my father's circle, for some days. It
+was in piety to him I lingered; and I might have spared myself the pain.
+His memory was already quite gone out. For his sake, indeed, I was made
+welcome; and for mine the conversation rolled awhile with laborious
+effort on the virtues of the deceased. His former comrades dwelt, in
+my company, upon his business talents or his generosity for public
+purposes; when my back was turned, they remembered him no more. My
+father had loved me; I had left him alone to live and die among the
+indifferent; now I returned to find him dead and buried and forgotten.
+Unavailing penitence translated itself in my thoughts to fresh resolve.
+There was another poor soul who loved me: Pinkerton. I must not be
+guilty twice of the same error.
+
+A week perhaps had been thus wasted, nor had I prepared my friend for
+the delay. Accordingly, when I had changed trains at Council Bluffs, I
+was aware of a man appearing at the end of the car with a telegram in
+his hand and inquiring whether there were any one aboard “of the name of
+LONDON Dodd?” I thought the name near enough, claimed the despatch,
+and found it was from Pinkerton: “What day do you arrive? Awfully
+important.” I sent him an answer giving day and hour, and at Ogden found
+a fresh despatch awaiting me: “That will do. Unspeakable relief. Meet
+you at Sacramento.” In Paris days I had a private name for Pinkerton:
+“The Irrepressible” was what I had called him in hours of bitterness,
+and the name rose once more on my lips. What mischief was he up to now?
+What new bowl was my benignant monster brewing for his Frankenstein? In
+what new imbroglio should I alight on the Pacific coast? My trust in
+the man was entire, and my distrust perfect. I knew he would never
+mean amiss; but I was convinced he would almost never (in my sense) do
+aright.
+
+I suppose these vague anticipations added a shade of gloom to that
+already gloomy place of travel: Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, scowled
+in my face at least, and seemed to point me back again to that other
+native land of mine, the Latin Quarter. But when the Sierras had been
+climbed, and the train, after so long beating and panting, stretched
+itself upon the downward track--when I beheld that vast extent
+of prosperous country rolling seaward from the woods and the blue
+mountains, that illimitable spread of rippling corn, the trees growing
+and blowing in the merry weather, the country boys thronging aboard
+the train with figs and peaches, and the conductors, and the very
+darky stewards, visibly exulting in the change--up went my soul like a
+balloon; Care fell from his perch upon my shoulders; and when I spied
+my Pinkerton among the crowd at Sacramento, I thought of nothing but to
+shout and wave for him, and grasp him by the hand, like what he was--my
+dearest friend.
+
+“O Loudon!” he cried. “Man, how I've pined for you! And you haven't come
+an hour too soon. You're known here and waited for; I've been booming
+you already; you're billed for a lecture to-morrow night: _Student
+Life in Paris, Grave and Gay_: twelve hundred places booked at the last
+stock! Tut, man, you're looking thin! Here, try a drop of this.” And
+he produced a case bottle, staringly labelled PINKERTON'S THIRTEEN STAR
+GOLDEN STATE BRANDY, WARRANTED ENTIRE.
+
+“God bless me!” said I, gasping and winking after my first plunge into
+this fiery fluid. “And what does 'Warranted Entire' mean?”
+
+“Why, Loudon! you ought to know that!” cried Pinkerton. “It's real,
+copper-bottomed English; you see it on all the old-time wayside
+hostelries over there.”
+
+“But if I'm not mistaken, it means something Warranted Entirely
+different,” said I, “and applies to the public house, and not the
+beverages sold.”
+
+“It's very possible,” said Jim, quite unabashed. “It's effective,
+anyway; and I can tell you, sir, it has boomed that spirit: it goes now
+by the gross of cases. By the way, I hope you won't mind; I've got your
+portrait all over San Francisco for the lecture, enlarged from that
+carte de visite: H. Loudon Dodd, the Americo-Parisienne Sculptor. Here's
+a proof of the small handbills; the posters are the same, only in red
+and blue, and the letters fourteen by one.”
+
+I looked at the handbill, and my head turned. What was the use of
+words? why seek to explain to Pinkerton the knotted horrors of
+“Americo-Parisienne”? He took an early occasion to point it out as
+“rather a good phrase; gives the two sides at a glance: I wanted the
+lecture written up to that.” Even after we had reached San Francisco,
+and at the actual physical shock of my own effigy placarded on the
+streets I had broken forth in petulant words, he never comprehended in
+the least the ground of my aversion.
+
+“If I had only known you disliked red lettering!” was as high as he
+could rise. “You are perfectly right: a clear-cut black is preferable,
+and shows a great deal further. The only thing that pains me is the
+portrait: I own I thought that a success. I'm dreadfully and truly
+sorry, my dear fellow: I see now it's not what you had a right to
+expect; but I did it, Loudon, for the best; and the press is all
+delighted.”
+
+At the moment, sweeping through green tule swamps, I fell direct on the
+essential. “But, Pinkerton,” I cried, “this lecture is the maddest of
+your madnesses. How can I prepare a lecture in thirty hours?”
+
+“All done, Loudon!” he exclaimed in triumph. “All ready. Trust me to
+pull a piece of business through. You'll find it all type-written in my
+desk at home. I put the best talent of San Francisco on the job: Harry
+Miller, the brightest pressman in the city.”
+
+And so he rattled on, beyond reach of my modest protestations, blurting
+out his complicated interests, crying up his new acquaintances, and ever
+and again hungering to introduce me to some “whole-souled, grand fellow,
+as sharp as a needle,” from whom, and the very thought of whom, my
+spirit shrank instinctively.
+
+Well, I was in for it: in for Pinkerton, in for the portrait, in for the
+type-written lecture. One promise I extorted--that I was never again to
+be committed in ignorance; even for that, when I saw how its extortion
+puzzled and depressed the Irrepressible, my soul repented me; and in all
+else I suffered myself to be led uncomplaining at his chariot wheels.
+The Irrepressible, did I say? The Irresistible were nigher truth.
+
+But the time to have seen me was when I sat down to Harry Miller's
+lecture. He was a facetious dog, this Harry Miller; he had a gallant way
+of skirting the indecent which (in my case) produced physical nausea;
+and he could be sentimental and even melodramatic about grisettes and
+starving genius. I found he had enjoyed the benefit of my correspondence
+with Pinkerton: adventures of my own were here and there horridly
+misrepresented, sentiments of my own echoed and exaggerated till I
+blushed to recognise them. I will do Harry Miller justice: he must have
+had a kind of talent, almost of genius; all attempts to lower his
+tone proving fruitless, and the Harry-Millerism ineradicable. Nay, the
+monster had a certain key of style, or want of style, so that certain
+milder passages, which I sought to introduce, discorded horribly, and
+impoverished (if that were possible) the general effect.
+
+By an early hour of the numbered evening I might have been observed at
+the sign of the Poodle Dog, dining with my agent: so Pinkerton delighted
+to describe himself. Thence, like an ox to the slaughter, he led me
+to the hall, where I stood presently alone, confronting assembled San
+Francisco, with no better allies than a table, a glass of water, and a
+mass of manuscript and typework, representing Harry Miller and myself.
+I read the lecture; for I had lacked both time and will to get the trash
+by heart--read it hurriedly, humbly, and with visible shame. Now and
+then I would catch in the auditorium an eye of some intelligence, now
+and then, in the manuscript, would stumble on a richer vein of Harry
+Miller, and my heart would fail me, and I gabbled. The audience yawned,
+it stirred uneasily, it muttered, grumbled, and broke forth at last
+in articulate cries of “Speak up!” and “Nobody can hear!” I took to
+skipping, and being extremely ill-acquainted with the country, almost
+invariably cut in again in the unintelligible midst of some new topic.
+What struck me as extremely ominous, these misfortunes were allowed to
+pass without a laugh. Indeed, I was beginning to fear the worst, and
+even personal indignity, when all at once the humour of the thing broke
+upon me strongly. I could have laughed aloud; and being again summoned
+to speak up, I faced my patrons for the first time with a smile. “Very
+well,” I said, “I will try, though I don't suppose anybody wants to
+hear, and I can't see why anybody should.” Audience and lecturer laughed
+together till the tears ran down; vociferous and repeated applause
+hailed my impromptu sally. Another hit which I made but a little after,
+as I turned three pages of the copy: “You see, I am leaving out as much
+as I possibly can,” increased the esteem with which my patrons had begun
+to regard me; and when I left the stage at last, my departing form was
+cheered with laughter, stamping, shouting, and the waving of hats.
+
+Pinkerton was in the waiting-room, feverishly jotting in his
+pocket-book. As he saw me enter, he sprang up, and I declare the tears
+were trickling on his cheeks.
+
+“My dear boy,” he cried, “I can never forgive myself, and you can never
+forgive me. Never mind: I did it for the best. And how nobly you clung
+on! I dreaded we should have had to return the money at the doors.”
+
+“It would have been more honest if we had,” said I.
+
+The pressmen followed me, Harry Miller in the front ranks; and I was
+amazed to find them, on the whole, a pleasant set of lads, probably
+more sinned against than sinning, and even Harry Miller apparently
+a gentleman. I had in oysters and champagne--for the receipts were
+excellent--and being in a high state of nervous tension, kept the table
+in a roar. Indeed, I was never in my life so well inspired as when I
+described my vigil over Harry Miller's literature or the series of my
+emotions as I faced the audience. The lads vowed I was the soul of good
+company and the prince of lecturers; and--so wonderful an institution
+is the popular press--if you had seen the notices next day in all the
+papers, you must have supposed my evening's entertainment an unqualified
+success.
+
+I was in excellent spirits when I returned home that night, but the
+miserable Pinkerton sorrowed for us both.
+
+“O, Loudon,” he said, “I shall never forgive myself. When I saw you
+didn't catch on to the idea of the lecture, I should have given it
+myself!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. IRONS IN THE FIRE.
+
+
+Opes Strepitumque.
+
+The food of the body differs not so greatly for the fool or the sage,
+the elephant or the cock-sparrow; and similar chemical elements,
+variously disguised, support all mortals. A brief study of Pinkerton
+in his new setting convinced me of a kindred truth about that other and
+mental digestion, by which we extract what is called “fun for our money”
+ out of life. In the same spirit as a schoolboy, deep in Mayne Reid,
+handles a dummy gun and crawls among imaginary forests, Pinkerton sped
+through Kearney Street upon his daily business, representing to himself
+a highly coloured part in life's performance, and happy for hours if
+he should have chanced to brush against a millionnaire. Reality was his
+romance; he gloried to be thus engaged; he wallowed in his business.
+Suppose a man to dig up a galleon on the Coromandel coast, his rakish
+schooner keeping the while an offing under easy sail, and he, by the
+blaze of a great fire of wreckwood, to measure ingots by the bucketful
+on the uproarious beach: such an one might realise a greater material
+spoil; he should have no more profit of romance than Pinkerton when he
+cast up his weekly balance-sheet in a bald office. Every dollar gained
+was like something brought ashore from a mysterious deep; every venture
+made was like a diver's plunge; and as he thrust his bold hand into the
+plexus of the money-market, he was delightedly aware of how he shook the
+pillars of existence, turned out men (as at a battle-cry) to labour
+in far countries, and set the gold twitching in the drawers of
+millionnaires.
+
+I could never fathom the full extent of his speculations; but there were
+five separate businesses which he avowed and carried like a banner. The
+Thirteen Star Golden State Brandy, Warranted Entire (a very flagrant
+distillation) filled a great part of his thoughts, and was kept before
+the public in an eloquent but misleading treatise: _Why Drink French
+Brandy? A Word to the Wise._ He kept an office for advertisers,
+counselling, designing, acting as middleman with printers and
+bill-stickers, for the inexperienced or the uninspired: the dull
+haberdasher came to him for ideas, the smart theatrical agent for his
+local knowledge; and one and all departed with a copy of his pamphlet:
+_How, When, and Where; or, the Advertiser's Vade-Mecum._ He had a tug
+chartered every Saturday afternoon and night, carried people outside the
+Heads, and provided them with lines and bait for six hours' fishing,
+at the rate of five dollars a person. I am told that some of
+them (doubtless adroit anglers) made a profit on the transaction.
+Occasionally he bought wrecks and condemned vessels; these latter (I
+cannot tell you how) found their way to sea again under aliases, and
+continued to stem the waves triumphantly enough under the colours of
+Bolivia or Nicaragua. Lastly, there was a certain agricultural engine,
+glorying in a great deal of vermilion and blue paint, and filling (it
+appeared) a “long-felt want,” in which his interest was something like a
+tenth.
+
+This for the face or front of his concerns. “On the outside,” as he
+phrased it, he was variously and mysteriously engaged. No dollar slept
+in his possession; rather he kept all simultaneously flying like a
+conjurer with oranges. My own earnings, when I began to have a share, he
+would but show me for a moment, and disperse again, like those illusive
+money gifts which are flashed in the eyes of childhood only to be
+entombed in the missionary box. And he would come down radiant from a
+weekly balance-sheet, clap me on the shoulder, declare himself a winner
+by Gargantuan figures, and prove destitute of a quarter for a drink.
+
+“What on earth have you done with it?” I would ask.
+
+“Into the mill again; all re-invested!” he would cry, with infinite
+delight. Investment was ever his word. He could not bear what he called
+gambling. “Never touch stocks, Loudon,” he would say; “nothing but
+legitimate business.” And yet, Heaven knows, many an indurated gambler
+might have drawn back appalled at the first hint of some of Pinkerton's
+investments! One, which I succeeded in tracking home, and instance for
+a specimen, was a seventh share in the charter of a certain ill-starred
+schooner bound for Mexico, to smuggle weapons on the one trip, and
+cigars upon the other. The latter end of this enterprise, involving (as
+it did) shipwreck, confiscation, and a lawsuit with the underwriters,
+was too painful to be dwelt upon at length. “It's proved a
+disappointment,” was as far as my friend would go with me in words; but
+I knew, from observation, that the fabric of his fortunes tottered. For
+the rest, it was only by accident I got wind of the transaction; for
+Pinkerton, after a time, was shy of introducing me to his arcana: the
+reason you are to hear presently.
+
+The office which was (or should have been) the point of rest for so many
+evolving dollars stood in the heart of the city: a high and spacious
+room, with many plate-glass windows. A glazed cabinet of polished
+redwood offered to the eye a regiment of some two hundred bottles,
+conspicuously labelled. These were all charged with Pinkerton's Thirteen
+Star, although from across the room it would have required an expert to
+distinguish them from the same number of bottles of Courvoisier. I used
+to twit my friend with this resemblance, and propose a new edition of
+the pamphlet, with the title thus improved: _Why Drink French Brandy,
+when we give you the same labels?_ The doors of the cabinet revolved all
+day upon their hinges; and if there entered any one who was a stranger
+to the merits of the brand, he departed laden with a bottle. When I used
+to protest at this extravagance, “My dear Loudon,” Pinkerton would cry,
+“you don't seem to catch on to business principles! The prime cost of
+the spirit is literally nothing. I couldn't find a cheaper advertisement
+if I tried.” Against the side post of the cabinet there leaned a gaudy
+umbrella, preserved there as a relic. It appears that when Pinkerton was
+about to place Thirteen Star upon the market, the rainy season was
+at hand. He lay dark, almost in penury, awaiting the first shower, at
+which, as upon a signal, the main thoroughfares became dotted with his
+agents, vendors of advertisements; and the whole world of San Francisco,
+from the businessman fleeing for the ferry-boat, to the lady waiting
+at the corner for her car, sheltered itself under umbrellas with this
+strange device: Are you wet? Try Thirteen Star. “It was a mammoth boom,”
+ said Pinkerton, with a sigh of delighted recollection. “There wasn't
+another umbrella to be seen. I stood at this window, Loudon, feasting
+my eyes; and I declare, I felt like Vanderbilt.” And it was to this neat
+application of the local climate that he owed, not only much of the sale
+of Thirteen Star, but the whole business of his advertising agency.
+
+The large desk (to resume our survey of the office) stood about the
+middle, knee-deep in stacks of handbills and posters, of _Why Drink
+French Brandy?_ and _The Advertiser's Vade-Mecum._ It was flanked upon
+the one hand by two female type-writers, who rested not between
+the hours of nine and four, and upon the other by a model of the
+agricultural machine. The walls, where they were not broken by telephone
+boxes and a couple of photographs--one representing the wreck of the
+James L. Moody on a bold and broken coast, the other the Saturday tug
+alive with amateur fishers--almost disappeared under oil-paintings
+gaudily framed. Many of these were relics of the Latin Quarter, and I
+must do Pinkerton the justice to say that none of them were bad,
+and some had remarkable merit. They went off slowly but for handsome
+figures; and their places were progressively supplied with the work of
+local artists. These last it was one of my first duties to review and
+criticise. Some of them were villainous, yet all were saleable. I said
+so; and the next moment saw myself, the figure of a miserable renegade,
+bearing arms in the wrong camp. I was to look at pictures thenceforward,
+not with the eye of the artist, but the dealer; and I saw the stream
+widen that divided me from all I loved.
+
+“Now, Loudon,” Pinkerton had said, the morning after the lecture, “now
+Loudon, we can go at it shoulder to shoulder. This is what I have longed
+for: I wanted two heads and four arms; and now I have 'em. You'll find
+it's just the same as art--all observation and imagination; only more
+movement. Just wait till you begin to feel the charm!”
+
+I might have waited long. Perhaps I lack a sense; for our whole
+existence seemed to me one dreary bustle, and the place we bustled in
+fitly to be called the Place of Yawning. I slept in a little den behind
+the office; Pinkerton, in the office itself, stretched on a patent sofa
+which sometimes collapsed, his slumbers still further menaced by an
+imminent clock with an alarm. Roused by this diabolical contrivance, we
+rose early, went forth early to breakfast, and returned by nine to what
+Pinkerton called work, and I distraction. Masses of letters must be
+opened, read, and answered; some by me at a subsidiary desk which had
+been introduced on the morning of my arrival; others by my bright-eyed
+friend, pacing the room like a caged lion as he dictated to the tinkling
+type-writers. Masses of wet proof had to be overhauled and scrawled upon
+with a blue pencil--“rustic”--“six-inch caps”--“bold spacing here”--or
+sometimes terms more fervid, as for instance this, which I remember
+Pinkerton to have spirted on the margin of an advertisement of Soothing
+Syrup: “Throw this all down. Have you never printed an advertisement?
+I'll be round in half an hour.” The ledger and sale-book, besides,
+we had always with us. Such was the backbone of our occupation, and
+tolerable enough; but the far greater proportion of our time was
+consumed by visitors, whole-souled, grand fellows no doubt, and as sharp
+as a needle, but to me unfortunately not diverting. Some were apparently
+half-witted, and must be talked over by the hour before they could reach
+the humblest decision, which they only left the office to return again
+(ten minutes later) and rescind. Others came with a vast show of hurry
+and despatch, but I observed it to be principally show. The agricultural
+model for instance, which was practicable, proved a kind of flypaper for
+these busybodies. I have seen them blankly turn the crank of it for five
+minutes at a time, simulating (to nobody's deception) business interest:
+“Good thing this, Pinkerton? Sell much of it? Ha! Couldn't use it,
+I suppose, as a medium of advertisement for my article?”--which was
+perhaps toilet soap. Others (a still worse variety) carried us to
+neighbouring saloons to dice for cocktails and (after the cocktails were
+paid) for dollars on a corner of the counter. The attraction of dice for
+all these people was indeed extraordinary: at a certain club, where I
+once dined in the character of “my partner, Mr. Dodd,” the dice-box came
+on the table with the wine, an artless substitute for after-dinner wit.
+
+Of all our visitors, I believe I preferred Emperor Norton; the very
+mention of whose name reminds me I am doing scanty justice to the
+folks of San Francisco. In what other city would a harmless madman who
+supposed himself emperor of the two Americas have been so fostered
+and encouraged? Where else would even the people of the streets have
+respected the poor soul's illusion? Where else would bankers and
+merchants have received his visits, cashed his cheques, and submitted to
+his small assessments? Where else would he have been suffered to attend
+and address the exhibition days of schools and colleges? where else,
+in God's green earth, have taken his pick of restaurants, ransacked
+the bill of fare, and departed scathless? They tell me he was even an
+exacting patron, threatening to withdraw his custom when dissatisfied;
+and I can believe it, for his face wore an expression distinctly
+gastronomical. Pinkerton had received from this monarch a cabinet
+appointment; I have seen the brevet, wondering mainly at the good nature
+of the printer who had executed the forms, and I think my friend was at
+the head either of foreign affairs or education: it mattered, indeed,
+nothing, the presentation being in all offices identical. It was at a
+comparatively early date that I saw Jim in the exercise of his public
+functions. His Majesty entered the office--a portly, rather flabby man,
+with the face of a gentleman, rendered unspeakably pathetic and absurd
+by the great sabre at his side and the peacock's feather in his hat.
+
+
+“I have called to remind you, Mr. Pinkerton, that you are somewhat in
+arrear of taxes,” he said, with old-fashioned, stately courtesy.
+
+“Well, your Majesty, what is the amount?” asked Jim; and when the figure
+was named (it was generally two or three dollars), paid upon the nail
+and offered a bonus in the shape of Thirteen Star.
+
+“I am always delighted to patronise native industries,” said Norton the
+First. “San Francisco is public-spirited in what concerns its Emperor;
+and indeed, sir, of all my domains, it is my favourite city.”
+
+“Come,” said I, when he was gone, “I prefer that customer to the lot.”
+
+“It's really rather a distinction,” Jim admitted. “I think it must have
+been the umbrella racket that attracted him.”
+
+We were distinguished under the rose by the notice of other and greater
+men. There were days when Jim wore an air of unusual capacity and
+resolve, spoke with more brevity like one pressed for time, and took
+often on his tongue such phrases as “Longhurst told me so this morning,”
+ or “I had it straight from Longhurst himself.” It was no wonder, I used
+to think, that Pinkerton was called to council with such Titans; for the
+creature's quickness and resource were beyond praise. In the early
+days when he consulted me without reserve, pacing the room, projecting,
+ciphering, extending hypothetical interests, trebling imaginary capital,
+his “engine” (to renew an excellent old word) labouring full steam
+ahead, I could never decide whether my sense of respect or entertainment
+were the stronger. But these good hours were destined to curtailment.
+
+“Yes, it's smart enough,” I once observed. “But, Pinkerton, do you think
+it's honest?”
+
+“You don't think it's honest!” he wailed. “O dear me, that ever I should
+have heard such an expression on your lips!”
+
+At sight of his distress, I plagiarised unblushingly from Myner. “You
+seem to think honesty as simple as Blind Man's Buff,” said I. “It's a
+more delicate affair than that: delicate as any art.”
+
+“O well! at that rate!” he exclaimed, with complete relief. “That's
+casuistry.”
+
+“I am perfectly certain of one thing: that what you propose is
+dishonest,” I returned.
+
+“Well, say no more about it. That's settled,” he replied.
+
+Thus, almost at a word, my point was carried. But the trouble was that
+such differences continued to recur, until we began to regard each other
+with alarm. If there were one thing Pinkerton valued himself upon, it
+was his honesty; if there were one thing he clung to, it was my
+good opinion; and when both were involved, as was the case in these
+commercial cruces, the man was on the rack. My own position, if you
+consider how much I owed him, how hateful is the trade of fault-finder,
+and that yet I lived and fattened on these questionable operations,
+was perhaps equally distressing. If I had been more sterling or more
+combative things might have gone extremely far. But, in truth, I was
+just base enough to profit by what was not forced on my attention,
+rather than seek scenes: Pinkerton quite cunning enough to avail himself
+of my weakness; and it was a relief to both when he began to involve his
+proceedings in a decent mystery.
+
+Our last dispute, which had a most unlooked-for consequence, turned on
+the refitting of condemned ships. He had bought a miserable hulk, and
+came, rubbing his hands, to inform me she was already on the slip, under
+a new name, to be repaired. When first I had heard of this industry I
+suppose I scarcely comprehended; but much discussion had sharpened my
+faculties, and now my brow became heavy.
+
+“I can be no party to that, Pinkerton,” said I.
+
+He leaped like a man shot. “What next?” he cried. “What ails you,
+anyway? You seem to me to dislike everything that's profitable.”
+
+“This ship has been condemned by Lloyd's agent,” said I.
+
+“But I tell you it's a deal. The ship's in splendid condition;
+there's next to nothing wrong with her but the garboard streak and the
+sternpost. I tell you Lloyd's is a ring like everybody else; only it's
+an English ring, and that's what deceives you. If it was American, you
+would be crying it down all day. It's Anglomania, common Anglomania,” he
+cried, with growing irritation.
+
+“I will not make money by risking men's lives,” was my ultimatum.
+
+“Great Caesar! isn't all speculation a risk? Isn't the fairest kind of
+shipowning to risk men's lives? And mining--how's that for risk? And
+look at the elevator business--there's danger, if you like! Didn't I
+take my risk when I bought her? She might have been too far gone; and
+where would I have been? Loudon,” he cried, “I tell you the truth:
+you're too full of refinement for this world!”
+
+“I condemn you out of your own lips,” I replied. “'The fairest kind of
+shipowning,' says you. If you please, let us only do the fairest kind of
+business.”
+
+The shot told; the Irrepressible was silenced; and I profited by the
+chance to pour in a broadside of another sort. He was all sunk in
+money-getting, I pointed out; he never dreamed of anything but dollars.
+Where were all his generous, progressive sentiments? Where was his
+culture? I asked. And where was the American Type?
+
+“It's true, Loudon,” he cried, striding up and down the room, and
+wildly scouring at his hair. “You're perfectly right. I'm becoming
+materialised. O, what a thing to have to say, what a confession to make!
+Materialised! Me! Loudon, this must go on no longer. You've been a loyal
+friend to me once more; give me your hand!--you've saved me again. I
+must do something to rouse the spiritual side; something desperate;
+study something, something dry and tough. What shall it be? Theology?
+Algebra? What's Algebra?”
+
+“It's dry and tough enough,” said I; “a squared + 2ab + b squared.”
+
+“It's stimulating, though?” he inquired.
+
+I told him I believed so, and that it was considered fortifying to
+Types.
+
+“Then that's the thing for me. I'll study Algebra,” he concluded.
+
+The next day, by application to one of his type-writing women, he got
+word of a young lady, one Miss Mamie McBride, who was willing and able
+to conduct him in these bloomless meadows; and, her circumstances
+being lean, and terms consequently moderate, he and Mamie were soon
+in agreement for two lessons in the week. He took fire with unexampled
+rapidity; he seemed unable to tear himself away from the symbolic art;
+an hour's lesson occupied the whole evening; and the original two was
+soon increased to four, and then to five. I bade him beware of female
+blandishments. “The first thing you know, you'll be falling in love with
+the algebraist,” said I.
+
+“Don't say it even in jest,” he cried. “She's a lady I revere. I could
+no more lay a hand upon her than I could upon a spirit. Loudon, I don't
+believe God ever made a purer-minded woman.”
+
+Which appeared to me too fervent to be reassuring.
+
+Meanwhile I had been long expostulating with my friend upon a different
+matter. “I'm the fifth wheel,” I kept telling him. “For any use I am,
+I might as well be in Senegambia. The letters you give me to attend
+to might be answered by a sucking child. And I tell you what it is,
+Pinkerton: either you've got to find me some employment, or I'll have to
+start in and find it for myself.”
+
+This I said with a corner of my eye in the usual quarter, toward the
+arts, little dreaming what destiny was to provide.
+
+“I've got it, Loudon,” Pinkerton at last replied. “Got the idea on the
+Potrero cars. Found I hadn't a pencil, borrowed one from the conductor,
+and figured on it roughly all the way in town. I saw it was the thing at
+last; gives you a real show. All your talents and accomplishments come
+in. Here's a sketch advertisement. Just run your eye over it. 'Sun,
+Ozone, and Music! PINKERTON'S HEBDOMADARY PICNICS!' (That's a good,
+catching phrase, 'hebdomadary,' though it's hard to say. I made a note
+of it when I was looking in the dictionary how to spell hectagonal.
+'Well, you're a boss word,' I said. 'Before you're very much older, I'll
+have you in type as long as yourself.' And here it is, you see.) 'Five
+dollars a head, and ladies free. MONSTER OLIO OF ATTRACTIONS.' (How does
+that strike you?) 'Free luncheon under the greenwood tree. Dance on
+the elastic sward. Home again in the Bright Evening Hours. Manager and
+Honorary Steward, H. Loudon Dodd, Esq., the well-known connoisseur.'”
+
+
+Singular how a man runs from Scylla to Charybdis! I was so intent on
+securing the disappearance of a single epithet that I accepted the rest
+of the advertisement and all that it involved without discussion. So it
+befell that the words “well-known connoisseur” were deleted; but that
+H. Loudon Dodd became manager and honorary steward of Pinkerton's
+Hebdomadary Picnics, soon shortened, by popular consent, to the
+Dromedary.
+
+By eight o'clock, any Sunday morning, I was to be observed by an
+admiring public on the wharf. The garb and attributes of sacrifice
+consisted of a black frock coat, rosetted, its pockets bulging with
+sweetmeats and inferior cigars, trousers of light blue, a silk hat
+like a reflector, and a varnished wand. A goodly steamer guarded my
+one flank, panting and throbbing, flags fluttering fore and aft of her,
+illustrative of the Dromedary and patriotism. My other flank was covered
+by the ticket-office, strongly held by a trusty character of the Scots
+persuasion, rosetted like his superior and smoking a cigar to mark the
+occasion festive. At half-past, having assured myself that all was well
+with the free luncheons, I lit a cigar myself, and awaited the strains
+of the “Pioneer Band.” I had never to wait long--they were German and
+punctual--and by a few minutes after the half-hour, I would hear them
+booming down street with a long military roll of drums, some score of
+gratuitous asses prancing at the head in bearskin hats and buckskin
+aprons, and conspicuous with resplendent axes. The band, of course,
+we paid for; but so strong is the San Franciscan passion for public
+masquerade, that the asses (as I say) were all gratuitous, pranced for
+the love of it, and cost us nothing but their luncheon.
+
+The musicians formed up in the bows of my steamer, and struck into
+a skittish polka; the asses mounted guard upon the gangway and the
+ticket-office; and presently after, in family parties of father, mother,
+and children, in the form of duplicate lovers or in that of solitary
+youth, the public began to descend upon us by the carful at a time; four
+to six hundred perhaps, with a strong German flavour, and all merry as
+children. When these had been shepherded on board, and the inevitable
+belated two or three had gained the deck amidst the cheering of the
+public, the hawser was cast off, and we plunged into the bay.
+
+And now behold the honorary steward in hour of duty and glory; see me
+circulate amid crowd, radiating affability and laughter, liberal with
+my sweetmeats and cigars. I say unblushing things to hobbledehoy girls,
+tell shy young persons this is the married people's boat, roguishly
+ask the abstracted if they are thinking of their sweethearts, offer
+Paterfamilias a cigar, am struck with the beauty and grow curious about
+the age of mamma's youngest who (I assure her gaily) will be a man
+before his mother; or perhaps it may occur to me, from the sensible
+expression of her face, that she is a person of good counsel, and I
+ask her earnestly if she knows any particularly pleasant place on the
+Saucelito or San Rafael coast, for the scene of our picnic is always
+supposed to be uncertain. The next moment I am back at my giddy badinage
+with the young ladies, wakening laughter as I go, and leaving in my wake
+applausive comments of “Isn't Mr. Dodd a funny gentleman?” and “O, I
+think he's just too nice!”
+
+An hour having passed in this airy manner, I start upon my rounds
+afresh, with a bag full of coloured tickets, all with pins attached, and
+all with legible inscriptions: “Old Germany,” “California,” “True Love,”
+ “Old Fogies,” “La Belle France,” “Green Erin,” “The Land of Cakes,”
+ “Washington,” “Blue Jay,” “Robin Red-Breast,”--twenty of each
+denomination; for when it comes to the luncheon, we sit down by
+twenties. These are distributed with anxious tact--for, indeed, this
+is the most delicate part of my functions--but outwardly with reckless
+unconcern, amidst the gayest flutter and confusion; and are immediately
+after sported upon hats and bonnets, to the extreme diffusion of
+cordiality, total strangers hailing each other by “the number of their
+mess”--so we humorously name it--and the deck ringing with cries of,
+“Here, all Blue Jays to the rescue!” or, “I say, am I alone in this
+blame' ship? Ain't there no more Californians?”
+
+By this time we are drawing near to the appointed spot. I mount upon the
+bridge, the observed of all observers.
+
+“Captain,” I say, in clear, emphatic tones, heard far and wide, “the
+majority of the company appear to be in favour of the little cove beyond
+One Tree Point.”
+
+“All right, Mr. Dodd,” responds the captain, heartily; “all one to me.
+I am not exactly sure of the place you mean; but just you stay here and
+pilot me.”
+
+I do, pointing with my wand. I do pilot him, to the inexpressible
+entertainment of the picnic; for I am (why should I deny it?) the
+popular man. We slow down off the mouth of a grassy valley, watered by
+a brook, and set in pines and redwoods. The anchor is let go; the
+boats are lowered, two of them already packed with the materials of
+an impromptu bar; and the Pioneer Band, accompanied by the resplendent
+asses, fill the other, and move shoreward to the inviting strains of
+Buffalo Gals, won't you come out to-night? It is a part of our programme
+that one of the asses shall, from sheer clumsiness, in the course of
+this embarkation, drop a dummy axe into the water, whereupon the mirth
+of the picnic can hardly be assuaged. Upon one occasion, the dummy axe
+floated, and the laugh turned rather the wrong way.
+
+In from ten to twenty minutes the boats are along-side again, the messes
+are marshalled separately on the deck, and the picnic goes ashore,
+to find the band and the impromptu bar awaiting them. Then come the
+hampers, which are piled upon the beach, and surrounded by a stern
+guard of stalwart asses, axe on shoulder. It is here I take my place,
+note-book in hand, under a banner bearing the legend, “Come here for
+hampers.” Each hamper contains a complete outfit for a separate twenty,
+cold provender, plates, glasses, knives, forks, and spoons: an agonized
+printed appeal from the fevered pen of Pinkerton, pasted on the inside
+of the lid, beseeches that care be taken of the glass and silver. Beer,
+wine, and lemonade are flowing already from the bar, and the various
+clans of twenty file away into the woods, with bottles under their arms,
+and the hampers strung upon a stick. Till one they feast there, in a
+very moderate seclusion, all being within earshot of the band. From one
+till four, dancing takes place upon the grass; the bar does a roaring
+business; and the honorary steward, who has already exhausted himself to
+bring life into the dullest of the messes, must now indefatigably dance
+with the plainest of the women. At four a bugle-call is sounded; and by
+half-past behold us on board again, pioneers, corrugated iron bar, empty
+bottles, and all; while the honorary steward, free at last, subsides
+into the captain's cabin over a brandy and soda and a book. Free at
+last, I say; yet there remains before him the frantic leave-takings
+at the pier, and a sober journey up to Pinkerton's office with two
+policemen and the day's takings in a bag.
+
+What I have here sketched was the routine. But we appealed to the taste
+of San Francisco more distinctly in particular fetes. “Ye Olde Time
+Pycke-Nycke,” largely advertised in hand-bills beginning “Oyez, Oyez!”
+ and largely frequented by knights, monks, and cavaliers, was drowned
+out by unseasonable rain, and returned to the city one of the saddest
+spectacles I ever remember to have witnessed. In pleasing contrast,
+and certainly our chief success, was “The Gathering of the Clans,”
+ or Scottish picnic. So many milk-white knees were never before
+simultaneously exhibited in public, and to judge by the prevalence of
+“Royal Stewart” and the number of eagle's feathers, we were a high-born
+company. I threw forward the Scottish flank of my own ancestry, and
+passed muster as a clansman with applause. There was, indeed, but one
+small cloud on this red-letter day. I had laid in a large supply of
+the national beverage, in the shape of The “Rob Roy MacGregor O” Blend,
+Warranted Old and Vatted; and this must certainly have been a generous
+spirit, for I had some anxious work between four and half-past,
+conveying on board the inanimate forms of chieftains.
+
+To one of our ordinary festivities, where he was the life and soul of
+his own mess, Pinkerton himself came incognito, bringing the algebraist
+on his arm. Miss Mamie proved to be a well-enough-looking mouse, with
+a large, limpid eye, very good manners, and a flow of the most correct
+expressions I have ever heard upon the human lip. As Pinkerton's
+incognito was strict, I had little opportunity to cultivate the lady's
+acquaintance; but I was informed afterwards that she considered me “the
+wittiest gentleman she had ever met.” “The Lord mend your taste in wit!”
+ thought I; but I cannot conceal that such was the general impression.
+One of my pleasantries even went the round of San Francisco, and I have
+heard it (myself all unknown) bandied in saloons. To be unknown began at
+last to be a rare experience; a bustle woke upon my passage; above all,
+in humble neighbourhoods. “Who's that?” one would ask, and the other
+would cry, “That! Why, Dromedary Dodd!” or, with withering scorn, “Not
+know Mr. Dodd of the Picnics? Well!” and indeed I think it marked a
+rather barren destiny; for our picnics, if a trifle vulgar, were as gay
+and innocent as the age of gold; I am sure no people divert themselves
+so easily and so well: and even with the cares of my stewardship, I was
+often happy to be there.
+
+Indeed, there were but two drawbacks in the least considerable. The
+first was my terror of the hobbledehoy girls, to whom (from the demands
+of my situation) I was obliged to lay myself so open. The other, if less
+momentous, was more mortifying. In early days, at my mother's knee, as a
+man may say, I had acquired the unenviable accomplishment (which I have
+never since been able to lose) of singing _Just before the Battle._
+I have what the French call a fillet of voice, my best notes scarce
+audible about a dinner-table, and the upper register rather to be
+regarded as a higher power of silence: experts tell me besides that
+I sing flat; nor, if I were the best singer in the world, does _Just
+before the Battle_ occur to my mature taste as the song that I would
+choose to sing. In spite of all which considerations, at one picnic,
+memorably dull, and after I had exhausted every other art of pleasing,
+I gave, in desperation, my one song. From that hour my doom was gone
+forth. Either we had a chronic passenger (though I could never detect
+him), or the very wood and iron of the steamer must have retained the
+tradition. At every successive picnic word went round that Mr. Dodd was
+a singer; that Mr. Dodd sang _Just before the Battle_, and finally that
+now was the time when Mr. Dodd sang _Just before the Battle;_ so that
+the thing became a fixture like the dropping of the dummy axe, and you
+are to conceive me, Sunday after Sunday, piping up my lamentable
+ditty and covered, when it was done, with gratuitous applause. It is a
+beautiful trait in human nature that I was invariably offered an encore.
+
+I was well paid, however, even to sing. Pinkerton and I, after an
+average Sunday, had five hundred dollars to divide. Nay, and the picnics
+were the means, although indirectly, of bringing me a singular windfall.
+This was at the end of the season, after the “Grand Farewell Fancy Dress
+Gala.” Many of the hampers had suffered severely; and it was judged
+wiser to save storage, dispose of them, and lay in a fresh stock when
+the campaign re-opened. Among my purchasers was a workingman of the
+name of Speedy, to whose house, after several unavailing letters, I
+must proceed in person, wondering to find myself once again on the wrong
+side, and playing the creditor to some one else's debtor. Speedy was
+in the belligerent stage of fear. He could not pay. It appeared he had
+already resold the hampers, and he defied me to do my worst. I did not
+like to lose my own money; I hated to lose Pinkerton's; and the bearing
+of my creditor incensed me.
+
+“Do you know, Mr. Speedy, that I can send you to the penitentiary?” said
+I, willing to read him a lesson.
+
+The dire expression was overheard in the next room. A large, fresh,
+motherly Irishwoman ran forth upon the instant, and fell to besiege me
+with caresses and appeals. “Sure now, and ye couldn't have the heart to
+ut, Mr. Dodd, you, that's so well known to be a pleasant gentleman; and
+it's a pleasant face ye have, and the picture of me own brother that's
+dead and gone. It's a truth that he's been drinking. Ye can smell it off
+of him, more blame to him. But, indade, and there's nothing in the
+house beyont the furnicher, and Thim Stock. It's the stock that ye'll
+be taking, dear. A sore penny it has cost me, first and last, and by
+all tales, not worth an owld tobacco pipe.” Thus adjured, and somewhat
+embarrassed by the stern attitude I had adopted, I suffered myself to be
+invested with a considerable quantity of what is called wild-cat stock,
+in which this excellent if illogical female had been squandering her
+hard-earned gold. It could scarce be said to better my position, but the
+step quieted the woman; and, on the other hand, I could not think I was
+taking much risk, for the shares in question (they were those of what I
+will call the Catamount Silver Mine) had fallen some time before to the
+bed-rock quotation, and now lay perfectly inert, or were only kicked
+(like other waste paper) about the kennel of the exchange by bankrupt
+speculators.
+
+A month or two after, I perceived by the stock-list that Catamount
+had taken a bound; before afternoon, “thim stock” were worth a quite
+considerable pot of money; and I learned, upon inquiry, that a bonanza
+had been found in a condemned lead, and the mine was now expected to do
+wonders. Remarkable to philosophers how bonanzas are found in condemned
+leads, and how the stock is always at freezing-point immediately before!
+By some stroke of chance the, Speedys had held on to the right thing;
+they had escaped the syndicate; yet a little more, if I had not come to
+dun them, and Mrs. Speedy would have been buying a silk dress. I could
+not bear, of course, to profit by the accident, and returned to
+offer restitution. The house was in a bustle; the neighbours (all
+stock-gamblers themselves) had crowded to condole; and Mrs. Speedy sat
+with streaming tears, the centre of a sympathetic group. “For fifteen
+year I've been at ut,” she was lamenting, as I entered, “and grudging
+the babes the very milk, more shame to me! to pay their dhirty
+assessments. And now, my dears, I should be a lady, and driving in my
+coach, if all had their rights; and a sorrow on that man Dodd! As soon
+as I set eyes on him, I seen the divil was in the house.”
+
+It was upon these words that I made my entrance, which was therefore
+dramatic enough, though nothing to what followed. For when it appeared
+that I was come to restore the lost fortune, and when Mrs. Speedy (after
+copiously weeping on my bosom) had refused the restitution, and when
+Mr. Speedy (summoned to that end from a camp of the Grand Army of the
+Republic) had added his refusal, and when I had insisted, and they had
+insisted, and the neighbours had applauded and supported each of us in
+turn; and when at last it was agreed we were to hold the stock together,
+and share the proceeds in three parts--one for me, one for Mr. Speedy,
+and one for his spouse--I will leave you to conceive the enthusiasm that
+reigned in that small, bare apartment, with the sewing-machine in the
+one corner, and the babes asleep in the other, and pictures of Garfield
+and the Battle of Gettysburg on the yellow walls. Port wine was had in
+by a sympathiser, and we drank it mingled with tears.
+
+“And I dhrink to your health, my dear,” sobbed Mrs. Speedy, especially
+affected by my gallantry in the matter of the third share; “and I'm
+sure we all dhrink to his health--Mr. Dodd of the picnics, no gentleman
+better known than him; and it's my prayer, dear, the good God may be
+long spared to see ye in health and happiness!”
+
+In the end I was the chief gainer; for I sold my third while it was
+worth five thousand dollars, but the Speedys more adventurously held on
+until the syndicate reversed the process, when they were happy to escape
+with perhaps a quarter of that sum. It was just as well; for the bulk
+of the money was (in Pinkerton's phrase) reinvested; and when next I saw
+Mrs. Speedy, she was still gorgeously dressed from the proceeds of the
+late success, but was already moist with tears over the new catastrophe.
+“We're froze out, me darlin'! All the money we had, dear, and the
+sewing-machine, and Jim's uniform, was in the Golden West; and the
+vipers has put on a new assessment.”
+
+By the end of the year, therefore, this is how I stood. I had made
+
+     By Catamount Silver Mine..................... $5,000
+     By the picnics...............................  3,000
+     By the lecture...............................    600
+     By profit and loss on capital
+     in Pinkerton's business......................  1,350
+     ------
+     $9,950
+
+     to which must be added
+
+     What remained of my grandfather's
+     donation.....................................  8,500
+     ------
+     $18,450
+
+     It appears, on the other hand, that
+
+     I had spent..........................  4,000
+     -------
+     Which thus left me to the good............... $14,450
+
+A result on which I am not ashamed to say I looked with gratitude and
+pride. Some eight thousand (being late conquest) was liquid and actually
+tractile in the bank; the rest whirled beyond reach and even sight (save
+in the mirror of a balance-sheet) under the compelling spell of wizard
+Pinkerton. Dollars of mine were tacking off the shores of Mexico, in
+peril of the deep and the guarda-costas; they rang on saloon-counters
+in the city of Tombstone, Arizona; they shone in faro-tents among the
+mountain diggings; the imagination flagged in following them, so wide
+were they diffused, so briskly they span to the turning of the wizard's
+crank. But here, there, or everywhere I could still tell myself it was
+all mine, and what was more convincing, draw substantial dividends. My
+fortune, I called it; and it represented, when expressed in dollars, or
+even British pounds, an honest pot of money; when extended into francs,
+a veritable fortune. Perhaps I have let the cat out of the bag; perhaps
+you see already where my hopes were pointing, and begin to blame my
+inconsistency. But I must first tell you my excuse, and the change that
+had befallen Pinkerton.
+
+About a week after the picnic to which he escorted Mamie, Pinkerton
+avowed the state of his affections. From what I had observed on board
+the steamer, where methought Mamie waited on him with her limpid eyes,
+I encouraged the bashful lover to proceed; and the very next evening he
+was carrying me to call on his affianced.
+
+“You must befriend her, Loudon, as you have always befriended me,” he
+said, pathetically.
+
+“By saying disagreeable things? I doubt if that be the way to a young
+lady's favour,” I replied; “and since this picnicking I begin to be a
+man of some experience.”
+
+“Yes, you do nobly there; I can't describe how I admire you,” he cried.
+“Not that she will ever need it; she has had every advantage. God knows
+what I have done to deserve her. O man, what a responsibility this is
+for a rough fellow and not always truthful!”
+
+“Brace up, old man, brace up!” said I.
+
+But when we reached Mamie's boarding-house, it was almost with tears
+that he presented me. “Here is Loudon, Mamie,” were his words. “I want
+you to love him; he has a grand nature.”
+
+“You are certainly no stranger to me, Mr. Dodd,” was her gracious
+expression. “James is never weary of descanting on your goodness.”
+
+“My dear lady,” said I, “when you know our friend a little better,
+you will make a large allowance for his warm heart. My goodness has
+consisted in allowing him to feed and clothe and toil for me when he
+could ill afford it. If I am now alive, it is to him I owe it; no man
+had a kinder friend. You must take good care of him,” I added, laying my
+hand on his shoulder, “and keep him in good order, for he needs it.”
+
+Pinkerton was much affected by this speech, and so, I fear, was Mamie. I
+admit it was a tactless performance. “When you know our friend a little
+better,” was not happily said; and even “keep him in good order, for he
+needs it” might be construed into matter of offence; but I lay it before
+you in all confidence of your acquittal: was the general tone of it
+“patronising”? Even if such was the verdict of the lady, I cannot but
+suppose the blame was neither wholly hers nor wholly mine; I cannot but
+suppose that Pinkerton had already sickened the poor woman of my very
+name; so that if I had come with the songs of Apollo, she must still
+have been disgusted.
+
+Here, however, were two finger-posts to Paris. Jim was going to be
+married, and so had the less need of my society. I had not pleased his
+bride, and so was, perhaps, better absent. Late one evening I broached
+the idea to my friend. It had been a great day for me; I had just banked
+my five thousand catamountain dollars; and as Jim had refused to lay a
+finger on the stock, risk and profit were both wholly mine, and I was
+celebrating the event with stout and crackers. I began by telling him
+that if it caused him any pain or any anxiety about his affairs, he had
+but to say the word, and he should hear no more of my proposal. He was
+the truest and best friend I ever had or was ever like to have; and
+it would be a strange thing if I refused him any favour he was sure
+he wanted. At the same time I wished him to be sure; for my life was
+wasting in my hands. I was like one from home; all my true interests
+summoned me away. I must remind him, besides, that he was now about to
+marry and assume new interests, and that our extreme familiarity might
+be even painful to his wife.--“O no, Loudon; I feel you are wrong
+there,” he interjected warmly; “she DOES appreciate your nature.”--So
+much the better, then, I continued; and went on to point out that our
+separation need not be for long; that, in the way affairs were going,
+he might join me in two years with a fortune, small, indeed, for the
+States, but in France almost conspicuous; that we might unite our
+resources, and have one house in Paris for the winter and a second near
+Fontainebleau for summer, where we could be as happy as the day was
+long, and bring up little Pinkertons as practical artistic workmen, far
+from the money-hunger of the West. “Let me go then,” I concluded; “not
+as a deserter, but as the vanguard, to lead the march of the Pinkerton
+men.”
+
+So I argued and pleaded, not without emotion; my friend sitting
+opposite, resting his chin upon his hand and (but for that single
+interjection) silent. “I have been looking for this, Loudon,” said he,
+when I had done. “It does pain me, and that's the fact--I'm so miserably
+selfish. And I believe it's a death blow to the picnics; for it's idle
+to deny that you were the heart and soul of them with your wand and your
+gallant bearing, and wit and humour and chivalry, and throwing that kind
+of society atmosphere about the thing. But for all that, you're right,
+and you ought to go. You may count on forty dollars a week; and if Depew
+City--one of nature's centres for this State--pan out the least as I
+expect, it may be double. But it's forty dollars anyway; and to think
+that two years ago you were almost reduced to beggary!”
+
+“I WAS reduced to it,” said I.
+
+“Well, the brutes gave you nothing, and I'm glad of it now!” cried Jim.
+“It's the triumphant return I glory in! Think of the master, and that
+cold-blooded Myner too! Yes, just let the Depew City boom get on its
+legs, and you shall go; and two years later, day for day, I'll shake
+hands with you in Paris, with Mamie on my arm, God bless her!”
+
+We talked in this vein far into the night. I was myself so exultant in
+my new-found liberty, and Pinkerton so proud of my triumph, so happy in
+my happiness, in so warm a glow about the gallant little woman of his
+choice, and the very room so filled with castles in the air and cottages
+at Fontainebleau, that it was little wonder if sleep fled our eyelids,
+and three had followed two upon the office clock before Pinkerton
+unfolded the mechanism of his patent sofa.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. FACES ON THE CITY FRONT.
+
+
+It is very much the custom to view life as if it were exactly ruled in
+two, like sleep and waking; the provinces of play and business standing
+separate. The business side of my career in San Francisco has been now
+disposed of; I approach the chapter of diversion; and it will be found
+they had about an equal share in building up the story of the Wrecker--a
+gentleman whose appearance may be presently expected.
+
+With all my occupations, some six afternoons and two or three odd
+evenings remained at my disposal every week: a circumstance the more
+agreeable as I was a stranger in a city singularly picturesque.
+From what I had once called myself, The Amateur Parisian, I grew (or
+declined) into a waterside prowler, a lingerer on wharves, a frequenter
+of shy neighbourhoods, a scraper of acquaintance with eccentric
+characters. I visited Chinese and Mexican gambling-hells, German secret
+societies, sailors' boarding-houses, and “dives” of every complexion of
+the disreputable and dangerous. I have seen greasy Mexican hands pinned
+to the table with a knife for cheating, seamen (when blood-money ran
+high) knocked down upon the public street and carried insensible on
+board short-handed ships, shots exchanged, and the smoke (and the
+company) dispersing from the doors of the saloon. I have heard
+cold-minded Polacks debate upon the readiest method of burning San
+Francisco to the ground, hot-headed working men and women bawl and swear
+in the tribune at the Sandlot, and Kearney himself open his subscription
+for a gallows, name the manufacturers who were to grace it with their
+dangling bodies, and read aloud to the delighted multitude a telegram of
+adhesion from a member of the State legislature: all which preparations
+of proletarian war were (in a moment) breathed upon and abolished by the
+mere name and fame of Mr. Coleman. That lion of the Vigilantes had but
+to rouse himself and shake his ears, and the whole brawling mob was
+silenced. I could not but reflect what a strange manner of man this was,
+to be living unremarked there as a private merchant, and to be so
+feared by a whole city; and if I was disappointed, in my character of
+looker-on, to have the matter end ingloriously without the firing of a
+shot or the hanging of a single millionnaire, philosophy tried to tell
+me that this sight was truly the more picturesque. In a thousand towns
+and different epochs I might have had occasion to behold the cowardice
+and carnage of street fighting; where else, but only there and then,
+could I have enjoyed a view of Coleman (the intermittent despot) walking
+meditatively up hill in a quiet part of town, with a very rolling gait,
+and slapping gently his great thigh?
+
+Minora Canamus. This historic figure stalks silently through a corner
+of the San Francisco of my memory: the rest is bric-a-brac, the
+reminiscences of a vagrant sketcher. My delight was much in slums.
+Little Italy was a haunt of mine; there I would look in at the windows
+of small eating-shops, transported bodily from Genoa or Naples, with
+their macaroni, and chianti flasks, and portraits of Garibaldi, and
+coloured political caricatures; or (entering in) hold high debate with
+some ear-ringed fisher of the bay as to the designs of “Mr. Owstria” and
+“Mr. Rooshia.” I was often to be observed (had there been any to observe
+me) in that dis-peopled, hill-side solitude of Little Mexico, with its
+crazy wooden houses, endless crazy wooden stairs, and perilous mountain
+goat-paths in the sand. Chinatown by a thousand eccentricities drew
+and held me; I could never have enough of its ambiguous, interracial
+atmosphere, as of a vitalised museum; never wonder enough at its
+outlandish, necromantic-looking vegetables set forth to sell in
+commonplace American shop-windows, its temple doors open and the scent
+of the joss-stick streaming forth on the American air, its kites of
+Oriental fashion hanging fouled in Western telegraph-wires, its flights
+of paper prayers which the trade-wind hunts and dissipates along
+Western gutters. I was a frequent wanderer on North Beach, gazing at
+the straits, and the huge Cape-Horners creeping out to sea, and imminent
+Tamalpais. Thence, on my homeward way, I might visit that strange and
+filthy shed, earth-paved and walled with the cages of wild animals and
+birds, where at a ramshackle counter, amid the yells of monkeys, and a
+poignant atmosphere of menagerie, forty-rod whiskey was administered by
+a proprietor as dirty as his beasts. Nor did I even neglect Nob
+Hill, which is itself a kind of slum, being the habitat of the mere
+millionnaire. There they dwell upon the hill-top, high raised above
+man's clamour, and the trade-wind blows between their palaces about
+deserted streets.
+
+But San Francisco is not herself only. She is not only the most
+interesting city in the Union, and the hugest smelting-pot of races and
+the precious metals. She keeps, besides, the doors of the Pacific, and
+is the port of entry to another world and an earlier epoch in man's
+history. Nowhere else shall you observe (in the ancient phrase) so many
+tall ships as here convene from round the Horn, from China, from Sydney,
+and the Indies; but scarce remarked amid that crowd of deep-sea giants,
+another class of craft, the Island schooner, circulates: low in the
+water, with lofty spars and dainty lines, rigged and fashioned like
+a yacht, manned with brown-skinned, soft-spoken, sweet-eyed native
+sailors, and equipped with their great double-ender boats that tell a
+tale of boisterous sea-beaches. These steal out and in again, unnoted by
+the world or even the newspaper press, save for the line in the clearing
+column, “Schooner So-and-so for Yap and South Sea Islands”--steal out
+with nondescript cargoes of tinned salmon, gin, bolts of gaudy cotton
+stuff, women's hats, and Waterbury watches, to return, after a year,
+piled as high as to the eaves of the house with copra, or wallowing
+deep with the shells of the tortoise or the pearl oyster. To me, in my
+character of the Amateur Parisian, this island traffic, and even the
+island world, were beyond the bounds of curiosity, and how much more of
+knowledge. I stood there on the extreme shore of the West and of to-day.
+Seventeen hundred years ago, and seven thousand miles to the east,
+a legionary stood, perhaps, upon the wall of Antoninus, and looked
+northward toward the mountains of the Picts. For all the interval of
+time and space, I, when I looked from the cliff-house on the broad
+Pacific, was that man's heir and analogue: each of us standing on the
+verge of the Roman Empire (or, as we now call it, Western civilization),
+each of us gazing onward into zones unromanised. But I was dull. I
+looked rather backward, keeping a kind eye on Paris; and it required a
+series of converging incidents to change my attitude of nonchalance for
+one of interest, and even longing, which I little dreamed that I should
+live to gratify.
+
+The first of these incidents brought me in acquaintance with a certain
+San Francisco character, who had something of a name beyond the limits
+of the city, and was known to many lovers of good English. I had
+discovered a new slum, a place of precarious, sandy cliffs, deep, sandy
+cuttings, solitary, ancient houses, and the butt-ends of streets. It was
+already environed. The ranks of the street-lamps threaded it unbroken.
+The city, upon all sides of it, was tightly packed, and growled with
+traffic. To-day, I do not doubt the very landmarks are all swept away;
+but it offered then, within narrow limits, a delightful peace, and (in
+the morning, when I chiefly went there) a seclusion almost rural. On a
+steep sand-hill, in this neighbourhood, toppled, on the most insecure
+foundation, a certain row of houses, each with a bit of garden, and all
+(I have to presume) inhabited. Thither I used to mount by a crumbling
+footpath, and in front of the last of the houses, would sit down to
+sketch. The very first day I saw I was observed, out of the ground-floor
+window by a youngish, good-looking fellow, prematurely bald, and with
+an expression both lively and engaging. The second, as we were still
+the only figures in the landscape, it was no more than natural that
+we should nod. The third, he came out fairly from his intrenchments,
+praised my sketch, and with the impromptu cordiality of artists carried
+me into his apartment; where I sat presently in the midst of a museum of
+strange objects,--paddles and battle-clubs and baskets, rough-hewn stone
+images, ornaments of threaded shell, cocoanut bowls, snowy cocoanut
+plumes--evidences and examples of another earth, another climate,
+another race, and another (if a ruder) culture. Nor did these objects
+lack a fitting commentary in the conversation of my new acquaintance.
+Doubtless you have read his book. You know already how he tramped and
+starved, and had so fine a profit of living, in his days among the
+islands; and meeting him, as I did, one artist with another, after
+months of offices and picnics, you can imagine with what charm he would
+speak, and with what pleasure I would hear. It was in such talks, which
+we were both eager to repeat, that I first heard the names--first fell
+under the spell--of the islands; and it was from one of the first of
+them that I returned (a happy man) with _Omoo_ under one arm, and my
+friend's own adventures under the other.
+
+The second incident was more dramatic, and had, besides, a bearing on
+my future. I was standing, one day, near a boat-landing under Telegraph
+Hill. A large barque, perhaps of eighteen hundred tons, was coming more
+than usually close about the point to reach her moorings; and I was
+observing her with languid inattention, when I observed two men to
+stride across the bulwarks, drop into a shore boat, and, violently
+dispossessing the boatman of his oars, pull toward the landing where I
+stood. In a surprisingly short time they came tearing up the steps; and
+I could see that both were too well dressed to be foremast hands--the
+first even with research, and both, and specially the first, appeared
+under the empire of some strong emotion.
+
+“Nearest police office!” cried the leader.
+
+“This way,” said I, immediately falling in with their precipitate pace.
+“What's wrong? What ship is that?”
+
+“That's the Gleaner,” he replied. “I am chief officer, this gentleman's
+third; and we've to get in our depositions before the crew. You see they
+might corral us with the captain; and that's no kind of berth for me.
+I've sailed with some hard cases in my time, and seen pins flying like
+sand on a squally day--but never a match to our old man. It never let
+up from the Hook to the Farallones; and the last man was dropped not
+sixteen hours ago. Packet rats our men were, and as tough a crowd as
+ever sand-bagged a man's head in; but they looked sick enough when the
+captain started in with his fancy shooting.”
+
+“O, he's done up,” observed the other. “He won't go to sea no more.”
+
+“You make me tired,” retorted his superior. “If he gets ashore in one
+piece and isn't lynched in the next ten minutes, he'll do yet. The
+owners have a longer memory than the public; they'll stand by him; they
+don't find as smart a captain every day in the year.”
+
+“O, he's a son of a gun of a fine captain; there ain't no doubt of
+that,” concurred the other, heartily. “Why, I don't suppose there's been
+no wages paid aboard that Gleaner for three trips.”
+
+“No wages?” I exclaimed, for I was still a novice in maritime affairs.
+
+“Not to sailor-men before the mast,” agreed the mate. “Men cleared out;
+wasn't the soft job they maybe took it for. She isn' the first ship that
+never paid wages.”
+
+I could not but observe that our pace was progressively relaxing; and
+indeed I have often wondered since whether the hurry of the start were
+not intended for the gallery alone. Certain it is at least, that when we
+had reached the police office, and the mates had made their deposition,
+and told their horrid tale of five men murdered, some with savage
+passion, some with cold brutality, between Sandy Hook and San Francisco,
+the police were despatched in time to be too late. Before we arrived,
+the ruffian had slipped out upon the dock, had mingled with the crowd,
+and found a refuge in the house of an acquaintance; and the ship was
+only tenanted by his late victims. Well for him that he had been
+thus speedy. For when word began to go abroad among the shore-side
+characters, when the last victim was carried by to the hospital, when
+those who had escaped (as by miracle) from that floating shambles,
+began to circulate and show their wounds in the crowd, it was strange
+to witness the agitation that seized and shook that portion of the
+city. Men shed tears in public; bosses of lodging-houses, long inured
+to brutality, and above all, brutality to sailors, shook their fists at
+heaven: if hands could have been laid on the captain of the Gleaner,
+his shrift would have been short. That night (so gossip reports) he was
+headed up in a barrel and smuggled across the bay: in two ships already
+he had braved the penitentiary and the gallows; and yet, by last
+accounts, he now commands another on the Western Ocean.
+
+As I have said, I was never quite certain whether Mr. Nares (the mate)
+did not intend that his superior should escape. It would have been like
+his preference of loyalty to law; it would have been like his prejudice,
+which was all in favour of the after-guard. But it must remain a matter
+of conjecture only. Well as I came to know him in the sequel, he was
+never communicative on that point, nor indeed on any that concerned the
+voyage of the Gleaner. Doubtless he had some reason for his reticence.
+Even during our walk to the police office, he debated several times with
+Johnson, the third officer, whether he ought not to give up himself, as
+well as to denounce the captain. He had decided in the negative, arguing
+that “it would probably come to nothing; and even if there was a stink,
+he had plenty good friends in San Francisco.” And to nothing it came;
+though it must have very nearly come to something, for Mr. Nares
+disappeared immediately from view and was scarce less closely hidden
+than his captain.
+
+Johnson, on the other hand, I often met. I could never learn this man's
+country; and though he himself claimed to be American, neither his
+English nor his education warranted the claim. In all likelihood he
+was of Scandinavian birth and blood, long pickled in the forecastles
+of English and American ships. It is possible that, like so many of his
+race in similar positions, he had already lost his native tongue. In
+mind, at least, he was quite denationalised; thought only in English--to
+call it so; and though by nature one of the mildest, kindest, and most
+feebly playful of mankind, he had been so long accustomed to the cruelty
+of sea discipline, that his stories (told perhaps with a giggle) would
+sometimes turn me chill. In appearance, he was tall, light of weight,
+bold and high-bred of feature, dusky-haired, and with a face of a clean
+even brown: the ornament of outdoor men. Seated in a chair, you might
+have passed him off for a baronet or a military officer; but let him
+rise, and it was Fo'c's'le Jack that came rolling toward you, crab-like;
+let him but open his lips, and it was Fo'c's'le Jack that piped and
+drawled his ungrammatical gibberish. He had sailed (among other
+places) much among the islands; and after a Cape Horn passage with
+its snow-squalls and its frozen sheets, he announced his intention of
+“taking a turn among them Kanakas.” I thought I should have lost him
+soon; but according to the unwritten usage of mariners, he had first to
+dissipate his wages. “Guess I'll have to paint this town red,” was his
+hyperbolical expression; for sure no man ever embarked upon a milder
+course of dissipation, most of his days being passed in the little
+parlour behind Black Tom's public house, with a select corps of old
+particular acquaintances, all from the South Seas, and all patrons of a
+long yarn, a short pipe, and glasses round.
+
+Black Tom's, to the front, presented the appearance of a fourth-rate
+saloon, devoted to Kanaka seamen, dirt, negrohead tobacco, bad cigars,
+worse gin, and guitars and banjos in a state of decline. The proprietor,
+a powerful coloured man, was at once a publican, a ward politician,
+leader of some brigade of “lambs” or “smashers,” at the wind of whose
+clubs the party bosses and the mayor were supposed to tremble, and (what
+hurt nothing) an active and reliable crimp. His front quarters,
+then, were noisy, disreputable, and not even safe. I have seen worse
+frequented saloons where there were fewer scandals; for Tom was often
+drunk himself; and there is no doubt the Lambs must have been a useful
+body, or the place would have been closed. I remember one day, not long
+before an election, seeing a blind man, very well dressed, led up to the
+counter and remain a long while in consultation with the negro. The pair
+looked so ill-assorted, and the awe with which the drinkers fell back
+and left them in the midst of an impromptu privacy was so unusual in
+such a place, that I turned to my next neighbour with a question. He
+told me the blind man was a distinguished party boss, called by some
+the King of San Francisco, but perhaps better known by his picturesque
+Chinese nickname of the Blind White Devil. “The Lambs must be wanted
+pretty bad, I guess,” my informant added. I have here a sketch of the
+Blind White Devil leaning on the counter; on the next page, and taken
+the same hour, a jotting of Black Tom threatening a whole crowd of
+customers with a long Smith and Wesson: to such heights and depths we
+rose and fell in the front parts of the saloon.
+
+
+Meanwhile, away in the back quarters, sat the small informal South Sea
+club, talking of another world and surely of a different century. Old
+schooner captains they were, old South Sea traders, cooks, and mates:
+fine creatures, softened by residence among a softer race: full men
+besides, though not by reading, but by strange experience; and for days
+together I could hear their yarns with an unfading pleasure. All had
+indeed some touch of the poetic; for the beach-comber, when not a mere
+ruffian, is the poor relation of the artist. Even through Johnson's
+inarticulate speech, his “O yes, there ain't no harm in them Kanakas,”
+ or “O yes, that's a son of a gun of a fine island, mountainious right
+down; I didn't never ought to have left that island,” there pierced a
+certain gusto of appreciation: and some of the rest were master-talkers.
+From their long tales, their traits of character and unpremeditated
+landscape, there began to piece itself together in my head some image
+of the islands and the island life: precipitous shores, spired mountain
+tops, the deep shade of hanging forests, the unresting surf upon the
+reef, and the unending peace of the lagoon; sun, moon, and stars of an
+imperial brightness; man moving in these scenes scarce fallen, and woman
+lovelier than Eve; the primal curse abrogated, the bed made ready for
+the stranger, life set to perpetual music, and the guest welcomed, the
+boat urged, and the long night beguiled, with poetry and choral song. A
+man must have been an unsuccessful artist; he must have starved on the
+streets of Paris; he must have been yoked to a commercial force like
+Pinkerton, before he can conceive the longings that at times assailed
+me. The draughty, rowdy city of San Francisco, the bustling office where
+my friend Jim paced like a caged lion daily between ten and four, even
+(at times) the retrospect of Paris, faded in comparison. Many a man less
+tempted would have thrown up all to realise his visions; but I was by
+nature unadventurous and uninitiative: to divert me from all former
+paths and send me cruising through the isles of paradise, some force
+external to myself must be exerted; Destiny herself must use the fitting
+wedge; and little as I deemed it, that tool was already in her hand of
+brass.
+
+I sat, one afternoon, in the corner of a great, glassy, silvered saloon,
+a free lunch at my one elbow, at the other a “conscientious nude” from
+the brush of local talent; when, with the tramp of feet and a sudden
+buzz of voices, the swing-doors were flung broadly open and the place
+carried as by storm. The crowd which thus entered (mostly seafaring
+men, and all prodigiously excited) contained a sort of kernel or general
+centre of interest, which the rest merely surrounded and advertised, as
+children in the Old World surround and escort the Punch-and-Judy man;
+the word went round the bar like wildfire that these were Captain
+Trent and the survivors of the British brig Flying Scud, picked up by a
+British war-ship on Midway Island, arrived that morning in San Francisco
+Bay, and now fresh from making the necessary declarations. Presently I
+had a good sight of them: four brown, seamanlike fellows, standing by
+the counter, glass in hand, the centre of a score of questioners.
+One was a Kanaka--the cook, I was informed; one carried a cage with a
+canary, which occasionally trilled into thin song; one had his left arm
+in a sling and looked gentlemanlike, and somewhat sickly, as though
+the injury had been severe and he was scarce recovered; and the captain
+himself--a red-faced, blue-eyed, thickset man of five and forty--wore
+a bandage on his right hand. The incident struck me; I was struck
+particularly to see captain, cook, and foremost hands walking the street
+and visiting saloons in company; and, as when anything impressed me,
+I got my sketch-book out, and began to steal a sketch of the four
+castaways. The crowd, sympathising with my design, made a clear lane
+across the room; and I was thus enabled, all unobserved myself, to
+observe with a still-growing closeness the face and the demeanour of
+Captain Trent.
+
+Warmed by whiskey and encouraged by the eagerness of the bystanders,
+that gentleman was now rehearsing the history of his misfortune. It was
+but scraps that reached me: how he “filled her on the starboard tack,”
+ and how “it came up sudden out of the nor'nor'west,” and “there she was,
+high and dry.” Sometimes he would appeal to one of the men--“That was
+how it was, Jack?”--and the man would reply, “That was the way of it,
+Captain Trent.” Lastly, he started a fresh tide of popular sympathy by
+enunciating the sentiment, “Damn all these Admirality Charts, and that's
+what I say!” From the nodding of heads and the murmurs of assent that
+followed, I could see that Captain Trent had established himself in the
+public mind as a gentleman and a thorough navigator: about which period,
+my sketch of the four men and the canary-bird being finished, and all
+(especially the canary-bird) excellent likenesses, I buckled up my book,
+and slipped from the saloon.
+
+Little did I suppose that I was leaving Act I, Scene I, of the drama of
+my life; and yet the scene, or rather the captain's face, lingered for
+some time in my memory. I was no prophet, as I say; but I was something
+else: I was an observer; and one thing I knew, I knew when a man was
+terrified. Captain Trent, of the British brig Flying Scud, had been
+glib; he had been ready; he had been loud; but in his blue eyes I could
+detect the chill, and in the lines of his countenance spy the agitation
+of perpetual terror. Was he trembling for his certificate? In my
+judgment, it was some livelier kind of fear that thrilled in the man's
+marrow as he turned to drink. Was it the result of recent shock, and had
+he not yet recovered the disaster to his brig? I remembered how a friend
+of mine had been in a railway accident, and shook and started for a
+month; and although Captain Trent of the Flying Scud had none of the
+appearance of a nervous man, I told myself, with incomplete conviction,
+that his must be a similar case.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. THE WRECK OF THE “FLYING SCUD.”
+
+
+The next morning I found Pinkerton, who had risen before me, seated at
+our usual table, and deep in the perusal of what I will call the _Daily
+Occidental_. This was a paper (I know not if it be so still) that stood
+out alone among its brethren in the West; the others, down to their
+smallest item, were defaced with capitals, head-lines, alliterations,
+swaggering misquotations, and the shoddy picturesque and unpathetic
+pathos of the Harry Millers: the _Occidental_ alone appeared to be
+written by a dull, sane, Christian gentleman, singly desirous of
+communicating knowledge. It had not only this merit, which endeared it
+to me, but was admittedly the best informed on business matters, which
+attracted Pinkerton.
+
+“Loudon,” said he, looking up from the journal, “you sometimes think I
+have too many irons in the fire. My notion, on the other hand, is, when
+you see a dollar lying, pick it up! Well, here I've tumbled over a whole
+pile of 'em on a reef in the middle of the Pacific.”
+
+“Why, Jim, you miserable fellow!” I exclaimed; “haven't we Depew City,
+one of God's green centres for this State? haven't we----”
+
+“Just listen to this,” interrupted Jim. “It's miserable copy; these
+_Occidental_ reporter fellows have no fire; but the facts are right
+enough, I guess.” And he began to read:--
+
+“WRECK OF THE BRITISH BRIG, 'FLYING SCUD.'
+
+“H.B.M.S. Tempest, which arrived yesterday at this port, brings Captain
+Trent and four men of the British brig Flying Scud, cast away February
+12th on Midway Island, and most providentially rescued the next day. The
+Flying Scud was of 200 tons burthen, owned in London, and has been out
+nearly two years tramping. Captain Trent left Hong Kong December 8th,
+bound for this port in rice and a small mixed cargo of silks, teas, and
+China notions, the whole valued at $10,000, fully covered by insurance.
+The log shows plenty of fine weather, with light airs, calms, and
+squalls. In lat. 28 N., long. 177 W., his water going rotten, and misled
+by Hoyt's _North Pacific Directory_, which informed him there was a
+coaling station on the island, Captain Trent put in to Midway Island.
+He found it a literal sandbank, surrounded by a coral reef mostly
+submerged. Birds were very plenty, there was good fish in the lagoon,
+but no firewood; and the water, which could be obtained by digging,
+brackish. He found good holding-ground off the north end of the larger
+bank in fifteen fathoms water; bottom sandy, with coral patches. Here he
+was detained seven days by a calm, the crew suffering severely from the
+water, which was gone quite bad; and it was only on the evening of the
+12th, that a little wind sprang up, coming puffy out of N.N.E. Late as
+it was, Captain Trent immediately weighed anchor and attempted to get
+out. While the vessel was beating up to the passage, the wind took a
+sudden lull, and then veered squally into N. and even N.N.W., driving
+the brig ashore on the sand at about twenty minutes before six o'clock.
+John Wallen, a native of Finland, and Charles Holdorsen, a native of
+Sweden, were drowned alongside, in attempting to lower a boat, neither
+being able to swim, the squall very dark, and the noise of the breakers
+drowning everything. At the same time John Brown, another of the crew,
+had his arm broken by the falls. Captain Trent further informed the
+OCCIDENTAL reporter, that the brig struck heavily at first bows on, he
+supposes upon coral; that she then drove over the obstacle, and now
+lies in sand, much down by the head and with a list to starboard. In the
+first collision she must have sustained some damage, as she was making
+water forward. The rice will probably be all destroyed: but the more
+valuable part of the cargo is fortunately in the afterhold. Captain
+Trent was preparing his long-boat for sea, when the providential arrival
+of the Tempest, pursuant to Admiralty orders to call at islands in her
+course for castaways, saved the gallant captain from all further danger.
+It is scarcely necessary to add that both the officers and men of the
+unfortunate vessel speak in high terms of the kindness they received
+on board the man-of-war. We print a list of the survivors: Jacob
+Trent, master, of Hull, England; Elias Goddedaal, mate, native of
+Christiansand, Sweden; Ah Wing, cook, native of Sana, China; John Brown,
+native of Glasgow, Scotland; John Hardy, native of London, England.
+The Flying Scud is ten years old, and this morning will be sold as she
+stands, by order of Lloyd's agent, at public auction for the benefit of
+the underwriters. The auction will take place in the Merchants' Exchange
+at ten o'clock.
+
+“Farther Particulars.--Later in the afternoon the OCCIDENTAL reporter
+found Lieutenant Sebright, first officer of H.B.M.S. Tempest, at the
+Palace Hotel. The gallant officer was somewhat pressed for time, but
+confirmed the account given by Captain Trent in all particulars. He
+added that the Flying Scud is in an excellent berth, and except in the
+highly improbable event of a heavy N.W. gale, might last until next
+winter.”
+
+“You will never know anything of literature,” said I, when Jim had
+finished. “That is a good, honest, plain piece of work, and tells the
+story clearly. I see only one mistake: the cook is not a Chinaman; he is
+a Kanaka, and I think a Hawaiian.”
+
+“Why, how do you know that?” asked Jim.
+
+“I saw the whole gang yesterday in a saloon,” said I. “I even heard the
+tale, or might have heard it, from Captain Trent himself, who struck me
+as thirsty and nervous.”
+
+“Well, that's neither here nor there,” cried Pinkerton. “The point is,
+how about these dollars lying on a reef?”
+
+“Will it pay?” I asked.
+
+“Pay like a sugar trust!” exclaimed Pinkerton. “Don't you see what this
+British officer says about the safety? Don't you see the cargo's valued
+at ten thousand? Schooners are begging just now; I can get my pick of
+them at two hundred and fifty a month; and how does that foot up? It
+looks like three hundred per cent. to me.”
+
+“You forget,” I objected, “the captain himself declares the rice is
+damaged.”
+
+
+“That's a point, I know,” admitted Jim. “But the rice is the sluggish
+article, anyway; it's little more account than ballast; it's the tea
+and silks that I look to: all we have to find is the proportion, and one
+look at the manifest will settle that. I've rung up Lloyd's on purpose;
+the captain is to meet me there in an hour, and then I'll be as posted
+on that brig as if I built her. Besides, you've no idea what pickings
+there are about a wreck--copper, lead, rigging, anchors, chains, even
+the crockery, Loudon!”
+
+“You seem to me to forget one trifle,” said I. “Before you pick that
+wreck, you've got to buy her, and how much will she cost?”
+
+“One hundred dollars,” replied Jim, with the promptitude of an
+automaton.
+
+“How on earth do you guess that?” I cried.
+
+“I don't guess; I know it,” answered the Commercial Force. “My dear boy,
+I may be a galoot about literature, but you'll always be an outsider in
+business. How do you suppose I bought the James L. Moody for two hundred
+and fifty, her boats alone worth four times the money? Because my name
+stood first in the list. Well it stands there again; I have the naming
+of the figure, and I name a small one because of the distance: but it
+wouldn't matter what I named; that would be the price.”
+
+“It sounds mysterious enough,” said I. “Is this public auction
+conducted in a subterranean vault? Could a plain citizen--myself, for
+instance--come and see?”
+
+“O, everything's open and above board!” he cried indignantly. “Anybody
+can come, only nobody bids against us; and if he did, he would get
+frozen out. It's been tried before now, and once was enough. We hold
+the plant; we've got the connection; we can afford to go higher than
+any outsider; there's two million dollars in the ring; and we stick at
+nothing. Or suppose anybody did buy over our head--I tell you, Loudon,
+he would think this town gone crazy; he could no more get business
+through on the city front than I can dance; schooners, divers, men--all
+he wanted--the prices would fly right up and strike him.”
+
+“But how did you get in?” I asked. “You were once an outsider like your
+neighbours, I suppose?”
+
+“I took hold of that thing, Loudon, and just studied it up,” he replied.
+“It took my fancy; it was so romantic, and then I saw there was boodle
+in the thing; and I figured on the business till no man alive could give
+me points. Nobody knew I had an eye on wrecks till one fine morning I
+dropped in upon Douglas B. Longhurst in his den, gave him all the facts
+and figures, and put it to him straight: 'Do you want me in this ring?
+or shall I start another?' He took half an hour, and when I came back,
+'Pink,' says he, 'I've put your name on.' The first time I came to the
+top, it was that Moody racket; now it's the Flying Scud.”
+
+Whereupon Pinkerton, looking at his watch, uttered an exclamation,
+made a hasty appointment with myself for the doors of the Merchants'
+Exchange, and fled to examine manifests and interview the skipper. I
+finished my cigarette with the deliberation of a man at the end of many
+picnics; reflecting to myself that of all forms of the dollar hunt, this
+wrecking had by far the most address to my imagination. Even as I went
+down town, in the brisk bustle and chill of the familiar San Francisco
+thoroughfares, I was haunted by a vision of the wreck, baking so far
+away in the strong sun, under a cloud of sea-birds; and even then, and
+for no better reason, my heart inclined towards the adventure. If not
+myself, something that was mine, some one at least in my employment,
+should voyage to that ocean-bounded pin-point and descend to that
+deserted cabin.
+
+Pinkerton met me at the appointed moment, pinched of lip and more than
+usually erect of bearing, like one conscious of great resolves.
+
+“Well?” I asked.
+
+“Well,” said he, “it might be better, and it might be worse. This
+Captain Trent is a remarkably honest fellow--one out of a thousand. As
+soon as he knew I was in the market, he owned up about the rice in so
+many words. By his calculation, if there's thirty mats of it saved, it's
+an outside figure. However, the manifest was cheerier. There's about
+five thousand dollars of the whole value in silks and teas and nut-oils
+and that, all in the lazarette, and as safe as if it was in Kearney
+Street. The brig was new coppered a year ago. There's upwards of a
+hundred and fifty fathom away-up chain. It's not a bonanza, but there's
+boodle in it; and we'll try it on.”
+
+
+It was by that time hard on ten o'clock, and we turned at once into
+the place of sale. The Flying Scud, although so important to ourselves,
+appeared to attract a very humble share of popular attention. The
+auctioneer was surrounded by perhaps a score of lookers-on, big fellows,
+for the most part, of the true Western build, long in the leg, broad in
+the shoulder, and adorned (to a plain man's taste) with needless finery.
+A jaunty, ostentatious comradeship prevailed. Bets were flying, and
+nicknames. “The boys” (as they would have called themselves) were very
+boyish; and it was plain they were here in mirth, and not on business.
+Behind, and certainly in strong contrast to these gentlemen, I could
+detect the figure of my friend Captain Trent, come (as I could very well
+imagine that a captain would) to hear the last of his old vessel. Since
+yesterday, he had rigged himself anew in ready-made black clothes, not
+very aptly fitted; the upper left-hand pocket showing a corner of
+silk handkerchief, the lower, on the other side, bulging with papers.
+Pinkerton had just given this man a high character. Certainly he
+seemed to have been very frank, and I looked at him again to trace (if
+possible) that virtue in his face. It was red and broad and flustered
+and (I thought) false. The whole man looked sick with some unknown
+anxiety; and as he stood there, unconscious of my observation, he tore
+at his nails, scowled on the floor, or glanced suddenly, sharply, and
+fearfully at passers-by. I was still gazing at the man in a kind of
+fascination, when the sale began.
+
+Some preliminaries were rattled through, to the irreverent,
+uninterrupted gambolling of the boys; and then, amid a trifle more
+attention, the auctioneer sounded for some two or three minutes the pipe
+of the charmer. Fine brig--new copper--valuable fittings--three fine
+boats--remarkably choice cargo--what the auctioneer would call a
+perfectly safe investment; nay, gentlemen, he would go further, he would
+put a figure on it: he had no hesitation (had that bold auctioneer) in
+putting it in figures; and in his view, what with this and that, and one
+thing and another, the purchaser might expect to clear a sum equal to
+the entire estimated value of the cargo; or, gentlemen, in other words,
+a sum of ten thousand dollars. At this modest computation the
+roof immediately above the speaker's head (I suppose, through the
+intervention of a spectator of ventriloquial tastes) uttered a clear
+“Cock-a-doodle-doo!”--whereat all laughed, the auctioneer himself
+obligingly joining.
+
+“Now, gentlemen, what shall we say?” resumed that gentleman, plainly
+ogling Pinkerton,--“what shall we say for this remarkable opportunity?”
+
+“One hundred dollars,” said Pinkerton.
+
+“One hundred dollars from Mr. Pinkerton,” went the auctioneer, “one
+hundred dollars. No other gentleman inclined to make any advance? One
+hundred dollars, only one hundred dollars----”
+
+The auctioneer was droning on to some such tune as this, and I, on my
+part, was watching with something between sympathy and amazement the
+undisguised emotion of Captain Trent, when we were all startled by the
+interjection of a bid.
+
+“And fifty,” said a sharp voice.
+
+Pinkerton, the auctioneer, and the boys, who were all equally in the
+open secret of the ring, were now all equally and simultaneously taken
+aback.
+
+“I beg your pardon,” said the auctioneer. “Anybody bid?”
+
+“And fifty,” reiterated the voice, which I was now able to trace to
+its origin, on the lips of a small, unseemly rag of human-kind. The
+speaker's skin was gray and blotched; he spoke in a kind of broken song,
+with much variety of key; his gestures seemed (as in the disease called
+Saint Vitus's dance) to be imperfectly under control; he was badly
+dressed; he carried himself with an air of shrinking assumption, as
+though he were proud to be where he was and to do what he was doing,
+and yet half expected to be called in question and kicked out. I think I
+never saw a man more of a piece; and the type was new to me; I had never
+before set eyes upon his parallel, and I thought instinctively of Balzac
+and the lower regions of the _Comedie Humaine_.
+
+Pinkerton stared a moment on the intruder with no friendly eye, tore
+a leaf from his note-book, and scribbled a line in pencil, turned,
+beckoned a messenger boy, and whispered, “To Longhurst.” Next moment
+the boy had sped upon his errand, and Pinkerton was again facing the
+auctioneer.
+
+“Two hundred dollars,” said Jim.
+
+“And fifty,” said the enemy.
+
+
+“This looks lively,” whispered I to Pinkerton.
+
+“Yes; the little beast means cold drawn biz,” returned my friend. “Well,
+he'll have to have a lesson. Wait till I see Longhurst. Three hundred,”
+ he added aloud.
+
+“And fifty,” came the echo.
+
+It was about this moment when my eye fell again on Captain Trent.
+A deeper shade had mounted to his crimson face: the new coat was
+unbuttoned and all flying open; the new silk handkerchief in busy
+requisition; and the man's eye, of a clear sailor blue, shone glassy
+with excitement. He was anxious still, but now (if I could read a face)
+there was hope in his anxiety.
+
+“Jim,” I whispered, “look at Trent. Bet you what you please he was
+expecting this.”
+
+“Yes,” was the reply, “there's some blame' thing going on here.” And he
+renewed his bid.
+
+The figure had run up into the neighbourhood of a thousand when I
+was aware of a sensation in the faces opposite, and looking over my
+shoulder, saw a very large, bland, handsome man come strolling forth and
+make a little signal to the auctioneer.
+
+“One word, Mr. Borden,” said he; and then to Jim, “Well, Pink, where are
+we up to now?”
+
+Pinkerton gave him the figure. “I ran up to that on my own
+responsibility, Mr. Longhurst,” he added, with a flush. “I thought it
+the square thing.”
+
+“And so it was,” said Mr. Longhurst, patting him kindly on the shoulder,
+like a gratified uncle. “Well, you can drop out now; we take hold
+ourselves. You can run it up to five thousand; and if he likes to go
+beyond that, he's welcome to the bargain.”
+
+“By the by, who is he?” asked Pinkerton. “He looks away down.”
+
+“I've sent Billy to find out.” And at the very moment Mr. Longhurst
+received from the hands of one of the expensive young gentlemen a folded
+paper. It was passed round from one to another till it came to me, and I
+read: “Harry D. Bellairs, Attorney-at-Law; defended Clara Varden; twice
+nearly disbarred.”
+
+“Well, that gets me!” observed Mr. Longhurst. “Who can have put up a
+shyster [1] like that? Nobody with money, that's a sure thing. Suppose
+you tried a big bluff? I think I would, Pink. Well, ta-ta! Your partner,
+Mr. Dodd? Happy to have the pleasure of your acquaintance, sir.” And the
+great man withdrew.
+
+[1] A low lawyer.
+
+“Well, what do you think of Douglas B.?” whispered Pinkerton, looking
+reverently after him as he departed. “Six foot of perfect gentleman and
+culture to his boots.”
+
+During this interview the auction had stood transparently arrested, the
+auctioneer, the spectators, and even Bellairs, all well aware that Mr.
+Longhurst was the principal, and Jim but a speaking-trumpet. But now
+that the Olympian Jupiter was gone, Mr. Borden thought proper to affect
+severity.
+
+“Come, come, Mr. Pinkerton. Any advance?” he snapped.
+
+And Pinkerton, resolved on the big bluff, replied, “Two thousand
+dollars.”
+
+Bellairs preserved his composure. “And fifty,” said he. But there was a
+stir among the onlookers, and what was of more importance, Captain Trent
+had turned pale and visibly gulped.
+
+“Pitch it in again, Jim,” said I. “Trent is weakening.”
+
+“Three thousand,” said Jim.
+
+“And fifty,” said Bellairs.
+
+And then the bidding returned to its original movement by hundreds and
+fifties; but I had been able in the meanwhile to draw two conclusions.
+In the first place, Bellairs had made his last advance with a smile of
+gratified vanity; and I could see the creature was glorying in the kudos
+of an unusual position and secure of ultimate success. In the second,
+Trent had once more changed colour at the thousand leap, and his relief,
+when he heard the answering fifty was manifest and unaffected. Here then
+was a problem: both were presumably in the same interest, yet the one
+was not in the confidence of the other. Nor was this all. A few bids
+later it chanced that my eye encountered that of Captain Trent, and his,
+which glittered with excitement, was instantly, and I thought guiltily,
+withdrawn. He wished, then, to conceal his interest? As Jim had said,
+there was some blamed thing going on. And for certain, here were these
+two men, so strangely united, so strangely divided, both sharp-set to
+keep the wreck from us, and that at an exorbitant figure.
+
+Was the wreck worth more than we supposed? A sudden heat was kindled
+in my brain; the bids were nearing Longhurst's limit of five thousand;
+another minute, and all would be too late. Tearing a leaf from my
+sketch-book, and inspired (I suppose) by vanity in my own powers of
+inference and observation, I took the one mad decision of my life. “If
+you care to go ahead,” I wrote, “I'm in for all I'm worth.”
+
+Jim read and looked round at me like one bewildered; then his eyes
+lightened, and turning again to the auctioneer, he bid, “Five thousand
+one hundred dollars.”
+
+“And fifty,” said monotonous Bellairs.
+
+Presently Pinkerton scribbled, “What can it be?” and I answered, still
+on paper: “I can't imagine; but there's something. Watch Bellairs; he'll
+go up to the ten thousand, see if he don't.”
+
+And he did, and we followed. Long before this, word had gone abroad that
+there was battle royal: we were surrounded by a crowd that looked on
+wondering; and when Pinkerton had offered ten thousand dollars (the
+outside value of the cargo, even were it safe in San Francisco Bay)
+and Bellairs, smirking from ear to ear to be the centre of so much
+attention, had jerked out his answering, “And fifty,” wonder deepened to
+excitement.
+
+“Ten thousand one hundred,” said Jim; and even as he spoke he made a
+sudden gesture with his hand, his face changed, and I could see that he
+had guessed, or thought that he had guessed, the mystery. As he
+scrawled another memorandum in his note-book, his hand shook like a
+telegraph-operator's.
+
+“Chinese ship,” ran the legend; and then, in big, tremulous half-text,
+and with a flourish that overran the margin, “Opium!”
+
+To be sure! thought I: this must be the secret. I knew that scarce a
+ship came in from any Chinese port, but she carried somewhere, behind a
+bulkhead, or in some cunning hollow of the beams, a nest of the valuable
+poison. Doubtless there was some such treasure on the Flying Scud. How
+much was it worth? We knew not, we were gambling in the dark; but Trent
+knew, and Bellairs; and we could only watch and judge.
+
+By this time neither Pinkerton nor I were of sound mind. Pinkerton was
+beside himself, his eyes like lamps. I shook in every member. To any
+stranger entering (say) in the course of the fifteenth thousand, we
+should probably have cut a poorer figure than Bellairs himself. But we
+did not pause; and the crowd watched us, now in silence, now with a buzz
+of whispers.
+
+Seventeen thousand had been reached, when Douglas B. Longhurst, forcing
+his way into the opposite row of faces, conspicuously and repeatedly
+shook his head at Jim. Jim's answer was a note of two words: “My
+racket!” which, when the great man had perused, he shook his finger
+warningly and departed, I thought, with a sorrowful countenance.
+
+Although Mr. Longhurst knew nothing of Bellairs, the shady lawyer knew
+all about the Wrecker Boss. He had seen him enter the ring with manifest
+expectation; he saw him depart, and the bids continue, with manifest
+surprise and disappointment. “Hullo,” he plainly thought, “this is not
+the ring I'm fighting, then?” And he determined to put on a spurt.
+
+“Eighteen thousand,” said he.
+
+“And fifty,” said Jim, taking a leaf out of his adversary's book.
+
+“Twenty thousand,” from Bellairs.
+
+“And fifty,” from Jim, with a little nervous titter.
+
+And with one consent they returned to the old pace, only now it was
+Bellairs who took the hundreds, and Jim who did the fifty business. But
+by this time our idea had gone abroad. I could hear the word “opium”
+ pass from mouth to mouth; and by the looks directed at us, I could see
+we were supposed to have some private information. And here an incident
+occurred highly typical of San Francisco. Close at my back there had
+stood for some time a stout, middle-aged gentleman, with pleasant eyes,
+hair pleasantly grizzled, and a ruddy, pleasing face. All of a sudden he
+appeared as a third competitor, skied the Flying Scud with four fat
+bids of a thousand dollars each, and then as suddenly fled the field,
+remaining thenceforth (as before) a silent, interested spectator.
+
+Ever since Mr. Longhurst's useless intervention, Bellairs had seemed
+uneasy; and at this new attack, he began (in his turn) to scribble a
+note between the bids. I imagined naturally enough that it would go to
+Captain Trent; but when it was done, and the writer turned and looked
+behind him in the crowd, to my unspeakable amazement, he did not seem to
+remark the captain's presence.
+
+“Messenger boy, messenger boy!” I heard him say. “Somebody call me a
+messenger boy.”
+
+At last somebody did, but it was not the captain.
+
+“He's sending for instructions,” I wrote to Pinkerton.
+
+“For money,” he wrote back. “Shall I strike out? I think this is the
+time.”
+
+I nodded.
+
+“Thirty thousand,” said Pinkerton, making a leap of close upon three
+thousand dollars.
+
+I could see doubt in Bellairs's eye; then, sudden resolution.
+“Thirty-five thousand,” said he.
+
+“Forty thousand,” said Pinkerton.
+
+There was a long pause, during which Bellairs's countenance was as
+a book; and then, not much too soon for the impending hammer, “Forty
+thousand and five dollars,” said he.
+
+Pinkerton and I exchanged eloquent glances. We were of one mind.
+Bellairs had tried a bluff; now he perceived his mistake, and was
+bidding against time; he was trying to spin out the sale until the
+messenger boy returned.
+
+“Forty-five thousand dollars,” said Pinkerton: his voice was like a
+ghost's and tottered with emotion.
+
+“Forty-five thousand and five dollars,” said Bellairs.
+
+“Fifty thousand,” said Pinkerton.
+
+“I beg your pardon, Mr. Pinkerton. Did I hear you make an advance, sir?”
+ asked the auctioneer.
+
+“I--I have a difficulty in speaking,” gasped Jim. “It's fifty thousand,
+Mr. Borden.”
+
+Bellairs was on his feet in a moment. “Auctioneer,” he said, “I have to
+beg the favour of three moments at the telephone. In this matter, I am
+acting on behalf of a certain party to whom I have just written----”
+
+“I have nothing to do with any of this,” said the auctioneer, brutally.
+“I am here to sell this wreck. Do you make any advance on fifty
+thousand?”
+
+“I have the honour to explain to you, sir,” returned Bellairs, with a
+miserable assumption of dignity. “Fifty thousand was the figure named by
+my principal; but if you will give me the small favour of two moments at
+the telephone--”
+
+“O, nonsense!” said the auctioneer. “If you make no advance, I'll knock
+it down to Mr. Pinkerton.”
+
+“I warn you,” cried the attorney, with sudden shrillness. “Have a care
+what you're about. You are here to sell for the underwriters, let me
+tell you--not to act for Mr. Douglas Longhurst. This sale has been
+already disgracefully interrupted to allow that person to hold a
+consultation with his minions. It has been much commented on.”
+
+“There was no complaint at the time,” said the auctioneer, manifestly
+discountenanced. “You should have complained at the time.”
+
+“I am not here to conduct this sale,” replied Bellairs; “I am not paid
+for that.”
+
+“Well, I am, you see,” retorted the auctioneer, his impudence quite
+restored; and he resumed his sing-song. “Any advance on fifty thousand
+dollars? No advance on fifty thousand? No advance, gentlemen? Going at
+fifty thousand, the wreck of the brig Flying Scud--going--going--gone!”
+
+“My God, Jim, can we pay the money?” I cried, as the stroke of the
+hammer seemed to recall me from a dream.
+
+“It's got to be raised,” said he, white as a sheet. “It'll be a hell of
+a strain, Loudon. The credit's good for it, I think; but I shall have to
+get around. Write me a cheque for your stuff. Meet me at the Occidental
+in an hour.”
+
+I wrote my cheque at a desk, and I declare I could never have recognised
+my signature. Jim was gone in a moment; Trent had vanished even earlier;
+only Bellairs remained exchanging insults with the auctioneer; and,
+behold! as I pushed my way out of the exchange, who should run full tilt
+into my arms, but the messenger boy?
+
+It was by so near a margin that we became the owners of the Flying Scud.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. IN WHICH THE CREW VANISH.
+
+
+At the door of the exchange I found myself along-side of the short,
+middle-aged gentleman who had made an appearance, so vigorous and so
+brief, in the great battle.
+
+“Congratulate you, Mr. Dodd,” he said. “You and your friend stuck to
+your guns nobly.”
+
+“No thanks to you, sir,” I replied, “running us up a thousand at a time,
+and tempting all the speculators in San Francisco to come and have a
+try.”
+
+“O, that was temporary insanity,” said he; “and I thank the higher
+powers I am still a free man. Walking this way, Mr. Dodd? I'll walk
+along with you. It's pleasant for an old fogy like myself to see the
+young bloods in the ring; I've done some pretty wild gambles in my time
+in this very city, when it was a smaller place and I was a younger man.
+Yes, I know you, Mr. Dodd. By sight, I may say I know you extremely
+well, you and your followers, the fellows in the kilts, eh? Pardon me.
+But I have the misfortune to own a little box on the Saucelito shore.
+I'll be glad to see you there any Sunday--without the fellows in kilts,
+you know; and I can give you a bottle of wine, and show you the best
+collection of Arctic voyages in the States. Morgan is my name--Judge
+Morgan--a Welshman and a forty-niner.”
+
+“O, if you're a pioneer,” cried I, “come to me and I'll provide you with
+an axe.”
+
+“You'll want your axes for yourself, I fancy,” he returned, with one
+of his quick looks. “Unless you have private knowledge, there will be a
+good deal of rather violent wrecking to do before you find that--opium,
+do you call it?”
+
+“Well, it's either opium, or we are stark, staring mad,” I replied. “But
+I assure you we have no private information. We went in (as I suppose
+you did yourself) on observation.”
+
+“An observer, sir?” inquired the judge.
+
+“I may say it is my trade--or, rather, was,” said I.
+
+“Well now, and what did you think of Bellairs?” he asked.
+
+“Very little indeed,” said I.
+
+“I may tell you,” continued the judge, “that to me, the employment of a
+fellow like that appears inexplicable. I knew him; he knows me, too; he
+has often heard from me in court; and I assure you the man is utterly
+blown upon; it is not safe to trust him with a dollar; and here we find
+him dealing up to fifty thousand. I can't think who can have so trusted
+him, but I am very sure it was a stranger in San Francisco.”
+
+“Some one for the owners, I suppose,” said I.
+
+“Surely not!” exclaimed the judge. “Owners in London can have nothing
+to say to opium smuggled between Hong Kong and San Francisco. I should
+rather fancy they would be the last to hear of it--until the ship was
+seized. No; I was thinking of the captain. But where would he get the
+money? above all, after having laid out so much to buy the stuff in
+China? Unless, indeed, he were acting for some one in 'Frisco; and in
+that case--here we go round again in the vicious circle--Bellairs would
+not have been employed.”
+
+“I think I can assure you it was not the captain,” said I; “for he and
+Bellairs are not acquainted.”
+
+“Wasn't that the captain with the red face and coloured handkerchief?
+He seemed to me to follow Bellairs's game with the most thrilling
+interest,” objected Mr. Morgan.
+
+“Perfectly true,” said I; “Trent is deeply interested; he very likely
+knew Bellairs, and he certainly knew what he was there for; but I can
+put my hand in the fire that Bellairs didn't know Trent.”
+
+“Another singularity,” observed the judge. “Well, we have had a capital
+forenoon. But you take an old lawyer's advice, and get to Midway Island
+as fast as you can. There's a pot of money on the table, and Bellairs
+and Co. are not the men to stick at trifles.”
+
+With this parting counsel Judge Morgan shook hands and made off along
+Montgomery Street, while I entered the Occidental Hotel, on the steps of
+which we had finished our conversation. I was well known to the clerks,
+and as soon as it was understood that I was there to wait for Pinkerton
+and lunch, I was invited to a seat inside the counter. Here, then, in a
+retired corner, I was beginning to come a little to myself after these
+so violent experiences, when who should come hurrying in, and (after a
+moment with a clerk) fly to one of the telephone boxes but Mr. Henry
+D. Bellairs in person? Call it what you will, but the impulse was
+irresistible, and I rose and took a place immediately at the man's back.
+It may be some excuse that I had often practised this very innocent
+form of eavesdropping upon strangers, and for fun. Indeed, I scarce know
+anything that gives a lower view of man's intelligence than to overhear
+(as you thus do) one side of a communication.
+
+“Central,” said the attorney, “2241 and 584 B” (or some such
+numbers)--“Who's that?--All right--Mr. Bellairs--Occidental; the wires
+are fouled in the other place--Yes, about three minutes--Yes--Yes--Your
+figure, I am sorry to say--No--I had no authority--Neither more
+nor less--I have every reason to suppose so--O, Pinkerton, Montana
+Block--Yes--Yes--Very good, sir--As you will, sir--Disconnect 584 B.”
+
+Bellairs turned to leave; at sight of me behind him, up flew his hands,
+and he winced and cringed, as though in fear of bodily attack. “O, it's
+you!” he cried; and then, somewhat recovered, “Mr. Pinkerton's partner,
+I believe? I am pleased to see you, sir--to congratulate you on your
+late success.” And with that he was gone, obsequiously bowing as he
+passed.
+
+And now a madcap humour came upon me. It was plain Bellairs had been
+communicating with his principal; I knew the number, if not the name;
+should I ring up at once, it was more than likely he would return
+in person to the telephone; why should not I dash (vocally) into the
+presence of this mysterious person, and have some fun for my money. I
+pressed the bell.
+
+“Central,” said I, “connect again 2241 and 584 B.”
+
+A phantom central repeated the numbers; there was a pause, and then
+“Two two four one,” came in a tiny voice into my ear--a voice with the
+English sing-song--the voice plainly of a gentleman. “Is that you again,
+Mr. Bellairs?” it trilled. “I tell you it's no use. Is that you, Mr.
+Bellairs? Who is that?”
+
+“I only want to put a single question,” said I, civilly. “Why do you
+want to buy the Flying Scud?”
+
+No answer came. The telephone vibrated and hummed in miniature with all
+the numerous talk of a great city; but the voice of 2241 was silent.
+Once and twice I put my question; but the tiny, sing-song English voice,
+I heard no more. The man, then, had fled? fled from an impertinent
+question? It scarce seemed natural to me; unless on the principle that
+the wicked fleeth when no man pursueth. I took the telephone list and
+turned the number up: “2241, Mrs. Keane, res. 942 Mission Street.” And
+that, short of driving to the house and renewing my impertinence in
+person, was all that I could do.
+
+Yet, as I resumed my seat in the corner of the office, I was conscious
+of a new element of the uncertain, the underhand, perhaps even the
+dangerous, in our adventure; and there was now a new picture in my
+mental gallery, to hang beside that of the wreck under its canopy of
+sea-birds and of Captain Trent mopping his red brow--the picture of a
+man with a telephone dice-box to his ear, and at the small voice of a
+single question, struck suddenly as white as ashes.
+
+From these considerations I was awakened by the striking of the clock.
+An hour and nearly twenty minutes had elapsed since Pinkerton departed
+for the money: he was twenty minutes behind time; and to me who knew so
+well his gluttonous despatch of business and had so frequently admired
+his iron punctuality, the fact spoke volumes. The twenty minutes slowly
+stretched into an hour; the hour had nearly extended to a second; and
+I still sat in my corner of the office, or paced the marble pavement of
+the hall, a prey to the most wretched anxiety and penitence. The hour
+for lunch was nearly over before I remembered that I had not eaten.
+Heaven knows I had no appetite; but there might still be much to do--it
+was needful I should keep myself in proper trim, if it were only to
+digest the now too probable bad news; and leaving word at the office for
+Pinkerton, I sat down to table and called for soup, oysters, and a pint
+of champagne.
+
+I was not long set, before my friend returned. He looked pale and rather
+old, refused to hear of food, and called for tea.
+
+“I suppose all's up?” said I, with an incredible sinking.
+
+“No,” he replied; “I've pulled it through, Loudon; just pulled it
+through. I couldn't have raised another cent in all 'Frisco. People
+don't like it; Longhurst even went back on me; said he wasn't a
+three-card-monte man.”
+
+“Well, what's the odds?” said I. “That's all we wanted, isn't it?”
+
+“Loudon, I tell you I've had to pay blood for that money,” cried my
+friend, with almost savage energy and gloom. “It's all on ninety days,
+too; I couldn't get another day--not another day. If we go ahead with
+this affair, Loudon, you'll have to go yourself and make the fur fly.
+I'll stay of course--I've got to stay and face the trouble in this city;
+though, I tell you, I just long to go. I would show these fat brutes of
+sailors what work was; I would be all through that wreck and out at the
+other end, before they had boosted themselves upon the deck! But you'll
+do your level best, Loudon; I depend on you for that. You must be all
+fire and grit and dash from the word 'go.' That schooner and the boodle
+on board of her are bound to be here before three months, or it's B. U.
+S. T.--bust.”
+
+“I'll swear I'll do my best, Jim; I'll work double tides,” said I. “It
+is my fault that you are in this thing, and I'll get you out again or
+kill myself. But what is that you say? 'If we go ahead?' Have we any
+choice, then?”
+
+“I'm coming to that,” said Jim. “It isn't that I doubt the investment.
+Don't blame yourself for that; you showed a fine, sound business
+instinct: I always knew it was in you, but then it ripped right out. I
+guess that little beast of an attorney knew what he was doing; and he
+wanted nothing better than to go beyond. No, there's profit in the deal;
+it's not that; it's these ninety-day bills, and the strain I've given
+the credit, for I've been up and down, borrowing, and begging and
+bribing to borrow. I don't believe there's another man but me in
+'Frisco,” he cried, with a sudden fervor of self admiration, “who could
+have raised that last ten thousand!--Then there's another thing. I had
+hoped you might have peddled that opium through the islands, which is
+safer and more profitable. But with this three-month limit, you must
+make tracks for Honolulu straight, and communicate by steamer. I'll
+try to put up something for you there; I'll have a man spoken to who's
+posted on that line of biz. Keep a bright lookout for him as soon's you
+make the islands; for it's on the cards he might pick you up at sea in a
+whaleboat or a steam-launch, and bring the dollars right on board.”
+
+It shows how much I had suffered morally during my sojourn in San
+Francisco, that even now when our fortunes trembled in the balance,
+I should have consented to become a smuggler and (of all things) a
+smuggler of opium. Yet I did, and that in silence; without a protest,
+not without a twinge.
+
+“And suppose,” said I, “suppose the opium is so securely hidden that I
+can't get hands on it?”
+
+“Then you will stay there till that brig is kindling-wood, and stay
+and split that kindling-wood with your penknife,” cried Pinkerton. “The
+stuff is there; we know that; and it must be found. But all this is
+only the one string to our bow--though I tell you I've gone into it
+head-first, as if it was our bottom dollar. Why, the first thing I
+did before I'd raised a cent, and with this other notion in my head
+already--the first thing I did was to secure the schooner. The Nora
+Creina, she is, sixty-four tons, quite big enough for our purpose since
+the rice is spoiled, and the fastest thing of her tonnage out of San
+Francisco. For a bonus of two hundred, and a monthly charter of three, I
+have her for my own time; wages and provisions, say four hundred more: a
+drop in the bucket. They began firing the cargo out of her (she was part
+loaded) near two hours ago; and about the same time John Smith got the
+order for the stores. That's what I call business.”
+
+“No doubt of that,” said I. “But the other notion?”
+
+
+“Well, here it is,” said Jim. “You agree with me that Bellairs was ready
+to go higher?”
+
+I saw where he was coming. “Yes--and why shouldn't he?” said I. “Is
+that the line?”
+
+“That's the line, Loudon Dodd,” assented Jim. “If Bellairs and his
+principal have any desire to go me better, I'm their man.”
+
+A sudden thought, a sudden fear, shot into my mind. What if I had been
+right? What if my childish pleasantry had frightened the principal
+away, and thus destroyed our chance? Shame closed my mouth; I began
+instinctively a long course of reticence; and it was without a word
+of my meeting with Bellairs, or my discovery of the address in Mission
+Street, that I continued the discussion.
+
+“Doubtless fifty thousand was originally mentioned as a round sum,” said
+I, “or at least, so Bellairs supposed. But at the same time it may be an
+outside sum; and to cover the expenses we have already incurred for the
+money and the schooner--I am far from blaming you; I see how needful
+it was to be ready for either event--but to cover them we shall want a
+rather large advance.”
+
+“Bellairs will go to sixty thousand; it's my belief, if he were properly
+handled, he would take the hundred,” replied Pinkerton. “Look back on
+the way the sale ran at the end.”
+
+“That is my own impression as regards Bellairs,” I admitted. “The point I
+am trying to make is that Bellairs himself may be mistaken; that what he
+supposed to be a round sum was really an outside figure.”
+
+“Well, Loudon, if that is so,” said Jim, with extraordinary gravity of
+face and voice, “if that is so, let him take the Flying Scud at fifty
+thousand, and joy go with her! I prefer the loss.”
+
+“Is that so, Jim? Are we dipped as bad as that?” I cried.
+
+“We've put our hand farther out than we can pull it in again, Loudon,”
+ he replied. “Why, man, that fifty thousand dollars, before we get clear
+again, will cost us nearer seventy. Yes, it figures up overhead to more
+than ten per cent a month; and I could do no better, and there isn't
+the man breathing could have done as well. It was a miracle, Loudon. I
+couldn't but admire myself. O, if we had just the four months! And you
+know, Loudon, it may still be done. With your energy and charm, if the
+worst comes to the worst, you can run that schooner as you ran one
+of your picnics; and we may have luck. And, O, man! if we do pull it
+through, what a dashing operation it will be! What an advertisement!
+what a thing to talk of, and remember all our lives! However,” he
+broke off suddenly, “we must try the safe thing first. Here's for the
+shyster!”
+
+There was another struggle in my mind, whether I should even now admit
+my knowledge of the Mission Street address. But I had let the favourable
+moment slip. I had now, which made it the more awkward, not merely the
+original discovery, but my late suppression to confess. I could not help
+reasoning, besides, that the more natural course was to approach the
+principal by the road of his agent's office; and there weighed upon my
+spirits a conviction that we were already too late, and that the man
+was gone two hours ago. Once more, then, I held my peace; and after an
+exchange of words at the telephone to assure ourselves he was at home,
+we set out for the attorney's office.
+
+The endless streets of any American city pass, from one end to another,
+through strange degrees and vicissitudes of splendour and distress,
+running under the same name between monumental warehouses, the dens
+and taverns of thieves, and the sward and shrubbery of villas. In San
+Francisco, the sharp inequalities of the ground, and the sea bordering
+on so many sides, greatly exaggerate these contrasts. The street for
+which we were now bound took its rise among blowing sands, somewhere in
+view of the Lone Mountain Cemetery; ran for a term across that rather
+windy Olympus of Nob Hill, or perhaps just skirted its frontier; passed
+almost immediately after through a stage of little houses, rather
+impudently painted, and offering to the eye of the observer this
+diagnostic peculiarity, that the huge brass plates upon the small and
+highly coloured doors bore only the first names of ladies--Norah or Lily
+or Florence; traversed China Town, where it was doubtless undermined
+with opium cellars, and its blocks pierced, after the similitude of
+rabbit-warrens, with a hundred doors and passages and galleries; enjoyed
+a glimpse of high publicity at the corner of Kearney; and proceeded,
+among dives and warehouses, towards the City Front and the region of the
+water-rats. In this last stage of its career, where it was both grimy
+and solitary, and alternately quiet and roaring to the wheels of drays,
+we found a certain house of some pretension to neatness, and furnished
+with a rustic outside stair. On the pillar of the stair a black
+plate bore in gilded lettering this device: “Harry D. Bellairs,
+Attorney-at-law. Consultations, 9 to 6.” On ascending the stairs, a door
+was found to stand open on the balcony, with this further inscription,
+“Mr. Bellairs In.”
+
+“I wonder what we do next,” said I.
+
+“Guess we sail right in,” returned Jim, and suited the action to the
+word.
+
+The room in which we found ourselves was clean, but extremely bare. A
+rather old-fashioned secretaire stood by the wall, with a chair drawn to
+the desk; in one corner was a shelf with half-a-dozen law books; and
+I can remember literally not another stick of furniture. One inference
+imposed itself: Mr. Bellairs was in the habit of sitting down himself
+and suffering his clients to stand. At the far end, and veiled by a
+curtain of red baize, a second door communicated with the interior of
+the house. Hence, after some coughing and stamping, we elicited the
+shyster, who came timorously forth, for all the world like a man in fear
+of bodily assault, and then, recognising his guests, suffered from what
+I can only call a nervous paroxysm of courtesy.
+
+“Mr. Pinkerton and partner!” said he. “I will go and fetch you seats.”
+
+“Not the least,” said Jim. “No time. Much rather stand. This is
+business, Mr. Bellairs. This morning, as you know, I bought the wreck,
+Flying Scud.”
+
+The lawyer nodded.
+
+“And bought her,” pursued my friend, “at a figure out of all proportion
+to the cargo and the circumstances, as they appeared?”
+
+“And now you think better of it, and would like to be off with your
+bargain? I have been figuring upon this,” returned the lawyer. “My
+client, I will not hide from you, was displeased with me for putting her
+so high. I think we were both too heated, Mr. Pinkerton: rivalry--the
+spirit of competition. But I will be quite frank--I know when I am
+dealing with gentlemen--and I am almost certain, if you leave the matter
+in my hands, my client would relieve you of the bargain, so as you would
+lose”--he consulted our faces with gimlet-eyed calculation--“nothing,”
+ he added shrilly.
+
+And here Pinkerton amazed me.
+
+“That's a little too thin,” said he. “I have the wreck. I know there's
+boodle in her, and I mean to keep her. What I want is some points which
+may save me needless expense, and which I'm prepared to pay for, money
+down. The thing for you to consider is just this: am I to deal with you
+or direct with your principal? If you are prepared to give me the facts
+right off, why, name your figure. Only one thing!” added Jim, holding a
+finger up, “when I say 'money down,' I mean bills payable when the ship
+returns, and if the information proves reliable. I don't buy pigs in
+pokes.”
+
+I had seen the lawyer's face light up for a moment, and then, at the
+sound of Jim's proviso, miserably fade. “I guess you know more about
+this wreck than I do, Mr. Pinkerton,” said he. “I only know that I was
+told to buy the thing, and tried, and couldn't.”
+
+“What I like about you, Mr. Bellairs, is that you waste no time,” said
+Jim. “Now then, your client's name and address.”
+
+“On consideration,” replied the lawyer, with indescribable furtivity,
+“I cannot see that I am entitled to communicate my client's name. I
+will sound him for you with pleasure, if you care to instruct me; but I
+cannot see that I can give you his address.”
+
+“Very well,” said Jim, and put his hat on. “Rather a strong step, isn't
+it?” (Between every sentence was a clear pause.) “Not think better of
+it? Well, come--call it a dollar?”
+
+“Mr. Pinkerton, sir!” exclaimed the offended attorney; and, indeed, I
+myself was almost afraid that Jim had mistaken his man and gone too far.
+
+“No present use for a dollar?” says Jim. “Well, look here, Mr. Bellairs:
+we're both busy men, and I'll go to my outside figure with you right
+away--”
+
+“Stop this, Pinkerton,” I broke in. “I know the address: 924 Mission
+Street.”
+
+
+I do not know whether Pinkerton or Bellairs was the more taken aback.
+
+“Why in snakes didn't you say so, Loudon?” cried my friend.
+
+“You didn't ask for it before,” said I, colouring to my temples under
+his troubled eyes.
+
+It was Bellairs who broke silence, kindly supplying me with all that
+I had yet to learn. “Since you know Mr. Dickson's address,” said
+he, plainly burning to be rid of us, “I suppose I need detain you no
+longer.”
+
+I do not know how Pinkerton felt, but I had death in my soul as we came
+down the outside stair, from the den of this blotched spider. My whole
+being was strung, waiting for Jim's first question, and prepared to
+blurt out, I believe, almost with tears, a full avowal. But my friend
+asked nothing.
+
+“We must hack it,” said he, tearing off in the direction of the nearest
+stand. “No time to be lost. You saw how I changed ground. No use in
+paying the shyster's commission.”
+
+Again I expected a reference to my suppression; again I was
+disappointed. It was plain Jim feared the subject, and I felt I almost
+hated him for that fear. At last, when we were already in the hack and
+driving towards Mission Street, I could bear my suspense no longer.
+
+“You do not ask me about that address,” said I.
+
+“No,” said he, quickly and timidly. “What was it? I would like to know.”
+
+The note of timidity offended me like a buffet; my temper rose as hot as
+mustard. “I must request you do not ask me,” said I. “It is a matter I
+cannot explain.”
+
+The moment the foolish words were said, that moment I would have given
+worlds to recall them: how much more, when Pinkerton, patting my hand,
+replied: “All right, dear boy; not another word; that's all done. I'm
+convinced it's perfectly right.” To return upon the subject was beyond
+my courage; but I vowed inwardly that I should do my utmost in the
+future for this mad speculation, and that I would cut myself in pieces
+before Jim should lose one dollar.
+
+We had no sooner arrived at the address than I had other things to think
+of.
+
+“Mr. Dickson? He's gone,” said the landlady.
+
+Where had he gone?
+
+“I'm sure I can't tell you,” she answered. “He was quite a stranger to
+me.”
+
+“Did he express his baggage, ma'am?” asked Pinkerton.
+
+“Hadn't any,” was the reply. “He came last night and left again to-day
+with a satchel.”
+
+“When did he leave?” I inquired.
+
+“It was about noon,” replied the landlady. “Some one rang up the
+telephone, and asked for him; and I reckon he got some news, for he
+left right away, although his rooms were taken by the week. He seemed
+considerable put out: I reckon it was a death.”
+
+My heart sank; perhaps my idiotic jest had indeed driven him away;
+and again I asked myself, Why? and whirled for a moment in a vortex of
+untenable hypotheses.
+
+“What was he like, ma'am?” Pinkerton was asking, when I returned to
+consciousness of my surroundings.
+
+“A clean shaved man,” said the woman, and could be led or driven into no
+more significant description.
+
+“Pull up at the nearest drug-store,” said Pinkerton to the driver; and
+when there, the telephone was put in operation, and the message sped to
+the Pacific Mail Steamship Company's office--this was in the days
+before Spreckels had arisen--“When does the next China steamer touch at
+Honolulu?”
+
+“The City of Pekin; she cast off the dock to-day, at half-past one,”
+ came the reply.
+
+“It's a clear case of bolt,” said Jim. “He's skipped, or my name's not
+Pinkerton. He's gone to head us off at Midway Island.”
+
+Somehow I was not so sure; there were elements in the case, not known
+to Pinkerton--the fears of the captain, for example--that inclined me
+otherwise; and the idea that I had terrified Mr. Dickson into flight,
+though resting on so slender a foundation, clung obstinately in my mind.
+“Shouldn't we see the list of passengers?” I asked.
+
+“Dickson is such a blamed common name,” returned Jim; “and then, as like
+as not, he would change it.”
+
+At this I had another intuition. A negative of a street scene, taken
+unconsciously when I was absorbed in other thought, rose in my memory
+with not a feature blurred: a view, from Bellairs's door as we were
+coming down, of muddy roadway, passing drays, matted telegraph wires,
+a Chinaboy with a basket on his head, and (almost opposite) a corner
+grocery with the name of Dickson in great gilt letters.
+
+“Yes,” said I, “you are right; he would change it. And anyway, I don't
+believe it was his name at all; I believe he took it from a corner
+grocery beside Bellairs's.”
+
+“As like as not,” said Jim, still standing on the sidewalk with
+contracted brows.
+
+“Well, what shall we do next?” I asked.
+
+“The natural thing would be to rush the schooner,” he replied. “But I
+don't know. I telephoned the captain to go at it head down and heels in
+air; he answered like a little man; and I guess he's getting around. I
+believe, Loudon, we'll give Trent a chance. Trent was in it; he was
+in it up to the neck; even if he couldn't buy, he could give us the
+straight tip.”
+
+“I think so, too,” said I. “Where shall we find him?”
+
+“British consulate, of course,” said Jim. “And that's another reason for
+taking him first. We can hustle that schooner up all evening; but when
+the consulate's shut, it's shut.”
+
+At the consulate, we learned that Captain Trent had alighted (such is I
+believe the classic phrase) at the What Cheer House. To that large and
+unaristocratic hostelry we drove, and addressed ourselves to a large
+clerk, who was chewing a toothpick and looking straight before him.
+
+“Captain Jacob Trent?”
+
+“Gone,” said the clerk.
+
+“Where has he gone?” asked Pinkerton.
+
+“Cain't say,” said the clerk.
+
+“When did he go?” I asked.
+
+“Don't know,” said the clerk, and with the simplicity of a monarch
+offered us the spectacle of his broad back.
+
+What might have happened next I dread to picture, for Pinkerton's
+excitement had been growing steadily, and now burned dangerously high;
+but we were spared extremities by the intervention of a second clerk.
+
+“Why! Mr. Dodd!” he exclaimed, running forward to the counter. “Glad to
+see you, sir! Can I do anything in your way?”
+
+How virtuous actions blossom! Here was a young man to whose pleased ears
+I had rehearsed _Just before the battle, mother,_ at some weekly picnic;
+and now, in that tense moment of my life, he came (from the machine) to
+be my helper.
+
+“Captain Trent, of the wreck? O yes, Mr. Dodd; he left about twelve; he
+and another of the men. The Kanaka went earlier by the City of Pekin; I
+know that; I remember expressing his chest. Captain Trent? I'll inquire,
+Mr. Dodd. Yes, they were all here. Here are the names on the register;
+perhaps you would care to look at them while I go and see about the
+baggage?”
+
+I drew the book toward me, and stood looking at the four names all
+written in the same hand, rather a big and rather a bad one: Trent,
+Brown, Hardy, and (instead of Ah Sing) Jos. Amalu.
+
+“Pinkerton,” said I, suddenly, “have you that _Occidental_ in your
+pocket?”
+
+“Never left me,” said Pinkerton, producing the paper.
+
+
+I turned to the account of the wreck. “Here,” said I; “here's the name.
+'Elias Goddedaal, mate.' Why do we never come across Elias Goddedaal?”
+
+“That's so,” said Jim. “Was he with the rest in that saloon when you saw
+them?”
+
+“I don't believe it,” said I. “They were only four, and there was none
+that behaved like a mate.”
+
+At this moment the clerk returned with his report.
+
+“The captain,” it appeared, “came with some kind of an express waggon,
+and he and the man took off three chests and a big satchel. Our porter
+helped to put them on, but they drove the cart themselves. The porter
+thinks they went down town. It was about one.”
+
+“Still in time for the City of Pekin,” observed Jim.
+
+“How many of them were here?” I inquired.
+
+“Three, sir, and the Kanaka,” replied the clerk. “I can't somehow fin
+out about the third, but he's gone too.”
+
+“Mr. Goddedaal, the mate, wasn't here then?” I asked.
+
+“No, Mr. Dodd, none but what you see,” says the clerk.
+
+“Nor you never heard where he was?”
+
+“No. Any particular reason for finding these men, Mr. Dodd?” inquired
+the clerk.
+
+“This gentleman and I have bought the wreck,” I explained; “we wished to
+get some information, and it is very annoying to find the men all gone.”
+
+A certain group had gradually formed about us, for the wreck was still
+a matter of interest; and at this, one of the bystanders, a rough
+seafaring man, spoke suddenly.
+
+“I guess the mate won't be gone,” said he. “He's main sick; never left
+the sick-bay aboard the Tempest; so they tell ME.”
+
+Jim took me by the sleeve. “Back to the consulate,” said he.
+
+But even at the consulate nothing was known of Mr. Goddedaal. The doctor
+of the Tempest had certified him very sick; he had sent his papers in,
+but never appeared in person before the authorities.
+
+“Have you a telephone laid on to the Tempest?” asked Pinkerton.
+
+“Laid on yesterday,” said the clerk.
+
+“Do you mind asking, or letting me ask? We are very anxious to get hold
+of Mr. Goddedaal.”
+
+“All right,” said the clerk, and turned to the telephone. “I'm sorry,”
+ he said presently, “Mr. Goddedaal has left the ship, and no one knows
+where he is.”
+
+“Do you pay the men's passage home?” I inquired, a sudden thought
+striking me.
+
+“If they want it,” said the clerk; “sometimes they don't. But we paid
+the Kanaka's passage to Honolulu this morning; and by what Captain Trent
+was saying, I understand the rest are going home together.”
+
+“Then you haven't paid them?” said I.
+
+“Not yet,” said the clerk.
+
+“And you would be a good deal surprised, if I were to tell you they were
+gone already?” I asked.
+
+“O, I should think you were mistaken,” said he.
+
+“Such is the fact, however,” said I.
+
+“I am sure you must be mistaken,” he repeated.
+
+“May I use your telephone one moment?” asked Pinkerton; and as soon as
+permission had been granted, I heard him ring up the printing-office
+where our advertisements were usually handled. More I did not hear; for
+suddenly recalling the big, bad hand in the register of the What Cheer
+House, I asked the consulate clerk if he had a specimen of Captain
+Trent's writing. Whereupon I learned that the captain could not write,
+having cut his hand open a little before the loss of the brig; that the
+latter part of the log even had been written up by Mr. Goddedaal; and
+that Trent had always signed with his left hand. By the time I had
+gleaned this information, Pinkerton was ready.
+
+“That's all that we can do. Now for the schooner,” said he; “and by
+to-morrow evening I lay hands on Goddedaal, or my name's not Pinkerton.”
+
+“How have you managed?” I inquired.
+
+“You'll see before you get to bed,” said Pinkerton. “And now, after
+all this backwarding and forwarding, and that hotel clerk, and that
+bug Bellairs, it'll be a change and a kind of consolation to see the
+schooner. I guess things are humming there.”
+
+But on the wharf, when we reached it, there was no sign of bustle,
+and, but for the galley smoke, no mark of life on the Norah Creina.
+Pinkerton's face grew pale, and his mouth straightened, as he leaped on
+board.
+
+“Where's the captain of this----?” and he left the phrase unfinished,
+finding no epithet sufficiently energetic for his thoughts.
+
+It did not appear whom or what he was addressing; but a head, presumably
+the cook's, appeared in answer at the galley door.
+
+“In the cabin, at dinner,” said the cook deliberately, chewing as he
+spoke.
+
+“Is that cargo out?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“None of it?”
+
+“O, there's some of it out. We'll get at the rest of it livelier
+to-morrow, I guess.”
+
+“I guess there'll be something broken first,” said Pinkerton, and strode
+to the cabin.
+
+Here we found a man, fat, dark, and quiet, seated gravely at what seemed
+a liberal meal. He looked up upon our entrance; and seeing Pinkerton
+continue to stand facing him in silence, hat on head, arms folded, and
+lips compressed, an expression of mingled wonder and annoyance began to
+dawn upon his placid face.
+
+“Well!” said Jim; “and so this is what you call rushing around?”
+
+“Who are you?” cries the captain.
+
+“Me! I'm Pinkerton!” retorted Jim, as though the name had been a
+talisman.
+
+“You're not very civil, whoever you are,” was the reply. But still a
+certain effect had been produced, for he scrambled to his feet,
+and added hastily, “A man must have a bit of dinner, you know, Mr.
+Pinkerton.”
+
+“Where's your mate?” snapped Jim.
+
+“He's up town,” returned the other.
+
+“Up town!” sneered Pinkerton. “Now, I'll tell you what you are: you're a
+Fraud; and if I wasn't afraid of dirtying my boot, I would kick you and
+your dinner into that dock.”
+
+“I'll tell you something, too,” retorted the captain, duskily flushing.
+“I wouldn't sail this ship for the man you are, if you went upon your
+knees. I've dealt with gentlemen up to now.”
+
+“I can tell you the names of a number of gentlemen you'll never deal
+with any more, and that's the whole of Longhurst's gang,” said Jim.
+“I'll put your pipe out in that quarter, my friend. Here, rout out your
+traps as quick as look at it, and take your vermin along with you. I'll
+have a captain in, this very night, that's a sailor, and some sailors to
+work for him.”
+
+“I'll go when I please, and that's to-morrow morning,” cried the captain
+after us, as we departed for the shore.
+
+“There's something gone wrong with the world to-day; it must have come
+bottom up!” wailed Pinkerton. “Bellairs, and then the hotel clerk,
+and now This Fraud! And what am I to do for a captain, Loudon, with
+Longhurst gone home an hour ago, and the boys all scattered?”
+
+“I know,” said I. “Jump in!” And then to the driver: “Do you know Black
+Tom's?”
+
+Thither then we rattled; passed through the bar, and found (as I had
+hoped) Johnson in the enjoyment of club life. The table had been
+thrust upon one side; a South Sea merchant was discoursing music from a
+mouth-organ in one corner; and in the middle of the floor Johnson and
+a fellow-seaman, their arms clasped about each other's bodies, somewhat
+heavily danced. The room was both cold and close; a jet of gas,
+which continually menaced the heads of the performers, shed a coarse
+illumination; the mouth-organ sounded shrill and dismal; and the faces
+of all concerned were church-like in their gravity. It were, of course,
+indelicate to interrupt these solemn frolics; so we edged ourselves to
+chairs, for all the world like belated comers in a concert-room, and
+patiently waited for the end. At length the organist, having exhausted
+his supply of breath, ceased abruptly in the middle of a bar. With
+the cessation of the strain, the dancers likewise came to a full stop,
+swayed a moment, still embracing, and then separated and looked about
+the circle for applause.
+
+“Very well danced!” said one; but it appears the compliment was not
+strong enough for the performers, who (forgetful of the proverb) took up
+the tale in person.
+
+“Well,” said Johnson. “I mayn't be no sailor, but I can dance!”
+
+And his late partner, with an almost pathetic conviction, added, “My
+foot is as light as a feather.”
+
+Seeing how the wind set, you may be sure I added a few words of
+praise before I carried Johnson alone into the passage: to whom, thus
+mollified, I told so much as I judged needful of our situation, and
+begged him, if he would not take the job himself, to find me a smart
+man.
+
+“Me!” he cried. “I couldn't no more do it than I could try to go to
+hell!”
+
+“I thought you were a mate?” said I.
+
+“So I am a mate,” giggled Johnson, “and you don't catch me shipping
+noways else. But I'll tell you what, I believe I can get you Arty Nares:
+you seen Arty; first-rate navigator and a son of a gun for style.” And
+he proceeded to explain to me that Mr. Nares, who had the promise of
+a fine barque in six months, after things had quieted down, was in the
+meantime living very private, and would be pleased to have a change of
+air.
+
+I called out Pinkerton and told him. “Nares!” he cried, as soon as I
+had come to the name. “I would jump at the chance of a man that had had
+Nares's trousers on! Why, Loudon, he's the smartest deep-water mate out
+of San Francisco, and draws his dividends regular in service and out.”
+ This hearty indorsation clinched the proposal; Johnson agreed to produce
+Nares before six the following morning; and Black Tom, being called into
+the consultation, promised us four smart hands for the same hour, and
+even (what appeared to all of us excessive) promised them sober.
+
+The streets were fully lighted when we left Black Tom's: street after
+street sparkling with gas or electricity, line after line of distant
+luminaries climbing the steep sides of hills towards the overvaulting
+darkness; and on the other hand, where the waters of the bay invisibly
+trembled, a hundred riding lanterns marked the position of a hundred
+ships. The sea-fog flew high in heaven; and at the level of man's life
+and business it was clear and chill. By silent consent, we paid the hack
+off, and proceeded arm in arm towards the Poodle Dog for dinner.
+
+At one of the first hoardings, I was aware of a bill-sticker at work: it
+was a late hour for this employment, and I checked Pinkerton until the
+sheet should be unfolded. This is what I read:--
+
+     TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS REWARD.
+
+     OFFICERS AND MEN OF THE
+
+     WRECKED BRIG FLYING SCUD
+
+     APPLYING,
+
+     PERSONALLY OR BY LETTER,
+
+     AT THE OFFICE OF JAMES PINKERTON, MONTANA
+     BLOCK,
+
+     BEFORE NOON TO-MORROW, TUESDAY, 12TH,
+
+     WILL RECEIVE
+
+     TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS REWARD.
+
+“This is your idea, Pinkerton!” I cried.
+
+“Yes. They've lost no time; I'll say that for them--not like the Fraud,”
+ said he. “But mind you, Loudon, that's not half of it. The cream of
+the idea's here: we know our man's sick; well, a copy of that has been
+mailed to every hospital, every doctor, and every drug-store in San
+Francisco.”
+
+Of course, from the nature of our business, Pinkerton could do a thing
+of the kind at a figure extremely reduced; for all that, I was appalled
+at the extravagance, and said so.
+
+“What matter a few dollars now?” he replied sadly. “It's in three months
+that the pull comes, Loudon.”
+
+We walked on again in silence, not without a shiver. Even at the Poodle
+Dog, we took our food with small appetite and less speech; and it was
+not until he was warmed with a third glass of champagne that Pinkerton
+cleared his throat and looked upon me with a deprecating eye.
+
+“Loudon,” said he, “there was a subject you didn't wish to be referred
+to. I only want to do so indirectly. It wasn't”--he faltered--“it wasn't
+because you were dissatisfied with me?” he concluded, with a quaver.
+
+“Pinkerton!” cried I.
+
+“No, no, not a word just now,” he hastened to proceed. “Let me speak
+first. I appreciate, though I can't imitate, the delicacy of your
+nature; and I can well understand you would rather die than speak of it,
+and yet might feel disappointed. I did think I could have done better
+myself. But when I found how tight money was in this city, and a man
+like Douglas B. Longhurst--a forty-niner, the man that stood at bay in a
+corn patch for five hours against the San Diablo squatters--weakening on
+the operation, I tell you, Loudon, I began to despair; and--I may
+have made mistakes, no doubt there are thousands who could have done
+better--but I give you a loyal hand on it, I did my best.”
+
+“My poor Jim,” said I, “as if I ever doubted you! as if I didn't
+know you had done wonders! All day I've been admiring your energy and
+resource. And as for that affair----”
+
+“No, Loudon, no more, not a word more! I don't want to hear,” cried Jim.
+
+“Well, to tell you the truth, I don't want to tell you,” said I; “for
+it's a thing I'm ashamed of.”
+
+“Ashamed, Loudon? O, don't say that; don't use such an expression even
+in jest!” protested Pinkerton.
+
+“Do you never do anything you're ashamed of?” I inquired.
+
+“No,” says he, rolling his eyes. “Why? I'm sometimes sorry afterwards,
+when it pans out different from what I figured. But I can't see what I
+would want to be ashamed for.”
+
+I sat a while considering with admiration the simplicity of my friend's
+character. Then I sighed. “Do you know, Jim, what I'm sorriest for?”
+ said I. “At this rate, I can't be best man at your marriage.”
+
+“My marriage!” he repeated, echoing the sigh. “No marriage for me now.
+I'm going right down to-night to break it to her. I think that's what's
+shaken me all day. I feel as if I had had no right (after I was engaged)
+to operate so widely.”
+
+“Well, you know, Jim, it was my doing, and you must lay the blame on
+me,” said I.
+
+“Not a cent of it!” he cried. “I was as eager as yourself, only not so
+bright at the beginning. No; I've myself to thank for it; but it's a
+wrench.”
+
+While Jim departed on his dolorous mission, I returned alone to the
+office, lit the gas, and sat down to reflect on the events of that
+momentous day: on the strange features of the tale that had been so far
+unfolded, the disappearances, the terrors, the great sums of money; and
+on the dangerous and ungrateful task that awaited me in the immediate
+future.
+
+It is difficult, in the retrospect of such affairs, to avoid attributing
+to ourselves in the past a measure of the knowledge we possess to-day.
+But I may say, and yet be well within the mark, that I was consumed that
+night with a fever of suspicion and curiosity; exhausted my fancy in
+solutions, which I still dismissed as incommensurable with the facts;
+and in the mystery by which I saw myself surrounded, found a precious
+stimulus for my courage and a convenient soothing draught for
+conscience. Even had all been plain sailing, I do not hint that I should
+have drawn back. Smuggling is one of the meanest of crimes, for by that
+we rob a whole country pro rata, and are therefore certain to impoverish
+the poor: to smuggle opium is an offence particularly dark, since it
+stands related not so much to murder, as to massacre. Upon all these
+points I was quite clear; my sympathy was all in arms against my
+interest; and had not Jim been involved, I could have dwelt almost with
+satisfaction on the idea of my failure. But Jim, his whole fortune, and
+his marriage, depended upon my success; and I preferred the interests of
+my friend before those of all the islanders in the South Seas. This is
+a poor, private morality, if you like; but it is mine, and the best I
+have; and I am not half so much ashamed of having embarked at all on
+this adventure, as I am proud that (while I was in it, and for the
+sake of my friend) I was up early and down late, set my own hand to
+everything, took dangers as they came, and for once in my life played
+the man throughout. At the same time, I could have desired another field
+of energy; and I was the more grateful for the redeeming element of
+mystery. Without that, though I might have gone ahead and done as well,
+it would scarce have been with ardour; and what inspired me that night
+with an impatient greed of the sea, the island, and the wreck, was the
+hope that I might stumble there upon the answer to a hundred questions,
+and learn why Captain Trent fanned his red face in the exchange, and why
+Mr. Dickson fled from the telephone in the Mission Street lodging-house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. IN WHICH JIM AND I TAKE DIFFERENT WAYS.
+
+
+I was unhappy when I closed my eyes; and it was to unhappiness that I
+opened them again next morning, to a confused sense of some calamity
+still inarticulate, and to the consciousness of jaded limbs and of
+a swimming head. I must have lain for some time inert and stupidly
+miserable, before I became aware of a reiterated knocking at the
+door; with which discovery all my wits flowed back in their accustomed
+channels, and I remembered the sale, and the wreck, and Goddedaal, and
+Nares, and Johnson, and Black Tom, and the troubles of yesterday,
+and the manifold engagements of the day that was to come. The thought
+thrilled me like a trumpet in the hour of battle. In a moment, I had
+leaped from bed, crossed the office where Pinkerton lay in a deep trance
+of sleep on the convertible sofa, and stood in the doorway, in my night
+gear, to receive our visitors.
+
+Johnson was first, by way of usher, smiling. From a little behind, with
+his Sunday hat tilted forward over his brow, and a cigar glowing between
+his lips, Captain Nares acknowledged our previous acquaintance with a
+succinct nod. Behind him again, in the top of the stairway, a knot of
+sailors, the new crew of the Norah Creina, stood polishing the wall with
+back and elbow. These I left without to their reflections. But our two
+officers I carried at once into the office, where (taking Jim by the
+shoulder) I shook him slowly into consciousness. He sat up, all abroad
+for the moment, and stared on the new captain.
+
+“Jim,” said I, “this is Captain Nares. Captain, Mr. Pinkerton.”
+
+Nares repeated his curt nod, still without speech; and I thought he held
+us both under a watchful scrutiny.
+
+“O!” says Jim, “this is Captain Nares, is it? Good morning, Captain
+Nares. Happy to have the pleasure of your acquaintance, sir. I know you
+well by reputation.”
+
+Perhaps, under the circumstances of the moment, this was scarce a
+welcome speech. At least, Nares received it with a grunt.
+
+“Well, Captain,” Jim continued, “you know about the size of the
+business? You're to take the Nora Creina to Midway Island, break up
+a wreck, call at Honolulu, and back to this port? I suppose that's
+understood?”
+
+“Well,” returned Nares, with the same unamiable reserve, “for a reason,
+which I guess you know, the cruise may suit me; but there's a point or
+two to settle. We shall have to talk, Mr. Pinkerton. But whether I go or
+not, somebody will; there's no sense in losing time; and you might give
+Mr. Johnson a note, let him take the hands right down, and set to to
+overhaul the rigging. The beasts look sober,” he added, with an air of
+great disgust, “and need putting to work to keep them so.”
+
+This being agreed upon, Nares watched his subordinate depart and drew a
+visible breath.
+
+“And now we're alone and can talk,” said he. “What's this thing about?
+It's been advertised like Barnum's museum; that poster of yours has
+set the Front talking; that's an objection in itself, for I'm laying a
+little dark just now; and anyway, before I take the ship, I require to
+know what I'm going after.”
+
+Thereupon Pinkerton gave him the whole tale, beginning with a
+businesslike precision, and working himself up, as he went on, to the
+boiling-point of narrative enthusiasm. Nares sat and smoked, hat
+still on head, and acknowledged each fresh feature of the story with a
+frowning nod. But his pale blue eyes betrayed him, and lighted visibly.
+
+“Now you see for yourself,” Pinkerton concluded: “there's every last
+chance that Trent has skipped to Honolulu, and it won't take much of
+that fifty thousand dollars to charter a smart schooner down to Midway.
+Here's where I want a man!” cried Jim, with contagious energy. “That
+wreck's mine; I've paid for it, money down; and if it's got to be fought
+for, I want to see it fought for lively. If you're not back in ninety
+days, I tell you plainly, I'll make one of the biggest busts ever seen
+upon this coast; it's life or death for Mr. Dodd and me. As like as not,
+it'll come to grapples on the island; and when I heard your name last
+night--and a blame' sight more this morning when I saw the eye you've
+got in your head--I said, 'Nares is good enough for me!'”
+
+“I guess,” observed Nares, studying the ash of his cigar, “the sooner I
+get that schooner outside the Farallones, the better you'll be pleased.”
+
+“You're the man I dreamed of!” cried Jim, bouncing on the bed. “There's
+not five per cent of fraud in all your carcase.”
+
+“Just hold on,” said Nares. “There's another point. I heard some talk
+about a supercargo.”
+
+“That's Mr. Dodd, here, my partner,” said Jim.
+
+“I don't see it,” returned the captain drily. “One captain's enough for
+any ship that ever I was aboard.”
+
+“Now don't you start disappointing me,” said Pinkerton; “for you're
+talking without thought. I'm not going to give you the run of the books
+of this firm, am I? I guess not. Well, this is not only a cruise; it's a
+business operation; and that's in the hands of my partner. You sail that
+ship, you see to breaking up that wreck and keeping the men upon the
+jump, and you'll find your hands about full. Only, no mistake about one
+thing: it has to be done to Mr. Dodd's satisfaction; for it's Mr. Dodd
+that's paying.”
+
+“I'm accustomed to give satisfaction,” said Mr. Nares, with a dark
+flush.
+
+“And so you will here!” cried Pinkerton. “I understand you. You're
+prickly to handle, but you're straight all through.”
+
+“The position's got to be understood, though,” returned Nares, perhaps
+a trifle mollified. “My position, I mean. I'm not going to ship
+sailing-master; it's enough out of my way already, to set a foot on this
+mosquito schooner.”
+
+“Well, I'll tell you,” retorted Jim, with an indescribable twinkle: “you
+just meet me on the ballast, and we'll make it a barquentine.”
+
+Nares laughed a little; tactless Pinkerton had once more gained a
+victory in tact. “Then there's another point,” resumed the captain,
+tacitly relinquishing the last. “How about the owners?”
+
+“O, you leave that to me; I'm one of Longhurst's crowd, you know,” said
+Jim, with sudden bristling vanity. “Any man that's good enough for me,
+is good enough for them.”
+
+“Who are they?” asked Nares.
+
+“M'Intyre and Spittal,” said Jim.
+
+“O, well, give me a card of yours,” said the captain: “you needn't
+bother to write; I keep M'Intyre and Spittal in my vest-pocket.”
+
+Boast for boast; it was always thus with Nares and Pinkerton--the two
+vainest men of my acquaintance. And having thus reinstated himself in
+his own opinion, the captain rose, and, with a couple of his stiff nods,
+departed.
+
+“Jim,” I cried, as the door closed behind him, “I don't like that man.”
+
+“You've just got to, Loudon,” returned Jim. “He's a typical American
+seaman--brave as a lion, full of resource, and stands high with his
+owners. He's a man with a record.”
+
+“For brutality at sea,” said I.
+
+“Say what you like,” exclaimed Pinkerton, “it was a good hour we got him
+in: I'd trust Mamie's life to him to-morrow.”
+
+“Well, and talking of Mamie?” says I.
+
+Jim paused with his trousers half on. “She's the gallantest little soul
+God ever made!” he cried. “Loudon, I'd meant to knock you up last night,
+and I hope you won't take it unfriendly that I didn't. I went in and
+looked at you asleep; and I saw you were all broken up, and let you be.
+The news would keep, anyway; and even you, Loudon, couldn't feel it the
+same way as I did.”
+
+“What news?” I asked.
+
+“It's this way,” says Jim. “I told her how we stood, and that I backed
+down from marrying. 'Are you tired of me?' says she: God bless her!
+Well, I explained the whole thing over again, the chance of smash, your
+absence unavoidable, the point I made of having you for the best man,
+and that. 'If you're not tired of me, I think I see one way to manage,'
+says she. 'Let's get married to-morrow, and Mr. Loudon can be best man
+before he goes to sea.' That's how she said it, crisp and bright, like
+one of Dickens's characters. It was no good for me to talk about the
+smash. 'You'll want me all the more,' she said. Loudon, I only pray I
+can make it up to her; I prayed for it last night beside your bed, while
+you lay sleeping--for you, and Mamie and myself; and--I don't know if
+you quite believe in prayer, I'm a bit Ingersollian myself--but a kind
+of sweetness came over me, and I couldn't help but think it was an
+answer. Never was a man so lucky! You and me and Mamie; it's a triple
+cord, Loudon. If either of you were to die! And she likes you so much,
+and thinks you so accomplished and distingue-looking, and was just as
+set as I was to have you for best man. 'Mr. Loudon,' she calls you;
+seems to me so friendly! And she sat up till three in the morning fixing
+up a costume for the marriage; it did me good to see her, Loudon, and to
+see that needle going, going, and to say 'All this hurry, Jim, is just
+to marry you!' I couldn't believe it; it was so like some blame' fairy
+story. To think of those old tin-type times about turned my head; I was
+so unrefined then, and so illiterate, and so lonesome; and here I am in
+clover, and I'm blamed if I can see what I've done to deserve it.”
+
+So he poured forth with innocent volubility the fulness of his heart;
+and I, from these irregular communications, must pick out, here a little
+and there a little, the particulars of his new plan. They were to be
+married, sure enough, that day; the wedding breakfast was to be at
+Frank's; the evening to be passed in a visit of God-speed aboard the
+Norah Creina; and then we were to part, Jim and I, he to his married
+life, I on my sea-enterprise. If ever I cherished an ill-feeling
+for Miss Mamie, I forgave her now; so brave and kind, so pretty and
+venturesome, was her decision. The weather frowned overhead with a
+leaden sky, and San Francisco had never (in all my experience) looked so
+bleak and gaunt, and shoddy, and crazy, like a city prematurely old; but
+through all my wanderings and errands to and fro, by the dock side or in
+the jostling street, among rude sounds and ugly sights, there ran in my
+mind, like a tiny strain of music, the thought of my friend's happiness.
+
+For that was indeed a day of many and incongruous occupations. Breakfast
+was scarce swallowed before Jim must run to the City Hall and Frank's
+about the cares of marriage, and I hurry to John Smith's upon the
+account of stores, and thence, on a visit of certification, to the
+Norah Creina. Methought she looked smaller than ever, sundry great
+ships overspiring her from close without. She was already a nightmare of
+disorder; and the wharf alongside was piled with a world of casks, and
+cases, and tins, and tools, and coils of rope, and miniature barrels of
+giant powder, such as it seemed no human ingenuity could stuff on board
+of her. Johnson was in the waist, in a red shirt and dungaree trousers,
+his eye kindled with activity. With him I exchanged a word or two;
+thence stepped aft along the narrow alleyway between the house and the
+rail, and down the companion to the main cabin, where the captain sat
+with the commissioner at wine.
+
+I gazed with disaffection at the little box which for many a day I was
+to call home. On the starboard was a stateroom for the captain; on the
+port, a pair of frowsy berths, one over the other, and abutting astern
+upon the side of an unsavoury cupboard. The walls were yellow and damp,
+the floor black and greasy; there was a prodigious litter of straw, old
+newspapers, and broken packing-cases; and by way of ornament, only
+a glass-rack, a thermometer presented “with compliments” of some
+advertising whiskey-dealer, and a swinging lamp. It was hard to foresee
+that, before a week was up, I should regard that cabin as cheerful,
+lightsome, airy, and even spacious.
+
+I was presented to the commissioner, and to a young friend of his whom
+he had brought with him for the purpose (apparently) of smoking cigars;
+and after we had pledged one another in a glass of California port, a
+trifle sweet and sticky for a morning beverage, the functionary spread
+his papers on the table, and the hands were summoned. Down they trooped,
+accordingly, into the cabin; and stood eyeing the ceiling or the floor,
+the picture of sheepish embarrassment, and with a common air of wanting
+to expectorate and not quite daring. In admirable contrast, stood
+the Chinese cook, easy, dignified, set apart by spotless raiment, the
+hidalgo of the seas.
+
+I daresay you never had occasion to assist at the farce which followed.
+Our shipping laws in the United States (thanks to the inimitable Dana)
+are conceived in a spirit of paternal stringency, and proceed throughout
+on the hypothesis that poor Jack is an imbecile, and the other parties
+to the contract, rogues and ruffians. A long and wordy paper of
+precautions, a fo'c's'le bill of rights, must be read separately to each
+man. I had now the benefit of hearing it five times in brisk succession;
+and you would suppose I was acquainted with its contents. But the
+commissioner (worthy man) spends his days in doing little else; and when
+we bear in mind the parallel case of the irreverent curate, we need not
+be surprised that he took the passage tempo prestissimo, in one roulade
+of gabble--that I, with the trained attention of an educated man,
+could gather but a fraction of its import--and the sailors nothing.
+No profanity in giving orders, no sheath-knives, Midway Island and any
+other port the master may direct, not to exceed six calendar months,
+and to this port to be paid off: so it seemed to run, with surprising
+verbiage; so ended. And with the end, the commissioner, in each case,
+fetched a deep breath, resumed his natural voice, and proceeded to
+business. “Now, my man,” he would say, “you ship A. B. at so many
+dollars, American gold coin. Sign your name here, if you have one, and
+can write.” Whereupon, and the name (with infinite hard breathing) being
+signed, the commissioner would proceed to fill in the man's appearance,
+height, etc., on the official form. In this task of literary portraiture
+he seemed to rely wholly upon temperament; for I could not perceive him
+to cast one glance on any of his models. He was assisted, however, by a
+running commentary from the captain: “Hair blue and eyes red, nose
+five foot seven, and stature broken”--jests as old, presumably, as the
+American marine; and, like the similar pleasantries of the billiard
+board, perennially relished. The highest note of humour was reached in
+the case of the Chinese cook, who was shipped under the name of “One
+Lung,” to the sound of his own protests and the self-approving chuckles
+of the functionary.
+
+“Now, captain,” said the latter, when the men were gone, and he had
+bundled up his papers, “the law requires you to carry a slop-chest and a
+chest of medicines.”
+
+“I guess I know that,” said Nares.
+
+“I guess you do,” returned the commissioner, and helped himself to port.
+
+But when he was gone, I appealed to Nares on the same subject, for I was
+well aware we carried none of these provisions.
+
+“Well,” drawled Nares, “there's sixty pounds of niggerhead on the quay,
+isn't there? and twenty pounds of salts; and I never travel without some
+painkiller in my gripsack.”
+
+As a matter of fact, we were richer. The captain had the usual sailor's
+provision of quack medicines, with which, in the usual sailor fashion,
+he would daily drug himself, displaying an extreme inconstancy, and
+flitting from Kennedy's Red Discovery to Kennedy's White, and from
+Hood's Sarsaparilla to Mother Seigel's Syrup. And there were, besides,
+some mildewed and half-empty bottles, the labels obliterated, over
+which Nares would sometimes sniff and speculate. “Seems to smell like
+diarrhoea stuff,” he would remark. “I wish't I knew, and I would
+try it.” But the slop-chest was indeed represented by the plugs of
+niggerhead, and nothing else. Thus paternal laws are made, thus they
+are evaded; and the schooner put to sea, like plenty of her neighbours,
+liable to a fine of six hundred dollars.
+
+This characteristic scene, which has delayed me overlong, was but a
+moment in that day of exercise and agitation. To fit out a schooner for
+sea, and improvise a marriage between dawn and dusk, involves heroic
+effort. All day Jim and I ran, and tramped, and laughed, and came near
+crying, and fell in sudden anxious consultations, and were sped (with
+a prepared sarcasm on our lips) to some fallacious milliner, and made
+dashes to the schooner and John Smith's, and at every second corner
+were reminded (by our own huge posters) of our desperate estate. Between
+whiles, I had found the time to hover at some half-a-dozen jewellers'
+windows; and my present, thus intemperately chosen, was graciously
+accepted. I believe, indeed, that was the last (though not the least) of
+my concerns, before the old minister, shabby and benign, was routed from
+his house and led to the office like a performing poodle; and there, in
+the growing dusk, under the cold glitter of Thirteen Star, two hundred
+strong, and beside the garish glories of the agricultural engine, Mamie
+and Jim were made one. The scene was incongruous, but the business
+pretty, whimsical, and affecting: the typewriters with such kindly faces
+and fine posies, Mamie so demure, and Jim--how shall I describe that
+poor, transfigured Jim? He began by taking the minister aside to the far
+end of the office. I knew not what he said, but I have reason to believe
+he was protesting his unfitness; for he wept as he said it: and the old
+minister, himself genuinely moved, was heard to console and encourage
+him, and at one time to use this expression: “I assure you, Mr.
+Pinkerton, there are not many who can say so much”--from which I
+gathered that my friend had tempered his self-accusations with at least
+one legitimate boast. From this ghostly counselling, Jim turned to me;
+and though he never got beyond the explosive utterance of my name and
+one fierce handgrip, communicated some of his own emotion, like a charge
+of electricity, to his best man. We stood up to the ceremony at last,
+in a general and kindly discomposure. Jim was all abroad; and the divine
+himself betrayed his sympathy in voice and demeanour, and concluded with
+a fatherly allocution, in which he congratulated Mamie (calling her “my
+dear”) upon the fortune of an excellent husband, and protested he had
+rarely married a more interesting couple. At this stage, like a glory
+descending, there was handed in, ex machina, the card of Douglas B.
+Longhurst, with congratulations and four dozen Perrier-Jouet. A bottle
+was opened; and the minister pledged the bride, and the bridesmaids
+simpered and tasted, and I made a speech with airy bacchanalianism,
+glass in hand. But poor Jim must leave the wine untasted. “Don't touch
+it,” I had found the opportunity to whisper; “in your state it will make
+you as drunk as a fiddler.” And Jim had wrung my hand with a “God bless
+you, Loudon!--saved me again!”
+
+Hard following upon this, the supper passed off at Frank's with somewhat
+tremulous gaiety. And thence, with one half of the Perrier-Jouet--I
+would accept no more--we voyaged in a hack to the Norah Creina.
+
+“What a dear little ship!” cried Mamie, as our miniature craft was
+pointed out to her. And then, on second thought, she turned to the best
+man. “And how brave you must be, Mr. Dodd,” she cried, “to go in that
+tiny thing so far upon the ocean!” And I perceived I had risen in the
+lady's estimation.
+
+The dear little ship presented a horrid picture of confusion, and its
+occupants of weariness and ill-humour. From the cabin the cook was
+storing tins into the lazarette, and the four hands, sweaty and sullen,
+were passing them from one to another from the waist. Johnson was three
+parts asleep over the table; and in his bunk, in his own cabin, the
+captain sourly chewed and puffed at a cigar.
+
+“See here,” he said, rising; “you'll be sorry you came. We can't stop
+work if we're to get away to-morrow. A ship getting ready for sea is no
+place for people, anyway. You'll only interrupt my men.”
+
+I was on the point of answering something tart; but Jim, who was
+acquainted with the breed, as he was with most things that had a bearing
+on affairs, made haste to pour in oil.
+
+“Captain,” he said, “I know we're a nuisance here, and that you've had
+a rough time. But all we want is that you should drink one glass of wine
+with us, Perrier-Jouet, from Longhurst, on the occasion of my marriage,
+and Loudon's--Mr. Dodd's--departure.”
+
+“Well, it's your lookout,” said Nares. “I don't mind half an hour.
+Spell, O!” he added to the men; “go and kick your heels for half an
+hour, and then you can turn to again a trifle livelier. Johnson, see if
+you can't wipe off a chair for the lady.”
+
+His tone was no more gracious than his language; but when Mamie had
+turned upon him the soft fire of her eyes, and informed him that he was
+the first sea-captain she had ever met, “except captains of steamers,
+of course”--she so qualified the statement--and had expressed a lively
+sense of his courage, and perhaps implied (for I suppose the arts of
+ladies are the same as those of men) a modest consciousness of his good
+looks, our bear began insensibly to soften; and it was already part
+as an apology, though still with unaffected heat of temper, that he
+volunteered some sketch of his annoyances.
+
+“A pretty mess we've had!” said he. “Half the stores were wrong; I'll
+wring John Smith's neck for him some of these days. Then two newspaper
+beasts came down, and tried to raise copy out of me, till I threatened
+them with the first thing handy; and then some kind of missionary bug,
+wanting to work his passage to Raiatea or somewhere. I told him I would
+take him off the wharf with the butt end of my boot, and he went away
+cursing. This vessel's been depreciated by the look of him.”
+
+While the captain spoke, with his strange, humorous, arrogant
+abruptness, I observed Jim to be sizing him up, like a thing at once
+quaint and familiar, and with a scrutiny that was both curious and
+knowing.
+
+“One word, dear boy,” he said, turning suddenly to me. And when he had
+drawn me on deck, “That man,” says he, “will carry sail till your hair
+grows white; but never you let on, never breathe a word. I know his
+line: he'll die before he'll take advice; and if you get his back up,
+he'll run you right under. I don't often jam in my advice, Loudon; and
+when I do, it means I'm thoroughly posted.”
+
+The little party in the cabin, so disastrously begun, finished, under
+the mellowing influence of wine and woman, in excellent feeling and
+with some hilarity. Mamie, in a plush Gainsborough hat and a gown of
+wine-coloured silk, sat, an apparent queen, among her rude surroundings
+and companions. The dusky litter of the cabin set off her radiant
+trimness: tarry Johnson was a foil to her fair beauty; she glowed in
+that poor place, fair as a star; until even I, who was not usually of
+her admirers, caught a spark of admiration; and even the captain, who
+was in no courtly humour, proposed that the scene should be commemorated
+by my pencil. It was the last act of the evening. Hurriedly as I went
+about my task, the half-hour had lengthened out to more than three
+before it was completed: Mamie in full value, the rest of the party
+figuring in outline only, and the artist himself introduced in a back
+view, which was pronounced a likeness. But it was to Mamie that I
+devoted the best of my attention; and it was with her I made my chief
+success.
+
+“O!” she cried, “am I really like that? No wonder Jim ...” She paused.
+“Why it's just as lovely as he's good!” she cried: an epigram which was
+appreciated, and repeated as we made our salutations, and called out
+after the retreating couple as they passed away under the lamplight on
+the wharf.
+
+Thus it was that our farewells were smuggled through under an ambuscade
+of laughter, and the parting over ere I knew it was begun. The figures
+vanished, the steps died away along the silent city front; on board, the
+men had returned to their labours, the captain to his solitary cigar;
+and after that long and complex day of business and emotion, I was at
+last alone and free. It was, perhaps, chiefly fatigue that made my heart
+so heavy. I leaned at least upon the house, and stared at the foggy
+heaven, or over the rail at the wavering reflection of the lamps, like a
+man that was quite done with hope and would have welcomed the asylum of
+the grave. And all at once, as I thus stood, the City of Pekin flashed
+into my mind, racing her thirteen knots for Honolulu, with the hated
+Trent--perhaps with the mysterious Goddedaal--on board; and with the
+thought, the blood leaped and careered through all my body. It seemed no
+chase at all; it seemed we had no chance, as we lay there bound to iron
+pillars, and fooling away the precious moments over tins of beans. “Let
+them get there first!” I thought. “Let them! We can't be long behind.”
+ And from that moment, I date myself a man of a rounded experience:
+nothing had lacked but this, that I should entertain and welcome the
+grim thought of bloodshed.
+
+It was long before the toil remitted in the cabin, and it was worth
+my while to get to bed; long after that, before sleep favoured me;
+and scarce a moment later (or so it seemed) when I was recalled to
+consciousness by bawling men and the jar of straining hawsers.
+
+The schooner was cast off before I got on deck. In the misty obscurity
+of the first dawn, I saw the tug heading us with glowing fires and
+blowing smoke, and heard her beat the roughened waters of the bay.
+Beside us, on her flock of hills, the lighted city towered up and
+stood swollen in the raw fog. It was strange to see her burn on thus
+wastefully, with half-quenched luminaries, when the dawn was already
+grown strong enough to show me, and to suffer me to recognise, a
+solitary figure standing by the piles.
+
+Or was it really the eye, and not rather the heart, that identified that
+shadow in the dusk, among the shoreside lamps? I know not. It was Jim,
+at least; Jim, come for a last look; and we had but time to wave a
+valedictory gesture and exchange a wordless cry. This was our second
+parting, and our capacities were now reversed. It was mine to play the
+Argonaut, to speed affairs, to plan and to accomplish--if need were, at
+the price of life; it was his to sit at home, to study the calendar, and
+to wait. I knew besides another thing that gave me joy. I knew that my
+friend had succeeded in my education; that the romance of business,
+if our fantastic purchase merited the name, had at last stirred my
+dilletante nature; and, as we swept under cloudy Tamalpais and through
+the roaring narrows of the bay, the Yankee blood sang in my veins with
+suspense and exultation.
+
+Outside the heads, as if to meet my desire, we found it blowing fresh
+from the northeast. No time had been lost. The sun was not yet up before
+the tug cast off the hawser, gave us a salute of three whistles, and
+turned homeward toward the coast, which now began to gleam along its
+margin with the earliest rays of day. There was no other ship in view
+when the Norah Creina, lying over under all plain sail, began her long
+and lonely voyage to the wreck.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. THE “NORAH CREINA.”
+
+
+I love to recall the glad monotony of a Pacific voyage, when the trades
+are not stinted, and the ship, day after day, goes free. The mountain
+scenery of trade-wind clouds, watched (and in my case painted) under
+every vicissitude of light--blotting stars, withering in the moon's
+glory, barring the scarlet eve, lying across the dawn collapsed into the
+unfeatured morning bank, or at noon raising their snowy summits between
+the blue roof of heaven and the blue floor of sea; the small, busy,
+and deliberate world of the schooner, with its unfamiliar scenes, the
+spearing of dolphin from the bowsprit end, the holy war on sharks,
+the cook making bread on the main hatch; reefing down before a violent
+squall, with the men hanging out on the foot-ropes; the squall itself,
+the catch at the heart, the opened sluices of the sky; and the relief,
+the renewed loveliness of life, when all is over, the sun forth again,
+and our out-fought enemy only a blot upon the leeward sea. I love to
+recall, and would that I could reproduce that life, the unforgettable,
+the unrememberable. The memory, which shows so wise a backwardness
+in registering pain, is besides an imperfect recorder of extended
+pleasures; and a long-continued well-being escapes (as it were, by its
+mass) our petty methods of commemoration. On a part of our life's map
+there lies a roseate, undecipherable haze, and that is all.
+
+Of one thing, if I am at all to trust my own annals, I was delightedly
+conscious. Day after day, in the sun-gilded cabin, the whiskey-dealer's
+thermometer stood at 84. Day after day, the air had the same
+indescribable liveliness and sweetness, soft and nimble, and cool as
+the cheek of health. Day after day the sun flamed; night after night the
+moon beaconed, or the stars paraded their lustrous regiment. I was aware
+of a spiritual change, or, perhaps, rather a molecular reconstitution.
+My bones were sweeter to me. I had come home to my own climate, and
+looked back with pity on those damp and wintry zones, miscalled the
+temperate.
+
+“Two years of this, and comfortable quarters to live in, kind of shake
+the grit out of a man,” the captain remarked; “can't make out to be
+happy anywhere else. A townie of mine was lost down this way, in a
+coalship that took fire at sea. He struck the beach somewhere in the
+Navigators; and he wrote to me that when he left the place, it would be
+feet first. He's well off, too, and his father owns some coasting
+craft Down East; but Billy prefers the beach, and hot rolls off the
+bread-fruit trees.”
+
+A voice told me I was on the same track as Billy. But when was this? Our
+outward track in the Norah Creina lay well to the northward; and perhaps
+it is but the impression of a few pet days which I have unconsciously
+spread longer, or perhaps the feeling grew upon me later, in the run to
+Honolulu. One thing I am sure: it was before I had ever seen an island
+worthy of the name that I must date my loyalty to the South Seas. The
+blank sea itself grew desirable under such skies; and wherever the
+trade-wind blows, I know no better country than a schooner's deck.
+
+But for the tugging anxiety as to the journey's end, the journey itself
+must thus have counted for the best of holidays. My physical well-being
+was over-proof; effects of sea and sky kept me for ever busy with my
+pencil; and I had no lack of intellectual exercise of a different order
+in the study of my inconsistent friend, the captain. I call him friend,
+here on the threshold; but that is to look well ahead. At first, I
+was too much horrified by what I considered his barbarities, too much
+puzzled by his shifting humours, and too frequently annoyed by his small
+vanities, to regard him otherwise than as the cross of my existence. It
+was only by degrees, in his rare hours of pleasantness, when he forgot
+(and made me forget) the weaknesses to which he was so prone, that he
+won me to a kind of unconsenting fondness. Lastly, the faults were
+all embraced in a more generous view: I saw them in their place, like
+discords in a musical progression; and accepted them and found them
+picturesque, as we accept and admire, in the habitable face of nature,
+the smoky head of the volcano or the pernicious thicket of the swamp.
+
+He was come of good people Down East, and had the beginnings of a
+thorough education. His temper had been ungovernable from the first; and
+it is likely the defect was inherited, and the blame of the rupture
+not entirely his. He ran away at least to sea; suffered horrible
+maltreatment, which seemed to have rather hardened than enlightened him;
+ran away again to shore in a South American port; proved his capacity
+and made money, although still a child; fell among thieves and was
+robbed; worked back a passage to the States, and knocked one morning
+at the door of an old lady whose orchard he had often robbed. The
+introduction appears insufficient; but Nares knew what he was doing.
+The sight of her old neighbourly depredator shivering at the door in
+tatters, the very oddity of his appeal, touched a soft spot in the
+spinster's heart. “I always had a fancy for the old lady,” Nares said,
+“even when she used to stampede me out of the orchard, and shake her
+thimble and her old curls at me out of the window as I was going by; I
+always thought she was a kind of pleasant old girl. Well, when she came
+to the door that morning, I told her so, and that I was stone-broke; and
+she took me right in, and fetched out the pie.” She clothed him, taught
+him, and had him to sea again in better shape, welcomed him to her
+hearth on his return from every cruise, and when she died bequeathed him
+her possessions. “She was a good old girl,” he would say. “I tell you,
+Mr. Dodd, it was a queer thing to see me and the old lady talking a
+pasear in the garden, and the old man scowling at us over the pickets.
+She lived right next door to the old man, and I guess that's just what
+took me there. I wanted him to know that I was badly beat, you see, and
+would rather go to the devil than to him. What made the dig harder, he
+had quarrelled with the old lady about me and the orchard: I guess that
+made him rage. Yes, I was a beast when I was young. But I was always
+pretty good to the old lady.” Since then he had prospered, not
+uneventfully, in his profession; the old lady's money had fallen in
+during the voyage of the Gleaner, and he was now, as soon as the smoke
+of that engagement cleared away, secure of his ship. I suppose he was
+about thirty: a powerful, active man, with a blue eye, a thick head
+of hair, about the colour of oakum and growing low over the brow;
+clean-shaved and lean about the jaw; a good singer; a good performer on
+that sea-instrument, the accordion; a quick observer, a close reasoner;
+when he pleased, of a really elegant address; and when he chose, the
+greatest brute upon the seas.
+
+His usage of the men, his hazing, his bullying, his perpetual
+fault-finding for no cause, his perpetual and brutal sarcasm, might have
+raised a mutiny in a slave galley. Suppose the steersman's eye to have
+wandered: “You ----, ----, little, mutton-faced Dutchman,” Nares would
+bawl; “you want a booting to keep you on your course! I know a little
+city-front slush when I see one. Just you glue your eye to that compass,
+or I'll show you round the vessel at the butt-end of my boot.” Or
+suppose a hand to linger aft, whither he had perhaps been summoned not
+a minute before. “Mr. Daniells, will you oblige me by stepping clear
+of that main-sheet?” the captain might begin, with truculent courtesy.
+“Thank you. And perhaps you'll be so kind as to tell me what the hell
+you're doing on my quarter-deck? I want no dirt of your sort here. Is
+there nothing for you to do? Where's the mate? Don't you set ME to find
+work for you, or I'll find you some that will keep you on your back a
+fortnight.” Such allocutions, conceived with a perfect knowledge of his
+audience, so that every insult carried home, were delivered with a mien
+so menacing, and an eye so fiercely cruel, that his unhappy subordinates
+shrank and quailed. Too often violence followed; too often I have heard
+and seen and boiled at the cowardly aggression; and the victim, his
+hands bound by law, has risen again from deck and crawled forward
+stupefied--I know not what passion of revenge in his wronged heart.
+
+It seems strange I should have grown to like this tyrant. It may even
+seem strange that I should have stood by and suffered his excesses to
+proceed. But I was not quite such a chicken as to interfere in public;
+for I would rather have a man or two mishandled than one half of
+us butchered in a mutiny and the rest suffer on the gallows. And in
+private, I was unceasing in my protests.
+
+“Captain,” I once said to him, appealing to his patriotism, which was
+of a hardy quality, “this is no way to treat American seamen. You don't
+call it American to treat men like dogs?”
+
+“Americans?” he said grimly. “Do you call these Dutchmen and
+Scattermouches [1] Americans? I've been fourteen years to sea, all but
+one trip under American colours, and I've never laid eye on an American
+foremast hand. There used to be such things in the old days, when
+thirty-five dollars were the wages out of Boston; and then you could see
+ships handled and run the way they want to be. But that's all past and
+gone; and nowadays the only thing that flies in an American ship is a
+belaying-pin. You don't know; you haven't a guess. How would you like to
+go on deck for your middle watch, fourteen months on end, with all your
+duty to do and every one's life depending on you, and expect to get
+a knife ripped into you as you come out of your stateroom, or be
+sand-bagged as you pass the boat, or get tripped into the hold, if the
+hatches are off in fine weather? That kind of shakes the starch out of
+the brotherly love and New Jerusalem business. You go through the mill,
+and you'll have a bigger grudge against every old shellback that dirties
+his plate in the three oceans, than the Bank of California could settle
+up. No; it has an ugly look to it, but the only way to run a ship is to
+make yourself a terror.”
+
+[1] In sea-lingo (Pacific) DUTCHMAN includes all Teutons and folk from
+the basin of the Baltic; SCATTERMOUCH, all Latins and Levantines.
+
+“Come, Captain,” said I, “there are degrees in everything. You know
+American ships have a bad name; you know perfectly well if it wasn't for
+the high wage and the good food, there's not a man would ship in one if
+he could help; and even as it is, some prefer a British ship, beastly
+food and all.”
+
+“O, the lime-juicers?” said he. “There's plenty booting in lime-juicers,
+I guess; though I don't deny but what some of them are soft.” And with
+that he smiled like a man recalling something. “Look here, that brings
+a yarn in my head,” he resumed; “and for the sake of the joke, I'll give
+myself away. It was in 1874, I shipped mate in the British ship Maria,
+from 'Frisco for Melbourne. She was the queerest craft in some ways that
+ever I was aboard of. The food was a caution; there was nothing fit
+to put your lips to--but the lime-juice, which was from the end bin no
+doubt: it used to make me sick to see the men's dinners, and sorry to
+see my own. The old man was good enough, I guess; Green was his name;
+a mild, fatherly old galoot. But the hands were the lowest gang I ever
+handled; and whenever I tried to knock a little spirit into them, the
+old man took their part! It was Gilbert and Sullivan on the high seas;
+but you bet I wouldn't let any man dictate to me. 'You give me your
+orders, Captain Green,' I said, 'and you'll find I'll carry them out;
+that's all you've got to say. You'll find I do my duty,' I said; 'how
+I do it is my lookout; and there's no man born that's going to give
+me lessons.' Well, there was plenty dirt on board that Maria first and
+last. Of course, the old man put my back up, and, of course, he put up
+the crew's; and I had to regular fight my way through every watch. The
+men got to hate me, so's I would hear them grit their teeth when I came
+up. At last, one day, I saw a big hulking beast of a Dutchman booting
+the ship's boy. I made one shoot of it off the house and laid that
+Dutchman out. Up he came, and I laid him out again. 'Now,' I said, 'if
+there's a kick left in you, just mention it, and I'll stamp your ribs
+in like a packing-case.' He thought better of it, and never let on;
+lay there as mild as a deacon at a funeral; and they took him below to
+reflect on his native Dutchland. One night we got caught in rather a
+dirty thing about 25 south. I guess we were all asleep; for the first
+thing I knew there was the fore-royal gone. I ran forward, bawling blue
+hell; and just as I came by the foremast, something struck me right
+through the forearm and stuck there. I put my other hand up, and by
+George! it was the grain; the beasts had speared me like a porpoise.
+'Cap'n!' I cried.--'What's wrong?' says he.--'They've grained me,' says
+I.--'Grained you?' says he. 'Well, I've been looking for that.'----'And
+by God,' I cried, 'I want to have some of these beasts murdered for
+it!'--'Now, Mr. Nares,' says he, 'you better go below. If I had been one
+of the men, you'd have got more than this. And I want no more of your
+language on deck. You've cost me my fore-royal already,' says he; 'and
+if you carry on, you'll have the three sticks out of her.' That was old
+man Green's idea of supporting officers. But you wait a bit; the cream's
+coming. We made Melbourne right enough, and the old man said: 'Mr.
+Nares, you and me don't draw together. You're a first-rate seaman, no
+mistake of that; but you're the most disagreeable man I ever sailed
+with; and your language and your conduct to the crew I cannot stomach.
+I guess we'll separate.' I didn't care about the berth, you may be sure;
+but I felt kind of mean; and if he made one kind of stink, I thought
+I could make another. So I said I would go ashore and see how things
+stood; went, found I was all right, and came aboard again on the top
+rail.--'Are you getting your traps together, Mr. Nares?' says the old
+man.--'No,' says I, 'I don't know as we'll separate much before 'Frisco;
+at least,' I said, 'it's a point for your consideration. I'm very
+willing to say good-by to the Maria, but I don't know whether you'll
+care to start me out with three months' wages.' He got his money-box
+right away. 'My son,' says he, 'I think it cheap at the money.' He had
+me there.”
+
+
+It was a singular tale for a man to tell of himself; above all, in the
+midst of our discussion; but it was quite in character for Nares. I
+never made a good hit in our disputes, I never justly resented any act
+or speech of his, but what I found it long after carefully posted in his
+day-book and reckoned (here was the man's oddity) to my credit. It was
+the same with his father, whom he had hated; he would give a sketch of
+the old fellow, frank and credible, and yet so honestly touched that
+it was charming. I have never met a man so strangely constituted: to
+possess a reason of the most equal justice, to have his nerves at the
+same time quivering with petty spite, and to act upon the nerves and not
+the reason.
+
+A kindred wonder in my eyes was the nature of his courage. There was
+never a braver man: he went out to welcome danger; an emergency (came it
+never so sudden) strung him like a tonic. And yet, upon the other hand,
+I have known none so nervous, so oppressed with possibilities, looking
+upon the world at large, and the life of a sailor in particular, with
+so constant and haggard a consideration of the ugly chances. All
+his courage was in blood, not merely cold, but icy with reasoned
+apprehension. He would lay our little craft rail under, and “hang on” in
+a squall, until I gave myself up for lost, and the men were rushing
+to their stations of their own accord. “There,” he would say, “I guess
+there's not a man on board would have hung on as long as I did that
+time; they'll have to give up thinking me no schooner sailor. I guess
+I can shave just as near capsizing as any other captain of this vessel,
+drunk or sober.” And then he would fall to repining and wishing himself
+well out of the enterprise, and dilate on the peril of the seas, the
+particular dangers of the schooner rig, which he abhorred, the various
+ways in which we might go to the bottom, and the prodigious fleet of
+ships that have sailed out in the course of history, dwindled from the
+eyes of watchers, and returned no more. “Well,” he would wind up, “I
+guess it don't much matter. I can't see what any one wants to live for,
+anyway. If I could get into some one else's apple-tree, and be about
+twelve years old, and just stick the way I was, eating stolen apples, I
+won't say. But there's no sense in this grown-up business--sailorising,
+politics, the piety mill, and all the rest of it. Good clean drowning is
+good enough for me.” It is hard to imagine any more depressing talk for
+a poor landsman on a dirty night; it is hard to imagine anything less
+sailor-like (as sailors are supposed to be, and generally are) than this
+persistent harping on the minor.
+
+
+But I was to see more of the man's gloomy constancy ere the cruise was
+at an end.
+
+On the morning of the seventeenth day I came on deck, to find the
+schooner under double reefs, and flying rather wild before a heavy run
+of sea. Snoring trades and humming sails had been our portion hitherto.
+We were already nearing the island. My restrained excitement had begun
+again to overmaster me; and for some time my only book had been the
+patent log that trailed over the taffrail, and my chief interest the
+daily observation and our caterpillar progress across the chart. My
+first glance, which was at the compass, and my second, which was at the
+log, were all that I could wish. We lay our course; we had been doing
+over eight since nine the night before; and I drew a heavy breath of
+satisfaction. And then I know not what odd and wintry appearance of the
+sea and sky knocked suddenly at my heart. I observed the schooner
+to look more than usually small, the men silent and studious of the
+weather. Nares, in one of his rusty humours, afforded me no shadow of a
+morning salutation. He, too, seemed to observe the behaviour of the ship
+with an intent and anxious scrutiny. What I liked still less, Johnson
+himself was at the wheel, which he span busily, often with a visible
+effort; and as the seas ranged up behind us, black and imminent, he kept
+casting behind him eyes of animal swiftness, and drawing in his neck
+between his shoulders, like a man dodging a blow. From these signs, I
+gathered that all was not exactly for the best; and I would have given
+a good handful of dollars for a plain answer to the questions which
+I dared not put. Had I dared, with the present danger signal in the
+captain's face, I should only have been reminded of my position as
+supercargo--an office never touched upon in kindness--and advised, in
+a very indigestible manner, to go below. There was nothing for it,
+therefore, but to entertain my vague apprehensions as best I should be
+able, until it pleased the captain to enlighten me of his own accord.
+This he did sooner than I had expected; as soon, indeed, as the Chinaman
+had summoned us to breakfast, and we sat face to face across the narrow
+board.
+
+“See here, Mr. Dodd,” he began, looking at me rather queerly, “here is a
+business point arisen. This sea's been running up for the last two days,
+and now it's too high for comfort. The glass is falling, the wind is
+breezing up, and I won't say but what there's dirt in it. If I lay her
+to, we may have to ride out a gale of wind and drift God knows where--on
+these French Frigate Shoals, for instance. If I keep her as she goes,
+we'll make that island to-morrow afternoon, and have the lee of it to
+lie under, if we can't make out to run in. The point you have to figure
+on, is whether you'll take the big chances of that Captain Trent making
+the place before you, or take the risk of something happening. I'm
+to run this ship to your satisfaction,” he added, with an ugly sneer.
+“Well, here's a point for the supercargo.”
+
+“Captain,” I returned, with my heart in my mouth, “risk is better than
+certain failure.”
+
+“Life is all risk, Mr. Dodd,” he remarked. “But there's one thing: it's
+now or never; in half an hour, Archdeacon Gabriel couldn't lay her to,
+if he came down stairs on purpose.”
+
+“All right,” said I. “Let's run.”
+
+“Run goes,” said he; and with that he fell to breakfast, and passed half
+an hour in stowing away pie and devoutly wishing himself back in San
+Francisco.
+
+When we came on deck again, he took the wheel from Johnson--it appears
+they could trust none among the hands--and I stood close beside him,
+feeling safe in this proximity, and tasting a fearful joy from our
+surroundings and the consciousness of my decision. The breeze had
+already risen, and as it tore over our heads, it uttered at times a
+long hooting note that sent my heart into my boots. The sea pursued
+us without remission, leaping to the assault of the low rail. The
+quarter-deck was all awash, and we must close the companion doors.
+
+“And all this, if you please, for Mr. Pinkerton's dollars!” the captain
+suddenly exclaimed. “There's many a fine fellow gone under, Mr. Dodd,
+because of drivers like your friend. What do they care for a ship or
+two? Insured, I guess. What do they care for sailors' lives alongside
+of a few thousand dollars? What they want is speed between ports, and
+a damned fool of a captain that'll drive a ship under as I'm doing this
+one. You can put in the morning, asking why I do it.”
+
+I sheered off to another part of the vessel as fast as civility
+permitted. This was not at all the talk that I desired, nor was the
+train of reflection which it started anyway welcome. Here I was, running
+some hazard of my life, and perilling the lives of seven others; exactly
+for what end, I was now at liberty to ask myself. For a very large
+amount of a very deadly poison, was the obvious answer; and I thought
+if all tales were true, and I were soon to be subjected to
+cross-examination at the bar of Eternal Justice, it was one which would
+not increase my popularity with the court. “Well, never mind, Jim,”
+ thought I. “I'm doing it for you.”
+
+Before eleven, a third reef was taken in the mainsail; and Johnson
+filled the cabin with a storm-sail of No. 1 duck and sat cross-legged
+on the streaming floor, vigorously putting it to rights with a couple of
+the hands. By dinner I had fled the deck, and sat in the bench corner,
+giddy, dumb, and stupefied with terror. The frightened leaps of the
+poor Norah Creina, spanking like a stag for bare existence, bruised me
+between the table and the berths. Overhead, the wild huntsman of the
+storm passed continuously in one blare of mingled noises; screaming
+wind, straining timber, lashing rope's end, pounding block and bursting
+sea contributed; and I could have thought there was at times another, a
+more piercing, a more human note, that dominated all, like the wailing
+of an angel; I could have thought I knew the angel's name, and that his
+wings were black. It seemed incredible that any creature of man's art
+could long endure the barbarous mishandling of the seas, kicked as the
+schooner was from mountain side to mountain side, beaten and blown upon
+and wrenched in every joint and sinew, like a child upon the rack. There
+was not a plank of her that did not cry aloud for mercy; and as she
+continued to hold together, I became conscious of a growing sympathy
+with her endeavours, a growing admiration for her gallant staunchness,
+that amused and at times obliterated my terrors for myself. God bless
+every man that swung a mallet on that tiny and strong hull! It was not
+for wages only that he laboured, but to save men's lives.
+
+All the rest of the day, and all the following night, I sat in the
+corner or lay wakeful in my bunk; and it was only with the return of
+morning that a new phase of my alarms drove me once more on deck. A
+gloomier interval I never passed. Johnson and Nares steadily relieved
+each other at the wheel and came below. The first glance of each was
+at the glass, which he repeatedly knuckled and frowned upon; for it was
+sagging lower all the time. Then, if Johnson were the visitor, he would
+pick a snack out of the cupboard, and stand, braced against the table,
+eating it, and perhaps obliging me with a word or two of his hee-haw
+conversation: how it was “a son of a gun of a cold night on deck, Mr.
+Dodd” (with a grin); how “it wasn't no night for panjammers, he could
+tell me”: having transacted all which, he would throw himself down
+in his bunk and sleep his two hours with compunction. But the captain
+neither ate nor slept. “You there, Mr. Dodd?” he would say, after the
+obligatory visit to the glass. “Well, my son, we're one hundred and four
+miles” (or whatever it was) “off the island, and scudding for all we're
+worth. We'll make it to-morrow about four, or not, as the case may be.
+That's the news. And now, Mr. Dodd, I've stretched a point for you;
+you can see I'm dead tired; so just you stretch away back to your bunk
+again.” And with this attempt at geniality, his teeth would settle
+hard down on his cigar, and he would pass his spell below staring and
+blinking at the cabin lamp through a cloud of tobacco smoke. He has
+told me since that he was happy, which I should never have divined. “You
+see,” he said, “the wind we had was never anything out of the way; but
+the sea was really nasty, the schooner wanted a lot of humouring, and
+it was clear from the glass that we were close to some dirt. We might
+be running out of it, or we might be running right crack into it. Well,
+there's always something sublime about a big deal like that; and it kind
+of raises a man in his own liking. We're a queer kind of beasts, Mr.
+Dodd.”
+
+The morning broke with sinister brightness; the air alarmingly
+transparent, the sky pure, the rim of the horizon clear and strong
+against the heavens. The wind and the wild seas, now vastly swollen,
+indefatigably hunted us. I stood on deck, choking with fear; I seemed
+to lose all power upon my limbs; my knees were as paper when she plunged
+into the murderous valleys; my heart collapsed when some black mountain
+fell in avalanche beside her counter, and the water, that was more than
+spray, swept round my ankles like a torrent. I was conscious of but
+one strong desire, to bear myself decently in my terrors, and whatever
+should happen to my life, preserve my character: as the captain said,
+we are a queer kind of beasts. Breakfast time came, and I made shift
+to swallow some hot tea. Then I must stagger below to take the time,
+reading the chronometer with dizzy eyes, and marvelling the while what
+value there could be in observations taken in a ship launched (as ours
+then was) like a missile among flying seas. The forenoon dragged on in
+a grinding monotony of peril; every spoke of the wheel a rash, but an
+obliged experiment--rash as a forlorn hope, needful as the leap that
+lands a fireman from a burning staircase. Noon was made; the captain
+dined on his day's work, and I on watching him; and our place was
+entered on the chart with a meticulous precision which seemed to me
+half pitiful and half absurd, since the next eye to behold that sheet of
+paper might be the eye of an exploring fish. One o'clock came, then two;
+the captain gloomed and chafed, as he held to the coaming of the house,
+and if ever I saw dormant murder in man's eye, it was in his. God help
+the hand that should have disobeyed him.
+
+Of a sudden, he turned towards the mate, who was doing his trick at the
+wheel.
+
+“Two points on the port bow,” I heard him say. And he took the wheel
+himself.
+
+Johnson nodded, wiped his eyes with the back of his wet hand, watched a
+chance as the vessel lunged up hill, and got to the main rigging, where
+he swarmed aloft. Up and up, I watched him go, hanging on at every
+ugly plunge, gaining with every lull of the schooner's movement, until,
+clambering into the cross-trees and clinging with one arm around the
+masts, I could see him take one comprehensive sweep of the southwesterly
+horizon. The next moment, he had slid down the backstay and stood on
+deck, with a grin, a nod, and a gesture of the finger that said “yes”;
+the next again, and he was back sweating and squirming at the wheel, his
+tired face streaming and smiling, and his hair and the rags and corners
+of his clothes lashing round him in the wind.
+
+Nares went below, fetched up his binocular, and fell into a silent
+perusal of the sea-line; I also, with my unaided eyesight. Little by
+little, in that white waste of water, I began to make out a quarter
+where the whiteness appeared more condensed: the sky above was whitish
+likewise, and misty like a squall; and little by little there thrilled
+upon my ears a note deeper and more terrible than the yelling of the
+gale--the long, thundering roll of breakers. Nares wiped his night glass
+on his sleeve and passed it to me, motioning, as he did so, with his
+hand. An endless wilderness of raging billows came and went and danced
+in the circle of the glass; now and then a pale corner of sky, or the
+strong line of the horizon rugged with the heads of waves; and then of
+a sudden--come and gone ere I could fix it, with a swallow's
+swiftness--one glimpse of what we had come so far and paid so dear to
+see: the masts and rigging of a brig pencilled on heaven, with an ensign
+streaming at the main, and the ragged ribbons of a topsail thrashing
+from the yard. Again and again, with toilful searching, I recalled that
+apparition. There was no sign of any land; the wreck stood between sea
+and sky, a thing the most isolated I had ever viewed; but as we drew
+nearer, I perceived her to be defended by a line of breakers which drew
+off on either hand, and marked, indeed, the nearest segment of the reef.
+Heavy spray hung over them like a smoke, some hundred feet into the air;
+and the sound of their consecutive explosions rolled like a cannonade.
+
+In half an hour we were close in; for perhaps as long again, we skirted
+that formidable barrier toward its farther side; and presently the sea
+began insensibly to moderate and the ship to go more sweetly. We had
+gained the lee of the island as (for form's sake) I may call that ring
+of foam and haze and thunder; and shaking out a reef, wore ship and
+headed for the passage.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. THE ISLAND AND THE WRECK.
+
+
+All hands were filled with joy. It was betrayed in their alacrity and
+easy faces: Johnson smiling broadly at the wheel, Nares studying the
+sketch chart of the island with an eye at peace, and the hands clustered
+forward, eagerly talking and pointing: so manifest was our escape, so
+wonderful the attraction of a single foot of earth after so many suns
+had set and risen on an empty sea. To add to the relief, besides, by one
+of those malicious coincidences which suggest for fate the image of an
+underbred and grinning schoolboy, we had no sooner worn ship than the
+wind began to abate.
+
+For myself, however, I did but exchange anxieties. I was no sooner out
+of one fear than I fell upon another; no sooner secure that I should
+myself make the intended haven, than I began to be convinced that Trent
+was there before me. I climbed into the rigging, stood on the board, and
+eagerly scanned that ring of coral reef and bursting breaker, and the
+blue lagoon which they enclosed. The two islets within began to show
+plainly--Middle Brooks and Lower Brooks Island, the Directory named
+them: two low, bush-covered, rolling strips of sand, each with
+glittering beaches, each perhaps a mile or a mile and a half in length,
+running east and west, and divided by a narrow channel. Over these,
+innumerable as maggots, there hovered, chattered, screamed and clanged,
+millions of twinkling sea-birds: white and black; the black by far the
+largest. With singular scintillations, this vortex of winged life swayed
+to and fro in the strong sunshine, whirled continually through itself,
+and would now and again burst asunder and scatter as wide as the lagoon:
+so that I was irresistibly reminded of what I had read of nebular
+convulsions. A thin cloud overspread the area of the reef and the
+adjacent sea--the dust, as I could not but fancy, of earlier explosions.
+And a little apart, there was yet another focus of centrifugal and
+centripetal flight, where, hard by the deafening line of breakers, her
+sails (all but the tattered topsail) snugly furled down, and the red rag
+that marks Old England on the seas beating, union down, at the main--the
+Flying Scud, the fruit of so many toilers, a recollection in so many
+lives of men, whose tall spars had been mirrored in the remotest corners
+of the sea--lay stationary at last and forever, in the first stage of
+naval dissolution. Towards her, the taut Norah Creina, vulture-wise,
+wriggled to windward: come from so far to pick her bones. And, look as
+I pleased, there was no other presence of man or of man's handiwork;
+no Honolulu schooner lay there crowded with armed rivals, no smoke rose
+from the fire at which I fancied Trent cooking a meal of sea-birds. It
+seemed, after all, we were in time, and I drew a mighty breath.
+
+I had not arrived at this reviving certainty before the breakers were
+already close aboard, the leadsman at his station, and the captain
+posted in the fore cross-trees to con us through the coral lumps of the
+lagoon. All circumstances were in our favour, the light behind, the sun
+low, the wind still fresh and steady, and the tide about the turn. A
+moment later we shot at racing speed betwixt two pier heads of broken
+water; the lead began to be cast, the captain to bawl down his anxious
+directions, the schooner to tack and dodge among the scattered dangers
+of the lagoon; and at one bell in the first dog watch, we had come
+to our anchor off the north-east end of Middle Brooks Island, in five
+fathoms water. The sails were gasketted and covered, the boats emptied
+of the miscellaneous stores and odds and ends of sea-furniture, that
+accumulate in the course of a voyage, the kedge sent ashore, and the
+decks tidied down: a good three-quarters of an hour's work, during
+which I raged about the deck like a man with a strong toothache. The
+transition from the wild sea to the comparative immobility of the lagoon
+had wrought strange distress among my nerves: I could not hold still
+whether in hand or foot; the slowness of the men, tired as dogs after
+our rough experience outside, irritated me like something personal; and
+the irrational screaming of the sea-birds saddened me like a dirge. It
+was a relief when, with Nares, and a couple of hands, I might drop into
+the boat and move off at last for the Flying Scud.
+
+“She looks kind of pitiful, don't she?” observed the captain, nodding
+towards the wreck, from which we were separated by some half a mile.
+“Looks as if she didn't like her berth, and Captain Trent had used her
+badly. Give her ginger, boys!” he added to the hands, “and you can all
+have shore liberty to-night to see the birds and paint the town red.”
+
+We all laughed at the pleasantry, and the boat skimmed the faster over
+the rippling face of the lagoon. The Flying Scud would have seemed small
+enough beside the wharves of San Francisco, but she was some thrice the
+size of the Norah Creina, which had been so long our continent; and
+as we craned up at her wall-sides, she impressed us with a mountain
+magnitude. She lay head to the reef, where the huge blue wall of the
+rollers was for ever ranging up and crumbling down; and to gain her
+starboard side, we must pass below the stern. The rudder was hard aport,
+and we could read the legend:
+
+     FLYING SCUD
+
+     HULL
+
+On the other side, about the break of the poop, some half a fathom of
+rope ladder trailed over the rail, and by this we made our entrance.
+
+She was a roomy ship inside, with a raised poop standing some three feet
+higher than the deck, and a small forward house, for the men's bunks and
+the galley, just abaft the foremast. There was one boat on the house,
+and another and larger one, in beds on deck, on either hand of it. She
+had been painted white, with tropical economy, outside and in; and we
+found, later on, that the stanchions of the rail, hoops of the scuttle
+but, etc., were picked out with green. At that time, however, when we
+first stepped aboard, all was hidden under the droppings of innumerable
+sea-birds.
+
+The birds themselves gyrated and screamed meanwhile among the rigging;
+and when we looked into the galley, their outrush drove us back.
+Savage-looking fowl they were, savagely beaked, and some of the black
+ones great as eagles. Half-buried in the slush, we were aware of a
+litter of kegs in the waist; and these, on being somewhat cleaned,
+proved to be water beakers and quarter casks of mess beef with some
+colonial brand, doubtless collected there before the Tempest hove in
+sight, and while Trent and his men had no better expectation than to
+strike for Honolulu in the boats. Nothing else was notable on deck,
+save where the loose topsail had played some havoc with the rigging,
+and there hung, and swayed, and sang in the declining wind, a raffle of
+intorted cordage.
+
+With a shyness that was almost awe, Nares and I descended the companion.
+The stair turned upon itself and landed us just forward of a thwart-ship
+bulkhead that cut the poop in two. The fore part formed a kind of
+miscellaneous store-room, with a double-bunked division for the cook (as
+Nares supposed) and second mate. The after part contained, in the midst,
+the main cabin, running in a kind of bow into the curvature of the
+stern; on the port side, a pantry opening forward and a stateroom for
+the mate; and on the starboard, the captain's berth and water-closet.
+Into these we did but glance: the main cabin holding us. It was dark,
+for the sea-birds had obscured the skylight with their droppings; it
+smelt rank and fusty; and it was beset with a loud swarm of flies that
+beat continually in our faces. Supposing them close attendants upon man
+and his broken meat, I marvelled how they had found their way to Midway
+reef; it was sure at least some vessel must have brought them, and that
+long ago, for they had multiplied exceedingly. Part of the floor was
+strewn with a confusion of clothes, books, nautical instruments, odds
+and ends of finery, and such trash as might be expected from the turning
+out of several seamen's chests, upon a sudden emergency and after a
+long cruise. It was strange in that dim cabin, quivering with the near
+thunder of the breakers and pierced with the screaming of the fowls,
+to turn over so many things that other men had coveted, and prized, and
+worn on their warm bodies--frayed old underclothing, pyjamas of strange
+design, duck suits in every stage of rustiness, oil skins, pilot coats,
+bottles of scent, embroidered shirts, jackets of Ponjee silk--clothes
+for the night watch at sea or the day ashore in the hotel verandah; and
+mingled among these, books, cigars, fancy pipes, quantities of
+tobacco, many keys, a rusty pistol, and a sprinkling of cheap
+curiosities--Benares brass, Chinese jars and pictures, and bottles
+of odd shells in cotton, each designed no doubt for somebody at
+home--perhaps in Hull, of which Trent had been a native and his ship a
+citizen.
+
+Thence we turned our attention to the table, which stood spread, as if
+for a meal, with stout ship's crockery and the remains of food--a pot of
+marmalade, dregs of coffee in the mugs, unrecognisable remains of
+foods, bread, some toast, and a tin of condensed milk. The table-cloth,
+originally of a red colour, was stained a dark brown at the captain's
+end, apparently with coffee; at the other end, it had been folded back,
+and a pen and ink-pot stood on the bare table. Stools were here and
+there about the table, irregularly placed, as though the meal had been
+finished and the men smoking and chatting; and one of the stools lay on
+the floor, broken.
+
+“See! they were writing up the log,” said Nares, pointing to the
+ink-bottle. “Caught napping, as usual. I wonder if there ever was a
+captain yet, that lost a ship with his log-book up to date? He generally
+has about a month to fill up on a clean break, like Charles Dickens
+and his serial novels.--What a regular, lime-juicer spread!” he added
+contemptuously. “Marmalade--and toast for the old man! Nasty, slovenly
+pigs!”
+
+There was something in this criticism of the absent that jarred upon my
+feelings. I had no love indeed for Captain Trent or any of his vanished
+gang; but the desertion and decay of this once habitable cabin struck me
+hard: the death of man's handiwork is melancholy like the death of man
+himself; and I was impressed with an involuntary and irrational sense of
+tragedy in my surroundings.
+
+“This sickens me,” I said. “Let's go on deck and breathe.”
+
+The captain nodded. “It IS kind of lonely, isn't it?” he said. “But I
+can't go up till I get the code signals. I want to run up 'Got Left' or
+something, just to brighten up this island home. Captain Trent hasn't
+been here yet, but he'll drop in before long; and it'll cheer him up to
+see a signal on the brig.”
+
+“Isn't there some official expression we could use?” I asked, vastly
+taken by the fancy. “'Sold for the benefit of the underwriters: for
+further particulars, apply to J. Pinkerton, Montana Block, S.F.'”
+
+“Well,” returned Nares, “I won't say but what an old navy quartermaster
+might telegraph all that, if you gave him a day to do it in and a pound
+of tobacco for himself. But it's above my register. I must try something
+short and sweet: KB, urgent signal, 'Heave all aback'; or LM, urgent,
+'The berth you're now in is not safe'; or what do you say to PQH?--'Tell
+my owners the ship answers remarkably well.'”
+
+“It's premature,” I replied; “but it seems calculated to give pain to
+Trent. PQH for me.”
+
+The flags were found in Trent's cabin, neatly stored behind a lettered
+grating; Nares chose what he required and (I following) returned on
+deck, where the sun had already dipped, and the dusk was coming.
+
+“Here! don't touch that, you fool!” shouted the captain to one of the
+hands, who was drinking from the scuttle but. “That water's rotten!”
+
+“Beg pardon, sir,” replied the man. “Tastes quite sweet.”
+
+“Let me see,” returned Nares, and he took the dipper and held it to his
+lips. “Yes, it's all right,” he said. “Must have rotted and come sweet
+again. Queer, isn't it, Mr. Dodd? Though I've known the same on a Cape
+Horner.”
+
+There was something in his intonation that made me look him in the face;
+he stood a little on tiptoe to look right and left about the ship,
+like a man filled with curiosity, and his whole expression and bearing
+testified to some suppressed excitement.
+
+“You don't believe what you're saying!” I broke out.
+
+“O, I don't know but what I do!” he replied, laying a hand upon me
+soothingly. “The thing's very possible. Only, I'm bothered about
+something else.”
+
+And with that he called a hand, gave him the code flags, and stepped
+himself to the main signal halliards, which vibrated under the weight of
+the ensign overhead. A minute later, the American colours, which we had
+brought in the boat, replaced the English red, and PQH was fluttering at
+the fore.
+
+“Now, then,” said Nares, who had watched the breaking out of his signal
+with the old-maidish particularity of an American sailor, “out with
+those handspikes, and let's see what water there is in the lagoon.”
+
+The bars were shoved home; the barbarous cacophony of the clanking pump
+rose in the waist; and streams of ill-smelling water gushed on deck and
+made valleys in the slab guano. Nares leaned on the rail, watching the
+steady stream of bilge as though he found some interest in it.
+
+
+“What is it that bothers you?” I asked.
+
+“Well, I'll tell you one thing shortly,” he replied. “But here's
+another. Do you see those boats there, one on the house and two on the
+beds? Well, where is the boat Trent lowered when he lost the hands?”
+
+“Got it aboard again, I suppose,” said I.
+
+“Well, if you'll tell me why!” returned the captain.
+
+“Then it must have been another,” I suggested.
+
+“She might have carried another on the main hatch, I won't deny,”
+ admitted Nares; “but I can't see what she wanted with it, unless it
+was for the old man to go out and play the accordion in, on moonlight
+nights.”
+
+“It can't much matter, anyway,” I reflected.
+
+“O, I don't suppose it does,” said he, glancing over his shoulder at the
+spouting of the scuppers.
+
+“And how long are we to keep up this racket?” I asked. “We're simply
+pumping up the lagoon. Captain Trent himself said she had settled down
+and was full forward.”
+
+“Did he?” said Nares, with a significant dryness. And almost as he spoke
+the pumps sucked, and sucked again, and the men threw down their bars.
+“There, what do you make of that?” he asked. “Now, I'll tell, Mr. Dodd,”
+ he went on, lowering his voice, but not shifting from his easy attitude
+against the rail, “this ship is as sound as the Norah Creina. I had a
+guess of it before we came aboard, and now I know.”
+
+“It's not possible!” I cried. “What do you make of Trent?”
+
+“I don't make anything of Trent; I don't know whether he's a liar or
+only an old wife; I simply tell you what's the fact,” said Nares. “And
+I'll tell you something more,” he added: “I've taken the ground myself
+in deep-water vessels; I know what I'm saying; and I say that, when
+she first struck and before she bedded down, seven or eight hours' work
+would have got this hooker off, and there's no man that ever went two
+years to sea but must have known it.”
+
+
+I could only utter an exclamation.
+
+Nares raised his finger warningly. “Don't let THEM get hold of it,” said
+he. “Think what you like, but say nothing.”
+
+I glanced round; the dusk was melting into early night; the twinkle of
+a lantern marked the schooner's position in the distance; and our men,
+free from further labour, stood grouped together in the waist, their
+faces illuminated by their glowing pipes.
+
+“Why didn't Trent get her off?” inquired the captain. “Why did he want
+to buy her back in 'Frisco for these fabulous sums, when he might have
+sailed her into the bay himself?”
+
+“Perhaps he never knew her value until then,” I suggested.
+
+“I wish we knew her value now,” exclaimed Nares. “However, I don't want
+to depress you; I'm sorry for you, Mr. Dodd; I know how bothering it
+must be to you; and the best I can say's this: I haven't taken much
+time getting down, and now I'm here I mean to work this thing in proper
+style. I just want to put your mind at rest: you shall have no trouble
+with me.”
+
+There was something trusty and friendly in his voice; and I found myself
+gripping hands with him, in that hard, short shake that means so much
+with English-speaking people.
+
+“We'll do, old fellow,” said he. “We've shaken down into pretty good
+friends, you and me; and you won't find me working the business any the
+less hard for that. And now let's scoot for supper.”
+
+After supper, with the idle curiosity of the seafarer, we pulled ashore
+in a fine moonlight, and landed on Middle Brook's Island. A flat beach
+surrounded it upon all sides; and the midst was occupied by a thicket
+of bushes, the highest of them scarcely five feet high, in which the
+sea-fowl lived. Through this we tried at first to strike; but it were
+easier to cross Trafalgar Square on a day of demonstration than to
+invade these haunts of sleeping sea-birds. The nests sank, and the eggs
+burst under footing; wings beat in our faces, beaks menaced our eyes,
+our minds were confounded with the screeching, and the coil spread over
+the island and mounted high into the air.
+
+
+“I guess we'll saunter round the beach,” said Nares, when we had made
+good our retreat.
+
+The hands were all busy after sea-birds' eggs, so there were none to
+follow us. Our way lay on the crisp sand by the margin of the water: on
+one side, the thicket from which we had been dislodged; on the other,
+the face of the lagoon, barred with a broad path of moonlight, and
+beyond that, the line, alternately dark and shining, alternately hove
+high and fallen prone, of the external breakers. The beach was strewn
+with bits of wreck and drift: some redwood and spruce logs, no less than
+two lower masts of junks, and the stern-post of a European ship; all
+of which we looked on with a shade of serious concern, speaking of the
+dangers of the sea and the hard case of castaways. In this sober vein we
+made the greater part of the circuit of the island; had a near view
+of its neighbour from the southern end; walked the whole length of the
+westerly side in the shadow of the thicket; and came forth again into
+the moonlight at the opposite extremity.
+
+On our right, at the distance of about half a mile, the schooner lay
+faintly heaving at her anchors. About half a mile down the beach, at
+a spot still hidden from us by the thicket, an upboiling of the birds
+showed where the men were still (with sailor-like insatiability)
+collecting eggs. And right before us, in a small indentation of the
+sand, we were aware of a boat lying high and dry, and right side up.
+
+Nares crouched back into the shadow of the bushes.
+
+“What the devil's this?” he whispered.
+
+“Trent,” I suggested, with a beating heart.
+
+“We were damned fools to come ashore unarmed,” said he. “But I've got to
+know where I stand.” In the shadow, his face looked conspicuously white,
+and his voice betrayed a strong excitement. He took his boat's whistle
+from his pocket. “In case I might want to play a tune,” said he, grimly,
+and thrusting it between his teeth, advanced into the moonlit open;
+which we crossed with rapid steps, looking guiltily about us as we
+went. Not a leaf stirred; and the boat, when we came up to it, offered
+convincing proof of long desertion. She was an eighteen-foot whaleboat
+of the ordinary type, equipped with oars and thole-pins. Two or three
+quarter-casks lay on the bilge amidships, one of which must have been
+broached, and now stank horribly; and these, upon examination, proved to
+bear the same New Zealand brand as the beef on board the wreck.
+
+“Well, here's the boat,” said I; “here's one of your difficulties
+cleared away.”
+
+“H'm,” said he. There was a little water in the bilge, and here he
+stooped and tasted it.
+
+“Fresh,” he said. “Only rain-water.”
+
+“You don't object to that?” I asked.
+
+“No,” said he.
+
+“Well, then, what ails you?” I cried.
+
+“In plain United States, Mr. Dodd,” he returned, “a whaleboat, five ash
+sweeps, and a barrel of stinking pork.”
+
+“Or, in other words, the whole thing?” I commented.
+
+“Well, it's this way,” he condescended to explain. “I've no use for a
+fourth boat at all; but a boat of this model tops the business. I don't
+say the type's not common in these waters; it's as common as dirt; the
+traders carry them for surf-boats. But the Flying Scud? a deep-water
+tramp, who was lime-juicing around between big ports, Calcutta and
+Rangoon and 'Frisco and the Canton River? No, I don't see it.”
+
+We were leaning over the gunwale of the boat as we spoke. The captain
+stood nearest the bow, and he was idly playing with the trailing
+painter, when a thought arrested him. He hauled the line in hand over
+hand, and stared, and remained staring, at the end.
+
+“Anything wrong with it?” I asked.
+
+“Do you know, Mr. Dodd,” said he, in a queer voice, “this painter's been
+cut? A sailor always seizes a rope's end, but this is sliced short off
+with the cold steel. This won't do at all for the men,” he added. “Just
+stand by till I fix it up more natural.”
+
+“Any guess what it all means?” I asked.
+
+“Well, it means one thing,” said he. “It means Trent was a liar. I guess
+the story of the Flying Scud was a sight more picturesque than he gave
+out.”
+
+Half an hour later, the whaleboat was lying astern of the Norah Creina;
+and Nares and I sought our bunks, silent and half-bewildered by our late
+discoveries.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV. THE CABIN OF THE “FLYING SCUD.”
+
+
+The sun of the morrow had not cleared the morning bank: the lake of the
+lagoon, the islets, and the wall of breakers now beginning to subside,
+still lay clearly pictured in the flushed obscurity of early day, when
+we stepped again upon the deck of the Flying Scud: Nares, myself,
+the mate, two of the hands, and one dozen bright, virgin axes, in war
+against that massive structure. I think we all drew pleasurable breath;
+so profound in man is the instinct of destruction, so engaging is the
+interest of the chase. For we were now about to taste, in a supreme
+degree, the double joys of demolishing a toy and playing “Hide the
+handkerchief”: sports from which we had all perhaps desisted since the
+days of infancy. And the toy we were to burst in pieces was a deep-sea
+ship; and the hidden good for which we were to hunt was a prodigious
+fortune.
+
+The decks were washed down, the main hatch removed, and a gun-tackle
+purchase rigged before the boat arrived with breakfast. I had grown so
+suspicious of the wreck, that it was a positive relief to me to look
+down into the hold, and see it full, or nearly full, of undeniable rice
+packed in the Chinese fashion in boluses of matting. Breakfast over,
+Johnson and the hands turned to upon the cargo; while Nares and I,
+having smashed open the skylight and rigged up a windsail on deck, began
+the work of rummaging the cabins.
+
+I must not be expected to describe our first day's work, or (for that
+matter) any of the rest, in order and detail as it occurred. Such
+particularity might have been possible for several officers and a draft
+of men from a ship of war, accompanied by an experienced secretary with
+a knowledge of shorthand. For two plain human beings, unaccustomed to
+the use of the broad-axe and consumed with an impatient greed of the
+result, the whole business melts, in the retrospect, into a nightmare
+of exertion, heat, hurry, and bewilderment; sweat pouring from the face
+like rain, the scurry of rats, the choking exhalations of the bilge, and
+the throbs and splinterings of the toiling axes. I shall content myself
+with giving the cream of our discoveries in a logical rather than a
+temporal order; though the two indeed practically coincided, and we had
+finished our exploration of the cabin, before we could be certain of the
+nature of the cargo.
+
+Nares and I began operations by tossing up pell-mell through the
+companion, and piling in a squalid heap about the wheel, all clothes,
+personal effects, the crockery, the carpet, stale victuals, tins of
+meat, and in a word, all movables from the main cabin. Thence, we
+transferred our attention to the captain's quarters on the starboard
+side. Using the blankets for a basket, we sent up the books,
+instruments, and clothes to swell our growing midden on the deck; and
+then Nares, going on hands and knees, began to forage underneath
+the bed. Box after box of Manilla cigars rewarded his search. I took
+occasion to smash some of these boxes open, and even to guillotine
+the bundles of cigars; but quite in vain--no secret cache of opium
+encouraged me to continue.
+
+“I guess I've got hold of the dicky now!” exclaimed Nares, and turning
+round from my perquisitions, I found he had drawn forth a heavy iron
+box, secured to the bulkhead by chain and padlock. On this he was now
+gazing, not with the triumph that instantly inflamed my own bosom, but
+with a somewhat foolish appearance of surprise.
+
+“By George, we have it now!” I cried, and would have shaken hands with
+my companion; but he did not see, or would not accept, the salutation.
+
+“Let's see what's in it first,” he remarked dryly. And he adjusted the
+box upon its side, and with some blows of an axe burst the lock open.
+I threw myself beside him, as he replaced the box on its bottom and
+removed the lid. I cannot tell what I expected; a million's worth of
+diamonds might perhaps have pleased me; my cheeks burned, my heart
+throbbed to bursting; and lo! there was disclosed but a trayful of
+papers, neatly taped, and a cheque-book of the customary pattern. I made
+a snatch at the tray to see what was beneath; but the captain's hand
+fell on mine, heavy and hard.
+
+“Now, boss!” he cried, not unkindly, “is this to be run shipshape? or is
+it a Dutch grab-racket?”
+
+And he proceeded to untie and run over the contents of the papers,
+with a serious face and what seemed an ostentation of delay. Me and my
+impatience it would appear he had forgotten; for when he was quite done,
+he sat a while thinking, whistled a bar or two, refolded the papers,
+tied them up again; and then, and not before, deliberately raised the
+tray.
+
+I saw a cigar-box, tied with a piece of fishing-line, and four fat
+canvas-bags. Nares whipped out his knife, cut the line, and opened the
+box. It was about half full of sovereigns.
+
+“And the bags?” I whispered.
+
+The captain ripped them open one by one, and a flood of mixed silver
+coin burst forth and rattled in the rusty bottom of the box. Without a
+word, he set to work to count the gold.
+
+“What is this?” I asked.
+
+“It's the ship's money,” he returned, doggedly continuing his work.
+
+“The ship's money?” I repeated. “That's the money Trent tramped and
+traded with? And there's his cheque-book to draw upon his owners? And he
+has left it?”
+
+“I guess he has,” said Nares, austerely, jotting down a note of the
+gold; and I was abashed into silence till his task should be completed.
+
+It came, I think, to three hundred and seventy-eight pounds sterling;
+some nineteen pounds of it in silver: all of which we turned again into
+the chest.
+
+“And what do you think of that?” I asked.
+
+“Mr. Dodd,” he replied, “you see something of the rumness of this job,
+but not the whole. The specie bothers you, but what gets me is the
+papers. Are you aware that the master of a ship has charge of all the
+cash in hand, pays the men advances, receives freight and passage
+money, and runs up bills in every port? All this he does as the owner's
+confidential agent, and his integrity is proved by his receipted bills.
+I tell you, the captain of a ship is more likely to forget his pants
+than these bills which guarantee his character. I've known men drown to
+save them: bad men, too; but this is the shipmaster's honour. And here
+this Captain Trent--not hurried, not threatened with anything but a free
+passage in a British man-of-war--has left them all behind! I don't want
+to express myself too strongly, because the facts appear against me, but
+the thing is impossible.”
+
+Dinner came to us not long after, and we ate it on deck, in a grim
+silence, each privately racking his brain for some solution of the
+mysteries. I was indeed so swallowed up in these considerations, that
+the wreck, the lagoon, the islets, and the strident sea-fowl, the strong
+sun then beating on my head, and even the gloomy countenance of the
+captain at my elbow, all vanished from the field of consciousness. My
+mind was a blackboard, on which I scrawled and blotted out hypotheses;
+comparing each with the pictorial records in my memory: cyphering with
+pictures. In the course of this tense mental exercise I recalled and
+studied the faces of one memorial masterpiece, the scene of the saloon;
+and here I found myself, on a sudden, looking in the eyes of the Kanaka.
+
+“There's one thing I can put beyond doubt, at all events,” I cried,
+relinquishing my dinner and getting briskly afoot. “There was that
+Kanaka I saw in the bar with Captain Trent, the fellow the newspapers
+and ship's articles made out to be a Chinaman. I mean to rout his
+quarters out and settle that.”
+
+“All right,” said Nares. “I'll lazy off a bit longer, Mr. Dodd; I feel
+pretty rocky and mean.”
+
+We had thoroughly cleared out the three after-compartments of the ship:
+all the stuff from the main cabin and the mate's and captain's quarters
+lay piled about the wheel; but in the forward stateroom with the two
+bunks, where Nares had said the mate and cook most likely berthed,
+we had as yet done nothing. Thither I went. It was very bare; a few
+photographs were tacked on the bulkhead, one of them indecent; a single
+chest stood open, and, like all we had yet found, it had been partly
+rifled. An armful of two-shilling novels proved to me beyond a doubt
+it was a European's; no Chinaman would have possessed any, and the most
+literate Kanaka conceivable in a ship's galley was not likely to have
+gone beyond one. It was plain, then, that the cook had not berthed aft,
+and I must look elsewhere.
+
+The men had stamped down the nests and driven the birds from the galley,
+so that I could now enter without contest. One door had been already
+blocked with rice; the place was in part darkness, full of a foul stale
+smell, and a cloud of nasty flies; it had been left, besides, in some
+disorder, or else the birds, during their time of tenancy, had knocked
+the things about; and the floor, like the deck before we washed it, was
+spread with pasty filth. Against the wall, in the far corner, I found
+a handsome chest of camphor-wood bound with brass, such as Chinamen and
+sailors love, and indeed all of mankind that plies in the Pacific. From
+its outside view I could thus make no deduction; and, strange to
+say, the interior was concealed. All the other chests, as I have said
+already, we had found gaping open, and their contents scattered abroad;
+the same remark we found to apply afterwards in the quarters of the
+seamen; only this camphor-wood chest, a singular exception, was both
+closed and locked.
+
+I took an axe to it, readily forced the paltry Chinese fastening, and,
+like a Custom-House officer, plunged my hands among the contents. For
+some while I groped among linen and cotton. Then my teeth were set
+on edge with silk, of which I drew forth several strips covered with
+mysterious characters. And these settled the business, for I recognised
+them as a kind of bed-hanging popular with the commoner class of the
+Chinese. Nor were further evidences wanting, such as night-clothes of
+an extraordinary design, a three-stringed Chinese fiddle, a silk
+handkerchief full of roots and herbs, and a neat apparatus for smoking
+opium, with a liberal provision of the drug. Plainly, then, the cook had
+been a Chinaman; and, if so, who was Jos. Amalu? Or had Jos. stolen the
+chest before he proceeded to ship under a false name and domicile? It
+was possible, as anything was possible in such a welter; but, regarded
+as a solution, it only led and left me deeper in the bog. For why
+should this chest have been deserted and neglected, when the others were
+rummaged or removed? and where had Jos. come by that second chest, with
+which (according to the clerk at the What Cheer) he had started for
+Honolulu?
+
+
+“And how have YOU fared?” inquired the captain, whom I found luxuriously
+reclining in our mound of litter. And the accent on the pronoun, the
+heightened colour of the speaker's face, and the contained excitement
+in his tones, advertised me at once that I had not been alone to make
+discoveries.
+
+“I have found a Chinaman's chest in the galley,” said I, “and John (if
+there was any John) was not so much as at the pains to take his opium.”
+
+Nares seemed to take it mighty quietly. “That so?” said he. “Now, cast
+your eyes on that and own you're beaten!” And with a formidable clap
+of his open hand he flattened out before me, on the deck, a pair of
+newspapers.
+
+I gazed upon them dully, being in no mood for fresh discoveries.
+
+“Look at them, Mr. Dodd,” cried the captain sharply. “Can't you look
+at them?” And he ran a dirty thumb along the title. “'_Sydney Morning
+Herald_, November 26th,' can't you make that out?” he cried, with rising
+energy. “And don't you know, sir, that not thirteen days after this
+paper appeared in New South Pole, this ship we're standing in heaved her
+blessed anchors out of China? How did the _Sydney Morning Herald_ get to
+Hong Kong in thirteen days? Trent made no land, he spoke no ship, till
+he got here. Then he either got it here or in Hong Kong. I give you your
+choice, my son!” he cried, and fell back among the clothes like a man
+weary of life.
+
+“Where did you find them?” I asked. “In that black bag?”
+
+“Guess so,” he said. “You needn't fool with it. There's nothing else but
+a lead-pencil and a kind of worked-out knife.”
+
+I looked in the bag, however, and was well rewarded.
+
+“Every man to his trade, captain,” said I. “You're a sailor, and you've
+given me plenty of points; but I am an artist, and allow me to
+inform you this is quite as strange as all the rest. The knife is a
+palette-knife; the pencil a Winsor and Newton, and a B B B at that.
+A palette-knife and a B B B on a tramp brig! It's against the laws of
+nature.”
+
+“It would sicken a dog, wouldn't it?” said Nares.
+
+“Yes,” I continued, “it's been used by an artist, too: see how it's
+sharpened--not for writing--no man could write with that. An artist, and
+straight from Sydney? How can he come in?”
+
+“O, that's natural enough,” sneered Nares. “They cabled him to come up
+and illustrate this dime novel.”
+
+We fell a while silent.
+
+“Captain,” I said at last, “there is something deuced underhand about
+this brig. You tell me you've been to sea a good part of your life. You
+must have seen shady things done on ships, and heard of more. Well, what
+is this? is it insurance? is it piracy? what is it ABOUT? what can it be
+for?”
+
+“Mr. Dodd,” returned Nares, “you're right about me having been to sea
+the bigger part of my life. And you're right again when you think I know
+a good many ways in which a dishonest captain mayn't be on the square,
+nor do exactly the right thing by his owners, and altogether be just a
+little too smart by ninety-nine and three-quarters. There's a good many
+ways, but not so many as you'd think; and not one that has any mortal
+thing to do with Trent. Trent and his whole racket has got to do with
+nothing--that's the bed-rock fact; there's no sense to it, and no use
+in it, and no story to it: it's a beastly dream. And don't you run away
+with that notion that landsmen take about ships. A society actress don't
+go around more publicly than what a ship does, nor is more interviewed,
+nor more humbugged, nor more run after by all sorts of little
+fussinesses in brass buttons. And more than an actress, a ship has a
+deal to lose; she's capital, and the actress only character--if she's
+that. The ports of the world are thick with people ready to kick a
+captain into the penitentiary if he's not as bright as a dollar and as
+honest as the morning star; and what with Lloyd keeping watch and watch
+in every corner of the three oceans, and the insurance leeches, and the
+consuls, and the customs bugs, and the medicos, you can only get
+the idea by thinking of a landsman watched by a hundred and fifty
+detectives, or a stranger in a village Down East.”
+
+“Well, but at sea?” I said.
+
+“You make me tired,” retorted the captain. “What's the use--at sea?
+Everything's got to come to bearings at some port, hasn't it? You can't
+stop at sea for ever, can you?--No; the Flying Scud is rubbish; if it
+meant anything, it would have to mean something so almighty intricate
+that James G. Blaine hasn't got the brains to engineer it; and I vote
+for more axeing, pioneering, and opening up the resources of this
+phenomenal brig, and less general fuss,” he added, arising. “The
+dime-museum symptoms will drop in of themselves, I guess, to keep us
+cheery.”
+
+But it appeared we were at the end of discoveries for the day; and we
+left the brig about sundown, without being further puzzled or further
+enlightened. The best of the cabin spoils--books, instruments, papers,
+silks, and curiosities--we carried along with us in a blanket, however,
+to divert the evening hours; and when supper was over, and the table
+cleared, and Johnson set down to a dreary game of cribbage between his
+right hand and his left, the captain and I turned out our blanket on the
+floor, and sat side by side to examine and appraise the spoils.
+
+The books were the first to engage our notice. These were rather
+numerous (as Nares contemptuously put it) “for a lime-juicer.” Scorn
+of the British mercantile marine glows in the breast of every Yankee
+merchant captain; as the scorn is not reciprocated, I can only suppose
+it justified in fact; and certainly the old country mariner appears of a
+less studious disposition. The more credit to the officers of the Flying
+Scud, who had quite a library, both literary and professional. There
+were Findlay's five directories of the world--all broken-backed, as is
+usual with Findlay, and all marked and scribbled over with corrections
+and additions--several books of navigation, a signal code, and an
+Admiralty book of a sort of orange hue, called _Islands of the Eastern
+Pacific Ocean, Vol. III._, which appeared from its imprint to be the
+latest authority, and showed marks of frequent consultation in the
+passages about the French Frigate Shoals, the Harman, Cure, Pearl, and
+Hermes reefs, Lisiansky Island, Ocean Island, and the place where
+we then lay--Brooks or Midway. A volume of Macaulay's _Essays_ and a
+shilling Shakespeare led the van of the belles lettres; the rest were
+novels: several Miss Braddons--of course, _Aurora Floyd_, which has
+penetrated to every isle of the Pacific, a good many cheap detective
+books, _Rob Roy_, Auerbach's _Auf der Hohe_ in the German, and a prize
+temperance story, pillaged (to judge by the stamp) from an Anglo-Indian
+circulating library.
+
+“The Admiralty man gives a fine picture of our island,” remarked Nares,
+who had turned up Midway Island. “He draws the dreariness rather mild,
+but you can make out he knows the place.”
+
+“Captain,” I cried, “you've struck another point in this mad business.
+See here,” I went on eagerly, drawing from my pocket a crumpled fragment
+of the _Daily Occidental_ which I had inherited from Jim: “'misled by
+Hoyt's Pacific Directory'? Where's Hoyt?”
+
+“Let's look into that,” said Nares. “I got that book on purpose for this
+cruise.” Therewith he fetched it from the shelf in his berth, turned to
+Midway Island, and read the account aloud. It stated with precision that
+the Pacific Mail Company were about to form a depot there, in preference
+to Honolulu, and that they had already a station on the island.
+
+“I wonder who gives these Directory men their information,” Nares
+reflected. “Nobody can blame Trent after that. I never got in company
+with squarer lying; it reminds a man of a presidential campaign.”
+
+“All very well,” said I. “That's your Hoyt, and a fine, tall copy. But
+what I want to know is, where is Trent's Hoyt?”
+
+“Took it with him,” chuckled Nares. “He had left everything else, bills
+and money and all the rest; he was bound to take something, or it would
+have aroused attention on the Tempest: 'Happy thought,' says he, 'let's
+take Hoyt.'”
+
+“And has it not occurred to you,” I went on, “that all the Hoyts in
+creation couldn't have misled Trent, since he had in his hand that red
+admiralty book, an official publication, later in date, and particularly
+full on Midway Island?”
+
+“That's a fact!” cried Nares; “and I bet the first Hoyt he ever saw
+was out of the mercantile library of San Francisco. Looks as if he had
+brought her here on purpose, don't it? But then that's inconsistent with
+the steam-crusher of the sale. That's the trouble with this brig racket;
+any one can make half a dozen theories for sixty or seventy per cent
+of it; but when they're made, there's always a fathom or two of slack
+hanging out of the other end.”
+
+I believe our attention fell next on the papers, of which we had
+altogether a considerable bulk. I had hoped to find among these matter
+for a full-length character of Captain Trent; but here I was doomed, on
+the whole, to disappointment. We could make out he was an orderly man,
+for all his bills were docketed and preserved. That he was convivial,
+and inclined to be frugal even in conviviality, several documents
+proclaimed. Such letters as we found were, with one exception, arid
+notes from tradesmen. The exception, signed Hannah Trent, was a somewhat
+fervid appeal for a loan. “You know what misfortunes I have had to
+bear,” wrote Hannah, “and how much I am disappointed in George. The
+landlady appeared a true friend when I first came here, and I thought
+her a perfect lady. But she has come out since then in her true colours;
+and if you will not be softened by this last appeal, I can't think what
+is to become of your affectionate----” and then the signature. This
+document was without place or date, and a voice told me that it had gone
+likewise without answer. On the whole, there were few letters anywhere
+in the ship; but we found one before we were finished, in a seaman's
+chest, of which I must transcribe some sentences. It was dated from some
+place on the Clyde. “My dearist son,” it ran, “this is to tell you your
+dearist father passed away, Jan twelft, in the peace of the Lord. He had
+your photo and dear David's lade upon his bed, made me sit by him.
+Let's be a' thegither, he said, and gave you all his blessing. O my dear
+laddie, why were nae you and Davie here? He would have had a happier
+passage. He spok of both of ye all night most beautiful, and how ye used
+to stravaig on the Saturday afternoons, and of auld Kelvinside. Sooth
+the tune to me, he said, though it was the Sabbath, and I had to sooth
+him Kelvin Grove, and he looked at his fiddle, the dear man. I cannae
+bear the sight of it, he'll never play it mair. O my lamb, come home to
+me, I'm all by my lane now.” The rest was in a religious vein and quite
+conventional. I have never seen any one more put out than Nares, when I
+handed him this letter; he had read but a few words, before he cast
+it down; it was perhaps a minute ere he picked it up again, and the
+performance was repeated the third time before he reached the end.
+
+“It's touching, isn't it?” said I.
+
+For all answer, Nares exploded in a brutal oath; and it was some half an
+hour later that he vouchsafed an explanation. “I'll tell you what broke
+me up about that letter,” said he. “My old man played the fiddle, played
+it all out of tune: one of the things he played was _Martyrdom,_ I
+remember--it was all martyrdom to me. He was a pig of a father, and I
+was a pig of a son; but it sort of came over me I would like to hear
+that fiddle squeak again. Natural,” he added; “I guess we're all
+beasts.”
+
+“All sons are, I guess,” said I. “I have the same trouble on my
+conscience: we can shake hands on that.” Which (oddly enough, perhaps)
+we did.
+
+Amongst the papers we found a considerable sprinkling of photographs;
+for the most part either of very debonair-looking young ladies or old
+women of the lodging-house persuasion. But one among them was the means
+of our crowning discovery.
+
+“They're not pretty, are they, Mr. Dodd?” said Nares, as he passed it
+over.
+
+“Who?” I asked, mechanically taking the card (it was a quarter-plate)
+in hand, and smothering a yawn; for the hour was late, the day had been
+laborious, and I was wearying for bed.
+
+“Trent and Company,” said he. “That's a historic picture of the gang.”
+
+I held it to the light, my curiosity at a low ebb: I had seen Captain
+Trent once, and had no delight in viewing him again. It was a photograph
+of the deck of the brig, taken from forward: all in apple-pie order; the
+hands gathered in the waist, the officers on the poop. At the foot of
+the card was written “Brig Flying Scud, Rangoon,” and a date; and above
+or below each individual figure the name had been carefully noted.
+
+As I continued to gaze, a shock went through me; the dimness of sleep
+and fatigue lifted from my eyes, as fog lifts in the channel; and I
+beheld with startled clearness the photographic presentment of a crowd
+of strangers. “J. Trent, Master” at the top of the card directed me to
+a smallish, weazened man, with bushy eyebrows and full white beard,
+dressed in a frock coat and white trousers; a flower stuck in his
+button-hole, his bearded chin set forward, his mouth clenched with
+habitual determination. There was not much of the sailor in his looks,
+but plenty of the martinet: a dry, precise man, who might pass for a
+preacher in some rigid sect; and whatever he was, not the Captain
+Trent of San Francisco. The men, too, were all new to me: the cook, an
+unmistakable Chinaman, in his characteristic dress, standing apart on
+the poop steps. But perhaps I turned on the whole with the greatest
+curiosity to the figure labelled “E. Goddedaal, 1st off.” He whom I had
+never seen, he might be the identical; he might be the clue and spring
+of all this mystery; and I scanned his features with the eye of a
+detective. He was of great stature, seemingly blonde as a viking,
+his hair clustering round his head in frowsy curls, and two enormous
+whiskers, like the tusks of some strange animal, jutting from his
+cheeks. With these virile appendages and the defiant attitude in which
+he stood, the expression of his face only imperfectly harmonised. It was
+wild, heroic, and womanish looking; and I felt I was prepared to hear he
+was a sentimentalist, and to see him weep.
+
+For some while I digested my discovery in private, reflecting how best,
+and how with most of drama, I might share it with the captain. Then my
+sketch-book came in my head; and I fished it out from where it lay, with
+other miscellaneous possessions, at the foot of my bunk and turned to
+my sketch of Captain Trent and the survivors of the British brig Flying
+Scud in the San Francisco bar-room.
+
+“Nares,” said I, “I've told you how I first saw Captain Trent in that
+saloon in 'Frisco? how he came with his men, one of them a Kanaka with
+a canary-bird in a cage? and how I saw him afterwards at the auction,
+frightened to death, and as much surprised at how the figures skipped up
+as anybody there? Well,” said I, “there's the man I saw”--and I laid
+the sketch before him--“there's Trent of 'Frisco and there are his three
+hands. Find one of them in the photograph, and I'll be obliged.”
+
+Nares compared the two in silence. “Well,” he said at last, “I call this
+rather a relief: seems to clear the horizon. We might have guessed at
+something of the kind from the double ration of chests that figured.”
+
+“Does it explain anything?” I asked.
+
+“It would explain everything,” Nares replied, “but for the
+steam-crusher. It'll all tally as neat as a patent puzzle, if you leave
+out the way these people bid the wreck up. And there we come to a stone
+wall. But whatever it is, Mr. Dodd, it's on the crook.”
+
+“And looks like piracy,” I added.
+
+“Looks like blind hookey!” cried the captain. “No, don't you deceive
+yourself; neither your head nor mine is big enough to put a name on this
+business.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV. THE CARGO OF THE “FLYING SCUD.”
+
+
+In my early days I was a man, the most wedded to his idols of my
+generation. I was a dweller under roofs: the gull of that which we call
+civilisation; a superstitious votary of the plastic arts; a cit; and
+a prop of restaurants. I had a comrade in those days, somewhat of an
+outsider, though he moved in the company of artists, and a man famous
+in our small world for gallantry, knee breeches, and dry and pregnant
+sayings. He, looking on the long meals and waxing bellies of the French,
+whom I confess I somewhat imitated, branded me as “a cultivator of
+restaurant fat.” And I believe he had his finger on the dangerous spot;
+I believe, if things had gone smooth with me, I should be now swollen
+like a prize-ox in body, and fallen in mind to a thing perhaps as low
+as many types of bourgeois--the implicit or exclusive artist. That was a
+home word of Pinkerton's, deserving to be writ in letters of gold on the
+portico of every school of art: “What I can't see is why you should want
+to do nothing else.” The dull man is made, not by the nature, but by the
+degree of his immersion in a single business. And all the more if that
+be sedentary, uneventful, and ingloriously safe. More than one half
+of him will then remain unexercised and undeveloped; the rest will be
+distended and deformed by over-nutrition, over-cerebration, and the heat
+of rooms. And I have often marvelled at the impudence of gentlemen,
+who describe and pass judgment on the life of man, in almost perfect
+ignorance of all its necessary elements and natural careers. Those
+who dwell in clubs and studios may paint excellent pictures or write
+enchanting novels. There is one thing that they should not do: they
+should pass no judgment on man's destiny, for it is a thing with which
+they are unacquainted. Their own life is an excrescence of the moment,
+doomed, in the vicissitude of history, to pass and disappear: the
+eternal life of man, spent under sun and rain and in rude physical
+effort, lies upon one side, scarce changed since the beginning.
+
+I would I could have carried along with me to Midway Island all the
+writers and the prating artists of my time. Day after day of hope
+deferred, of heat, of unremitting toil; night after night of aching
+limbs, bruised hands, and a mind obscured with the grateful vacancy of
+physical fatigue: the scene, the nature of my employment; the rugged
+speech and faces of my fellow-toilers, the glare of the day on deck, the
+stinking twilight in the bilge, the shrill myriads of the ocean-fowl:
+above all, the sense of our immitigable isolation from the world and
+from the current epoch;--keeping another time, some eras old; the new
+day heralded by no daily paper, only by the rising sun; and the State,
+the churches, the peopled empires, war, and the rumours of war, and the
+voices of the arts, all gone silent as in the days ere they were yet
+invented. Such were the conditions of my new experience in life,
+of which (if I had been able) I would have had all my confreres and
+contemporaries to partake: forgetting, for that while, the orthodoxies
+of the moment, and devoted to a single and material purpose under the
+eye of heaven.
+
+Of the nature of our task, I must continue to give some summary idea.
+The forecastle was lumbered with ship's chandlery, the hold nigh full of
+rice, the lazarette crowded with the teas and silks. These must all be
+dug out; and that made but a fraction of our task. The hold was ceiled
+throughout; a part, where perhaps some delicate cargo was once stored,
+had been lined, in addition, with inch boards; and between every beam
+there was a movable panel into the bilge. Any of these, the bulkheads of
+the cabins, the very timbers of the hull itself, might be the place of
+hiding. It was therefore necessary to demolish, as we proceeded, a
+great part of the ship's inner skin and fittings, and to auscultate what
+remained, like a doctor sounding for a lung disease. Upon the return,
+from any beam or bulkhead, of a flat or doubtful sound, we must up axe
+and hew into the timber: a violent and--from the amount of dry rot in
+the wreck--a mortifying exercise. Every night saw a deeper inroad into
+the bones of the Flying Scud--more beams tapped and hewn in splinters,
+more planking peeled away and tossed aside--and every night saw us as
+far as ever from the end and object of our arduous devastation. In this
+perpetual disappointment, my courage did not fail me, but my spirits
+dwindled; and Nares himself grew silent and morose. At night, when
+supper was done, we passed an hour in the cabin, mostly without speech:
+I, sometimes dozing over a book; Nares, sullenly but busily drilling
+sea-shells with the instrument called a Yankee Fiddle. A stranger might
+have supposed we were estranged; as a matter of fact, in this silent
+comradeship of labour, our intimacy grew.
+
+I had been struck, at the first beginning of our enterprise upon the
+wreck, to find the men so ready at the captain's lightest word. I
+dare not say they liked, but I can never deny that they admired him
+thoroughly. A mild word from his mouth was more valued than flattery
+and half a dollar from myself; if he relaxed at all from his habitual
+attitude of censure, smiling alacrity surrounded him; and I was led to
+think his theory of captainship, even if pushed to excess, reposed upon
+some ground of reason. But even terror and admiration of the
+captain failed us before the end. The men wearied of the hopeless,
+unremunerative quest and the long strain of labour. They began to
+shirk and grumble. Retribution fell on them at once, and retribution
+multiplied the grumblings. With every day it took harder driving to keep
+them to the daily drudge; and we, in our narrow boundaries, were kept
+conscious every moment of the ill-will of our assistants.
+
+In spite of the best care, the object of our search was perfectly well
+known to all on board; and there had leaked out besides some knowledge
+of those inconsistencies that had so greatly amazed the captain and
+myself. I could overhear the men debate the character of Captain Trent,
+and set forth competing theories of where the opium was stowed; and as
+they seemed to have been eavesdropping on ourselves, I thought little
+shame to prick up my ears when I had the return chance of spying upon
+them, in this way. I could diagnose their temper and judge how far they
+were informed upon the mystery of the Flying Scud. It was after having
+thus overheard some almost mutinous speeches that a fortunate idea
+crossed my mind. At night, I matured it in my bed, and the first thing
+the next morning, broached it to the captain.
+
+“Suppose I spirit up the hands a bit,” I asked, “by the offer of a
+reward?”
+
+“If you think you're getting your month's wages out of them the way it
+is, I don't,” was his reply. “However, they are all the men you've got,
+and you're the supercargo.”
+
+This, from a person of the captain's character, might be regarded as
+complete adhesion; and the crew were accordingly called aft. Never had
+the captain worn a front more menacing. It was supposed by all that some
+misdeed had been discovered, and some surprising punishment was to be
+announced.
+
+“See here, you!” he threw at them over his shoulder as he walked the
+deck, “Mr. Dodd here is going to offer a reward to the first man who
+strikes the opium in that wreck. There's two ways of making a donkey go;
+both good, I guess: the one's kicks and the other's carrots. Mr. Dodd's
+going to try the carrots. Well, my sons,”--and here he faced the men for
+the first time with his hands behind him--“if that opium's not found in
+five days, you can come to me for the kicks.”
+
+He nodded to the present narrator, who took up the tale. “Here is what
+I propose, men,” said I: “I put up one hundred and fifty dollars. If
+any man can lay hands on the stuff right away, and off his own club,
+he shall have the hundred and fifty down. If any one can put us on the
+scent of where to look, he shall have a hundred and twenty-five, and the
+balance shall be for the lucky one who actually picks it up. We'll call
+it the Pinkerton Stakes, captain,” I added, with a smile.
+
+“Call it the Grand Combination Sweep, then,” cries he. “For I go you
+better.--Look here, men, I make up this jack-pot to two hundred and
+fifty dollars, American gold coin.”
+
+“Thank you, Captain Nares,” said I; “that was handsomely done.”
+
+“It was kindly meant,” he returned.
+
+The offer was not made in vain; the hands had scarce yet realised the
+magnitude of the reward, they had scarce begun to buzz aloud in the
+extremity of hope and wonder, ere the Chinese cook stepped forward with
+gracious gestures and explanatory smiles.
+
+“Captain,” he began, “I serv-um two year Melican navy; serv-um six year
+mail-boat steward. Savvy plenty.”
+
+“Oho!” cried Nares, “you savvy plenty, do you? (Beggar's seen this trick
+in the mail-boats, I guess.) Well, why you no savvy a little sooner,
+sonny?”
+
+“I think bimeby make-um reward,” replied the cook, with smiling dignity.
+
+“Well, you can't say fairer than that,” the captain admitted, “and now
+the reward's offered, you'll talk? Speak up, then. Suppose you speak
+true, you get reward. See?”
+
+“I think long time,” replied the Chinaman. “See plenty litty mat lice;
+too-muchy plenty litty mat lice; sixty ton, litty mat lice. I think
+all-e-time: perhaps plenty opium plenty litty mat lice.”
+
+“Well, Mr. Dodd, how does that strike you?” asked the captain. “He may
+be right, he may be wrong. He's likely to be right: for if he isn't,
+where can the stuff be? On the other hand, if he's wrong, we destroy
+a hundred and fifty tons of good rice for nothing. It's a point to be
+considered.”
+
+“I don't hesitate,” said I. “Let's get to the bottom of the thing. The
+rice is nothing; the rice will neither make nor break us.”
+
+“That's how I expected you to see it,” returned Nares.
+
+And we called the boat away and set forth on our new quest.
+
+The hold was now almost entirely emptied; the mats (of which there went
+forty to the short ton) had been stacked on deck, and now crowded the
+ship's waist and forecastle. It was our task to disembowel and explore
+six thousand individual mats, and incidentally to destroy a hundred and
+fifty tons of valuable food. Nor were the circumstances of the day's
+business less strange than its essential nature. Each man of us, armed
+with a great knife, attacked the pile from his own quarter, slashed into
+the nearest mat, burrowed in it with his hands, and shed forth the rice
+upon the deck, where it heaped up, overflowed, and was trodden down,
+poured at last into the scuppers, and occasionally spouted from the
+vents. About the wreck, thus transformed into an overflowing granary,
+the sea-fowl swarmed in myriads and with surprising insolence. The sight
+of so much food confounded them; they deafened us with their shrill
+tongues, swooped in our midst, dashed in our faces, and snatched the
+grain from between our fingers. The men--their hands bleeding from these
+assaults--turned savagely on the offensive, drove their knives into the
+birds, drew them out crimsoned, and turned again to dig among the rice,
+unmindful of the gawking creatures that struggled and died among their
+feet. We made a singular picture: the hovering and diving birds; the
+bodies of the dead discolouring the rice with blood; the scuppers
+vomiting breadstuff; the men, frenzied by the gold hunt, toiling,
+slaying, and shouting aloud: over all, the lofty intricacy of rigging
+and the radiant heaven of the Pacific. Every man there toiled in the
+immediate hope of fifty dollars; and I, of fifty thousand. Small wonder
+if we waded callously in blood and food.
+
+It was perhaps about ten in the forenoon when the scene was interrupted.
+Nares, who had just ripped open a fresh mat, drew forth, and slung at
+his feet, among the rice, a papered tin box.
+
+“How's that?” he shouted.
+
+A cry broke from all hands: the next moment, forgetting their own
+disappointment, in that contagious sentiment of success, they gave three
+cheers that scared the sea-birds; and the next, they had crowded round
+the captain, and were jostling together and groping with emulous hands
+in the new-opened mat. Box after box rewarded them, six in all; wrapped,
+as I have said, in a paper envelope, and the paper printed on, in
+Chinese characters.
+
+Nares turned to me and shook my hand. “I began to think we should never
+see this day,” said he. “I congratulate you, Mr. Dodd, on having pulled
+it through.”
+
+The captain's tones affected me profoundly; and when Johnson and the
+men pressed round me in turn with congratulations, the tears came in my
+eyes.
+
+“These are five-tael boxes, more than two pounds,” said Nares, weighing
+one in his hand. “Say two hundred and fifty dollars to the mat. Lay into
+it, boys! We'll make Mr. Dodd a millionnaire before dark.”
+
+It was strange to see with what a fury we fell to. The men had now
+nothing to expect; the mere idea of great sums inspired them with
+disinterested ardour. Mats were slashed and disembowelled, the rice
+flowed to our knees in the ship's waist, the sweat ran in our eyes and
+blinded us, our arms ached to agony; and yet our fire abated not. Dinner
+came; we were too weary to eat, too hoarse for conversation; and yet
+dinner was scarce done, before we were afoot again and delving in the
+rice. Before nightfall not a mat was unexplored, and we were face to
+face with the astonishing result.
+
+For of all the inexplicable things in the story of the Flying Scud, here
+was the most inexplicable. Out of the six thousand mats, only twenty
+were found to have been sugared; in each we found the same amount, about
+twelve pounds of drug; making a grand total of two hundred and forty
+pounds. By the last San Francisco quotation, opium was selling for a
+fraction over twenty dollars a pound; but it had been known not long
+before to bring as much as forty in Honolulu, where it was contraband.
+
+Taking, then, this high Honolulu figure, the value of the opium on board
+the Flying Scud fell considerably short of ten thousand dollars, while
+at the San Francisco rate it lacked a trifle of five thousand. And fifty
+thousand was the price that Jim and I had paid for it. And Bellairs had
+been eager to go higher! There is no language to express the stupor with
+which I contemplated this result.
+
+It may be argued we were not yet sure; there might be yet another cache;
+and you may be certain in that hour of my distress the argument was not
+forgotten. There was never a ship more ardently perquested; no stone
+was left unturned, and no expedient untried; day after day of growing
+despair, we punched and dug in the brig's vitals, exciting the men with
+promises and presents; evening after evening Nares and I sat face
+to face in the narrow cabin, racking our minds for some neglected
+possibility of search. I could stake my salvation on the certainty of
+the result: in all that ship there was nothing left of value but the
+timber and the copper nails. So that our case was lamentably plain; we
+had paid fifty thousand dollars, borne the charges of the schooner, and
+paid fancy interest on money; and if things went well with us, we
+might realise fifteen per cent of the first outlay. We were not merely
+bankrupt, we were comic bankrupts: a fair butt for jeering in the
+streets. I hope I bore the blow with a good countenance; indeed, my mind
+had long been quite made up, and since the day we found the opium I had
+known the result. But the thought of Jim and Mamie ached in me like a
+physical pain, and I shrank from speech and companionship.
+
+I was in this frame of mind when the captain proposed that we should
+land upon the island. I saw he had something to say, and only feared
+it might be consolation; for I could just bear my grief, not bungling
+sympathy; and yet I had no choice but to accede to his proposal.
+
+We walked awhile along the beach in silence. The sun overhead
+reverberated rays of heat; the staring sand, the glaring lagoon,
+tortured our eyes; and the birds and the boom of the far-away breakers
+made a savage symphony.
+
+“I don't require to tell you the game's up?” Nares asked.
+
+“No,” said I.
+
+“I was thinking of getting to sea to-morrow,” he pursued.
+
+“The best thing you can do,” said I.
+
+“Shall we say Honolulu?” he inquired.
+
+
+“O, yes; let's stick to the programme,” I cried. “Honolulu be it!”
+
+There was another silence, and then Nares cleared his throat.
+
+“We've been pretty good friends, you and me, Mr. Dodd,” he resumed.
+“We've been going through the kind of thing that tries a man. We've had
+the hardest kind of work, we've been badly backed, and now we're badly
+beaten. And we've fetched through without a word of disagreement. I
+don't say this to praise myself: it's my trade; it's what I'm paid for,
+and trained for, and brought up to. But it was another thing for you; it
+was all new to you; and it did me good to see you stand right up to it
+and swing right into it, day in, day out. And then see how you've taken
+this disappointment, when everybody knows you must have been tautened
+up to shying-point! I wish you'd let me tell you, Mr. Dodd, that you've
+stood out mighty manly and handsomely in all this business, and made
+every one like you and admire you. And I wish you'd let me tell you,
+besides, that I've taken this wreck business as much to heart as you
+have; something kind of rises in my throat when I think we're beaten;
+and if I thought waiting would do it, I would stick on this reef until
+we starved.”
+
+I tried in vain to thank him for these generous words, but he was
+beforehand with me in a moment.
+
+“I didn't bring you ashore to sound my praises,” he interrupted. “We
+understand one another now, that's all; and I guess you can trust me.
+What I wished to speak about is more important, and it's got to be
+faced. What are we to do about the Flying Scud and the dime novel?”
+
+“I really have thought nothing about that,” I replied. “But I expect I
+mean to get at the bottom of it; and if the bogus Captain Trent is to be
+found on the earth's surface, I guess I mean to find him.”
+
+“All you've got to do is talk,” said Nares; “you can make the biggest
+kind of boom; it isn't often the reporters have a chance at such a yarn
+as this; and I can tell you how it will go. It will go by telegraph, Mr.
+Dodd; it'll be telegraphed by the column, and head-lined, and frothed
+up, and denied by authority, and it'll hit bogus Captain Trent in a
+Mexican bar-room, and knock over bogus Goddedaal in a slum somewhere up
+the Baltic, and bowl down Hardy and Brown in sailors' music halls round
+Greenock. O, there's no doubt you can have a regular domestic Judgment
+Day. The only point is whether you deliberately want to.”
+
+“Well,” said I, “I deliberately don't want one thing: I deliberately
+don't want to make a public exhibition of myself and Pinkerton: so
+moral--smuggling opium; such damned fools--paying fifty thousand for a
+'dead horse'!”
+
+“No doubt it might damage you in a business sense,” the captain agreed.
+“And I'm pleased you take that view; for I've turned kind of soft upon
+the job. There's been some crookedness about, no doubt of it; but, Law
+bless you! if we dropped upon the troupe, all the premier artists would
+slip right out with the boodle in their grip-sacks, and you'd only
+collar a lot of old mutton-headed shell-backs that didn't know the back
+of the business from the front. I don't take much stock in Mercantile
+Jack, you know that; but, poor devil, he's got to go where he's told;
+and if you make trouble, ten to one it'll make you sick to see the
+innocents who have to stand the racket. It would be different if we
+understood the operation; but we don't, you see: there's a lot of queer
+corners in life; and my vote is to let the blame' thing lie.”
+
+“You speak as if we had that in our power,” I objected.
+
+“And so we have,” said he.
+
+“What about the men?” I asked. “They know too much by half; and you
+can't keep them from talking.”
+
+“Can't I?” returned Nares. “I bet a boarding-master can! They can be all
+half-seas-over, when they get ashore, blind drunk by dark, and cruising
+out of the Golden Gate in different deep-sea ships by the next morning.
+Can't keep them from talking, can't I? Well, I can make 'em talk
+separate, leastways. If a whole crew came talking, parties would listen;
+but if it's only one lone old shell-back, it's the usual yarn. And at
+least, they needn't talk before six months, or--if we have luck, and
+there's a whaler handy--three years. And by that time, Mr. Dodd, it's
+ancient history.”
+
+“That's what they call Shanghaiing, isn't it?” I asked. “I thought it
+belonged to the dime novel.”
+
+“O, dime novels are right enough,” returned the captain. “Nothing wrong
+with the dime novel, only that things happen thicker than they do in
+life, and the practical seamanship is off-colour.”
+
+“So we can keep the business to ourselves,” I mused.
+
+“There's one other person that might blab,” said the captain. “Though I
+don't believe she has anything left to tell.”
+
+“And who is SHE?” I asked.
+
+“The old girl there,” he answered, pointing to the wreck. “I know
+there's nothing in her; but somehow I'm afraid of some one else--it's
+the last thing you'd expect, so it's just the first that'll happen--some
+one dropping into this God-forgotten island where nobody drops in,
+waltzing into that wreck that we've grown old with searching, stooping
+straight down, and picking right up the very thing that tells the story.
+What's that to me? you may ask, and why am I gone Soft Tommy on this
+Museum of Crooks? They've smashed up you and Mr. Pinkerton; they've
+turned my hair grey with conundrums; they've been up to larks, no doubt;
+and that's all I know of them--you say. Well, and that's just where it
+is. I don't know enough; I don't know what's uppermost; it's just such
+a lot of miscellaneous eventualities as I don't care to go stirring
+up; and I ask you to let me deal with the old girl after a patent of my
+own.”
+
+“Certainly--what you please,” said I, scarce with attention, for a new
+thought now occupied my brain. “Captain,” I broke out, “you are wrong:
+we cannot hush this up. There is one thing you have forgotten.”
+
+“What is that?” he asked.
+
+“A bogus Captain Trent, a bogus Goddedaal, a whole bogus crew, have all
+started home,” said I. “If we are right, not one of them will reach his
+journey's end. And do you mean to say that such a circumstance as that
+can pass without remark?”
+
+“Sailors,” said the captain, “only sailors! If they were all bound for
+one place, in a body, I don't say so; but they're all going separate--to
+Hull, to Sweden, to the Clyde, to the Thames. Well, at each place,
+what is it? Nothing new. Only one sailor man missing: got drunk, or got
+drowned, or got left: the proper sailor's end.”
+
+
+Something bitter in the thought and in the speaker's tones struck me
+hard. “Here is one that has got left!” I cried, getting sharply to my
+feet; for we had been some time seated. “I wish it were the other. I
+don't--don't relish going home to Jim with this!”
+
+“See here,” said Nares, with ready tact, “I must be getting aboard.
+Johnson's in the brig annexing chandlery and canvas, and there's some
+things in the Norah that want fixing against we go to sea. Would you
+like to be left here in the chicken-ranch? I'll send for you to supper.”
+
+I embraced the proposal with delight. Solitude, in my frame of mind, was
+not too dearly purchased at the risk of sunstroke or sand-blindness; and
+soon I was alone on the ill-omened islet. I should find it hard to tell
+of what I thought--of Jim, of Mamie, of our lost fortune, of my lost
+hopes, of the doom before me: to turn to at some mechanical occupation
+in some subaltern rank, and to toil there, unremarked and unamused,
+until the hour of the last deliverance. I was, at least, so sunk in
+sadness that I scarce remarked where I was going; and chance (or some
+finer sense that lives in us, and only guides us when the mind is in
+abeyance) conducted my steps into a quarter of the island where the
+birds were few. By some devious route, which I was unable to retrace
+for my return, I was thus able to mount, without interruption, to the
+highest point of land. And here I was recalled to consciousness by a
+last discovery.
+
+The spot on which I stood was level, and commanded a wide view of the
+lagoon, the bounding reef, the round horizon. Nearer hand I saw the
+sister islet, the wreck, the Norah Creina, and the Norah's boat already
+moving shoreward. For the sun was now low, flaming on the sea's verge;
+and the galley chimney smoked on board the schooner.
+
+It thus befell that though my discovery was both affecting and
+suggestive, I had no leisure to examine further. What I saw was the
+blackened embers of fire of wreck. By all the signs, it must have blazed
+to a good height and burned for days; from the scantling of a spar that
+lay upon the margin only half consumed, it must have been the work of
+more than one; and I received at once the image of a forlorn troop of
+castaways, houseless in that lost corner of the earth, and feeding there
+their fire of signal. The next moment a hail reached me from the boat;
+and bursting through the bushes and the rising sea-fowl, I said farewell
+(I trust for ever) to that desert isle.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI. IN WHICH I TURN SMUGGLER, AND THE CAPTAIN CASUIST
+
+
+The last night at Midway, I had little sleep; the next morning, after
+the sun was risen, and the clatter of departure had begun to reign on
+deck, I lay a long while dozing; and when at last I stepped from the
+companion, the schooner was already leaping through the pass into the
+open sea. Close on her board, the huge scroll of a breaker unfurled
+itself along the reef with a prodigious clamour; and behind I saw the
+wreck vomiting into the morning air a coil of smoke. The wreaths already
+blew out far to leeward, flames already glittered in the cabin skylight;
+and the sea-fowl were scattered in surprise as wide as the lagoon. As
+we drew farther off, the conflagration of the Flying Scud flamed higher;
+and long after we had dropped all signs of Midway Island, the smoke
+still hung in the horizon like that of a distant steamer. With the
+fading out of that last vestige, the Norah Creina, passed again into the
+empty world of cloud and water by which she had approached; and the next
+features that appeared, eleven days later, to break the line of sky,
+were the arid mountains of Oahu.
+
+It has often since been a comfortable thought to me that we had thus
+destroyed the tell-tale remnants of the Flying Scud; and often a strange
+one that my last sight and reminiscence of that fatal ship should be
+a pillar of smoke on the horizon. To so many others besides myself
+the same appearance had played a part in the various stages of that
+business: luring some to what they little imagined, filling some with
+unimaginable terrors. But ours was the last smoke raised in the story;
+and with its dying away the secret of the Flying Scud became a private
+property.
+
+It was by the first light of dawn that we saw, close on board, the
+metropolitan island of Hawaii. We held along the coast, as near as
+we could venture, with a fresh breeze and under an unclouded heaven;
+beholding, as we went, the arid mountain sides and scrubby cocoa-palms
+of that somewhat melancholy archipelago. About four of the afternoon
+we turned Waimanolo Point, the westerly headland of the great bight of
+Honolulu; showed ourselves for twenty minutes in full view; and then
+fell again to leeward, and put in the rest of daylight, plying under
+shortened sail under the lee of Waimanolo.
+
+A little after dark we beat once more about the point, and crept
+cautiously toward the mouth of the Pearl Lochs, where Jim and I had
+arranged I was to meet the smugglers. The night was happily obscure, the
+water smooth. We showed, according to instructions, no light on deck:
+only a red lantern dropped from either cathead to within a couple of
+feet of the water. A lookout was stationed on the bowsprit end, another
+in the crosstrees; and the whole ship's company crowded forward,
+scouting for enemies or friends. It was now the crucial moment of our
+enterprise; we were now risking liberty and credit; and that for a sum
+so small to a man in my bankrupt situation, that I could have laughed
+aloud in bitterness. But the piece had been arranged, and we must play
+it to the finish.
+
+For some while, we saw nothing but the dark mountain outline of the
+island, the torches of native fishermen glittering here and there along
+the foreshore, and right in the midst that cluster of brave lights with
+which the town of Honolulu advertises itself to the seaward. Presently
+a ruddy star appeared inshore of us, and seemed to draw near unsteadily.
+This was the anticipated signal; and we made haste to show the
+countersign, lowering a white light from the quarter, extinguishing
+the two others, and laying the schooner incontinently to. The star
+approached slowly; the sounds of oars and of men's speech came to us
+across the water; and then a voice hailed us.
+
+“Is that Mr. Dodd?”
+
+“Yes,” I returned. “Is Jim Pinkerton there?”
+
+“No, sir,” replied the voice. “But there's one of his crowd here; name
+of Speedy.”
+
+“I'm here, Mr. Dodd,” added Speedy himself. “I have letters for you.”
+
+“All right,” I replied. “Come aboard, gentlemen, and let me see my
+mail.”
+
+A whaleboat accordingly ranged alongside, and three men boarded us: my
+old San Francisco friend, the stock-gambler Speedy, a little wizened
+person of the name of Sharpe, and a big, flourishing, dissipated-looking
+man called Fowler. The two last (I learned afterward) were frequent
+partners; Sharpe supplied the capital, and Fowler, who was quite a
+character in the islands and occupied a considerable station, brought
+activity, daring, and a private influence, highly necessary in the case.
+Both seemed to approach the business with a keen sense of romance; and I
+believe this was the chief attraction, at least with Fowler--for whom
+I early conceived a sentiment of liking. But in that first moment I
+had something else to think of than to judge my new acquaintances;
+and before Speedy had fished out the letters, the full extent of our
+misfortune was revealed.
+
+“We've rather bad news for you, Mr. Dodd,” said Fowler. “Your firm's
+gone up.”
+
+“Already!” I exclaimed.
+
+“Well, it was thought rather a wonder Pinkerton held on as long as he
+did,” was the reply. “The wreck deal was too big for your credit; you
+were doing a big business, no doubt, but you were doing it on precious
+little capital; and when the strain came, you were bound to go.
+Pinkerton's through all right: seven cents dividend; some remarks
+made, but nothing to hurt; the press let you down easy--I guess Jim had
+relations there. The only trouble is, that all this Flying Scud affair
+got in the papers with the rest; everybody's wide awake in Honolulu, and
+the sooner we get the stuff in and the dollars out, the better for all
+concerned.”
+
+“Gentlemen,” said I, “you must excuse me. My friend, the captain here,
+will drink a glass of champagne with you to give you patience; but as
+for myself, I am unfit even for ordinary conversation till I have read
+these letters.”
+
+They demurred a little: and indeed the danger of delay seemed obvious;
+but the sight of my distress, which I was unable entirely to control,
+appealed strongly to their good-nature; and I was suffered at last to
+get by myself on deck, where, by the light of a lantern smuggled under
+shelter of the low rail, I read the following wretched correspondence.
+
+“My dear Loudon,” ran the first, “this will be handed you by your friend
+Speedy of the Catamount. His sterling character and loyal devotion
+to yourself pointed him out as the best man for our purposes in
+Honolulu--the parties on the spot being difficult to manipulate. A man
+called Billy Fowler (you must have heard of Billy) is the boss; he is in
+politics some, and squares the officers. I have hard times before me
+in the city, but I feel as bright as a dollar and as strong as John L.
+Sullivan. What with Mamie here, and my partner speeding over the seas,
+and the bonanza in the wreck, I feel like I could juggle with the
+Pyramids of Egypt, same as conjurers do with aluminium balls. My
+earnest prayers follow you, Loudon, that you may feel the way I do--just
+inspired! My feet don't touch the ground; I kind of swim. Mamie is like
+Moses and Aaron that held up the other individual's arms. She carries me
+along like a horse and buggy. I am beating the record.
+
+“Your true partner,
+
+“J. PINKERTON.”
+
+Number two was in a different style:--
+
+“My dearest Loudon, how am I to prepare you for this dire intelligence?
+O dear me, it will strike you to the earth. The Fiat has gone forth; our
+firm went bust at a quarter before twelve. It was a bill of Bradley's
+(for $200) that brought these vast operations to a close, and evolved
+liabilities of upwards of two hundred and fifty thousand. O, the shame
+and pity of it! and you but three weeks gone! Loudon, don't blame your
+partner: if human hands and brains could have sufficed, I would have
+held the thing together. But it just slowly crumbled; Bradley was the
+last kick, but the blamed business just MELTED. I give the liabilities;
+it's supposed they're all in; for the cowards were waiting, and the
+claims were filed like taking tickets to hear Patti. I don't quite have
+the hang of the assets yet, our interests were so extended; but I am at
+it day and night, and I guess will make a creditable dividend. If the
+wreck pans out only half the way it ought, we'll turn the laugh still. I
+am as full of grit and work as ever, and just tower above our troubles.
+Mamie is a host in herself. Somehow I feel like it was only me that had
+gone bust, and you and she soared clear of it. Hurry up. That's all you
+have to do.
+
+“Yours ever,
+
+“J. PINKERTON.”
+
+The third was yet more altered:--
+
+“My poor Loudon,” it began, “I labour far into the night getting our
+affairs in order; you could not believe their vastness and complexity.
+Douglas B. Longhurst said humorously that the receiver's work would
+be cut out for him. I cannot deny that some of them have a speculative
+look. God forbid a sensitive, refined spirit like yours should ever come
+face to face with a Commissioner in Bankruptcy; these men get all the
+sweetness knocked right out of them. But I could bear up better if it
+weren't for press comments. Often and often, Loudon, I recall to mind
+your most legitimate critiques of the press system. They published an
+interview with me, not the least like what I said, and with JEERING
+comments; it would make your blood boil, it was literally INHUMANE; I
+wouldn't have written it about a yellow dog that was in trouble like
+what I am. Mamie just winced, the first time she has turned a hair right
+through the whole catastrophe. How wonderfully true was what you said
+long ago in Paris, about touching on people's personal appearance! The
+fellow said--” And then these words had been scored through; and my
+distressed friend turned to another subject. “I cannot bear to dwell
+upon our assets. They simply don't show up. Even Thirteen Star, as sound
+a line as can be produced upon this coast, goes begging. The wreck has
+thrown a blight on all we ever touched. And where's the use? God never
+made a wreck big enough to fill our deficit. I am haunted by the thought
+that you may blame me; I know how I despised your remonstrances. O,
+Loudon, don't be hard on your miserable partner. The funny-dog business
+is what kills. I fear your stern rectitude of mind like the eye of God.
+I cannot think but what some of my books seem mixed up; otherwise, I
+don't seem to see my way as plain as I could wish to. Or else my brain
+is gone soft. Loudon, if there should be any unpleasantness, you can
+trust me to do the right thing and keep you clear. I've been telling
+them already, how you had no business grip and never saw the books. O, I
+trust I have done right in this! I knew it was a liberty; I know you may
+justly complain; but it was some things that were said. And mind you,
+all legitimate business! Not even your shrinking sensitiveness could
+find fault with the first look of one of them, if they had panned out
+right. And you know, the Flying Scud was the biggest gamble of the
+crowd, and that was your own idea. Mamie says she never could bear
+to look you in the face, if that idea had been mine, she is SO
+conscientious!
+
+“Your broken-hearted
+
+“JIM.”
+
+The last began without formality:--
+
+“This is the end of me commercially. I give up; my nerve is gone. I
+suppose I ought to be glad; for we're through the court. I don't know
+as ever I knew how, and I'm sure I don't remember. If it pans out--the
+wreck, I mean--we'll go to Europe, and live on the interest of our
+money. No more work for me. I shake when people speak to me. I have gone
+on, hoping and hoping, and working and working, and the lead has pinched
+right out. I want to lie on my back in a garden and read Shakespeare and
+E. P. Roe. Don't suppose it's cowardice, Loudon. I'm a sick man. Rest is
+what I must have. I've worked hard all my life; I never spared myself;
+every dollar I ever made, I've coined my brains for it. I've never done
+a mean thing; I've lived respectable, and given to the poor. Who has a
+better right to a holiday than I have? And I mean to have a year of it
+straight out; and if I don't, I shall lie right down here in my tracks,
+and die of worry and brain trouble. Don't mistake. That's so. If there
+are any pickings at all, TRUST SPEEDY; don't let the creditors get wind
+of what there is. I helped you when you were down; help me now. Don't
+deceive yourself; you've got to help me right now, or never. I am
+clerking, and NOT FIT TO CYPHER. Mamie's typewriting at the Phoenix
+Guano Exchange, down town. The light is right out of my life. I know
+you'll not like to do what I propose. Think only of this; that it's life
+or death for
+
+“JIM PINKERTON.
+
+“P.S. Our figure was seven per cent. O, what a fall was there! Well,
+well, it's past mending; I don't want to whine. But, Loudon, I do want
+to live. No more ambition; all I ask is life. I have so much to make
+it sweet to me! I am clerking, and USELESS AT THAT. I know I would have
+fired such a clerk inside of forty minutes, in MY time. But my time's
+over. I can only cling on to you. Don't fail
+
+“JIM PINKERTON.”
+
+There was yet one more postscript, yet one more outburst of self-pity
+and pathetic adjuration; and a doctor's opinion, unpromising enough,
+was besides enclosed. I pass them both in silence. I think shame to
+have shown, at so great length, the half-baked virtues of my friend
+dissolving in the crucible of sickness and distress; and the effect upon
+my spirits can be judged already. I got to my feet when I had done, drew
+a deep breath, and stared hard at Honolulu. One moment the world seemed
+at an end; the next, I was conscious of a rush of independent energy. On
+Jim I could rely no longer; I must now take hold myself. I must decide
+and act on my own better thoughts.
+
+The word was easy to say; the thing, at the first blush, was
+undiscoverable. I was overwhelmed with miserable, womanish pity for
+my broken friend; his outcries grieved my spirit; I saw him then and
+now--then, so invincible; now, brought so low--and knew neither how
+to refuse, nor how to consent to his proposal. The remembrance of my
+father, who had fallen in the same field unstained, the image of his
+monument incongruously rising, a fear of the law, a chill air that
+seemed to blow upon my fancy from the doors of prisons, and the
+imaginary clank of fetters, recalled me to a different resolve. And then
+again, the wails of my sick partner intervened. So I stood hesitating,
+and yet with a strong sense of capacity behind: sure, if I could but
+choose my path, that I should walk in it with resolution.
+
+Then I remembered that I had a friend on board, and stepped to the
+companion.
+
+“Gentlemen,” said I, “only a few moments more: but these, I regret to
+say, I must make more tedious still by removing your companion. It is
+indispensable that I should have a word or two with Captain Nares.”
+
+Both the smugglers were afoot at once, protesting. The business, they
+declared, must be despatched at once; they had run risk enough, with a
+conscience; and they must either finish now, or go.
+
+“The choice is yours, gentlemen,” said I, “and, I believe, the
+eagerness. I am not yet sure that I have anything in your way; even if
+I have, there are a hundred things to be considered; and I assure you it
+is not at all my habit to do business with a pistol to my head.”
+
+“That is all very proper, Mr. Dodd; there is no wish to coerce you,
+believe me,” said Fowler; “only, please consider our position. It is
+really dangerous; we were not the only people to see your schooner off
+Waimanolo.”
+
+“Mr. Fowler,” I replied, “I was not born yesterday. Will you allow me
+to express an opinion, in which I may be quite wrong, but to which I
+am entirely wedded? If the custom-house officers had been coming,
+they would have been here now. In other words, somebody is working the
+oracle, and (for a good guess) his name is Fowler.”
+
+Both men laughed loud and long; and being supplied with another bottle
+of Longhurst's champagne, suffered the captain and myself to leave them
+without further word.
+
+I gave Nares the correspondence, and he skimmed it through.
+
+“Now, captain,” said I, “I want a fresh mind on this. What does it
+mean?”
+
+“It's large enough text,” replied the captain. “It means you're to stake
+your pile on Speedy, hand him over all you can, and hold your tongue.
+I almost wish you hadn't shown it me,” he added wearily. “What with the
+specie from the wreck and the opium money, it comes to a biggish deal.”
+
+“That's supposing that I do it?” said I.
+
+“Exactly,” said he, “supposing you do it.”
+
+“And there are pros and cons to that,” I observed.
+
+“There's San Quentin, to start in with,” said the captain; “and suppose
+you clear the penitentiary, there's the nasty taste in the mouth. The
+figure's big enough to make bad trouble, but it's not big enough to be
+picturesque; and I should guess a man always feels kind of small who has
+sold himself under six cyphers. That would be my way, at least; there's
+an excitement about a million that might carry me on; but the other way,
+I should feel kind of lonely when I woke in bed. Then there's Speedy. Do
+you know him well?”
+
+“No, I do not,” said I.
+
+“Well, of course he can vamoose with the entire speculation, if he
+chooses,” pursued the captain, “and if he don't I can't see but what
+you've got to support and bed and board with him to the end of time.
+I guess it would weary me. Then there's Mr. Pinkerton, of course. He's
+been a good friend to you, hasn't he? Stood by you, and all that? and
+pulled you through for all he was worth?”
+
+
+“That he has,” I cried; “I could never begin telling you my debt to
+him!”
+
+“Well, and that's a consideration,” said the captain. “As a matter of
+principle, I wouldn't look at this business at the money. 'Not good
+enough,' would be my word. But even principle goes under when it comes
+to friends--the right sort, I mean. This Pinkerton is frightened, and
+he seems sick; the medico don't seem to care a cent about his state of
+health; and you've got to figure how you would like it if he came to
+die. Remember, the risk of this little swindle is all yours; it's no
+sort of risk to Mr. Pinkerton. Well, you've got to put it that way
+plainly, and see how you like the sound of it: my friend Pinkerton is in
+danger of the New Jerusalem, I am in danger of San Quentin; which risk
+do I propose to run?”
+
+“That's an ugly way to put it,” I objected, “and perhaps hardly fair.
+There's right and wrong to be considered.”
+
+“Don't know the parties,” replied Nares; “and I'm coming to them,
+anyway. For it strikes me, when it came to smuggling opium, you walked
+right up?”
+
+“So I did,” I said; “sick I am to have to say it!”
+
+“All the same,” continued Nares, “you went into the opium-smuggling with
+your head down; and a good deal of fussing I've listened to, that you
+hadn't more of it to smuggle. Now, maybe your partner's not quite fixed
+the same as you are; maybe he sees precious little difference between
+the one thing and the other.”
+
+“You could not say truer: he sees none, I do believe,” cried I; “and
+though I see one, I could never tell you how.”
+
+“We never can,” said the oracular Nares; “taste is all a matter of
+opinion. But the point is, how will your friend take it? You refuse a
+favour, and you take the high horse at the same time; you disappoint
+him, and you rap him over the knuckles. It won't do, Mr. Dodd; no
+friendship can stand that. You must be as good as your friend, or as bad
+as your friend, or start on a fresh deal without him.”
+
+“I don't see it!” said I. “You don't know Jim!”
+
+“Well, you WILL see,” said Nares. “And now, here's another point. This
+bit of money looks mighty big to Mr. Pinkerton; it may spell life or
+health to him; but among all your creditors, I don't see that it amounts
+to a hill of beans--I don't believe it'll pay their car-fares all round.
+And don't you think you'll ever get thanked. You were known to pay a
+long price for the chance of rummaging that wreck; you do the rummaging,
+you come home, and you hand over ten thousand--or twenty, if you like--a
+part of which you'll have to own up you made by smuggling; and, mind!
+you'll never get Billy Fowler to stick his name to a receipt. Now just
+glance at the transaction from the outside, and see what a clear case it
+makes. Your ten thousand is a sop; and people will only wonder you were
+so damned impudent as to offer such a small one! Whichever way you take
+it, Mr. Dodd, the bottom's out of your character; so there's one thing
+less to be considered.”
+
+“I daresay you'll scarce believe me,” said I, “but I feel that a
+positive relief.”
+
+“You must be made some way different from me, then,” returned Nares.
+“And, talking about me, I might just mention how I stand. You'll have
+no trouble from me--you've trouble enough of your own; and I'm friend
+enough, when a friend's in need, to shut my eyes and go right where he
+tells me. All the same, I'm rather queerly fixed. My owners'll have
+to rank with the rest on their charter-party. Here am I, their
+representative! and I have to look over the ship's side while the
+bankrupt walks his assets ashore in Mr. Speedy's hat-box. It's a thing
+I wouldn't do for James G. Blaine; but I'll do it for you, Mr. Dodd, and
+only sorry I can't do more.”
+
+“Thank you, captain; my mind is made up,” said I. “I'll go straight,
+RUAT COELUM! I never understood that old tag before to-night.”
+
+“I hope it isn't my business that decides you?” asked the captain.
+
+“I'll never deny it was an element,” said I. “I hope, I hope I'm not
+cowardly; I hope I could steal for Jim myself; but when it comes to
+dragging in you and Speedy, and this one and the other, why, Jim has
+got to die, and there's an end. I'll try and work for him when I get to
+'Frisco, I suppose; and I suppose I'll fail, and look on at his death,
+and kick myself: it can't be helped--I'll fight it on this line.”
+
+
+“I don't say as you're wrong,” replied Nares, “and I'll be hanged if
+I know if you're right. It suits me anyway. And look here--hadn't you
+better just show our friends over the side?” he added; “no good of being
+at the risk and worry of smuggling for the benefit of creditors.”
+
+“I don't think of the creditors,” said I. “But I've kept this pair so
+long, I haven't got the brass to fire them now.”
+
+Indeed, I believe that was my only reason for entering upon a
+transaction which was now outside my interest, but which (as it chanced)
+repaid me fifty-fold in entertainment. Fowler and Sharpe were both
+preternaturally sharp; they did me the honour in the beginning to
+attribute to myself their proper vices; and before we were done had
+grown to regard me with an esteem akin to worship. This proud position
+I attained by no more recondite arts, than telling the mere truth and
+unaffectedly displaying my indifference to the result. I have doubtless
+stated the essentials of all good diplomacy, which may be rather
+regarded, therefore, as a grace of state, than the effect of management.
+For to tell the truth is not in itself diplomatic, and to have no care
+for the result a thing involuntary. When I mentioned, for instance, that
+I had but two hundred and forty pounds of drug, my smugglers exchanged
+meaning glances, as who should say, “Here is a foeman worthy of our
+steel!” But when I carelessly proposed thirty-five dollars a pound, as
+an amendment to their offered twenty, and wound up with the remark: “The
+whole thing is a matter of moonshine to me, gentlemen. Take it or want
+it, and fill your glasses”--I had the indescribable gratification to
+see Sharpe nudge Fowler warningly, and Fowler choke down the jovial
+acceptance that stood ready on his lips, and lamely substitute a “No--no
+more wine, please, Mr. Dodd!” Nor was this all: for when the affair was
+settled at fifty dollars a pound--a shrewd stroke of business for my
+creditors--and our friends had got on board their whaleboat and shoved
+off, it appeared they were imperfectly acquainted with the conveyance
+of sound upon still water, and I had the joy to overhear the following
+testimonial.
+
+“Deep man, that Dodd,” said Sharpe.
+
+And the bass-toned Fowler echoed, “Damned if I understand his game.”
+
+Thus we were left once more alone upon the Norah Creina; and the news of
+the night, and the lamentations of Pinkerton, and the thought of my own
+harsh decision, returned and besieged me in the dark. According to
+all the rubbish I had read, I should have been sustained by the warm
+consciousness of virtue. Alas, I had but the one feeling: that I
+had sacrificed my sick friend to the fear of prison-cells and stupid
+starers. And no moralist has yet advanced so far as to number cowardice
+amongst the things that are their own reward.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII. LIGHT FROM THE MAN OF WAR.
+
+
+In the early sunlight of the next day, we tossed close off the buoy and
+saw the city sparkle in its groves about the foot of the Punch-bowl, and
+the masts clustering thick in the small harbour. A good breeze, which
+had risen with the sea, carried us triumphantly through the
+intricacies of the passage; and we had soon brought up not far from the
+landing-stairs. I remember to have remarked an ugly horned reptile of a
+modern warship in the usual moorings across the port, but my mind was so
+profoundly plunged in melancholy that I paid no heed.
+
+Indeed, I had little time at my disposal. Messieurs Sharpe and Fowler
+had left the night before in the persuasion that I was a liar of the
+first magnitude; the genial belief brought them aboard again with the
+earliest opportunity, proffering help to one who had proved how little
+he required it, and hospitality to so respectable a character. I had
+business to mind, I had some need both of assistance and diversion; I
+liked Fowler--I don't know why; and in short, I let them do with me as
+they desired. No creditor intervening, I spent the first half of the
+day inquiring into the conditions of the tea and silk market under
+the auspices of Sharpe; lunched with him in a private apartment at the
+Hawaiian Hotel--for Sharpe was a teetotaler in public; and about four
+in the afternoon was delivered into the hands of Fowler. This gentleman
+owned a bungalow on the Waikiki beach; and there in company with
+certain young bloods of Honolulu, I was entertained to a sea-bathe,
+indiscriminate cocktails, a dinner, a hula-hula, and (to round off the
+night), poker and assorted liquors. To lose money in the small hours to
+pale, intoxicated youth, has always appeared to me a pleasure overrated.
+In my then frame of mind, I confess I found it even delightful; put up
+my money (or rather my creditors'), and put down Fowler's champagne with
+equal avidity and success; and awoke the next morning to a mild headache
+and the rather agreeable lees of the last night's excitement. The young
+bloods, many of whom were still far from sober, had taken the kitchen
+into their own hands, vice the Chinaman deposed; and since each was
+engaged upon a dish of his own, and none had the least scruple in
+demolishing his neighbour's handiwork, I became early convinced that
+many eggs would be broken and few omelets made. The discovery of a jug
+of milk and a crust of bread enabled me to stay my appetite; and since
+it was Sunday, when no business could be done, and the festivities were
+to be renewed that night in the abode of Fowler, it occurred to me to
+slip silently away and enjoy some air and solitude.
+
+I turned seaward under the dead crater known as Diamond Head. My way
+was for some time under the shade of certain thickets of green, thorny
+trees, dotted with houses. Here I enjoyed some pictures of the native
+life: wide-eyed, naked children, mingled with pigs; a youth asleep under
+a tree; an old gentleman spelling through glasses his Hawaiian Bible;
+the somewhat embarrassing spectacle of a lady at her bath in a spring;
+and the glimpse of gaudy-coloured gowns in the deep shade of the houses.
+Thence I found a road along the beach itself, wading in sand, opposed
+and buffeted by the whole weight of the Trade: on one hand, the
+glittering and sounding surf, and the bay lively with many sails; on the
+other, precipitous, arid gullies and sheer cliffs, mounting towards the
+crater and the blue sky. For all the companionship of skimming vessels,
+the place struck me with a sense of solitude. There came in my head
+what I had been told the day before at dinner, of a cavern above in
+the bowels of the volcano, a place only to be visited with the light
+of torches, a treasure-house of the bones of priests and warriors, and
+clamorous with the voice of an unseen river pouring seaward through
+the crannies of the mountain. At the thought, it was revealed to me
+suddenly, how the bungalows, and the Fowlers, and the bright busy town
+and crowding ships, were all children of yesterday; and for centuries
+before, the obscure life of the natives, with its glories and ambitions,
+its joys and crimes and agonies, had rolled unseen, like the mountain
+river, in that sea-girt place. Not Chaldea appeared more ancient, nor
+the Pyramids of Egypt more abstruse; and I heard time measured by
+“the drums and tramplings” of immemorial conquests, and saw myself
+the creature of an hour. Over the bankruptcy of Pinkerton and Dodd,
+of Montana Block, S. F., and the conscientious troubles of the junior
+partner, the spirit of eternity was seen to smile.
+
+To this mood of philosophic sadness, my excesses of the night before no
+doubt contributed; for more things than virtue are at times their own
+reward: but I was greatly healed at least of my distresses. And while I
+was yet enjoying my abstracted humour, a turn of the beach brought me in
+view of the signal-station, with its watch-house and flag-staff, perched
+on the immediate margin of a cliff. The house was new and clean and
+bald, and stood naked to the Trades. The wind beat about it in loud
+squalls; the seaward windows rattled without mercy; the breach of the
+surf below contributed its increment of noise; and the fall of my foot
+in the narrow verandah passed unheard by those within.
+
+There were two on whom I thus entered unexpectedly: the look-out
+man, with grizzled beard, keen seaman's eyes, and that brand on his
+countenance that comes of solitary living; and a visitor, an oldish,
+oratorical fellow, in the smart tropical array of the British
+man-o'-war's man, perched on a table, and smoking a cigar. I was
+made pleasantly welcome, and was soon listening with amusement to the
+sea-lawyer.
+
+“No, if I hadn't have been born an Englishman,” was one of his
+sentiments, “damn me! I'd rather 'a been born a Frenchy! I'd like to see
+another nation fit to black their boots.” Presently after, he developed
+his views on home politics with similar trenchancy. “I'd rather be a
+brute beast than what I'd be a liberal,” he said. “Carrying banners and
+that! a pig's got more sense. Why, look at our chief engineer--they do
+say he carried a banner with his own 'ands: 'Hooroar for Gladstone!' I
+suppose, or 'Down with the Aristocracy!' What 'arm does the aristocracy
+do? Show me a country any good without one! Not the States; why, it's
+the 'ome of corruption! I knew a man--he was a good man, 'ome born--who
+was signal quartermaster in the Wyandotte. He told me he could never
+have got there if he hadn't have 'run with the boys'--told it me as I'm
+telling you. Now, we're all British subjects here----” he was going on.
+
+“I am afraid I am an American,” I said apologetically.
+
+He seemed the least bit taken aback, but recovered himself; and with the
+ready tact of his betters, paid me the usual British compliment on the
+riposte. “You don't say so!” he exclaimed. “Well, I give you my word of
+honour, I'd never have guessed it. Nobody could tell it on you,” said
+he, as though it were some form of liquor.
+
+I thanked him, as I always do, at this particular stage, with his
+compatriots: not so much perhaps for the compliment to myself and my
+poor country, as for the revelation (which is ever fresh to me) of
+Britannic self-sufficiency and taste. And he was so far softened by my
+gratitude as to add a word of praise on the American method of lacing
+sails. “You're ahead of us in lacing sails,” he said. “You can say that
+with a clear conscience.”
+
+“Thank you,” I replied. “I shall certainly do so.”
+
+At this rate, we got along swimmingly; and when I rose to retrace my
+steps to the Fowlery, he at once started to his feet and offered me the
+welcome solace of his company for the return. I believe I discovered
+much alacrity at the idea, for the creature (who seemed to be unique,
+or to represent a type like that of the dodo) entertained me hugely.
+But when he had produced his hat, I found I was in the way of more
+than entertainment; for on the ribbon I could read the legend: “H.M.S.
+Tempest.”
+
+“I say,” I began, when our adieus were paid, and we were scrambling down
+the path from the look-out, “it was your ship that picked up the men on
+board the Flying Scud, wasn't it?”
+
+“You may say so,” said he. “And a blessed good job for the Flying-Scuds.
+It's a God-forsaken spot, that Midway Island.”
+
+“I've just come from there,” said I. “It was I who bought the wreck.”
+
+“Beg your pardon, sir,” cried the sailor: “gen'lem'n in the white
+schooner?”
+
+“The same,” said I.
+
+My friend saluted, as though we were now, for the first time, formally
+introduced.
+
+“Of course,” I continued, “I am rather taken up with the whole story;
+and I wish you would tell me what you can of how the men were saved.”
+
+“It was like this,” said he. “We had orders to call at Midway after
+castaways, and had our distance pretty nigh run down the day before.
+We steamed half-speed all night, looking to make it about noon; for old
+Tootles--beg your pardon, sir--the captain--was precious scared of the
+place at night. Well, there's nasty, filthy currents round that Midway;
+YOU know, as has been there; and one on 'em must have set us down.
+Leastways, about six bells, when we had ought to been miles away, some
+one sees a sail, and lo and be'old, there was the spars of a full-rigged
+brig! We raised her pretty fast, and the island after her; and made out
+she was hard aground, canted on her bilge, and had her ens'n flying,
+union down. It was breaking 'igh on the reef, and we laid well out, and
+sent a couple of boats. I didn't go in neither; only stood and looked
+on; but it seems they was all badly scared and muddled, and didn't know
+which end was uppermost. One on 'em kep' snivelling and wringing of his
+'ands; he come on board all of a sop like a monthly nurse. That Trent,
+he come first, with his 'and in a bloody rag. I was near 'em as I am to
+you; and I could make out he was all to bits--'eard his breath rattle
+in his blooming lungs as he come down the ladder. Yes, they was a scared
+lot, small blame to 'em, I say! The next after Trent, come him as was
+mate.”
+
+“Goddedaal!” I exclaimed.
+
+“And a good name for him too,” chuckled the man-o'-war's man, who
+probably confounded the word with a familiar oath. “A good name
+too; only it weren't his. He was a gen'lem'n born, sir, as had gone
+maskewerading. One of our officers knowed him at 'ome, reckonises him,
+steps up, 'olds out his 'and right off, and says he: ''Ullo, Norrie,
+old chappie!' he says. The other was coming up, as bold as look at it;
+didn't seem put out--that's where blood tells, sir! Well, no sooner does
+he 'ear his born name given him, than he turns as white as the Day of
+Judgment, stares at Mr. Sebright like he was looking at a ghost, and
+then (I give you my word of honour) turned to, and doubled up in a dead
+faint. 'Take him down to my berth,' says Mr. Sebright. ''Tis poor old
+Norrie Carthew,' he says.”
+
+“And what--what sort of a gentleman was this Mr. Carthew?” I gasped.
+
+“The ward-room steward told me he was come of the best blood in
+England,” was my friend's reply: “Eton and 'Arrow bred;--and might have
+been a bar'net!”
+
+“No, but to look at?” I corrected him.
+
+
+“The same as you or me,” was the uncompromising answer: “not much to
+look at. I didn't know he was a gen'lem'n; but then, I never see him
+cleaned up.”
+
+“How was that?” I cried. “O yes, I remember: he was sick all the way to
+'Frisco, was he not?”
+
+“Sick, or sorry, or something,” returned my informant. “My belief, he
+didn't hanker after showing up. He kep' close; the ward-room steward,
+what took his meals in, told me he ate nex' to nothing; and he was
+fetched ashore at 'Frisco on the quiet. Here was how it was. It seems
+his brother had took and died, him as had the estate. This one had gone
+in for his beer, by what I could make out; the old folks at 'ome had
+turned rusty; no one knew where he had gone to. Here he was, slaving in
+a merchant brig, shipwrecked on Midway, and packing up his duds for a
+long voyage in a open boat. He comes on board our ship, and by God, here
+he is a landed proprietor, and may be in Parliament to-morrow! It's no
+less than natural he should keep dark: so would you and me in the same
+box.”
+
+“I daresay,” said I. “But you saw more of the others?”
+
+“To be sure,” says he: “no 'arm in them from what I see. There was
+one 'Ardy there: colonial born he was, and had been through a power of
+money. There was no nonsense about 'Ardy; he had been up, and he had
+come down, and took it so. His 'eart was in the right place; and he was
+well-informed, and knew French; and Latin, I believe, like a native! I
+liked that 'Ardy; he was a good-looking boy, too.”
+
+“Did they say much about the wreck?” I asked.
+
+“There wasn't much to say, I reckon,” replied the man-o'-war's man. “It
+was all in the papers. 'Ardy used to yarn most about the coins he had
+gone through; he had lived with book-makers, and jockeys, and pugs, and
+actors, and all that: a precious low lot!” added this judicious person.
+“But it's about here my 'orse is moored, and by your leave I'll be
+getting ahead.”
+
+“One moment,” said I. “Is Mr. Sebright on board?”
+
+“No, sir, he's ashore to-day,” said the sailor. “I took up a bag for him
+to the 'otel.”
+
+With that we parted. Presently after my friend overtook and passed me on
+a hired steed which seemed to scorn its cavalier; and I was left in the
+dust of his passage, a prey to whirling thoughts. For I now stood, or
+seemed to stand, on the immediate threshold of these mysteries. I knew
+the name of the man Dickson--his name was Carthew; I knew where the
+money came from that opposed us at the sale--it was part of Carthew's
+inheritance; and in my gallery of illustrations to the history of the
+wreck, one more picture hung; perhaps the most dramatic of the series.
+It showed me the deck of a warship in that distant part of the great
+ocean, the officers and seamen looking curiously on; and a man of birth
+and education, who had been sailing under an alias on a trading brig,
+and was now rescued from desperate peril, felled like an ox by the
+bare sound of his own name. I could not fail to be reminded of my
+own experience at the Occidental telephone. The hero of three styles,
+Dickson, Goddedaal, or Carthew, must be the owner of a lively--or a
+loaded--conscience, and the reflection recalled to me the photograph
+found on board the Flying Scud; just such a man, I reasoned, would be
+capable of just such starts and crises, and I inclined to think that
+Goddedaal (or Carthew) was the mainspring of the mystery.
+
+One thing was plain: as long as the Tempest was in reach, I must make
+the acquaintance of both Sebright and the doctor. To this end, I excused
+myself with Mr. Fowler, returned to Honolulu, and passed the remainder
+of the day hanging vainly round the cool verandahs of the hotel. It was
+near nine o'clock at night before I was rewarded.
+
+“That is the gentleman you were asking for,” said the clerk.
+
+I beheld a man in tweeds, of an incomparable languor of demeanour, and
+carrying a cane with genteel effort. From the name, I had looked to find
+a sort of Viking and young ruler of the battle and the tempest; and I
+was the more disappointed, and not a little alarmed, to come face to
+face with this impracticable type.
+
+“I believe I have the pleasure of addressing Lieutenant Sebright,” said
+I, stepping forward.
+
+“Aw, yes,” replied the hero; “but, aw! I dawn't knaw you, do I?” (He
+spoke for all the world like Lord Foppington in the old play--a proof of
+the perennial nature of man's affectations. But his limping dialect, I
+scorn to continue to reproduce.)
+
+
+“It was with the intention of making myself known, that I have taken
+this step,” said I, entirely unabashed (for impudence begets in me its
+like--perhaps my only martial attribute). “We have a common subject of
+interest, to me very lively; and I believe I may be in a position to be
+of some service to a friend of yours--to give him, at least, some very
+welcome information.”
+
+The last clause was a sop to my conscience: I could not pretend, even
+to myself, either the power or the will to serve Mr. Carthew; but I felt
+sure he would like to hear the Flying Scud was burned.
+
+“I don't know--I--I don't understand you,” stammered my victim. “I don't
+have any friends in Honolulu, don't you know?”
+
+“The friend to whom I refer is English,” I replied. “It is Mr. Carthew,
+whom you picked up at Midway. My firm has bought the wreck; I am just
+returned from breaking her up; and--to make my business quite clear to
+you--I have a communication it is necessary I should make; and have to
+trouble you for Mr. Carthew's address.”
+
+It will be seen how rapidly I had dropped all hope of interesting
+the frigid British bear. He, on his side, was plainly on thorns at my
+insistence; I judged he was suffering torments of alarm lest I should
+prove an undesirable acquaintance; diagnosed him for a shy, dull, vain,
+unamiable animal, without adequate defence--a sort of dishoused snail;
+and concluded, rightly enough, that he would consent to anything to
+bring our interview to a conclusion. A moment later, he had fled,
+leaving me with a sheet of paper, thus inscribed:--
+
+Norris Carthew,
+
+Stallbridge-le-Carthew,
+
+Dorset.
+
+I might have cried victory, the field of battle and some of the enemy's
+baggage remaining in my occupation. As a matter of fact, my moral
+sufferings during the engagement had rivalled those of Mr. Sebright; I
+was left incapable of fresh hostilities; I owned that the navy of old
+England was (for me) invincible as of yore; and giving up all thought of
+the doctor, inclined to salute her veteran flag, in the future, from a
+prudent distance. Such was my inclination, when I retired to rest; and
+my first experience the next morning strengthened it to certainty. For I
+had the pleasure of encountering my fair antagonist on his way on board;
+and he honoured me with a recognition so disgustingly dry, that my
+impatience overflowed, and (recalling the tactics of Nelson) I neglected
+to perceive or to return it.
+
+Judge of my astonishment, some half-hour later, to receive a note of
+invitation from the Tempest.
+
+“Dear Sir,” it began, “we are all naturally very much interested in
+the wreck of the Flying Scud, and as soon as I mentioned that I had the
+pleasure of making your acquaintance, a very general wish was expressed
+that you would come and dine on board. It will give us all the greatest
+pleasure to see you to-night, or in case you should be otherwise
+engaged, to luncheon either to-morrow or to-day.” A note of the hours
+followed, and the document wound up with the name of “J. Lascelles
+Sebright,” under an undeniable statement that he was sincerely mine.
+
+“No, Mr. Lascelles Sebright,” I reflected, “you are not, but I begin
+to suspect that (like the lady in the song) you are another's. You have
+mentioned your adventure, my friend; you have been blown up; you have
+got your orders; this note has been dictated; and I am asked on board
+(in spite of your melancholy protests) not to meet the men, and not
+to talk about the Flying Scud, but to undergo the scrutiny of some one
+interested in Carthew: the doctor, for a wager. And for a second wager,
+all this springs from your facility in giving the address.” I lost no
+time in answering the billet, electing for the earliest occasion; and at
+the appointed hour, a somewhat blackguard-looking boat's crew from the
+Norah Creina conveyed me under the guns of the Tempest.
+
+The ward-room appeared pleased to see me; Sebright's brother officers,
+in contrast to himself, took a boyish interest in my cruise; and much
+was talked of the Flying Scud; of how she had been lost, of how I had
+found her, and of the weather, the anchorage, and the currents
+about Midway Island. Carthew was referred to more than once without
+embarrassment; the parallel case of a late Earl of Aberdeen, who died
+mate on board a Yankee schooner, was adduced. If they told me little
+of the man, it was because they had not much to tell, and only felt an
+interest in his recognition and pity for his prolonged ill-health. I
+could never think the subject was avoided; and it was clear that the
+officers, far from practising concealment, had nothing to conceal.
+
+So far, then, all seemed natural, and yet the doctor troubled me. This
+was a tall, rugged, plain man, on the wrong side of fifty, already gray,
+and with a restless mouth and bushy eyebrows: he spoke seldom, but then
+with gaiety; and his great, quaking, silent laughter was infectious.
+I could make out that he was at once the quiz of the ward-room and
+perfectly respected; and I made sure that he observed me covertly. It is
+certain I returned the compliment. If Carthew had feigned sickness--and
+all seemed to point in that direction--here was the man who knew
+all--or certainly knew much. His strong, sterling face progressively and
+silently persuaded of his full knowledge. That was not the mouth, these
+were not the eyes, of one who would act in ignorance, or could be led
+at random. Nor again was it the face of a man squeamish in the case of
+malefactors; there was even a touch of Brutus there, and something of
+the hanging judge. In short, he seemed the last character for the part
+assigned him in my theories; and wonder and curiosity contended in my
+mind.
+
+Luncheon was over, and an adjournment to the smoking-room proposed, when
+(upon a sudden impulse) I burned my ships, and pleading indisposition,
+requested to consult the doctor.
+
+“There is nothing the matter with my body, Dr. Urquart,” said I, as soon
+as we were alone.
+
+He hummed, his mouth worked, he regarded me steadily with his gray eyes,
+but resolutely held his peace.
+
+
+“I want to talk to you about the Flying Scud and Mr. Carthew,” I
+resumed. “Come: you must have expected this. I am sure you know all; you
+are shrewd, and must have a guess that I know much. How are we to stand
+to one another? and how am I to stand to Mr. Carthew?”
+
+“I do not fully understand you,” he replied, after a pause; and then,
+after another: “It is the spirit I refer to, Mr. Dodd.”
+
+“The spirit of my inquiries?” I asked.
+
+He nodded.
+
+
+“I think we are at cross-purposes,” said I. “The spirit is precisely
+what I came in quest of. I bought the Flying Scud at a ruinous figure,
+run up by Mr. Carthew through an agent; and I am, in consequence, a
+bankrupt. But if I have found no fortune in the wreck, I have found
+unmistakable evidences of foul play. Conceive my position: I am ruined
+through this man, whom I never saw; I might very well desire revenge
+or compensation; and I think you will admit I have the means to extort
+either.”
+
+He made no sign in answer to this challenge.
+
+“Can you not understand, then,” I resumed, “the spirit in which I come
+to one who is surely in the secret, and ask him, honestly and plainly:
+How do I stand to Mr. Carthew?”
+
+“I must ask you to be more explicit,” said he.
+
+“You do not help me much,” I retorted. “But see if you can understand:
+my conscience is not very fine-spun; still, I have one. Now, there are
+degrees of foul play, to some of which I have no particular objection.
+I am sure with Mr. Carthew, I am not at all the person to forgo an
+advantage; and I have much curiosity. But on the other hand, I have no
+taste for persecution; and I ask you to believe that I am not the man to
+make bad worse, or heap trouble on the unfortunate.”
+
+“Yes; I think I understand,” said he. “Suppose I pass you my word that,
+whatever may have occurred, there were excuses--great excuses--I may
+say, very great?”
+
+“It would have weight with me, doctor,” I replied.
+
+“I may go further,” he pursued. “Suppose I had been there, or you had
+been there: after a certain event had taken place, it's a grave question
+what we might have done--it's even a question what we could have
+done--ourselves. Or take me. I will be plain with you, and own that I am
+in possession of the facts. You have a shrewd guess how I have acted in
+that knowledge. May I ask you to judge from the character of my action,
+something of the nature of that knowledge, which I have no call, nor yet
+no title, to share with you?”
+
+I cannot convey a sense of the rugged conviction and judicial emphasis
+of Dr. Urquart's speech. To those who did not hear him, it may appear as
+if he fed me on enigmas; to myself, who heard, I seemed to have received
+a lesson and a compliment.
+
+“I thank you,” I said. “I feel you have said as much as possible, and
+more than I had any right to ask. I take that as a mark of confidence,
+which I will try to deserve. I hope, sir, you will let me regard you as
+a friend.”
+
+He evaded my proffered friendship with a blunt proposal to rejoin the
+mess; and yet a moment later, contrived to alleviate the snub. For, as
+we entered the smoking-room, he laid his hand on my shoulder with a kind
+familiarity.
+
+“I have just prescribed for Mr. Dodd,” says he, “a glass of our
+Madeira.”
+
+I have never again met Dr. Urquart: but he wrote himself so clear
+upon my memory that I think I see him still. And indeed I had cause to
+remember the man for the sake of his communication. It was hard enough
+to make a theory fit the circumstances of the Flying Scud; but one in
+which the chief actor should stand the least excused, and might retain
+the esteem or at least the pity of a man like Dr. Urquart, failed me
+utterly. Here at least was the end of my discoveries; I learned no more,
+till I learned all; and my reader has the evidence complete. Is he more
+astute than I was? or, like me, does he give it up?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII. CROSS-QUESTIONS AND CROOKED ANSWERS.
+
+
+I have said hard words of San Francisco; they must scarce be literally
+understood (one cannot suppose the Israelites did justice to the land of
+Pharaoh); and the city took a fine revenge of me on my return. She had
+never worn a more becoming guise; the sun shone, the air was lively, the
+people had flowers in their button-holes and smiles upon their faces;
+and as I made my way towards Jim's place of employment, with some very
+black anxieties at heart, I seemed to myself a blot on the surrounding
+gaiety.
+
+My destination was in a by-street in a mean, rickety building; “The
+Franklin H. Dodge Steam Printing Company” appeared upon its front, and
+in characters of greater freshness, so as to suggest recent conversion,
+the watch-cry, “White Labour Only.” In the office, in a dusty pen,
+Jim sat alone before a table. A wretched change had overtaken him in
+clothes, body, and bearing; he looked sick and shabby; he who had once
+rejoiced in his day's employment, like a horse among pastures, now sat
+staring on a column of accounts, idly chewing a pen, at times heavily
+sighing, the picture of inefficiency and inattention. He was sunk deep
+in a painful reverie; he neither saw nor heard me; and I stood and
+watched him unobserved. I had a sudden vain relenting. Repentance
+bludgeoned me. As I had predicted to Nares, I stood and kicked myself.
+Here was I come home again, my honour saved; there was my friend in want
+of rest, nursing, and a generous diet; and I asked myself with Falstaff,
+“What is in that word honour? what is that honour?” and, like Falstaff,
+I told myself that it was air.
+
+“Jim!” said I.
+
+“Loudon!” he gasped, and jumped from his chair and stood shaking.
+
+The next moment I was over the barrier, and we were hand in hand.
+
+“My poor old man!” I cried.
+
+“Thank God, you're home at last!” he gulped, and kept patting my
+shoulder with his hand.
+
+“I've no good news for you, Jim!” said I.
+
+“You've come--that's the good news that I want,” he replied. “O, how
+I've longed for you, Loudon!”
+
+“I couldn't do what you wrote me,” I said, lowering my voice. “The
+creditors have it all. I couldn't do it.”
+
+“Ssh!” returned Jim. “I was crazy when wrote. I could never have looked
+Mamie in the face if we had done it. O, Loudon, what a gift that woman
+is! You think you know something of life: you just don't know anything.
+It's the GOODNESS of the woman, it's a revelation!”
+
+“That's all right,” said I. “That's how I hoped to hear you, Jim.”
+
+“And so the Flying Scud was a fraud,” he resumed. “I didn't quite
+understand your letter, but I made out that.”
+
+“Fraud is a mild term for it,” said I. “The creditors will never believe
+what fools we were. And that reminds me,” I continued, rejoicing in the
+transition, “how about the bankruptcy?”
+
+“You were lucky to be out of that,” answered Jim, shaking his head;
+“you were lucky not to see the papers. The _Occidental_ called me a
+fifth-rate Kerbstone broker with water on the brain; another said I was
+a tree-frog that had got into the same meadow with Longhurst, and
+had blown myself out till I went pop. It was rough on a man in his
+honeymoon; so was what they said about my looks, and what I had on, and
+the way I perspired. But I braced myself up with the Flying Scud. How
+did it exactly figure out anyway? I don't seem to catch on to that
+story, Loudon.”
+
+“The devil you don't!” thinks I to myself; and then aloud: “You see
+we had neither one of us good luck. I didn't do much more than cover
+current expenses; and you got floored immediately. How did we come to go
+so soon?”
+
+“Well, we'll have to have a talk over all this,” said Jim with a sudden
+start. “I should be getting to my books; and I guess you had better
+go up right away to Mamie. She's at Speedy's. She expects you with
+impatience. She regards you in the light of a favourite brother,
+Loudon.”
+
+Any scheme was welcome which allowed me to postpone the hour of
+explanation, and avoid (were it only for a breathing space) the topic
+of the Flying Scud. I hastened accordingly to Bush Street. Mrs. Speedy,
+already rejoicing in the return of a spouse, hailed me with acclamation.
+“And it's beautiful you're looking, Mr. Dodd, my dear,” she was kind
+enough to say. “And a miracle they naygur waheenies let ye lave the
+oilands. I have my suspicions of Shpeedy,” she added, roguishly. “Did ye
+see him after the naygresses now?”
+
+I gave Speedy an unblemished character.
+
+“The one of ye will niver bethray the other,” said the playful dame, and
+ushered me into a bare room, where Mamie sat working a type-writer.
+
+I was touched by the cordiality of her greeting. With the prettiest
+gesture in the world she gave me both her hands; wheeled forth a chair;
+and produced, from a cupboard, a tin of my favourite tobacco, and a book
+of my exclusive cigarette papers.
+
+“There!” she cried; “you see, Mr. Loudon, we were all prepared for you;
+the things were bought the very day you sailed.”
+
+I imagined she had always intended me a pleasant welcome; but the
+certain fervour of sincerity, which I could not help remarking, flowed
+from an unexpected source. Captain Nares, with a kindness for which
+I can never be sufficiently grateful, had stolen a moment from his
+occupations, driven to call on Mamie, and drawn her a generous picture
+of my prowess at the wreck. She was careful not to breathe a word of
+this interview, till she had led me on to tell my adventures for myself.
+
+“Ah! Captain Nares was better,” she cried, when I had done. “From your
+account, I have only learned one new thing, that you are modest as well
+as brave.”
+
+I cannot tell with what sort of disclamation I sought to reply.
+
+“It is of no use,” said Mamie. “I know a hero. And when I heard of you
+working all day like a common labourer, with your hands bleeding and
+your nails broken--and how you told the captain to 'crack on' (I think
+he said) in the storm, when he was terrified himself--and the danger
+of that horrid mutiny”--(Nares had been obligingly dipping his brush in
+earthquake and eclipse)--“and how it was all done, in part at least, for
+Jim and me--I felt we could never say how we admired and thanked you.”
+
+“Mamie,” I cried, “don't talk of thanks; it is not a word to be used
+between friends. Jim and I have been prosperous together; now we shall
+be poor together. We've done our best, and that's all that need be said.
+The next thing is for me to find a situation, and send you and Jim up
+country for a long holiday in the redwoods--for a holiday Jim has got to
+have.”
+
+“Jim can't take your money, Mr. Loudon,” said Mamie.
+
+“Jim?” cried I. “He's got to. Didn't I take his?”
+
+Presently after, Jim himself arrived, and before he had yet done mopping
+his brow, he was at me with the accursed subject. “Now, Loudon,” said
+he, “here we are all together, the day's work done and the evening
+before us; just start in with the whole story.”
+
+“One word on business first,” said I, speaking from the lips outward,
+and meanwhile (in the private apartments of my brain) trying for the
+thousandth time to find some plausible arrangement of my story. “I want
+to have a notion how we stand about the bankruptcy.”
+
+“O, that's ancient history,” cried Jim. “We paid seven cents, and a
+wonder we did as well. The receiver----” (methought a spasm seized him
+at the name of this official, and he broke off). “But it's all past
+and done with anyway; and what I want to get at is the facts about the
+wreck. I don't seem to understand it; appears to me like as there was
+something underneath.”
+
+“There was nothing IN it, anyway,” I said, with a forced laugh.
+
+“That's what I want to judge of,” returned Jim.
+
+“How the mischief is it I can never keep you to that bankruptcy? It
+looks as if you avoided it,” said I--for a man in my situation, with
+unpardonable folly.
+
+“Don't it look a little as if you were trying to avoid the wreck?” asked
+Jim.
+
+It was my own doing; there was no retreat. “My dear fellow, if you make
+a point of it, here goes!” said I, and launched with spurious gaiety
+into the current of my tale. I told it with point and spirit; described
+the island and the wreck, mimicked Anderson and the Chinese, maintained
+the suspense.... My pen has stumbled on the fatal word. I maintained the
+suspense so well that it was never relieved; and when I stopped--I dare
+not say concluded, where there was no conclusion--I found Jim and Mamie
+regarding me with surprise.
+
+“Well?” said Jim.
+
+“Well, that's all,” said I.
+
+“But how do you explain it?” he asked.
+
+“I can't explain it,” said I.
+
+
+Mamie wagged her head ominously.
+
+“But, great Caesar's ghost! the money was offered!” cried Jim. “It won't
+do, Loudon; it's nonsense, on the face of it! I don't say but what you
+and Nares did your best; I'm sure, of course, you did; but I do say, you
+got fooled. I say the stuff is in that ship to-day, and I say I mean to
+get it.”
+
+“There is nothing in the ship, I tell you, but old wood and iron!” said
+I.
+
+“You'll see,” said Jim. “Next time I go myself. I'll take Mamie for the
+trip; Longhurst won't refuse me the expense of a schooner. You wait till
+I get the searching of her.”
+
+“But you can't search her!” cried I. “She's burned.”
+
+“Burned!” cried Mamie, starting a little from the attitude of quiescent
+capacity in which she had hitherto sat to hear me, her hands folded in
+her lap.
+
+There was an appreciable pause.
+
+“I beg your pardon, Loudon,” began Jim at last, “but why in snakes did
+you burn her?”
+
+“It was an idea of Nares's,” said I.
+
+“This is certainly the strangest circumstance of all,” observed Mamie.
+
+“I must say, Loudon, it does seem kind of unexpected,” added Jim. “It
+seems kind of crazy even. What did you--what did Nares expect to gain by
+burning her?”
+
+“I don't know; it didn't seem to matter; we had got all there was to
+get,” said I.
+
+“That's the very point,” cried Jim. “It was quite plain you hadn't.”
+
+“What made you so sure?” asked Mamie.
+
+“How can I tell you?” I cried. “We had been all through her. We WERE
+sure; that's all that I can say.”
+
+
+“I begin to think you were,” she returned, with a significant emphasis.
+
+Jim hurriedly intervened. “What I don't quite make out, Loudon, is that
+you don't seem to appreciate the peculiarities of the thing,” said he.
+“It doesn't seem to have struck you same as it does me.”
+
+“Pshaw! why go on with this?” cried Mamie, suddenly rising. “Mr. Dodd is
+not telling us either what he thinks or what he knows.”
+
+“Mamie!” cried Jim.
+
+“You need not be concerned for his feelings, James; he is not concerned
+for yours,” returned the lady. “He dare not deny it, besides. And this
+is not the first time he has practised reticence. Have you forgotten
+that he knew the address, and did not tell it you until that man had
+escaped?”
+
+Jim turned to me pleadingly--we were all on our feet. “Loudon,” he said,
+“you see Mamie has some fancy; and I must say there's just a sort of a
+shadow of an excuse; for it IS bewildering--even to me, Loudon, with my
+trained business intelligence. For God's sake, clear it up.”
+
+“This serves me right,” said I. “I should not have tried to keep you in
+the dark; I should have told you at first that I was pledged to secrecy;
+I should have asked you to trust me in the beginning. It is all I can
+do now. There is more of the story, but it concerns none of us, and my
+tongue is tied. I have given my word of honour. You must trust me and
+try to forgive me.”
+
+“I daresay I am very stupid, Mr. Dodd,” began Mamie, with an alarming
+sweetness, “but I thought you went upon this trip as my husband's
+representative and with my husband's money? You tell us now that you
+are pledged, but I should have thought you were pledged first of all
+to James. You say it does not concern us; we are poor people, and my
+husband is sick, and it concerns us a great deal to understand how we
+come to have lost our money, and why our representative comes back to
+us with nothing. You ask that we should trust you; you do not seem to
+understand; the question we are asking ourselves is whether we have not
+trusted you too much.”
+
+“I do not ask you to trust me,” I replied. “I ask Jim. He knows me.”
+
+“You think you can do what you please with James; you trust to his
+affection, do you not? And me, I suppose, you do not consider,” said
+Mamie. “But it was perhaps an unfortunate day for you when we were
+married, for I at least am not blind. The crew run away, the ship is
+sold for a great deal of money, you know that man's address and you
+conceal it, you do not find what you were sent to look for, and yet you
+burn the ship; and now, when we ask explanations, you are pledged to
+secrecy! But I am pledged to no such thing; I will not stand by in
+silence and see my sick and ruined husband betrayed by his condescending
+friend. I will give you the truth for once. Mr. Dodd, you have been
+bought and sold.”
+
+“Mamie,” cried Jim, “no more of this! It's me you're striking; it's only
+me you hurt. You don't know, you cannot understand these things. Why,
+to-day, if it hadn't been for Loudon, I couldn't have looked you in the
+face. He saved my honesty.”
+
+“I have heard plenty of this talk before,” she replied. “You are a
+sweet-hearted fool, and I love you for it. But I am a clear-headed
+woman; my eyes are open, and I understand this man's hypocrisy. Did he
+not come here to-day and pretend he would take a situation--pretend he
+would share his hard-earned wages with us until you were well? Pretend!
+It makes me furious! His wages! a share of his wages! That would have
+been your pittance, that would have been your share of the Flying
+Scud--you who worked and toiled for him when he was a beggar in the
+streets of Paris. But we do not want your charity; thank God, I can work
+for my own husband! See what it is to have obliged a gentleman. He would
+let you pick him up when he was begging; he would stand and look on, and
+let you black his shoes, and sneer at you. For you were always sneering
+at my James; you always looked down upon him in your heart, you know
+it!” She turned back to Jim. “And now when he is rich,” she began, and
+then swooped again on me. “For you are rich, I dare you to deny it; I
+defy you to look me in the face and try to deny that you are rich--rich
+with our money--my husband's money----”
+
+Heaven knows to what a height she might have risen, being, by this time,
+bodily whirled away in her own hurricane of words. Heart-sickness,
+a black depression, a treacherous sympathy with my assailant, pity
+unutterable for poor Jim, already filled, divided, and abashed my
+spirit. Flight seemed the only remedy; and making a private sign to Jim,
+as if to ask permission, I slunk from the unequal field.
+
+I was but a little way down the street, when I was arrested by the sound
+of some one running, and Jim's voice calling me by name. He had followed
+me with a letter which had been long awaiting my return.
+
+I took it in a dream. “This has been a devil of a business,” said I.
+
+“Don't think hard of Mamie,” he pleaded. “It's the way she's made; it's
+her high-toned loyalty. And of course I know it's all right. I know your
+sterling character; but you didn't, somehow, make out to give us the
+thing straight, Loudon. Anybody might have--I mean it--I mean----”
+
+“Never mind what you mean, my poor Jim,” said I. “She's a gallant little
+woman and a loyal wife: and I thought her splendid. My story was as
+fishy as the devil. I'll never think the less of either her or you.”
+
+“It'll blow over; it must blow over,” said he.
+
+“It never can,” I returned, sighing: “and don't you try to make it!
+Don't name me, unless it's with an oath. And get home to her right away.
+Good by, my best of friends. Good by, and God bless you. We shall never
+meet again.”
+
+“O Loudon, that we should live to say such words!” he cried.
+
+I had no views on life, beyond an occasional impulse to commit suicide,
+or to get drunk, and drifted down the street, semi-conscious, walking
+apparently on air, in the light-headedness of grief. I had money in my
+pocket, whether mine or my creditors' I had no means of guessing; and,
+the Poodle Dog lying in my path, I went mechanically in and took
+a table. A waiter attended me, and I suppose I gave my orders; for
+presently I found myself, with a sudden return of consciousness,
+beginning dinner. On the white cloth at my elbow lay the letter,
+addressed in a clerk's hand, and bearing an English stamp and the
+Edinburgh postmark. A bowl of bouillon and a glass of wine awakened in
+one corner of my brain (where all the rest was in mourning, the blinds
+down as for a funeral) a faint stir of curiosity; and while I waited the
+next course, wondering the while what I had ordered, I opened and began
+to read the epoch-making document.
+
+“DEAR SIR: I am charged with the melancholy duty of announcing to you
+the death of your excellent grandfather, Mr. Alexander Loudon, on
+the 17th ult. On Sunday the 13th, he went to church as usual in the
+forenoon, and stopped on his way home, at the corner of Princes Street,
+in one of our seasonable east winds, to talk with an old friend. The
+same evening acute bronchitis declared itself; from the first, Dr.
+M'Combie anticipated a fatal result, and the old gentleman appeared to
+have no illusion as to his own state. He repeatedly assured me it
+was 'by' with him now; 'and high time, too,' he once added with
+characteristic asperity. He was not in the least changed on the approach
+of death: only (what I am sure must be very grateful to your feelings)
+he seemed to think and speak even more kindly than usual of yourself:
+referring to you as 'Jeannie's yin,' with strong expressions of regard.
+'He was the only one I ever liket of the hale jing-bang,' was one of his
+expressions; and you will be glad to know that he dwelt particularly
+on the dutiful respect you had always displayed in your relations.
+The small codicil, by which he bequeaths you his Molesworth and other
+professional works, was added (you will observe) on the day before his
+death; so that you were in his thoughts until the end. I should say
+that, though rather a trying patient, he was most tenderly nursed by
+your uncle, and your cousin, Miss Euphemia. I enclose a copy of the
+testament, by which you will see that you share equally with Mr. Adam,
+and that I hold at your disposal a sum nearly approaching seventeen
+thousand pounds. I beg to congratulate you on this considerable
+acquisition, and expect your orders, to which I shall hasten to give my
+best attention. Thinking that you might desire to return at once to this
+country, and not knowing how you may be placed, I enclose a credit for
+six hundred pounds. Please sign the accompanying slip, and let me have
+it at your earliest convenience.
+
+“I am, dear sir, yours truly,
+
+“W. RUTHERFORD GREGG.”
+
+“God bless the old gentleman!” I thought; “and for that matter God bless
+Uncle Adam! and my cousin Euphemia! and Mr. Gregg!” I had a vision of
+that grey old life now brought to an end--“and high time too”--a vision
+of those Sabbath streets alternately vacant and filled with silent
+people; of the babel of the bells, the long-drawn psalmody, the shrewd
+sting of the east wind, the hollow, echoing, dreary house to which
+“Ecky” had returned with the hand of death already on his shoulder; a
+vision, too, of the long, rough country lad, perhaps a serious courtier
+of the lasses in the hawthorn den, perhaps a rustic dancer on the green,
+who had first earned and answered to that harsh diminutive. And I asked
+myself if, on the whole, poor Ecky had succeeded in life; if the last
+state of that man were not on the whole worse than the first; and the
+house in Randolph Crescent a less admirable dwelling than the hamlet
+where he saw the day and grew to manhood. Here was a consolatory thought
+for one who was himself a failure.
+
+Yes, I declare the word came in my mind; and all the while, in another
+partition of the brain, I was glowing and singing for my new-found
+opulence. The pile of gold--four thousand two hundred and fifty double
+eagles, seventeen thousand ugly sovereigns, twenty-one thousand two
+hundred and fifty Napoleons--danced, and rang and ran molten, and lit
+up life with their effulgence, in the eye of fancy. Here were all things
+made plain to me: Paradise--Paris, I mean--Regained, Carthew protected,
+Jim restored, the creditors...
+
+“The creditors!” I repeated, and sank back benumbed. It was all theirs
+to the last farthing: my grandfather had died too soon to save me.
+
+I must have somewhere a rare vein of decision. In that revolutionary
+moment, I found myself prepared for all extremes except the one: ready
+to do anything, or to go anywhere, so long as I might save my money.
+At the worst, there was flight, flight to some of those blest countries
+where the serpent, extradition, has not yet entered in.
+
+     On no condition is extradition
+     Allowed in Callao!
+
+--the old lawless words haunted me; and I saw myself hugging my gold in
+the company of such men as had once made and sung them, in the rude
+and bloody wharfside drinking-shops of Chili and Peru. The run of my
+ill-luck, the breach of my old friendship, this bubble fortune flaunted
+for a moment in my eyes and snatched again, had made me desperate and
+(in the expressive vulgarism) ugly. To drink vile spirits among vile
+companions by the flare of a pine-torch; to go burthened with my furtive
+treasure in a belt; to fight for it knife in hand, rolling on a clay
+floor; to flee perpetually in fresh ships and to be chased through
+the sea from isle to isle, seemed, in my then frame of mind, a welcome
+series of events.
+
+That was for the worst; but it began to dawn slowly on my mind that
+there was yet a possible better. Once escaped, once safe in Callao, I
+might approach my creditors with a good grace; and properly handled by
+a cunning agent, it was just possible they might accept some easy
+composition. The hope recalled me to the bankruptcy. It was strange, I
+reflected: often as I had questioned Jim, he had never obliged me
+with an answer. In his haste for news about the wreck, my own no less
+legitimate curiosity had gone disappointed. Hateful as the thought was
+to me, I must return at once and find out where I stood.
+
+I left my dinner still unfinished, paying for the whole, of course, and
+tossing the waiter a gold piece. I was reckless; I knew not what was
+mine and cared not: I must take what I could get and give as I was able;
+to rob and to squander seemed the complementary parts of my new destiny.
+I walked up Bush Street, whistling, brazening myself to confront Mamie
+in the first place, and the world at large and a certain visionary judge
+upon a bench in the second. Just outside, I stopped and lighted a cigar
+to give me greater countenance; and puffing this and wearing what (I
+am sure) was a wretched assumption of braggadocio, I reappeared on the
+scene of my disgrace.
+
+My friend and his wife were finishing a poor meal--rags of old mutton,
+the remainder cakes from breakfast eaten cold, and a starveling pot of
+coffee.
+
+“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Pinkerton,” said I. “Sorry to inflict my
+presence where it cannot be desired; but there is a piece of business
+necessary to be discussed.”
+
+“Pray do not consider me,” said Mamie, rising, and she sailed into the
+adjoining bedroom.
+
+Jim watched her go and shook his head; he looked miserably old and ill.
+
+“What is it, now?” he asked.
+
+“Perhaps you remember you answered none of my questions,” said I.
+
+
+“Your questions?” faltered Jim.
+
+“Even so, Jim. My questions,” I repeated. “I put questions as well as
+yourself; and however little I may have satisfied Mamie with my answers,
+I beg to remind you that you gave me none at all.”
+
+“You mean about the bankruptcy?” asked Jim.
+
+I nodded.
+
+He writhed in his chair. “The straight truth is, I was ashamed,” he
+said. “I was trying to dodge you. I've been playing fast and loose with
+you, Loudon; I've deceived you from the first, I blush to own it. And
+here you came home and put the very question I was fearing. Why did we
+bust so soon? Your keen business eye had not deceived you. That's the
+point, that's my shame; that's what killed me this afternoon when Mamie
+was treating you so, and my conscience was telling me all the time, Thou
+art the man.”
+
+“What was it, Jim?” I asked.
+
+“What I had been at all the time, Loudon,” he wailed; “and I don't know
+how I'm to look you in the face and say it, after my duplicity. It was
+stocks,” he added in a whisper.
+
+“And you were afraid to tell me that!” I cried. “You poor, old,
+cheerless dreamer! what would it matter what you did or didn't? Can't
+you see we're doomed? And anyway, that's not my point. It's how I stand
+that I want to know. There is a particular reason. Am I clear? Have I a
+certificate, or what have I to do to get one? And when will it be dated?
+You can't think what hangs by it!”
+
+“That's the worst of all,” said Jim, like a man in a dream, “I can't see
+how to tell him!”
+
+“What do you mean?” I cried, a small pang of terror at my heart.
+
+“I'm afraid I sacrificed you, Loudon,” he said, looking at me pitifully.
+
+“Sacrificed me?” I repeated. “How? What do you mean by sacrifice?”
+
+“I know it'll shock your delicate self-respect,” he said; “but what was
+I to do? Things looked so bad. The receiver----” (as usual, the name
+stuck in his throat, and he began afresh). “There was a lot of talk; the
+reporters were after me already; there was the trouble and all about
+the Mexican business; and I got scared right out, and I guess I lost my
+head. You weren't there, you see, and that was my temptation.”
+
+I did not know how long he might thus beat about the bush with dreadful
+hintings, and I was already beside myself with terror. What had he done?
+I saw he had been tempted; I knew from his letters that he was in no
+condition to resist. How had he sacrificed the absent?
+
+“Jim,” I said, “you must speak right out. I've got all that I can
+carry.”
+
+“Well,” he said--“I know it was a liberty--I made it out you were no
+business man, only a stone-broke painter; that half the time you didn't
+know anything anyway, particularly money and accounts. I said you never
+could be got to understand whose was whose. I had to say that because of
+some entries in the books----”
+
+“For God's sake,” I cried, “put me out of this agony! What did you
+accuse me of?”
+
+“Accuse you of?” repeated Jim. “Of what I'm telling you. And there being
+no deed of partnership, I made out you were only a kind of clerk that
+I called a partner just to give you taffy; and so I got you ranked
+a creditor on the estate for your wages and the money you had lent.
+And----”
+
+I believe I reeled. “A creditor!” I roared; “a creditor! I'm not in the
+bankruptcy at all?”
+
+“No,” said Jim. “I know it was a liberty----”
+
+“O, damn your liberty! read that,” I cried, dashing the letter before
+him on the table, “and call in your wife, and be done with eating this
+truck “--as I spoke, I slung the cold mutton in the empty grate--“and
+let's all go and have a champagne supper. I've dined--I'm sure I don't
+remember what I had; I'd dine again ten scores of times upon a night
+like this. Read it, you blaying ass! I'm not insane. Here, Mamie,” I
+continued, opening the bedroom door, “come out and make it up with me,
+and go and kiss your husband; and I'll tell you what, after the supper,
+let's go to some place where there's a band, and I'll waltz with you
+till sunrise.”
+
+“What does it all mean?” cried Jim.
+
+“It means we have a champagne supper to-night, and all go to Napa Valley
+or to Monterey to-morrow,” said I. “Mamie, go and get your things on;
+and you, Jim, sit down right where you are, take a sheet of paper, and
+tell Franklin Dodge to go to Texas. Mamie, you were right, my dear; I
+was rich all the time, and didn't know it.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX. TRAVELS WITH A SHYSTER.
+
+
+The absorbing and disastrous adventure of the Flying Scud was now quite
+ended; we had dashed into these deep waters and we had escaped again to
+starve, we had been ruined and were saved, had quarrelled and made up;
+there remained nothing but to sing Te Deum, draw a line, and begin on a
+fresh page of my unwritten diary. I do not pretend that I recovered all
+I had lost with Mamie; it would have been more than I had merited; and
+I had certainly been more uncommunicative than became either the partner
+or the friend. But she accepted the position handsomely; and during
+the week that I now passed with them, both she and Jim had the grace
+to spare me questions. It was to Calistoga that we went; there was
+some rumour of a Napa land-boom at the moment, the possibility of stir
+attracted Jim, and he informed me he would find a certain joy in looking
+on, much as Napoleon on St. Helena took a pleasure to read military
+works. The field of his ambition was quite closed; he was done with
+action; and looked forward to a ranch in a mountain dingle, a patch of
+corn, a pair of kine, a leisurely and contemplative age in the green
+shade of forests. “Just let me get down on my back in a hayfield,” said
+he, “and you'll find there's no more snap to me than that much putty.”
+
+And for two days the perfervid being actually rested. The third, he was
+observed in consultation with the local editor, and owned he was in two
+minds about purchasing the press and paper. “It's a kind of a hold for
+an idle man,” he said, pleadingly; “and if the section was to open up
+the way it ought to, there might be dollars in the thing.” On the fourth
+day he was gone till dinner-time alone; on the fifth we made a long
+picnic drive to the fresh field of enterprise; and the sixth was passed
+entirely in the preparation of prospectuses. The pioneer of McBride City
+was already upright and self-reliant as of yore; the fire rekindled in
+his eye, the ring restored to his voice; a charger sniffing battle and
+saying ha-ha, among the spears. On the seventh morning we signed a deed
+of partnership, for Jim would not accept a dollar of my money otherwise;
+and having once more engaged myself--or that mortal part of me, my
+purse--among the wheels of his machinery, I returned alone to San
+Francisco and took quarters in the Palace Hotel.
+
+The same night I had Nares to dinner. His sunburnt face, his queer and
+personal strain of talk, recalled days that were scarce over and that
+seemed already distant. Through the music of the band outside, and the
+chink and clatter of the dining-room, it seemed to me as if I heard the
+foaming of the surf and the voices of the sea-birds about Midway Island.
+The bruises on our hands were not yet healed; and there we sat, waited
+on by elaborate darkies, eating pompano and drinking iced champagne.
+
+“Think of our dinners on the Norah, captain, and then oblige me by
+looking round the room for contrast.”
+
+He took the scene in slowly. “Yes, it is like a dream,” he said: “like
+as if the darkies were really about as big as dimes; and a great big
+scuttle might open up there, and Johnson stick in a great big head and
+shoulders, and cry, 'Eight bells!'--and the whole thing vanish.”
+
+“Well, it's the other thing that has done that,” I replied. “It's all
+bygone now, all dead and buried. Amen! say I.”
+
+“I don't know that, Mr. Dodd; and to tell you the fact, I don't believe
+it,” said Nares. “There's more Flying Scud in the oven; and the baker's
+name, I take it, is Bellairs. He tackled me the day we came in: sort of
+a razee of poor old humanity--jury clothes--full new suit of pimples:
+knew him at once from your description. I let him pump me till I saw his
+game. He knows a good deal that we don't know, a good deal that we do,
+and suspects the balance. There's trouble brewing for somebody.”
+
+I was surprised I had not thought of this before. Bellairs had been
+behind the scenes; he had known Dickson; he knew the flight of the crew;
+it was hardly possible but what he should suspect; it was certain if
+he suspected, that he would seek to trade on the suspicion. And sure
+enough, I was not yet dressed the next morning ere the lawyer was
+knocking at my door. I let him in, for I was curious; and he, after some
+ambiguous prolegomena, roundly proposed I should go shares with him.
+
+“Shares in what?” I inquired.
+
+“If you will allow me to clothe my idea in a somewhat vulgar form,” said
+he, “I might ask you, did you go to Midway for your health?”
+
+“I don't know that I did,” I replied.
+
+“Similarly, Mr. Dodd, you may be sure I would never have taken
+the present step without influential grounds,” pursued the lawyer.
+“Intrusion is foreign to my character. But you and I, sir, are engaged
+on the same ends. If we can continue to work the thing in company,
+I place at your disposal my knowledge of the law and a considerable
+practice in delicate negotiations similar to this. Should you refuse to
+consent, you might find in me a formidable and”--he hesitated--“and to
+my own regret, perhaps a dangerous competitor.”
+
+“Did you get this by heart?” I asked, genially.
+
+“I advise YOU to!” he said, with a sudden sparkle of temper and menace,
+instantly gone, instantly succeeded by fresh cringing. “I assure
+you, sir, I arrive in the character of a friend; and I believe you
+underestimate my information. If I may instance an example, I am
+acquainted to the last dime with what you made (or rather lost), and I
+know you have since cashed a considerable draft on London.”
+
+“What do you infer?” I asked.
+
+“I know where that draft came from,” he cried, wincing back like one who
+has greatly dared, and instantly regrets the venture.
+
+“So?” said I.
+
+“You forget I was Mr. Dickson's confidential agent,” he explained. “You
+had his address, Mr. Dodd. We were the only two that he communicated
+with in San Francisco. You see my deductions are quite obvious: you
+see how open and frank I deal with you, as I should wish to do with
+any gentleman with whom I was conjoined in business. You see how much
+I know; and it can scarcely escape your strong common-sense, how much
+better it would be if I knew all. You cannot hope to get rid of me at
+this time of day, I have my place in the affair, I cannot be shaken off;
+I am, if you will excuse a rather technical pleasantry, an encumbrance
+on the estate. The actual harm I can do, I leave you to valuate for
+yourself. But without going so far, Mr. Dodd, and without in any way
+inconveniencing myself, I could make things very uncomfortable. For
+instance, Mr. Pinkerton's liquidation. You and I know, sir--and you
+better than I--on what a large fund you draw. Is Mr. Pinkerton in
+the thing at all? It was you only who knew the address, and you were
+concealing it. Suppose I should communicate with Mr. Pinkerton----”
+
+“Look here!” I interrupted, “communicate with him (if you will permit
+me to clothe my idea in a vulgar shape) till you are blue in the face.
+There is only one person with whom I refuse to allow you to communicate
+further, and that is myself. Good morning.”
+
+He could not conceal his rage, disappointment, and surprise; and in the
+passage (I have no doubt) was shaken by St. Vitus.
+
+I was disgusted by this interview; it struck me hard to be suspected
+on all hands, and to hear again from this trafficker what I had heard
+already from Jim's wife; and yet my strongest impression was different
+and might rather be described as an impersonal fear. There was something
+against nature in the man's craven impudence; it was as though a lamb
+had butted me; such daring at the hands of such a dastard, implied
+unchangeable resolve, a great pressure of necessity, and powerful means.
+I thought of the unknown Carthew, and it sickened me to see this ferret
+on his trail.
+
+Upon inquiry I found the lawyer was but just disbarred for some
+malpractice; and the discovery added excessively to my disquiet. Here
+was a rascal without money or the means of making it, thrust out of the
+doors of his own trade, publicly shamed, and doubtless in a deuce of a
+bad temper with the universe. Here, on the other hand, was a man with a
+secret; rich, terrified, practically in hiding; who had been willing
+to pay ten thousand pounds for the bones of the Flying Scud. I slipped
+insensibly into a mental alliance with the victim; the business weighed
+on me; all day long, I was wondering how much the lawyer knew, how much
+he guessed, and when he would open his attack.
+
+Some of these problems are unsolved to this day; others were soon made
+clear. Where he got Carthew's name is still a mystery; perhaps some
+sailor on the Tempest, perhaps my own sea-lawyer served him for a tool;
+but I was actually at his elbow when he learned the address. It fell
+so. One evening, when I had an engagement and was killing time until the
+hour, I chanced to walk in the court of the hotel while the band played.
+The place was bright as day with the electric light; and I recognised,
+at some distance among the loiterers, the person of Bellairs in talk
+with a gentleman whose face appeared familiar. It was certainly some one
+I had seen, and seen recently; but who or where, I knew not. A porter
+standing hard by, gave me the necessary hint. The stranger was an
+English navy man, invalided home from Honolulu, where he had left his
+ship; indeed, it was only from the change of clothes and the effects
+of sickness, that I had not immediately recognised my friend and
+correspondent, Lieutenant Sebright.
+
+The conjunction of these planets seeming ominous, I drew near; but it
+seemed Bellairs had done his business; he vanished in the crowd, and I
+found my officer alone.
+
+“Do you know whom you have been talking to, Mr. Sebright?” I began.
+
+“No,” said he; “I don't know him from Adam. Anything wrong?”
+
+“He is a disreputable lawyer, recently disbarred,” said I. “I wish I had
+seen you in time. I trust you told him nothing about Carthew?”
+
+He flushed to his ears. “I'm awfully sorry,” he said. “He seemed civil,
+and I wanted to get rid of him. It was only the address he asked.”
+
+“And you gave it?” I cried.
+
+“I'm really awfully sorry,” said Sebright. “I'm afraid I did.”
+
+“God forgive you!” was my only comment, and I turned my back upon the
+blunderer.
+
+The fat was in the fire now: Bellairs had the address, and I was the
+more deceived or Carthew would have news of him. So strong was this
+impression, and so painful, that the next morning I had the curiosity to
+pay the lawyer's den a visit. An old woman was scrubbing the stair, and
+the board was down.
+
+“Lawyer Bellairs?” said the old woman. “Gone East this morning. There's
+Lawyer Dean next block up.”
+
+I did not trouble Lawyer Dean, but walked slowly back to my hotel,
+ruminating as I went. The image of the old woman washing that desecrated
+stair had struck my fancy; it seemed that all the water-supply of the
+city and all the soap in the State would scarce suffice to cleanse it,
+it had been so long a clearing-house of dingy secrets and a factory
+of sordid fraud. And now the corner was untenanted; some judge, like a
+careful housewife, had knocked down the web, and the bloated spider was
+scuttling elsewhere after new victims. I had of late (as I have said)
+insensibly taken sides with Carthew; now when his enemy was at his
+heels, my interest grew more warm; and I began to wonder if I could not
+help. The drama of the Flying Scud was entering on a new phase. It had
+been singular from the first: it promised an extraordinary conclusion;
+and I, who had paid so much to learn the beginning, might pay a little
+more and see the end. I lingered in San Francisco, indemnifying myself
+after the hardships of the cruise, spending money, regretting it,
+continually promising departure for the morrow. Why not go indeed, and
+keep a watch upon Bellairs? If I missed him, there was no harm done, I
+was the nearer Paris. If I found and kept his trail, it was hard if
+I could not put some stick in his machinery, and at the worst I could
+promise myself interesting scenes and revelations.
+
+In such a mixed humour, I made up what it pleases me to call my mind,
+and once more involved myself in the story of Carthew and the Flying
+Scud. The same night I wrote a letter of farewell to Jim, and one of
+anxious warning to Dr. Urquart begging him to set Carthew on his guard;
+the morrow saw me in the ferry-boat; and ten days later, I was walking
+the hurricane deck on the City of Denver. By that time my mind was
+pretty much made down again, its natural condition: I told myself that
+I was bound for Paris or Fontainebleau to resume the study of the arts;
+and I thought no more of Carthew or Bellairs, or only to smile at my own
+fondness. The one I could not serve, even if I wanted; the other I had
+no means of finding, even if I could have at all influenced him after he
+was found.
+
+And for all that, I was close on the heels of an absurd adventure. My
+neighbour at table that evening was a 'Frisco man whom I knew slightly.
+I found he had crossed the plains two days in front of me, and this was
+the first steamer that had left New York for Europe since his arrival.
+Two days before me meant a day before Bellairs; and dinner was scarce
+done before I was closeted with the purser.
+
+“Bellairs?” he repeated. “Not in the saloon, I am sure. He may be in
+the second class. The lists are not made out, but--Hullo! 'Harry D.
+Bellairs?' That the name? He's there right enough.”
+
+And the next morning I saw him on the forward deck, sitting in a chair,
+a book in his hand, a shabby puma skin rug about his knees: the picture
+of respectable decay. Off and on, I kept him in my eye. He read a good
+deal, he stood and looked upon the sea, he talked occasionally with his
+neighbours, and once when a child fell he picked it up and soothed it. I
+damned him in my heart; the book, which I was sure he did not read--the
+sea, to which I was ready to take oath he was indifferent--the child,
+whom I was certain he would as lieve have tossed overboard--all seemed
+to me elements in a theatrical performance; and I made no doubt he was
+already nosing after the secrets of his fellow-passengers. I took no
+pains to conceal myself, my scorn for the creature being as strong as my
+disgust. But he never looked my way, and it was night before I learned
+he had observed me.
+
+I was smoking by the engine-room door, for the air was a little sharp,
+when a voice rose close beside me in the darkness.
+
+“I beg your pardon, Mr. Dodd,” it said.
+
+“That you, Bellairs?” I replied.
+
+“A single word, sir. Your presence on this ship has no connection with
+our interview?” he asked. “You have no idea, Mr. Dodd, of returning upon
+your determination?”
+
+“None,” said I; and then, seeing he still lingered, I was polite enough
+to add “Good evening;” at which he sighed and went away.
+
+
+The next day, he was there again with the chair and the puma skin; read
+his book and looked at the sea with the same constancy; and though there
+was no child to be picked up, I observed him to attend repeatedly on a
+sick woman. Nothing fosters suspicion like the act of watching; a man
+spied upon can hardly blow his nose but we accuse him of designs; and
+I took an early opportunity to go forward and see the woman for myself.
+She was poor, elderly, and painfully plain; I stood abashed at the
+sight, felt I owed Bellairs amends for the injustice of my thoughts, and
+seeing him standing by the rail in his usual attitude of contemplation,
+walked up and addressed him by name.
+
+“You seem very fond of the sea,” said I.
+
+“I may really call it a passion, Mr. Dodd,” he replied. “And the tall
+cataract haunted me like a passion,” he quoted. “I never weary of
+the sea, sir. This is my first ocean voyage. I find it a glorious
+experience.” And once more my disbarred lawyer dropped into poetry:
+“Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll!”
+
+Though I had learned the piece in my reading-book at school, I came into
+the world a little too late on the one hand--and I daresay a little
+too early on the other--to think much of Byron; and the sonorous verse,
+prodigiously well delivered, struck me with surprise.
+
+“You are fond of poetry, too?” I asked.
+
+“I am a great reader,” he replied. “At one time I had begun to amass
+quite a small but well selected library; and when that was scattered, I
+still managed to preserve a few volumes--chiefly of pieces designed for
+recitation--which have been my travelling companions.”
+
+“Is that one of them?” I asked, pointing to the volume in his hand.
+
+“No, sir,” he replied, showing me a translation of the _Sorrows of
+Werther_, “that is a novel I picked up some time ago. It has afforded me
+great pleasure, though immoral.”
+
+“O, immoral!” cried I, indignant as usual at any complication of art and
+ethics.
+
+
+“Surely you cannot deny that, sir--if you know the book,” he said. “The
+passion is illicit, although certainly drawn with a good deal of pathos.
+It is not a work one could possibly put into the hands of a lady; which
+is to be regretted on all accounts, for I do not know how it may strike
+you; but it seems to me--as a depiction, if I make myself clear--to rise
+high above its compeers--even famous compeers. Even in Scott, Dickens,
+Thackeray, or Hawthorne, the sentiment of love appears to me to be
+frequently done less justice to.”
+
+“You are expressing a very general opinion,” said I.
+
+“Is that so, indeed, sir?” he exclaimed, with unmistakable excitement.
+“Is the book well known? and who was GO-EATH? I am interested in that,
+because upon the title-page the usual initials are omitted, and it runs
+simply 'by GO-EATH.' Was he an author of distinction? Has he written
+other works?”
+
+Such was our first interview, the first of many; and in all he showed
+the same attractive qualities and defects. His taste for literature
+was native and unaffected; his sentimentality, although extreme and a
+thought ridiculous, was plainly genuine. I wondered at my own innocent
+wonder. I knew that Homer nodded, that Caesar had compiled a jest-book,
+that Turner lived by preference the life of Puggy Booth, that Shelley
+made paper boats, and Wordsworth wore green spectacles! and with all
+this mass of evidence before me, I had expected Bellairs to be entirely
+of one piece, subdued to what he worked in, a spy all through. As I
+abominated the man's trade, so I had expected to detest the man himself;
+and behold, I liked him. Poor devil! he was essentially a man on wires,
+all sensibility and tremor, brimful of a cheap poetry, not without
+parts, quite without courage. His boldness was despair; the gulf behind
+him thrust him on; he was one of those who might commit a murder rather
+than confess the theft of a postage-stamp. I was sure that his coming
+interview with Carthew rode his imagination like a nightmare; when the
+thought crossed his mind, I used to think I knew of it, and that the
+qualm appeared in his face visibly. Yet he would never flinch: necessity
+stalking at his back, famine (his old pursuer) talking in his ear; and I
+used to wonder whether I most admired, or most despised, this quivering
+heroism for evil. The image that occurred to me after his visit was
+just; I had been butted by a lamb; and the phase of life that I was now
+studying might be called the Revolt of a Sheep.
+
+It could be said of him that he had learned in sorrow what he taught in
+song--or wrong; and his life was that of one of his victims. He was born
+in the back parts of the State of New York; his father a farmer, who
+became subsequently bankrupt and went West. The lawyer and money-lender
+who had ruined this poor family seems to have conceived in the end a
+feeling of remorse; he turned the father out indeed, but he offered,
+in compensation, to charge himself with one of the sons: and Harry, the
+fifth child and already sickly, was chosen to be left behind. He made
+himself useful in the office; picked up the scattered rudiments of an
+education; read right and left; attended and debated at the Young Men's
+Christian Association; and in all his early years, was the model for a
+good story-book. His landlady's daughter was his bane. He showed me
+her photograph; she was a big, handsome, dashing, dressy, vulgar hussy,
+without character, without tenderness, without mind, and (as the result
+proved) without virtue. The sickly and timid boy was in the house; he
+was handy; when she was otherwise unoccupied, she used and played with
+him: Romeo and Cressida; till in that dreary life of a poor boy in a
+country town, she grew to be the light of his days and the subject of
+his dreams. He worked hard, like Jacob, for a wife; he surpassed his
+patron in sharp practice; he was made head clerk; and the same night,
+encouraged by a hundred freedoms, depressed by the sense of his youth
+and his infirmities, he offered marriage and was received with
+laughter. Not a year had passed, before his master, conscious of growing
+infirmities, took him for a partner; he proposed again; he was accepted;
+led two years of troubled married life; and awoke one morning to find
+his wife had run away with a dashing drummer, and had left him heavily
+in debt. The debt, and not the drummer, was supposed to be the cause of
+the hegira; she had concealed her liabilities, they were on the point of
+bursting forth, she was weary of Bellairs; and she took the drummer as
+she might have taken a cab. The blow disabled her husband, his partner
+was dead; he was now alone in the business, for which he was no longer
+fit; the debts hampered him; bankruptcy followed; and he fled from city
+to city, falling daily into lower practice. It is to be considered that
+he had been taught, and had learned as a delightful duty, a kind of
+business whose highest merit is to escape the commentaries of the bench:
+that of the usurious lawyer in a county town. With this training, he was
+now shot, a penniless stranger, into the deeper gulfs of cities; and the
+result is scarce a thing to be surprised at.
+
+
+“Have you heard of your wife again?” I asked.
+
+He displayed a pitiful agitation. “I am afraid you will think ill of
+me,” he said.
+
+“Have you taken her back?” I asked.
+
+“No, sir. I trust I have too much self-respect,” he answered, “and, at
+least, I was never tempted. She won't come, she dislikes, she seems to
+have conceived a positive distaste for me, and yet I was considered an
+indulgent husband.”
+
+“You are still in relations, then?” I asked.
+
+“I place myself in your hands, Mr. Dodd,” he replied. “The world is very
+hard; I have found it bitter hard myself--bitter hard to live. How
+much worse for a woman, and one who has placed herself (by her own
+misconduct, I am far from denying that) in so unfortunate a position!”
+
+“In short, you support her?” I suggested.
+
+“I cannot deny it. I practically do,” he admitted. “It has been a
+mill-stone round my neck. But I think she is grateful. You can see for
+yourself.”
+
+He handed me a letter in a sprawling, ignorant hand, but written with
+violet ink on fine, pink paper with a monogram. It was very foolishly
+expressed, and I thought (except for a few obvious cajoleries) very
+heartless and greedy in meaning. The writer said she had been sick,
+which I disbelieved; declared the last remittance was all gone in
+doctor's bills, for which I took the liberty of substituting dress,
+drink, and monograms; and prayed for an increase, which I could only
+hope had been denied her.
+
+“I think she is really grateful?” he asked, with some eagerness, as I
+returned it.
+
+“I daresay,” said I. “Has she any claim on you?”
+
+“O no, sir. I divorced her,” he replied. “I have a very strong sense of
+self-respect in such matters, and I divorced her immediately.”
+
+“What sort of life is she leading now?” I asked.
+
+“I will not deceive you, Mr. Dodd. I do not know, I make a point of
+not knowing; it appears more dignified. I have been very harshly
+criticised,” he added, sighing.
+
+It will be seen that I had fallen into an ignominious intimacy with the
+man I had gone out to thwart. My pity for the creature, his admiration
+for myself, his pleasure in my society, which was clearly unassumed,
+were the bonds with which I was fettered; perhaps I should add, in
+honesty, my own ill-regulated interest in the phases of life and human
+character. The fact is (at least) that we spent hours together daily,
+and that I was nearly as much on the forward deck as in the saloon. Yet
+all the while I could never forget he was a shabby trickster, embarked
+that very moment in a dirty enterprise. I used to tell myself at first
+that our acquaintance was a stroke of art, and that I was somehow
+fortifying Carthew. I told myself, I say; but I was no such fool as to
+believe it, even then. In these circumstances I displayed the two chief
+qualities of my character on the largest scale--my helplessness and my
+instinctive love of procrastination--and fell upon a course of action so
+ridiculous that I blush when I recall it.
+
+We reached Liverpool one forenoon, the rain falling thickly and
+insidiously on the filthy town. I had no plans, beyond a sensible
+unwillingness to let my rascal escape; and I ended by going to the same
+inn with him, dining with him, walking with him in the wet streets,
+and hearing with him in a penny gaff that venerable piece, _The
+Ticket-of-Leave Man_. It was one of his first visits to a theatre,
+against which places of entertainment he had a strong prejudice; and his
+innocent, pompous talk, innocent old quotations, and innocent reverence
+for the character of Hawkshaw delighted me beyond relief. In charity to
+myself, I dwell upon and perhaps exaggerate my pleasures. I have need of
+all conceivable excuses, when I confess that I went to bed without one
+word upon the matter of Carthew, but not without having covenanted with
+my rascal for a visit to Chester the next day. At Chester we did the
+Cathedral, walked on the walls, discussed Shakespeare and the musical
+glasses--and made a fresh engagement for the morrow. I do not know, and
+I am glad to have forgotten, how long these travels were continued. We
+visited at least, by singular zigzags, Stratford, Warwick, Coventry,
+Gloucester, Bristol, Bath, and Wells. At each stage we spoke dutifully
+of the scene and its associations; I sketched, the Shyster spouted
+poetry and copied epitaphs. Who could doubt we were the usual Americans,
+travelling with a design of self-improvement? Who was to guess that one
+was a blackmailer, trembling to approach the scene of action--the other
+a helpless, amateur detective, waiting on events?
+
+It is unnecessary to remark that none occurred, or none the least
+suitable with my design of protecting Carthew. Two trifles, indeed,
+completed though they scarcely changed my conception of the Shyster. The
+first was observed in Gloucester, where we spent Sunday, and I proposed
+we should hear service in the cathedral. To my surprise, the creature
+had an ISM of his own, to which he was loyal; and he left me to go alone
+to the cathedral--or perhaps not to go at all--and stole off down a
+deserted alley to some Bethel or Ebenezer of the proper shade. When we
+met again at lunch, I rallied him, and he grew restive.
+
+“You need employ no circumlocutions with me, Mr. Dodd,” he said
+suddenly. “You regard my behaviour from an unfavourable point of view:
+you regard me, I much fear, as hypocritical.”
+
+I was somewhat confused by the attack. “You know what I think of your
+trade,” I replied, lamely and coarsely.
+
+“Excuse me, if I seem to press the subject,” he continued, “but if you
+think my life erroneous, would you have me neglect the means of grace?
+Because you consider me in the wrong on one point, would you have me
+place myself on the wrong in all? Surely, sir, the church is for the
+sinner.”
+
+“Did you ask a blessing on your present enterprise?” I sneered.
+
+He had a bad attack of St. Vitus, his face was changed, and his eyes
+flashed. “I will tell you what I did!” he cried. “I prayed for an
+unfortunate man and a wretched woman whom he tries to support.”
+
+I cannot pretend that I found any repartee.
+
+The second incident was at Bristol, where I lost sight of my gentleman
+some hours. From this eclipse, he returned to me with thick speech,
+wandering footsteps, and a back all whitened with plaster. I had half
+expected, yet I could have wept to see it. All disabilities were piled
+on that weak back--domestic misfortune, nervous disease, a displeasing
+exterior, empty pockets, and the slavery of vice.
+
+I will never deny that our prolonged conjunction was the result of
+double cowardice. Each was afraid to leave the other, each was afraid
+to speak, or knew not what to say. Save for my ill-judged allusion at
+Gloucester, the subject uppermost in both our minds was buried. Carthew,
+Stallbridge-le-Carthew, Stallbridge-Minster--which we had long since
+(and severally) identified to be the nearest station--even the name of
+Dorsetshire was studiously avoided. And yet we were making progress all
+the time, tacking across broad England like an unweatherly vessel on a
+wind; approaching our destination, not openly, but by a sort of flying
+sap. And at length, I can scarce tell how, we were set down by
+a dilatory butt-end of local train on the untenanted platform of
+Stallbridge-Minster.
+
+The town was ancient and compact: a domino of tiled houses and walled
+gardens, dwarfed by the disproportionate bigness of the church. From
+the midst of the thoroughfare which divided it in half, fields and trees
+were visible at either end; and through the sally-port of every street,
+there flowed in from the country a silent invasion of green grass. Bees
+and birds appeared to make the majority of the inhabitants; every garden
+had its row of hives, the eaves of every house were plastered with the
+nests of swallows, and the pinnacles of the church were flickered about
+all day long by a multitude of wings. The town was of Roman foundation;
+and as I looked out that afternoon from the low windows of the inn,
+I should scarce have been surprised to see a centurion coming up
+the street with a fatigue draft of legionaries. In short,
+Stallbridge-Minster was one of those towns which appear to be maintained
+by England for the instruction and delight of the American rambler;
+to which he seems guided by an instinct not less surprising than the
+setter's; and which he visits and quits with equal enthusiasm.
+
+I was not at all in the humour of the tourist. I had wasted weeks of
+time and accomplished nothing; we were on the eve of the engagement, and
+I had neither plans nor allies. I had thrust myself into the trade of
+private providence and amateur detective; I was spending money and I
+was reaping disgrace. All the time, I kept telling myself that I must at
+least speak; that this ignominious silence should have been broken
+long ago, and must be broken now. I should have broken it when he first
+proposed to come to Stallbridge-Minster; I should have broken it in the
+train; I should break it there and then, on the inn doorstep, as the
+omnibus rolled off. I turned toward him at the thought; he seemed to
+wince, the words died on my lips, and I proposed instead that we should
+visit the Minster.
+
+While we were engaged upon this duty, it came on to rain in a manner
+worthy of the tropics. The vault reverberated; every gargoyle instantly
+poured its full discharge; we waded back to the inn, ankle-deep in
+impromptu brooks; and the rest of the afternoon sat weatherbound,
+hearkening to the sonorous deluge. For two hours I talked of indifferent
+matters, laboriously feeding the conversation; for two hours my mind was
+quite made up to do my duty instantly--and at each particular instant I
+postponed it till the next. To screw up my faltering courage, I
+called at dinner for some sparkling wine. It proved when it came to be
+detestable; I could not put it to my lips; and Bellairs, who had as much
+palate as a weevil, was left to finish it himself. Doubtless the wine
+flushed him; doubtless he may have observed my embarrassment of the
+afternoon; doubtless he was conscious that we were approaching a crisis,
+and that that evening, if I did not join with him, I must declare myself
+an open enemy. At least he fled. Dinner was done; this was the time
+when I had bound myself to break my silence; no more delays were to be
+allowed, no more excuses received. I went upstairs after some tobacco;
+which I felt to be a mere necessity in the circumstances; and when I
+returned, the man was gone. The waiter told me he had left the house.
+
+The rain still plumped, like a vast shower-bath, over the deserted town.
+The night was dark and windless: the street lit glimmeringly from end
+to end, lamps, house windows, and the reflections in the rain-pools all
+contributing. From a public-house on the other side of the way, I heard
+a harp twang and a doleful voice upraised in the “Larboard Watch,”
+ “The Anchor's Weighed,” and other naval ditties. Where had my Shyster
+wandered? In all likelihood to that lyrical tavern; there was no choice
+of diversion; in comparison with Stallbridge-Minster on a rainy night, a
+sheepfold would seem gay.
+
+Again I passed in review the points of my interview, on which I was
+always constantly resolved so long as my adversary was absent from the
+scene: and again they struck me as inadequate. From this dispiriting
+exercise I turned to the native amusements of the inn coffee-room, and
+studied for some time the mezzotints that frowned upon the wall. The
+railway guide, after showing me how soon I could leave Stallbridge
+and how quickly I could reach Paris, failed to hold my attention. An
+illustrated advertisement book of hotels brought me very low indeed;
+and when it came to the local paper, I could have wept. At this point, I
+found a passing solace in a copy of Whittaker's Almanac, and obtained in
+fifty minutes more information than I have yet been able to use.
+
+Then a fresh apprehension assailed me. Suppose Bellairs had given me the
+slip? suppose he was now rolling on the road to Stallbridge-le-Carthew?
+or perhaps there already and laying before a very white-faced auditor
+his threats and propositions? A hasty person might have instantly
+pursued. Whatever I am, I am not hasty, and I was aware of three grave
+objections. In the first place, I could not be certain that Bellairs was
+gone. In the second, I had no taste whatever for a long drive at that
+hour of the night and in so merciless a rain. In the third, I had no
+idea how I was to get admitted if I went, and no idea what I should say
+if I got admitted. “In short,” I concluded, “the whole situation is the
+merest farce. You have thrust yourself in where you had no business
+and have no power. You would be quite as useful in San Francisco;
+far happier in Paris; and being (by the wrath of God) at
+Stallbridge-Minster, the wisest thing is to go quietly to bed.” On the
+way to my room, I saw (in a flash) that which I ought to have done long
+ago, and which it was now too late to think of--written to Carthew, I
+mean, detailing the facts and describing Bellairs, letting him defend
+himself if he were able, and giving him time to flee if he were not.
+It was the last blow to my self-respect; and I flung myself into my bed
+with contumely.
+
+I have no guess what hour it was, when I was wakened by the entrance of
+Bellairs carrying a candle. He had been drunk, for he was bedaubed with
+mire from head to foot; but he was now sober and under the empire of
+some violent emotion which he controlled with difficulty. He trembled
+visibly; and more than once, during the interview which followed, tears
+suddenly and silently overflowed his cheeks.
+
+“I have to ask your pardon, sir, for this untimely visit,” he said.
+“I make no defence, I have no excuse, I have disgraced myself, I am
+properly punished; I appear before you to appeal to you in mercy for the
+most trifling aid or, God help me! I fear I may go mad.”
+
+“What on earth is wrong?” I asked.
+
+“I have been robbed,” he said. “I have no defence to offer; it was of my
+own fault, I am properly punished.”
+
+“But, gracious goodness me!” I cried, “who is there to rob you in a
+place like this?”
+
+“I can form no opinion,” he replied. “I have no idea. I was lying in a
+ditch inanimate. This is a degrading confession, sir; I can only say in
+self-defence that perhaps (in your good nature) you have made yourself
+partly responsible for my shame. I am not used to these rich wines.”
+
+“In what form was your money? Perhaps it may be traced,” I suggested.
+
+“It was in English sovereigns. I changed it in New York; I got very good
+exchange,” he said, and then, with a momentary outbreak, “God in heaven,
+how I toiled for it!” he cried.
+
+“That doesn't sound encouraging,” said I. “It may be worth while to
+apply to the police, but it doesn't sound a hopeful case.”
+
+“And I have no hope in that direction,” said Bellairs. “My hopes, Mr.
+Dodd, are all fixed upon yourself. I could easily convince you that
+a small, a very small advance, would be in the nature of an excellent
+investment; but I prefer to rely on your humanity. Our acquaintance
+began on an unusual footing; but you have now known me for some time,
+we have been some time--I was going to say we had been almost intimate.
+Under the impulse of instinctive sympathy, I have bared my heart to you,
+Mr. Dodd, as I have done to few; and I believe--I trust--I may say that
+I feel sure--you heard me with a kindly sentiment. This is what brings
+me to your side at this most inexcusable hour. But put yourself in
+my place--how could I sleep--how could I dream of sleeping, in this
+blackness of remorse and despair? There was a friend at hand--so I
+ventured to think of you; it was instinctive; I fled to your side,
+as the drowning man clutches at a straw. These expressions are not
+exaggerated, they scarcely serve to express the agitation of my mind.
+And think, sir, how easily you can restore me to hope and, I may say,
+to reason. A small loan, which shall be faithfully repaid. Five hundred
+dollars would be ample.” He watched me with burning eyes. “Four hundred
+would do. I believe, Mr. Dodd, that I could manage with economy on two.”
+
+“And then you will repay me out of Carthew's pocket?” I said. “I am much
+obliged. But I will tell you what I will do: I will see you on board a
+steamer, pay your fare through to San Francisco, and place fifty dollars
+in the purser's hands, to be given you in New York.”
+
+He drank in my words; his face represented an ecstasy of cunning
+thought. I could read there, plain as print, that he but thought to
+overreach me.
+
+“And what am I to do in 'Frisco?” he asked. “I am disbarred, I have no
+trade, I cannot dig, to beg----” he paused in the citation. “And you
+know that I am not alone,” he added, “others depend upon me.”
+
+“I will write to Pinkerton,” I returned. “I feel sure he can help you
+to some employment, and in the meantime, and for three months after
+your arrival, he shall pay to yourself personally, on the first and the
+fifteenth, twenty-five dollars.”
+
+“Mr. Dodd, I scarce believe you can be serious in this offer,” he
+replied. “Have you forgotten the circumstances of the case? Do you
+know these people are the magnates of the section? They were spoken of
+to-night in the saloon; their wealth must amount to many millions of
+dollars in real estate alone; their house is one of the sights of the
+locality, and you offer me a bribe of a few hundred!”
+
+“I offer you no bribe, Mr. Bellairs, I give you alms,” I returned. “I
+will do nothing to forward you in your hateful business; yet I would not
+willingly have you starve.”
+
+“Give me a hundred dollars then, and be done with it,” he cried.
+
+“I will do what I have said, and neither more nor less,” said I.
+
+“Take care,” he cried. “You are playing a fool's game; you are making an
+enemy for nothing; you will gain nothing by this, I warn you of it!” And
+then with one of his changes, “Seventy dollars--only seventy--in mercy,
+Mr. Dodd, in common charity. Don't dash the bowl from my lips! You have
+a kindly heart. Think of my position, remember my unhappy wife.”
+
+“You should have thought of her before,” said I. “I have made my offer,
+and I wish to sleep.”
+
+“Is that your last word, sir? Pray consider; pray weigh both sides:
+my misery, your own danger. I warn you--I beseech you; measure it well
+before you answer,” so he half pleaded, half threatened me, with clasped
+hands.
+
+“My first word, and my last,” said I.
+
+The change upon the man was shocking. In the storm of anger that now
+shook him, the lees of his intoxication rose again to the surface; his
+face was deformed, his words insane with fury; his pantomime excessive
+in itself, was distorted by an access of St. Vitus.
+
+“You will perhaps allow me to inform you of my cold opinion,” he began,
+apparently self-possessed, truly bursting with rage: “when I am a
+glorified saint, I shall see you howling for a drop of water and exult
+to see you. That your last word! Take it in your face, you spy, you
+false friend, you fat hypocrite! I defy, I defy and despise and spit
+upon you! I'm on the trail, his trail or yours, I smell blood, I'll
+follow it on my hands and knees, I'll starve to follow it! I'll hunt you
+down, hunt you, hunt you down! If I were strong, I'd tear your vitals
+out, here in this room--tear them out--I'd tear them out! Damn, damn,
+damn! You think me weak! I can bite, bite to the blood, bite you, hurt
+you, disgrace you ...”
+
+He was thus incoherently raging, when the scene was interrupted by
+the arrival of the landlord and inn servants in various degrees of
+deshabille, and to them I gave my temporary lunatic in charge.
+
+“Take him to his room,” I said, “he's only drunk.”
+
+These were my words; but I knew better. After all my study of Mr.
+Bellairs, one discovery had been reserved for the last moment: that of
+his latent and essential madness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX. STALLBRIDGE-LE-CARTHEW.
+
+
+Long before I was awake, the shyster had disappeared, leaving his bill
+unpaid. I did not need to inquire where he was gone, I knew too well,
+I knew there was nothing left me but to follow; and about ten in the
+morning, set forth in a gig for Stallbridge-le-Carthew.
+
+The road, for the first quarter of the way, deserts the valley of the
+river, and crosses the summit of a chalk-down, grazed over by flocks of
+sheep and haunted by innumerable larks. It was a pleasant but a vacant
+scene, arousing but not holding the attention; and my mind returned to
+the violent passage of the night before. My thought of the man I was
+pursuing had been greatly changed. I conceived of him, somewhere in
+front of me, upon his dangerous errand, not to be turned aside, not
+to be stopped, by either fear or reason. I had called him a ferret;
+I conceived him now as a mad dog. Methought he would run, not walk;
+methought, as he ran, that he would bark and froth at the lips;
+methought, if the great wall of China were to rise across his path, he
+would attack it with his nails.
+
+Presently the road left the down, returned by a precipitous descent into
+the valley of the Stall, and ran thenceforward among enclosed fields and
+under the continuous shade of trees. I was told we had now entered on
+the Carthew property. By and by, a battlemented wall appeared on the
+left hand, and a little after I had my first glimpse of the mansion. It
+stood in a hollow of a bosky park, crowded to a degree that surprised
+and even displeased me, with huge timber and dense shrubberies of
+laurel and rhododendron. Even from this low station and the thronging
+neighbourhood of the trees, the pile rose conspicuous like a cathedral.
+Behind, as we continued to skirt the park wall, I began to make out a
+straggling town of offices which became conjoined to the rear with those
+of the home farm. On the left was an ornamental water sailed in by many
+swans. On the right extended a flower garden, laid in the old manner,
+and at this season of the year, as brilliant as stained glass. The front
+of the house presented a facade of more than sixty windows, surmounted
+by a formal pediment and raised upon a terrace. A wide avenue, part in
+gravel, part in turf, and bordered by triple alleys, ran to the great
+double gateways. It was impossible to look without surprise on a place
+that had been prepared through so many generations, had cost so many
+tons of minted gold, and was maintained in order by so great a company
+of emulous servants. And yet of these there was no sign but the
+perfection of their work. The whole domain was drawn to the line and
+weeded like the front plot of some suburban amateur; and I looked in
+vain for any belated gardener, and listened in vain for any sounds of
+labour. Some lowing of cattle and much calling of birds alone disturbed
+the stillness, and even the little hamlet, which clustered at the gates,
+appeared to hold its breath in awe of its great neighbour, like a troop
+of children who should have strayed into a king's anteroom.
+
+The Carthew Arms, the small but very comfortable inn, was a mere
+appendage and outpost of the family whose name it bore. Engraved
+portraits of by-gone Carthews adorned the walls; Fielding Carthew,
+Recorder of the city of London; Major-General John Carthew in uniform,
+commanding some military operations; the Right Honourable Bailley
+Carthew, Member of Parliament for Stallbridge, standing by a table and
+brandishing a document; Singleton Carthew, Esquire, represented in the
+foreground of a herd of cattle--doubtless at the desire of his tenantry,
+who had made him a compliment of this work of art; and the Venerable
+Archdeacon Carthew, D.D., LL.D., A.M., laying his hand on the head of
+a little child in a manner highly frigid and ridiculous. So far as
+my memory serves me, there were no other pictures in this exclusive
+hostelry; and I was not surprised to learn that the landlord was an
+ex-butler, the landlady an ex-lady's-maid, from the great house; and
+that the bar-parlour was a sort of perquisite of former servants.
+
+To an American, the sense of the domination of this family over so
+considerable a tract of earth was even oppressive; and as I considered
+their simple annals, gathered from the legends of the engravings,
+surprise began to mingle with my disgust. “Mr. Recorder” doubtless
+occupies an honourable post; but I thought that, in the course of so
+many generations, one Carthew might have clambered higher. The soldier
+had stuck at Major-General; the churchman bloomed unremarked in an
+archidiaconate; and though the Right Honourable Bailley seemed to have
+sneaked into the privy council, I have still to learn what he did when
+he had got there. Such vast means, so long a start, and such a modest
+standard of achievement, struck in me a strong sense of the dulness of
+that race.
+
+I found that to come to the hamlet and not visit the Hall, would be
+regarded as a slight. To feed the swans, to see the peacocks and
+the Raphaels--for these commonplace people actually possessed two
+Raphaels--to risk life and limb among a famous breed of cattle called
+the Carthew Chillinghams, and to do homage to the sire (still living) of
+Donibristle, a renowned winner of the oaks: these, it seemed, were
+the inevitable stations of the pilgrimage. I was not so foolish as to
+resist, for I might have need before I was done of general good-will;
+and two pieces of news fell in which changed my resignation to
+alacrity. It appeared in the first place, that Mr. Norris was from home
+“travelling “; in the second, that a visitor had been before me and
+already made the tour of the Carthew curiosities. I thought I knew who
+this must be; I was anxious to learn what he had done and seen; and
+fortune so far favoured me that the under-gardener singled out to be my
+guide had already performed the same function for my predecessor.
+
+“Yes, sir,” he said, “an American gentleman right enough. At least, I
+don't think he was quite a gentleman, but a very civil person.”
+
+The person, it seems, had been civil enough to be delighted with the
+Carthew Chillinghams, to perform the whole pilgrimage with rising
+admiration, and to have almost prostrated himself before the shrine of
+Donibristle's sire.
+
+“He told me, sir,” continued the gratified under-gardener, “that he had
+often read of the 'stately 'omes of England,' but ours was the first he
+had the chance to see. When he came to the 'ead of the long alley, he
+fetched his breath. 'This is indeed a lordly domain!' he cries. And
+it was natural he should be interested in the place, for it seems
+Mr. Carthew had been kind to him in the States. In fact, he seemed a
+grateful kind of person, and wonderful taken up with flowers.”
+
+I heard this story with amazement. The phrases quoted told their own
+tale; they were plainly from the shyster's mint. A few hours back I
+had seen him a mere bedlamite and fit for a strait-waistcoat; he was
+penniless in a strange country; it was highly probable he had gone
+without breakfast; the absence of Norris must have been a crushing blow;
+the man (by all reason) should have been despairing. And now I heard of
+him, clothed and in his right mind, deliberate, insinuating, admiring
+vistas, smelling flowers, and talking like a book. The strength of
+character implied amazed and daunted me.
+
+“This is curious,” I said to the under-gardener. “I have had the
+pleasure of some acquaintance with Mr. Carthew myself; and I believe
+none of our western friends ever were in England. Who can this person
+be? He couldn't--no, that's impossible, he could never have had the
+impudence. His name was not Bellairs?”
+
+“I didn't 'ear the name, sir. Do you know anything against him?” cried
+my guide.
+
+“Well,” said I, “he is certainly not the person Carthew would like to
+have here in his absence.”
+
+“Good gracious me!” exclaimed the gardener. “He was so pleasant spoken,
+too; I thought he was some form of a schoolmaster. Perhaps, sir, you
+wouldn't mind going right up to Mr. Denman? I recommended him to Mr.
+Denman, when he had done the grounds. Mr. Denman is our butler, sir,” he
+added.
+
+The proposal was welcome, particularly as affording me a graceful
+retreat from the neighbourhood of the Carthew Chillinghams; and, giving
+up our projected circuit, we took a short cut through the shrubbery and
+across the bowling green to the back quarters of the Hall.
+
+The bowling green was surrounded by a great hedge of yew, and entered
+by an archway in the quick. As we were issuing from this passage, my
+conductor arrested me.
+
+“The Honourable Lady Ann Carthew,” he said, in an august whisper. And
+looking over his shoulder, I was aware of an old lady with a stick,
+hobbling somewhat briskly along the garden path. She must have been
+extremely handsome in her youth; and even the limp with which she walked
+could not deprive her of an unusual and almost menacing dignity of
+bearing. Melancholy was impressed besides on every feature, and
+her eyes, as she looked straight before her, seemed to contemplate
+misfortune.
+
+“She seems sad,” said I, when she had hobbled past and we had resumed
+our walk.
+
+“She enjoy rather poor spirits, sir,” responded the under-gardener.
+“Mr. Carthew--the old gentleman, I mean--died less than a year ago; Lord
+Tillibody, her ladyship's brother, two months after; and then there was
+the sad business about the young gentleman. Killed in the 'unting-field,
+sir; and her ladyship's favourite. The present Mr. Norris has never been
+so equally.”
+
+“So I have understood,” said I, persistently, and (I think) gracefully
+pursuing my inquiries and fortifying my position as a family friend.
+“Dear, dear, how sad! And has this change--poor Carthew's return, and
+all--has this not mended matters?”
+
+“Well, no, sir, not a sign of it,” was the reply. “Worse, we think, than
+ever.”
+
+“Dear, dear!” said I again.
+
+“When Mr. Norris arrived, she DID seem glad to see him,” he pursued;
+“and we were all pleased, I'm sure; for no one knows the young gentleman
+but what likes him. Ah, sir, it didn't last long! That very night
+they had a talk, and fell out or something; her ladyship took on most
+painful; it was like old days, but worse. And the next morning Mr.
+Norris was off again upon his travels. 'Denman,' he said to Mr. Denman,
+'Denman, I'll never come back,' he said, and shook him by the 'and. I
+wouldn't be saying all this to a stranger, sir,” added my informant,
+overcome with a sudden fear lest he had gone too far.
+
+He had indeed told me much, and much that was unsuspected by himself.
+On that stormy night of his return, Carthew had told his story; the old
+lady had more upon her mind than mere bereavements; and among the mental
+pictures on which she looked, as she walked staring down the path, was
+one of Midway Island and the Flying Scud.
+
+Mr. Denman heard my inquiries with discomposure, but informed me the
+shyster was already gone.
+
+“Gone?” cried I. “Then what can he have come for? One thing I can tell
+you, it was not to see the house.”
+
+“I don't see it could have been anything else,” replied the butler.
+
+“You may depend upon it it was,” said I. “And whatever it was, he has
+got it. By the way, where is Mr. Carthew at present? I was sorry to find
+he was from home.”
+
+“He is engaged in travelling, sir,” replied the butler, dryly.
+
+“Ah, bravo!” cried I. “I laid a trap for you there, Mr. Denman. Now I
+need not ask you; I am sure you did not tell this prying stranger.”
+
+“To be sure not, sir,” said the butler.
+
+I went through the form of “shaking him by the 'and”--like Mr.
+Norris--not, however, with genuine enthusiasm. For I had failed
+ingloriously to get the address for myself; and I felt a sure conviction
+that Bellairs had done better, or he had still been here and still
+cultivating Mr. Denman.
+
+I had escaped the grounds and the cattle; I could not escape the
+house. A lady with silver hair, a slender silver voice, and a stream of
+insignificant information not to be diverted, led me through the picture
+gallery, the music-room, the great dining-room, the long drawing-room,
+the Indian room, the theatre, and every corner (as I thought) of that
+interminable mansion. There was but one place reserved; the garden-room,
+whither Lady Ann had now retired. I paused a moment on the outside of
+the door, and smiled to myself. The situation was indeed strange, and
+these thin boards divided the secret of the Flying Scud.
+
+All the while, as I went to and fro, I was considering the visit and
+departure of Bellairs. That he had got the address, I was quite certain:
+that he had not got it by direct questioning, I was convinced; some
+ingenuity, some lucky accident, had served him. A similar chance, an
+equal ingenuity, was required; or I was left helpless, the ferret must
+run down his prey, the great oaks fall, the Raphaels be scattered, the
+house let to some stockbroker suddenly made rich, and the name which now
+filled the mouths of five or six parishes dwindle to a memory. Strange
+that such great matters, so old a mansion, a family so ancient and so
+dull, should come to depend for perpetuity upon the intelligence, the
+discretion, and the cunning of a Latin-Quarter student! What Bellairs
+had done, I must do likewise. Chance or ingenuity, ingenuity or
+chance--so I continued to ring the changes as I walked down the
+avenue, casting back occasional glances at the red brick facade and the
+twinkling windows of the house. How was I to command chance? where was I
+to find the ingenuity?
+
+These reflections brought me to the door of the inn. And here, pursuant
+to my policy of keeping well with all men, I immediately smoothed my
+brow, and accepted (being the only guest in the house) an invitation to
+dine with the family in the bar-parlour. I sat down accordingly with Mr.
+Higgs the ex-butler, Mrs. Higgs the ex-lady's-maid, and Miss Agnes Higgs
+their frowsy-headed little girl, the least promising and (as the event
+showed) the most useful of the lot. The talk ran endlessly on the great
+house and the great family; the roast beef, the Yorkshire pudding, the
+jam-roll, and the cheddar cheese came and went, and still the stream
+flowed on; near four generations of Carthews were touched upon without
+eliciting one point of interest; and we had killed Mr. Henry in “the
+'unting-field,” with a vast elaboration of painful circumstance, and
+buried him in the midst of a whole sorrowing county, before I could so
+much as manage to bring upon the stage my intimate friend, Mr. Norris.
+At the name, the ex-butler grew diplomatic, and the ex-lady's-maid
+tender. He was the only person of the whole featureless series
+who seemed to have accomplished anything worth mention; and his
+achievements, poor dog, seemed to have been confined to going to the
+devil and leaving some regrets. He had been the image of the Right
+Honourable Bailley, one of the lights of that dim house, and a career
+of distinction had been predicted of him in consequence almost from the
+cradle. But before he was out of long clothes, the cloven foot began to
+show; he proved to be no Carthew, developed a taste for low pleasures
+and bad company, went birdnesting with a stable-boy before he was
+eleven, and when he was near twenty, and might have been expected to
+display at least some rudiments of the family gravity, rambled the
+country over with a knapsack, making sketches and keeping company in
+wayside inns. He had no pride about him, I was told; he would sit down
+with any man; and it was somewhat woundingly implied that I was indebted
+to this peculiarity for my own acquaintance with the hero. Unhappily,
+Mr. Norris was not only eccentric, he was fast. His debts were still
+remembered at the University; still more, it appeared, the highly
+humorous circumstances attending his expulsion. “He was always fond of
+his jest,” commented Mrs. Higgs.
+
+“That he were!” observed her lord.
+
+But it was after he went into the diplomatic service that the real
+trouble began.
+
+“It seems, sir, that he went the pace extraordinary,” said the
+ex-butler, with a solemn gusto.
+
+“His debts were somethink awful,” said the lady's-maid. “And as nice a
+young gentleman all the time as you would wish to see!”
+
+“When word came to Mr. Carthew's ears, the turn up was 'orrible,”
+ continued Mr. Higgs. “I remember it as if it was yesterday. The bell was
+rung after her la'ship was gone, which I answered it myself, supposing
+it were the coffee. There was Mr. Carthew on his feet. ''Iggs,' he
+says, pointing with his stick, for he had a turn of the gout, 'order the
+dog-cart instantly for this son of mine which has disgraced hisself.'
+Mr. Norris say nothink: he sit there with his 'ead down, making belief
+to be looking at a walnut. You might have bowled me over with a straw,”
+ said Mr. Higgs.
+
+“Had he done anything very bad?” I asked.
+
+“Not he, Mr. Dodsley!” cried the lady--it was so she had conceived my
+name. “He never did anythink to all really wrong in his poor life. The
+'ole affair was a disgrace. It was all rank favouritising.”
+
+“Mrs. 'Iggs! Mrs. 'Iggs!” cried the butler warningly.
+
+“Well, what do I care?” retorted the lady, shaking her ringlets. “You
+know it was yourself, Mr. 'Iggs, and so did every member of the staff.”
+
+While I was getting these facts and opinions, I by no means neglected
+the child. She was not attractive; but fortunately she had reached the
+corrupt age of seven, when half a crown appears about as large as a
+saucer and is fully as rare as the dodo. For a shilling down, sixpence
+in her money-box, and an American gold dollar which I happened to find
+in my pocket, I bought the creature soul and body. She declared her
+intention to accompany me to the ends of the earth; and had to be
+chidden by her sire for drawing comparisons between myself and her uncle
+William, highly damaging to the latter.
+
+Dinner was scarce done, the cloth was not yet removed, when Miss Agnes
+must needs climb into my lap with her stamp album, a relic of the
+generosity of Uncle William. There are few things I despise more than
+old stamps, unless perhaps it be crests; for cattle (from the Carthew
+Chillinghams down to the old gate-keeper's milk-cow in the lane)
+contempt is far from being my first sentiment. But it seemed I was
+doomed to pass that day in viewing curiosities, and smothering a yawn,
+I devoted myself once more to tread the well-known round. I fancy Uncle
+William must have begun the collection himself and tired of it, for
+the book (to my surprise) was quite respectably filled. There were the
+varying shades of the English penny, Russians with the coloured heart,
+old undecipherable Thurn-und-Taxis, obsolete triangular Cape of Good
+Hopes, Swan Rivers with the Swan, and Guianas with the sailing ship.
+Upon all these I looked with the eyes of a fish and the spirit of a
+sheep; I think indeed I was at times asleep; and it was probably in one
+of these moments that I capsized the album, and there fell from the end
+of it, upon the floor, a considerable number of what I believe to be
+called “exchanges.”
+
+Here, against all probability, my chance had come to me; for as I
+gallantly picked them up, I was struck with the disproportionate amount
+of five-sous French stamps. Some one, I reasoned, must write very
+regularly from France to the neighbourhood of Stallbridge-le-Carthew.
+Could it be Norris? On one stamp I made out an initial C; upon a second
+I got as far as CH; beyond which point, the postmark used was in every
+instance undecipherable. CH, when you consider that about a quarter of
+the towns in France begin with “chateau,” was an insufficient clue; and
+I promptly annexed the plainest of the collection in order to consult
+the post-office.
+
+The wretched infant took me in the fact. “Naughty man, to 'teal my
+'tamp!” she cried; and when I would have brazened it off with a denial,
+recovered and displayed the stolen article.
+
+My position was now highly false; and I believe it was in mere pity
+that Mrs. Higgs came to my rescue with a welcome proposition. If the
+gentleman was really interested in stamps, she said, probably supposing
+me a monomaniac on the point, he should see Mr. Denman's album. Mr.
+Denman had been collecting forty years, and his collection was said
+to be worth a mint of money. “Agnes,” she went on, “if you were a kind
+little girl, you would run over to the 'All, tell Mr. Denman there's
+a connaisseer in the 'ouse, and ask him if one of the young gentlemen
+might bring the album down.”
+
+“I should like to see his exchanges too,” I cried, rising to the
+occasion. “I may have some of mine in my pocket-book and we might
+trade.”
+
+Half an hour later Mr. Denman arrived himself with a most unconscionable
+volume under his arm. “Ah, sir,” he cried, “when I 'eard you was a
+collector, I dropped all. It's a saying of mine, Mr. Dodsley, that
+collecting stamps makes all collectors kin. It's a bond, sir; it creates
+a bond.”
+
+Upon the truth of this, I cannot say; but there is no doubt that
+the attempt to pass yourself off for a collector falsely creates a
+precarious situation.
+
+“Ah, here's the second issue!” I would say, after consulting the legend
+at the side. “The pink--no, I mean the mauve--yes, that's the beauty of
+this lot. Though of course, as you say,” I would hasten to add, “this
+yellow on the thin paper is more rare.”
+
+Indeed I must certainly have been detected, had I not plied Mr. Denman
+in self-defence with his favourite liquor--a port so excellent that it
+could never have ripened in the cellar of the Carthew Arms, but must
+have been transported, under cloud of night, from the neighbouring
+vaults of the great house. At each threat of exposure, and in particular
+whenever I was directly challenged for an opinion, I made haste to fill
+the butler's glass, and by the time we had got to the exchanges, he was
+in a condition in which no stamp collector need be seriously feared.
+God forbid I should hint that he was drunk; he seemed incapable of the
+necessary liveliness; but the man's eyes were set, and so long as he was
+suffered to talk without interruption, he seemed careless of my heeding
+him.
+
+In Mr. Denman's exchanges, as in those of little Agnes, the same
+peculiarity was to be remarked, an undue preponderance of that
+despicably common stamp, the French twenty-five centimes. And here
+joining them in stealthy review, I found the C and the CH; then
+something of an A just following; and then a terminal Y. Here was also
+the whole name spelt out to me; it seemed familiar, too; and yet for
+some time I could not bridge the imperfection. Then I came upon another
+stamp, in which an L was legible before the Y, and in a moment the word
+leaped up complete. Chailly, that was the name; Chailly-en-Biere, the
+post town of Barbizon--ah, there was the very place for any man to hide
+himself--there was the very place for Mr. Norris, who had rambled over
+England making sketches--the very place for Goddedaal, who had left a
+palette-knife on board the Flying Scud. Singular, indeed, that while I
+was drifting over England with the shyster, the man we were in quest of
+awaited me at my own ultimate destination.
+
+Whether Mr. Denman had shown his album to Bellairs, whether, indeed,
+Bellairs could have caught (as I did) this hint from an obliterated
+postmark, I shall never know, and it mattered not. We were equal now;
+my task at Stallbridge-le-Carthew was accomplished; my interest in
+postage-stamps died shamelessly away; the astonished Denman was bowed
+out; and ordering the horse to be put in, I plunged into the study of
+the time-table.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI. FACE TO FACE.
+
+
+I fell from the skies on Barbizon about two o'clock of a September
+afternoon. It is the dead hour of the day; all the workers have gone
+painting, all the idlers strolling, in the forest or the plain; the
+winding causewayed street is solitary, and the inn deserted. I was the
+more pleased to find one of my old companions in the dining-room; his
+town clothes marked him for a man in the act of departure; and indeed
+his portmanteau lay beside him on the floor.
+
+“Why, Stennis,” I cried, “you're the last man I expected to find here.”
+
+“You won't find me here long,” he replied. “King Pandion he is dead; all
+his friends are lapped in lead. For men of our antiquity, the poor old
+shop is played out.”
+
+“I have had playmates, I have had companions,” I quoted in return.
+We were both moved, I think, to meet again in this scene of our old
+pleasure parties so unexpectedly, after so long an interval, and both
+already so much altered.
+
+“That is the sentiment,” he replied. “All, all are gone, the old
+familiar faces. I have been here a week, and the only living creature
+who seemed to recollect me was the Pharaon. Bar the Sirons, of course,
+and the perennial Bodmer.”
+
+“Is there no survivor?” I inquired.
+
+“Of our geological epoch? not one,” he replied. “This is the city of
+Petra in Edom.”
+
+“And what sort of Bedouins encamp among the ruins?” I asked.
+
+“Youth, Dodd, youth; blooming, conscious youth,” he returned. “Such a
+gang, such reptiles! to think we were like that! I wonder Siron didn't
+sweep us from his premises.”
+
+“Perhaps we weren't so bad,” I suggested.
+
+“Don't let me depress you,” said he. “We were both Anglo-Saxons, anyway,
+and the only redeeming feature to-day is another.”
+
+The thought of my quest, a moment driven out by this rencounter, revived
+in my mind. “Who is he?” I cried. “Tell me about him.”
+
+“What, the Redeeming Feature?” said he. “Well, he's a very pleasing
+creature, rather dim, and dull, and genteel, but really pleasing. He is
+very British, though, the artless Briton! Perhaps you'll find him too
+much so for the transatlantic nerves. Come to think of it, on the other
+hand, you ought to get on famously. He is an admirer of your great
+republic in one of its (excuse me) shoddiest features; he takes in and
+sedulously reads a lot of American papers. I warned you he was artless.”
+
+“What papers are they?” cried I.
+
+“San Francisco papers,” said he. “He gets a bale of them about twice
+a week, and studies them like the Bible. That's one of his weaknesses;
+another is to be incalculably rich. He has taken Masson's old
+studio--you remember?--at the corner of the road; he has furnished it
+regardless of expense, and lives there surrounded with vins fins and
+works of art. When the youth of to-day goes up to the Caverne des
+Brigands to make punch--they do all that we did, like some nauseous form
+of ape (I never appreciated before what a creature of tradition mankind
+is)--this Madden follows with a basket of champagne. I told him he was
+wrong, and the punch tasted better; but he thought the boys liked the
+style of the thing, and I suppose they do. He is a very good-natured
+soul, and a very melancholy, and rather a helpless. O, and he has a
+third weakness which I came near forgetting. He paints. He has never
+been taught, and he's past thirty, and he paints.”
+
+“How?” I asked.
+
+“Rather well, I think,” was the reply. “That's the annoying part of it.
+See for yourself. That panel is his.”
+
+I stepped toward the window. It was the old familiar room, with the
+tables set like a Greek P, and the sideboard, and the aphasiac piano,
+and the panels on the wall. There were Romeo and Juliet, Antwerp from
+the river, Enfield's ships among the ice, and the huge huntsman winding
+a huge horn; mingled with them a few new ones, the thin crop of a
+succeeding generation, not better and not worse. It was to one of these
+I was directed; a thing coarsely and wittily handled, mostly with the
+palette-knife, the colour in some parts excellent, the canvas in others
+loaded with mere clay. But it was the scene, and not the art or want
+of it, that riveted my notice. The foreground was of sand and scrub and
+wreckwood; in the middle distance the many-hued and smooth expanse of a
+lagoon, enclosed by a wall of breakers; beyond, a blue strip of ocean.
+The sky was cloudless, and I could hear the surf break. For the place
+was Midway Island; the point of view the very spot at which I had landed
+with the captain for the first time, and from which I had re-embarked
+the day before we sailed. I had already been gazing for some seconds,
+before my attention was arrested by a blur on the sea-line; and stooping
+to look, I recognised the smoke of a steamer.
+
+“Yes,” said I, turning toward Stennis, “it has merit. What is it?”
+
+“A fancy piece,” he returned. “That's what pleased me. So few of the
+fellows in our time had the imagination of a garden snail.”
+
+“Madden, you say his name is?” I pursued.
+
+“Madden,” he repeated.
+
+“Has he travelled much?” I inquired.
+
+“I haven't an idea. He is one of the least autobiographical of men. He
+sits, and smokes, and giggles, and sometimes he makes small jests;
+but his contributions to the art of pleasing are generally confined to
+looking like a gentleman and being one. No,” added Stennis, “he'll never
+suit you, Dodd; you like more head on your liquor. You'll find him as
+dull as ditch water.”
+
+“Has he big blonde side-whiskers like tusks?” I asked, mindful of the
+photograph of Goddedaal.
+
+“Certainly not: why should he?” was the reply.
+
+“Does he write many letters?” I continued.
+
+“God knows,” said Stennis. “What is wrong with you? I never saw you
+taken this way before.”
+
+
+“The fact is, I think I know the man,” said I. “I think I'm looking for
+him. I rather think he is my long-lost brother.”
+
+“Not twins, anyway,” returned Stennis.
+
+And about the same time, a carriage driving up to the inn, he took his
+departure.
+
+I walked till dinner-time in the plain, keeping to the fields; for I
+instinctively shunned observation, and was racked by many incongruous
+and impatient feelings. Here was a man whose voice I had once heard,
+whose doings had filled so many days of my life with interest and
+distress, whom I had lain awake to dream of like a lover; and now his
+hand was on the door; now we were to meet; now I was to learn at last
+the mystery of the substituted crew. The sun went down over the plain of
+the Angelus, and as the hour approached, my courage lessened. I let the
+laggard peasants pass me on the homeward way. The lamps were lit, the
+soup was served, the company were all at table, and the room sounded
+already with multitudinous talk before I entered. I took my place and
+found I was opposite to Madden. Over six feet high and well set up, the
+hair dark and streaked with silver, the eyes dark and kindly, the mouth
+very good-natured, the teeth admirable; linen and hands exquisite;
+English clothes, an English voice, an English bearing: the man stood
+out conspicuous from the company. Yet he had made himself at home, and
+seemed to enjoy a certain quiet popularity among the noisy boys of the
+table d'hote. He had an odd, silver giggle of a laugh, that sounded
+nervous even when he was really amused, and accorded ill with his big
+stature and manly, melancholy face. This laugh fell in continually all
+through dinner like the note of the triangle in a piece of modern French
+music; and he had at times a kind of pleasantry, rather of manner than
+of words, with which he started or maintained the merriment. He took his
+share in these diversions, not so much like a man in high spirits,
+but like one of an approved good nature, habitually self-forgetful,
+accustomed to please and to follow others. I have remarked in old
+soldiers much the same smiling sadness and sociable self-effacement.
+
+I feared to look at him, lest my glances should betray my deep
+excitement, and chance served me so well that the soup was scarce
+removed before we were naturally introduced. My first sip of Chateau
+Siron, a vintage from which I had been long estranged, startled me into
+speech.
+
+
+“O, this'll never do!” I cried, in English.
+
+“Dreadful stuff, isn't it?” said Madden, in the same language. “Do let
+me ask you to share my bottle. They call it Chambertin, which it isn't;
+but it's fairly palatable, and there's nothing in this house that a man
+can drink at all.”
+
+I accepted; anything would do that paved the way to better knowledge.
+
+“Your name is Madden, I think,” said I. “My old friend Stennis told me
+about you when I came.”
+
+“Yes, I am sorry he went; I feel such a Grandfather William, alone among
+all these lads,” he replied.
+
+“My name is Dodd,” I resumed.
+
+“Yes,” said he, “so Madame Siron told me.”
+
+“Dodd, of San Francisco,” I continued. “Late of Pinkerton and Dodd.”
+
+“Montana Block, I think?” said he.
+
+“The same,” said I.
+
+Neither of us looked at each other; but I could see his hand
+deliberately making bread pills.
+
+“That's a nice thing of yours,” I pursued, “that panel. The foreground
+is a little clayey, perhaps, but the lagoon is excellent.”
+
+“You ought to know,” said he.
+
+“Yes,” returned I, “I'm rather a good judge of--that panel.”
+
+There was a considerable pause.
+
+“You know a man by the name of Bellairs, don't you?” he resumed.
+
+“Ah!” cried I, “you have heard from Doctor Urquart?”
+
+“This very morning,” he replied.
+
+“Well, there is no hurry about Bellairs,” said I. “It's rather a long
+story and rather a silly one. But I think we have a good deal to tell
+each other, and perhaps we had better wait till we are more alone.”
+
+“I think so,” said he. “Not that any of these fellows know English, but
+we'll be more comfortable over at my place. Your health, Dodd.”
+
+And we took wine together across the table.
+
+Thus had this singular introduction passed unperceived in the midst of
+more than thirty persons, art students, ladies in dressing-gowns and
+covered with rice powder, six foot of Siron whisking dishes over our
+head, and his noisy sons clattering in and out with fresh relays.
+
+“One question more,” said I: “Did you recognise my voice?”
+
+“Your voice?” he repeated. “How should I? I had never heard it--we have
+never met.”
+
+“And yet, we have been in conversation before now,” said I, “and I asked
+you a question which you never answered, and which I have since had many
+thousand better reasons for putting to myself.”
+
+He turned suddenly white. “Good God!” he cried, “are you the man in the
+telephone?”
+
+I nodded.
+
+“Well, well!” said he. “It would take a good deal of magnanimity to
+forgive you that. What nights I have passed! That little whisper has
+whistled in my ear ever since, like the wind in a keyhole. Who could it
+be? What could it mean? I suppose I have had more real, solid misery
+out of that ...” He paused, and looked troubled. “Though I had more to
+bother me, or ought to have,” he added, and slowly emptied his glass.
+
+“It seems we were born to drive each other crazy with conundrums,” said
+I. “I have often thought my head would split.”
+
+Carthew burst into his foolish laugh. “And yet neither you nor I had the
+worst of the puzzle,” he cried. “There were others deeper in.”
+
+“And who were they?” I asked.
+
+“The underwriters,” said he.
+
+“Why, to be sure!” cried I, “I never thought of that. What could they
+make of it?”
+
+“Nothing,” replied Carthew. “It couldn't be explained. They were a crowd
+of small dealers at Lloyd's who took it up in syndicate; one of them has
+a carriage now; and people say he is a deuce of a deep fellow, and has
+the makings of a great financier. Another furnished a small villa on
+the profits. But they're all hopelessly muddled; and when they meet each
+other, they don't know where to look, like the Augurs.”
+
+Dinner was no sooner at an end than he carried me across the road
+to Masson's old studio. It was strangely changed. On the walls were
+tapestry, a few good etchings, and some amazing pictures--a Rousseau, a
+Corot, a really superb old Crome, a Whistler, and a piece which my host
+claimed (and I believe) to be a Titian. The room was furnished with
+comfortable English smoking-room chairs, some American rockers, and
+an elaborate business table; spirits and soda-water (with the mark of
+Schweppe, no less) stood ready on a butler's tray, and in one corner,
+behind a half-drawn curtain, I spied a camp-bed and a capacious tub.
+Such a room in Barbizon astonished the beholder, like the glories of the
+cave of Monte Cristo.
+
+“Now,” said he, “we are quiet. Sit down, if you don't mind, and tell me
+your story all through.”
+
+I did as he asked, beginning with the day when Jim showed me the passage
+in the _Daily Occidental_, and winding up with the stamp album and the
+Chailly postmark. It was a long business; and Carthew made it longer,
+for he was insatiable of details; and it had struck midnight on the old
+eight-day clock in the corner, before I had made an end.
+
+“And now,” said he, “turn about: I must tell you my side, much as I hate
+it. Mine is a beastly story. You'll wonder how I can sleep. I've told it
+once before, Mr. Dodd.”
+
+“To Lady Ann?” I asked.
+
+“As you suppose,” he answered; “and to say the truth, I had sworn never
+to tell it again. Only, you seem somehow entitled to the thing; you have
+paid dear enough, God knows; and God knows I hope you may like it, now
+you've got it!”
+
+With that he began his yarn. A new day had dawned, the cocks crew in the
+village and the early woodmen were afoot, when he concluded.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII. THE REMITTANCE MAN.
+
+
+Singleton Carthew, the father of Norris, was heavily built and feebly
+vitalised, sensitive as a musician, dull as a sheep, and conscientious
+as a dog. He took his position with seriousness, even with pomp; the
+long rooms, the silent servants, seemed in his eyes like the observances
+of some religion of which he was the mortal god. He had the stupid man's
+intolerance of stupidity in others; the vain man's exquisite alarm lest
+it should be detected in himself. And on both sides Norris irritated and
+offended him. He thought his son a fool, and he suspected that his son
+returned the compliment with interest. The history of their relation was
+simple; they met seldom, they quarrelled often. To his mother, a fiery,
+pungent, practical woman, already disappointed in her husband and her
+elder son, Norris was only a fresh disappointment.
+
+Yet the lad's faults were no great matter; he was diffident, placable,
+passive, unambitious, unenterprising; life did not much attract him; he
+watched it like a curious and dull exhibition, not much amused, and not
+tempted in the least to take a part. He beheld his father ponderously
+grinding sand, his mother fierily breaking butterflies, his brother
+labouring at the pleasures of the Hawbuck with the ardour of a soldier
+in a doubtful battle; and the vital sceptic looked on wondering. They
+were careful and troubled about many things; for him there seemed not
+even one thing needful. He was born disenchanted, the world's promises
+awoke no echo in his bosom, the world's activities and the world's
+distinctions seemed to him equally without a base in fact. He liked the
+open air; he liked comradeship, it mattered not with whom, his comrades
+were only a remedy for solitude. And he had a taste for painted art. An
+array of fine pictures looked upon his childhood, and from these roods
+of jewelled canvas he received an indelible impression. The gallery at
+Stallbridge betokened generations of picture lovers; Norris was perhaps
+the first of his race to hold the pencil. The taste was genuine, it
+grew and strengthened with his growth; and yet he suffered it to be
+suppressed with scarce a struggle. Time came for him to go to Oxford,
+and he resisted faintly. He was stupid, he said; it was no good to put
+him through the mill; he wished to be a painter. The words fell on his
+father like a thunderbolt, and Norris made haste to give way. “It didn't
+really matter, don't you know?” said he. “And it seemed an awful shame
+to vex the old boy.”
+
+To Oxford he went obediently, hopelessly; and at Oxford became the
+hero of a certain circle. He was active and adroit; when he was in
+the humour, he excelled in many sports; and his singular melancholy
+detachment gave him a place apart. He set a fashion in his clique.
+Envious undergraduates sought to parody his unaffected lack of zeal
+and fear; it was a kind of new Byronism more composed and dignified.
+“Nothing really mattered”; among other things, this formula embraced the
+dons; and though he always meant to be civil, the effect on the college
+authorities was one of startling rudeness. His indifference cut like
+insolence; and in some outbreak of his constitutional levity (the
+complement of his melancholy) he was “sent down” in the middle of the
+second year.
+
+The event was new in the annals of the Carthews, and Singleton was
+prepared to make the most of it. It had been long his practice to
+prophesy for his second son a career of ruin and disgrace. There is
+an advantage in this artless parental habit. Doubtless the father
+is interested in his son; but doubtless also the prophet grows to be
+interested in his prophecies. If the one goes wrong, the others come
+true. Old Carthew drew from this source esoteric consolations; he dwelt
+at length on his own foresight; he produced variations hitherto unheard
+from the old theme “I told you so,” coupled his son's name with the
+gallows and the hulks, and spoke of his small handful of college debts
+as though he must raise money on a mortgage to discharge them.
+
+“I don't think that is fair, sir,” said Norris. “I lived at college
+exactly as you told me. I am sorry I was sent down, and you have a
+perfect right to blame me for that; but you have no right to pitch into
+me about these debts.”
+
+The effect upon a stupid man not unjustly incensed need scarcely be
+described. For a while Singleton raved.
+
+“I'll tell you what, father,” said Norris at last, “I don't think this
+is going to do. I think you had better let me take to painting. It's
+the only thing I take a spark of interest in. I shall never be steady as
+long as I'm at anything else.”
+
+“When you stand here, sir, to the neck in disgrace,” said the father, “I
+should have hoped you would have had more good taste than to repeat this
+levity.”
+
+The hint was taken; the levity was never more obtruded on the father's
+notice, and Norris was inexorably launched upon a backward voyage. He
+went abroad to study foreign languages, which he learned, at a very
+expensive rate; and a fresh crop of debts fell soon to be paid, with
+similar lamentations, which were in this case perfectly justified, and
+to which Norris paid no regard. He had been unfairly treated over the
+Oxford affair; and with a spice of malice very surprising in one so
+placable, and an obstinacy remarkable in one so weak, refused from that
+day forward to exercise the least captaincy on his expenses. He wasted
+what he would; he allowed his servants to despoil him at their pleasure;
+he sowed insolvency; and when the crop was ripe, notified his father
+with exasperating calm. His own capital was put in his hands, he was
+planted in the diplomatic service and told he must depend upon himself.
+
+He did so till he was twenty-five; by which time he had spent his money,
+laid in a handsome choice of debts, and acquired (like so many other
+melancholic and uninterested persons) a habit of gambling. An Austrian
+colonel--the same who afterwards hanged himself at Monte Carlo--gave
+him a lesson which lasted two-and-twenty hours, and left him wrecked and
+helpless. Old Singleton once more repurchased the honour of his name,
+this time at a fancy figure; and Norris was set afloat again on stern
+conditions. An allowance of three hundred pounds in the year was to be
+paid to him quarterly by a lawyer in Sydney, New South Wales. He was not
+to write. Should he fail on any quarter-day to be in Sydney, he was to
+be held for dead, and the allowance tacitly withdrawn. Should he return
+to Europe, an advertisement publicly disowning him was to appear in
+every paper of repute.
+
+It was one of his most annoying features as a son, that he was always
+polite, always just, and in whatever whirlwind of domestic anger, always
+calm. He expected trouble; when trouble came, he was unmoved: he might
+have said with Singleton, “I told you so”; he was content with thinking,
+“just as I expected.” On the fall of these last thunderbolts, he bore
+himself like a person only distantly interested in the event; pocketed
+the money and the reproaches, obeyed orders punctually; took ship and
+came to Sydney. Some men are still lads at twenty-five; and so it was
+with Norris. Eighteen days after he landed, his quarter's allowance was
+all gone, and with the light-hearted hopefulness of strangers in what
+is called a new country, he began to besiege offices and apply for all
+manner of incongruous situations. Everywhere, and last of all from his
+lodgings, he was bowed out; and found himself reduced, in a very elegant
+suit of summer tweeds, to herd and camp with the degraded outcasts of
+the city.
+
+In this strait, he had recourse to the lawyer who paid him his
+allowance.
+
+“Try to remember that my time is valuable, Mr. Carthew,” said the
+lawyer. “It is quite unnecessary you should enlarge on the peculiar
+position in which you stand. Remittance men, as we call them here, are
+not so rare in my experience; and in such cases I act upon a system. I
+make you a present of a sovereign; here it is. Every day you choose to
+call, my clerk will advance you a shilling; on Saturday, since my office
+is closed on Sunday, he will advance you half a crown. My conditions are
+these: that you do not come to me, but to my clerk; that you do not come
+here the worse of liquor; and you go away the moment you are paid and
+have signed a receipt. I wish you a good-morning.”
+
+“I have to thank you, I suppose,” said Carthew. “My position is so
+wretched that I cannot even refuse this starvation allowance.”
+
+“Starvation!” said the lawyer, smiling. “No man will starve here on a
+shilling a day. I had on my hands another young gentleman, who remained
+continuously intoxicated for six years on the same allowance.” And he
+once more busied himself with his papers.
+
+In the time that followed, the image of the smiling lawyer haunted
+Carthew's memory. “That three minutes' talk was all the education I
+ever had worth talking of,” says he. “It was all life in a nut-shell.
+Confound it! I thought, have I got to the point of envying that ancient
+fossil?”
+
+Every morning for the next two or three weeks, the stroke of ten found
+Norris, unkempt and haggard, at the lawyer's door. The long day and
+longer night he spent in the Domain, now on a bench, now on the grass
+under a Norfolk Island pine, the companion of perhaps the lowest class
+on earth, the Larrikins of Sydney. Morning after morning, the dawn
+behind the lighthouse recalled him from slumber; and he would stand and
+gaze upon the changing east, the fading lenses, the smokeless city, and
+the many-armed and many-masted harbour growing slowly clear under his
+eyes. His bed-fellows (so to call them) were less active; they lay
+sprawled upon the grass and benches, the dingy men, the frowsy women,
+prolonging their late repose; and Carthew wandered among the sleeping
+bodies alone, and cursed the incurable stupidity of his behaviour. Day
+brought a new society of nursery-maids and children, and fresh-dressed
+and (I am sorry to say) tight-laced maidens, and gay people in rich
+traps; upon the skirts of which Carthew and “the other blackguards”--his
+own bitter phrase--skulked, and chewed grass, and looked on. Day passed,
+the light died, the green and leafy precinct sparkled with lamps or lay
+in shadow, and the round of the night began again, the loitering women,
+the lurking men, the sudden outburst of screams, the sound of flying
+feet. “You mayn't believe it,” says Carthew, “but I got to that pitch
+that I didn't care a hang. I have been wakened out of my sleep to hear a
+woman screaming, and I have only turned upon my other side. Yes, it's a
+queer place, where the dowagers and the kids walk all day, and at night
+you can hear people bawling for help as if it was the Forest of Bondy,
+with the lights of a great town all round, and parties spinning through
+in cabs from Government House and dinner with my lord!”
+
+It was Norris's diversion, having none other, to scrape acquaintance,
+where, how, and with whom he could. Many a long dull talk he held upon
+the benches or the grass; many a strange waif he came to know; many
+strange things he heard, and saw some that were abominable. It was to
+one of these last that he owed his deliverance from the Domain. For some
+time the rain had been merciless; one night after another he had been
+obliged to squander fourpence on a bed and reduce his board to the
+remaining eightpence: and he sat one morning near the Macquarrie Street
+entrance, hungry, for he had gone without breakfast, and wet, as he had
+already been for several days, when the cries of an animal in distress
+attracted his attention. Some fifty yards away, in the extreme angle of
+the grass, a party of the chronically unemployed had got hold of a dog,
+whom they were torturing in a manner not to be described. The heart
+of Norris, which had grown indifferent to the cries of human anger or
+distress, woke at the appeal of the dumb creature. He ran amongst the
+Larrikins, scattered them, rescued the dog, and stood at bay. They were
+six in number, shambling gallowsbirds; but for once the proverb was
+right, cruelty was coupled with cowardice, and the wretches cursed
+him and made off. It chanced that this act of prowess had not passed
+unwitnessed. On a bench near by there was seated a shopkeeper's
+assistant out of employ, a diminutive, cheerful, red-headed creature by
+the name of Hemstead. He was the last man to have interfered himself,
+for his discretion more than equalled his valour; but he made haste
+to congratulate Carthew, and to warn him he might not always be so
+fortunate.
+
+“They're a dyngerous lot of people about this park. My word! it doesn't
+do to ply with them!” he observed, in that RYCY AUSTRYLIAN English,
+which (as it has received the imprimatur of Mr. Froude) we should all
+make haste to imitate.
+
+“Why, I'm one of that lot myself,” returned Carthew.
+
+Hemstead laughed and remarked that he knew a gentleman when he saw one.
+
+“For all that, I am simply one of the unemployed,” said Carthew,
+seating himself beside his new acquaintance, as he had sat (since this
+experience began) beside so many dozen others.
+
+“I'm out of a plyce myself,” said Hemstead.
+
+“You beat me all the way and back,” says Carthew. “My trouble is that I
+have never been in one.”
+
+“I suppose you've no tryde?” asked Hemstead.
+
+“I know how to spend money,” replied Carthew, “and I really do know
+something of horses and something of the sea. But the unions head me
+off; if it weren't for them, I might have had a dozen berths.”
+
+“My word!” cried the sympathetic listener. “Ever try the mounted
+police?” he inquired.
+
+“I did, and was bowled out,” was the reply; “couldn't pass the doctors.”
+
+“Well, what do you think of the ryleways, then?” asked Hemstead.
+
+“What do YOU think of them, if you come to that?” asked Carthew.
+
+“O, _I_ don't think of them; I don't go in for manual labour,” said the
+little man proudly. “But if a man don't mind that, he's pretty sure of a
+job there.”
+
+“By George, you tell me where to go!” cried Carthew, rising.
+
+The heavy rains continued, the country was already overrun with floods;
+the railway system daily required more hands, daily the superintendent
+advertised; but “the unemployed” preferred the resources of charity
+and rapine, and a navvy, even an amateur navvy, commanded money in the
+market. The same night, after a tedious journey, and a change of trains
+to pass a landslip, Norris found himself in a muddy cutting behind South
+Clifton, attacking his first shift of manual labour.
+
+For weeks the rain scarce relented. The whole front of the mountain
+slipped seaward from above, avalanches of clay, rock, and uprooted
+forest spewed over the cliffs and fell upon the beach or in the
+breakers. Houses were carried bodily away and smashed like nuts; others
+were menaced and deserted, the door locked, the chimney cold, the
+dwellers fled elsewhere for safety. Night and day the fire blazed in
+the encampment; night and day hot coffee was served to the overdriven
+toilers in the shift; night and day the engineer of the section made his
+rounds with words of encouragement, hearty and rough and well suited to
+his men. Night and day, too, the telegraph clicked with disastrous news
+and anxious inquiry. Along the terraced line of rail, rare trains came
+creeping and signalling; and paused at the threatened corner, like
+living things conscious of peril. The commandant of the post would
+hastily review his labours, make (with a dry throat) the signal to
+advance; and the whole squad line the way and look on in a choking
+silence, or burst into a brief cheer as the train cleared the point of
+danger and shot on, perhaps through the thin sunshine between squalls,
+perhaps with blinking lamps into the gathering, rainy twilight.
+
+One such scene Carthew will remember till he dies. It blew great guns
+from the seaward; a huge surf bombarded, five hundred feet below him,
+the steep mountain's foot; close in was a vessel in distress, firing
+shots from a fowling-piece, if any help might come. So he saw and heard
+her the moment before the train appeared and paused, throwing up a
+Babylonian tower of smoke into the rain, and oppressing men's hearts
+with the scream of her whistle. The engineer was there himself; he paled
+as he made the signal: the engine came at a foot's pace; but the whole
+bulk of mountain shook and seemed to nod seaward, and the watching
+navvies instinctively clutched at shrubs and trees: vain precautions,
+vain as the shots from the poor sailors. Once again fear was
+disappointed; the train passed unscathed; and Norris, drawing a long
+breath, remembered the labouring ship and glanced below. She was gone.
+
+So the days and the nights passed: Homeric labour in Homeric
+circumstance. Carthew was sick with sleeplessness and coffee; his hands,
+softened by the wet, were cut to ribbons; yet he enjoyed a peace of
+mind and health of body hitherto unknown. Plenty of open air, plenty of
+physical exertion, a continual instancy of toil; here was what had been
+hitherto lacking in that misdirected life, and the true cure of vital
+scepticism. To get the train through: there was the recurrent problem;
+no time remained to ask if it were necessary. Carthew, the idler, the
+spendthrift, the drifting dilettant, was soon remarked, praised, and
+advanced. The engineer swore by him and pointed him out for an example.
+“I've a new chum, up here,” Norris overheard him saying, “a young swell.
+He's worth any two in the squad.” The words fell on the ears of the
+discarded son like music; and from that moment, he not only found an
+interest, he took a pride, in his plebeian tasks.
+
+The press of work was still at its highest when quarter-day approached.
+Norris was now raised to a position of some trust; at his discretion,
+trains were stopped or forwarded at the dangerous cornice near North
+Clifton; and he found in this responsibility both terror and delight.
+The thought of the seventy-five pounds that would soon await him at the
+lawyer's, and of his own obligation to be present every quarter-day in
+Sydney, filled him for a little with divided councils. Then he made
+up his mind, walked in a slack moment to the inn at Clifton, ordered a
+sheet of paper and a bottle of beer, and wrote, explaining that he held
+a good appointment which he would lose if he came to Sydney, and asking
+the lawyer to accept this letter as an evidence of his presence in the
+colony, and retain the money till next quarter-day. The answer came in
+course of post, and was not merely favourable but cordial. “Although
+what you propose is contrary to the terms of my instructions,” it ran,
+“I willingly accept the responsibility of granting your request. I
+should say I am agreeably disappointed in your behaviour. My experience
+has not led me to found much expectations on gentlemen in your
+position.”
+
+The rains abated, and the temporary labour was discharged; not Norris,
+to whom the engineer clung as to found money; not Norris, who found
+himself a ganger on the line in the regular staff of navvies. His camp
+was pitched in a grey wilderness of rock and forest, far from any house;
+as he sat with his mates about the evening fire, the trains passing on
+the track were their next and indeed their only neighbours, except
+the wild things of the wood. Lovely weather, light and monotonous
+employment, long hours of somnolent camp-fire talk, long sleepless
+nights, when he reviewed his foolish and fruitless career as he rose and
+walked in the moonlit forest, an occasional paper of which he would read
+all, the advertisements with as much relish as the text: such was the
+tenor of an existence which soon began to weary and harass him. He
+lacked and regretted the fatigue, the furious hurry, the suspense, the
+fires, the midnight coffee, the rude and mud-bespattered poetry of the
+first toilful weeks. In the quietness of his new surroundings, a voice
+summoned him from this exorbital part of life, and about the middle of
+October he threw up his situation and bade farewell to the camp of tents
+and the shoulder of Bald Mountain.
+
+Clad in his rough clothes, with a bundle on his shoulder and his
+accumulated wages in his pocket, he entered Sydney for the second time,
+and walked with pleasure and some bewilderment in the cheerful streets,
+like a man landed from a voyage. The sight of the people led him on. He
+forgot his necessary errands, he forgot to eat. He wandered in moving
+multitudes like a stick upon a river. Last he came to the Domain and
+strolled there, and remembered his shame and sufferings, and looked with
+poignant curiosity at his successors. Hemstead, not much shabbier and
+no less cheerful than before, he recognised and addressed like an old
+family friend.
+
+“That was a good turn you did me,” said he. “That railway was the making
+of me. I hope you've had luck yourself.”
+
+
+“My word, no!” replied the little man. “I just sit here and read the
+_Dead Bird_. It's the depression in tryde, you see. There's no positions
+goin' that a man like me would care to look at.” And he showed
+Norris his certificates and written characters, one from a grocer
+in Wooloomooloo, one from an ironmonger, and a third from a billiard
+saloon. “Yes,” he said, “I tried bein' a billiard marker. It's no
+account; these lyte hours are no use for a man's health. I won't be no
+man's slyve,” he added firmly.
+
+On the principle that he who is too proud to be a slave is usually not
+too modest to become a pensioner, Carthew gave him half a sovereign,
+and departed, being suddenly struck with hunger, in the direction of the
+Paris House. When he came to that quarter of the city, the barristers
+were trotting in the streets in wig and gown, and he stood to observe
+them with his bundle on his shoulder, and his mind full of curious
+recollections of the past.
+
+“By George!” cried a voice, “it's Mr. Carthew!”
+
+And turning about he found himself face to face with a handsome sunburnt
+youth, somewhat fatted, arrayed in the finest of fine raiment, and
+sporting about a sovereign's worth of flowers in his buttonhole. Norris
+had met him during his first days in Sydney at a farewell supper; had
+even escorted him on board a schooner full of cockroaches and black-boy
+sailors, in which he was bound for six months among the islands; and had
+kept him ever since in entertained remembrance. Tom Hadden (known to the
+bulk of Sydney folk as Tommy) was heir to a considerable property, which
+a prophetic father had placed in the hands of rigorous trustees. The
+income supported Mr. Hadden in splendour for about three months out of
+twelve; the rest of the year he passed in retreat among the islands.
+He was now about a week returned from his eclipse, pervading Sydney in
+hansom cabs and airing the first bloom of six new suits of clothes; and
+yet the unaffected creature hailed Carthew in his working jeans and
+with the damning bundle on his shoulder, as he might have claimed
+acquaintance with a duke.
+
+“Come and have a drink!” was his cheerful cry.
+
+“I'm just going to have lunch at the Paris House,” returned Carthew.
+“It's a long time since I have had a decent meal.”
+
+“Splendid scheme!” said Hadden. “I've only had breakfast half an hour
+ago; but we'll have a private room, and I'll manage to pick something.
+It'll brace me up. I was on an awful tear last night, and I've met no
+end of fellows this morning.” To meet a fellow, and to stand and share a
+drink, were with Tom synonymous terms.
+
+They were soon at table in the corner room up-stairs, and paying due
+attention to the best fare in Sydney. The odd similarity of their
+positions drew them together, and they began soon to exchange
+confidences. Carthew related his privations in the Domain and his toils
+as a navvy; Hadden gave his experience as an amateur copra merchant in
+the South Seas, and drew a humorous picture of life in a coral island.
+Of the two plans of retirement, Carthew gathered that his own had been
+vastly the more lucrative; but Hadden's trading outfit had consisted
+largely of bottled stout and brown sherry for his own consumption.
+
+“I had champagne too,” said Hadden, “but I kept that in case of
+sickness, until I didn't seem to be going to be sick, and then I opened
+a pint every Sunday. Used to sleep all morning, then breakfast with my
+pint of fizz, and lie in a hammock and read Hallam's _Middle Ages_. Have
+you read that? I always take something solid to the islands. There's no
+doubt I did the thing in rather a fine style; but if it was gone about a
+little cheaper, or there were two of us to bear the expense, it ought
+to pay hand over fist. I've got the influence, you see. I'm a chief now,
+and sit in the speak-house under my own strip of roof. I'd like to see
+them taboo ME! They daren't try it; I've a strong party, I can tell you.
+Why, I've had upwards of thirty cowtops sitting in my front verandah
+eating tins of salmon.”
+
+“Cowtops?” asked Carthew, “what are they?”
+
+“That's what Hallam would call feudal retainers,” explained Hadden, not
+without vainglory. “They're My Followers. They belong to My Family.
+I tell you, they come expensive, though; you can't fill up all these
+retainers on tinned salmon for nothing; but whenever I could get it, I
+would give 'em squid. Squid's good for natives, but I don't care for it,
+do you?--or shark either. It's like the working classes at home. With
+copra at the price it is, they ought to be willing to bear their share
+of the loss; and so I've told them again and again. I think it's a man's
+duty to open their minds, and I try to, but you can't get political
+economy into them; it doesn't seem to reach their intelligence.”
+
+
+There was an expression still sticking in Carthew's memory, and he
+returned upon it with a smile. “Talking of political economy,” said he,
+“you said if there were two of us to bear the expense, the profits would
+increase. How do you make out that?”
+
+“I'll show you! I'll figure it out for you!” cried Hadden, and with a
+pencil on the back of the bill of fare proceeded to perform miracles. He
+was a man, or let us rather say a lad, of unusual projective power. Give
+him the faintest hint of any speculation, and the figures flowed from
+him by the page. A lively imagination and a ready though inaccurate
+memory supplied his data; he delivered himself with an inimitable heat
+that made him seem the picture of pugnacity; lavished contradiction;
+had a form of words, with or without significance, for every form of
+criticism; and the looker-on alternately smiled at his simplicity and
+fervour, or was amazed by his unexpected shrewdness. He was a kind of
+Pinkerton in play. I have called Jim's the romance of business; this was
+its Arabian tale.
+
+“Have you any idea what this would cost?” he asked, pausing at an item.
+
+“Not I,” said Carthew.
+
+“Ten pounds ought to be ample,” concluded the projector.
+
+“O, nonsense!” cried Carthew. “Fifty at the very least.”
+
+“You told me yourself this moment you knew nothing about it!” cried
+Tommy. “How can I make a calculation, if you blow hot and cold? You
+don't seem able to be serious!”
+
+But he consented to raise his estimate to twenty; and a little after,
+the calculation coming out with a deficit, cut it down again to five
+pounds ten, with the remark, “I told you it was nonsense. This sort of
+thing has to be done strictly, or where's the use?”
+
+Some of these processes struck Carthew as unsound; and he was at times
+altogether thrown out by the capricious startings of the prophet's mind.
+These plunges seemed to be gone into for exercise and by the way, like
+the curvets of a willing horse. Gradually the thing took shape; the
+glittering if baseless edifice arose; and the hare still ran on the
+mountains, but the soup was already served in silver plate. Carthew in a
+few days could command a hundred and fifty pounds; Hadden was ready with
+five hundred; why should they not recruit a fellow or two more, charter
+an old ship, and go cruising on their own account? Carthew was an
+experienced yachtsman; Hadden professed himself able to “work an
+approximate sight.” Money was undoubtedly to be made, or why should so
+many vessels cruise about the islands? they, who worked their own ship,
+were sure of a still higher profit.
+
+“And whatever else comes of it, you see,” cried Hadden, “we get our keep
+for nothing. Come, buy some togs, that's the first thing you have to do
+of course; and then we'll take a hansom and go to the Currency Lass.”
+
+“I'm going to stick to the togs I have,” said Norris.
+
+“Are you?” cried Hadden. “Well, I must say I admire you. You're a
+regular sage. It's what you call Pythagoreanism, isn't it? if I haven't
+forgotten my philosophy.”
+
+“Well, I call it economy,” returned Carthew. “If we are going to try
+this thing on, I shall want every sixpence.”
+
+“You'll see if we're going to try it!” cried Tommy, rising radiant from
+table. “Only, mark you, Carthew, it must be all in your name. I have
+capital, you see; but you're all right. You can play vacuus viator, if
+the thing goes wrong.”
+
+“I thought we had just proved it was quite safe,” said Carthew.
+
+“There's nothing safe in business, my boy,” replied the sage; “not even
+bookmaking.”
+
+The public house and tea garden called the Currency Lass represented
+a moderate fortune gained by its proprietor, Captain Bostock, during
+a long, active, and occasionally historic career among the islands.
+Anywhere from Tonga to the Admiralty Isles, he knew the ropes and could
+lie in the native dialect. He had seen the end of sandal wood, the end
+of oil, and the beginning of copra; and he was himself a commercial
+pioneer, the first that ever carried human teeth into the Gilberts. He
+was tried for his life in Fiji in Sir Arthur Gordon's time; and if ever
+he prayed at all, the name of Sir Arthur was certainly not forgotten. He
+was speared in seven places in New Ireland--the same time his mate
+was killed--the famous “outrage on the brig Jolly Roger”; but the
+treacherous savages made little by their wickedness, and Bostock, in
+spite of their teeth, got seventy-five head of volunteer labour on
+board, of whom not more than a dozen died of injuries. He had a hand,
+besides, in the amiable pleasantry which cost the life of Patteson; and
+when the sham bishop landed, prayed, and gave his benediction to the
+natives, Bostock, arrayed in a female chemise out of the traderoom, had
+stood at his right hand and boomed amens. This, when he was sure he was
+among good fellows, was his favourite yarn. “Two hundred head of labour
+for a hatful of amens,” he used to name the tale; and its sequel, the
+death of the real bishop, struck him as a circumstance of extraordinary
+humour.
+
+Many of these details were communicated in the hansom, to the surprise
+of Carthew.
+
+“Why do we want to visit this old ruffian?” he asked.
+
+“You wait till you hear him,” replied Tommy. “That man knows
+everything.”
+
+On descending from the hansom at the Currency Lass, Hadden was struck
+with the appearance of the cabman, a gross, salt-looking man, red-faced,
+blue-eyed, short-handed and short-winded, perhaps nearing forty.
+
+“Surely I know you?” said he. “Have you driven me before?”
+
+“Many's the time, Mr. Hadden,” returned the driver. “The last time you
+was back from the islands, it was me that drove you to the races, sir.”
+
+“All right: jump down and have a drink then,” said Tom, and he turned
+and led the way into the garden.
+
+Captain Bostock met the party: he was a slow, sour old man, with
+fishy eyes; greeted Tommy offhand, and (as was afterwards remembered)
+exchanged winks with the driver.
+
+“A bottle of beer for the cabman there at that table,” said Tom.
+“Whatever you please from shandygaff to champagne at this one here; and
+you sit down with us. Let me make you acquainted with my friend, Mr.
+Carthew. I've come on business, Billy; I want to consult you as a
+friend; I'm going into the island trade upon my own account.”
+
+
+Doubtless the captain was a mine of counsel, but opportunity was denied
+him. He could not venture on a statement, he was scarce allowed to
+finish a phrase, before Hadden swept him from the field with a volley
+of protest and correction. That projector, his face blazing with
+inspiration, first laid before him at inordinate length a question, and
+as soon as he attempted to reply, leaped at his throat, called his facts
+in question, derided his policy, and at times thundered on him from the
+heights of moral indignation.
+
+“I beg your pardon,” he said once. “I am a gentleman, Mr. Carthew here
+is a gentleman, and we don't mean to do that class of business. Can't
+you see who you are talking to? Can't you talk sense? Can't you give us
+'a dead bird' for a good traderoom?”
+
+“No, I don't suppose I can,” returned old Bostock; “not when I can't
+hear my own voice for two seconds together. It was gin and guns I did it
+with.”
+
+“Take your gin and guns to Putney!” cried Hadden. “It was the thing in
+your times, that's right enough; but you're old now, and the game's up.
+I'll tell you what's wanted now-a-days, Bill Bostock,” said he; and did,
+and took ten minutes to it.
+
+Carthew could not refrain from smiling. He began to think less seriously
+of the scheme, Hadden appearing too irresponsible a guide; but on the
+other hand, he enjoyed himself amazingly. It was far from being the same
+with Captain Bostock.
+
+“You know a sight, don't you?” remarked that gentleman, bitterly, when
+Tommy paused.
+
+“I know a sight more than you, if that's what you mean,” retorted Tom.
+“It stands to reason I do. You're not a man of any education; you've
+been all your life at sea or in the islands; you don't suppose you can
+give points to a man like me?”
+
+“Here's your health, Tommy,” returned Bostock. “You'll make an A-one
+bake in the New Hebrides.”
+
+“That's what I call talking,” cried Tom, not perhaps grasping the spirit
+of this doubtful compliment. “Now you give me your attention. We have
+the money and the enterprise, and I have the experience: what we want is
+a cheap, smart boat, a good captain, and an introduction to some house
+that will give us credit for the trade.”
+
+“Well, I'll tell you,” said Captain Bostock. “I have seen men like you
+baked and eaten, and complained of afterwards. Some was tough, and some
+hadn't no flaviour,” he added grimly.
+
+“What do you mean by that?” cried Tom.
+
+“I mean I don't care,” cried Bostock. “It ain't any of my interests. I
+haven't underwrote your life. Only I'm blest if I'm not sorry for the
+cannibal as tries to eat your head. And what I recommend is a cheap,
+smart coffin and a good undertaker. See if you can find a house to give
+you credit for a coffin! Look at your friend there; HE'S got some sense;
+he's laughing at you so as he can't stand.”
+
+The exact degree of ill-feeling in Mr. Bostock's mind was difficult to
+gauge; perhaps there was not much, perhaps he regarded his remarks as a
+form of courtly badinage. But there is little doubt that Hadden resented
+them. He had even risen from his place, and the conference was on
+the point of breaking up, when a new voice joined suddenly in the
+conversation.
+
+The cabman sat with his back turned upon the party, smoking a meerschaum
+pipe. Not a word of Tommy's eloquence had missed him, and he now faced
+suddenly about with these amazing words:--
+
+“Excuse me, gentlemen; if you'll buy me the ship I want, I'll get you
+the trade on credit.”
+
+There was a pause.
+
+“Well, what do YOU, mean?” gasped Tommy.
+
+“Better tell 'em who I am, Billy,” said the cabman.
+
+“Think it safe, Joe?” inquired Mr. Bostock.
+
+“I'll take my risk of it,” returned the cabman.
+
+“Gentlemen,” said Bostock, rising solemnly, “let me make you acquainted
+with Captain Wicks of the Grace Darling.”
+
+“Yes, gentlemen, that is what I am,” said the cabman. “You know I've
+been in trouble; and I don't deny but what I struck the blow, and where
+was I to get evidence of my provocation? So I turned to and took a cab,
+and I've driven one for three year now and nobody the wiser.”
+
+“I beg your pardon,” said Carthew, joining almost for the first time;
+“I'm a new chum. What was the charge?”
+
+“Murder,” said Captain Wicks, “and I don't deny but what I struck the
+blow. And there's no sense in my trying to deny I was afraid to go to
+trial, or why would I be here? But it's a fact it was flat mutiny. Ask
+Billy here. He knows how it was.”
+
+Carthew breathed long; he had a strange, half-pleasurable sense of
+wading deeper in the tide of life. “Well,” said he, “you were going on
+to say?”
+
+“I was going on to say this,” said the captain sturdily. “I've overheard
+what Mr. Hadden has been saying, and I think he talks good sense. I like
+some of his ideas first chop. He's sound on traderooms; he's all there
+on the traderoom, and I see that he and I would pull together. Then
+you're both gentlemen, and I like that,” observed Captain Wicks. “And
+then I'll tell you I'm tired of this cabbing cruise, and I want to get
+to work again. Now, here's my offer. I've a little money I can stake
+up,--all of a hundred anyway. Then my old firm will give me trade, and
+jump at the chance; they never lost by me; they know what I'm worth as
+supercargo. And, last of all, you want a good captain to sail your ship
+for you. Well, here I am. I've sailed schooners for ten years. Ask Billy
+if I can handle a schooner.”
+
+“No man better,” said Billy.
+
+“And as for my character as a shipmate,” concluded Wicks, “go and ask my
+old firm.”
+
+“But look here!” cried Hadden, “how do you mean to manage? You can whisk
+round in a hansom, and no questions asked. But if you try to come on a
+quarter-deck, my boy, you'll get nabbed.”
+
+“I'll have to keep back till the last,” replied Wicks, “and take another
+name.”
+
+“But how about clearing? what other name?” asked Tommy, a little
+bewildered.
+
+“I don't know yet,” returned the captain, with a grin. “I'll see what
+the name is on my new certificate, and that'll be good enough for me.
+If I can't get one to buy, though I never heard of such a thing, there's
+old Kirkup, he's turned some sort of farmer down Bondi way; he'll hire
+me his.”
+
+“You seemed to speak as if you had a ship in view,” said Carthew.
+
+“So I have, too,” said Captain Wicks, “and a beauty. Schooner yacht
+Dream; got lines you never saw the beat of; and a witch to go. She
+passed me once off Thursday Island, doing two knots to my one and laying
+a point and a half better; and the Grace Darling was a ship that I was
+proud of. I took and tore my hair. The Dream's been MY dream ever since.
+That was in her old days, when she carried a blue ens'n. Grant Sanderson
+was the party as owned her; he was rich and mad, and got a fever at last
+somewhere about the Fly River, and took and died. The captain brought
+the body back to Sydney, and paid off. Well, it turned out Grant
+Sanderson had left any quantity of wills and any quantity of widows, and
+no fellow could make out which was the genuine article. All the widows
+brought lawsuits against all the rest, and every will had a firm of
+lawyers on the quarterdeck as long as your arm. They tell me it was
+one of the biggest turns-to that ever was seen, bar Tichborne; the Lord
+Chamberlain himself was floored, and so was the Lord Chancellor; and all
+that time the Dream lay rotting up by Glebe Point. Well, it's done now;
+they've picked out a widow and a will; tossed up for it, as like as not;
+and the Dream's for sale. She'll go cheap; she's had a long turn-to at
+rotting.”
+
+“What size is she?”
+
+“Well, big enough. We don't want her bigger. A hundred and ninety, going
+two hundred,” replied the captain. “She's fully big for us three; it
+would be all the better if we had another hand, though it's a pity too,
+when you can pick up natives for half nothing. Then we must have a cook.
+I can fix raw sailor-men, but there's no going to sea with a new-chum
+cook. I can lay hands on the man we want for that: a Highway boy, an
+old shipmate of mine, of the name of Amalu. Cooks first rate, and it's
+always better to have a native; he aint fly, you can turn him to as you
+please, and he don't know enough to stand out for his rights.”
+
+From the moment that Captain Wicks joined in the conversation, Carthew
+recovered interest and confidence; the man (whatever he might have done)
+was plainly good-natured, and plainly capable; if he thought well of the
+enterprise, offered to contribute money, brought experience, and could
+thus solve at a word the problem of the trade, Carthew was content to
+go ahead. As for Hadden, his cup was full; he and Bostock forgave each
+other in champagne; toast followed toast; it was proposed and carried
+amid acclamation to change the name of the schooner (when she should
+be bought) to the Currency Lass; and the Currency Lass Island Trading
+Company was practically founded before dusk.
+
+Three days later, Carthew stood before the lawyer, still in his jean
+suit, received his hundred and fifty pounds, and proceeded rather
+timidly to ask for more indulgence.
+
+“I have a chance to get on in the world,” he said. “By to-morrow evening
+I expect to be part owner of a ship.”
+
+“Dangerous property, Mr. Carthew,” said the lawyer.
+
+“Not if the partners work her themselves and stand to go down along with
+her,” was the reply.
+
+“I conceive it possible you might make something of it in that way,”
+ returned the other. “But are you a seaman? I thought you had been in the
+diplomatic service.”
+
+“I am an old yachtsman,” said Norris. “And I must do the best I can.
+A fellow can't live in New South Wales upon diplomacy. But the point I
+wish to prepare you for is this. It will be impossible I should present
+myself here next quarter-day; we expect to make a six months' cruise of
+it among the islands.”
+
+“Sorry, Mr. Carthew: I can't hear of that,” replied the lawyer.
+
+“I mean upon the same conditions as the last,” said Carthew.
+
+“The conditions are exactly opposite,” said the lawyer. “Last time I
+had reason to know you were in the colony; and even then I stretched a
+point. This time, by your own confession, you are contemplating a breach
+of the agreement; and I give you warning if you carry it out and I
+receive proof of it (for I will agree to regard this conversation as
+confidential) I shall have no choice but to do my duty. Be here on
+quarter-day, or your allowance ceases.”
+
+“This is very hard and, I think, rather silly,” returned Carthew.
+
+“It is not of my doing. I have my instructions,” said the lawyer.
+
+“And you so read these instructions, that I am to be prohibited from
+making an honest livelihood?” asked Carthew.
+
+“Let us be frank,” said the lawyer. “I find nothing in these
+instructions about an honest livelihood. I have no reason to suppose
+my clients care anything about that. I have reason to suppose only
+one thing,--that they mean you shall stay in this colony, and to guess
+another, Mr. Carthew. And to guess another.”
+
+“What do you mean by that?” asked Norris.
+
+“I mean that I imagine, on very strong grounds, that your family desire
+to see no more of you,” said the lawyer. “O, they may be very wrong;
+but that is the impression conveyed, that is what I suppose I am paid to
+bring about, and I have no choice but to try and earn my hire.”
+
+“I would scorn to deceive you,” said Norris, with a strong flush, “you
+have guessed rightly. My family refuse to see me; but I am not going to
+England, I am going to the islands. How does that affect the islands?”
+
+“Ah, but I don't know that you are going to the islands,” said the
+lawyer, looking down, and spearing the blotting-paper with a pencil.
+
+“I beg your pardon. I have the pleasure of informing you,” said Norris.
+
+“I am afraid, Mr. Carthew, that I cannot regard that communication as
+official,” was the slow reply.
+
+“I am not accustomed to have my word doubted!” cried Norris.
+
+“Hush! I allow no one to raise his voice in my office,” said the
+lawyer. “And for that matter--you seem to be a young gentleman of
+sense--consider what I know of you. You are a discarded son; your family
+pays money to be shut of you. What have you done? I don't know. But do
+you not see how foolish I should be, if I exposed my business reputation
+on the safeguard of the honour of a gentleman of whom I know just so
+much and no more? This interview is very disagreeable. Why prolong it?
+Write home, get my instructions changed, and I will change my behaviour.
+Not otherwise.”
+
+“I am very fond of three hundred a year,” said Norris, “but I cannot pay
+the price required. I shall not have the pleasure of seeing you again.”
+
+“You must please yourself,” said the lawyer. “Fail to be here next
+quarter-day, and the thing stops. But I warn you, and I mean the warning
+in a friendly spirit. Three months later you will be here begging, and I
+shall have no choice but to show you in the street.”
+
+“I wish you a good-evening,” said Norris.
+
+“The same to you, Mr. Carthew,” retorted the lawyer, and rang for his
+clerk.
+
+So it befell that Norris during what remained to him of arduous days in
+Sydney, saw not again the face of his legal adviser; and he was already
+at sea, and land was out of sight, when Hadden brought him a Sydney
+paper, over which he had been dozing in the shadow of the galley, and
+showed him an advertisement.
+
+“Mr. Norris Carthew is earnestly entreated to call without delay at the
+office of Mr. ----, where important intelligence awaits him.”
+
+“It must manage to wait for me six months,” said Norris, lightly enough,
+but yet conscious of a pang of curiosity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII. THE BUDGET OF THE “CURRENCY LASS.”
+
+
+Before noon on the 26th November, there cleared from the port of Sydney
+the schooner, Currency Lass. The owner, Norris Carthew, was on board in
+the somewhat unusual position of mate; the master's name purported to
+be William Kirkup; the cook was a Hawaiian boy, Joseph Amalu; and there
+were two hands before the mast, Thomas Hadden and Richard Hemstead, the
+latter chosen partly because of his humble character, partly because he
+had an odd-job-man's handiness with tools. The Currency Lass was bound
+for the South Sea Islands, and first of all for Butaritari in the
+Gilberts, on a register; but it was understood about the harbour that
+her cruise was more than half a pleasure trip. A friend of the late
+Grant Sanderson (of Auchentroon and Kilclarty) might have recognised in
+that tall-masted ship, the transformed and rechristened Dream; and
+the Lloyd's surveyor, had the services of such a one been called in
+requisition, must have found abundant subject of remark.
+
+For time, during her three years' inaction, had eaten deep into the
+Dream and her fittings; she had sold in consequence a shade above her
+value as old junk; and the three adventurers had scarce been able to
+afford even the most vital repairs. The rigging, indeed, had been partly
+renewed, and the rest set up; all Grant Sanderson's old canvas had been
+patched together into one decently serviceable suit of sails; Grant
+Sanderson's masts still stood, and might have wondered at themselves.
+“I haven't the heart to tap them,” Captain Wicks used to observe, as he
+squinted up their height or patted their rotundity; and “as rotten as
+our foremast” was an accepted metaphor in the ship's company. The sequel
+rather suggests it may have been sounder than was thought; but no one
+knew for certain, just as no one except the captain appreciated the
+dangers of the cruise. The captain, indeed, saw with clear eyes and
+spoke his mind aloud; and though a man of an astonishing hot-blooded
+courage, following life and taking its dangers in the spirit of a
+hound upon the slot, he had made a point of a big whaleboat. “Take your
+choice,” he had said; “either new masts and rigging or that boat. I
+simply ain't going to sea without the one or the other. Chicken coops
+are good enough, no doubt, and so is a dinghy; but they ain't for Joe.”
+ And his partners had been forced to consent, and saw six and thirty
+pounds of their small capital vanish in the turn of a hand.
+
+All four had toiled the best part of six weeks getting ready; and though
+Captain Wicks was of course not seen or heard of, a fifth was there to
+help them, a fellow in a bushy red beard, which he would sometimes lay
+aside when he was below, and who strikingly resembled Captain Wicks in
+voice and character. As for Captain Kirkup, he did not appear till the
+last moment, when he proved to be a burly mariner, bearded like Abou
+Ben Adhem. All the way down the harbour and through the Heads, his
+milk-white whiskers blew in the wind and were conspicuous from shore;
+but the Currency Lass had no sooner turned her back upon the lighthouse,
+than he went below for the inside of five seconds and reappeared clean
+shaven. So many doublings and devices were required to get to sea with
+an unseaworthy ship and a captain that was “wanted.” Nor might
+even these have sufficed, but for the fact that Hadden was a public
+character, and the whole cruise regarded with an eye of indulgence as
+one of Tom's engaging eccentricities. The ship, besides, had been a
+yacht before; and it came the more natural to allow her still some of
+the dangerous liberties of her old employment.
+
+A strange ship they had made of it, her lofty spars disfigured with
+patched canvas, her panelled cabin fitted for a traderoom with rude
+shelves. And the life they led in that anomalous schooner was no less
+curious than herself. Amalu alone berthed forward; the rest occupied
+staterooms, camped upon the satin divans, and sat down in Grant
+Sanderson's parquetry smoking-room to meals of junk and potatoes, bad
+of their kind and often scant in quantity. Hemstead grumbled; Tommy
+had occasional moments of revolt and increased the ordinary by a
+few haphazard tins or a bottle of his own brown sherry. But Hemstead
+grumbled from habit, Tommy revolted only for the moment, and there
+was underneath a real and general acquiescence in these hardships. For
+besides onions and potatoes, the Currency Lass may be said to have
+gone to sea without stores. She carried two thousand pounds' worth of
+assorted trade, advanced on credit, their whole hope and fortune. It
+was upon this that they subsisted--mice in their own granary. They dined
+upon their future profits; and every scanty meal was so much in the
+savings bank.
+
+Republican as were their manners, there was no practical, at least no
+dangerous, lack of discipline. Wicks was the only sailor on board,
+there was none to criticise; and besides, he was so easy-going, and so
+merry-minded, that none could bear to disappoint him. Carthew did his
+best, partly for the love of doing it, partly for love of the captain;
+Amalu was a willing drudge, and even Hemstead and Hadden turned to upon
+occasion with a will. Tommy's department was the trade and traderoom; he
+would work down in the hold or over the shelves of the cabin, till
+the Sydney dandy was unrecognizable; come up at last, draw a bucket
+of sea-water, bathe, change, and lie down on deck over a big sheaf of
+Sydney _Heralds_ and _Dead Birds_, or perhaps with a volume of Buckle's
+_History of Civilisation_, the standard work selected for that cruise.
+In the latter case, a smile went round the ship, for Buckle almost
+invariably laid his student out, and when Tom awoke again he was almost
+always in the humour for brown sherry. The connection was so well
+established that “a glass of Buckle” or “a bottle of civilisation”
+ became current pleasantries on board the Currency Lass.
+
+Hemstead's province was that of the repairs, and he had his hands full.
+Nothing on board but was decayed in a proportion; the lamps leaked; so
+did the decks; door-knobs came off in the hand, mouldings parted company
+with the panels, the pump declined to suck, and the defective bathroom
+came near to swamp the ship. Wicks insisted that all the nails were long
+ago consumed, and that she was only glued together by the rust. “You
+shouldn't make me laugh so much, Tommy,” he would say. “I'm afraid I'll
+shake the sternpost out of her.” And, as Hemstead went to and fro
+with his tool basket on an endless round of tinkering, Wicks lost
+no opportunity of chaffing him upon his duties. “If you'd turn to at
+sailoring or washing paint or something useful, now,” he would say,
+“I could see the fun of it. But to be mending things that haven't no
+insides to them appears to me the height of foolishness.” And doubtless
+these continual pleasantries helped to reassure the landsmen, who went
+to and fro unmoved, under circumstances that might have daunted Nelson.
+
+The weather was from the outset splendid, and the wind fair and steady.
+The ship sailed like a witch. “This Currency Lass is a powerful old
+girl, and has more complaints than I would care to put a name on,” the
+captain would say, as he pricked the chart; “but she could show her
+blooming heels to anything of her size in the Western Pacific.” To
+wash decks, relieve the wheel, do the day's work after dinner on the
+smoking-room table, and take in kites at night,--such was the easy
+routine of their life. In the evening--above all, if Tommy had produced
+some of his civilisation--yarns and music were the rule. Amalu had
+a sweet Hawaiian voice; and Hemstead, a great hand upon the banjo,
+accompanied his own quavering tenor with effect. There was a sense in
+which the little man could sing. It was great to hear him deliver _My
+Boy Tammie_ in Austrylian; and the words (some of the worst of the
+ruffian Macneil's) were hailed in his version with inextinguishable
+mirth.
+
+     Where hye ye been a' dye?
+
+
+     he would ask, and answer himself:--
+
+     I've been by burn and flowery brye,
+     Meadow green an' mountain grye,
+     Courtin' o' this young thing,
+     Just come frye her mammie.
+
+It was the accepted jest for all hands to greet the conclusion of this
+song with the simultaneous cry: “My word!” thus winging the arrow of
+ridicule with a feather from the singer's wing. But he had his
+revenge with _Home, Sweet Home,_ and _Where is my Wandering Boy
+To-night?_--ditties into which he threw the most intolerable pathos. It
+appeared he had no home, nor had ever had one, nor yet any vestige of
+a family, except a truculent uncle, a baker in Newcastle, N.S.W. His
+domestic sentiment was therefore wholly in the air, and expressed
+an unrealised ideal. Or perhaps, of all his experiences, this of
+the Currency Lass, with its kindly, playful, and tolerant society,
+approached it the most nearly.
+
+It is perhaps because I know the sequel, but I can never think upon this
+voyage without a profound sense of pity and mystery; of the ship (once
+the whim of a rich blackguard) faring with her battered fineries
+and upon her homely errand, across the plains of ocean, and past
+the gorgeous scenery of dawn and sunset; and the ship's company, so
+strangely assembled, so Britishly chuckle-headed, filling their days
+with chaff in place of conversation; no human book on board with them
+except Hadden's Buckle, and not a creature fit either to read or to
+understand it; and the one mark of any civilised interest, being when
+Carthew filled in his spare hours with the pencil and the brush: the
+whole unconscious crew of them posting in the meanwhile towards so
+tragic a disaster.
+
+Twenty-eight days out of Sydney, on Christmas eve, they fetched up to
+the entrance of the lagoon, and plied all that night outside, keeping
+their position by the lights of fishers on the reef and the outlines of
+the palms against the cloudy sky. With the break of day, the schooner
+was hove to, and the signal for a pilot shown. But it was plain her
+lights must have been observed in the darkness by the native fishermen,
+and word carried to the settlement, for a boat was already under weigh.
+She came towards them across the lagoon under a great press of sail,
+lying dangerously down, so that at times, in the heavier puffs, they
+thought she would turn turtle; covered the distance in fine style,
+luffed up smartly alongside, and emitted a haggard looking white man in
+pyjamas.
+
+“Good-mornin', Cap'n,” said he, when he had made good his entrance. “I
+was taking you for a Fiji man-of-war, what with your flush decks and
+them spars. Well, gen'lemen all, here's wishing you a Merry Christmas
+and a Happy New Year,” he added, and lurched against a stay.
+
+“Why, you're never the pilot?” exclaimed Wicks, studying him with a
+profound disfavour. “You've never taken a ship in--don't tell me!”
+
+“Well, I should guess I have,” returned the pilot. “I'm Captain Dobbs,
+I am; and when I take charge, the captain of that ship can go below and
+shave.”
+
+“But, man alive! you're drunk, man!” cried the captain.
+
+“Drunk!” repeated Dobbs. “You can't have seen much life if you call me
+drunk. I'm only just beginning. Come night, I won't say; I guess I'll be
+properly full by then. But now I'm the soberest man in all Big Muggin.”
+
+“It won't do,” retorted Wicks. “Not for Joseph, sir. I can't have you
+piling up my schooner.”
+
+“All right,” said Dobbs, “lay and rot where you are, or take and go
+in and pile her up for yourself like the captain of the Leslie. That's
+business, I guess; grudged me twenty dollars' pilotage, and lost twenty
+thousand in trade and a brand new schooner; ripped the keel right off of
+her, and she went down in the inside of four minutes, and lies in twenty
+fathom, trade and all.”
+
+“What's all this?” cried Wicks. “Trade? What vessel was this Leslie,
+anyhow?”
+
+“Consigned to Cohen and Co., from 'Frisco,” returned the pilot, “and
+badly wanted. There's a barque inside filling up for Hamburg--you see
+her spars over there; and there's two more ships due, all the way from
+Germany, one in two months, they say, and one in three; Cohen and Co.'s
+agent (that's Mr. Topelius) has taken and lain down with the jaundice on
+the strength of it. I guess most people would, in his shoes; no trade,
+no copra, and twenty hundred ton of shipping due. If you've any copra on
+board, cap'n, here's your chance. Topelius will buy, gold down, and give
+three cents. It's all found money to him, the way it is, whatever he
+pays for it. And that's what come of going back on the pilot.”
+
+“Excuse me one moment, Captain Dobbs. I wish to speak with my mate,”
+ said the captain, whose face had begun to shine and his eyes to sparkle.
+
+“Please yourself,” replied the pilot. “You couldn't think of offering
+a man a nip, could you? just to brace him up. This kind of thing looks
+damned inhospitable, and gives a schooner a bad name.”
+
+“I'll talk about that after the anchor's down,” returned Wicks, and he
+drew Carthew forward. “I say,” he whispered, “here's a fortune.”
+
+“How much do you call that?” asked Carthew.
+
+“I can't put a figure on it yet--I daren't!” said the captain. “We might
+cruise twenty years and not find the match of it. And suppose another
+ship came in to-night? Everything's possible! And the difficulty is
+this Dobbs. He's as drunk as a marine. How can we trust him? We ain't
+insured--worse luck!”
+
+“Suppose you took him aloft and got him to point out the channel?”
+ suggested Carthew. “If he tallied at all with the chart, and didn't fall
+out of the rigging, perhaps we might risk it.”
+
+“Well, all's risk here,” returned the captain. “Take the wheel yourself,
+and stand by. Mind, if there's two orders, follow mine, not his. Set the
+cook for'ard with the heads'ls, and the two others at the main sheet,
+and see they don't sit on it.” With that he called the pilot; they
+swarmed aloft in the fore rigging, and presently after there was bawled
+down the welcome order to ease sheets and fill away.
+
+At a quarter before nine o'clock on Christmas morning the anchor was let
+go.
+
+The first cruise of the Currency Lass had thus ended in a stroke of
+fortune almost beyond hope. She had brought two thousand pounds' worth
+of trade, straight as a homing pigeon, to the place where it was most
+required. And Captain Wicks (or, rather, Captain Kirkup) showed himself
+the man to make the best of his advantage. For hard upon two days he
+walked a verandah with Topelius, for hard upon two days his partners
+watched from the neighbouring public house the field of battle; and the
+lamps were not yet lighted on the evening of the second before the enemy
+surrendered. Wicks came across to the Sans Souci, as the saloon was
+called, his face nigh black, his eyes almost closed and all bloodshot,
+and yet bright as lighted matches.
+
+“Come out here, boys,” he said; and when they were some way off
+among the palms, “I hold twenty-four,” he added in a voice scarcely
+recognizable, and doubtless referring to the venerable game of cribbage.
+
+“What do you mean?” asked Tommy.
+
+“I've sold the trade,” answered Wicks; “or, rather, I've sold only
+some of it, for I've kept back all the mess beef and half the flour and
+biscuit; and, by God, we're still provisioned for four months! By God,
+it's as good as stolen!”
+
+“My word!” cried Hemstead.
+
+“But what have you sold it for?” gasped Carthew, the captain's almost
+insane excitement shaking his nerve.
+
+“Let me tell it my own way,” cried Wicks, loosening his neck. “Let me
+get at it gradual, or I'll explode. I've not only sold it, boys, I've
+wrung out a charter on my own terms to 'Frisco and back; on my own
+terms. I made a point of it. I fooled him first by making believe I
+wanted copra, which of course I knew he wouldn't hear of--couldn't, in
+fact; and whenever he showed fight, I trotted out the copra, and that
+man dived! I would take nothing but copra, you see; and so I've got the
+blooming lot in specie--all but two short bills on 'Frisco. And the sum?
+Well, this whole adventure, including two thousand pounds of credit,
+cost us two thousand seven hundred and some odd. That's all paid back;
+in thirty days' cruise we've paid for the schooner and the trade. Heard
+ever any man the match of that? And it's not all! For besides that,”
+ said the captain, hammering his words, “we've got Thirteen Blooming
+Hundred Pounds of profit to divide. I bled him in four Thou.!” he cried,
+in a voice that broke like a schoolboy's.
+
+For a moment the partners looked upon their chief with stupefaction,
+incredulous surprise their only feeling. Tommy was the first to grasp
+the consequences.
+
+“Here,” he said, in a hard, business tone. “Come back to that saloon.
+I've got to get drunk.”
+
+“You must please excuse me, boys,” said the captain, earnestly. “I
+daren't taste nothing. If I was to drink one glass of beer, it's my
+belief I'd have the apoplexy. The last scrimmage, and the blooming
+triumph, pretty nigh hand done me.”
+
+“Well, then, three cheers for the captain,” proposed Tommy.
+
+But Wicks held up a shaking hand. “Not that either, boys,” he pleaded.
+“Think of the other buffer, and let him down easy. If I'm like this,
+just fancy what Topelius is! If he heard us singing out, he'd have the
+staggers.”
+
+As a matter of fact, Topelius accepted his defeat with a good grace;
+but the crew of the wrecked Leslie, who were in the same employment and
+loyal to their firm, took the thing more bitterly. Rough words and ugly
+looks were common. Once even they hooted Captain Wicks from the saloon
+verandah; the Currency Lasses drew out on the other side; for some
+minutes there had like to have been a battle in Butaritari; and though
+the occasion passed off without blows, it left on either side an
+increase of ill-feeling.
+
+No such small matter could affect the happiness of the successful
+traders. Five days more the ship lay in the lagoon, with little
+employment for any one but Tommy and the captain, for Topelius's natives
+discharged cargo and brought ballast; the time passed like a pleasant
+dream; the adventurers sat up half the night debating and praising their
+good fortune, or strayed by day in the narrow isle, gaping like Cockney
+tourists; and on the first of the new year, the Currency Lass weighed
+anchor for the second time and set sail for 'Frisco, attended by the
+same fine weather and good luck. She crossed the doldrums with but
+small delay; on a wind and in ballast of broken coral, she outdid
+expectations; and, what added to the happiness of the ship's company,
+the small amount of work that fell on them to do, was now lessened by
+the presence of another hand. This was the boatswain of the Leslie; he
+had been on bad terms with his own captain, had already spent his wages
+in the saloons of Butaritari, had wearied of the place, and while all
+his shipmates coldly refused to set foot on board the Currency Lass, he
+had offered to work his passage to the coast. He was a north of Ireland
+man, between Scotch and Irish, rough, loud, humorous, and emotional, not
+without sterling qualities, and an expert and careful sailor. His frame
+of mind was different indeed from that of his new shipmates; instead of
+making an unexpected fortune, he had lost a berth; and he was besides
+disgusted with the rations, and really appalled at the condition of the
+schooner. A stateroom door had stuck, the first day at sea, and Mac (as
+they called him) laid his strength to it and plucked it from the hinges.
+
+“Glory!” said he, “this ship's rotten.”
+
+“I believe you, my boy,” said Captain Wicks.
+
+The next day the sailor was observed with his nose aloft.
+
+“Don't you get looking at these sticks,” the captain said, “or you'll
+have a fit and fall overboard.”
+
+Mac turned towards the speaker with rather a wild eye. “Why, I see what
+looks like a patch of dry rot up yonder, that I bet I could stick my
+fist into,” said he.
+
+“Looks as if a fellow could stick his head into it, don't it?” returned
+Wicks. “But there's no good prying into things that can't be mended.”
+
+“I think I was a Currency Ass to come on board of her!” reflected Mac.
+
+“Well, I never said she was seaworthy,” replied the captain: “I only
+said she could show her blooming heels to anything afloat. And besides,
+I don't know that it's dry rot; I kind of sometimes hope it isn't. Here;
+turn to and heave the log; that'll cheer you up.”
+
+“Well, there's no denying it, you're a holy captain,” said Mac.
+
+And from that day on, he made but the one reference to the ship's
+condition; and that was whenever Tommy drew upon his cellar. “Here's to
+the junk trade!” he would say, as he held out his can of sherry.
+
+“Why do you always say that?” asked Tommy.
+
+“I had an uncle in the business,” replied Mac, and launched at once into
+a yarn, in which an incredible number of the characters were “laid
+out as nice as you would want to see,” and the oaths made up about
+two-fifths of every conversation.
+
+Only once he gave them a taste of his violence; he talked of it, indeed,
+often; “I'm rather a voilent man,” he would say, not without pride; but
+this was the only specimen. Of a sudden, he turned on Hemstead in the
+ship's waist, knocked him against the foresail boom, then knocked him
+under it, and had set him up and knocked him down once more, before any
+one had drawn a breath.
+
+“Here! Belay that!” roared Wicks, leaping to his feet. “I won't have
+none of this.”
+
+Mac turned to the captain with ready civility. “I only want to learn him
+manners,” said he. “He took and called me Irishman.”
+
+“Did he?” said Wicks. “O, that's a different story! What made you do it,
+you tomfool? You ain't big enough to call any man that.”
+
+“I didn't call him it,” spluttered Hemstead, through his blood and
+tears. “I only mentioned-like he was.”
+
+“Well, let's have no more of it,” said Wicks.
+
+“But you ARE Irish, ain't you?” Carthew asked of his new shipmate
+shortly after.
+
+“I may be,” replied Mac, “but I'll allow no Sydney duck to call me so.
+No,” he added, with a sudden heated countenance, “nor any Britisher that
+walks! Why, look here,” he went on, “you're a young swell, aren't you?
+Suppose I called you that! 'I'll show you,' you would say, and turn to
+and take it out of me straight.”
+
+On the 28th of January, when in lat. 27 degrees 20' N., long. 177
+degrees W., the wind chopped suddenly into the west, not very strong,
+but puffy and with flaws of rain. The captain, eager for easting, made
+a fair wind of it and guyed the booms out wing and wing. It was Tommy's
+trick at the wheel, and as it was within half an hour of the relief
+(seven thirty in the morning), the captain judged it not worth while to
+change him.
+
+The puffs were heavy but short; there was nothing to be called a squall,
+no danger to the ship, and scarce more than usual to the doubtful spars.
+All hands were on deck in their oilskins, expecting breakfast; the
+galley smoked, the ship smelt of coffee, all were in good humour to be
+speeding eastward a full nine; when the rotten foresail tore suddenly
+between two cloths and then split to either hand. It was for all the
+world as though some archangel with a huge sword had slashed it with the
+figure of a cross; all hands ran to secure the slatting canvas; and in
+the sudden uproar and alert, Tommy Hadden lost his head. Many of his
+days have been passed since then in explaining how the thing happened;
+of these explanations it will be sufficient to say that they were all
+different and none satisfactory; and the gross fact remains that the
+main boom gybed, carried away the tackle, broke the mainmast some three
+feet above the deck and whipped it overboard. For near a minute the
+suspected foremast gallantly resisted; then followed its companion; and
+by the time the wreck was cleared, of the whole beautiful fabric that
+enabled them to skim the seas, two ragged stumps remained.
+
+In these vast and solitary waters, to be dismasted is perhaps the worst
+calamity. Let the ship turn turtle and go down, and at least the pang is
+over. But men chained on a hulk may pass months scanning the empty sea
+line and counting the steps of death's invisible approach. There is
+no help but in the boats, and what a help is that! There heaved the
+Currency Lass, for instance, a wingless lump, and the nearest human
+coast (that of Kauai in the Sandwiches) lay about a thousand miles to
+south and east of her. Over the way there, to men contemplating that
+passage in an open boat, all kinds of misery, and the fear of death and
+of madness, brooded.
+
+A serious company sat down to breakfast; but the captain helped his
+neighbours with a smile.
+
+“Now, boys,” he said, after a pull at the hot coffee, “we're done with
+this Currency Lass, and no mistake. One good job: we made her pay while
+she lasted, and she paid first rate; and if we were to try our hand
+again, we can try in style. Another good job: we have a fine, stiff,
+roomy boat, and you know who you have to thank for that. We've got six
+lives to save, and a pot of money; and the point is, where are we to
+take 'em?”
+
+“It's all two thousand miles to the nearest of the Sandwiches, I fancy,”
+ observed Mac.
+
+“No, not so bad as that,” returned the captain. “But it's bad enough:
+rather better'n a thousand.”
+
+“I know a man who once did twelve hundred in a boat,” said Mac, “and he
+had all he wanted. He fetched ashore in the Marquesas, and never set a
+foot on anything floating from that day to this. He said he would rather
+put a pistol to his head and knock his brains out.”
+
+“Ay, ay!” said Wicks. “Well I remember a boat's crew that made this very
+island of Kauai, and from just about where we lie, or a bit further.
+When they got up with the land, they were clean crazy. There was an
+iron-bound coast and an Old Bob Ridley of a surf on. The natives hailed
+'em from fishing-boats, and sung out it couldn't be done at the money.
+Much they cared! there was the land, that was all they knew; and they
+turned to and drove the boat slap ashore in the thick of it, and was
+all drowned but one. No; boat trips are my eye,” concluded the captain,
+gloomily.
+
+The tone was surprising in a man of his indomitable temper. “Come,
+Captain,” said Carthew, “you have something else up your sleeve; out
+with it!”
+
+“It's a fact,” admitted Wicks. “You see there's a raft of little bally
+reefs about here, kind of chicken-pox on the chart. Well, I looked 'em
+all up, and there's one--Midway or Brooks they call it, not forty mile
+from our assigned position--that I got news of. It turns out it's a
+coaling station of the Pacific Mail,” he said, simply.
+
+“Well, and I know it ain't no such a thing,” said Mac. “I been
+quartermaster in that line myself.”
+
+“All right,” returned Wicks. “There's the book. Read what Hoyt
+says--read it aloud and let the others hear.”
+
+Hoyt's falsehood (as readers know) was explicit; incredulity was
+impossible, and the news itself delightful beyond hope. Each saw in his
+mind's eye the boat draw in to a trim island with a wharf, coal-sheds,
+gardens, the Stars and Stripes and the white cottage of the keeper;
+saw themselves idle a few weeks in tolerable quarters, and then step on
+board the China mail, romantic waifs, and yet with pocketsful of money,
+calling for champagne, and waited on by troops of stewards. Breakfast,
+that had begun so dully, ended amid sober jubilation, and all hands
+turned immediately to prepare the boat.
+
+Now that all spars were gone, it was no easy job to get her launched.
+Some of the necessary cargo was first stowed on board; the specie, in
+particular, being packed in a strong chest and secured with lashings to
+the afterthwart in case of a capsize. Then a piece of the bulwark was
+razed to the level of the deck, and the boat swung thwart-ship, made
+fast with a slack line to either stump, and successfully run out. For a
+voyage of forty miles to hospitable quarters, not much food or water
+was required; but they took both in superfluity. Amalu and Mac, both
+ingrained sailor-men, had chests which were the headquarters of their
+lives; two more chests with handbags, oilskins, and blankets supplied
+the others; Hadden, amid general applause, added the last case of the
+brown sherry; the captain brought the log, instruments, and chronometer;
+nor did Hemstead forget the banjo or a pinned handkerchief of Butaritari
+shells.
+
+It was about three P.M. when they pushed off, and (the wind being still
+westerly) fell to the oars. “Well, we've got the guts out of YOU!” was
+the captain's nodded farewell to the hulk of the Currency Lass, which
+presently shrank and faded in the sea. A little after a calm succeeded,
+with much rain; and the first meal was eaten, and the watch below lay
+down to their uneasy slumber on the bilge under a roaring shower-bath.
+The twenty-ninth dawned overhead from out of ragged clouds; there is
+no moment when a boat at sea appears so trenchantly black and so
+conspicuously little; and the crew looked about them at the sky and
+water with a thrill of loneliness and fear. With sunrise the trade set
+in, lusty and true to the point; sail was made; the boat flew; and by
+about four in the afternoon, they were well up with the closed part of
+the reef, and the captain standing on the thwart, and holding by the
+mast, was studying the island through the binoculars.
+
+“Well, and where's your station?” cried Mac.
+
+“I don't someway pick it up,” replied the captain.
+
+“No, nor never will!” retorted Mac, with a clang of despair and triumph
+in his tones.
+
+The truth was soon plain to all. No buoys, no beacons, no lights, no
+coal, no station; the castaways pulled through a lagoon and landed on
+an isle, where was no mark of man but wreckwood, and no sound but of the
+sea. For the seafowl that harboured and lived there at the epoch of my
+visit were then scattered into the uttermost parts of the ocean, and
+had left no traces of their sojourn besides dropped feathers and addled
+eggs. It was to this they had been sent, for this they had stooped all
+night over the dripping oars, hourly moving further from relief. The
+boat, for as small as it was, was yet eloquent of the hands of men, a
+thing alone indeed upon the sea but yet in itself all human; and the
+isle, for which they had exchanged it, was ingloriously savage, a place
+of distress, solitude, and hunger unrelieved. There was a strong glare
+and shadow of the evening over all; in which they sat or lay, not
+speaking, careless even to eat, men swindled out of life and riches by
+a lying book. In the great good nature of the whole party, no word of
+reproach had been addressed to Hadden, the author of these disasters.
+But the new blow was less magnanimously borne, and many angry glances
+rested on the captain.
+
+Yet it was himself who roused them from their lethargy. Grudgingly they
+obeyed, drew the boat beyond tidemark, and followed him to the top of
+the miserable islet, whence a view was commanded of the whole wheel of
+the horizon, then part darkened under the coming night, part dyed with
+the hues of the sunset and populous with the sunset clouds. Here the
+camp was pitched and a tent run up with the oars, sails, and mast. And
+here Amalu, at no man's bidding, from the mere instinct of habitual
+service, built a fire and cooked a meal. Night was come, and the stars
+and the silver sickle of new moon beamed overhead, before the meal
+was ready. The cold sea shone about them, and the fire glowed in their
+faces, as they ate. Tommy had opened his case, and the brown sherry went
+the round; but it was long before they came to conversation.
+
+“Well, is it to be Kauai after all?” asked Mac suddenly.
+
+“This is bad enough for me,” said Tommy. “Let's stick it out where we
+are.”
+
+“Well, I can tell ye one thing,” said Mac, “if ye care to hear it. When
+I was in the China mail, we once made this island. It's in the course
+from Honolulu.”
+
+“Deuce it is!” cried Carthew. “That settles it, then. Let's stay. We
+must keep good fires going; and there's plenty wreck.”
+
+“Lashings of wreck!” said the Irishman. “There's nothing here but wreck
+and coffin boards.”
+
+“But we'll have to make a proper blyze,” objected Hemstead. “You can't
+see a fire like this, not any wye awye, I mean.”
+
+“Can't you?” said Carthew. “Look round.”
+
+They did, and saw the hollow of the night, the bare, bright face of the
+sea, and the stars regarding them; and the voices died in their bosoms
+at the spectacle. In that huge isolation, it seemed they must be visible
+from China on the one hand and California on the other.
+
+“My God, it's dreary!” whispered Hemstead.
+
+“Dreary?” cried Mac, and fell suddenly silent.
+
+“It's better than a boat, anyway,” said Hadden. “I've had my bellyful of
+boat.”
+
+“What kills me is that specie!” the captain broke out. “Think of all
+that riches,--four thousand in gold, bad silver, and short bills--all
+found money, too!--and no more use than that much dung!”
+
+“I'll tell you one thing,” said Tommy. “I don't like it being in the
+boat--I don't care to have it so far away.”
+
+“Why, who's to take it?” cried Mac, with a guffaw of evil laughter.
+
+But this was not at all the feeling of the partners, who rose, clambered
+down the isle, brought back the inestimable treasure-chest slung upon
+two oars, and set it conspicuous in the shining of the fire.
+
+“There's my beauty!” cried Wicks, viewing it with a cocked head. “That's
+better than a bonfire. What! we have a chest here, and bills for close
+upon two thousand pounds; there's no show to that,--it would go in
+your vest-pocket,--but the rest! upwards of forty pounds avoirdupois of
+coined gold, and close on two hundredweight of Chile silver! What! ain't
+that good enough to fetch a fleet? Do you mean to say that won't affect
+a ship's compass? Do you mean to tell me that the lookout won't turn to
+and SMELL it?” he cried.
+
+Mac, who had no part nor lot in the bills, the forty pounds of gold, or
+the two hundredweight of silver, heard this with impatience, and fell
+into a bitter, choking laughter. “You'll see!” he said harshly. “You'll
+be glad to feed them bills into the fire before you're through with ut!”
+ And he turned, passed by himself out of the ring of the firelight, and
+stood gazing seaward.
+
+His speech and his departure extinguished instantly those sparks of
+better humour kindled by the dinner and the chest. The group fell again
+to an ill-favoured silence, and Hemstead began to touch the banjo, as
+was his habit of an evening. His repertory was small: the chords of
+_Home, Sweet Home_ fell under his fingers; and when he had played the
+symphony, he instinctively raised up his voice. “Be it never so 'umble,
+there's no plyce like 'ome,” he sang. The last word was still upon his
+lips, when the instrument was snatched from him and dashed into the
+fire; and he turned with a cry to look into the furious countenance of
+Mac.
+
+“I'll be damned if I stand this!” cried the captain, leaping up
+belligerent.
+
+“I told ye I was a voilent man,” said Mac, with a movement of
+deprecation very surprising in one of his character. “Why don't he give
+me a chance then? Haven't we enough to bear the way we are?” And to the
+wonder and dismay of all, the man choked upon a sob. “It's ashamed of
+meself I am,” he said presently, his Irish accent twenty-fold increased.
+“I ask all your pardons for me voilence; and especially the little
+man's, who is a harmless crayture, and here's me hand to'm, if he'll
+condescind to take me by 't.”
+
+So this scene of barbarity and sentimentalism passed off, leaving behind
+strange and incongruous impressions. True, every one was perhaps glad
+when silence succeeded that all too appropriate music; true, Mac's
+apology and subsequent behaviour rather raised him in the opinion of
+his fellow-castaways. But the discordant note had been struck, and its
+harmonics tingled in the brain. In that savage, houseless isle, the
+passions of man had sounded, if only for the moment, and all men
+trembled at the possibilities of horror.
+
+It was determined to stand watch and watch in case of passing vessels;
+and Tommy, on fire with an idea, volunteered to stand the first. The
+rest crawled under the tent, and were soon enjoying that comfortable
+gift of sleep, which comes everywhere and to all men, quenching
+anxieties and speeding time. And no sooner were all settled, no sooner
+had the drone of many snorers begun to mingle with and overcome the
+surf, than Tommy stole from his post with the case of sherry, and
+dropped it in a quiet cove in a fathom of water. But the stormy
+inconstancy of Mac's behaviour had no connection with a gill or two of
+wine; his passions, angry and otherwise, were on a different sail plan
+from his neighbours'; and there were possibilities of good and evil in
+that hybrid Celt beyond their prophecy.
+
+About two in the morning, the starry sky--or so it seemed, for the
+drowsy watchman had not observed the approach of any cloud--brimmed over
+in a deluge; and for three days it rained without remission. The islet
+was a sponge, the castaways sops; the view all gone, even the reef
+concealed behind the curtain of the falling water. The fire was soon
+drowned out; after a couple of boxes of matches had been scratched in
+vain, it was decided to wait for better weather; and the party lived in
+wretchedness on raw tins and a ration of hard bread.
+
+By the 2nd February, in the dark hours of the morning watch, the clouds
+were all blown by; the sun rose glorious; and once more the castaways
+sat by a quick fire, and drank hot coffee with the greed of brutes and
+sufferers. Thenceforward their affairs moved in a routine. A fire was
+constantly maintained; and this occupied one hand continuously, and the
+others for an hour or so in the day. Twice a day, all hands bathed in
+the lagoon, their chief, almost their only pleasure. Often they fished
+in the lagoon with good success. And the rest was passed in lolling,
+strolling, yarns, and disputation. The time of the China steamers
+was calculated to a nicety; which done, the thought was rejected and
+ignored. It was one that would not bear consideration. The boat voyage
+having been tacitly set aside, the desperate part chosen to wait there
+for the coming of help or of starvation, no man had courage left to look
+his bargain in the face, far less to discuss it with his neighbours. But
+the unuttered terror haunted them; in every hour of idleness, at every
+moment of silence, it returned, and breathed a chill about the circle,
+and carried men's eyes to the horizon. Then, in a panic of self-defence,
+they would rally to some other subject. And, in that lone spot, what
+else was to be found to speak of but the treasure?
+
+That was indeed the chief singularity, the one thing conspicuous in
+their island life; the presence of that chest of bills and specie
+dominated the mind like a cathedral; and there were besides connected
+with it, certain irking problems well fitted to occupy the idle. Two
+thousand pounds were due to the Sydney firm: two thousand pounds were
+clear profit, and fell to be divided in varying proportions among
+six. It had been agreed how the partners were to range; every pound of
+capital subscribed, every pound that fell due in wages, was to count for
+one “lay.” Of these, Tommy could claim five hundred and ten, Carthew one
+hundred and seventy, Wicks one hundred and forty, and Hemstead and Amalu
+ten apiece: eight hundred and forty “lays” in all. What was the value of
+a lay? This was at first debated in the air and chiefly by the strength
+of Tommy's lungs. Then followed a series of incorrect calculations; from
+which they issued, arithmetically foiled, but agreed from weariness upon
+an approximate value of 2 pounds, 7 shillings 7 1/4 pence. The figures
+were admittedly incorrect; the sum of the shares came not to 2000
+pounds, but to 1996 pounds, 6 shillings: 3 pounds, 14 shillings being
+thus left unclaimed. But it was the nearest they had yet found, and the
+highest as well, so that the partners were made the less critical by the
+contemplation of their splendid dividends. Wicks put in 100 pounds and
+stood to draw captain's wages for two months; his taking was 333 pounds
+3 shillings 6 1/2 pence. Carthew had put in 150 pounds: he was to take
+out 401 pounds, 18 shillings 6 1/2 pence. Tommy's 500 pounds had grown
+to be 1213 pounds 12 shillings 9 3/4 pence; and Amalu and Hemstead,
+ranking for wages only, had 22 pounds, 16 shillings 1/2 pence, each.
+
+From talking and brooding on these figures, it was but a step to
+opening the chest; and once the chest open, the glamour of the cash was
+irresistible. Each felt that he must see his treasure separate with the
+eye of flesh, handle it in the hard coin, mark it for his own, and
+stand forth to himself the approved owner. And here an insurmountable
+difficulty barred the way. There were some seventeen shillings in
+English silver: the rest was Chile; and the Chile dollar, which had been
+taken at the rate of six to the pound sterling, was practically their
+smallest coin. It was decided, therefore, to divide the pounds only,
+and to throw the shillings, pence, and fractions in a common fund. This,
+with the three pound fourteen already in the heel, made a total of seven
+pounds one shilling.
+
+“I'll tell you,” said Wicks. “Let Carthew and Tommy and me take one
+pound apiece, and Hemstead and Amalu split the other four, and toss up
+for the odd bob.”
+
+“O, rot!” said Carthew. “Tommy and I are bursting already. We can take
+half a sov' each, and let the other three have forty shillings.”
+
+“I'll tell you now--it's not worth splitting,” broke in Mac. “I've cards
+in my chest. Why don't you play for the slump sum?”
+
+In that idle place, the proposal was accepted with delight. Mac, as the
+owner of the cards, was given a stake; the sum was played for in five
+games of cribbage; and when Amalu, the last survivor in the tournament,
+was beaten by Mac, it was found the dinner hour was past. After a hasty
+meal, they fell again immediately to cards, this time (on Carthew's
+proposal) to Van John. It was then probably two P.M. of the 9th
+February; and they played with varying chances for twelve hours, slept
+heavily, and rose late on the morrow to resume the game. All day of the
+10th, with grudging intervals for food, and with one long absence on the
+part of Tommy from which he returned dripping with the case of sherry,
+they continued to deal and stake. Night fell: they drew the closer to
+the fire. It was maybe two in the morning, and Tommy was selling his
+deal by auction, as usual with that timid player; when Carthew, who
+didn't intend to bid, had a moment of leisure and looked round him. He
+beheld the moonlight on the sea, the money piled and scattered in that
+incongruous place, the perturbed faces of the players; he felt in his
+own breast the familiar tumult; and it seemed as if there rose in his
+ears a sound of music, and the moon seemed still to shine upon a sea,
+but the sea was changed, and the Casino towered from among lamplit
+gardens, and the money clinked on the green board. “Good God!” he
+thought, “am I gambling again?” He looked the more curiously about the
+sandy table. He and Mac had played and won like gamblers; the mingled
+gold and silver lay by their places in the heap. Amalu and Hemstead had
+each more than held their own, but Tommy was cruel far to leeward, and
+the captain was reduced to perhaps fifty pounds.
+
+“I say, let's knock off,” said Carthew.
+
+“Give that man a glass of Buckle,” said some one, and a fresh bottle was
+opened, and the game went inexorably on.
+
+Carthew was himself too heavy a winner to withdraw or to say more; and
+all the rest of the night he must look on at the progress of this folly,
+and make gallant attempts to lose with the not uncommon consequence of
+winning more. The first dawn of the 11th February found him well-nigh
+desperate. It chanced he was then dealer, and still winning. He had just
+dealt a round of many tens; every one had staked heavily; the captain
+had put up all that remained to him, twelve pounds in gold and a few
+dollars; and Carthew, looking privately at his cards before he showed
+them, found he held a natural.
+
+“See here, you fellows,” he broke out, “this is a sickening business,
+and I'm done with it for one.” So saying, he showed his cards, tore them
+across, and rose from the ground.
+
+The company stared and murmured in mere amazement; but Mac stepped
+gallantly to his support.
+
+“We've had enough of it, I do believe,” said he. “But of course it was
+all fun, and here's my counters back. All counters in, boys!” and he
+began to pour his winnings into the chest, which stood fortunately near
+him.
+
+Carthew stepped across and wrung him by the hand. “I'll never forget
+this,” he said.
+
+“And what are ye going to do with the Highway boy and the plumber?”
+ inquired Mac, in a low tone of voice. “They've both wan, ye see.”
+
+“That's true!” said Carthew aloud. “Amalu and Hemstead, count your
+winnings; Tommy and I pay that.”
+
+It was carried without speech: the pair glad enough to receive their
+winnings, it mattered not from whence; and Tommy, who had lost about
+five hundred pounds, delighted with the compromise.
+
+“And how about Mac?” asked Hemstead. “Is he to lose all?”
+
+“I beg your pardon, plumber. I'm sure ye mean well,” returned the
+Irishman, “but you'd better shut your face, for I'm not that kind of a
+man. If I t'ought I had wan that money fair, there's never a soul here
+could get it from me. But I t'ought it was in fun; that was my mistake,
+ye see; and there's no man big enough upon this island to give a present
+to my mother's son. So there's my opinion to ye, plumber, and you can
+put it in your pockut till required.”
+
+
+“Well, I will say, Mac, you're a gentleman,” said Carthew, as he helped
+him to shovel back his winnings into the treasure chest.
+
+“Divil a fear of it, sir! a drunken sailor-man,” said Mac.
+
+The captain had sat somewhile with his face in his hands: now he rose
+mechanically, shaking and stumbling like a drunkard after a debauch. But
+as he rose, his face was altered, and his voice rang out over the isle,
+“Sail, ho!”
+
+All turned at the cry, and there, in the wild light of the morning,
+heading straight for Midway Reef, was the brig Flying Scud of Hull.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV. A HARD BARGAIN.
+
+
+The ship which thus appeared before the castaways had long “tramped” the
+ocean, wandering from one port to another as freights offered. She was
+two years out from London, by the Cape of Good Hope, India, and the
+Archipelago; and was now bound for San Francisco in the hope of working
+homeward round the Horn. Her captain was one Jacob Trent. He had retired
+some five years before to a suburban cottage, a patch of cabbages, a
+gig, and the conduct of what he called a Bank. The name appears to have
+been misleading. Borrowers were accustomed to choose works of art and
+utility in the front shop; loaves of sugar and bolts of broadcloth were
+deposited in pledge; and it was a part of the manager's duty to dash in
+his gig on Saturday evenings from one small retailer's to another, and
+to annex in each the bulk of the week's takings. His was thus an active
+life, and to a man of the type of a rat, filled with recondite joys.
+An unexpected loss, a law suit, and the unintelligent commentary of the
+judge upon the bench, combined to disgust him of the business. I was so
+extraordinarily fortunate as to find, in an old newspaper, a report of
+the proceedings in Lyall v. The Cardiff Mutual Accommodation Banking Co.
+“I confess I fail entirely to understand the nature of the business,”
+ the judge had remarked, while Trent was being examined in chief; a
+little after, on fuller information--“They call it a bank,” he had
+opined, “but it seems to me to be an unlicensed pawnshop”; and he wound
+up with this appalling allocution: “Mr. Trent, I must put you on your
+guard; you must be very careful, or we shall see you here again.” In the
+inside of a week the captain disposed of the bank, the cottage, and the
+gig and horse; and to sea again in the Flying Scud, where he did well
+and gave high satisfaction to his owners. But the glory clung to him; he
+was a plain sailor-man, he said, but he could never long allow you to
+forget that he had been a banker.
+
+His mate, Elias Goddedaal, was a huge viking of a man, six feet three
+and of proportionate mass, strong, sober, industrious, musical, and
+sentimental. He ran continually over into Swedish melodies, chiefly in
+the minor. He had paid nine dollars to hear Patti; to hear Nilsson, he
+had deserted a ship and two months' wages; and he was ready at any time
+to walk ten miles for a good concert, or seven to a reasonable play.
+On board he had three treasures: a canary bird, a concertina, and a
+blinding copy of the works of Shakespeare. He had a gift, peculiarly
+Scandinavian, of making friends at sight: an elemental innocence
+commended him; he was without fear, without reproach, and without money
+or the hope of making it.
+
+Holdorsen was second mate, and berthed aft, but messed usually with the
+hands.
+
+Of one more of the crew, some image lives. This was a foremast hand out
+of the Clyde, of the name of Brown. A small, dark, thickset creature,
+with dog's eyes, of a disposition incomparably mild and harmless, he
+knocked about seas and cities, the uncomplaining whiptop of one vice.
+“The drink is my trouble, ye see,” he said to Carthew shyly; “and it's
+the more shame to me because I'm come of very good people at Bowling,
+down the wa'er.” The letter that so much affected Nares, in case the
+reader should remember it, was addressed to this man Brown.
+
+Such was the ship that now carried joy into the bosoms of the castaways.
+After the fatigue and the bestial emotions of their night of play, the
+approach of salvation shook them from all self-control. Their hands
+trembled, their eyes shone, they laughed and shouted like children as
+they cleared their camp: and some one beginning to whistle _Marching
+Through Georgia,_ the remainder of the packing was conducted, amidst a
+thousand interruptions, to these martial strains. But the strong head of
+Wicks was only partly turned.
+
+
+“Boys,” he said, “easy all! We're going aboard of a ship of which we
+don't know nothing; we've got a chest of specie, and seeing the weight,
+we can't turn to and deny it. Now, suppose she was fishy; suppose it was
+some kind of a Bully Hayes business! It's my opinion we'd better be on
+hand with the pistols.”
+
+Every man of the party but Hemstead had some kind of a revolver; these
+were accordingly loaded and disposed about the persons of the castaways,
+and the packing was resumed and finished in the same rapturous spirit as
+it was begun. The sun was not yet ten degrees above the eastern sea, but
+the brig was already close in and hove to, before they had launched the
+boat and sped, shouting at the oars, towards the passage.
+
+It was blowing fresh outside, with a strong send of sea. The spray flew
+in the oarsmen's faces. They saw the Union Jack blow abroad from the
+Flying Scud, the men clustered at the rail, the cook in the galley door,
+the captain on the quarter-deck with a pith helmet and binoculars. And
+the whole familiar business, the comfort, company, and safety of a ship,
+heaving nearer at each stroke, maddened them with joy.
+
+Wicks was the first to catch the line, and swarm on board, helping hands
+grabbing him as he came and hauling him across the rail.
+
+“Captain, sir, I suppose?” he said, turning to the hard old man in the
+pith helmet.
+
+“Captain Trent, sir,” returned the old gentleman.
+
+“Well, I'm Captain Kirkup, and this is the crew of the Sydney schooner
+Currency Lass, dismasted at sea January 28th.”
+
+“Ay, ay,” said Trent. “Well, you're all right now. Lucky for you I saw
+your signal. I didn't know I was so near this beastly island, there must
+be a drift to the south'ard here; and when I came on deck this morning
+at eight bells, I thought it was a ship afire.”
+
+It had been agreed that, while Wicks was to board the ship and do the
+civil, the rest were to remain in the whaleboat and see the treasure
+safe. A tackle was passed down to them; to this they made fast the
+invaluable chest, and gave the word to heave. But the unexpected weight
+brought the hand at the tackle to a stand; two others ran to tail on and
+help him, and the thing caught the eye of Trent.
+
+“'Vast heaving!” he cried sharply; and then to Wicks: “What's that? I
+don't ever remember to have seen a chest weigh like that.”
+
+“It's money,” said Wicks.
+
+“It's what?” cried Trent.
+
+“Specie,” said Wicks; “saved from the wreck.”
+
+Trent looked at him sharply. “Here, let go that chest again, Mr.
+Goddedaal,” he commanded, “shove the boat off, and stream her with a
+line astern.”
+
+“Ay, ay, sir!” from Goddedaal.
+
+“What the devil's wrong?” asked Wicks.
+
+“Nothing, I daresay,” returned Trent. “But you'll allow it's a queer
+thing when a boat turns up in mid-ocean with half a ton of specie,--and
+everybody armed,” he added, pointing to Wicks's pocket. “Your boat
+will lay comfortably astern, while you come below and make yourself
+satisfactory.”
+
+“O, if that's all!” said Wicks. “My log and papers are as right as the
+mail; nothing fishy about us.” And he hailed his friends in the boat,
+bidding them have patience, and turned to follow Captain Trent.
+
+“This way, Captain Kirkup,” said the latter. “And don't blame a man for
+too much caution; no offence intended; and these China rivers shake a
+fellow's nerve. All I want is just to see you're what you say you
+are; it's only my duty, sir, and what you would do yourself in the
+circumstances. I've not always been a ship-captain: I was a banker once,
+and I tell you that's the trade to learn caution in. You have to keep
+your weather-eye lifting Saturday nights.” And with a dry, business-like
+cordiality, he produced a bottle of gin.
+
+The captains pledged each other; the papers were overhauled; the tale of
+Topelius and the trade was told in appreciative ears and cemented
+their acquaintance. Trent's suspicions, thus finally disposed of, were
+succeeded by a fit of profound thought, during which he sat lethargic
+and stern, looking at and drumming on the table.
+
+“Anything more?” asked Wicks.
+
+“What sort of a place is it inside?” inquired Trent, sudden as though
+Wicks had touched a spring.
+
+“It's a good enough lagoon--a few horses' heads, but nothing to
+mention,” answered Wicks.
+
+“I've a good mind to go in,” said Trent. “I was new rigged in China;
+it's given very bad, and I'm getting frightened for my sticks. We could
+set it up as good as new in a day. For I daresay your lot would turn to
+and give us a hand?”
+
+“You see if we don't!” said Wicks.
+
+“So be it, then,” concluded Trent. “A stitch in time saves nine.”
+
+They returned on deck; Wicks cried the news to the Currency Lasses; the
+foretopsail was filled again, and the brig ran into the lagoon lively,
+the whaleboat dancing in her wake, and came to single anchor off Middle
+Brooks Island before eight. She was boarded by the castaways, breakfast
+was served, the baggage slung on board and piled in the waist, and all
+hands turned to upon the rigging. All day the work continued, the two
+crews rivalling each other in expense of strength. Dinner was served on
+deck, the officers messing aft under the slack of the spanker, the men
+fraternising forward. Trent appeared in excellent spirits, served out
+grog to all hands, opened a bottle of Cape wine for the after-table,
+and obliged his guests with many details of the life of a financier
+in Cardiff. He had been forty years at sea, had five times suffered
+shipwreck, was once nine months the prisoner of a pepper rajah, and had
+seen service under fire in Chinese rivers; but the only thing he cared
+to talk of, the only thing of which he was vain, or with which he
+thought it possible to interest a stranger, was his career as a
+money-lender in the slums of a seaport town.
+
+The afternoon spell told cruelly on the Currency Lasses. Already
+exhausted as they were with sleeplessness and excitement, they did the
+last hours of this violent employment on bare nerves; and when Trent was
+at last satisfied with the condition of his rigging, expected eagerly
+the word to put to sea. But the captain seemed in no hurry. He went and
+walked by himself softly, like a man in thought. Presently he hailed
+Wicks.
+
+“You're a kind of company, ain't you, Captain Kirkup?” he inquired.
+
+“Yes, we're all on board on lays,” was the reply.
+
+“Well, then, you won't mind if I ask the lot of you down to tea in the
+cabin?” asked Trent.
+
+Wicks was amazed, but he naturally ventured no remark; and a little
+after, the six Currency Lasses sat down with Trent and Goddedaal to
+a spread of marmalade, butter, toast, sardines, tinned tongue, and
+steaming tea. The food was not very good, and I have no doubt Nares
+would have reviled it, but it was manna to the castaways. Goddedaal
+waited on them with a kindness far before courtesy, a kindness like
+that of some old, honest countrywoman in her farm. It was remembered
+afterwards that Trent took little share in these attentions, but sat
+much absorbed in thought, and seemed to remember and forget the presence
+of his guests alternately.
+
+Presently he addressed the Chinaman.
+
+“Clear out!” said he, and watched him till he had disappeared in the
+stair. “Now, gentlemen,” he went on, “I understand you're a joint-stock
+sort of crew, and that's why I've had you all down; for there's a point
+I want made clear. You see what sort of a ship this is--a good ship,
+though I say it, and you see what the rations are--good enough for
+sailor-men.”
+
+There was a hurried murmur of approval, but curiosity for what was
+coming next prevented an articulate reply.
+
+“Well,” continued Trent, making bread pills and looking hard at the
+middle of the table, “I'm glad of course to be able to give you a
+passage to 'Frisco; one sailor-man should help another, that's my motto.
+But when you want a thing in this world, you generally always have
+to pay for it.” He laughed a brief, joyless laugh. “I have no idea of
+losing by my kindness.”
+
+“We have no idea you should, captain,” said Wicks.
+
+“We are ready to pay anything in reason,” added Carthew.
+
+
+At the words, Goddedaal, who sat next to him, touched him with his
+elbow, and the two mates exchanged a significant look. The character of
+Captain Trent was given and taken in that silent second.
+
+“In reason?” repeated the captain of the brig. “I was waiting for that.
+Reason's between two people, and there's only one here. I'm the judge;
+I'm reason. If you want an advance you have to pay for it”--he hastily
+corrected himself--“If you want a passage in my ship, you have to pay my
+price,” he substituted. “That's business, I believe. I don't want you;
+you want me.”
+
+“Well, sir,” said Carthew, “and what IS your price?”
+
+The captain made bread pills. “If I were like you,” he said, “when you
+got hold of that merchant in the Gilberts, I might surprise you. You
+had your chance then; seems to me it's mine now. Turn about's fair play.
+What kind of mercy did you have on that Gilbert merchant?” he cried,
+with a sudden stridency. “Not that I blame you. All's fair in love and
+business,” and he laughed again, a little frosty giggle.
+
+“Well, sir?” said Carthew, gravely.
+
+“Well, this ship's mine, I think?” he asked sharply.
+
+“Well, I'm of that way of thinking meself,” observed Mac.
+
+“I say it's mine, sir!” reiterated Trent, like a man trying to be angry.
+“And I tell you all, if I was a driver like what you are, I would take
+the lot. But there's two thousand pounds there that don't belong to you,
+and I'm an honest man. Give me the two thousand that's yours, and I'll
+give you a passage to the coast, and land every man-jack of you in
+'Frisco with fifteen pounds in his pocket, and the captain here with
+twenty-five.”
+
+Goddedaal laid down his head on the table like a man ashamed.
+
+“You're joking,” said Wicks, purple in the face.
+
+“Am I?” said Trent. “Please yourselves. You're under no compulsion. This
+ship's mine, but there's that Brooks Island don't belong to me, and you
+can lay there till you die for what I care.”
+
+
+“It's more than your blooming brig's worth!” cried Wicks.
+
+“It's my price anyway,” returned Trent.
+
+“And do you mean to say you would land us there to starve?” cried Tommy.
+
+Captain Trent laughed the third time. “Starve? I defy you to,” said he.
+“I'll sell you all the provisions you want at a fair profit.”
+
+“I beg your pardon, sir,” said Mac, “but my case is by itself I'm
+working me passage; I got no share in that two thousand pounds nor
+nothing in my pockut; and I'll be glad to know what you have to say to
+me?”
+
+“I ain't a hard man,” said Trent. “That shall make no difference. I'll
+take you with the rest, only of course you get no fifteen pound.”
+
+The impudence was so extreme and startling, that all breathed deep, and
+Goddedaal raised up his face and looked his superior sternly in the eye.
+
+But Mac was more articulate. “And you're what ye call a British sayman,
+I suppose? the sorrow in your guts!” he cried.
+
+“One more such word, and I clap you in irons!” said Trent, rising
+gleefully at the face of opposition.
+
+“And where would I be the while you were doin' ut?” asked Mac. “After
+you and your rigging, too! Ye ould puggy, ye haven't the civility of a
+bug, and I'll learn ye some.”
+
+His voice did not even rise as he uttered the threat; no man present,
+Trent least of all, expected that which followed. The Irishman's hand
+rose suddenly from below the table, an open clasp-knife balanced on the
+palm; there was a movement swift as conjuring; Trent started half to
+his feet, turning a little as he rose so as to escape the table, and the
+movement was his bane. The missile struck him in the jugular; he fell
+forward, and his blood flowed among the dishes on the cloth.
+
+The suddenness of the attack and the catastrophe, the instant change
+from peace to war and from life to death, held all men spellbound. Yet a
+moment they sat about the table staring open-mouthed upon the prostrate
+captain and the flowing blood. The next, Goddedaal had leaped to his
+feet, caught up the stool on which he had been sitting, and swung it
+high in air, a man transfigured, roaring (as he stood) so that men's
+ears were stunned with it. There was no thought of battle in the
+Currency Lasses; none drew his weapon; all huddled helplessly from
+before the face of the baresark Scandinavian. His first blow sent Mac to
+ground with a broken arm. His second bashed out the brains of Hemstead.
+He turned from one to another, menacing and trumpeting like a wounded
+elephant, exulting in his rage. But there was no counsel, no light of
+reason, in that ecstasy of battle; and he shied from the pursuit of
+victory to hail fresh blows upon the supine Hemstead, so that the stool
+was shattered and the cabin rang with their violence. The sight of that
+post-mortem cruelty recalled Carthew to the life of instinct, and his
+revolver was in hand and he had aimed and fired before he knew. The
+ear-bursting sound of the report was accompanied by a yell of pain; the
+colossus paused, swayed, tottered, and fell headlong on the body of his
+victim.
+
+In the instant silence that succeeded, the sound of feet pounding on the
+deck and in the companion leaped into hearing; and a face, that of the
+sailor Holdorsen, appeared below the bulkheads in the cabin doorway.
+Carthew shattered it with a second shot, for he was a marksman.
+
+“Pistols!” he cried, and charged at the companion, Wicks at his heels,
+Tommy and Amalu following. They trod the body of Holdorsen underfoot,
+and flew up-stairs and forth into the dusky blaze of a sunset red as
+blood. The numbers were still equal, but the Flying Scuds dreamed not of
+defence, and fled with one accord for the forecastle scuttle. Brown was
+first in flight; he disappeared below unscathed; the Chinaman followed
+head-foremost with a ball in his side; and the others shinned into the
+rigging.
+
+A fierce composure settled upon Wicks and Carthew, their fighting second
+wind. They posted Tommy at the fore and Amalu at the main to guard the
+masts and shrouds, and going themselves into the waist, poured out a
+box of cartridges on deck and filled the chambers. The poor devils aloft
+bleated aloud for mercy. But the hour of any mercy was gone by; the cup
+was brewed and must be drunken to the dregs; since so many had fallen
+all must fall. The light was bad, the cheap revolvers fouled and carried
+wild, the screaming wretches were swift to flatten themselves against
+the masts and yards or find a momentary refuge in the hanging sails. The
+fell business took long, but it was done at last. Hardy the Londoner was
+shot on the foreroyal yard, and hung horribly suspended in the brails.
+Wallen, the other, had his jaw broken on the maintop-gallant crosstrees,
+and exposed himself, shrieking, till a second shot dropped him on the
+deck.
+
+This had been bad enough, but worse remained behind. There was still
+Brown in the forepeak. Tommy, with a sudden clamour of weeping, begged
+for his life. “One man can't hurt us,” he sobbed. “We can't go on with
+this. I spoke to him at dinner. He's an awful decent little cad. It
+can't be done. Nobody can go into that place and murder him. It's too
+damned wicked.”
+
+The sound of his supplications was perhaps audible to the unfortunate
+below.
+
+“One left, and we all hang,” said Wicks. “Brown must go the same road.”
+ The big man was deadly white and trembled like an aspen; and he had no
+sooner finished speaking, than he went to the ship's side and vomited.
+
+“We can never do it if we wait,” said Carthew. “Now or never,” and he
+marched towards the scuttle.
+
+“No, no, no!” wailed Tommy, clutching at his jacket.
+
+But Carthew flung him off, and stepped down the ladder, his heart rising
+with disgust and shame. The Chinaman lay on the floor, still groaning;
+the place was pitch dark.
+
+“Brown!” cried Carthew, “Brown, where are you?”
+
+His heart smote him for the treacherous apostrophe, but no answer came.
+
+He groped in the bunks: they were all empty. Then he moved towards the
+forepeak, which was hampered with coils of rope and spare chandlery in
+general.
+
+“Brown!” he said again.
+
+“Here, sir,” answered a shaking voice; and the poor invisible caitiff
+called on him by name, and poured forth out of the darkness an endless,
+garrulous appeal for mercy. A sense of danger, of daring, had alone
+nerved Carthew to enter the forecastle; and here was the enemy crying
+and pleading like a frightened child. His obsequious “Here, sir,” his
+horrid fluency of obtestation, made the murder tenfold more revolting.
+Twice Carthew raised the pistol, once he pressed the trigger (or thought
+he did) with all his might, but no explosion followed; and with that the
+lees of his courage ran quite out, and he turned and fled from before
+his victim.
+
+Wicks sat on the fore hatch, raised the face of a man of seventy, and
+looked a wordless question. Carthew shook his head. With such composure
+as a man displays marching towards the gallows, Wicks arose, walked to
+the scuttle, and went down. Brown thought it was Carthew returning,
+and discovered himself, half crawling from his shelter, with another
+incoherent burst of pleading. Wicks emptied his revolver at the voice,
+which broke into mouse-like whimperings and groans. Silence succeeded,
+and the murderer ran on deck like one possessed.
+
+The other three were now all gathered on the fore hatch, and Wicks
+took his place beside them without question asked or answered. They
+sat close, like children in the dark, and shook each other with their
+shaking. The dusk continued to fall; and there was no sound but the
+beating of the surf and the occasional hiccup of a sob from Tommy
+Hadden.
+
+“God, if there was another ship!” cried Carthew of a sudden.
+
+Wicks started and looked aloft with the trick of all seamen, and
+shuddered as he saw the hanging figure on the royal yard.
+
+“If I went aloft, I'd fall,” he said simply. “I'm done up.”
+
+It was Amalu who volunteered, climbed to the very truck, swept the
+fading horizon, and announced nothing within sight.
+
+“No odds,” said Wicks. “We can't sleep ...”
+
+“Sleep!” echoed Carthew; and it seemed as if the whole of Shakespeare's
+_Macbeth_ thundered at the gallop through his mind.
+
+“Well, then, we can't sit and chitter here,” said Wicks, “till we've
+cleaned ship; and I can't turn to till I've had gin, and the gin's in
+the cabin, and who's to fetch it?”
+
+
+“I will,” said Carthew, “if any one has matches.”
+
+Amalu passed him a box, and he went aft and down the companion and into
+the cabin, stumbling upon bodies. Then he struck a match, and his looks
+fell upon two living eyes.
+
+“Well?” asked Mac, for it was he who still survived in that shambles of
+a cabin.
+
+“It's done; they're all dead,” answered Carthew.
+
+“Christ!” said the Irishman, and fainted.
+
+The gin was found in the dead captain's cabin; it was brought on deck,
+and all hands had a dram, and attacked their farther task. The night
+was come, the moon would not be up for hours; a lamp was set on the main
+hatch to light Amalu as he washed down decks; and the galley lantern
+was taken to guide the others in their graveyard business. Holdorsen,
+Hemstead, Trent, and Goddedaal were first disposed of, the last still
+breathing as he went over the side; Wallen followed; and then Wicks,
+steadied by the gin, went aloft with a boathook and succeeded in
+dislodging Hardy. The Chinaman was their last task; he seemed to be
+light-headed, talked aloud in his unknown language as they brought
+him up, and it was only with the splash of his sinking body that the
+gibberish ceased. Brown, by common consent, was left alone. Flesh and
+blood could go no further.
+
+All this time they had been drinking undiluted gin like water; three
+bottles stood broached in different quarters; and none passed without
+a gulp. Tommy collapsed against the mainmast; Wicks fell on his face
+on the poop ladder and moved no more; Amalu had vanished unobserved.
+Carthew was the last afoot: he stood swaying at the break of the poop,
+and the lantern, which he still carried, swung with his movement. His
+head hummed; it swarmed with broken thoughts; memory of that day's
+abominations flared up and died down within him like the light of a lamp
+in a strong draught. And then he had a drunkard's inspiration.
+
+“There must be no more of this,” he thought, and stumbled once more
+below.
+
+The absence of Holdorsen's body brought him to a stand. He stood and
+stared at the empty floor, and then remembered and smiled. From the
+captain's room he took the open case with one dozen and three bottles of
+gin, put the lantern inside, and walked precariously forth. Mac was once
+more conscious, his eyes haggard, his face drawn with pain and flushed
+with fever; and Carthew remembered he had never been seen to, had lain
+there helpless, and was so to lie all night, injured, perhaps dying.
+But it was now too late; reason had now fled from that silent ship. If
+Carthew could get on deck again, it was as much as he could hope;
+and casting on the unfortunate a glance of pity, the tragic drunkard
+shouldered his way up the companion, dropped the case overboard, and
+fell in the scuppers helpless.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV. A BAD BARGAIN.
+
+
+With the first colour in the east, Carthew awoke and sat up. A while he
+gazed at the scroll of the morning bank and the spars and hanging canvas
+of the brig, like a man who wakes in a strange bed, with a child's
+simplicity of wonder. He wondered above all what ailed him, what he had
+lost, what disfavour had been done him, which he knew he should resent,
+yet had forgotten. And then, like a river bursting through a dam, the
+truth rolled on him its instantaneous volume: his memory teemed with
+speech and pictures that he should never again forget; and he sprang to
+his feet, stood a moment hand to brow, and began to walk violently
+to and fro by the companion. As he walked, he wrung his hands.
+“God--God--God,” he kept saying, with no thought of prayer, uttering a
+mere voice of agony.
+
+The time may have been long or short, it was perhaps minutes, perhaps
+only seconds, ere he awoke to find himself observed, and saw the captain
+sitting up and watching him over the break of the poop, a strange
+blindness as of fever in his eyes, a haggard knot of corrugations on his
+brow. Cain saw himself in a mirror. For a flash they looked upon each
+other, and then glanced guiltily aside; and Carthew fled from the eye of
+his accomplice, and stood leaning on the taffrail.
+
+An hour went by, while the day came brighter, and the sun rose and drank
+up the clouds: an hour of silence in the ship, an hour of agony beyond
+narration for the sufferers. Brown's gabbling prayers, the cries of the
+sailors in the rigging, strains of the dead Hemstead's minstrelsy,
+ran together in Carthew's mind, with sickening iteration. He neither
+acquitted nor condemned himself: he did not think, he suffered. In
+the bright water into which he stared, the pictures changed and were
+repeated: the baresark rage of Goddedaal; the blood-red light of the
+sunset into which they had run forth; the face of the babbling Chinaman
+as they cast him over; the face of the captain, seen a moment since,
+as he awoke from drunkenness into remorse. And time passed, and the sun
+swam higher, and his torment was not abated.
+
+Then were fulfilled many sayings, and the weakest of these condemned
+brought relief and healing to the others. Amalu the drudge awoke (like
+the rest) to sickness of body and distress of mind; but the habit of
+obedience ruled in that simple spirit, and appalled to be so late,
+he went direct into the galley, kindled the fire, and began to get
+breakfast. At the rattle of dishes, the snapping of the fire, and the
+thin smoke that went up straight into the air, the spell was lifted.
+The condemned felt once more the good dry land of habit under foot; they
+touched again the familiar guide-ropes of sanity; they were restored to
+a sense of the blessed revolution and return of all things earthly. The
+captain drew a bucket of water and began to bathe. Tommy sat up, watched
+him awhile, and slowly followed his example; and Carthew, remembering
+his last thoughts of the night before, hastened to the cabin.
+
+Mac was awake; perhaps had not slept. Over his head Goddedaal's canary
+twittered shrilly from its cage.
+
+“How are you?” asked Carthew.
+
+“Me arrum's broke,” returned Mac; “but I can stand that. It's this place
+I can't abide. I was coming on deck anyway.”
+
+“Stay where you are, though,” said Carthew. “It's deadly hot above, and
+there's no wind. I'll wash out this----” and he paused, seeking a word
+and not finding one for the grisly foulness of the cabin.
+
+“Faith, I'll be obliged to ye, then,” replied the Irishman. He spoke
+mild and meek, like a sick child with its mother. There was now no
+violence in the violent man; and as Carthew fetched a bucket and swab
+and the steward's sponge, and began to cleanse the field of battle,
+he alternately watched him or shut his eyes and sighed like a man near
+fainting. “I have to ask all your pardons,” he began again presently,
+“and the more shame to me as I got ye into trouble and couldn't do
+nothing when it came. Ye saved me life, sir; ye're a clane shot.”
+
+“For God's sake, don't talk of it!” cried Carthew. “It can't be talked
+of; you don't know what it was. It was nothing down here; they fought.
+On deck--O, my God!” And Carthew, with the bloody sponge pressed to his
+face, struggled a moment with hysteria.
+
+“Kape cool, Mr. Cart'ew. It's done now,” said Mac; “and ye may bless God
+ye're not in pain and helpless in the bargain.”
+
+There was no more said by one or other, and the cabin was pretty well
+cleansed when a stroke on the ship's bell summoned Carthew to breakfast.
+Tommy had been busy in the meanwhile; he had hauled the whaleboat close
+aboard, and already lowered into it a small keg of beef that he found
+ready broached beside the galley door; it was plain he had but the one
+idea--to escape.
+
+“We have a shipful of stores to draw upon,” he said. “Well, what are
+we staying for? Let's get off at once for Hawaii. I've begun preparing
+already.”
+
+“Mac has his arm broken,” observed Carthew; “how would he stand the
+voyage?”
+
+“A broken arm?” repeated the captain. “That all? I'll set it after
+breakfast. I thought he was dead like the rest. That madman hit out
+like----” and there, at the evocation of the battle, his voice ceased
+and the talk died with it.
+
+After breakfast, the three white men went down into the cabin.
+
+“I've come to set your arm,” said the captain.
+
+“I beg your pardon, captain,” replied Mac; “but the firrst thing ye got
+to do is to get this ship to sea. We'll talk of me arrum after that.”
+
+“O, there's no such blooming hurry,” returned Wicks.
+
+“When the next ship sails in, ye'll tell me stories!” retorted Mac.
+
+“But there's nothing so unlikely in the world,” objected Carthew.
+
+“Don't be deceivin' yourself,” said Mac. “If ye want a ship, divil a
+one'll look near ye in six year; but if ye don't, ye may take my word
+for ut, we'll have a squadron layin' here.”
+
+“That's what I say,” cried Tommy; “that's what I call sense! Let's stock
+that whaleboat and be off.”
+
+“And what will Captain Wicks be thinking of the whaleboat?” asked the
+Irishman.
+
+“I don't think of it at all,” said Wicks. “We've a smart-looking brig
+under foot; that's all the whaleboat I want.”
+
+“Excuse me!” cried Tommy. “That's childish talk. You've got a brig, to
+be sure, and what use is she? You daren't go anywhere in her. What port
+are you to sail for?”
+
+“For the port of Davy Jones's Locker, my son,” replied the captain.
+“This brig's going to be lost at sea. I'll tell you where, too, and
+that's about forty miles to windward of Kauai. We're going to stay by
+her till she's down; and once the masts are under, she's the Flying Scud
+no more, and we never heard of such a brig; and it's the crew of the
+schooner Currency Lass that comes ashore in the boat, and takes the
+first chance to Sydney.”
+
+“Captain dear, that's the first Christian word I've heard of ut!” cried
+Mac. “And now, just let me arrum be, jewel, and get the brig outside.”
+
+“I'm as anxious as yourself, Mac,” returned Wicks; “but there's not wind
+enough to swear by. So let's see your arm, and no more talk.”
+
+The arm was set and splinted; the body of Brown fetched from the
+forepeak, where it lay still and cold, and committed to the waters of
+the lagoon; and the washing of the cabin rudely finished. All these were
+done ere midday; and it was past three when the first cat's-paw ruffled
+the lagoon, and the wind came in a dry squall, which presently sobered
+to a steady breeze.
+
+The interval was passed by all in feverish impatience, and by one of
+the party in secret and extreme concern of mind. Captain Wicks was a
+fore-and-aft sailor; he could take a schooner through a Scotch reel,
+felt her mouth and divined her temper like a rider with a horse; she,
+on her side, recognising her master and following his wishes like a dog.
+But by a not very unusual train of circumstance, the man's dexterity was
+partial and circumscribed. On a schooner's deck he was Rembrandt or (at
+the least) Mr. Whistler; on board a brig he was Pierre Grassou. Again
+and again in the course of the morning, he had reasoned out his
+policy and rehearsed his orders; and ever with the same depression and
+weariness. It was guess-work; it was chance; the ship might behave as
+he expected, and might not; suppose she failed him, he stood there
+helpless, beggared of all the proved resources of experience. Had
+not all hands been so weary, had he not feared to communicate his own
+misgivings, he could have towed her out. But these reasons sufficed, and
+the most he could do was to take all possible precautions. Accordingly
+he had Carthew aft, explained what was to be done with anxious patience,
+and visited along with him the various sheets and braces.
+
+“I hope I'll remember,” said Carthew. “It seems awfully muddled.”
+
+“It's the rottenest kind of rig,” the captain admitted: “all blooming
+pocket handkerchiefs! And not one sailor-man on deck! Ah, if she'd only
+been a brigantine, now! But it's lucky the passage is so plain; there's
+no manoeuvring to mention. We get under way before the wind, and run
+right so till we begin to get foul of the island; then we haul our wind
+and lie as near south-east as may be till we're on that line; 'bout ship
+there and stand straight out on the port tack. Catch the idea?”
+
+“Yes, I see the idea,” replied Carthew, rather dismally, and the two
+incompetents studied for a long time in silence the complicated gear
+above their heads.
+
+But the time came when these rehearsals must be put in practice. The
+sails were lowered, and all hands heaved the anchor short. The whaleboat
+was then cut adrift, the upper topsails and the spanker set, the yards
+braced up, and the spanker sheet hauled out to starboard.
+
+“Heave away on your anchor, Mr. Carthew.”
+
+“Anchor's gone, sir.”
+
+“Set jibs.”
+
+It was done, and the brig still hung enchanted. Wicks, his head full of
+a schooner's mainsail, turned his mind to the spanker. First he hauled
+in the sheet, and then he hauled it out, with no result.
+
+“Brail the damned thing up!” he bawled at last, with a red face. “There
+ain't no sense in it.”
+
+It was the last stroke of bewilderment for the poor captain, that he had
+no sooner brailed up the spanker than the vessel came before the wind.
+The laws of nature seemed to him to be suspended; he was like a man in
+a world of pantomime tricks; the cause of any result, and the probable
+result of any action, equally concealed from him. He was the more
+careful not to shake the nerve of his amateur assistants. He stood
+there with a face like a torch; but he gave his orders with aplomb; and
+indeed, now the ship was under weigh, supposed his difficulties over.
+
+The lower topsails and courses were then set, and the brig began to
+walk the water like a thing of life, her forefoot discoursing music, the
+birds flying and crying over her spars. Bit by bit the passage began to
+open and the blue sea to show between the flanking breakers on the reef;
+bit by bit, on the starboard bow, the low land of the islet began to
+heave closer aboard. The yards were braced up, the spanker sheet hauled
+aft again; the brig was close hauled, lay down to her work like a thing
+in earnest, and had soon drawn near to the point of advantage, where she
+might stay and lie out of the lagoon in a single tack.
+
+Wicks took the wheel himself, swelling with success. He kept the brig
+full to give her heels, and began to bark his orders: “Ready about.
+Helm's a-lee. Tacks and sheets. Mainsail haul.” And then the fatal
+words: “That'll do your mainsail; jump forrard and haul round your
+foreyards.”
+
+To stay a square-rigged ship is an affair of knowledge and swift sight;
+and a man used to the succinct evolutions of a schooner will always tend
+to be too hasty with a brig. It was so now. The order came too soon; the
+topsails set flat aback; the ship was in irons. Even yet, had the helm
+been reversed, they might have saved her. But to think of a stern-board
+at all, far more to think of profiting by one, were foreign to the
+schooner-sailor's mind. Wicks made haste instead to wear ship, a
+manoeuvre for which room was wanting, and the Flying Scud took ground on
+a bank of sand and coral about twenty minutes before five.
+
+Wicks was no hand with a square-rigger, and he had shown it. But he
+was a sailor and a born captain of men for all homely purposes, where
+intellect is not required and an eye in a man's head and a heart under
+his jacket will suffice. Before the others had time to understand the
+misfortune, he was bawling fresh orders, and had the sails clewed up,
+and took soundings round the ship.
+
+“She lies lovely,” he remarked, and ordered out a boat with the
+starboard anchor.
+
+“Here! steady!” cried Tommy. “You ain't going to turn us to, to warp her
+off?”
+
+“I am though,” replied Wicks.
+
+“I won't set a hand to such tomfoolery for one,” replied Tommy. “I'm
+dead beat.” He went and sat down doggedly on the main hatch. “You got us
+on; get us off again,” he added.
+
+Carthew and Wicks turned to each other.
+
+“Perhaps you don't know how tired we are,” said Carthew.
+
+“The tide's flowing!” cried the captain. “You wouldn't have me miss a
+rising tide?”
+
+“O, gammon! there's tides to-morrow!” retorted Tommy.
+
+“And I'll tell you what,” added Carthew, “the breeze is failing fast,
+and the sun will soon be down. We may get into all kinds of fresh mess
+in the dark and with nothing but light airs.”
+
+“I don't deny it,” answered Wicks, and stood awhile as if in thought.
+“But what I can't make out,” he began again, with agitation, “what I
+can't make out is what you're made of! To stay in this place is beyond
+me. There's the bloody sun going down--and to stay here is beyond me!”
+
+The others looked upon him with horrified surprise. This fall of their
+chief pillar--this irrational passion in the practical man, suddenly
+barred out of his true sphere, the sphere of action--shocked and daunted
+them. But it gave to another and unseen hearer the chance for which he
+had been waiting. Mac, on the striking of the brig, had crawled up the
+companion, and he now showed himself and spoke up.
+
+“Captain Wicks,” said he, “it's me that brought this trouble on the lot
+of ye. I'm sorry for ut, I ask all your pardons, and if there's any one
+can say 'I forgive ye,' it'll make my soul the lighter.”
+
+Wicks stared upon the man in amaze; then his self-control returned to
+him. “We're all in glass houses here,” he said; “we ain't going to turn
+to and throw stones. I forgive you, sure enough; and much good may it do
+you!”
+
+The others spoke to the same purpose.
+
+“I thank ye for ut, and 'tis done like gentlemen,” said Mac. “But
+there's another thing I have upon my mind. I hope we're all Prodestan's
+here?”
+
+It appeared they were; it seemed a small thing for the Protestant
+religion to rejoice in!
+
+“Well, that's as it should be,” continued Mac. “And why shouldn't we say
+the Lord's Prayer? There can't be no hurt in ut.”
+
+He had the same quiet, pleading, childlike way with him as in the
+morning; and the others accepted his proposal, and knelt down without a
+word.
+
+“Knale if ye like!” said he. “I'll stand.” And he covered his eyes.
+
+So the prayer was said to the accompaniment of the surf and seabirds,
+and all rose refreshed and felt lightened of a load. Up to then, they
+had cherished their guilty memories in private, or only referred to
+them in the heat of a moment and fallen immediately silent. Now they had
+faced their remorse in company, and the worst seemed over. Nor was it
+only that. But the petition “Forgive us our trespasses,” falling in
+so apposite after they had themselves forgiven the immediate author of
+their miseries, sounded like an absolution.
+
+Tea was taken on deck in the time of the sunset, and not long after the
+five castaways--castaways once more--lay down to sleep.
+
+Day dawned windless and hot. Their slumbers had been too profound to be
+refreshing, and they woke listless, and sat up, and stared about them
+with dull eyes. Only Wicks, smelling a hard day's work ahead, was more
+alert. He went first to the well, sounded it once and then a second
+time, and stood awhile with a grim look, so that all could see he was
+dissatisfied. Then he shook himself, stripped to the buff, clambered on
+the rail, drew himself up and raised his arms to plunge. The dive was
+never taken. He stood instead transfixed, his eyes on the horizon.
+
+“Hand up that glass,” he said.
+
+In a trice they were all swarming aloft, the nude captain leading with
+the glass.
+
+On the northern horizon was a finger of grey smoke, straight in the
+windless air like a point of admiration.
+
+“What do you make it?” they asked of Wicks.
+
+“She's truck down,” he replied; “no telling yet. By the way the smoke
+builds, she must be heading right here.”
+
+“What can she be?”
+
+“She might be a China mail,” returned Wicks, “and she might be a
+blooming man-of-war, come to look for castaways. Here! This ain't the
+time to stand staring. On deck, boys!”
+
+He was the first on deck, as he had been the first aloft, handed down
+the ensign, bent it again to the signal halliards, and ran it up union
+down.
+
+“Now hear me,” he said, jumping into his trousers, “and everything I say
+you grip on to. If that's a man-of-war, she'll be in a tearing hurry;
+all these ships are what don't do nothing and have their expenses paid.
+That's our chance; for we'll go with them, and they won't take the time
+to look twice or to ask a question. I'm Captain Trent; Carthew, you're
+Goddedaal; Tommy, you're Hardy; Mac's Brown; Amalu--Hold hard! we can't
+make a Chinaman of him! Ah Wing must have deserted; Amalu stowed away;
+and I turned him to as cook, and was never at the bother to sign him.
+Catch the idea? Say your names.”
+
+And that pale company recited their lesson earnestly.
+
+“What were the names of the other two?” he asked. “Him Carthew shot in
+the companion, and the one I caught in the jaw on the main top-gallant?”
+
+“Holdorsen and Wallen,” said some one.
+
+“Well, they're drowned,” continued Wicks; “drowned alongside trying to
+lower a boat. We had a bit of a squall last night: that's how we
+got ashore.” He ran and squinted at the compass. “Squall out of
+nor'-nor'-west-half-west; blew hard; every one in a mess, falls jammed,
+and Holdorsen and Wallen spilt overboard. See? Clear your blooming
+heads!” He was in his jacket now, and spoke with a feverish impatience
+and contention that rang like anger.
+
+“But is it safe?” asked Tommy.
+
+“Safe?” bellowed the captain. “We're standing on the drop, you
+moon-calf! If that ship's bound for China (which she don't look to be),
+we're lost as soon as we arrive; if she's bound the other way, she comes
+from China, don't she? Well, if there's a man on board of her that ever
+clapped eyes on Trent or any blooming hand out of this brig, we'll all
+be in irons in two hours. Safe! no, it ain't safe; it's a beggarly last
+chance to shave the gallows, and that's what it is.”
+
+At this convincing picture, fear took hold on all.
+
+“Hadn't we a hundred times better stay by the brig?” cried Carthew.
+“They would give us a hand to float her off.”
+
+“You'll make me waste this holy day in chattering!” cried Wicks. “Look
+here, when I sounded the well this morning, there was two foot of water
+there against eight inches last night. What's wrong? I don't know; might
+be nothing; might be the worst kind of smash. And then, there we are in
+for a thousand miles in an open boat, if that's your taste!”
+
+“But it may be nothing, and anyway their carpenters are bound to help us
+repair her,” argued Carthew.
+
+“Moses Murphy!” cried the captain. “How did she strike? Bows on,
+I believe. And she's down by the head now. If any carpenter comes
+tinkering here, where'll he go first? Down in the forepeak, I suppose!
+And then, how about all that blood among the chandlery? You would think
+you were a lot of members of Parliament discussing Plimsoll; and you're
+just a pack of murderers with the halter round your neck. Any other ass
+got any time to waste? No? Thank God for that! Now, all hands! I'm going
+below, and I leave you here on deck. You get the boat cover off that
+boat; then you turn to and open the specie chest. There are five of us;
+get five chests, and divide the specie equal among the five--put it
+at the bottom--and go at it like tigers. Get blankets, or canvas, or
+clothes, so it won't rattle. It'll make five pretty heavy chests, but we
+can't help that. You, Carthew--dash me!--You, Mr. Goddedaal, come below.
+We've our share before us.”
+
+And he cast another glance at the smoke, and hurried below with Carthew
+at his heels.
+
+The logs were found in the main cabin behind the canary's cage; two of
+them, one kept by Trent, one by Goddedaal. Wicks looked first at one,
+then at the other, and his lip stuck out.
+
+“Can you forge hand of write?” he asked.
+
+“No,” said Carthew.
+
+“There's luck for you--no more can I!” cried the captain. “Hullo! here's
+worse yet, here's this Goddedaal up to date; he must have filled it in
+before supper. See for yourself: 'Smoke observed.--Captain Kirkup and
+five hands of the schooner Currency Lass.' Ah! this is better,” he
+added, turning to the other log. “The old man ain't written anything for
+a clear fortnight. We'll dispose of your log altogether, Mr. Goddedaal,
+and stick to the old man's--to mine, I mean; only I ain't going to write
+it up, for reasons of my own. You are. You're going to sit down right
+here and fill it in the way I tell you.”
+
+“How to explain the loss of mine?” asked Carthew.
+
+“You never kept one,” replied the captain. “Gross neglect of duty.
+You'll catch it.”
+
+“And the change of writing?” resumed Carthew. “You began; why do you
+stop and why do I come in? And you'll have to sign anyway.”
+
+“O! I've met with an accident and can't write,” replied Wicks.
+
+“An accident?” repeated Carthew. “It don't sound natural. What kind of
+an accident?”
+
+Wicks spread his hand face-up on the table, and drove a knife through
+his palm.
+
+“That kind of an accident,” said he. “There's a way to draw to windward
+of most difficulties, if you've a head on your shoulders.” He began
+to bind up his hand with a handkerchief, glancing the while over
+Goddedaal's log. “Hullo!” he said, “this'll never do for us--this is an
+impossible kind of a yarn. Here, to begin with, is this Captain Trent
+trying some fancy course, leastways he's a thousand miles to south'ard
+of the great circle. And here, it seems, he was close up with this
+island on the sixth, sails all these days, and is close up with it again
+by daylight on the eleventh.”
+
+“Goddedaal said they had the deuce's luck,” said Carthew.
+
+“Well, it don't look like real life--that's all I can say,” returned
+Wicks.
+
+“It's the way it was, though,” argued Carthew.
+
+“So it is; and what the better are we for that, if it don't look so?”
+ cried the captain, sounding unwonted depths of art criticism. “Here! try
+and see if you can't tie this bandage; I'm bleeding like a pig.”
+
+As Carthew sought to adjust the handkerchief, his patient seemed sunk
+in a deep muse, his eye veiled, his mouth partly open. The job was yet
+scarce done, when he sprang to his feet.
+
+“I have it,” he broke out, and ran on deck. “Here, boys!” he cried, “we
+didn't come here on the eleventh; we came in here on the evening of the
+sixth, and lay here ever since becalmed. As soon as you've done with
+these chests,” he added, “you can turn to and roll out beef and water
+breakers; it'll look more shipshape--like as if we were getting ready
+for the boat voyage.”
+
+And he was back again in a moment, cooking the new log. Goddedaal's was
+then carefully destroyed, and a hunt began for the ship's papers. Of
+all the agonies of that breathless morning, this was perhaps the most
+poignant. Here and there the two men searched, cursing, cannoning
+together, streaming with heat, freezing with terror. News was bawled
+down to them that the ship was indeed a man-of-war, that she was close
+up, that she was lowering a boat; and still they sought in vain. By what
+accident they missed the iron box with the money and accounts, is hard
+to fancy; but they did. And the vital documents were found at last in
+the pocket of Trent's shore-going coat, where he had left them when last
+he came on board.
+
+Wicks smiled for the first time that morning. “None too soon,” said
+he. “And now for it! Take these others for me; I'm afraid I'll get them
+mixed if I keep both.”
+
+“What are they?” Carthew asked.
+
+“They're the Kirkup and Currency Lass papers,” he replied. “Pray God we
+need 'em again!”
+
+
+“Boat's inside the lagoon, sir,” hailed down Mac, who sat by the
+skylight doing sentry while the others worked.
+
+“Time we were on deck, then, Mr. Goddedaal,” said Wicks.
+
+As they turned to leave the cabin, the canary burst into piercing song.
+
+“My God!” cried Carthew, with a gulp, “we can't leave that wretched bird
+to starve. It was poor Goddedaal's.”
+
+“Bring the bally thing along!” cried the captain.
+
+And they went on deck.
+
+An ugly brute of a modern man-of-war lay just without the reef, now
+quite inert, now giving a flap or two with her propeller. Nearer hand,
+and just within, a big white boat came skimming to the stroke of many
+oars, her ensign blowing at the stern.
+
+“One word more,” said Wicks, after he had taken in the scene. “Mac,
+you've been in China ports? All right; then you can speak for yourself.
+The rest of you I kept on board all the time we were in Hongkong, hoping
+you would desert; but you fooled me and stuck to the brig. That'll make
+your lying come easier.”
+
+The boat was now close at hand; a boy in the stern sheets was the
+only officer, and a poor one plainly, for the men were talking as they
+pulled.
+
+“Thank God, they've only sent a kind of a middy!” ejaculated Wicks.
+“Here you, Hardy, stand for'ard! I'll have no deck hands on my
+quarter-deck,” he cried, and the reproof braced the whole crew like a
+cold douche.
+
+The boat came alongside with perfect neatness, and the boy officer
+stepped on board, where he was respectfully greeted by Wicks.
+
+“You the master of this ship?” he asked.
+
+“Yes, sir,” said Wicks. “Trent is my name, and this is the Flying Scud
+of Hull.”
+
+“You seem to have got into a mess,” said the officer.
+
+“If you'll step aft with me here, I'll tell you all there is of it,”
+ said Wicks.
+
+“Why, man, you're shaking!” cried the officer.
+
+“So would you, perhaps, if you had been in the same berth,” returned
+Wicks; and he told the whole story of the rotten water, the long calm,
+the squall, the seamen drowned; glibly and hotly; talking, with his head
+in the lion's mouth, like one pleading in the dock. I heard the same
+tale from the same narrator in the saloon in San Francisco; and even
+then his bearing filled me with suspicion. But the officer was no
+observer.
+
+“Well, the captain is in no end of a hurry,” said he; “but I was
+instructed to give you all the assistance in my power, and signal back
+for another boat if more hands were necessary. What can I do for you?”
+
+“O, we won't keep you no time,” replied Wicks cheerily. “We're all
+ready, bless you--men's chests, chronometer, papers and all.”
+
+“Do you mean to leave her?” cried the officer. “She seems to me to lie
+nicely; can't we get your ship off?”
+
+“So we could, and no mistake; but how we're to keep her afloat's another
+question. Her bows is stove in,” replied Wicks.
+
+The officer coloured to the eyes. He was incompetent and knew he was;
+thought he was already detected, and feared to expose himself again.
+There was nothing further from his mind than that the captain should
+deceive him; if the captain was pleased, why, so was he. “All right,” he
+said. “Tell your men to get their chests aboard.”
+
+“Mr. Goddedaal, turn the hands to to get the chests aboard,” said Wicks.
+
+The four Currency Lasses had waited the while on tenter-hooks. This
+welcome news broke upon them like the sun at midnight; and Hadden burst
+into a storm of tears, sobbing aloud as he heaved upon the tackle. But
+the work went none the less briskly forward; chests, men, and bundles
+were got over the side with alacrity; the boat was shoved off; it moved
+out of the long shadow of the Flying Scud, and its bows were pointed at
+the passage.
+
+So much, then, was accomplished. The sham wreck had passed muster; they
+were clear of her, they were safe away; and the water widened between
+them and her damning evidences. On the other hand, they were drawing
+nearer to the ship of war, which might very well prove to be their
+prison and a hangman's cart to bear them to the gallows--of which they
+had not yet learned either whence she came or whither she was bound; and
+the doubt weighed upon their heart like mountains.
+
+It was Wicks who did the talking. The sound was small in Carthew's ears,
+like the voices of men miles away, but the meaning of each word struck
+home to him like a bullet. “What did you say your ship was?” inquired
+Wicks.
+
+“Tempest, don't you know?” returned the officer.
+
+Don't you know? What could that mean? Perhaps nothing: perhaps that the
+ships had met already. Wicks took his courage in both hands. “Where is
+she bound?” he asked.
+
+“O, we're just looking in at all these miserable islands here,” said the
+officer. “Then we bear up for San Francisco.”
+
+“O, yes, you're from China ways, like us?” pursued Wicks.
+
+“Hong Kong,” said the officer, and spat over the side.
+
+Hong Kong. Then the game was up; as soon as they set foot on board,
+they would be seized; the wreck would be examined, the blood found, the
+lagoon perhaps dredged, and the bodies of the dead would reappear to
+testify. An impulse almost incontrollable bade Carthew rise from the
+thwart, shriek out aloud, and leap overboard; it seemed so vain a thing
+to dissemble longer, to dally with the inevitable, to spin out some
+hundred seconds more of agonised suspense, with shame and death thus
+visibly approaching. But the indomitable Wicks persevered. His face
+was like a skull, his voice scarce recognisable; the dullest of men and
+officers (it seemed) must have remarked that telltale countenance and
+broken utterance. And still he persevered, bent upon certitude.
+
+“Nice place, Hong Kong?” he said.
+
+“I'm sure I don't know,” said the officer. “Only a day and a half there;
+called for orders and came straight on here. Never heard of such a
+beastly cruise.” And he went on describing and lamenting the untoward
+fortunes of the Tempest.
+
+But Wicks and Carthew heeded him no longer. They lay back on the gunnel,
+breathing deep, sunk in a stupor of the body: the mind within still
+nimbly and agreeably at work, measuring the past danger, exulting in the
+present relief, numbering with ecstasy their ultimate chances of escape.
+For the voyage in the man-of-war they were now safe; yet a few more days
+of peril, activity, and presence of mind in San Francisco, and the
+whole horrid tale was blotted out; and Wicks again became Kirkup, and
+Goddedaal became Carthew--men beyond all shot of possible suspicion, men
+who had never heard of the Flying Scud, who had never been in sight of
+Midway Reef.
+
+So they came alongside, under many craning heads of seamen and
+projecting mouths of guns; so they climbed on board somnambulous, and
+looked blindly about them at the tall spars, the white decks, and the
+crowding ship's company, and heard men as from far away, and answered
+them at random.
+
+And then a hand fell softly on Carthew's shoulder.
+
+
+“Why, Norrie, old chappie, where have you dropped from? All the world's
+been looking for you. Don't you know you've come into your kingdom?”
+
+He turned, beheld the face of his old schoolmate Sebright, and fell
+unconscious at his feet.
+
+The doctor was attending him, a while later, in Lieutenant Sebright's
+cabin, when he came to himself. He opened his eyes, looked hard in the
+strange face, and spoke with a kind of solemn vigour.
+
+“Brown must go the same road,” he said; “now or never.” And then paused,
+and his reason coming to him with more clearness, spoke again: “What was
+I saying? Where am I? Who are you?”
+
+“I am the doctor of the Tempest,” was the reply. “You are in Lieutenant
+Sebright's berth, and you may dismiss all concern from your mind. Your
+troubles are over, Mr. Carthew.”
+
+“Why do you call me that?” he asked. “Ah, I remember--Sebright knew me!
+O!” and he groaned and shook. “Send down Wicks to me; I must see Wicks
+at once!” he cried, and seized the doctor's wrist with unconscious
+violence.
+
+“All right,” said the doctor. “Let's make a bargain. You swallow down
+this draught, and I'll go and fetch Wicks.”
+
+And he gave the wretched man an opiate that laid him out within ten
+minutes and in all likelihood preserved his reason.
+
+It was the doctor's next business to attend to Mac; and he found
+occasion, while engaged upon his arm, to make the man repeat the names
+of the rescued crew. It was now the turn of the captain, and there is
+no doubt he was no longer the man that we have seen; sudden relief, the
+sense of perfect safety, a square meal and a good glass of grog, had all
+combined to relax his vigilance and depress his energy.
+
+“When was this done?” asked the doctor, looking at the wound.
+
+“More than a week ago,” replied Wicks, thinking singly of his log.
+
+“Hey?” cried the doctor, and he raised his hand and looked the captain
+in the eyes.
+
+“I don't remember exactly,” faltered Wicks.
+
+And at this remarkable falsehood, the suspicions of the doctor were at
+once quadrupled.
+
+“By the way, which of you is called Wicks?” he asked easily.
+
+“What's that?” snapped the captain, falling white as paper.
+
+“Wicks,” repeated the doctor; “which of you is he? that's surely a plain
+question.”
+
+Wicks stared upon his questioner in silence.
+
+“Which is Brown, then?” pursued the doctor.
+
+“What are you talking of? what do you mean by this?” cried Wicks,
+snatching his half-bandaged hand away, so that the blood sprinkled in
+the surgeon's face.
+
+He did not trouble to remove it. Looking straight at his victim, he
+pursued his questions. “Why must Brown go the same way?” he asked.
+
+Wicks fell trembling on a locker. “Carthew's told you,” he cried.
+
+“No,” replied the doctor, “he has not. But he and you between you have
+set me thinking, and I think there's something wrong.”
+
+“Give me some grog,” said Wicks. “I'd rather tell than have you find
+out. I'm damned if it's half as bad as what any one would think.”
+
+And with the help of a couple of strong grogs, the tragedy of the Flying
+Scud was told for the first time.
+
+It was a fortunate series of accidents that brought the story to the
+doctor. He understood and pitied the position of these wretched men, and
+came whole-heartedly to their assistance. He and Wicks and Carthew (so
+soon as he was recovered) held a hundred councils and prepared a policy
+for San Francisco. It was he who certified “Goddedaal” unfit to be moved
+and smuggled Carthew ashore under cloud of night; it was he who kept
+Wicks's wound open that he might sign with his left hand; he who took
+all their Chile silver and (in the course of the first day) got it
+converted for them into portable gold. He used his influence in the
+wardroom to keep the tongues of the young officers in order, so that
+Carthew's identification was kept out of the papers. And he rendered
+another service yet more important. He had a friend in San Francisco,
+a millionaire; to this man he privately presented Carthew as a young
+gentleman come newly into a huge estate, but troubled with Jew debts
+which he was trying to settle on the quiet. The millionaire came readily
+to help; and it was with his money that the wrecker gang was to be
+fought. What was his name, out of a thousand guesses? It was Douglas
+Longhurst.
+
+As long as the Currency Lasses could all disappear under fresh names,
+it did not greatly matter if the brig were bought, or any small
+discrepancies should be discovered in the wrecking. The identification
+of one of their number had changed all that. The smallest scandal must
+now direct attention to the movements of Norris. It would be asked how
+he who had sailed in a schooner from Sydney, had turned up so shortly
+after in a brig out of Hong Kong; and from one question to another all
+his original shipmates were pretty sure to be involved. Hence arose
+naturally the idea of preventing danger, profiting by Carthew's
+new-found wealth, and buying the brig under an alias; and it was put in
+hand with equal energy and caution. Carthew took lodgings alone under
+a false name, picked up Bellairs at random, and commissioned him to buy
+the wreck.
+
+“What figure, if you please?” the lawyer asked.
+
+“I want it bought,” replied Carthew. “I don't mind about the price.”
+
+“Any price is no price,” said Bellairs. “Put a name upon it.”
+
+“Call it ten thousand pounds then, if you like!” said Carthew.
+
+In the meanwhile, the captain had to walk the streets, appear in the
+consulate, be cross-examined by Lloyd's agent, be badgered about his
+lost accounts, sign papers with his left hand, and repeat his lies to
+every skipper in San Francisco: not knowing at what moment he might
+run into the arms of some old friend who should hail him by the name of
+Wicks, or some new enemy who should be in a position to deny him that
+of Trent. And the latter incident did actually befall him, but was
+transformed by his stout countenance into an element of strength. It was
+in the consulate (of all untoward places) that he suddenly heard a big
+voice inquiring for Captain Trent. He turned with the customary sinking
+at his heart.
+
+“YOU ain't Captain Trent!” said the stranger, falling back. “Why, what's
+all this? They tell me you're passing off as Captain Trent--Captain
+Jacob Trent--a man I knew since I was that high.”
+
+“O, you're thinking of my uncle as had the bank in Cardiff,” replied
+Wicks, with desperate aplomb.
+
+“I declare I never knew he had a nevvy!” said the stranger.
+
+“Well, you see he has!” says Wicks.
+
+“And how is the old man?” asked the other.
+
+“Fit as a fiddle,” answered Wicks, and was opportunely summoned by the
+clerk.
+
+This alert was the only one until the morning of the sale, when he
+was once more alarmed by his interview with Jim; and it was with some
+anxiety that he attended the sale, knowing only that Carthew was to
+be represented, but neither who was to represent him nor what were the
+instructions given. I suppose Captain Wicks is a good life. In spite of
+his personal appearance and his own known uneasiness, I suppose he is
+secure from apoplexy, or it must have struck him there and then, as he
+looked on at the stages of that insane sale and saw the old brig and her
+not very valuable cargo knocked down at last to a total stranger for ten
+thousand pounds.
+
+It had been agreed that he was to avoid Carthew, and above all Carthew's
+lodging, so that no connexion might be traced between the crew and the
+pseudonymous purchaser. But the hour for caution was gone by, and he
+caught a tram and made all speed to Mission Street.
+
+Carthew met him in the door.
+
+“Come away, come away from here,” said Carthew; and when they were clear
+of the house, “All's up!” he added.
+
+
+“O, you've heard of the sale, then?” said Wicks.
+
+“The sale!” cried Carthew. “I declare I had forgotten it.” And he told
+of the voice in the telephone, and the maddening question: “Why did you
+want to buy the Flying Scud?”
+
+This circumstance, coming on the back of the monstrous improbabilities
+of the sale, was enough to have shaken the reason of Immanuel Kant. The
+earth seemed banded together to defeat them; the stones and the boys on
+the street appeared to be in possession of their guilty secret. Flight
+was their one thought. The treasure of the Currency Lass they packed in
+waist-belts, expressed their chests to an imaginary address in British
+Columbia, and left San Francisco the same afternoon, booked for Los
+Angeles.
+
+The next day they pursued their retreat by the Southern Pacific route,
+which Carthew followed on his way to England; but the other three
+branched off for Mexico.
+
+
+
+EPILOGUE:
+
+TO WILL H. LOW.
+
+DEAR LOW: The other day (at Manihiki of all places) I had the pleasure
+to meet Dodd. We sat some two hours in the neat, little, toy-like
+church, set with pews after the manner of Europe, and inlaid with
+mother-of-pearl in the style (I suppose) of the New Jerusalem. The
+natives, who are decidedly the most attractive inhabitants of this
+planet, crowded round us in the pew, and fawned upon and patted us; and
+here it was I put my questions, and Dodd answered me.
+
+I first carried him back to the night in Barbizon when Carthew told his
+story, and asked him what was done about Bellairs. It seemed he had
+put the matter to his friend at once, and that Carthew took it with an
+inimitable lightness. “He's poor, and I'm rich,” he had said. “I can
+afford to smile at him. I go somewhere else, that's all--somewhere
+that's far away and dear to get to. Persia would be found to answer, I
+fancy. No end of a place, Persia. Why not come with me?” And they had
+left the next afternoon for Constantinople, on their way to Teheran.
+Of the shyster, it is only known (by a newspaper paragraph) that he
+returned somehow to San Francisco and died in the hospital.
+
+“Now there's another point,” said I. “There you are off to Persia with
+a millionaire, and rich yourself. How come you here in the South Seas,
+running a trader?”
+
+He said, with a smile, that I had not yet heard of Jim's last
+bankruptcy. “I was about cleaned out once more,” he said; “and then it
+was that Carthew had this schooner built, and put me in as supercargo.
+It's his yacht and it's my trader; and as nearly all the expenses go to
+the yacht, I do pretty well. As for Jim, he's right again: one of the
+best businesses, they say, in the West, fruit, cereals, and real estate;
+and he has a Tartar of a partner now--Nares, no less. Nares will keep
+him straight, Nares has a big head. They have their country-places next
+door at Saucelito, and I stayed with them time about, the last time I
+was on the coast. Jim had a paper of his own--I think he has a notion
+of being senator one of these days--and he wanted me to throw up the
+schooner and come and write his editorials. He holds strong views on the
+State Constitution, and so does Mamie.”
+
+“And what became of the other three Currency Lasses after they left
+Carthew?” I inquired.
+
+“Well, it seems they had a huge spree in the city of Mexico,” said Dodd;
+“and then Hadden and the Irishman took a turn at the gold fields in
+Venezuela, and Wicks went on alone to Valparaiso. There's a Kirkup in
+the Chilean navy to this day, I saw the name in the papers about the
+Balmaceda war. Hadden soon wearied of the mines, and I met him the other
+day in Sydney. The last news he had from Venezuela, Mac had been knocked
+over in an attack on the gold train. So there's only the three of them
+left, for Amalu scarcely counts. He lives on his own land in Maui, at
+the side of Hale-a-ka-la, where he keeps Goddedaal's canary; and they
+say he sticks to his dollars, which is a wonder in a Kanaka. He had
+a considerable pile to start with, for not only Hemstead's share but
+Carthew's was divided equally among the other four--Mac being counted.”
+
+“What did that make for him altogether?” I could not help asking, for I
+had been diverted by the number of calculations in his narrative.
+
+“One hundred and twenty-eight pounds nineteen shillings and eleven pence
+halfpenny,” he replied with composure. “That's leaving out what little
+he won at Van John. It's something for a Kanaka, you know.”
+
+And about that time we were at last obliged to yield to the
+solicitations of our native admirers, and go to the pastor's house to
+drink green cocoanuts. The ship I was in was sailing the same night, for
+Dodd had been beforehand and got all the shell in the island; and though
+he pressed me to desert and return with him to Auckland (whither he was
+now bound to pick up Carthew) I was firm in my refusal.
+
+The truth is, since I have been mixed up with Havens and Dodd in the
+design to publish the latter's narrative, I seem to feel no want for
+Carthew's society. Of course I am wholly modern in sentiment, and think
+nothing more noble than to publish people's private affairs at so much a
+line. They like it, and if they don't, they ought to. But a still small
+voice keeps telling me they will not like it always, and perhaps not
+always stand it. Memory besides supplies me with the face of a pressman
+(in the sacred phrase) who proved altogether too modern for one of his
+neighbours, and
+
+
+     Qui nunc it per iter tenebricosum
+
+as it were, marshalling us our way. I am in no haste to
+
+     --nos proecedens--
+
+be that man's successor. Carthew has a record as “a clane shot,” and for
+some years Samoa will be good enough for me.
+
+We agreed to separate, accordingly; but he took me on board in his own
+boat with the hard-wood fittings, and entertained me on the way with
+an account of his late visit to Butaritari, whither he had gone on
+an errand for Carthew, to see how Topelius was getting along, and, if
+necessary, to give him a helping hand. But Topelius was in great force,
+and had patronised and--well--out-manoeuvred him.
+
+“Carthew will be pleased,” said Dodd; “for there's no doubt they
+oppressed the man abominably when they were in the Currency Lass. It's
+diamond cut diamond now.”
+
+
+This, I think, was the most of the news I got from my friend Loudon; and
+I hope I was well inspired, and have put all the questions to which you
+would be curious to hear an answer.
+
+But there is one more that I daresay you are burning to put to myself;
+and that is, what your own name is doing in this place, cropping up (as
+it were uncalled-for) on the stern of our poor ship? If you were not
+born in Arcadia, you linger in fancy on its margin; your thoughts are
+busied with the flutes of antiquity, with daffodils, and the classic
+poplar, and the footsteps of the nymphs, and the elegant and moving
+aridity of ancient art. Why dedicate to you a tale of a caste
+so modern;--full of details of our barbaric manners and unstable
+morals;--full of the need and the lust of money, so that there is scarce
+a page in which the dollars do not jingle;--full of the unrest and
+movement of our century, so that the reader is hurried from place to
+place and sea to sea, and the book is less a romance than a panorama--in
+the end, as blood-bespattered as an epic?
+
+Well, you are a man interested in all problems of art, even the most
+vulgar; and it may amuse you to hear the genesis and growth of _The
+Wrecker_. On board the schooner Equator, almost within sight of the
+Johnstone Islands (if anybody knows where these are) and on a moonlit
+night when it was a joy to be alive, the authors were amused with
+several stories of the sale of wrecks. The subject tempted them; and
+they sat apart in the alley-way to discuss its possibilities. “What a
+tangle it would make,” suggested one, “if the wrong crew were aboard.
+But how to get the wrong crew there?”--“I have it!” cried the other;
+“the so-and-so affair!” For not so many months before, and not so many
+hundred miles from where we were then sailing, a proposition almost
+tantamount to that of Captain Trent had been made by a British skipper
+to some British castaways.
+
+Before we turned in, the scaffolding of the tale had been put together.
+But the question of treatment was as usual more obscure. We had long
+been at once attracted and repelled by that very modern form of the
+police novel or mystery story, which consists in beginning your yarn
+anywhere but at the beginning, and finishing it anywhere but at the
+end; attracted by its peculiar interest when done, and the peculiar
+difficulties that attend its execution; repelled by that appearance
+of insincerity and shallowness of tone, which seems its inevitable
+drawback. For the mind of the reader, always bent to pick up clews,
+receives no impression of reality or life, rather of an airless,
+elaborate mechanism; and the book remains enthralling, but
+insignificant, like a game of chess, not a work of human art. It seemed
+the cause might lie partly in the abrupt attack; and that if the tale
+were gradually approached, some of the characters introduced (as it
+were) beforehand, and the book started in the tone of a novel of manners
+and experience briefly treated, this defect might be lessened and our
+mystery seem to inhere in life. The tone of the age, its movement, the
+mingling of races and classes in the dollar hunt, the fiery and not
+quite unromantic struggle for existence with its changing trades and
+scenery, and two types in particular, that of the American handy-man of
+business and that of the Yankee merchant sailor--we agreed to dwell upon
+at some length, and make the woof to our not very precious warp. Hence
+Dodd's father, and Pinkerton, and Nares, and the Dromedary picnics, and
+the railway work in New South Wales--the last an unsolicited testimonial
+from the powers that be, for the tale was half written before I saw
+Carthew's squad toil in the rainy cutting at South Clifton, or heard
+from the engineer of his “young swell.” After we had invented at some
+expense of time this method of approaching and fortifying our police
+novel, it occurred to us it had been invented previously by some one
+else, and was in fact--however painfully different the results may
+seem--the method of Charles Dickens in his later work.
+
+I see you staring. Here, you will say, is a prodigious quantity of
+theory to our halfpenny worth of police novel; and withal not a shadow
+of an answer to your question.
+
+Well, some of us like theory. After so long a piece of practice, these
+may be indulged for a few pages. And the answer is at hand. It was
+plainly desirable, from every point of view of convenience and contrast,
+that our hero and narrator should partly stand aside from those with
+whom he mingles, and be but a pressed-man in the dollar hunt. Thus it
+was that Loudon Dodd became a student of the plastic arts, and that our
+globe-trotting story came to visit Paris and look in at Barbizon. And
+thus it is, dear Low, that your name appears in the address of this
+epilogue.
+
+For sure, if any person can here appreciate and read between the lines,
+it must be you--and one other, our friend. All the dominos will be
+transparent to your better knowledge; the statuary contract will be to
+you a piece of ancient history; and you will not have now heard for the
+first time of the dangers of Roussillon. Dead leaves from the Bas Breau,
+echoes from Lavenue's and the Rue Racine, memories of a common past, let
+these be your bookmarkers as you read. And if you care for naught else
+in the story, be a little pleased to breathe once more for a moment the
+airs of our youth.
+
+The End.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Wrecker, by
+Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
+
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+  <head>
+    <title>
+      The Wrecker, by Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    div.fig    { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; }
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+    .pagenum   {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
+               margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
+               text-align: right;}
+    pre        { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
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+
+Project Gutenberg's The Wrecker, by Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Wrecker
+
+Author: Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
+
+Release Date: February 11, 2006 [EBook #1024]
+Last Updated: March 2, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WRECKER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Tony Adam and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      THE WRECKER
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      by Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br /> <a href="#link2H_PROL"> PROLOGUE. </a><br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2H_4_0002"> IN THE MARQUESAS. </a><br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2H_4_0003"> <big><b>THE YARN.</b></big> </a><br /> <br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A SOUND COMMERCIAL
+        EDUCATION<br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;ROUSSILLON
+        WINE<br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;TO
+        INTRODUCE MR. PINKERTON<br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;IN
+        WHICH I EXPERIENCE EXTREMES OF FORTUNE<br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0005">
+        CHAPTER V</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;IN WHICH I AM DOWN ON MY LUCK IN PARIS<br /><br />
+        <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;IN WHICH I GO WEST<br /><br />
+        <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;IRONS IN THE FIRE<br /><br />
+        <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;FACES ON THE CITY
+        FRONT<br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE
+        WRECK OF THE &ldquo;FLYING SCUD.<br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0010">
+        CHAPTER X</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;IN WHICH THE CREW VANISH<br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;IN WHICH JIM AND I TAKE
+        DIFFERENT WAYS<br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE
+        &ldquo;NORAH CREINA.<br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE
+        ISLAND AND THE WRECK<br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE
+        CABIN OF THE &ldquo;FLYING SCUD"<br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0015">
+        CHAPTER XV</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE CARGO OF THE &ldquo;FLYING SCUD"<br /><br />
+        <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;IN WHICH I TURN
+        SMUGGLER, AND THE CAPTAIN CASUIS<br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0017">
+        CHAPTER XVII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;LIGHT FROM THE MAN OF WAR<br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;CROSS-QUESTIONS AND
+        CROOKED ANSWERS<br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;TRAVELS
+        WITH A SHYSTER<br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER XX</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;STALLBRIDGE-LE-CARTHEW<br /><br />
+        <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER XXI</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;FACE TO FACE<br /><br />
+        <a href="#link2HCH0022"> CHAPTER XXII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE REMITTANCE MAN<br /><br />
+        <a href="#link2HCH0023"> CHAPTER XXIII&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE
+        BUDGET OF THE &ldquo;CURRENCY LASS"<br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0024">
+        CHAPTER XXIV</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A HARD BARGAIN<br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0025"> CHAPTER XXV</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A BAD BARGAIN<br /><br />
+        <a href="#link2H_EPIL"> EPILOGUE</a><br /><br />
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_PROL" id="link2H_PROL">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      PROLOGUE.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      IN THE MARQUESAS.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It was about three o'clock of a winter's afternoon in Tai-o-hae, the
+      French capital and port of entry of the Marquesas Islands. The trades blew
+      strong and squally; the surf roared loud on the shingle beach; and the
+      fifty-ton schooner of war, that carries the flag and influence of France
+      about the islands of the cannibal group, rolled at her moorings under
+      Prison Hill. The clouds hung low and black on the surrounding amphitheatre
+      of mountains; rain had fallen earlier in the day, real tropic rain, a
+      waterspout for violence; and the green and gloomy brow of the mountain was
+      still seamed with many silver threads of torrent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In these hot and healthy islands winter is but a name. The rain had not
+      refreshed, nor could the wind invigorate, the dwellers of Tai-o-hae: away
+      at one end, indeed, the commandant was directing some changes in the
+      residency garden beyond Prison Hill; and the gardeners, being all
+      convicts, had no choice but to continue to obey. All other folks slumbered
+      and took their rest: Vaekehu, the native queen, in her trim house under
+      the rustling palms; the Tahitian commissary, in his beflagged official
+      residence; the merchants, in their deserted stores; and even the
+      club-servant in the club, his head fallen forward on the bottle-counter,
+      under the map of the world and the cards of navy officers. In the whole
+      length of the single shoreside street, with its scattered board houses
+      looking to the sea, its grateful shade of palms and green jungle of
+      puraos, no moving figure could be seen. Only, at the end of the rickety
+      pier, that once (in the prosperous days of the American rebellion) was
+      used to groan under the cotton of John Hart, there might have been spied
+      upon a pile of lumber the famous tattooed white man, the living curiosity
+      of Tai-o-hae.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His eyes were open, staring down the bay. He saw the mountains droop, as
+      they approached the entrance, and break down in cliffs; the surf boil
+      white round the two sentinel islets; and between, on the narrow bight of
+      blue horizon, Ua-pu upraise the ghost of her pinnacled mountain tops. But
+      his mind would take no account of these familiar features; as he dodged in
+      and out along the frontier line of sleep and waking, memory would serve
+      him with broken fragments of the past: brown faces and white, of skipper
+      and shipmate, king and chief, would arise before his mind and vanish; he
+      would recall old voyages, old landfalls in the hour of dawn; he would hear
+      again the drums beat for a man-eating festival; perhaps he would summon up
+      the form of that island princess for the love of whom he had submitted his
+      body to the cruel hands of the tattooer, and now sat on the lumber, at the
+      pier-end of Tai-o-hae, so strange a figure of a European. Or perhaps from
+      yet further back, sounds and scents of England and his childhood might
+      assail him: the merry clamour of cathedral bells, the broom upon the
+      foreland, the song of the river on the weir.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is bold water at the mouth of the bay; you can steer a ship about
+      either sentinel, close enough to toss a biscuit on the rocks. Thus it
+      chanced that, as the tattooed man sat dozing and dreaming, he was startled
+      into wakefulness and animation by the appearance of a flying jib beyond
+      the western islet. Two more headsails followed; and before the tattooed
+      man had scrambled to his feet, a topsail schooner, of some hundred tons,
+      had luffed about the sentinel and was standing up the bay, close-hauled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sleeping city awakened by enchantment. Natives appeared upon all
+      sides, hailing each other with the magic cry &ldquo;Ehippy&rdquo;&mdash;ship;
+      the Queen stepped forth on her verandah, shading her eyes under a hand
+      that was a miracle of the fine art of tattooing; the commandant broke from
+      his domestic convicts and ran into the residency for his glass; the
+      harbour master, who was also the gaoler, came speeding down the Prison
+      Hill; the seventeen brown Kanakas and the French boatswain's mate, that
+      make up the complement of the war-schooner, crowded on the forward deck;
+      and the various English, Americans, Germans, Poles, Corsicans, and Scots&mdash;the
+      merchants and the clerks of Tai-o-hae&mdash;deserted their places of
+      business, and gathered, according to invariable custom, on the road before
+      the club.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So quickly did these dozen whites collect, so short are the distances in
+      Tai-o-hae, that they were already exchanging guesses as to the nationality
+      and business of the strange vessel, before she had gone about upon her
+      second board towards the anchorage. A moment after, English colours were
+      broken out at the main truck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I told you she was a Johnny Bull&mdash;knew it by her headsails,&rdquo;
+      said an evergreen old salt, still qualified (if he could anywhere have
+      found an owner unacquainted with his story) to adorn another quarter-deck
+      and lose another ship.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She has American lines, anyway,&rdquo; said the astute Scots
+      engineer of the gin-mill; &ldquo;it's my belief she's a yacht.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's it,&rdquo; said the old salt, &ldquo;a yacht! look at her
+      davits, and the boat over the stern.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A yacht in your eye!&rdquo; said a Glasgow voice. &ldquo;Look at
+      her red ensign! A yacht! not much she isn't!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can close the store, anyway, Tom,&rdquo; observed a gentlemanly
+      German. &ldquo;Bon jour, mon Prince!&rdquo; he added, as a dark,
+      intelligent native cantered by on a neat chestnut. &ldquo;Vous allez boire
+      un verre de biere?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Prince Stanilas Moanatini, the only reasonably busy human creature on
+      the island, was riding hot-spur to view this morning's landslip on the
+      mountain road: the sun already visibly declined; night was imminent; and
+      if he would avoid the perils of darkness and precipice, and the fear of
+      the dead, the haunters of the jungle, he must for once decline a
+      hospitable invitation. Even had he been minded to alight, it presently
+      appeared there would be difficulty as to the refreshment offered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Beer!&rdquo; cried the Glasgow voice. &ldquo;No such a thing; I
+      tell you there's only eight bottles in the club! Here's the first time
+      I've seen British colours in this port! and the man that sails under them
+      has got to drink that beer.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The proposal struck the public mind as fair, though far from cheering; for
+      some time back, indeed, the very name of beer had been a sound of sorrow
+      in the club, and the evenings had passed in dolorous computation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here is Havens,&rdquo; said one, as if welcoming a fresh topic.
+      &ldquo;What do you think of her, Havens?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't think,&rdquo; replied Havens, a tall, bland, cool-looking,
+      leisurely Englishman, attired in spotless duck, and deliberately dealing
+      with a cigarette. &ldquo;I may say I know. She's consigned to me from
+      Auckland by Donald &amp; Edenborough. I am on my way aboard.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What ship is she?&rdquo; asked the ancient mariner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Haven't an idea,&rdquo; returned Havens. &ldquo;Some tramp they
+      have chartered.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With that he placidly resumed his walk, and was soon seated in the
+      stern-sheets of a whaleboat manned by uproarious Kanakas, himself daintily
+      perched out of the way of the least maculation, giving his commands in an
+      unobtrusive, dinner-table tone of voice, and sweeping neatly enough
+      alongside the schooner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A weather-beaten captain received him at the gangway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are consigned to us, I think,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;I am Mr.
+      Havens.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is right, sir,&rdquo; replied the captain, shaking hands.
+      &ldquo;You will find the owner, Mr. Dodd, below. Mind the fresh paint on
+      the house.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Havens stepped along the alley-way, and descended the ladder into the main
+      cabin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Dodd, I believe,&rdquo; said he, addressing a smallish, bearded
+      gentleman, who sat writing at the table. &ldquo;Why,&rdquo; he cried,
+      &ldquo;it isn't Loudon Dodd?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Myself, my dear fellow,&rdquo; replied Mr. Dodd, springing to his
+      feet with companionable alacrity. &ldquo;I had a half-hope it might be
+      you, when I found your name on the papers. Well, there's no change in you;
+      still the same placid, fresh-looking Britisher.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can't return the compliment; for you seem to have become a
+      Britisher yourself,&rdquo; said Havens.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I promise you, I am quite unchanged,&rdquo; returned Dodd. &ldquo;The
+      red tablecloth at the top of the stick is not my flag; it's my partner's.
+      He is not dead, but sleepeth. There he is,&rdquo; he added, pointing to a
+      bust which formed one of the numerous unexpected ornaments of that unusual
+      cabin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Havens politely studied it. &ldquo;A fine bust,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;and
+      a very nice-looking fellow.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; he's a good fellow,&rdquo; said Dodd. &ldquo;He runs me now.
+      It's all his money.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He doesn't seem to be particularly short of it,&rdquo; added the
+      other, peering with growing wonder round the cabin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His money, my taste,&rdquo; said Dodd. &ldquo;The black-walnut
+      bookshelves are Old English; the books all mine,&mdash;mostly Renaissance
+      French. You should see how the beach-combers wilt away when they go round
+      them looking for a change of Seaside Library novels. The mirrors are
+      genuine Venice; that's a good piece in the corner. The daubs are mine&mdash;and
+      his; the mudding mine.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mudding? What is that?&rdquo; asked Havens.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;These bronzes,&rdquo; replied Dodd. &ldquo;I began life as a
+      sculptor.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; I remember something about that,&rdquo; said the other.
+      &ldquo;I think, too, you said you were interested in Californian real
+      estate.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Surely, I never went so far as that,&rdquo; said Dodd. &ldquo;Interested?
+      I guess not. Involved, perhaps. I was born an artist; I never took an
+      interest in anything but art. If I were to pile up this old schooner
+      to-morrow,&rdquo; he added, &ldquo;I declare I believe I would try the
+      thing again!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Insured?&rdquo; inquired Havens.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; responded Dodd. &ldquo;There's some fool in 'Frisco who
+      insures us, and comes down like a wolf on the fold on the profits; but
+      we'll get even with him some day.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I suppose it's all right about the cargo,&rdquo; said Havens.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, I suppose so!&rdquo; replied Dodd. &ldquo;Shall we go into the
+      papers?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We'll have all to-morrow, you know,&rdquo; said Havens; &ldquo;and
+      they'll be rather expecting you at the club. C'est l'heure de l'absinthe.
+      Of course, Loudon, you'll dine with me later on?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Dodd signified his acquiescence; drew on his white coat, not without a
+      trifling difficulty, for he was a man of middle age, and well-to-do;
+      arranged his beard and moustaches at one of the Venetian mirrors; and,
+      taking a broad felt hat, led the way through the trade-room into the
+      ship's waist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The stern boat was waiting alongside,&mdash;a boat of an elegant model,
+      with cushions and polished hard-wood fittings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You steer,&rdquo; observed Loudon. &ldquo;You know the best place
+      to land.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never like to steer another man's boat,&rdquo; replied Havens.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Call it my partner's, and cry quits,&rdquo; returned Loudon,
+      getting nonchalantly down the side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Havens followed and took the yoke lines without further protest. &ldquo;I
+      am sure I don't know how you make this pay,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;To
+      begin with, she is too big for the trade, to my taste; and then you carry
+      so much style.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know that she does pay,&rdquo; returned Loudon. &ldquo;I
+      never pretend to be a business man. My partner appears happy; and the
+      money is all his, as I told you&mdash;I only bring the want of business
+      habits.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You rather like the berth, I suppose?&rdquo; suggested Havens.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Loudon; &ldquo;it seems odd, but I rather do.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While they were yet on board, the sun had dipped; the sunset gun (a rifle)
+      cracked from the war-schooner, and the colours had been handed down. Dusk
+      was deepening as they came ashore; and the Cercle Internationale (as the
+      club is officially and significantly named) began to shine, from under its
+      low verandas, with the light of many lamps. The good hours of the
+      twenty-four drew on; the hateful, poisonous day-fly of Nukahiva, was
+      beginning to desist from its activity; the land-breeze came in refreshing
+      draughts; and the club men gathered together for the hour of absinthe. To
+      the commandant himself, to the man whom he was then contending with at
+      billiards&mdash;a trader from the next island, honorary member of the
+      club, and once carpenter's mate on board a Yankee war-ship&mdash;to the
+      doctor of the port, to the Brigadier of Gendarmerie, to the opium farmer,
+      and to all the white men whom the tide of commerce, or the chances of
+      shipwreck and desertion, had stranded on the beach of Tai-o-hae, Mr.
+      Loudon Dodd was formally presented; by all (since he was a man of pleasing
+      exterior, smooth ways, and an unexceptionable flow of talk, whether in
+      French or English) he was excellently well received; and presently, with
+      one of the last eight bottles of beer on a table at his elbow, found
+      himself the rather silent centre-piece of a voluble group on the verandah.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Talk in the South Seas is all upon one pattern; it is a wide ocean,
+      indeed, but a narrow world: you shall never talk long and not hear the
+      name of Bully Hayes, a naval hero whose exploits and deserved extinction
+      left Europe cold; commerce will be touched on, copra, shell, perhaps
+      cotton or fungus; but in a far-away, dilettante fashion, as by men not
+      deeply interested; through all, the names of schooners and their captains,
+      will keep coming and going, thick as may-flies; and news of the last
+      shipwreck will be placidly exchanged and debated. To a stranger, this
+      conversation will at first seem scarcely brilliant; but he will soon catch
+      the tone; and by the time he shall have moved a year or so in the island
+      world, and come across a good number of the schooners so that every
+      captain's name calls up a figure in pyjamas or white duck, and becomes
+      used to a certain laxity of moral tone which prevails (as in memory of Mr.
+      Hayes) on smuggling, ship-scuttling, barratry, piracy, the labour trade,
+      and other kindred fields of human activity, he will find Polynesia no less
+      amusing and no less instructive than Pall Mall or Paris.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Loudon Dodd, though he was new to the group of the Marquesas, was
+      already an old, salted trader; he knew the ships and the captains; he had
+      assisted, in other islands, at the first steps of some career of which he
+      now heard the culmination, or (vice versa) he had brought with him from
+      further south the end of some story which had begun in Tai-o-hae. Among
+      other matter of interest, like other arrivals in the South Seas, he had a
+      wreck to announce. The John T. Richards, it appeared, had met the fate of
+      other island schooners.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dickinson piled her up on Palmerston Island,&rdquo; Dodd announced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who were the owners?&rdquo; inquired one of the club men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, the usual parties!&rdquo; returned Loudon,&mdash;&ldquo;Capsicum
+      &amp; Co.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A smile and a glance of intelligence went round the group; and perhaps
+      Loudon gave voice to the general sentiment by remarking, &ldquo;Talk of
+      good business! I know nothing better than a schooner, a competent captain,
+      and a sound, reliable reef.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good business! There's no such a thing!&rdquo; said the Glasgow
+      man. &ldquo;Nobody makes anything but the missionaries&mdash;dash it!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know,&rdquo; said another. &ldquo;There's a good deal in
+      opium.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's a good job to strike a tabooed pearl-island, say, about the
+      fourth year,&rdquo; remarked a third; &ldquo;skim the whole lagoon on the
+      sly, and up stick and away before the French get wind of you.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A pig nokket of cold is good,&rdquo; observed a German.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's something in wrecks, too,&rdquo; said Havens. &ldquo;Look
+      at that man in Honolulu, and the ship that went ashore on Waikiki Reef; it
+      was blowing a kona, hard; and she began to break up as soon as she
+      touched. Lloyd's agent had her sold inside an hour; and before dark, when
+      she went to pieces in earnest, the man that bought her had feathered his
+      nest. Three more hours of daylight, and he might have retired from
+      business. As it was, he built a house on Beretania Street, and called it
+      for the ship.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, there's something in wrecks sometimes,&rdquo; said the Glasgow
+      voice; &ldquo;but not often.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As a general rule, there's deuced little in anything,&rdquo; said
+      Havens.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I believe that's a Christian fact,&rdquo; cried the other.
+      &ldquo;What I want is a secret; get hold of a rich man by the right place,
+      and make him squeal.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose you know it's not thought to be the ticket,&rdquo;
+      returned Havens.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't care for that; it's good enough for me,&rdquo; cried the
+      man from Glasgow, stoutly. &ldquo;The only devil of it is, a fellow can
+      never find a secret in a place like the South Seas: only in London and
+      Paris.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;M'Gibbon's been reading some dime-novel, I suppose,&rdquo; said one
+      club man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's been reading <i>Aurora Floyd</i>,&rdquo; remarked another.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what if I have?&rdquo; cried M'Gibbon. &ldquo;It's all true.
+      Look at the newspapers! It's just your confounded ignorance that sets you
+      snickering. I tell you, it's as much a trade as underwriting, and a dashed
+      sight more honest.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sudden acrimony of these remarks called Loudon (who was a man of
+      peace) from his reserve. &ldquo;It's rather singular,&rdquo; said he,
+      &ldquo;but I seem to have practised about all these means of livelihood.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tit you effer vind a nokket?&rdquo; inquired the inarticulate
+      German, eagerly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. I have been most kinds of fool in my time,&rdquo; returned
+      Loudon, &ldquo;but not the gold-digging variety. Every man has a sane spot
+      somewhere.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then,&rdquo; suggested some one, &ldquo;did you ever smuggle
+      opium?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I did,&rdquo; said Loudon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was there money in that?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All the way,&rdquo; responded Loudon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And perhaps you bought a wreck?&rdquo; asked another.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir,&rdquo; said Loudon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How did that pan out?&rdquo; pursued the questioner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, mine was a peculiar kind of wreck,&rdquo; replied Loudon.
+      &ldquo;I don't know, on the whole, that I can recommend that branch of
+      industry.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did she break up?&rdquo; asked some one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess it was rather I that broke down,&rdquo; says Loudon.
+      &ldquo;Head not big enough.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ever try the blackmail?&rdquo; inquired Havens.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Simple as you see me sitting here!&rdquo; responded Dodd.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good business?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I'm not a lucky man, you see,&rdquo; returned the stranger.
+      &ldquo;It ought to have been good.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You had a secret?&rdquo; asked the Glasgow man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As big as the State of Texas.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And the other man was rich?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He wasn't exactly Jay Gould, but I guess he could buy these islands
+      if he wanted.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, what was wrong, then? Couldn't you get hands on him?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It took time, but I had him cornered at last; and then&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What then?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The speculation turned bottom up. I became the man's bosom friend.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The deuce you did!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He couldn't have been particular, you mean?&rdquo; asked Dodd
+      pleasantly. &ldquo;Well, no; he's a man of rather large sympathies.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you're done talking nonsense, Loudon,&rdquo; said Havens,
+      &ldquo;let's be getting to my place for dinner.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Outside, the night was full of the roaring of the surf. Scattered lights
+      glowed in the green thicket. Native women came by twos and threes out of
+      the darkness, smiled and ogled the two whites, perhaps wooed them with a
+      strain of laughter, and went by again, bequeathing to the air a heady
+      perfume of palm-oil and frangipani blossom. From the club to Mr. Havens's
+      residence was but a step or two, and to any dweller in Europe they must
+      have seemed steps in fairyland. If such an one could but have followed our
+      two friends into the wide-verandahed house, sat down with them in the cool
+      trellised room, where the wine shone on the lamp-lighted tablecloth;
+      tasted of their exotic food&mdash;the raw fish, the breadfruit, the cooked
+      bananas, the roast pig served with the inimitable miti, and that king of
+      delicacies, palm-tree salad; seen and heard by fits and starts, now
+      peering round the corner of the door, now railing within against invisible
+      assistants, a certain comely young native lady in a sacque, who seemed too
+      modest to be a member of the family, and too imperious to be less; and
+      then if such an one were whisked again through space to Upper Tooting, or
+      wherever else he honored the domestic gods, &ldquo;I have had a dream,&rdquo;
+      I think he would say, as he sat up, rubbing his eyes, in the familiar
+      chimney-corner chair, &ldquo;I have had a dream of a place, and I declare
+      I believe it must be heaven.&rdquo; But to Dodd and his entertainer, all
+      this amenity of the tropic night and all these dainties of the island
+      table, were grown things of custom; and they fell to meat like men who
+      were hungry, and drifted into idle talk like men who were a trifle bored.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The scene in the club was referred to.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never heard you talk so much nonsense, Loudon,&rdquo; said the
+      host.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, it seemed to me there was sulphur in the air, so I talked for
+      talking,&rdquo; returned the other. &ldquo;But it was none of it nonsense.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean to say it was true?&rdquo; cried Havens,&mdash;&ldquo;that
+      about the opium and the wreck, and the blackmailing and the man who became
+      your friend?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Every last word of it,&rdquo; said Loudon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You seem to have been seeing life,&rdquo; returned the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, it's a queer yarn,&rdquo; said his friend; &ldquo;if you think
+      you would like, I'll tell it you.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here follows the yarn of Loudon Dodd, not as he told it to his friend, but
+      as he subsequently wrote it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE YARN.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I. A SOUND COMMERCIAL EDUCATION.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The beginning of this yarn is my poor father's character. There never was
+      a better man, nor a handsomer, nor (in my view) a more unhappy&mdash;unhappy
+      in his business, in his pleasures, in his place of residence, and (I am
+      sorry to say it) in his son. He had begun life as a land-surveyor, soon
+      became interested in real estate, branched off into many other
+      speculations, and had the name of one of the smartest men in the State of
+      Muskegon. &ldquo;Dodd has a big head,&rdquo; people used to say; but I was
+      never so sure of his capacity. His luck, at least, was beyond doubt for
+      long; his assiduity, always. He fought in that daily battle of
+      money-grubbing, with a kind of sad-eyed loyalty like a martyr's; rose
+      early, ate fast, came home dispirited and over-weary, even from success;
+      grudged himself all pleasure, if his nature was capable of taking any,
+      which I sometimes wondered; and laid out, upon some deal in wheat or
+      corner in aluminium, the essence of which was little better than highway
+      robbery, treasures of conscientiousness and self-denial.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Unluckily, I never cared a cent for anything but art, and never shall. My
+      idea of man's chief end was to enrich the world with things of beauty, and
+      have a fairly good time myself while doing so. I do not think I mentioned
+      that second part, which is the only one I have managed to carry out; but
+      my father must have suspected the suppression, for he branded the whole
+      affair as self-indulgence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; I remember crying once, &ldquo;and what is your life?
+      You are only trying to get money, and to get it from other people at that.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He sighed bitterly (which was very much his habit), and shook his poor
+      head at me. &ldquo;Ah, Loudon, Loudon!&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;you boys
+      think yourselves very smart. But, struggle as you please, a man has to
+      work in this world. He must be an honest man or a thief, Loudon.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You can see for yourself how vain it was to argue with my father. The
+      despair that seized upon me after such an interview was, besides,
+      embittered by remorse; for I was at times petulant, but he invariably
+      gentle; and I was fighting, after all, for my own liberty and pleasure, he
+      singly for what he thought to be my good. And all the time he never
+      despaired. &ldquo;There is good stuff in you, Loudon,&rdquo; he would say;
+      &ldquo;there is the right stuff in you. Blood will tell, and you will come
+      right in time. I am not afraid my boy will ever disgrace me; I am only
+      vexed he should sometimes talk nonsense.&rdquo; And then he would pat my
+      shoulder or my hand with a kind of motherly way he had, very affecting in
+      a man so strong and beautiful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as I had graduated from the high school, he packed me off to the
+      Muskegon Commercial Academy. You are a foreigner, and you will have a
+      difficulty in accepting the reality of this seat of education. I assure
+      you before I begin that I am wholly serious. The place really existed,
+      possibly exists to-day: we were proud of it in the State, as something
+      exceptionally nineteenth century and civilized; and my father, when he saw
+      me to the cars, no doubt considered he was putting me in a straight line
+      for the Presidency and the New Jerusalem.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Loudon,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;I am now giving you a chance that
+      Julius Caesar could not have given to his son&mdash;a chance to see life
+      as it is, before your own turn comes to start in earnest. Avoid rash
+      speculation, try to behave like a gentleman; and if you will take my
+      advice, confine yourself to a safe, conservative business in railroads.
+      Breadstuffs are tempting, but very dangerous; I would not try breadstuffs
+      at your time of life; but you may feel your way a little in other
+      commodities. Take a pride to keep your books posted, and never throw good
+      money after bad. There, my dear boy, kiss me good-by; and never forget
+      that you are an only chick, and that your dad watches your career with
+      fond suspense.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The commercial college was a fine, roomy establishment, pleasantly situate
+      among woods. The air was healthy, the food excellent, the premium high.
+      Electric wires connected it (to use the words of the prospectus) with
+      &ldquo;the various world centres.&rdquo; The reading-room was well
+      supplied with &ldquo;commercial organs.&rdquo; The talk was that of Wall
+      Street; and the pupils (from fifty to a hundred lads) were principally
+      engaged in rooking or trying to rook one another for nominal sums in what
+      was called &ldquo;college paper.&rdquo; We had class hours, indeed, in the
+      morning, when we studied German, French, book-keeping, and the like goodly
+      matters; but the bulk of our day and the gist of the education centred in
+      the exchange, where we were taught to gamble in produce and securities.
+      Since not one of the participants possessed a bushel of wheat or a
+      dollar's worth of stock, legitimate business was of course impossible from
+      the beginning. It was cold-drawn gambling, without colour or disguise.
+      Just that which is the impediment and destruction of all genuine
+      commercial enterprise, just that we were taught with every luxury of stage
+      effect. Our simulacrum of a market was ruled by the real markets outside,
+      so that we might experience the course and vicissitude of prices. We must
+      keep books, and our ledgers were overhauled at the month's end by the
+      principal or his assistants. To add a spice of verisimilitude, &ldquo;college
+      paper&rdquo; (like poker chips) had an actual marketable value. It was
+      bought for each pupil by anxious parents and guardians at the rate of one
+      cent for the dollar. The same pupil, when his education was complete,
+      resold, at the same figure, so much as was left him to the college; and
+      even in the midst of his curriculum, a successful operator would sometimes
+      realize a proportion of his holding, and stand a supper on the sly in the
+      neighbouring hamlet. In short, if there was ever a worse education, it
+      must have been in that academy where Oliver met Charlie Bates.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I was first guided into the exchange to have my desk pointed out by
+      one of the assistant teachers, I was overwhelmed by the clamour and
+      confusion. Certain blackboards at the other end of the building were
+      covered with figures continually replaced. As each new set appeared, the
+      pupils swayed to and fro, and roared out aloud with a formidable and to me
+      quite meaningless vociferation; leaping at the same time upon the desks
+      and benches, signalling with arms and heads, and scribbling briskly in
+      note-books. I thought I had never beheld a scene more disagreeable; and
+      when I considered that the whole traffic was illusory, and all the money
+      then upon the market would scarce have sufficed to buy a pair of skates, I
+      was at first astonished, although not for long. Indeed, I had no sooner
+      called to mind how grown-up men and women of considerable estate will lose
+      their temper about half-penny points, than (making an immediate allowance
+      for my fellow-students) I transferred the whole of my astonishment to the
+      assistant teacher, who&mdash;poor gentleman&mdash;had quite forgot to show
+      me to my desk, and stood in the midst of this hurly-burly, absorbed and
+      seemingly transported.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look, look,&rdquo; he shouted in my ear; &ldquo;a falling market!
+      The bears have had it all their own way since yesterday.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It can't matter,&rdquo; I replied, making him hear with difficulty,
+      for I was unused to speak in such a babel, &ldquo;since it is all fun.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;True,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;and you must always bear in mind that
+      the real profit is in the book-keeping. I trust, Dodd, to be able to
+      congratulate you upon your books. You are to start in with ten thousand
+      dollars of college paper, a very liberal figure, which should see you
+      through the whole curriculum, if you keep to a safe, conservative
+      business.... Why, what's that?&rdquo; he broke off, once more attracted by
+      the changing figures on the board. &ldquo;Seven, four, three! Dodd, you
+      are in luck: this is the most spirited rally we have had this term. And to
+      think that the same scene is now transpiring in New York, Chicago, St.
+      Louis, and rival business centres! For two cents, I would try a flutter
+      with the boys myself,&rdquo; he cried, rubbing his hands; &ldquo;only it's
+      against the regulations.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What would you do, sir?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do?&rdquo; he cried, with glittering eyes. &ldquo;Buy for all I was
+      worth!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would that be a safe, conservative business?&rdquo; I inquired, as
+      innocent as a lamb.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked daggers at me. &ldquo;See that sandy-haired man in glasses?&rdquo;
+      he asked, as if to change the subject. &ldquo;That's Billson, our most
+      prominent undergraduate. We build confidently on Billson's future. You
+      could not do better, Dodd, than follow Billson.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently after, in the midst of a still growing tumult, the figures
+      coming and going more busily than ever on the board, and the hall
+      resounding like Pandemonium with the howls of operators, the assistant
+      teacher left me to my own resources at my desk. The next boy was posting
+      up his ledger, figuring his morning's loss, as I discovered later on; and
+      from this ungenial task he was readily diverted by the sight of a new
+      face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Freshman,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;what's your name? What? Son
+      of Big Head Dodd? What's your figure? Ten thousand? O, you're away up!
+      What a soft-headed clam you must be to touch your books!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I asked him what else I could do, since the books were to be examined once
+      a month.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, you galoot, you get a clerk!&rdquo; cries he. &ldquo;One of
+      our dead beats&mdash;that's all they're here for. If you're a successful
+      operator, you need never do a stroke of work in this old college.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The noise had now become deafening; and my new friend, telling me that
+      some one had certainly &ldquo;gone down,&rdquo; that he must know the
+      news, and that he would bring me a clerk when he returned, buttoned his
+      coat and plunged into the tossing throng. It proved that he was right:
+      some one had gone down; a prince had fallen in Israel; the corner in lard
+      had proved fatal to the mighty; and the clerk who was brought back to keep
+      my books, spare me all work, and get all my share of the education, at a
+      thousand dollars a month, college paper (ten dollars, United States
+      currency) was no other than the prominent Billson whom I could do no
+      better than follow. The poor lad was very unhappy. It's the only good
+      thing I have to say for Muskegon Commercial College, that we were all,
+      even the small fry, deeply mortified to be posted as defaulters; and the
+      collapse of a merchant prince like Billson, who had ridden pretty high in
+      his days of prosperity, was, of course, particularly hard to bear. But the
+      spirit of make-believe conquered even the bitterness of recent shame; and
+      my clerk took his orders, and fell to his new duties, with decorum and
+      civility.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such were my first impressions in this absurd place of education; and, to
+      be frank, they were far from disagreeable. As long as I was rich, my
+      evenings and afternoons would be my own; the clerk must keep my books, the
+      clerk could do the jostling and bawling in the exchange; and I could turn
+      my mind to landscape-painting and Balzac's novels, which were then my two
+      preoccupations. To remain rich, then, became my problem; or, in other
+      words, to do a safe, conservative line of business. I am looking for that
+      line still; and I believe the nearest thing to it in this imperfect world
+      is the sort of speculation sometimes insidiously proposed to childhood, in
+      the formula, &ldquo;Heads, I win; tails, you lose.&rdquo; Mindful of my
+      father's parting words, I turned my attention timidly to railroads; and
+      for a month or so maintained a position of inglorious security, dealing
+      for small amounts in the most inert stocks, and bearing (as best I could)
+      the scorn of my hired clerk. One day I had ventured a little further by
+      way of experiment; and, in the sure expectation they would continue to go
+      down, sold several thousand dollars of Pan-Handle Preference (I think it
+      was). I had no sooner made this venture than some fools in New York began
+      to bull the market; Pan-Handles rose like a balloon; and in the inside of
+      half an hour I saw my position compromised. Blood will tell, as my father
+      said; and I stuck to it gallantly: all afternoon I continued selling that
+      infernal stock, all afternoon it continued skying. I suppose I had come (a
+      frail cockle-shell) athwart the hawse of Jay Gould; and, indeed, I think I
+      remember that this vagary in the market proved subsequently to be the
+      first move in a considerable deal. That evening, at least, the name of H.
+      Loudon Dodd held the first rank in our collegiate gazette, and I and
+      Billson (once more thrown upon the world) were competing for the same
+      clerkship. The present object takes the present eye. My disaster, for the
+      moment, was the more conspicuous; and it was I that got the situation. So
+      you see, even in Muskegon Commercial College, there were lessons to be
+      learned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For my own part, I cared very little whether I lost or won at a game so
+      random, so complex, and so dull; but it was sorry news to write to my poor
+      father, and I employed all the resources of my eloquence. I told him (what
+      was the truth) that the successful boys had none of the education; so that
+      if he wished me to learn, he should rejoice at my misfortune. I went on
+      (not very consistently) to beg him to set me up again, when I would
+      solemnly promise to do a safe business in reliable railroads. Lastly
+      (becoming somewhat carried away), I assured him I was totally unfit for
+      business, and implored him to take me away from this abominable place, and
+      let me go to Paris to study art. He answered briefly, gently, and sadly,
+      telling me the vacation was near at hand, when we could talk things over.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the time came, he met me at the depot, and I was shocked to see him
+      looking older. He seemed to have no thought but to console me and restore
+      (what he supposed I had lost) my courage. I must not be down-hearted; many
+      of the best men had made a failure in the beginning. I told him I had no
+      head for business, and his kind face darkened. &ldquo;You must not say
+      that, Loudon,&rdquo; he replied; &ldquo;I will never believe my son to be
+      a coward.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I don't like it,&rdquo; I pleaded. &ldquo;It hasn't got any
+      interest for me, and art has. I know I could do more in art,&rdquo; and I
+      reminded him that a successful painter gains large sums; that a picture of
+      Meissonier's would sell for many thousand dollars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And do you think, Loudon,&rdquo; he replied, &ldquo;that a man who
+      can paint a thousand dollar picture has not grit enough to keep his end up
+      in the stock market? No, sir; this Mason (of whom you speak) or our own
+      American Bierstadt&mdash;if you were to put them down in a wheat pit
+      to-morrow, they would show their mettle. Come, Loudon, my dear; heaven
+      knows I have no thought but your own good, and I will offer you a bargain.
+      I start you again next term with ten thousand dollars; show yourself a
+      man, and double it, and then (if you still wish to go to Paris, which I
+      know you won't) I'll let you go. But to let you run away as if you were
+      whipped, is what I am too proud to do.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My heart leaped at this proposal, and then sank again. It seemed easier to
+      paint a Meissonier on the spot than to win ten thousand dollars on that
+      mimic stock exchange. Nor could I help reflecting on the singularity of
+      such a test for a man's capacity to be a painter. I ventured even to
+      comment on this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He sighed deeply. &ldquo;You forget, my dear,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;I am
+      a judge of the one, and not of the other. You might have the genius of
+      Bierstadt himself, and I would be none the wiser.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And then,&rdquo; I continued, &ldquo;it's scarcely fair. The other
+      boys are helped by their people, who telegraph and give them pointers.
+      There's Jim Costello, who never budges without a word from his father in
+      New York. And then, don't you see, if anybody is to win, somebody must
+      lose?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll keep you posted,&rdquo; cried my father, with unusual
+      animation; &ldquo;I did not know it was allowed. I'll wire you in the
+      office cipher, and we'll make it a kind of partnership business, Loudon:&mdash;Dodd
+      &amp; Son, eh?&rdquo; and he patted my shoulder and repeated, &ldquo;Dodd
+      &amp; Son, Dodd &amp; Son,&rdquo; with the kindliest amusement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If my father was to give me pointers, and the commercial college was to be
+      a stepping-stone to Paris, I could look my future in the face. The old
+      boy, too, was so pleased at the idea of our association in this foolery
+      that he immediately plucked up spirit. Thus it befell that those who had
+      met at the depot like a pair of mutes, sat down to table with holiday
+      faces.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now I have to introduce a new character that never said a word nor
+      wagged a finger, and yet shaped my whole subsequent career. You have
+      crossed the States, so that in all likelihood you have seen the head of
+      it, parcel-gilt and curiously fluted, rising among trees from a wide
+      plain; for this new character was no other than the State capitol of
+      Muskegon, then first projected. My father had embraced the idea with a
+      mixture of patriotism and commercial greed both perfectly genuine. He was
+      of all the committees, he had subscribed a great deal of money, and he was
+      making arrangements to have a finger in most of the contracts. Competitive
+      plans had been sent in; at the time of my return from college my father
+      was deep in their consideration; and as the idea entirely occupied his
+      mind, the first evening did not pass away before he had called me into
+      council. Here was a subject at last into which I could throw myself with
+      pleasurable zeal. Architecture was new to me, indeed; but it was at least
+      an art; and for all the arts I had a taste naturally classical and that
+      capacity to take delighted pains which some famous idiot has supposed to
+      be synonymous with genius. I threw myself headlong into my father's work,
+      acquainted myself with all the plans, their merits and defects, read
+      besides in special books, made myself a master of the theory of strains,
+      studied the current prices of materials, and (in one word) &ldquo;devilled&rdquo;
+      the whole business so thoroughly, that when the plans came up for
+      consideration, Big Head Dodd was supposed to have earned fresh laurels.
+      His arguments carried the day, his choice was approved by the committee,
+      and I had the anonymous satisfaction to know that arguments and choice
+      were wholly mine. In the recasting of the plan which followed, my part was
+      even larger; for I designed and cast with my own hand a hot-air grating
+      for the offices, which had the luck or merit to be accepted. The energy
+      and aptitude which I displayed throughout delighted and surprised my
+      father, and I believe, although I say it whose tongue should be tied, that
+      they alone prevented Muskegon capitol from being the eyesore of my native
+      State.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Altogether, I was in a cheery frame of mind when I returned to the
+      commercial college; and my earlier operations were crowned with a full
+      measure of success. My father wrote and wired to me continually. &ldquo;You
+      are to exercise your own judgment, Loudon,&rdquo; he would say. &ldquo;All
+      that I do is to give you the figures; but whatever operation you take up
+      must be upon your own responsibility, and whatever you earn will be
+      entirely due to your own dash and forethought.&rdquo; For all that, it was
+      always clear what he intended me to do, and I was always careful to do it.
+      Inside of a month I was at the head of seventeen or eighteen thousand
+      dollars, college paper. And here I fell a victim to one of the vices of
+      the system. The paper (I have already explained) had a real value of one
+      per cent; and cost, and could be sold for, currency. Unsuccessful
+      speculators were thus always selling clothes, books, banjos, and
+      sleeve-links, in order to pay their differences; the successful, on the
+      other hand, were often tempted to realise, and enjoy some return upon
+      their profits. Now I wanted thirty dollars' worth of artist-truck, for I
+      was always sketching in the woods; my allowance was for the time
+      exhausted; I had begun to regard the exchange (with my father's help) as a
+      place where money was to be got for stooping; and in an evil hour I
+      realised three thousand dollars of the college paper and bought my easel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a Wednesday morning when the things arrived, and set me in the
+      seventh heaven of satisfaction. My father (for I can scarcely say myself)
+      was trying at this time a &ldquo;straddle&rdquo; in wheat between Chicago
+      and New York; the operation so called is, as you know, one of the most
+      tempting and least safe upon the chess-board of finance. On the Thursday,
+      luck began to turn against my father's calculations; and by the Friday
+      evening, I was posted on the boards as a defaulter for the second time.
+      Here was a rude blow: my father would have taken it ill enough in any
+      case; for however much a man may resent the incapacity of an only son, he
+      will feel his own more sensibly. But it chanced that, in our bitter cup of
+      failure, there was one ingredient that might truly be called poisonous. He
+      had been keeping the run of my position; he missed the three thousand
+      dollars, paper; and in his view, I had stolen thirty dollars, currency. It
+      was an extreme view perhaps; but in some senses, it was just: and my
+      father, although (to my judgment) quite reckless of honesty in the essence
+      of his operations, was the soul of honour as to their details. I had one
+      grieved letter from him, dignified and tender; and during the rest of that
+      wretched term, working as a clerk, selling my clothes and sketches to make
+      futile speculations, my dream of Paris quite vanished. I was cheered by no
+      word of kindness and helped by no hint of counsel from my father.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All the time he was no doubt thinking of little else but his son, and what
+      to do with him. I believe he had been really appalled by what he regarded
+      as my laxity of principle, and began to think it might be well to preserve
+      me from temptation; the architect of the capitol had, besides, spoken
+      obligingly of my design; and while he was thus hanging between two minds,
+      Fortune suddenly stepped in, and Muskegon State capitol reversed my
+      destiny.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Loudon,&rdquo; said my father, as he met me at the depot, with a
+      smiling countenance, &ldquo;if you were to go to Paris, how long would it
+      take you to become an experienced sculptor?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do you mean, father?&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;Experienced?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A man that could be entrusted with the highest styles,&rdquo; he
+      answered; &ldquo;the nude, for instance; and the patriotic and
+      emblematical styles.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It might take three years,&rdquo; I replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You think Paris necessary?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;There are great
+      advantages in our own country; and that man Prodgers appears to be a very
+      clever sculptor, though I suppose he stands too high to go around giving
+      lessons.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Paris is the only place,&rdquo; I assured him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I think myself it will sound better,&rdquo; he admitted.
+      &ldquo;A Young Man, a Native of this State, Son of a Leading Citizen,
+      Studies Prosecuted under the Most Experienced Masters in Paris,&rdquo; he
+      added, relishingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, my dear dad, what is it all about?&rdquo; I interrupted.
+      &ldquo;I never even dreamed of being a sculptor.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, here it is,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;I took up the statuary
+      contract on our new capitol; I took it up at first as a deal; and then it
+      occurred to me it would be better to keep it in the family. It meets your
+      idea; there's considerable money in the thing; and it's patriotic. So, if
+      you say the word, you shall go to Paris, and come back in three years to
+      decorate the capitol of your native State. It's a big chance for you,
+      Loudon; and I'll tell you what&mdash;every dollar you earn, I'll put
+      another alongside of it. But the sooner you go, and the harder you work,
+      the better; for if the first half-dozen statues aren't in a line with
+      public taste in Muskegon, there will be trouble.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II. ROUSSILLON WINE.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      My mother's family was Scotch, and it was judged fitting I should pay a
+      visit on my way Paris-ward, to my Uncle Adam Loudon, a wealthy retired
+      grocer of Edinburgh. He was very stiff and very ironical; he fed me well,
+      lodged me sumptuously, and seemed to take it out of me all the time, cent
+      per cent, in secret entertainment which caused his spectacles to glitter
+      and his mouth to twitch. The ground of this ill-suppressed mirth (as well
+      as I could make out) was simply the fact that I was an American. &ldquo;Well,&rdquo;
+      he would say, drawing out the word to infinity, &ldquo;and I suppose now
+      in your country, things will be so and so.&rdquo; And the whole group of
+      my cousins would titter joyously. Repeated receptions of this sort must be
+      at the root, I suppose, of what they call the Great American Jest; and I
+      know I was myself goaded into saying that my friends went naked in the
+      summer months, and that the Second Methodist Episcopal Church in Muskegon
+      was decorated with scalps. I cannot say that these flights had any great
+      success; they seemed to awaken little more surprise than the fact that my
+      father was a Republican or that I had been taught in school to spell
+      COLOUR without the U. If I had told them (what was after all the truth)
+      that my father had paid a considerable annual sum to have me brought up in
+      a gambling hell, the tittering and grinning of this dreadful family might
+      perhaps have been excused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I cannot deny but I was sometimes tempted to knock my Uncle Adam down; and
+      indeed I believe it must have come to a rupture at last, if they had not
+      given a dinner party at which I was the lion. On this occasion, I learned
+      (to my surprise and relief) that the incivility to which I had been
+      subjected was a matter for the family circle and might be regarded almost
+      in the light of an endearment. To strangers I was presented with
+      consideration; and the account given of &ldquo;my American brother-in-law,
+      poor Janie's man, James K. Dodd, the well-known millionnaire of Muskegon,&rdquo;
+      was calculated to enlarge the heart of a proud son.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An aged assistant of my grandfather's, a pleasant, humble creature with a
+      taste for whiskey, was at first deputed to be my guide about the city.
+      With this harmless but hardly aristocratic companion, I went to Arthur's
+      Seat and the Calton Hill, heard the band play in the Princes Street
+      Gardens, inspected the regalia and the blood of Rizzio, and fell in love
+      with the great castle on its cliff, the innumerable spires of churches,
+      the stately buildings, the broad prospects, and those narrow and crowded
+      lanes of the old town where my ancestors had lived and died in the days
+      before Columbus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But there was another curiosity that interested me more deeply&mdash;my
+      grandfather, Alexander Loudon. In his time, the old gentleman had been a
+      working mason, and had risen from the ranks more, I think, by shrewdness
+      than by merit. In his appearance, speech, and manners, he bore broad marks
+      of his origin, which were gall and wormwood to my Uncle Adam. His nails,
+      in spite of anxious supervision, were often in conspicuous mourning; his
+      clothes hung about him in bags and wrinkles like a ploughman's Sunday
+      coat; his accent was rude, broad, and dragging: take him at his best, and
+      even when he could be induced to hold his tongue, his mere presence in a
+      corner of the drawing-room, with his open-air wrinkles, his scanty hair,
+      his battered hands, and the cheerful craftiness of his expression,
+      advertised the whole gang of us for a self-made family. My aunt might
+      mince and my cousins bridle; but there was no getting over the solid,
+      physical fact of the stonemason in the chimney-corner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That is one advantage of being an American: it never occurred to me to be
+      ashamed of my grandfather, and the old gentleman was quick to mark the
+      difference. He held my mother in tender memory, perhaps because he was in
+      the habit of daily contrasting her with Uncle Adam, whom he detested to
+      the point of frenzy; and he set down to inheritance from his favourite my
+      own becoming treatment of himself. On our walks abroad, which soon became
+      daily, he would sometimes (after duly warning me to keep the matter dark
+      from &ldquo;Aadam&rdquo;) skulk into some old familiar pot-house; and
+      there (if he had the luck to encounter any of his veteran cronies) he
+      would present me to the company with manifest pride, casting at the same
+      time a covert slur on the rest of his descendants. &ldquo;This is my
+      Jeannie's yin,&rdquo; he would say. &ldquo;He's a fine fallow, him.&rdquo;
+      The purpose of our excursions was not to seek antiquities or to enjoy
+      famous prospects, but to visit one after another a series of doleful
+      suburbs, for which it was the old gentleman's chief claim to renown that
+      he had been the sole contractor, and too often the architect besides. I
+      have rarely seen a more shocking exhibition: the bricks seemed to be
+      blushing in the walls, and the slates on the roof to have turned pale with
+      shame; but I was careful not to communicate these impressions to the aged
+      artificer at my side; and when he would direct my attention to some fresh
+      monstrosity&mdash;perhaps with the comment, &ldquo;There's an idee of
+      mine's: it's cheap and tasty, and had a graand run; the idee was soon
+      stole, and there's whole deestricts near Glesgie with the goathic adeetion
+      and that plunth,&rdquo;&mdash;I would civilly make haste to admire and
+      (what I found particularly delighted him) to inquire into the cost of each
+      adornment. It will be conceived that Muskegon capitol was a frequent and a
+      welcome ground of talk; I drew him all the plans from memory; and he, with
+      the aid of a narrow volume full of figures and tables, which answered (I
+      believe) to the name of Molesworth, and was his constant pocket companion,
+      would draw up rough estimates and make imaginary offers on the various
+      contracts. Our Muskegon builders he pronounced a pack of cormorants; and
+      the congenial subject, together with my knowledge of architectural terms,
+      the theory of strains, and the prices of materials in the States, formed a
+      strong bond of union between what might have been otherwise an
+      ill-assorted pair, and led my grandfather to pronounce me, with emphasis,
+      &ldquo;a real intalligent kind of a cheild.&rdquo; Thus a second time, as
+      you will presently see, the capitol of my native State had influentially
+      affected the current of my life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I left Edinburgh, however, with not the least idea that I had done a
+      stroke of excellent business for myself, and singly delighted to escape
+      out of a somewhat dreary house and plunge instead into the rainbow city of
+      Paris. Every man has his own romance; mine clustered exclusively about the
+      practice of the arts, the life of Latin Quarter students, and the world of
+      Paris as depicted by that grimy wizard, the author of the <i>Comedie
+      Humaine</i>. I was not disappointed&mdash;I could not have been; for I did
+      not see the facts, I brought them with me ready-made. Z. Marcas lived next
+      door to me in my ungainly, ill-smelling hotel of the Rue Racine; I dined
+      at my villainous restaurant with Lousteau and with Rastignac: if a
+      curricle nearly ran me down at a street-crossing, Maxime de Trailles would
+      be the driver. I dined, I say, at a poor restaurant and lived in a poor
+      hotel; and this was not from need, but sentiment. My father gave me a
+      profuse allowance, and I might have lived (had I chosen) in the Quartier
+      de l'Etoile and driven to my studies daily. Had I done so, the glamour
+      must have fled: I should still have been but Loudon Dodd; whereas now I
+      was a Latin Quarter student, Murger's successor, living in flesh and blood
+      the life of one of those romances I had loved to read, to re-read, and to
+      dream over, among the woods of Muskegon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this time we were all a little Murger-mad in the Latin Quarter. The
+      play of the <i>Vie de Boheme</i> (a dreary, snivelling piece) had been
+      produced at the Odeon, had run an unconscionable time&mdash;for Paris, and
+      revived the freshness of the legend. The same business, you may say, or
+      there and thereabout, was being privately enacted in consequence in every
+      garret of the neighbourhood, and a good third of the students were
+      consciously impersonating Rodolphe or Schaunard to their own
+      incommunicable satisfaction. Some of us went far, and some farther. I
+      always looked with awful envy (for instance) on a certain countryman of my
+      own who had a studio in the Rue Monsieur le Prince, wore boots, and long
+      hair in a net, and could be seen tramping off, in this guise, to the worst
+      eating-house of the quarter, followed by a Corsican model, his mistress,
+      in the conspicuous costume of her race and calling. It takes some
+      greatness of soul to carry even folly to such heights as these; and for my
+      own part, I had to content myself by pretending very arduously to be poor,
+      by wearing a smoking-cap on the streets, and by pursuing, through a series
+      of misadventures, that extinct mammal, the grisette. The most grievous
+      part was the eating and the drinking. I was born with a dainty tooth and a
+      palate for wine; and only a genuine devotion to romance could have
+      supported me under the cat-civets that I had to swallow, and the red ink
+      of Bercy I must wash them down withal. Every now and again, after a hard
+      day at the studio, where I was steadily and far from unsuccessfully
+      industrious, a wave of distaste would overbear me; I would slink away from
+      my haunts and companions, indemnify myself for weeks of self-denial with
+      fine wines and dainty dishes; seated perhaps on a terrace, perhaps in an
+      arbour in a garden, with a volume of one of my favourite authors propped
+      open in front of me, and now consulted awhile, and now forgotten:&mdash;so
+      remain, relishing my situation, till night fell and the lights of the city
+      kindled; and thence stroll homeward by the riverside, under the moon or
+      stars, in a heaven of poetry and digestion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One such indulgence led me in the course of my second year into an
+      adventure which I must relate: indeed, it is the very point I have been
+      aiming for, since that was what brought me in acquaintance with Jim
+      Pinkerton. I sat down alone to dinner one October day when the rusty
+      leaves were falling and scuttling on the boulevard, and the minds of
+      impressionable men inclined in about an equal degree towards sadness and
+      conviviality. The restaurant was no great place, but boasted a
+      considerable cellar and a long printed list of vintages. This I was
+      perusing with the double zest of a man who is fond of wine and a lover of
+      beautiful names, when my eye fell (near the end of the card) on that not
+      very famous or familiar brand, Roussillon. I remembered it was a wine I
+      had never tasted, ordered a bottle, found it excellent, and when I had
+      discussed the contents, called (according to my habit) for a final pint.
+      It appears they did not keep Roussillon in half-bottles. &ldquo;All right,&rdquo;
+      said I. &ldquo;Another bottle.&rdquo; The tables at this eating-house are
+      close together; and the next thing I can remember, I was in somewhat loud
+      conversation with my nearest neighbours. From these I must have gradually
+      extended my attentions; for I have a clear recollection of gazing about a
+      room in which every chair was half turned round and every face turned
+      smilingly to mine. I can even remember what I was saying at the moment;
+      but after twenty years, the embers of shame are still alive; and I prefer
+      to give your imagination the cue, by simply mentioning that my muse was
+      the patriotic. It had been my design to adjourn for coffee in the company
+      of some of these new friends; but I was no sooner on the sidewalk than I
+      found myself unaccountably alone. The circumstance scarce surprised me at
+      the time, much less now; but I was somewhat chagrined a little after to
+      find I had walked into a kiosque. I began to wonder if I were any the
+      worse for my last bottle, and decided to steady myself with coffee and
+      brandy. In the Cafe de la Source, where I went for this restorative, the
+      fountain was playing, and (what greatly surprised me) the mill and the
+      various mechanical figures on the rockery appeared to have been freshly
+      repaired and performed the most enchanting antics. The cafe was
+      extraordinarily hot and bright, with every detail of a conspicuous
+      clearness, from the faces of the guests to the type of the newspapers on
+      the tables, and the whole apartment swang to and fro like a hammock, with
+      an exhilarating motion. For some while I was so extremely pleased with
+      these particulars that I thought I could never be weary of beholding them:
+      then dropped of a sudden into a causeless sadness; and then, with the same
+      swiftness and spontaneity, arrived at the conclusion that I was drunk and
+      had better get to bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was but a step or two to my hotel, where I got my lighted candle from
+      the porter and mounted the four flights to my own room. Although I could
+      not deny that I was drunk, I was at the same time lucidly rational and
+      practical. I had but one preoccupation&mdash;to be up in time on the
+      morrow for my work; and when I observed the clock on my chimney-piece to
+      have stopped, I decided to go down stairs again and give directions to the
+      porter. Leaving the candle burning and my door open, to be a guide to me
+      on my return, I set forth accordingly. The house was quite dark; but as
+      there were only the three doors on each landing, it was impossible to
+      wander, and I had nothing to do but descend the stairs until I saw the
+      glimmer of the porter's night light. I counted four flights: no porter. It
+      was possible, of course, that I had reckoned incorrectly; so I went down
+      another and another, and another, still counting as I went, until I had
+      reached the preposterous figure of nine flights. It was now quite clear
+      that I had somehow passed the porter's lodge without remarking it; indeed,
+      I was, at the lowest figure, five pairs of stairs below the street, and
+      plunged in the very bowels of the earth. That my hotel should thus be
+      founded upon catacombs was a discovery of considerable interest; and if I
+      had not been in a frame of mind entirely businesslike, I might have
+      continued to explore all night this subterranean empire. But I was bound I
+      must be up betimes on the next morning, and for that end it was imperative
+      that I should find the porter. I faced about accordingly, and counting
+      with painful care, remounted towards the level of the street. Five, six,
+      and seven flights I climbed, and still there was no porter. I began to be
+      weary of the job, and reflecting that I was now close to my own room,
+      decided I should go to bed. Eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen
+      flights I mounted; and my open door seemed to be as wholly lost to me as
+      the porter and his floating dip. I remembered that the house stood but six
+      stories at its highest point, from which it appeared (on the most moderate
+      computation) I was now three stories higher than the roof. My original
+      sense of amusement was succeeded by a not unnatural irritation. &ldquo;My
+      room has just GOT to be here,&rdquo; said I, and I stepped towards the
+      door with outspread arms. There was no door and no wall; in place of
+      either there yawned before me a dark corridor, in which I continued to
+      advance for some time without encountering the smallest opposition. And
+      this in a house whose extreme area scantily contained three small rooms, a
+      narrow landing, and the stair! The thing was manifestly nonsense; and you
+      will scarcely be surprised to learn that I now began to lose my temper. At
+      this juncture I perceived a filtering of light along the floor, stretched
+      forth my hand which encountered the knob of a door-handle, and without
+      further ceremony entered a room. A young lady was within; she was going to
+      bed, and her toilet was far advanced, or the other way about, if you
+      prefer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope you will pardon this intrusion,&rdquo; said I; &ldquo;but my
+      room is No. 12, and something has gone wrong with this blamed house.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at me a moment; and then, &ldquo;If you will step outside for a
+      moment, I will take you there,&rdquo; says she.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus, with perfect composure on both sides, the matter was arranged. I
+      waited a while outside her door. Presently she rejoined me, in a
+      dressing-gown, took my hand, led me up another flight, which made the
+      fourth above the level of the roof, and shut me into my own room, where
+      (being quite weary after these contraordinary explorations) I turned in,
+      and slumbered like a child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I tell you the thing calmly, as it appeared to me to pass; but the next
+      day, when I awoke and put memory in the witness-box, I could not conceal
+      from myself that the tale presented a good many improbable features. I had
+      no mind for the studio, after all, and went instead to the Luxembourg
+      gardens, there, among the sparrows and the statues and the falling leaves,
+      to cool and clear my head. It is a garden I have always loved. You sit
+      there in a public place of history and fiction. Barras and Fouche have
+      looked from these windows. Lousteau and de Banville (one as real as the
+      other) have rhymed upon these benches. The city tramples by without the
+      railings to a lively measure; and within and about you, trees rustle,
+      children and sparrows utter their small cries, and the statues look on
+      forever. Here, then, in a seat opposite the gallery entrance, I set to
+      work on the events of the last night, to disengage (if it were possible)
+      truth from fiction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The house, by daylight, had proved to be six stories high, the same as
+      ever. I could find, with all my architectural experience, no room in its
+      altitude for those interminable stairways, no width between its walls for
+      that long corridor, where I had tramped at night. And there was yet a
+      greater difficulty. I had read somewhere an aphorism that everything may
+      be false to itself save human nature. A house might elongate or enlarge
+      itself&mdash;or seem to do so to a gentleman who had been dining. The
+      ocean might dry up, the rocks melt in the sun, the stars fall from heaven
+      like autumn apples; and there was nothing in these incidents to boggle the
+      philosopher. But the case of the young lady stood upon a different
+      foundation. Girls were not good enough, or not good that way, or else they
+      were too good. I was ready to accept any of these views: all pointed to
+      the same conclusion, which I was thus already on the point of reaching,
+      when a fresh argument occurred, and instantly confirmed it. I could
+      remember the exact words we had each said; and I had spoken, and she had
+      replied, in English. Plainly, then, the whole affair was an illusion:
+      catacombs, and stairs, and charitable lady, all were equally the stuff of
+      dreams.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had just come to this determination, when there blew a flaw of wind
+      through the autumnal gardens; the dead leaves showered down, and a flight
+      of sparrows, thick as a snowfall, wheeled above my head with sudden
+      pipings. This agreeable bustle was the affair of a moment, but it startled
+      me from the abstraction into which I had fallen like a summons. I sat
+      briskly up, and as I did so, my eyes rested on the figure of a lady in a
+      brown jacket and carrying a paint-box. By her side walked a fellow some
+      years older than myself, with an easel under his arm; and alike by their
+      course and cargo I might judge they were bound for the gallery, where the
+      lady was, doubtless, engaged upon some copying. You can imagine my
+      surprise when I recognized in her the heroine of my adventure. To put the
+      matter beyond question, our eyes met, and she, seeing herself remembered
+      and recalling the trim in which I had last beheld her, looked swiftly on
+      the ground with just a shadow of confusion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I could not tell you to-day if she were plain or pretty; but she had
+      behaved with so much good sense, and I had cut so poor a figure in her
+      presence, that I became instantly fired with the desire to display myself
+      in a more favorable light. The young man besides was possibly her brother;
+      brothers are apt to be hasty, theirs being a part in which it is possible,
+      at a comparatively early age, to assume the dignity of manhood; and it
+      occurred to me it might be wise to forestall all possible complications by
+      an apology.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On this reasoning I drew near to the gallery door, and had hardly got in
+      position before the young man came out. Thus it was that I came face to
+      face with my third destiny; for my career has been entirely shaped by
+      these three elements,&mdash;my father, the capitol of Muskegon, and my
+      friend, Jim Pinkerton. As for the young lady with whom my mind was at the
+      moment chiefly occupied, I was never to hear more of her from that day
+      forward: an excellent example of the Blind Man's Buff that we call life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III. TO INTRODUCE MR. PINKERTON.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The stranger, I have said, was some years older than myself: a man of a
+      good stature, a very lively face, cordial, agitated manners, and a gray
+      eye as active as a fowl's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May I have a word with you?&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear sir,&rdquo; he replied, &ldquo;I don't know what it can be
+      about, but you may have a hundred if you like.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have just left the side of a young lady,&rdquo; I continued,
+      &ldquo;towards whom I was led (very unintentionally) into the appearance
+      of an offence. To speak to herself would be only to renew her
+      embarrassment, and I seize the occasion of making my apology, and
+      declaring my respect, to one of my own sex who is her friend, and perhaps,&rdquo;
+      I added, with a bow, &ldquo;her natural protector.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are a countryman of mine; I know it!&rdquo; he cried: &ldquo;I
+      am sure of it by your delicacy to a lady. You do her no more than justice.
+      I was introduced to her the other night at tea, in the apartment of some
+      people, friends of mine; and meeting her again this morning, I could not
+      do less than carry her easel for her. My dear sir, what is your name?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was disappointed to find he had so little bond with my young lady; and
+      but that it was I who had sought the acquaintance, might have been tempted
+      to retreat. At the same time, something in the stranger's eye engaged me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My name,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;is Loudon Dodd; I am a student of
+      sculpture here from Muskegon.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of sculpture?&rdquo; he cried, as though that would have been his
+      last conjecture. &ldquo;Mine is James Pinkerton; I am delighted to have
+      the pleasure of your acquaintance.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pinkerton!&rdquo; it was now my turn to exclaim. &ldquo;Are you
+      Broken-Stool Pinkerton?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He admitted his identity with a laugh of boyish delight; and indeed any
+      young man in the quarter might have been proud to own a sobriquet thus
+      gallantly acquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In order to explain the name, I must here digress into a chapter of the
+      history of manners in the nineteenth century, very well worth
+      commemoration for its own sake. In some of the studios at that date, the
+      hazing of new pupils was both barbarous and obscene. Two incidents,
+      following one on the heels of the other tended to produce an advance in
+      civilization by the means (as so commonly happens) of a passing appeal to
+      savage standards. The first was the arrival of a little gentleman from
+      Armenia. He had a fez upon his head and (what nobody counted on) a dagger
+      in his pocket. The hazing was set about in the customary style, and,
+      perhaps in virtue of the victim's head-gear, even more boisterously than
+      usual. He bore it at first with an inviting patience; but upon one of the
+      students proceeding to an unpardonable freedom, plucked out his knife and
+      suddenly plunged it in the belly of the jester. This gentleman, I am
+      pleased to say, passed months upon a bed of sickness, before he was in a
+      position to resume his studies. The second incident was that which had
+      earned Pinkerton his reputation. In a crowded studio, while some very
+      filthy brutalities were being practised on a trembling debutant, a tall,
+      pale fellow sprang from his stool and (without the smallest preface or
+      explanation) sang out, &ldquo;All English and Americans to clear the shop!&rdquo;
+      Our race is brutal, but not filthy; and the summons was nobly responded
+      to. Every Anglo-Saxon student seized his stool; in a moment the studio was
+      full of bloody coxcombs, the French fleeing in disorder for the door, the
+      victim liberated and amazed. In this feat of arms, both English-speaking
+      nations covered themselves with glory; but I am proud to claim the author
+      of the whole for an American, and a patriotic American at that, being the
+      same gentleman who had subsequently to be held down in the bottom of a box
+      during a performance of <i>L'Oncle Sam</i>, sobbing at intervals, &ldquo;My
+      country! O my country!&rdquo; While yet another (my new acquaintance,
+      Pinkerton) was supposed to have made the most conspicuous figure in the
+      actual battle. At one blow, he had broken his own stool, and sent the
+      largest of his opponents back foremost through what we used to call a
+      &ldquo;conscientious nude.&rdquo; It appears that, in the continuation of
+      his flight, this fallen warrior issued on the boulevard still framed in
+      the burst canvas.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It will be understood how much talk the incident aroused in the students'
+      quarter, and that I was highly gratified to make the acquaintance of my
+      famous countryman. It chanced I was to see more of the quixotic side of
+      his character before the morning was done; for as we continued to stroll
+      together, I found myself near the studio of a young Frenchman whose work I
+      had promised to examine, and in the fashion of the quarter carried up
+      Pinkerton along with me. Some of my comrades of this date were pretty
+      obnoxious fellows. I could almost always admire and respect the grown-up
+      practitioners of art in Paris; but many of those who were still in a state
+      of pupilage were sorry specimens, so much so that I used often to wonder
+      where the painters came from, and where the brutes of students went to. A
+      similar mystery hangs over the intermediate stages of the medical
+      profession, and must have perplexed the least observant. The ruffian, at
+      least, whom I now carried Pinkerton to visit, was one of the most
+      crapulous in the quarter. He turned out for our delectation a huge &ldquo;crust&rdquo;
+      (as we used to call it) of St. Stephen, wallowing in red upon his belly in
+      an exhausted receiver, and a crowd of Hebrews in blue, green, and yellow,
+      pelting him&mdash;apparently with buns; and while we gazed upon this
+      contrivance, regaled us with a piece of his own recent biography, of which
+      his mind was still very full, and which he seemed to fancy, represented
+      him in a heroic posture. I was one of those cosmopolitan Americans, who
+      accept the world (whether at home or abroad) as they find it, and whose
+      favourite part is that of the spectator; yet even I was listening with
+      ill-suppressed disgust, when I was aware of a violent plucking at my
+      sleeve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is he saying he kicked her down stairs?&rdquo; asked Pinkerton,
+      white as St. Stephen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said I: &ldquo;his discarded mistress; and then he
+      pelted her with stones. I suppose that's what gave him the idea for his
+      picture. He has just been alleging the pathetic excuse that she was old
+      enough to be his mother.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Something like a sob broke from Pinkerton. &ldquo;Tell him,&rdquo; he
+      gasped&mdash;&ldquo;I can't speak this language, though I understand a
+      little; I never had any proper education&mdash;tell him I'm going to punch
+      his head.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For God's sake, do nothing of the sort!&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;They
+      don't understand that sort of thing here.&rdquo; And I tried to bundle him
+      out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell him first what we think of him,&rdquo; he objected. &ldquo;Let
+      me tell him what he looks in the eyes of a pure-minded American&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Leave that to me,&rdquo; said I, thrusting Pinkerton clear through
+      the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Qu'est-ce qu'il a?&rdquo; [1] inquired the student.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;[1] &ldquo;What's the matter with him?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur se sent mal au coeur d'avoir trop regarde votre croute,&rdquo;
+      [2] said I, and made my escape, scarce with dignity, at Pinkerton's heels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;[2] &ldquo;The gentleman is sick at his
+      stomach from having looked too long at your daub.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did you say to him?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The only thing that he could feel,&rdquo; was my reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After this scene, the freedom with which I had ejected my new
+      acquaintance, and the precipitation with which I had followed him, the
+      least I could do was to propose luncheon. I have forgot the name of the
+      place to which I led him, nothing loath; it was on the far side of the
+      Luxembourg at least, with a garden behind, where we were speedily set face
+      to face at table, and began to dig into each other's history and
+      character, like terriers after rabbits, according to the approved fashion
+      of youth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pinkerton's parents were from the old country; there too, I incidentally
+      gathered, he had himself been born, though it was a circumstance he seemed
+      prone to forget. Whether he had run away, or his father had turned him
+      out, I never fathomed; but about the age of twelve, he was thrown upon his
+      own resources. A travelling tin-type photographer picked him up, like a
+      haw out of a hedgerow, on a wayside in New Jersey; took a fancy to the
+      urchin; carried him on with him in his wandering life; taught him all he
+      knew himself&mdash;to take tin-types (as well as I can make out) and doubt
+      the Scriptures; and died at last in Ohio at the corner of a road. &ldquo;He
+      was a grand specimen,&rdquo; cried Pinkerton; &ldquo;I wish you could have
+      seen him, Mr. Dodd. He had an appearance of magnanimity that used to
+      remind me of the patriarchs.&rdquo; On the death of this random protector,
+      the boy inherited the plant and continued the business. &ldquo;It was a
+      life I could have chosen, Mr. Dodd!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;I have been in
+      all the finest scenes of that magnificent continent that we were born to
+      be the heirs of. I wish you could see my collection of tin-types; I wish I
+      had them here. They were taken for my own pleasure and to be a memento;
+      and they show Nature in her grandest as well as her gentlest moments.&rdquo;
+      As he tramped the Western States and Territories, taking tin-types, the
+      boy was continually getting hold of books, good, bad, and indifferent,
+      popular and abstruse, from the novels of Sylvanus Cobb to Euclid's
+      Elements, both of which I found (to my almost equal wonder) he had managed
+      to peruse: he was taking stock by the way, of the people, the products,
+      and the country, with an eye unusually observant and a memory unusually
+      retentive; and he was collecting for himself a body of magnanimous and
+      semi-intellectual nonsense, which he supposed to be the natural thoughts
+      and to contain the whole duty of the born American. To be pure-minded, to
+      be patriotic, to get culture and money with both hands and with the same
+      irrational fervour&mdash;these appeared to be the chief articles of his
+      creed. In later days (not of course upon this first occasion) I would
+      sometimes ask him why; and he had his answer pat. &ldquo;To build up the
+      type!&rdquo; he would cry. &ldquo;We're all committed to that; we're all
+      under bond to fulfil the American Type! Loudon, the hope of the world is
+      there. If we fail, like these old feudal monarchies, what is left?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The trade of a tin-typer proved too narrow for the lad's ambition; it was
+      insusceptible of expansion, he explained, it was not truly modern; and by
+      a sudden conversion of front, he became a railroad-scalper. The principles
+      of this trade I never clearly understood; but its essence appears to be to
+      cheat the railroads out of their due fare. &ldquo;I threw my whole soul
+      into it; I grudged myself food and sleep while I was at it; the most
+      practised hands admitted I had caught on to the idea in a month and
+      revolutionised the practice inside of a year,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;And
+      there's interest in it, too. It's amusing to pick out some one going by,
+      make up your mind about his character and tastes, dash out of the office
+      and hit him flying with an offer of the very place he wants to go to. I
+      don't think there was a scalper on the continent made fewer blunders. But
+      I took it only as a stage. I was saving every dollar; I was looking ahead.
+      I knew what I wanted&mdash;wealth, education, a refined home, and a
+      conscientious, cultured lady for a wife; for, Mr. Dodd&rdquo;&mdash;this
+      with a formidable outcry&mdash;&ldquo;every man is bound to marry above
+      him: if the woman's not the man's superior, I brand it as mere sensuality.
+      There was my idea, at least. That was what I was saving for; and enough,
+      too! But it isn't every man, I know that&mdash;it's far from every man&mdash;could
+      do what I did: close up the livest agency in Saint Jo, where he was
+      coining dollars by the pot, set out alone, without a friend or a word of
+      French, and settle down here to spend his capital learning art.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was it an old taste?&rdquo; I asked him, &ldquo;or a sudden fancy?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Neither, Mr. Dodd,&rdquo; he admitted. &ldquo;Of course I had
+      learned in my tin-typing excursions to glory and exult in the works of
+      God. But it wasn't that. I just said to myself, What is most wanted in my
+      age and country? More culture and more art, I said; and I chose the best
+      place, saved my money, and came here to get them.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The whole attitude of this young man warmed and shamed me. He had more
+      fire in his little toe than I had in my whole carcase; he was stuffed to
+      bursting with the manly virtues; thrift and courage glowed in him; and
+      even if his artistic vocation seemed (to one of my exclusive tenets) not
+      quite clear, who could predict what might be accomplished by a creature so
+      full-blooded and so inspired with animal and intellectual energy? So, when
+      he proposed that I should come and see his work (one of the regular stages
+      of a Latin Quarter friendship), I followed him with interest and hope.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He lodged parsimoniously at the top of a tall house near the Observatory,
+      in a bare room, principally furnished with his own trunks and papered with
+      his own despicable studies. No man has less taste for disagreeable duties
+      than myself; perhaps there is only one subject on which I cannot flatter a
+      man without a blush; but upon that, upon all that touches art, my
+      sincerity is Roman. Once and twice I made the circuit of his walls in
+      silence, spying in every corner for some spark of merit; he, meanwhile,
+      following close at my heels, reading the verdict in my face with furtive
+      glances, presenting some fresh study for my inspection with undisguised
+      anxiety, and (after it had been silently weighed in the balances and found
+      wanting) whisking it away with an open gesture of despair. By the time the
+      second round was completed, we were both extremely depressed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O!&rdquo; he groaned, breaking the long silence, &ldquo;it's quite
+      unnecessary you should speak!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you want me to be frank with you? I think you are wasting time,&rdquo;
+      said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't see any promise?&rdquo; he inquired, beguiled by some
+      return of hope, and turning upon me the embarrassing brightness of his
+      eye. &ldquo;Not in this still-life here, of the melon? One fellow thought
+      it good.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the least I could do to give the melon a more particular
+      examination; which, when I had done, I could but shake my head. &ldquo;I
+      am truly sorry, Pinkerton,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;but I can't advise you to
+      persevere.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He seemed to recover his fortitude at the moment, rebounding from
+      disappointment like a man of india-rubber. &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said he
+      stoutly, &ldquo;I don't know that I'm surprised. But I'll go on with the
+      course; and throw my whole soul into it, too. You mustn't think the time
+      is lost. It's all culture; it will help me to extend my relations when I
+      get back home; it may fit me for a position on one of the illustrateds;
+      and then I can always turn dealer,&rdquo; he said, uttering the monstrous
+      proposition, which was enough to shake the Latin Quarter to the dust, with
+      entire simplicity. &ldquo;It's all experience, besides;&rdquo; he
+      continued, &ldquo;and it seems to me there's a tendency to underrate
+      experience, both as net profit and investment. Never mind. That's done
+      with. But it took courage for you to say what you did, and I'll never
+      forget it. Here's my hand, Mr. Dodd. I'm not your equal in culture or
+      talent&mdash;&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know nothing about that,&rdquo; I interrupted. &ldquo;I have
+      seen your work, but you haven't seen mine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No more I have,&rdquo; he cried; &ldquo;and let's go see it at
+      once! But I know you are away up. I can feel it here.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To say truth, I was almost ashamed to introduce him to my studio&mdash;my
+      work, whether absolutely good or bad, being so vastly superior to his. But
+      his spirits were now quite restored; and he amazed me, on the way, with
+      his light-hearted talk and new projects. So that I began at last to
+      understand how matters lay: that this was not an artist who had been
+      deprived of the practice of his single art; but only a business man of
+      very extended interests, informed (perhaps something of the most suddenly)
+      that one investment out of twenty had gone wrong.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As a matter of fact besides (although I never suspected it) he was already
+      seeking consolation with another of the muses, and pleasing himself with
+      the notion that he would repay me for my sincerity, cement our friendship,
+      and (at one and the same blow) restore my estimation of his talents.
+      Several times already, when I had been speaking of myself, he had pulled
+      out a writing-pad and scribbled a brief note; and now, when we entered the
+      studio, I saw it in his hand again, and the pencil go to his mouth, as he
+      cast a comprehensive glance round the uncomfortable building.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you going to make a sketch of it?&rdquo; I could not help
+      asking, as I unveiled the Genius of Muskegon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, that's my secret,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;Never you mind. A
+      mouse can help a lion.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He walked round my statue and had the design explained to him. I had
+      represented Muskegon as a young, almost a stripling, mother, with
+      something of an Indian type; the babe upon her knees was winged, to
+      indicate our soaring future; and her seat was a medley of sculptured
+      fragments, Greek, Roman, and Gothic, to remind us of the older worlds from
+      which we trace our generation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, does this satisfy you, Mr. Dodd?&rdquo; he inquired, as soon
+      as I had explained to him the main features of the design.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;the fellows seem to think it's not a
+      bad bonne femme for a beginner. I don't think it's entirely bad myself.
+      Here is the best point; it builds up best from here. No, it seems to me it
+      has a kind of merit,&rdquo; I admitted; &ldquo;but I mean to do better.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, that's the word!&rdquo; cried Pinkerton. &ldquo;There's the
+      word I love!&rdquo; and he scribbled in his pad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What in creation ails you?&rdquo; I inquired. &ldquo;It's the most
+      commonplace expression in the English language.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Better and better!&rdquo; chuckled Pinkerton. &ldquo;The
+      unconsciousness of genius. Lord, but this is coming in beautiful!&rdquo;
+      and he scribbled again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you're going to be fulsome,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I'll close the
+      place of entertainment.&rdquo; And I threatened to replace the veil upon
+      the Genius.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;Don't be in a hurry. Give me a point
+      or two. Show me what's particularly good.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would rather you found that out for yourself,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The trouble is,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;that I've never turned my
+      attention to sculpture, beyond, of course, admiring it, as everybody must
+      who has a soul. So do just be a good fellow, and explain to me what you
+      like in it, and what you tried for, and where the merit comes in. It'll be
+      all education for me.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, in sculpture, you see, the first thing you have to consider
+      is the masses. It's, after all, a kind of architecture,&rdquo; I began,
+      and delivered a lecture on that branch of art, with illustrations from my
+      own masterpiece there present, all of which, if you don't mind, or whether
+      you mind or not, I mean to conscientiously omit. Pinkerton listened with a
+      fiery interest, questioned me with a certain uncultivated shrewdness, and
+      continued to scratch down notes, and tear fresh sheets from his pad. I
+      found it inspiring to have my words thus taken down like a professor's
+      lecture; and having had no previous experience of the press, I was unaware
+      that they were all being taken down wrong. For the same reason (incredible
+      as it must appear in an American) I never entertained the least suspicion
+      that they were destined to be dished up with a sauce of penny-a-lining
+      gossip; and myself, my person, and my works of art butchered to make a
+      holiday for the readers of a Sunday paper. Night had fallen over the
+      Genius of Muskegon before the issue of my theoretic eloquence was stayed,
+      nor did I separate from my new friend without an appointment for the
+      morrow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was indeed greatly taken with this first view of my countryman, and
+      continued, on further acquaintance, to be interested, amused, and
+      attracted by him in about equal proportions. I must not say he had a
+      fault, not only because my mouth is sealed by gratitude, but because those
+      he had sprang merely from his education, and you could see he had
+      cultivated and improved them like virtues. For all that, I can never deny
+      he was a troublous friend to me, and the trouble began early.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It may have been a fortnight later that I divined the secret of the
+      writing-pad. My wretch (it leaked out) wrote letters for a paper in the
+      West, and had filled a part of one of them with descriptions of myself. I
+      pointed out to him that he had no right to do so without asking my
+      permission.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, this is just what I hoped!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;I
+      thought you didn't seem to catch on; only it seemed too good to be true.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, my good fellow, you were bound to warn me,&rdquo; I objected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know it's generally considered etiquette,&rdquo; he admitted;
+      &ldquo;but between friends, and when it was only with a view of serving
+      you, I thought it wouldn't matter. I wanted it (if possible) to come on
+      you as a surprise; I wanted you just to waken, like Lord Byron, and find
+      the papers full of you. You must admit it was a natural thought. And no
+      man likes to boast of a favour beforehand.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, heavens and earth! how do you know I think it a favour?&rdquo;
+      I cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He became immediately plunged in despair. &ldquo;You think it a liberty,&rdquo;
+      said he; &ldquo;I see that. I would rather have cut off my hand. I would
+      stop it now, only it's too late; it's published by now. And I wrote it
+      with so much pride and pleasure!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I could think of nothing but how to console him. &ldquo;O, I daresay it's
+      all right,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;I know you meant it kindly, and you would
+      be sure to do it in good taste.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That you may swear to,&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;It's a pure, bright,
+      A number 1 paper; the St. Jo <i>Sunday Herald</i>. The idea of the series
+      was quite my own; I interviewed the editor, put it to him straight; the
+      freshness of the idea took him, and I walked out of that office with the
+      contract in my pocket, and did my first Paris letter that evening in Saint
+      Jo. The editor did no more than glance his eye down the headlines. 'You're
+      the man for us,' said he.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was certainly far from reassured by this sketch of the class of
+      literature in which I was to make my first appearance; but I said no more,
+      and possessed my soul in patience, until the day came when I received a
+      copy of a newspaper marked in the corner, &ldquo;Compliments of J.P.&rdquo;
+      I opened it with sensible shrinkings; and there, wedged between an account
+      of a prize-fight and a skittish article upon chiropody&mdash;think of
+      chiropody treated with a leer!&mdash;I came upon a column and a half in
+      which myself and my poor statue were embalmed. Like the editor with the
+      first of the series, I did but glance my eye down the head-lines and was
+      more than satisfied.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     ANOTHER OF PINKERTON'S SPICY CHATS.
+
+     ART PRACTITIONERS IN PARIS.
+
+     MUSKEGON'S COLUMNED CAPITOL.
+
+     SON OF MILLIONAIRE DODD,
+
+     PATRIOT AND ARTIST.
+
+     &ldquo;HE MEANS TO DO BETTER.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      In the body of the text, besides, my eye caught, as it passed, some deadly
+      expressions: &ldquo;Figure somewhat fleshy,&rdquo; &ldquo;bright,
+      intellectual smile,&rdquo; &ldquo;the unconsciousness of genius,&rdquo;
+      &ldquo;'Now, Mr. Dodd,' resumed the reporter, 'what would be your idea of
+      a distinctively American quality in sculpture?'&rdquo; It was true the
+      question had been asked; it was true, alas! that I had answered; and now
+      here was my reply, or some strange hash of it, gibbeted in the cold
+      publicity of type. I thanked God that my French fellow-students were
+      ignorant of English; but when I thought of the British&mdash;of Myner (for
+      instance) or the Stennises&mdash;I think I could have fallen on Pinkerton
+      and beat him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To divert my thoughts (if it were possible) from this calamity, I turned
+      to a letter from my father which had arrived by the same post. The
+      envelope contained a strip of newspaper-cutting; and my eye caught again,
+      &ldquo;Son of Millionaire Dodd&mdash;Figure somewhat fleshy,&rdquo; and
+      the rest of the degrading nonsense. What would my father think of it? I
+      wondered, and opened his manuscript. &ldquo;My dearest boy,&rdquo; it
+      began, &ldquo;I send you a cutting which has pleased me very much, from a
+      St. Joseph paper of high standing. At last you seem to be coming fairly to
+      the front; and I cannot but reflect with delight and gratitude how very
+      few youths of your age occupy nearly two columns of press-matter all to
+      themselves. I only wish your dear mother had been here to read it over my
+      shoulder; but we will hope she shares my grateful emotion in a better
+      place. Of course I have sent a copy to your grandfather and uncle in
+      Edinburgh; so you can keep the one I enclose. This Jim Pinkerton seems a
+      valuable acquaintance; he has certainly great talent; and it is a good
+      general rule to keep in with pressmen.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I hope it will be set down to the right side of my account, but I had no
+      sooner read these words, so touchingly silly, than my anger against
+      Pinkerton was swallowed up in gratitude. Of all the circumstances of my
+      career, my birth, perhaps, excepted, not one had given my poor father so
+      profound a pleasure as this article in the <i>Sunday Herald</i>. What a
+      fool, then, was I, to be lamenting! when I had at last, and for once, and
+      at the cost of only a few blushes, paid back a fraction of my debt of
+      gratitude. So that, when I next met Pinkerton, I took things very lightly;
+      my father was pleased, and thought the letter very clever, I told him; for
+      my own part, I had no taste for publicity: thought the public had no
+      concern with the artist, only with his art; and though I owned he had
+      handled it with great consideration, I should take it as a favour if he
+      never did it again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There it is,&rdquo; he said despondingly. &ldquo;I've hurt you. You
+      can't deceive me, Loudon. It's the want of tact, and it's incurable.&rdquo;
+      He sat down, and leaned his head upon his hand. &ldquo;I had no advantages
+      when I was young, you see,&rdquo; he added.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not in the least, my dear fellow,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;Only the
+      next time you wish to do me a service, just speak about my work; leave my
+      wretched person out, and my still more wretched conversation; and above
+      all,&rdquo; I added, with an irrepressible shudder, &ldquo;don't tell them
+      how I said it! There's that phrase, now: 'With a proud, glad smile.' Who
+      cares whether I smiled or not?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, there now, Loudon, you're entirely wrong,&rdquo; he broke in.
+      &ldquo;That's what the public likes; that's the merit of the thing, the
+      literary value. It's to call up the scene before them; it's to enable the
+      humblest citizen to enjoy that afternoon the same as I did. Think what it
+      would have been to me when I was tramping around with my tin-types to find
+      a column and a half of real, cultured conversation&mdash;an artist, in his
+      studio abroad, talking of his art&mdash;and to know how he looked as he
+      did it, and what the room was like, and what he had for breakfast; and to
+      tell myself, eating tinned beans beside a creek, that if all went well,
+      the same sort of thing would, sooner or later, happen to myself: why,
+      Loudon, it would have been like a peephole into heaven!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, if it gives so much pleasure,&rdquo; I admitted, &ldquo;the
+      sufferers shouldn't complain. Only give the other fellows a turn.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The end of the matter was to bring myself and the journalist in a more
+      close relation. If I know anything at all of human nature&mdash;and the IF
+      is no mere figure of speech, but stands for honest doubt&mdash;no series
+      of benefits conferred, or even dangers shared, would have so rapidly
+      confirmed our friendship as this quarrel avoided, this fundamental
+      difference of taste and training accepted and condoned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV. IN WHICH I EXPERIENCE EXTREMES OF FORTUNE.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Whether it came from my training and repeated bankruptcy at the commercial
+      college, or by direct inheritance from old Loudon, the Edinburgh mason,
+      there can be no doubt about the fact that I was thrifty. Looking myself
+      impartially over, I believe that is my only manly virtue. During my first
+      two years in Paris I not only made it a point to keep well inside of my
+      allowance, but accumulated considerable savings in the bank. You will say,
+      with my masquerade of living as a penniless student, it must have been
+      easy to do so: I should have had no difficulty, however, in doing the
+      reverse. Indeed, it is wonderful I did not; and early in the third year,
+      or soon after I had known Pinkerton, a singular incident proved it to have
+      been equally wise. Quarter-day came, and brought no allowance. A letter of
+      remonstrance was despatched, and for the first time in my experience,
+      remained unanswered. A cablegram was more effectual; for it brought me at
+      least a promise of attention. &ldquo;Will write at once,&rdquo; my father
+      telegraphed; but I waited long for his letter. I was puzzled, angry, and
+      alarmed; but thanks to my previous thrift, I cannot say that I was ever
+      practically embarrassed. The embarrassment, the distress, the agony, were
+      all for my unhappy father at home in Muskegon, struggling for life and
+      fortune against untoward chances, returning at night from a day of
+      ill-starred shifts and ventures, to read and perhaps to weep over that
+      last harsh letter from his only child, to which he lacked the courage to
+      reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nearly three months after time, and when my economies were beginning to
+      run low, I received at last a letter with the customary bills of exchange.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dearest boy,&rdquo; it ran, &ldquo;I believe, in the press of
+      anxious business, your letters and even your allowance have been somewhile
+      neglected. You must try to forgive your poor old dad, for he has had a
+      trying time; and now when it is over, the doctor wants me to take my
+      shotgun and go to the Adirondacks for a change. You must not fancy I am
+      sick, only over-driven and under the weather. Many of our foremost
+      operators have gone down: John T. M'Brady skipped to Canada with a
+      trunkful of boodle; Billy Sandwith, Charlie Downs, Joe Kaiser, and many
+      others of our leading men in this city bit the dust. But Big-Head Dodd has
+      again weathered the blizzard, and I think I have fixed things so that we
+      may be richer than ever before autumn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now I will tell you, my dear, what I propose. You say you are well
+      advanced with your first statue; start in manfully and finish it, and if
+      your teacher&mdash;I can never remember how to spell his name&mdash;will
+      send me a certificate that it is up to market standard, you shall have ten
+      thousand dollars to do what you like with, either at home or in Paris. I
+      suggest, since you say the facilities for work are so much greater in that
+      city, you would do well to buy or build a little home; and the first thing
+      you know, your dad will be dropping in for a luncheon. Indeed, I would
+      come now, for I am beginning to grow old, and I long to see my dear boy;
+      but there are still some operations that want watching and nursing. Tell
+      your friend, Mr. Pinkerton, that I read his letters every week; and though
+      I have looked in vain lately for my Loudon's name, still I learn something
+      of the life he is leading in that strange, old world, depicted by an able
+      pen.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here was a letter that no young man could possibly digest in solitude. It
+      marked one of those junctures when the confidant is necessary; and the
+      confidant selected was none other than Jim Pinkerton. My father's message
+      may have had an influence in this decision; but I scarce suppose so, for
+      the intimacy was already far advanced. I had a genuine and lively taste
+      for my compatriot; I laughed at, I scolded, and I loved him. He, upon his
+      side, paid me a kind of doglike service of admiration, gazing at me from
+      afar off as at one who had liberally enjoyed those &ldquo;advantages&rdquo;
+      which he envied for himself. He followed at heel; his laugh was ready
+      chorus; our friends gave him the nickname of &ldquo;The Henchman.&rdquo;
+      It was in this insidious form that servitude approached me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pinkerton and I read and re-read the famous news: he, I can swear, with an
+      enjoyment as unalloyed and far more vocal than my own. The statue was
+      nearly done: a few days' work sufficed to prepare it for exhibition; the
+      master was approached; he gave his consent; and one cloudless morning of
+      May beheld us gathered in my studio for the hour of trial. The master wore
+      his many-hued rosette; he came attended by two of my French fellow-pupils&mdash;friends
+      of mine and both considerable sculptors in Paris at this hour. &ldquo;Corporal
+      John&rdquo; (as we used to call him) breaking for once those habits of
+      study and reserve which have since carried him so high in the opinion of
+      the world, had left his easel of a morning to countenance a
+      fellow-countryman in some suspense. My dear old Romney was there by
+      particular request; for who that knew him would think a pleasure quite
+      complete unless he shared it, or not support a mortification more easily
+      if he were present to console? The party was completed by John Myner, the
+      Englishman; by the brothers Stennis,&mdash;Stennis-aine and Stennis-frere,
+      as they used to figure on their accounts at Barbizon&mdash;a pair of
+      hare-brained Scots; and by the inevitable Jim, as white as a sheet and
+      bedewed with the sweat of anxiety.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I suppose I was little better myself when I unveiled the Genius of
+      Muskegon. The master walked about it seriously; then he smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is already not so bad,&rdquo; said he, in that funny English of
+      which he was so proud. &ldquo;No, already not so bad.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We all drew a deep breath of relief; and Corporal John (as the most
+      considerable junior present) explained to him it was intended for a public
+      building, a kind of prefecture&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He! Quoi?&rdquo; cried he, relapsing into French. &ldquo;Qu'est-ce
+      que vous me chantez la? O, in America,&rdquo; he added, on further
+      information being hastily furnished. &ldquo;That is anozer sing. O, very
+      good, very good.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The idea of the required certificate had to be introduced to his mind in
+      the light of a pleasantry&mdash;the fancy of a nabob little more advanced
+      than the red Indians of &ldquo;Fennimore Cooperr&rdquo;; and it took all
+      our talents combined to conceive a form of words that would be acceptable
+      on both sides. One was found, however: Corporal John engrossed it in his
+      undecipherable hand, the master lent it the sanction of his name and
+      flourish, I slipped it into an envelope along with one of the two letters
+      I had ready prepared in my pocket, and as the rest of us moved off along
+      the boulevard to breakfast, Pinkerton was detached in a cab and duly
+      committed it to the post.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The breakfast was ordered at Lavenue's, where no one need be ashamed to
+      entertain even the master; the table was laid in the garden; I had chosen
+      the bill of fare myself; on the wine question we held a council of war
+      with the most fortunate results; and the talk, as soon as the master laid
+      aside his painful English, became fast and furious. There were a few
+      interruptions, indeed, in the way of toasts. The master's health had to be
+      drunk, and he responded in a little well-turned speech, full of neat
+      allusions to my future and to the United States; my health followed; and
+      then my father's must not only be proposed and drunk, but a full report
+      must be despatched to him at once by cablegram&mdash;an extravagance which
+      was almost the means of the master's dissolution. Choosing Corporal John
+      to be his confidant (on the ground, I presume, that he was already too
+      good an artist to be any longer an American except in name) he summed up
+      his amazement in one oft-repeated formula&mdash;&ldquo;C'est barbare!&rdquo;
+      Apart from these genial formalities, we talked, talked of art, and talked
+      of it as only artists can. Here in the South Seas we talk schooners most
+      of the time; in the Quarter we talked art with the like unflagging
+      interest, and perhaps as much result.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before very long, the master went away; Corporal John (who was already a
+      sort of young master) followed on his heels; and the rank and file were
+      naturally relieved by their departure. We were now among equals; the
+      bottle passed, the conversation sped. I think I can still hear the Stennis
+      brothers pour forth their copious tirades; Dijon, my portly French
+      fellow-student, drop witticisms well-conditioned like himself; and another
+      (who was weak in foreign languages) dash hotly into the current of talk
+      with some &ldquo;Je trove que pore oon sontimong de delicacy, Corot ...,&rdquo;
+      or some &ldquo;Pour moi Corot est le plou ...,&rdquo; and then, his little
+      raft of French foundering at once, scramble silently to shore again. He at
+      least could understand; but to Pinkerton, I think the noise, the wine, the
+      sun, the shadows of the leaves, and the esoteric glory of being seated at
+      a foreign festival, made up the whole available means of entertainment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We sat down about half past eleven; I suppose it was two when, some point
+      arising and some particular picture being instanced, an adjournment to the
+      Louvre was proposed. I paid the score, and in a moment we were trooping
+      down the Rue de Renne. It was smoking hot; Paris glittered with that
+      superficial brilliancy which is so agreeable to the man in high spirits,
+      and in moods of dejection so depressing; the wine sang in my ears, it
+      danced and brightened in my eyes. The pictures that we saw that afternoon,
+      as we sped briskly and loquaciously through the immortal galleries, appear
+      to me, upon a retrospect, the loveliest of all; the comments we exchanged
+      to have touched the highest mark of criticism, grave or gay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was only when we issued again from the museum that a difference of race
+      broke up the party. Dijon proposed an adjournment to a cafe, there to
+      finish the afternoon on beer; the elder Stennis, revolted at the thought,
+      moved for the country, a forest if possible, and a long walk. At once the
+      English speakers rallied to the name of any exercise: even to me, who have
+      been often twitted with my sedentary habits, the thought of country air
+      and stillness proved invincibly attractive. It appeared, upon
+      investigation, we had just time to hail a cab and catch one of the fast
+      trains for Fontainebleau. Beyond the clothes we stood in, all were
+      destitute of what is called (with dainty vagueness) personal effects; and
+      it was earnestly mooted, on the other side, whether we had not time to
+      call upon the way and pack a satchel? But the Stennis boys exclaimed upon
+      our effeminacy. They had come from London, it appeared, a week before with
+      nothing but greatcoats and tooth-brushes. No baggage&mdash;there was the
+      secret of existence. It was expensive, to be sure; for every time you had
+      to comb your hair, a barber must be paid, and every time you changed your
+      linen, one shirt must be bought and another thrown away; but anything was
+      better (argued these young gentlemen) than to be the slaves of haversacks.
+      &ldquo;A fellow has to get rid gradually of all material attachments; that
+      was manhood&rdquo; (said they); &ldquo;and as long as you were bound down
+      to anything,&mdash;house, umbrella, or portmanteau,&mdash;you were still
+      tethered by the umbilical cord.&rdquo; Something engaging in this theory
+      carried the most of us away. The two Frenchmen, indeed, retired, scoffing,
+      to their bock; and Romney, being too poor to join the excursion on his own
+      resources and too proud to borrow, melted unobtrusively away. Meanwhile
+      the remainder of the company crowded the benches of a cab; the horse was
+      urged (as horses have to be) by an appeal to the pocket of the driver; the
+      train caught by the inside of a minute; and in less than an hour and a
+      half we were breathing deep of the sweet air of the forest and stretching
+      our legs up the hill from Fontainebleau octroi, bound for Barbizon. That
+      the leading members of our party covered the distance in fifty-one minutes
+      and a half is (I believe) one of the historic landmarks of the colony; but
+      you will scarce be surprised to learn that I was somewhat in the rear.
+      Myner, a comparatively philosophic Briton, kept me company in my
+      deliberate advance; the glory of the sun's going down, the fall of the
+      long shadows, the inimitable scent and the inspiration of the woods,
+      attuned me more and more to walk in a silence which progressively infected
+      my companion; and I remember that, when at last he spoke, I was startled
+      from a deep abstraction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your father seems to be a pretty good kind of a father,&rdquo; said
+      he. &ldquo;Why don't he come to see you?&rdquo; I was ready with some
+      dozen of reasons, and had more in stock; but Myner, with that shrewdness
+      which made him feared and admired, suddenly fixed me with his eye-glass
+      and asked, &ldquo;Ever press him?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The blood came in my face. No; I had never pressed him; I had never even
+      encouraged him to come. I was proud of him; proud of his handsome looks,
+      of his kind, gentle ways, of that bright face he could show when others
+      were happy; proud, too (meanly proud, if you like) of his great wealth and
+      startling liberalities. And yet he would have been in the way of my Paris
+      life, of much of which he would have disapproved. I had feared to expose
+      to criticism his innocent remarks on art; I had told myself, I had even
+      partly believed, he did not want to come; I had been (and still am)
+      convinced that he was sure to be unhappy out of Muskegon; in short, I had
+      a thousand reasons, good and bad, not all of which could alter one iota of
+      the fact that I knew he only waited for my invitation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you, Myner,&rdquo; said I; &ldquo;you're a much better fellow
+      than ever I supposed. I'll write to-night.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, you're a pretty decent sort yourself,&rdquo; returned Myner,
+      with more than his usual flippancy of manner, but (as I was gratefully
+      aware) not a trace of his occasional irony of meaning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, these were brave days, on which I could dwell forever. Brave, too,
+      were those that followed, when Pinkerton and I walked Paris and the
+      suburbs, viewing and pricing houses for my new establishment, or covered
+      ourselves with dust and returned laden with Chinese gods and brass
+      warming-pans from the dealers in antiquities. I found Pinkerton well up in
+      the situation of these establishments as well as in the current prices,
+      and with quite a smattering of critical judgment; it turned out he was
+      investing capital in pictures and curiosities for the States, and the
+      superficial thoroughness of the creature appeared in the fact, that
+      although he would never be a connoisseur, he was already something of an
+      expert. The things themselves left him as near as may be cold; but he had
+      a joy of his own in understanding how to buy and sell them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In such engagements the time passed until I might very well expect an
+      answer from my father. Two mails followed each other, and brought nothing.
+      By the third I received a long and almost incoherent letter of remorse,
+      encouragement, consolation, and despair. From this pitiful document, which
+      (with a movement of piety) I burned as soon as I had read it, I gathered
+      that the bubble of my father's wealth was burst, that he was now both
+      penniless and sick; and that I, so far from expecting ten thousand dollars
+      to throw away in juvenile extravagance, must look no longer for the
+      quarterly remittances on which I lived. My case was hard enough; but I had
+      sense enough to perceive, and decency enough to do my duty. I sold my
+      curiosities, or rather I sent Pinkerton to sell them; and he had
+      previously bought and now disposed of them so wisely that the loss was
+      trifling. This, with what remained of my last allowance, left me at the
+      head of no less than five thousand francs. Five hundred I reserved for my
+      own immediate necessities; the rest I mailed inside of the week to my
+      father at Muskegon, where they came in time to pay his funeral expenses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The news of his death was scarcely a surprise and scarce a grief to me. I
+      could not conceive my father a poor man. He had led too long a life of
+      thoughtless and generous profusion to endure the change; and though I
+      grieved for myself, I was able to rejoice that my father had been taken
+      from the battle. I grieved, I say, for myself; and it is probable there
+      were at the same date many thousands of persons grieving with less cause.
+      I had lost my father; I had lost the allowance; my whole fortune
+      (including what had been returned from Muskegon) scarce amounted to a
+      thousand francs; and to crown my sorrows, the statuary contract had
+      changed hands. The new contractor had a son of his own, or else a nephew;
+      and it was signified to me, with business-like plainness, that I must find
+      another market for my pigs. In the meanwhile I had given up my room, and
+      slept on a truckle-bed in the corner of the studio, where as I read myself
+      to sleep at night, and when I awoke in the morning, that now useless bulk,
+      the Genius of Muskegon, was ever present to my eyes. Poor stone lady! born
+      to be enthroned under the gilded, echoing dome of the new capitol, whither
+      was she now to drift? for what base purposes be ultimately broken up, like
+      an unseaworthy ship? and what should befall her ill-starred artificer,
+      standing, with his thousand francs, on the threshold of a life so hard as
+      that of the unbefriended sculptor?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a subject often and earnestly debated by myself and Pinkerton. In
+      his opinion, I should instantly discard my profession. &ldquo;Just drop
+      it, here and now,&rdquo; he would say. &ldquo;Come back home with me, and
+      let's throw our whole soul into business. I have the capital; you bring
+      the culture. Dodd &amp; Pinkerton&mdash;I never saw a better name for an
+      advertisement; and you can't think, Loudon, how much depends upon a name.&rdquo;
+      On my side, I would admit that a sculptor should possess one of three
+      things&mdash;capital, influence, or an energy only to be qualified as
+      hellish. The first two I had now lost; to the third I never had the
+      smallest claim; and yet I wanted the cowardice (or perhaps it was the
+      courage) to turn my back on my career without a fight. I told him,
+      besides, that however poor my chances were in sculpture, I was convinced
+      they were yet worse in business, for which I equally lacked taste and
+      aptitude. But upon this head, he was my father over again; assured me that
+      I spoke in ignorance; that any intelligent and cultured person was Bound
+      to succeed; that I must, besides, have inherited some of my father's
+      fitness; and, at any rate, that I had been regularly trained for that
+      career in the commercial college.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pinkerton,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;can't you understand that, as long
+      as I was there, I never took the smallest interest in any stricken thing?
+      The whole affair was poison to me.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's not possible,&rdquo; he would cry; &ldquo;it can't be; you
+      couldn't live in the midst of it and not feel the charm; with all your
+      poetry of soul, you couldn't help! Loudon,&rdquo; he would go on, &ldquo;you
+      drive me crazy. You expect a man to be all broken up about the sunset, and
+      not to care a dime for a place where fortunes are fought for and made and
+      lost all day; or for a career that consists in studying up life till you
+      have it at your finger-ends, spying out every cranny where you can get
+      your hand in and a dollar out, and standing there in the midst&mdash;one
+      foot on bankruptcy, the other on a borrowed dollar, and the whole thing
+      spinning round you like a mill&mdash;raking in the stamps, in spite of
+      fate and fortune.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To this romance of dickering I would reply with the romance (which is also
+      the virtue) of art: reminding him of those examples of constancy through
+      many tribulations, with which the role of Apollo is illustrated; from the
+      case of Millet, to those of many of our friends and comrades, who had
+      chosen this agreeable mountain path through life, and were now bravely
+      clambering among rocks and brambles, penniless and hopeful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will never understand it, Pinkerton,&rdquo; I would say.
+      &ldquo;You look to the result, you want to see some profit of your
+      endeavours: that is why you could never learn to paint, if you lived to be
+      Methusalem. The result is always a fizzle: the eyes of the artist are
+      turned in; he lives for a frame of mind. Look at Romney, now. There is the
+      nature of the artist. He hasn't a cent; and if you offered him to-morrow
+      the command of an army, or the presidentship of the United States, he
+      wouldn't take it, and you know he wouldn't.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose not,&rdquo; Pinkerton would cry, scouring his hair with
+      both his hands; &ldquo;and I can't see why; I can't see what in fits he
+      would be after, not to; I don't seem to rise to these views. Of course,
+      it's the fault of not having had advantages in early life; but, Loudon,
+      I'm so miserably low that it seems to me silly. The fact is,&rdquo; he
+      might add with a smile, &ldquo;I don't seem to have the least use for a
+      frame of mind without square meals; and you can't get it out of my head
+      that it's a man's duty to die rich, if he can.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What for?&rdquo; I asked him once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, I don't know,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;Why in snakes should
+      anybody want to be a sculptor, if you come to that? I would love to sculp
+      myself. But what I can't see is why you should want to do nothing else. It
+      seems to argue a poverty of nature.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whether or not he ever came to understand me&mdash;and I have been so
+      tossed about since then that I am not very sure I understand myself&mdash;he
+      soon perceived that I was perfectly in earnest; and after about ten days
+      of argument, suddenly dropped the subject, and announced that he was
+      wasting capital, and must go home at once. No doubt he should have gone
+      long before, and had already lingered over his intended time for the sake
+      of our companionship and my misfortune; but man is so unjustly minded that
+      the very fact, which ought to have disarmed, only embittered my vexation.
+      I resented his departure in the light of a desertion; I would not say, but
+      doubtless I betrayed it; and something hang-dog in the man's face and
+      bearing led me to believe he was himself remorseful. It is certain at
+      least that, during the time of his preparations, we drew sensibly apart&mdash;a
+      circumstance that I recall with shame. On the last day, he had me to
+      dinner at a restaurant which he knew I had formerly frequented, and had
+      only forsworn of late from considerations of economy. He seemed ill at
+      ease; I was myself both sorry and sulky; and the meal passed with little
+      conversation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, Loudon,&rdquo; said he, with a visible effort, after the
+      coffee was come and our pipes lighted, &ldquo;you can never understand the
+      gratitude and loyalty I bear you. You don't know what a boon it is to be
+      taken up by a man that stands on the pinnacle of civilization; you can't
+      think how it's refined and purified me, how it's appealed to my spiritual
+      nature; and I want to tell you that I would die at your door like a dog.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I don't know what answer I tried to make, but he cut me short.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let me say it out!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;I revere you for your
+      whole-souled devotion to art; I can't rise to it, but there's a strain of
+      poetry in my nature, Loudon, that responds to it. I want you to carry it
+      out, and I mean to help you.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pinkerton, what nonsense is this?&rdquo; I interrupted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now don't get mad, Loudon; this is a plain piece of business,&rdquo;
+      said he; &ldquo;it's done every day; it's even typical. How are all those
+      fellows over here in Paris, Henderson, Sumner, Long?&mdash;it's all the
+      same story: a young man just plum full of artistic genius on the one side,
+      a man of business on the other who doesn't know what to do with his
+      dollars&mdash;&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, you fool, you're as poor as a rat,&rdquo; I cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You wait till I get my irons in the fire!&rdquo; returned
+      Pinkerton. &ldquo;I'm bound to be rich; and I tell you I mean to have some
+      of the fun as I go along. Here's your first allowance; take it at the hand
+      of a friend; I'm one that holds friendship sacred as you do yourself. It's
+      only a hundred francs; you'll get the same every month, and as soon as my
+      business begins to expand we'll increase it to something fitting. And so
+      far from it's being a favour, just let me handle your statuary for the
+      American market, and I'll call it one of the smartest strokes of business
+      in my life.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It took me a long time, and it had cost us both much grateful and painful
+      emotion, before I had finally managed to refuse his offer and compounded
+      for a bottle of particular wine. He dropped the subject at last suddenly
+      with a &ldquo;Never mind; that's all done with,&rdquo; nor did he again
+      refer to the subject, though we passed together the rest of the afternoon,
+      and I accompanied him, on his departure; to the doors of the waiting-room
+      at St. Lazare. I felt myself strangely alone; a voice told me that I had
+      rejected both the counsels of wisdom and the helping hand of friendship;
+      and as I passed through the great bright city on my homeward way, I
+      measured it for the first time with the eye of an adversary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V. IN WHICH I AM DOWN ON MY LUCK IN PARIS.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      In no part of the world is starvation an agreeable business; but I believe
+      it is admitted there is no worse place to starve in than this city of
+      Paris. The appearances of life are there so especially gay, it is so much
+      a magnified beer-garden, the houses are so ornate, the theatres so
+      numerous, the very pace of the vehicles is so brisk, that a man in any
+      deep concern of mind or pain of body is constantly driven in upon himself.
+      In his own eyes, he seems the one serious creature moving in a world of
+      horrible unreality; voluble people issuing from a cafe, the queue at
+      theatre doors, Sunday cabfuls of second-rate pleasure-seekers, the
+      bedizened ladies of the pavement, the show in the jewellers' windows&mdash;all
+      the familiar sights contributing to flout his own unhappiness, want, and
+      isolation. At the same time, if he be at all after my pattern, he is
+      perhaps supported by a childish satisfaction: this is life at last, he may
+      tell himself, this is the real thing; the bladders on which I was set
+      swimming are now empty, my own weight depends upon the ocean; by my own
+      exertions I must perish or succeed; and I am now enduring in the vivid
+      fact, what I so much delighted to read of in the case of Lonsteau or
+      Lucien, Rodolphe or Schaunard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of the steps of my misery, I cannot tell at length. In ordinary times what
+      were politically called &ldquo;loans&rdquo; (although they were never
+      meant to be repaid) were matters of constant course among the students,
+      and many a man has partly lived on them for years. But my misfortune
+      befell me at an awkward juncture. Many of my friends were gone; others
+      were themselves in a precarious situation. Romney (for instance) was
+      reduced to tramping Paris in a pair of country sabots, his only suit of
+      clothes so imperfect (in spite of cunningly adjusted pins) that the
+      authorities at the Luxembourg suggested his withdrawal from the gallery.
+      Dijon, too, was on a leeshore, designing clocks and gas-brackets for a
+      dealer; and the most he could do was to offer me a corner of his studio
+      where I might work. My own studio (it will be gathered) I had by that time
+      lost; and in the course of my expulsion the Genius of Muskegon was finally
+      separated from her author. To continue to possess a full-sized statue, a
+      man must have a studio, a gallery, or at least the freedom of a back
+      garden. He cannot carry it about with him, like a satchel, in the bottom
+      of a cab, nor can he cohabit in a garret, ten by fifteen, with so
+      momentous a companion. It was my first idea to leave her behind at my
+      departure. There, in her birthplace, she might lend an inspiration,
+      methought, to my successor. But the proprietor, with whom I had unhappily
+      quarrelled, seized the occasion to be disagreeable, and called upon me to
+      remove my property. For a man in such straits as I now found myself, the
+      hire of a lorry was a consideration; and yet even that I could have faced,
+      if I had had anywhere to drive to after it was hired. Hysterical laughter
+      seized upon me as I beheld (in imagination) myself, the waggoner, and the
+      Genius of Muskegon, standing in the public view of Paris, without the
+      shadow of a destination; perhaps driving at last to the nearest rubbish
+      heap, and dumping there, among the ordures of a city, the beloved child of
+      my invention. From these extremities I was relieved by a seasonable offer,
+      and I parted from the Genius of Muskegon for thirty francs. Where she now
+      stands, under what name she is admired or criticised, history does not
+      inform us; but I like to think she may adorn the shrubbery of some
+      suburban tea-garden, where holiday shop-girls hang their hats upon the
+      mother, and their swains (by way of an approach of gallantry) identify the
+      winged infant with the god of love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a certain cabman's eating-house on the outer boulevard I got credit for
+      my midday meal. Supper I was supposed not to require, sitting down nightly
+      to the delicate table of some rich acquaintances. This arrangement was
+      extremely ill-considered. My fable, credible enough at first, and so long
+      as my clothes were in good order, must have seemed worse than doubtful
+      after my coat became frayed about the edges, and my boots began to squelch
+      and pipe along the restaurant floors. The allowance of one meal a day
+      besides, though suitable enough to the state of my finances, agreed poorly
+      with my stomach. The restaurant was a place I had often visited
+      experimentally, to taste the life of students then more unfortunate than
+      myself; and I had never in those days entered it without disgust, or left
+      it without nausea. It was strange to find myself sitting down with
+      avidity, rising up with satisfaction, and counting the hours that divided
+      me from my return to such a table. But hunger is a great magician; and so
+      soon as I had spent my ready cash, and could no longer fill up on bowls of
+      chocolate or hunks of bread, I must depend entirely on that cabman's
+      eating-house, and upon certain rare, long-expected, long-remembered
+      windfalls. Dijon (for instance) might get paid for some of his pot-boiling
+      work, or else an old friend would pass through Paris; and then I would be
+      entertained to a meal after my own soul, and contract a Latin Quarter
+      loan, which would keep me in tobacco and my morning coffee for a
+      fortnight. It might be thought the latter would appear the more important.
+      It might be supposed that a life, led so near the confines of actual
+      famine, should have dulled the nicety of my palate. On the contrary, the
+      poorer a man's diet, the more sharply is he set on dainties. The last of
+      my ready cash, about thirty francs, was deliberately squandered on a
+      single dinner; and a great part of my time when I was alone was passed
+      upon the details of imaginary feasts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One gleam of hope visited me&mdash;an order for a bust from a rich
+      Southerner. He was free-handed, jolly of speech, merry of countenance;
+      kept me in good humour through the sittings, and when they were over,
+      carried me off with him to dinner and the sights of Paris. I ate well; I
+      laid on flesh; by all accounts, I made a favourable likeness of the being,
+      and I confess I thought my future was assured. But when the bust was done,
+      and I had despatched it across the Atlantic, I could never so much as
+      learn of its arrival. The blow felled me; I should have lain down and
+      tried no stroke to right myself, had not the honour of my country been
+      involved. For Dijon improved the opportunity in the European style;
+      informing me (for the first time) of the manners of America: how it was a
+      den of banditti without the smallest rudiment of law or order, and debts
+      could be there only collected with a shotgun. &ldquo;The whole world knows
+      it,&rdquo; he would say; &ldquo;you are alone, mon petit Loudon, you are
+      alone to be in ignorance of these facts. The judges of the Supreme Court
+      fought but the other day with stilettos on the bench at Cincinnati. You
+      should read the little book of one of my friends: <i>Le Touriste dans le
+      Far-West</i>; you will see it all there in good French.&rdquo; At last,
+      incensed by days of such discussion, I undertook to prove to him the
+      contrary, and put the affair in the hands of my late father's lawyer. From
+      him I had the gratification of hearing, after a due interval, that my
+      debtor was dead of the yellow fever in Key West, and had left his affairs
+      in some confusion. I suppress his name; for though he treated me with
+      cruel nonchalance, it is probable he meant to deal fairly in the end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Soon after this a shade of change in my reception at the cabman's
+      eating-house marked the beginning of a new phase in my distress. The first
+      day, I told myself it was but fancy; the next, I made quite sure it was a
+      fact; the third, in mere panic I stayed away, and went for forty-eight
+      hours fasting. This was an act of great unreason; for the debtor who stays
+      away is but the more remarked, and the boarder who misses a meal is sure
+      to be accused of infidelity. On the fourth day, therefore, I returned,
+      inwardly quaking. The proprietor looked askance upon my entrance; the
+      waitresses (who were his daughters) neglected my wants and sniffed at the
+      affected joviality of my salutations; last and most plain, when I called
+      for a suisse (such as was being served to all the other diners) I was
+      bluntly told there were no more. It was obvious I was near the end of my
+      tether; one plank divided me from want, and now I felt it tremble. I
+      passed a sleepless night, and the first thing in the morning took my way
+      to Myner's studio. It was a step I had long meditated and long refrained
+      from; for I was scarce intimate with the Englishman; and though I knew him
+      to possess plenty of money, neither his manner nor his reputation were the
+      least encouraging to beggars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I found him at work on a picture, which I was able conscientiously to
+      praise, dressed in his usual tweeds, plain, but pretty fresh, and standing
+      out in disagreeable contrast to my own withered and degraded outfit. As we
+      talked, he continued to shift his eyes watchfully between his handiwork
+      and the fat model, who sat at the far end of the studio in a state of
+      nature, with one arm gallantly arched above her head. My errand would have
+      been difficult enough under the best of circumstances: placed between
+      Myner, immersed in his art, and the white, fat, naked female in a
+      ridiculous attitude, I found it quite impossible. Again and again I
+      attempted to approach the point, again and again fell back on
+      commendations of the picture; and it was not until the model had enjoyed
+      an interval of repose, during which she took the conversation in her own
+      hands and regaled us (in a soft, weak voice) with details as to her
+      husband's prosperity, her sister's lamented decline from the paths of
+      virtue, and the consequent wrath of her father, a peasant of stern
+      principles, in the vicinity of Chalons on the Marne;&mdash;it was not, I
+      say, until after this was over, and I had once more cleared my throat for
+      the attack, and once more dropped aside into some commonplace about the
+      picture, that Myner himself brought me suddenly and vigorously to the
+      point.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You didn't come here to talk this rot,&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; I replied sullenly; &ldquo;I came to borrow money.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He painted awhile in silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't think we were ever very intimate?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;I can take my answer,&rdquo; and I
+      made as if to go, rage boiling in my heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course you can go if you like,&rdquo; said Myner; &ldquo;but I
+      advise you to stay and have it out.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What more is there to say?&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;You don't want to
+      keep me here for a needless humiliation?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look here, Dodd, you must try and command your temper,&rdquo; said
+      he. &ldquo;This interview is of your own seeking, and not mine; if you
+      suppose it's not disagreeable to me, you're wrong; and if you think I will
+      give you money without knowing thoroughly about your prospects, you take
+      me for a fool. Besides,&rdquo; he added, &ldquo;if you come to look at it,
+      you've got over the worst of it by now: you have done the asking, and you
+      have every reason to know I mean to refuse. I hold out no false hopes, but
+      it may be worth your while to let me judge.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus&mdash;I was going to say&mdash;encouraged, I stumbled through my
+      story; told him I had credit at the cabman's eating-house, but began to
+      think it was drawing to a close; how Dijon lent me a corner of his studio,
+      where I tried to model ornaments, figures for clocks, Time with the
+      scythe, Leda and the swan, musketeers for candlesticks, and other
+      kickshaws, which had never (up to that day) been honoured with the least
+      approval.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And your room?&rdquo; asked Myner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, my room is all right, I think,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;She is a
+      very good old lady, and has never even mentioned her bill.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because she is a very good old lady, I don't see why she should be
+      fined,&rdquo; observed Myner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you mean by that?&rdquo; I cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean this,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;The French give a great deal of
+      credit amongst themselves; they find it pays on the whole, or the system
+      would hardly be continued; but I can't see where WE come in; I can't see
+      that it's honest of us Anglo-Saxons to profit by their easy ways, and then
+      skip over the Channel or (as you Yankees do) across the Atlantic.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I'm not proposing to skip,&rdquo; I objected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Exactly,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;And shouldn't you? There's the
+      problem. You seem to me to have a lack of sympathy for the proprietors of
+      cabmen's eating-houses. By your own account you're not getting on: the
+      longer you stay, it'll only be the more out of the pocket of the dear old
+      lady at your lodgings. Now, I'll tell you what I'll do: if you consent to
+      go, I'll pay your passage to New York, and your railway fare and expenses
+      to Muskegon (if I have the name right) where your father lived, where he
+      must have left friends, and where, no doubt, you'll find an opening. I
+      don't seek any gratitude, for of course you'll think me a beast; but I do
+      ask you to pay it back when you are able. At any rate, that's all I can
+      do. It might be different if I thought you a genius, Dodd; but I don't,
+      and I advise you not to.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think that was uncalled for, at least,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I daresay it was,&rdquo; he returned, with the same steadiness.
+      &ldquo;It seemed to me pertinent; and, besides, when you ask me for money
+      upon no security, you treat me with the liberty of a friend, and it's to
+      be presumed that I can do the like. But the point is, do you accept?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, thank you,&rdquo; said I; &ldquo;I have another string to my
+      bow.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right,&rdquo; says Myner. &ldquo;Be sure it's honest.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Honest? honest?&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;What do you mean by calling
+      my honesty in question?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I won't, if you don't like it,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;You seem
+      to think honesty as easy as Blind Man's Buff: I don't. It's some
+      difference of definition.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I went straight from this irritating interview, during which Myner had
+      never discontinued painting, to the studio of my old master. Only one card
+      remained for me to play, and I was now resolved to play it: I must drop
+      the gentleman and the frock-coat, and approach art in the workman's tunic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tiens, this little Dodd!&rdquo; cried the master; and then, as his
+      eye fell on my dilapidated clothing, I thought I could perceive his
+      countenance to darken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I made my plea in English; for I knew, if he were vain of anything, it was
+      of his achievement of the island tongue. &ldquo;Master,&rdquo; said I,
+      &ldquo;will you take me in your studio again? but this time as a workman.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I sought your fazer was immensely reech,&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I explained to him that I was now an orphan and penniless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He shook his head. &ldquo;I have betterr workmen waiting at my door,&rdquo;
+      said he, &ldquo;far betterr workmen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You used to think something of my work, sir,&rdquo; I pleaded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Somesing, somesing&mdash;yes!&rdquo; he cried; &ldquo;enough for a
+      son of a reech man&mdash;not enough for an orphan. Besides, I sought you
+      might learn to be an artist; I did not sink you might learn to be a
+      workman.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On a certain bench on the outer boulevard, not far from the tomb of
+      Napoleon, a bench shaded at that date by a shabby tree, and commanding a
+      view of muddy roadway and blank wall, I sat down to wrestle with my
+      misery. The weather was cheerless and dark; in three days I had eaten but
+      once; I had no tobacco; my shoes were soaked, my trousers horrid with
+      mire; my humour and all the circumstances of the time and place
+      lugubriously attuned. Here were two men who had both spoken fairly of my
+      work while I was rich and wanted nothing; now that I was poor and lacked
+      all: &ldquo;no genius,&rdquo; said the one; &ldquo;not enough for an
+      orphan,&rdquo; the other; and the first offered me my passage like a
+      pauper immigrant, and the second refused me a day's wage as a hewer of
+      stone&mdash;plain dealing for an empty belly. They had not been insincere
+      in the past; they were not insincere to-day: change of circumstance had
+      introduced a new criterion: that was all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But if I acquitted my two Job's comforters of insincerity, I was yet far
+      from admitting them infallible. Artists had been contemned before, and had
+      lived to turn the laugh on their contemners. How old was Corot before he
+      struck the vein of his own precious metal? When had a young man been more
+      derided (or more justly so) than the god of my admiration, Balzac? Or if I
+      required a bolder inspiration, what had I to do but turn my head to where
+      the gold dome of the Invalides glittered against inky squalls, and recall
+      the tale of him sleeping there: from the day when a young artillery-sub
+      could be giggled at and nicknamed Puss-in-Boots by frisky misses; on to
+      the days of so many crowns and so many victories, and so many hundred
+      mouths of cannon, and so many thousand war-hoofs trampling the roadways of
+      astonished Europe eighty miles in front of the grand army? To go back, to
+      give up, to proclaim myself a failure, an ambitious failure, first a
+      rocket, then a stick! I, Loudon Dodd, who had refused all other
+      livelihoods with scorn, and been advertised in the Saint Joseph <i>Sunday
+      Herald</i> as a patriot and an artist, to be returned upon my native
+      Muskegon like damaged goods, and go the circuit of my father's
+      acquaintance, cap in hand, and begging to sweep offices! No, by Napoleon!
+      I would die at my chosen trade; and the two who had that day flouted me
+      should live to envy my success, or to weep tears of unavailing penitence
+      behind my pauper coffin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meantime, if my courage was still undiminished, I was none the nearer to a
+      meal. At no great distance my cabman's eating-house stood, at the tail of
+      a muddy cab-rank, on the shores of a wide thoroughfare of mud, offering
+      (to fancy) a face of ambiguous invitation. I might be received, I might
+      once more fill my belly there; on the other hand, it was perhaps this day
+      the bolt was destined to fall, and I might be expelled instead, with
+      vulgar hubbub. It was policy to make the attempt, and I knew it was
+      policy; but I had already, in the course of that one morning, endured too
+      many affronts, and I felt I could rather starve than face another. I had
+      courage and to spare for the future, none left for that day; courage for
+      the main campaign, but not a spark of it for that preliminary skirmish of
+      the cabman's restaurant. I continued accordingly to sit upon my bench, not
+      far from the ashes of Napoleon, now drowsy, now light-headed, now in
+      complete mental obstruction, or only conscious of an animal pleasure in
+      quiescence; and now thinking, planning, and remembering with unexampled
+      clearness, telling myself tales of sudden wealth, and gustfully ordering
+      and greedily consuming imaginary meals: in the course of which I must have
+      dropped asleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was towards dark that I was suddenly recalled to famine by a cold souse
+      of rain, and sprang shivering to my feet. For a moment I stood bewildered:
+      the whole train of my reasoning and dreaming passed afresh through my
+      mind; I was again tempted, drawn as if with cords, by the image of the
+      cabman's eating-house, and again recoiled from the possibility of insult.
+      &ldquo;Qui dort dine,&rdquo; thought I to myself; and took my homeward way
+      with wavering footsteps, through rainy streets in which the lamps and the
+      shop-windows now began to gleam; still marshalling imaginary dinners as I
+      went.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, Monsieur Dodd,&rdquo; said the porter, &ldquo;there has been a
+      registered letter for you. The facteur will bring it again to-morrow.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A registered letter for me, who had been so long without one? Of what it
+      could possibly contain, I had no vestige of a guess; nor did I delay
+      myself guessing; far less from any conscious plan of dishonesty: the lies
+      flowed from me like a natural secretion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;my remittance at last! What a bother I
+      should have missed it! Can you lend me a hundred francs until to-morrow?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had never attempted to borrow from the porter till that moment: the
+      registered letter was, besides, my warranty; and he gave me what he had&mdash;three
+      napoleons and some francs in silver. I pocketed the money carelessly,
+      lingered a while chaffing, strolled leisurely to the door; and then (fast
+      as my trembling legs could carry me) round the corner to the Cafe de
+      Cluny. French waiters are deft and speedy; they were not deft enough for
+      me; and I had scarce decency to let the man set the wine upon the table or
+      put the butter alongside the bread, before my glass and my mouth were
+      filled. Exquisite bread of the Cafe Cluny, exquisite first glass of old
+      Pomard tingling to my wet feet, indescribable first olive culled from the
+      hors d'oeuvre&mdash;I suppose, when I come to lie dying, and the lamp
+      begins to grow dim, I shall still recall your savour. Over the rest of
+      that meal, and the rest of the evening, clouds lie thick; clouds perhaps
+      of Burgundy; perhaps, more properly, of famine and repletion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I remember clearly, at least, the shame, the despair, of the next morning,
+      when I reviewed what I had done, and how I had swindled the poor honest
+      porter; and, as if that were not enough, fairly burnt my ships, and
+      brought bankruptcy home to that last refuge, my garret. The porter would
+      expect his money; I could not pay him; here was scandal in the house; and
+      I knew right well the cause of scandal would have to pack. &ldquo;What do
+      you mean by calling my honesty in question?&rdquo; I had cried the day
+      before, turning upon Myner. Ah, that day before! the day before Waterloo,
+      the day before the Flood; the day before I had sold the roof over my head,
+      my future, and my self-respect, for a dinner at the Cafe Cluny!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the midst of these lamentations the famous registered letter came to my
+      door, with healing under its seals. It bore the postmark of San Francisco,
+      where Pinkerton was already struggling to the neck in multifarious
+      affairs: it renewed the offer of an allowance, which his improved estate
+      permitted him to announce at the figure of two hundred francs a month; and
+      in case I was in some immediate pinch, it enclosed an introductory draft
+      for forty dollars. There are a thousand excellent reasons why a man, in
+      this self-helpful epoch, should decline to be dependent on another; but
+      the most numerous and cogent considerations all bow to a necessity as
+      stern as mine; and the banks were scarce open ere the draft was cashed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was early in December that I thus sold myself into slavery; and for six
+      months I dragged a slowly lengthening chain of gratitude and uneasiness.
+      At the cost of some debt I managed to excel myself and eclipse the Genius
+      of Muskegon, in a small but highly patriotic Standard Bearer for the
+      Salon; whither it was duly admitted, where it stood the proper length of
+      days entirely unremarked, and whence it came back to me as patriotic as
+      before. I threw my whole soul (as Pinkerton would have phrased it) into
+      clocks and candlesticks; the devil a candlestick-maker would have anything
+      to say to my designs. Even when Dijon, with his infinite good humour and
+      infinite scorn for all such journey-work, consented to peddle them in
+      indiscriminately with his own, the dealers still detected and rejected
+      mine. Home they returned to me, true as the Standard Bearer; who now, at
+      the head of quite a regiment of lesser idols, began to grow an eyesore in
+      the scanty studio of my friend. Dijon and I have sat by the hour, and
+      gazed upon that company of images. The severe, the frisky, the classical,
+      the Louis Quinze, were there&mdash;from Joan of Arc in her soldierly
+      cuirass to Leda with the swan; nay, and God forgive me for a man that knew
+      better! the humorous was represented also. We sat and gazed, I say; we
+      criticised, we turned them hither and thither; even upon the closest
+      inspection they looked quite like statuettes; and yet nobody would have a
+      gift of them!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Vanity dies hard; in some obstinate cases it outlives the man: but about
+      the sixth month, when I already owed near two hundred dollars to
+      Pinkerton, and half as much again in debts scattered about Paris, I awoke
+      one morning with a horrid sentiment of oppression, and found I was alone:
+      my vanity had breathed her last during the night. I dared not plunge
+      deeper in the bog; I saw no hope in my poor statuary; I owned myself
+      beaten at last; and sitting down in my nightshirt beside the window,
+      whence I had a glimpse of the tree-tops at the corner of the boulevard,
+      and where the music of its early traffic fell agreeably upon my ear, I
+      penned my farewell to Paris, to art, to my whole past life, and my whole
+      former self. &ldquo;I give in,&rdquo; I wrote. &ldquo;When the next
+      allowance arrives, I shall go straight out West, where you can do what you
+      like with me.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is to be understood that Pinkerton had been, in a sense, pressing me to
+      come from the beginning; depicting his isolation among new acquaintances,
+      &ldquo;who have none of them your culture,&rdquo; he wrote; expressing his
+      friendship in terms so warm that it sometimes embarrassed me to think how
+      poorly I could echo them; dwelling upon his need for assistance; and the
+      next moment turning about to commend my resolution and press me to remain
+      in Paris. &ldquo;Only remember, Loudon,&rdquo; he would write, &ldquo;if
+      you ever DO tire of it, there's plenty of work here for you&mdash;honest,
+      hard, well-paid work, developing the resources of this practically virgin
+      State. And of course I needn't say what a pleasure it would be to me if we
+      were going at it SHOULDER TO SHOULDER.&rdquo; I marvel (looking back) that
+      I could so long have resisted these appeals, and continue to sink my
+      friend's money in a manner that I knew him to dislike. At least, when I
+      did awake to any sense of my position, I awoke to it entirely; and
+      determined not only to follow his counsel for the future, but even as
+      regards the past, to rectify his losses. For in this juncture of affairs I
+      called to mind that I was not without a possible resource, and resolved,
+      at whatever cost of mortification, to beard the Loudon family in their
+      historic city.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the excellent Scots' phrase, I made a moonlight flitting, a thing never
+      dignified, but in my case unusually easy. As I had scarce a pair of boots
+      worth portage, I deserted the whole of my effects without a pang. Dijon
+      fell heir to Joan of Arc, the Standard Bearer, and the Musketeers. He was
+      present when I bought and frugally stocked my new portmanteau; and it was
+      at the door of the trunk shop that I took my leave of him, for my last few
+      hours in Paris must be spent alone. It was alone (and at a far higher
+      figure than my finances warranted) that I discussed my dinner; alone that
+      I took my ticket at Saint Lazare; all alone, though in a carriage full of
+      people, that I watched the moon shine on the Seine flood with its tufted
+      islets, on Rouen with her spires, and on the shipping in the harbour of
+      Dieppe. When the first light of the morning called me from troubled
+      slumbers on the deck, I beheld the dawn at first with pleasure; I watched
+      with pleasure the green shores of England rising out of rosy haze; I took
+      the salt air with delight into my nostrils; and then all came back to me;
+      that I was no longer an artist, no longer myself; that I was leaving all I
+      cared for, and returning to all that I detested, the slave of debt and
+      gratitude, a public and a branded failure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From this picture of my own disgrace and wretchedness, it is not wonderful
+      if my mind turned with relief to the thought of Pinkerton, waiting for me,
+      as I knew, with unwearied affection, and regarding me with a respect that
+      I had never deserved, and might therefore fairly hope that I should never
+      forfeit. The inequality of our relation struck me rudely. I must have been
+      stupid, indeed, if I could have considered the history of that friendship
+      without shame&mdash;I, who had given so little, who had accepted and
+      profited by so much. I had the whole day before me in London, and I
+      determined (at least in words) to set the balance somewhat straighter.
+      Seated in the corner of a public place, and calling for sheet after sheet
+      of paper, I poured forth the expression of my gratitude, my penitence for
+      the past, my resolutions for the future. Till now, I told him, my course
+      had been mere selfishness. I had been selfish to my father and to my
+      friend, taking their help, and denying them (which was all they asked) the
+      poor gratification of my company and countenance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wonderful are the consolations of literature! As soon as that letter was
+      written and posted, the consciousness of virtue glowed in my veins like
+      some rare vintage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VI. IN WHICH I GO WEST.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      I reached my uncle's door next morning in time to sit down with the family
+      to breakfast. More than three years had intervened almost without mutation
+      in that stationary household, since I had sat there first, a young
+      American freshman, bewildered among unfamiliar dainties, Finnan haddock,
+      kippered salmon, baps and mutton ham, and had wearied my mind in vain to
+      guess what should be under the tea-cosey. If there were any change at all,
+      it seemed that I had risen in the family esteem. My father's death once
+      fittingly referred to, with a ceremonial lengthening of Scotch upper lips
+      and wagging of the female head, the party launched at once (God help me)
+      into the more cheerful topic of my own successes. They had been so pleased
+      to hear such good accounts of me; I was quite a great man now; where was
+      that beautiful statue of the Genius of Something or other? &ldquo;You
+      haven't it here? not here? Really?&rdquo; asks the sprightliest of my
+      cousins, shaking curls at me; as though it were likely I had brought it in
+      a cab, or kept it concealed about my person like a birthday surprise. In
+      the bosom of this family, unaccustomed to the tropical nonsense of the
+      West, it became plain the <i>Sunday Herald</i> and poor, blethering
+      Pinkerton had been accepted for their face. It is not possible to invent a
+      circumstance that could have more depressed me; and I am conscious that I
+      behaved all through that breakfast like a whipt schoolboy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At length, the meal and family prayers being both happily over, I
+      requested the favour of an interview with Uncle Adam on &ldquo;the state
+      of my affairs.&rdquo; At sound of this ominous expression, the good man's
+      face conspicuously lengthened; and when my grandfather, having had the
+      proposition repeated to him (for he was hard of hearing) announced his
+      intention of being present at the interview, I could not but think that
+      Uncle Adam's sorrow kindled into momentary irritation. Nothing, however,
+      but the usual grim cordiality appeared upon the surface; and we all three
+      passed ceremoniously to the adjoining library, a gloomy theatre for a
+      depressing piece of business. My grandfather charged a clay pipe, and sat
+      tremulously smoking in a corner of the fireless chimney; behind him,
+      although the morning was both chill and dark, the window was partly open
+      and the blind partly down: I cannot depict what an air he had of being out
+      of place, like a man shipwrecked there. Uncle Adam had his station at the
+      business table in the midst. Valuable rows of books looked down upon the
+      place of torture; and I could hear sparrows chirping in the garden, and my
+      sprightly cousin already banging the piano and pouring forth an acid
+      stream of song from the drawing-room overhead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was in these circumstances that, with all brevity of speech and a
+      certain boyish sullenness of manner, looking the while upon the floor, I
+      informed my relatives of my financial situation: the amount I owed
+      Pinkerton; the hopelessness of any maintenance from sculpture; the career
+      offered me in the States; and how, before becoming more beholden to a
+      stranger, I had judged it right to lay the case before my family.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am only sorry you did not come to me at first,&rdquo; said Uncle
+      Adam. &ldquo;I take the liberty to say it would have been more decent.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think so too, Uncle Adam,&rdquo; I replied; &ldquo;but you must
+      bear in mind I was ignorant in what light you might regard my application.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope I would never turn my back on my own flesh and blood,&rdquo;
+      he returned with emphasis; but to my anxious ear, with more of temper than
+      affection. &ldquo;I could never forget you were my sister's son. I regard
+      this as a manifest duty. I have no choice but to accept the entire
+      responsibility of the position you have made.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not know what else to do but murmur &ldquo;thank you.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he pursued, &ldquo;and there is something providential
+      in the circumstance that you come at the right time. In my old firm there
+      is a vacancy; they call themselves Italian Warehousemen now,&rdquo; he
+      continued, regarding me with a twinkle of humour; &ldquo;so you may think
+      yourself in luck: we were only grocers in my day. I shall place you there
+      to-morrow.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop a moment, Uncle Adam,&rdquo; I broke in. &ldquo;This is not at
+      all what I am asking. I ask you to pay Pinkerton, who is a poor man. I ask
+      you to clear my feet of debt, not to arrange my life or any part of it.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I wished to be harsh, I might remind you that beggars cannot be
+      choosers,&rdquo; said my uncle; &ldquo;and as to managing your life, you
+      have tried your own way already, and you see what you have made of it. You
+      must now accept the guidance of those older and (whatever you may think of
+      it) wiser than yourself. All these schemes of your friend (of whom I know
+      nothing, by the by) and talk of openings in the West, I simply disregard.
+      I have no idea whatever of your going trekking across a continent on a
+      wild-goose chase. In this situation, which I am fortunately able to place
+      at your disposal, and which many a well-conducted young man would be glad
+      to jump at, you will receive, to begin with, eighteen shillings a week.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eighteen shillings a week!&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;Why, my poor
+      friend gave me more than that for nothing!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I think it is this very friend you are now trying to repay?&rdquo;
+      observed my uncle, with an air of one advancing a strong argument.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aadam!&rdquo; said my grandfather.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm vexed you should be present at this business,&rdquo; quoth
+      Uncle Adam, swinging rather obsequiously towards the stonemason; &ldquo;but
+      I must remind you it is of your own seeking.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aadam!&rdquo; repeated the old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, sir, I am listening,&rdquo; says my uncle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My grandfather took a puff or two in silence; and then, &ldquo;Ye're
+      makin' an awfu' poor appearance, Aadam,&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My uncle visibly reared at the affront. &ldquo;I'm sorry you should think
+      so,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;and still more sorry you should say so before
+      present company.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A believe that; A ken that, Aadam,&rdquo; returned old Loudon,
+      dryly; &ldquo;and the curiis thing is, I'm no very carin'. See here, ma
+      man,&rdquo; he continued, addressing himself to me. &ldquo;A'm your
+      grandfaither, amn't I not? Never you mind what Aadam says. A'll see
+      justice din ye. A'm rich.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father,&rdquo; said Uncle Adam, &ldquo;I would like one word with
+      you in private.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I rose to go.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Set down upon your hinderlands,&rdquo; cried my grandfather, almost
+      savagely. &ldquo;If Aadam has anything to say, let him say it. It's me
+      that has the money here; and by Gravy! I'm goin' to be obeyed.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon this scurvy encouragement, it appeared that my uncle had no remark to
+      offer: twice challenged to &ldquo;speak out and be done with it,&rdquo; he
+      twice sullenly declined; and I may mention that about this period of the
+      engagement, I began to be sorry for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;See here, then, Jeannie's yin!&rdquo; resumed my grandfather.
+      &ldquo;A'm goin' to give ye a set-off. Your mither was always my fav'rite,
+      for A never could agree with Aadam. A like ye fine yoursel'; there's nae
+      noansense aboot ye; ye've a fine nayteral idee of builder's work; ye've
+      been to France, where they tell me they're grand at the stuccy. A splendid
+      thing for ceilin's, the stuccy! and it's a vailyable disguise, too; A
+      don't believe there's a builder in Scotland has used more stuccy than me.
+      But as A was sayin', if ye'll follie that trade, with the capital that A'm
+      goin' to give ye, ye may live yet to be as rich as mysel'. Ye see, ye
+      would have always had a share of it when A was gone; it appears ye're
+      needin' it now; well, ye'll get the less, as is only just and proper.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Uncle Adam cleared his throat. &ldquo;This is very handsome, father,&rdquo;
+      said he; &ldquo;and I am sure Loudon feels it so. Very handsome, and as
+      you say, very just; but will you allow me to say that it had better,
+      perhaps, be put in black and white?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The enmity always smouldering between the two men at this ill-judged
+      interruption almost burst in flame. The stonemason turned upon his
+      offspring, his long upper lip pulled down, for all the world, like a
+      monkey's. He stared a while in virulent silence; and then &ldquo;Get
+      Gregg!&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The effect of these words was very visible. &ldquo;He will be gone to his
+      office,&rdquo; stammered my uncle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Get Gregg!&rdquo; repeated my grandfather.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I tell you, he will be gone to his office,&rdquo; reiterated Adam.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I tell ye, he's takin' his smoke,&rdquo; retorted the old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well, then,&rdquo; cried my uncle, getting to his feet with
+      some alacrity, as upon a sudden change of thought, &ldquo;I will get him
+      myself.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ye will not!&rdquo; cried my grandfather. &ldquo;Ye will sit there
+      upon your hinderland.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then how the devil am I to get him?&rdquo; my uncle broke forth,
+      with not unnatural petulance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My grandfather (having no possible answer) grinned at his son with the
+      malice of a schoolboy; then he rang the bell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take the garden key,&rdquo; said Uncle Adam to the servant; &ldquo;go
+      over to the garden, and if Mr. Gregg the lawyer is there (he generally
+      sits under the red hawthorn), give him old Mr. Loudon's compliments, and
+      will he step in here for a moment?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Gregg the lawyer!&rdquo; At once I understood (what had been
+      puzzling me) the significance of my grandfather and the alarm of my poor
+      uncle: the stonemason's will, it was supposed, hung trembling in the
+      balance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look here, grandfather,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;I didn't want any of
+      this. All I wanted was a loan of (say) two hundred pounds. I can take care
+      of myself; I have prospects and opportunities, good friends in the States&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man waved me down. &ldquo;It's me that speaks here,&rdquo; he said
+      curtly; and we waited the coming of the lawyer in a triple silence. He
+      appeared at last, the maid ushering him in&mdash;a spectacled, dry, but
+      not ungenial looking man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here, Gregg,&rdquo; cried my grandfather. &ldquo;Just a question:
+      What has Aadam got to do with my will?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm afraid I don't quite understand,&rdquo; said the lawyer,
+      staring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What has he got to do with it?&rdquo; repeated the old man, smiting
+      with his fist upon the arm of his chair. &ldquo;Is my money mine's, or is
+      it Aadam's? Can Aadam interfere?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, I see,&rdquo; said Mr. Gregg. &ldquo;Certainly not. On the
+      marriage of both of your children a certain sum was paid down and accepted
+      in full of legitim. You have surely not forgotten the circumstance, Mr.
+      Loudon?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So that, if I like,&rdquo; concluded my grandfather, hammering out
+      his words, &ldquo;I can leave every doit I die possessed of to the Great
+      Magunn?&rdquo;&mdash;meaning probably the Great Mogul.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No doubt of it,&rdquo; replied Gregg, with a shadow of a smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ye hear that, Aadam?&rdquo; asked my grandfather.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I may be allowed to say I had no need to hear it,&rdquo; said my
+      uncle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well,&rdquo; says my grandfather. &ldquo;You and Jeannie's yin
+      can go for a bit walk. Me and Gregg has business.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When once I was in the hall alone with Uncle Adam, I turned to him, sick
+      at heart. &ldquo;Uncle Adam,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;you can understand,
+      better than I can say, how very painful all this is to me.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I am sorry you have seen your grandfather in so unamiable a
+      light,&rdquo; replied this extraordinary man. &ldquo;You shouldn't allow
+      it to affect your mind though. He has sterling qualities, quite an
+      extraordinary character; and I have no fear but he means to behave
+      handsomely to you.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His composure was beyond my imitation: the house could not contain me, nor
+      could I even promise to return to it: in concession to which weakness, it
+      was agreed that I should call in about an hour at the office of the
+      lawyer, whom (as he left the library) Uncle Adam should waylay and inform
+      of the arrangement. I suppose there was never a more topsy-turvy
+      situation: you would have thought it was I who had suffered some rebuff,
+      and that iron-sided Adam was a generous conqueror who scorned to take
+      advantage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was plain enough that I was to be endowed: to what extent and upon what
+      conditions I was now left for an hour to meditate in the wide and solitary
+      thoroughfares of the new town, taking counsel with street-corner statues
+      of George IV. and William Pitt, improving my mind with the pictures in the
+      window of a music-shop, and renewing my acquaintance with Edinburgh east
+      wind. By the end of the hour I made my way to Mr. Gregg's office, where I
+      was placed, with a few appropriate words, in possession of a cheque for
+      two thousand pounds and a small parcel of architectural works.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Loudon bids me add,&rdquo; continued the lawyer, consulting a
+      little sheet of notes, &ldquo;that although these volumes are very
+      valuable to the practical builder, you must be careful not to lose
+      originality. He tells you also not to be 'hadden doun'&mdash;his own
+      expression&mdash;by the theory of strains, and that Portland cement,
+      properly sanded, will go a long way.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I smiled, and remarked that I supposed it would.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I once lived in one of my excellent client's houses,&rdquo;
+      observed the lawyer; &ldquo;and I was tempted, in that case, to think it
+      had gone far enough.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Under these circumstances, sir,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;you will be
+      rather relieved to hear that I have no intention of becoming a builder.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this, he fairly laughed; and, the ice being broken, I was able to
+      consult him as to my conduct. He insisted I must return to the house, at
+      least, for luncheon, and one of my walks with Mr. Loudon. &ldquo;For the
+      evening, I will furnish you with an excuse, if you please,&rdquo; said he,
+      &ldquo;by asking you to a bachelor dinner with myself. But the luncheon
+      and the walk are unavoidable. He is an old man, and, I believe, really
+      fond of you; he would naturally feel aggrieved if there were any
+      appearance of avoiding him; and as for Mr. Adam, do you know, I think your
+      delicacy out of place.... And now, Mr. Dodd, what are you to do with this
+      money?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ay, there was the question. With two thousand pounds&mdash;fifty thousand
+      francs&mdash;I might return to Paris and the arts, and be a prince and
+      millionaire in that thrifty Latin Quarter. I think I had the grace, with
+      one corner of my mind, to be glad that I had sent the London letter: I
+      know very well that with the rest and worst of me, I repented bitterly of
+      that precipitate act. On one point, however, my whole multiplex estate of
+      man was unanimous: the letter being gone, there was no help but I must
+      follow. The money was accordingly divided in two unequal shares: for the
+      first, Mr. Gregg got me a bill in the name of Dijon to meet my liabilities
+      in Paris; for the second, as I had already cash in hand for the expenses
+      of my journey, he supplied me with drafts on San Francisco.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rest of my business in Edinburgh, not to dwell on a very agreeable
+      dinner with the lawyer or the horrors of the family luncheon, took the
+      form of an excursion with the stonemason, who led me this time to no
+      suburb or work of his old hands, but with an impulse both natural and
+      pretty, to that more enduring home which he had chosen for his clay. It
+      was in a cemetery, by some strange chance, immured within the bulwarks of
+      a prison; standing, besides, on the margin of a cliff, crowded with
+      elderly stone memorials, and green with turf and ivy. The east wind (which
+      I thought too harsh for the old man) continually shook the boughs, and the
+      thin sun of a Scottish summer drew their dancing shadows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wanted ye to see the place,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;Yon's the
+      stane. Euphemia Ross: that was my goodwife, your grandmither&mdash;hoots!
+      I'm wrong; that was my first yin; I had no bairns by her;&mdash;yours is
+      the second, Mary Murray, Born 1819, Died 1850: that's her&mdash;a fine,
+      plain, decent sort of a creature, tak' her athegether. Alexander Loudon,
+      Born Seventeen Ninety-Twa, Died&mdash;and then a hole in the ballant:
+      that's me. Alexander's my name. They ca'd me Ecky when I was a boy. Eh,
+      Ecky! ye're an awfu' auld man!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had a second and sadder experience of graveyards at my next
+      alighting-place, the city of Muskegon, now rendered conspicuous by the
+      dome of the new capitol encaged in scaffolding. It was late in the
+      afternoon when I arrived, and raining; and as I walked in great streets,
+      of the very name of which I was quite ignorant&mdash;double, treble, and
+      quadruple lines of horse-cars jingling by&mdash;hundred-fold wires of
+      telegraph and telephone matting heaven above my head&mdash;huge, staring
+      houses, garish and gloomy, flanking me from either hand&mdash;the thought
+      of the Rue Racine, ay, and of the cabman's eating-house, brought tears to
+      my eyes. The whole monotonous Babel had grown, or I should rather say
+      swelled, with such a leap since my departure, that I must continually
+      inquire my way; and the very cemetery was brand new. Death, however, had
+      been active; the graves were already numerous, and I must pick my way in
+      the rain, among the tawdry sepulchres of millionnaires, and past the plain
+      black crosses of Hungarian labourers, till chance or instinct led me to
+      the place that was my father's. The stone had been erected (I knew
+      already) &ldquo;by admiring friends&rdquo;; I could now judge their taste
+      in monuments; their taste in literature, methought, I could imagine, and I
+      refrained from drawing near enough to read the terms of the inscription.
+      But the name was in larger letters and stared at me&mdash;JAMES K. DODD.
+      What a singular thing is a name, I thought; how it clings to a man, and
+      continually misrepresents, and then survives him; and it flashed across my
+      mind, with a mixture of regret and bitter mirth, that I had never known,
+      and now probably never should know, what the K had represented. King,
+      Kilter, Kay, Kaiser, I went, running over names at random, and then
+      stumbled with ludicrous misspelling on Kornelius, and had nearly laughed
+      aloud. I have never been more childish; I suppose (although the deeper
+      voices of my nature seemed all dumb) because I have never been more moved.
+      And at this last incongruous antic of my nerves, I was seized with a panic
+      of remorse and fled the cemetery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Scarce less funereal was the rest of my experience in Muskegon, where,
+      nevertheless, I lingered, visiting my father's circle, for some days. It
+      was in piety to him I lingered; and I might have spared myself the pain.
+      His memory was already quite gone out. For his sake, indeed, I was made
+      welcome; and for mine the conversation rolled awhile with laborious effort
+      on the virtues of the deceased. His former comrades dwelt, in my company,
+      upon his business talents or his generosity for public purposes; when my
+      back was turned, they remembered him no more. My father had loved me; I
+      had left him alone to live and die among the indifferent; now I returned
+      to find him dead and buried and forgotten. Unavailing penitence translated
+      itself in my thoughts to fresh resolve. There was another poor soul who
+      loved me: Pinkerton. I must not be guilty twice of the same error.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A week perhaps had been thus wasted, nor had I prepared my friend for the
+      delay. Accordingly, when I had changed trains at Council Bluffs, I was
+      aware of a man appearing at the end of the car with a telegram in his hand
+      and inquiring whether there were any one aboard &ldquo;of the name of
+      LONDON Dodd?&rdquo; I thought the name near enough, claimed the despatch,
+      and found it was from Pinkerton: &ldquo;What day do you arrive? Awfully
+      important.&rdquo; I sent him an answer giving day and hour, and at Ogden
+      found a fresh despatch awaiting me: &ldquo;That will do. Unspeakable
+      relief. Meet you at Sacramento.&rdquo; In Paris days I had a private name
+      for Pinkerton: &ldquo;The Irrepressible&rdquo; was what I had called him
+      in hours of bitterness, and the name rose once more on my lips. What
+      mischief was he up to now? What new bowl was my benignant monster brewing
+      for his Frankenstein? In what new imbroglio should I alight on the Pacific
+      coast? My trust in the man was entire, and my distrust perfect. I knew he
+      would never mean amiss; but I was convinced he would almost never (in my
+      sense) do aright.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I suppose these vague anticipations added a shade of gloom to that already
+      gloomy place of travel: Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, scowled in my
+      face at least, and seemed to point me back again to that other native land
+      of mine, the Latin Quarter. But when the Sierras had been climbed, and the
+      train, after so long beating and panting, stretched itself upon the
+      downward track&mdash;when I beheld that vast extent of prosperous country
+      rolling seaward from the woods and the blue mountains, that illimitable
+      spread of rippling corn, the trees growing and blowing in the merry
+      weather, the country boys thronging aboard the train with figs and
+      peaches, and the conductors, and the very darky stewards, visibly exulting
+      in the change&mdash;up went my soul like a balloon; Care fell from his
+      perch upon my shoulders; and when I spied my Pinkerton among the crowd at
+      Sacramento, I thought of nothing but to shout and wave for him, and grasp
+      him by the hand, like what he was&mdash;my dearest friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O Loudon!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;Man, how I've pined for you! And
+      you haven't come an hour too soon. You're known here and waited for; I've
+      been booming you already; you're billed for a lecture to-morrow night: <i>Student
+      Life in Paris, Grave and Gay</i>: twelve hundred places booked at the last
+      stock! Tut, man, you're looking thin! Here, try a drop of this.&rdquo; And
+      he produced a case bottle, staringly labelled PINKERTON'S THIRTEEN STAR
+      GOLDEN STATE BRANDY, WARRANTED ENTIRE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God bless me!&rdquo; said I, gasping and winking after my first
+      plunge into this fiery fluid. &ldquo;And what does 'Warranted Entire'
+      mean?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, Loudon! you ought to know that!&rdquo; cried Pinkerton.
+      &ldquo;It's real, copper-bottomed English; you see it on all the old-time
+      wayside hostelries over there.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But if I'm not mistaken, it means something Warranted Entirely
+      different,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;and applies to the public house, and not
+      the beverages sold.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's very possible,&rdquo; said Jim, quite unabashed. &ldquo;It's
+      effective, anyway; and I can tell you, sir, it has boomed that spirit: it
+      goes now by the gross of cases. By the way, I hope you won't mind; I've
+      got your portrait all over San Francisco for the lecture, enlarged from
+      that carte de visite: H. Loudon Dodd, the Americo-Parisienne Sculptor.
+      Here's a proof of the small handbills; the posters are the same, only in
+      red and blue, and the letters fourteen by one.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked at the handbill, and my head turned. What was the use of words?
+      why seek to explain to Pinkerton the knotted horrors of &ldquo;Americo-Parisienne&rdquo;?
+      He took an early occasion to point it out as &ldquo;rather a good phrase;
+      gives the two sides at a glance: I wanted the lecture written up to that.&rdquo;
+      Even after we had reached San Francisco, and at the actual physical shock
+      of my own effigy placarded on the streets I had broken forth in petulant
+      words, he never comprehended in the least the ground of my aversion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I had only known you disliked red lettering!&rdquo; was as high
+      as he could rise. &ldquo;You are perfectly right: a clear-cut black is
+      preferable, and shows a great deal further. The only thing that pains me
+      is the portrait: I own I thought that a success. I'm dreadfully and truly
+      sorry, my dear fellow: I see now it's not what you had a right to expect;
+      but I did it, Loudon, for the best; and the press is all delighted.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the moment, sweeping through green tule swamps, I fell direct on the
+      essential. &ldquo;But, Pinkerton,&rdquo; I cried, &ldquo;this lecture is
+      the maddest of your madnesses. How can I prepare a lecture in thirty
+      hours?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All done, Loudon!&rdquo; he exclaimed in triumph. &ldquo;All ready.
+      Trust me to pull a piece of business through. You'll find it all
+      type-written in my desk at home. I put the best talent of San Francisco on
+      the job: Harry Miller, the brightest pressman in the city.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so he rattled on, beyond reach of my modest protestations, blurting
+      out his complicated interests, crying up his new acquaintances, and ever
+      and again hungering to introduce me to some &ldquo;whole-souled, grand
+      fellow, as sharp as a needle,&rdquo; from whom, and the very thought of
+      whom, my spirit shrank instinctively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, I was in for it: in for Pinkerton, in for the portrait, in for the
+      type-written lecture. One promise I extorted&mdash;that I was never again
+      to be committed in ignorance; even for that, when I saw how its extortion
+      puzzled and depressed the Irrepressible, my soul repented me; and in all
+      else I suffered myself to be led uncomplaining at his chariot wheels. The
+      Irrepressible, did I say? The Irresistible were nigher truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the time to have seen me was when I sat down to Harry Miller's
+      lecture. He was a facetious dog, this Harry Miller; he had a gallant way
+      of skirting the indecent which (in my case) produced physical nausea; and
+      he could be sentimental and even melodramatic about grisettes and starving
+      genius. I found he had enjoyed the benefit of my correspondence with
+      Pinkerton: adventures of my own were here and there horridly
+      misrepresented, sentiments of my own echoed and exaggerated till I blushed
+      to recognise them. I will do Harry Miller justice: he must have had a kind
+      of talent, almost of genius; all attempts to lower his tone proving
+      fruitless, and the Harry-Millerism ineradicable. Nay, the monster had a
+      certain key of style, or want of style, so that certain milder passages,
+      which I sought to introduce, discorded horribly, and impoverished (if that
+      were possible) the general effect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By an early hour of the numbered evening I might have been observed at the
+      sign of the Poodle Dog, dining with my agent: so Pinkerton delighted to
+      describe himself. Thence, like an ox to the slaughter, he led me to the
+      hall, where I stood presently alone, confronting assembled San Francisco,
+      with no better allies than a table, a glass of water, and a mass of
+      manuscript and typework, representing Harry Miller and myself. I read the
+      lecture; for I had lacked both time and will to get the trash by heart&mdash;read
+      it hurriedly, humbly, and with visible shame. Now and then I would catch
+      in the auditorium an eye of some intelligence, now and then, in the
+      manuscript, would stumble on a richer vein of Harry Miller, and my heart
+      would fail me, and I gabbled. The audience yawned, it stirred uneasily, it
+      muttered, grumbled, and broke forth at last in articulate cries of &ldquo;Speak
+      up!&rdquo; and &ldquo;Nobody can hear!&rdquo; I took to skipping, and
+      being extremely ill-acquainted with the country, almost invariably cut in
+      again in the unintelligible midst of some new topic. What struck me as
+      extremely ominous, these misfortunes were allowed to pass without a laugh.
+      Indeed, I was beginning to fear the worst, and even personal indignity,
+      when all at once the humour of the thing broke upon me strongly. I could
+      have laughed aloud; and being again summoned to speak up, I faced my
+      patrons for the first time with a smile. &ldquo;Very well,&rdquo; I said,
+      &ldquo;I will try, though I don't suppose anybody wants to hear, and I
+      can't see why anybody should.&rdquo; Audience and lecturer laughed
+      together till the tears ran down; vociferous and repeated applause hailed
+      my impromptu sally. Another hit which I made but a little after, as I
+      turned three pages of the copy: &ldquo;You see, I am leaving out as much
+      as I possibly can,&rdquo; increased the esteem with which my patrons had
+      begun to regard me; and when I left the stage at last, my departing form
+      was cheered with laughter, stamping, shouting, and the waving of hats.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pinkerton was in the waiting-room, feverishly jotting in his pocket-book.
+      As he saw me enter, he sprang up, and I declare the tears were trickling
+      on his cheeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear boy,&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;I can never forgive myself,
+      and you can never forgive me. Never mind: I did it for the best. And how
+      nobly you clung on! I dreaded we should have had to return the money at
+      the doors.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It would have been more honest if we had,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The pressmen followed me, Harry Miller in the front ranks; and I was
+      amazed to find them, on the whole, a pleasant set of lads, probably more
+      sinned against than sinning, and even Harry Miller apparently a gentleman.
+      I had in oysters and champagne&mdash;for the receipts were excellent&mdash;and
+      being in a high state of nervous tension, kept the table in a roar.
+      Indeed, I was never in my life so well inspired as when I described my
+      vigil over Harry Miller's literature or the series of my emotions as I
+      faced the audience. The lads vowed I was the soul of good company and the
+      prince of lecturers; and&mdash;so wonderful an institution is the popular
+      press&mdash;if you had seen the notices next day in all the papers, you
+      must have supposed my evening's entertainment an unqualified success.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was in excellent spirits when I returned home that night, but the
+      miserable Pinkerton sorrowed for us both.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, Loudon,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I shall never forgive myself.
+      When I saw you didn't catch on to the idea of the lecture, I should have
+      given it myself!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VII. IRONS IN THE FIRE.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Opes Strepitumque.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The food of the body differs not so greatly for the fool or the sage, the
+      elephant or the cock-sparrow; and similar chemical elements, variously
+      disguised, support all mortals. A brief study of Pinkerton in his new
+      setting convinced me of a kindred truth about that other and mental
+      digestion, by which we extract what is called &ldquo;fun for our money&rdquo;
+      out of life. In the same spirit as a schoolboy, deep in Mayne Reid,
+      handles a dummy gun and crawls among imaginary forests, Pinkerton sped
+      through Kearney Street upon his daily business, representing to himself a
+      highly coloured part in life's performance, and happy for hours if he
+      should have chanced to brush against a millionnaire. Reality was his
+      romance; he gloried to be thus engaged; he wallowed in his business.
+      Suppose a man to dig up a galleon on the Coromandel coast, his rakish
+      schooner keeping the while an offing under easy sail, and he, by the blaze
+      of a great fire of wreckwood, to measure ingots by the bucketful on the
+      uproarious beach: such an one might realise a greater material spoil; he
+      should have no more profit of romance than Pinkerton when he cast up his
+      weekly balance-sheet in a bald office. Every dollar gained was like
+      something brought ashore from a mysterious deep; every venture made was
+      like a diver's plunge; and as he thrust his bold hand into the plexus of
+      the money-market, he was delightedly aware of how he shook the pillars of
+      existence, turned out men (as at a battle-cry) to labour in far countries,
+      and set the gold twitching in the drawers of millionnaires.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I could never fathom the full extent of his speculations; but there were
+      five separate businesses which he avowed and carried like a banner. The
+      Thirteen Star Golden State Brandy, Warranted Entire (a very flagrant
+      distillation) filled a great part of his thoughts, and was kept before the
+      public in an eloquent but misleading treatise: <i>Why Drink French Brandy?
+      A Word to the Wise.</i> He kept an office for advertisers, counselling,
+      designing, acting as middleman with printers and bill-stickers, for the
+      inexperienced or the uninspired: the dull haberdasher came to him for
+      ideas, the smart theatrical agent for his local knowledge; and one and all
+      departed with a copy of his pamphlet: <i>How, When, and Where; or, the
+      Advertiser's Vade-Mecum.</i> He had a tug chartered every Saturday
+      afternoon and night, carried people outside the Heads, and provided them
+      with lines and bait for six hours' fishing, at the rate of five dollars a
+      person. I am told that some of them (doubtless adroit anglers) made a
+      profit on the transaction. Occasionally he bought wrecks and condemned
+      vessels; these latter (I cannot tell you how) found their way to sea again
+      under aliases, and continued to stem the waves triumphantly enough under
+      the colours of Bolivia or Nicaragua. Lastly, there was a certain
+      agricultural engine, glorying in a great deal of vermilion and blue paint,
+      and filling (it appeared) a &ldquo;long-felt want,&rdquo; in which his
+      interest was something like a tenth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This for the face or front of his concerns. &ldquo;On the outside,&rdquo;
+      as he phrased it, he was variously and mysteriously engaged. No dollar
+      slept in his possession; rather he kept all simultaneously flying like a
+      conjurer with oranges. My own earnings, when I began to have a share, he
+      would but show me for a moment, and disperse again, like those illusive
+      money gifts which are flashed in the eyes of childhood only to be entombed
+      in the missionary box. And he would come down radiant from a weekly
+      balance-sheet, clap me on the shoulder, declare himself a winner by
+      Gargantuan figures, and prove destitute of a quarter for a drink.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What on earth have you done with it?&rdquo; I would ask.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Into the mill again; all re-invested!&rdquo; he would cry, with
+      infinite delight. Investment was ever his word. He could not bear what he
+      called gambling. &ldquo;Never touch stocks, Loudon,&rdquo; he would say;
+      &ldquo;nothing but legitimate business.&rdquo; And yet, Heaven knows, many
+      an indurated gambler might have drawn back appalled at the first hint of
+      some of Pinkerton's investments! One, which I succeeded in tracking home,
+      and instance for a specimen, was a seventh share in the charter of a
+      certain ill-starred schooner bound for Mexico, to smuggle weapons on the
+      one trip, and cigars upon the other. The latter end of this enterprise,
+      involving (as it did) shipwreck, confiscation, and a lawsuit with the
+      underwriters, was too painful to be dwelt upon at length. &ldquo;It's
+      proved a disappointment,&rdquo; was as far as my friend would go with me
+      in words; but I knew, from observation, that the fabric of his fortunes
+      tottered. For the rest, it was only by accident I got wind of the
+      transaction; for Pinkerton, after a time, was shy of introducing me to his
+      arcana: the reason you are to hear presently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The office which was (or should have been) the point of rest for so many
+      evolving dollars stood in the heart of the city: a high and spacious room,
+      with many plate-glass windows. A glazed cabinet of polished redwood
+      offered to the eye a regiment of some two hundred bottles, conspicuously
+      labelled. These were all charged with Pinkerton's Thirteen Star, although
+      from across the room it would have required an expert to distinguish them
+      from the same number of bottles of Courvoisier. I used to twit my friend
+      with this resemblance, and propose a new edition of the pamphlet, with the
+      title thus improved: <i>Why Drink French Brandy, when we give you the same
+      labels?</i> The doors of the cabinet revolved all day upon their hinges;
+      and if there entered any one who was a stranger to the merits of the
+      brand, he departed laden with a bottle. When I used to protest at this
+      extravagance, &ldquo;My dear Loudon,&rdquo; Pinkerton would cry, &ldquo;you
+      don't seem to catch on to business principles! The prime cost of the
+      spirit is literally nothing. I couldn't find a cheaper advertisement if I
+      tried.&rdquo; Against the side post of the cabinet there leaned a gaudy
+      umbrella, preserved there as a relic. It appears that when Pinkerton was
+      about to place Thirteen Star upon the market, the rainy season was at
+      hand. He lay dark, almost in penury, awaiting the first shower, at which,
+      as upon a signal, the main thoroughfares became dotted with his agents,
+      vendors of advertisements; and the whole world of San Francisco, from the
+      businessman fleeing for the ferry-boat, to the lady waiting at the corner
+      for her car, sheltered itself under umbrellas with this strange device:
+      Are you wet? Try Thirteen Star. &ldquo;It was a mammoth boom,&rdquo; said
+      Pinkerton, with a sigh of delighted recollection. &ldquo;There wasn't
+      another umbrella to be seen. I stood at this window, Loudon, feasting my
+      eyes; and I declare, I felt like Vanderbilt.&rdquo; And it was to this
+      neat application of the local climate that he owed, not only much of the
+      sale of Thirteen Star, but the whole business of his advertising agency.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The large desk (to resume our survey of the office) stood about the
+      middle, knee-deep in stacks of handbills and posters, of <i>Why Drink
+      French Brandy?</i> and <i>The Advertiser's Vade-Mecum.</i> It was flanked
+      upon the one hand by two female type-writers, who rested not between the
+      hours of nine and four, and upon the other by a model of the agricultural
+      machine. The walls, where they were not broken by telephone boxes and a
+      couple of photographs&mdash;one representing the wreck of the James L.
+      Moody on a bold and broken coast, the other the Saturday tug alive with
+      amateur fishers&mdash;almost disappeared under oil-paintings gaudily
+      framed. Many of these were relics of the Latin Quarter, and I must do
+      Pinkerton the justice to say that none of them were bad, and some had
+      remarkable merit. They went off slowly but for handsome figures; and their
+      places were progressively supplied with the work of local artists. These
+      last it was one of my first duties to review and criticise. Some of them
+      were villainous, yet all were saleable. I said so; and the next moment saw
+      myself, the figure of a miserable renegade, bearing arms in the wrong
+      camp. I was to look at pictures thenceforward, not with the eye of the
+      artist, but the dealer; and I saw the stream widen that divided me from
+      all I loved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, Loudon,&rdquo; Pinkerton had said, the morning after the
+      lecture, &ldquo;now Loudon, we can go at it shoulder to shoulder. This is
+      what I have longed for: I wanted two heads and four arms; and now I have
+      'em. You'll find it's just the same as art&mdash;all observation and
+      imagination; only more movement. Just wait till you begin to feel the
+      charm!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I might have waited long. Perhaps I lack a sense; for our whole existence
+      seemed to me one dreary bustle, and the place we bustled in fitly to be
+      called the Place of Yawning. I slept in a little den behind the office;
+      Pinkerton, in the office itself, stretched on a patent sofa which
+      sometimes collapsed, his slumbers still further menaced by an imminent
+      clock with an alarm. Roused by this diabolical contrivance, we rose early,
+      went forth early to breakfast, and returned by nine to what Pinkerton
+      called work, and I distraction. Masses of letters must be opened, read,
+      and answered; some by me at a subsidiary desk which had been introduced on
+      the morning of my arrival; others by my bright-eyed friend, pacing the
+      room like a caged lion as he dictated to the tinkling type-writers. Masses
+      of wet proof had to be overhauled and scrawled upon with a blue pencil&mdash;&ldquo;rustic&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;six-inch
+      caps&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;bold spacing here&rdquo;&mdash;or sometimes terms
+      more fervid, as for instance this, which I remember Pinkerton to have
+      spirted on the margin of an advertisement of Soothing Syrup: &ldquo;Throw
+      this all down. Have you never printed an advertisement? I'll be round in
+      half an hour.&rdquo; The ledger and sale-book, besides, we had always with
+      us. Such was the backbone of our occupation, and tolerable enough; but the
+      far greater proportion of our time was consumed by visitors, whole-souled,
+      grand fellows no doubt, and as sharp as a needle, but to me unfortunately
+      not diverting. Some were apparently half-witted, and must be talked over
+      by the hour before they could reach the humblest decision, which they only
+      left the office to return again (ten minutes later) and rescind. Others
+      came with a vast show of hurry and despatch, but I observed it to be
+      principally show. The agricultural model for instance, which was
+      practicable, proved a kind of flypaper for these busybodies. I have seen
+      them blankly turn the crank of it for five minutes at a time, simulating
+      (to nobody's deception) business interest: &ldquo;Good thing this,
+      Pinkerton? Sell much of it? Ha! Couldn't use it, I suppose, as a medium of
+      advertisement for my article?&rdquo;&mdash;which was perhaps toilet soap.
+      Others (a still worse variety) carried us to neighbouring saloons to dice
+      for cocktails and (after the cocktails were paid) for dollars on a corner
+      of the counter. The attraction of dice for all these people was indeed
+      extraordinary: at a certain club, where I once dined in the character of
+      &ldquo;my partner, Mr. Dodd,&rdquo; the dice-box came on the table with
+      the wine, an artless substitute for after-dinner wit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of all our visitors, I believe I preferred Emperor Norton; the very
+      mention of whose name reminds me I am doing scanty justice to the folks of
+      San Francisco. In what other city would a harmless madman who supposed
+      himself emperor of the two Americas have been so fostered and encouraged?
+      Where else would even the people of the streets have respected the poor
+      soul's illusion? Where else would bankers and merchants have received his
+      visits, cashed his cheques, and submitted to his small assessments? Where
+      else would he have been suffered to attend and address the exhibition days
+      of schools and colleges? where else, in God's green earth, have taken his
+      pick of restaurants, ransacked the bill of fare, and departed scathless?
+      They tell me he was even an exacting patron, threatening to withdraw his
+      custom when dissatisfied; and I can believe it, for his face wore an
+      expression distinctly gastronomical. Pinkerton had received from this
+      monarch a cabinet appointment; I have seen the brevet, wondering mainly at
+      the good nature of the printer who had executed the forms, and I think my
+      friend was at the head either of foreign affairs or education: it
+      mattered, indeed, nothing, the presentation being in all offices
+      identical. It was at a comparatively early date that I saw Jim in the
+      exercise of his public functions. His Majesty entered the office&mdash;a
+      portly, rather flabby man, with the face of a gentleman, rendered
+      unspeakably pathetic and absurd by the great sabre at his side and the
+      peacock's feather in his hat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have called to remind you, Mr. Pinkerton, that you are somewhat
+      in arrear of taxes,&rdquo; he said, with old-fashioned, stately courtesy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, your Majesty, what is the amount?&rdquo; asked Jim; and when
+      the figure was named (it was generally two or three dollars), paid upon
+      the nail and offered a bonus in the shape of Thirteen Star.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am always delighted to patronise native industries,&rdquo; said
+      Norton the First. &ldquo;San Francisco is public-spirited in what concerns
+      its Emperor; and indeed, sir, of all my domains, it is my favourite city.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come,&rdquo; said I, when he was gone, &ldquo;I prefer that
+      customer to the lot.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's really rather a distinction,&rdquo; Jim admitted. &ldquo;I
+      think it must have been the umbrella racket that attracted him.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We were distinguished under the rose by the notice of other and greater
+      men. There were days when Jim wore an air of unusual capacity and resolve,
+      spoke with more brevity like one pressed for time, and took often on his
+      tongue such phrases as &ldquo;Longhurst told me so this morning,&rdquo; or
+      &ldquo;I had it straight from Longhurst himself.&rdquo; It was no wonder,
+      I used to think, that Pinkerton was called to council with such Titans;
+      for the creature's quickness and resource were beyond praise. In the early
+      days when he consulted me without reserve, pacing the room, projecting,
+      ciphering, extending hypothetical interests, trebling imaginary capital,
+      his &ldquo;engine&rdquo; (to renew an excellent old word) labouring full
+      steam ahead, I could never decide whether my sense of respect or
+      entertainment were the stronger. But these good hours were destined to
+      curtailment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, it's smart enough,&rdquo; I once observed. &ldquo;But,
+      Pinkerton, do you think it's honest?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't think it's honest!&rdquo; he wailed. &ldquo;O dear me,
+      that ever I should have heard such an expression on your lips!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At sight of his distress, I plagiarised unblushingly from Myner. &ldquo;You
+      seem to think honesty as simple as Blind Man's Buff,&rdquo; said I.
+      &ldquo;It's a more delicate affair than that: delicate as any art.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O well! at that rate!&rdquo; he exclaimed, with complete relief.
+      &ldquo;That's casuistry.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am perfectly certain of one thing: that what you propose is
+      dishonest,&rdquo; I returned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, say no more about it. That's settled,&rdquo; he replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus, almost at a word, my point was carried. But the trouble was that
+      such differences continued to recur, until we began to regard each other
+      with alarm. If there were one thing Pinkerton valued himself upon, it was
+      his honesty; if there were one thing he clung to, it was my good opinion;
+      and when both were involved, as was the case in these commercial cruces,
+      the man was on the rack. My own position, if you consider how much I owed
+      him, how hateful is the trade of fault-finder, and that yet I lived and
+      fattened on these questionable operations, was perhaps equally
+      distressing. If I had been more sterling or more combative things might
+      have gone extremely far. But, in truth, I was just base enough to profit
+      by what was not forced on my attention, rather than seek scenes: Pinkerton
+      quite cunning enough to avail himself of my weakness; and it was a relief
+      to both when he began to involve his proceedings in a decent mystery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Our last dispute, which had a most unlooked-for consequence, turned on the
+      refitting of condemned ships. He had bought a miserable hulk, and came,
+      rubbing his hands, to inform me she was already on the slip, under a new
+      name, to be repaired. When first I had heard of this industry I suppose I
+      scarcely comprehended; but much discussion had sharpened my faculties, and
+      now my brow became heavy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can be no party to that, Pinkerton,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He leaped like a man shot. &ldquo;What next?&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;What
+      ails you, anyway? You seem to me to dislike everything that's profitable.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This ship has been condemned by Lloyd's agent,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I tell you it's a deal. The ship's in splendid condition;
+      there's next to nothing wrong with her but the garboard streak and the
+      sternpost. I tell you Lloyd's is a ring like everybody else; only it's an
+      English ring, and that's what deceives you. If it was American, you would
+      be crying it down all day. It's Anglomania, common Anglomania,&rdquo; he
+      cried, with growing irritation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will not make money by risking men's lives,&rdquo; was my
+      ultimatum.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Great Caesar! isn't all speculation a risk? Isn't the fairest kind
+      of shipowning to risk men's lives? And mining&mdash;how's that for risk?
+      And look at the elevator business&mdash;there's danger, if you like!
+      Didn't I take my risk when I bought her? She might have been too far gone;
+      and where would I have been? Loudon,&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;I tell you
+      the truth: you're too full of refinement for this world!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I condemn you out of your own lips,&rdquo; I replied. &ldquo;'The
+      fairest kind of shipowning,' says you. If you please, let us only do the
+      fairest kind of business.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The shot told; the Irrepressible was silenced; and I profited by the
+      chance to pour in a broadside of another sort. He was all sunk in
+      money-getting, I pointed out; he never dreamed of anything but dollars.
+      Where were all his generous, progressive sentiments? Where was his
+      culture? I asked. And where was the American Type?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's true, Loudon,&rdquo; he cried, striding up and down the room,
+      and wildly scouring at his hair. &ldquo;You're perfectly right. I'm
+      becoming materialised. O, what a thing to have to say, what a confession
+      to make! Materialised! Me! Loudon, this must go on no longer. You've been
+      a loyal friend to me once more; give me your hand!&mdash;you've saved me
+      again. I must do something to rouse the spiritual side; something
+      desperate; study something, something dry and tough. What shall it be?
+      Theology? Algebra? What's Algebra?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's dry and tough enough,&rdquo; said I; &ldquo;a squared + 2ab +
+      b squared.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's stimulating, though?&rdquo; he inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I told him I believed so, and that it was considered fortifying to Types.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then that's the thing for me. I'll study Algebra,&rdquo; he
+      concluded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next day, by application to one of his type-writing women, he got word
+      of a young lady, one Miss Mamie McBride, who was willing and able to
+      conduct him in these bloomless meadows; and, her circumstances being lean,
+      and terms consequently moderate, he and Mamie were soon in agreement for
+      two lessons in the week. He took fire with unexampled rapidity; he seemed
+      unable to tear himself away from the symbolic art; an hour's lesson
+      occupied the whole evening; and the original two was soon increased to
+      four, and then to five. I bade him beware of female blandishments. &ldquo;The
+      first thing you know, you'll be falling in love with the algebraist,&rdquo;
+      said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't say it even in jest,&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;She's a lady I
+      revere. I could no more lay a hand upon her than I could upon a spirit.
+      Loudon, I don't believe God ever made a purer-minded woman.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Which appeared to me too fervent to be reassuring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile I had been long expostulating with my friend upon a different
+      matter. &ldquo;I'm the fifth wheel,&rdquo; I kept telling him. &ldquo;For
+      any use I am, I might as well be in Senegambia. The letters you give me to
+      attend to might be answered by a sucking child. And I tell you what it is,
+      Pinkerton: either you've got to find me some employment, or I'll have to
+      start in and find it for myself.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This I said with a corner of my eye in the usual quarter, toward the arts,
+      little dreaming what destiny was to provide.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've got it, Loudon,&rdquo; Pinkerton at last replied. &ldquo;Got
+      the idea on the Potrero cars. Found I hadn't a pencil, borrowed one from
+      the conductor, and figured on it roughly all the way in town. I saw it was
+      the thing at last; gives you a real show. All your talents and
+      accomplishments come in. Here's a sketch advertisement. Just run your eye
+      over it. 'Sun, Ozone, and Music! PINKERTON'S HEBDOMADARY PICNICS!' (That's
+      a good, catching phrase, 'hebdomadary,' though it's hard to say. I made a
+      note of it when I was looking in the dictionary how to spell hectagonal.
+      'Well, you're a boss word,' I said. 'Before you're very much older, I'll
+      have you in type as long as yourself.' And here it is, you see.) 'Five
+      dollars a head, and ladies free. MONSTER OLIO OF ATTRACTIONS.' (How does
+      that strike you?) 'Free luncheon under the greenwood tree. Dance on the
+      elastic sward. Home again in the Bright Evening Hours. Manager and
+      Honorary Steward, H. Loudon Dodd, Esq., the well-known connoisseur.'&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Singular how a man runs from Scylla to Charybdis! I was so intent on
+      securing the disappearance of a single epithet that I accepted the rest of
+      the advertisement and all that it involved without discussion. So it
+      befell that the words &ldquo;well-known connoisseur&rdquo; were deleted;
+      but that H. Loudon Dodd became manager and honorary steward of Pinkerton's
+      Hebdomadary Picnics, soon shortened, by popular consent, to the Dromedary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By eight o'clock, any Sunday morning, I was to be observed by an admiring
+      public on the wharf. The garb and attributes of sacrifice consisted of a
+      black frock coat, rosetted, its pockets bulging with sweetmeats and
+      inferior cigars, trousers of light blue, a silk hat like a reflector, and
+      a varnished wand. A goodly steamer guarded my one flank, panting and
+      throbbing, flags fluttering fore and aft of her, illustrative of the
+      Dromedary and patriotism. My other flank was covered by the ticket-office,
+      strongly held by a trusty character of the Scots persuasion, rosetted like
+      his superior and smoking a cigar to mark the occasion festive. At
+      half-past, having assured myself that all was well with the free
+      luncheons, I lit a cigar myself, and awaited the strains of the &ldquo;Pioneer
+      Band.&rdquo; I had never to wait long&mdash;they were German and punctual&mdash;and
+      by a few minutes after the half-hour, I would hear them booming down
+      street with a long military roll of drums, some score of gratuitous asses
+      prancing at the head in bearskin hats and buckskin aprons, and conspicuous
+      with resplendent axes. The band, of course, we paid for; but so strong is
+      the San Franciscan passion for public masquerade, that the asses (as I
+      say) were all gratuitous, pranced for the love of it, and cost us nothing
+      but their luncheon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The musicians formed up in the bows of my steamer, and struck into a
+      skittish polka; the asses mounted guard upon the gangway and the
+      ticket-office; and presently after, in family parties of father, mother,
+      and children, in the form of duplicate lovers or in that of solitary
+      youth, the public began to descend upon us by the carful at a time; four
+      to six hundred perhaps, with a strong German flavour, and all merry as
+      children. When these had been shepherded on board, and the inevitable
+      belated two or three had gained the deck amidst the cheering of the
+      public, the hawser was cast off, and we plunged into the bay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now behold the honorary steward in hour of duty and glory; see me
+      circulate amid crowd, radiating affability and laughter, liberal with my
+      sweetmeats and cigars. I say unblushing things to hobbledehoy girls, tell
+      shy young persons this is the married people's boat, roguishly ask the
+      abstracted if they are thinking of their sweethearts, offer Paterfamilias
+      a cigar, am struck with the beauty and grow curious about the age of
+      mamma's youngest who (I assure her gaily) will be a man before his mother;
+      or perhaps it may occur to me, from the sensible expression of her face,
+      that she is a person of good counsel, and I ask her earnestly if she knows
+      any particularly pleasant place on the Saucelito or San Rafael coast, for
+      the scene of our picnic is always supposed to be uncertain. The next
+      moment I am back at my giddy badinage with the young ladies, wakening
+      laughter as I go, and leaving in my wake applausive comments of &ldquo;Isn't
+      Mr. Dodd a funny gentleman?&rdquo; and &ldquo;O, I think he's just too
+      nice!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An hour having passed in this airy manner, I start upon my rounds afresh,
+      with a bag full of coloured tickets, all with pins attached, and all with
+      legible inscriptions: &ldquo;Old Germany,&rdquo; &ldquo;California,&rdquo;
+      &ldquo;True Love,&rdquo; &ldquo;Old Fogies,&rdquo; &ldquo;La Belle France,&rdquo;
+      &ldquo;Green Erin,&rdquo; &ldquo;The Land of Cakes,&rdquo; &ldquo;Washington,&rdquo;
+      &ldquo;Blue Jay,&rdquo; &ldquo;Robin Red-Breast,&rdquo;&mdash;twenty of
+      each denomination; for when it comes to the luncheon, we sit down by
+      twenties. These are distributed with anxious tact&mdash;for, indeed, this
+      is the most delicate part of my functions&mdash;but outwardly with
+      reckless unconcern, amidst the gayest flutter and confusion; and are
+      immediately after sported upon hats and bonnets, to the extreme diffusion
+      of cordiality, total strangers hailing each other by &ldquo;the number of
+      their mess&rdquo;&mdash;so we humorously name it&mdash;and the deck
+      ringing with cries of, &ldquo;Here, all Blue Jays to the rescue!&rdquo;
+      or, &ldquo;I say, am I alone in this blame' ship? Ain't there no more
+      Californians?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By this time we are drawing near to the appointed spot. I mount upon the
+      bridge, the observed of all observers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Captain,&rdquo; I say, in clear, emphatic tones, heard far and
+      wide, &ldquo;the majority of the company appear to be in favour of the
+      little cove beyond One Tree Point.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right, Mr. Dodd,&rdquo; responds the captain, heartily; &ldquo;all
+      one to me. I am not exactly sure of the place you mean; but just you stay
+      here and pilot me.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I do, pointing with my wand. I do pilot him, to the inexpressible
+      entertainment of the picnic; for I am (why should I deny it?) the popular
+      man. We slow down off the mouth of a grassy valley, watered by a brook,
+      and set in pines and redwoods. The anchor is let go; the boats are
+      lowered, two of them already packed with the materials of an impromptu
+      bar; and the Pioneer Band, accompanied by the resplendent asses, fill the
+      other, and move shoreward to the inviting strains of Buffalo Gals, won't
+      you come out to-night? It is a part of our programme that one of the asses
+      shall, from sheer clumsiness, in the course of this embarkation, drop a
+      dummy axe into the water, whereupon the mirth of the picnic can hardly be
+      assuaged. Upon one occasion, the dummy axe floated, and the laugh turned
+      rather the wrong way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In from ten to twenty minutes the boats are along-side again, the messes
+      are marshalled separately on the deck, and the picnic goes ashore, to find
+      the band and the impromptu bar awaiting them. Then come the hampers, which
+      are piled upon the beach, and surrounded by a stern guard of stalwart
+      asses, axe on shoulder. It is here I take my place, note-book in hand,
+      under a banner bearing the legend, &ldquo;Come here for hampers.&rdquo;
+      Each hamper contains a complete outfit for a separate twenty, cold
+      provender, plates, glasses, knives, forks, and spoons: an agonized printed
+      appeal from the fevered pen of Pinkerton, pasted on the inside of the lid,
+      beseeches that care be taken of the glass and silver. Beer, wine, and
+      lemonade are flowing already from the bar, and the various clans of twenty
+      file away into the woods, with bottles under their arms, and the hampers
+      strung upon a stick. Till one they feast there, in a very moderate
+      seclusion, all being within earshot of the band. From one till four,
+      dancing takes place upon the grass; the bar does a roaring business; and
+      the honorary steward, who has already exhausted himself to bring life into
+      the dullest of the messes, must now indefatigably dance with the plainest
+      of the women. At four a bugle-call is sounded; and by half-past behold us
+      on board again, pioneers, corrugated iron bar, empty bottles, and all;
+      while the honorary steward, free at last, subsides into the captain's
+      cabin over a brandy and soda and a book. Free at last, I say; yet there
+      remains before him the frantic leave-takings at the pier, and a sober
+      journey up to Pinkerton's office with two policemen and the day's takings
+      in a bag.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What I have here sketched was the routine. But we appealed to the taste of
+      San Francisco more distinctly in particular fetes. &ldquo;Ye Olde Time
+      Pycke-Nycke,&rdquo; largely advertised in hand-bills beginning &ldquo;Oyez,
+      Oyez!&rdquo; and largely frequented by knights, monks, and cavaliers, was
+      drowned out by unseasonable rain, and returned to the city one of the
+      saddest spectacles I ever remember to have witnessed. In pleasing
+      contrast, and certainly our chief success, was &ldquo;The Gathering of the
+      Clans,&rdquo; or Scottish picnic. So many milk-white knees were never
+      before simultaneously exhibited in public, and to judge by the prevalence
+      of &ldquo;Royal Stewart&rdquo; and the number of eagle's feathers, we were
+      a high-born company. I threw forward the Scottish flank of my own
+      ancestry, and passed muster as a clansman with applause. There was,
+      indeed, but one small cloud on this red-letter day. I had laid in a large
+      supply of the national beverage, in the shape of The &ldquo;Rob Roy
+      MacGregor O&rdquo; Blend, Warranted Old and Vatted; and this must
+      certainly have been a generous spirit, for I had some anxious work between
+      four and half-past, conveying on board the inanimate forms of chieftains.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To one of our ordinary festivities, where he was the life and soul of his
+      own mess, Pinkerton himself came incognito, bringing the algebraist on his
+      arm. Miss Mamie proved to be a well-enough-looking mouse, with a large,
+      limpid eye, very good manners, and a flow of the most correct expressions
+      I have ever heard upon the human lip. As Pinkerton's incognito was strict,
+      I had little opportunity to cultivate the lady's acquaintance; but I was
+      informed afterwards that she considered me &ldquo;the wittiest gentleman
+      she had ever met.&rdquo; &ldquo;The Lord mend your taste in wit!&rdquo;
+      thought I; but I cannot conceal that such was the general impression. One
+      of my pleasantries even went the round of San Francisco, and I have heard
+      it (myself all unknown) bandied in saloons. To be unknown began at last to
+      be a rare experience; a bustle woke upon my passage; above all, in humble
+      neighbourhoods. &ldquo;Who's that?&rdquo; one would ask, and the other
+      would cry, &ldquo;That! Why, Dromedary Dodd!&rdquo; or, with withering
+      scorn, &ldquo;Not know Mr. Dodd of the Picnics? Well!&rdquo; and indeed I
+      think it marked a rather barren destiny; for our picnics, if a trifle
+      vulgar, were as gay and innocent as the age of gold; I am sure no people
+      divert themselves so easily and so well: and even with the cares of my
+      stewardship, I was often happy to be there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Indeed, there were but two drawbacks in the least considerable. The first
+      was my terror of the hobbledehoy girls, to whom (from the demands of my
+      situation) I was obliged to lay myself so open. The other, if less
+      momentous, was more mortifying. In early days, at my mother's knee, as a
+      man may say, I had acquired the unenviable accomplishment (which I have
+      never since been able to lose) of singing <i>Just before the Battle.</i> I
+      have what the French call a fillet of voice, my best notes scarce audible
+      about a dinner-table, and the upper register rather to be regarded as a
+      higher power of silence: experts tell me besides that I sing flat; nor, if
+      I were the best singer in the world, does <i>Just before the Battle</i>
+      occur to my mature taste as the song that I would choose to sing. In spite
+      of all which considerations, at one picnic, memorably dull, and after I
+      had exhausted every other art of pleasing, I gave, in desperation, my one
+      song. From that hour my doom was gone forth. Either we had a chronic
+      passenger (though I could never detect him), or the very wood and iron of
+      the steamer must have retained the tradition. At every successive picnic
+      word went round that Mr. Dodd was a singer; that Mr. Dodd sang <i>Just
+      before the Battle</i>, and finally that now was the time when Mr. Dodd
+      sang <i>Just before the Battle;</i> so that the thing became a fixture
+      like the dropping of the dummy axe, and you are to conceive me, Sunday
+      after Sunday, piping up my lamentable ditty and covered, when it was done,
+      with gratuitous applause. It is a beautiful trait in human nature that I
+      was invariably offered an encore.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was well paid, however, even to sing. Pinkerton and I, after an average
+      Sunday, had five hundred dollars to divide. Nay, and the picnics were the
+      means, although indirectly, of bringing me a singular windfall. This was
+      at the end of the season, after the &ldquo;Grand Farewell Fancy Dress
+      Gala.&rdquo; Many of the hampers had suffered severely; and it was judged
+      wiser to save storage, dispose of them, and lay in a fresh stock when the
+      campaign re-opened. Among my purchasers was a workingman of the name of
+      Speedy, to whose house, after several unavailing letters, I must proceed
+      in person, wondering to find myself once again on the wrong side, and
+      playing the creditor to some one else's debtor. Speedy was in the
+      belligerent stage of fear. He could not pay. It appeared he had already
+      resold the hampers, and he defied me to do my worst. I did not like to
+      lose my own money; I hated to lose Pinkerton's; and the bearing of my
+      creditor incensed me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you know, Mr. Speedy, that I can send you to the penitentiary?&rdquo;
+      said I, willing to read him a lesson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The dire expression was overheard in the next room. A large, fresh,
+      motherly Irishwoman ran forth upon the instant, and fell to besiege me
+      with caresses and appeals. &ldquo;Sure now, and ye couldn't have the heart
+      to ut, Mr. Dodd, you, that's so well known to be a pleasant gentleman; and
+      it's a pleasant face ye have, and the picture of me own brother that's
+      dead and gone. It's a truth that he's been drinking. Ye can smell it off
+      of him, more blame to him. But, indade, and there's nothing in the house
+      beyont the furnicher, and Thim Stock. It's the stock that ye'll be taking,
+      dear. A sore penny it has cost me, first and last, and by all tales, not
+      worth an owld tobacco pipe.&rdquo; Thus adjured, and somewhat embarrassed
+      by the stern attitude I had adopted, I suffered myself to be invested with
+      a considerable quantity of what is called wild-cat stock, in which this
+      excellent if illogical female had been squandering her hard-earned gold.
+      It could scarce be said to better my position, but the step quieted the
+      woman; and, on the other hand, I could not think I was taking much risk,
+      for the shares in question (they were those of what I will call the
+      Catamount Silver Mine) had fallen some time before to the bed-rock
+      quotation, and now lay perfectly inert, or were only kicked (like other
+      waste paper) about the kennel of the exchange by bankrupt speculators.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A month or two after, I perceived by the stock-list that Catamount had
+      taken a bound; before afternoon, &ldquo;thim stock&rdquo; were worth a
+      quite considerable pot of money; and I learned, upon inquiry, that a
+      bonanza had been found in a condemned lead, and the mine was now expected
+      to do wonders. Remarkable to philosophers how bonanzas are found in
+      condemned leads, and how the stock is always at freezing-point immediately
+      before! By some stroke of chance the, Speedys had held on to the right
+      thing; they had escaped the syndicate; yet a little more, if I had not
+      come to dun them, and Mrs. Speedy would have been buying a silk dress. I
+      could not bear, of course, to profit by the accident, and returned to
+      offer restitution. The house was in a bustle; the neighbours (all
+      stock-gamblers themselves) had crowded to condole; and Mrs. Speedy sat
+      with streaming tears, the centre of a sympathetic group. &ldquo;For
+      fifteen year I've been at ut,&rdquo; she was lamenting, as I entered,
+      &ldquo;and grudging the babes the very milk, more shame to me! to pay
+      their dhirty assessments. And now, my dears, I should be a lady, and
+      driving in my coach, if all had their rights; and a sorrow on that man
+      Dodd! As soon as I set eyes on him, I seen the divil was in the house.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was upon these words that I made my entrance, which was therefore
+      dramatic enough, though nothing to what followed. For when it appeared
+      that I was come to restore the lost fortune, and when Mrs. Speedy (after
+      copiously weeping on my bosom) had refused the restitution, and when Mr.
+      Speedy (summoned to that end from a camp of the Grand Army of the
+      Republic) had added his refusal, and when I had insisted, and they had
+      insisted, and the neighbours had applauded and supported each of us in
+      turn; and when at last it was agreed we were to hold the stock together,
+      and share the proceeds in three parts&mdash;one for me, one for Mr.
+      Speedy, and one for his spouse&mdash;I will leave you to conceive the
+      enthusiasm that reigned in that small, bare apartment, with the
+      sewing-machine in the one corner, and the babes asleep in the other, and
+      pictures of Garfield and the Battle of Gettysburg on the yellow walls.
+      Port wine was had in by a sympathiser, and we drank it mingled with tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I dhrink to your health, my dear,&rdquo; sobbed Mrs. Speedy,
+      especially affected by my gallantry in the matter of the third share;
+      &ldquo;and I'm sure we all dhrink to his health&mdash;Mr. Dodd of the
+      picnics, no gentleman better known than him; and it's my prayer, dear, the
+      good God may be long spared to see ye in health and happiness!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the end I was the chief gainer; for I sold my third while it was worth
+      five thousand dollars, but the Speedys more adventurously held on until
+      the syndicate reversed the process, when they were happy to escape with
+      perhaps a quarter of that sum. It was just as well; for the bulk of the
+      money was (in Pinkerton's phrase) reinvested; and when next I saw Mrs.
+      Speedy, she was still gorgeously dressed from the proceeds of the late
+      success, but was already moist with tears over the new catastrophe.
+      &ldquo;We're froze out, me darlin'! All the money we had, dear, and the
+      sewing-machine, and Jim's uniform, was in the Golden West; and the vipers
+      has put on a new assessment.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By the end of the year, therefore, this is how I stood. I had made
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     By Catamount Silver Mine..................... $5,000
+     By the picnics...............................  3,000
+     By the lecture...............................    600
+     By profit and loss on capital
+     in Pinkerton's business......................  1,350
+     &mdash;&mdash;&mdash;
+     $9,950
+
+     to which must be added
+
+     What remained of my grandfather's
+     donation.....................................  8,500
+     &mdash;&mdash;&mdash;
+     $18,450
+
+     It appears, on the other hand, that
+
+     I had spent..........................  4,000
+     &mdash;&mdash;&mdash;-
+     Which thus left me to the good............... $14,450
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      A result on which I am not ashamed to say I looked with gratitude and
+      pride. Some eight thousand (being late conquest) was liquid and actually
+      tractile in the bank; the rest whirled beyond reach and even sight (save
+      in the mirror of a balance-sheet) under the compelling spell of wizard
+      Pinkerton. Dollars of mine were tacking off the shores of Mexico, in peril
+      of the deep and the guarda-costas; they rang on saloon-counters in the
+      city of Tombstone, Arizona; they shone in faro-tents among the mountain
+      diggings; the imagination flagged in following them, so wide were they
+      diffused, so briskly they span to the turning of the wizard's crank. But
+      here, there, or everywhere I could still tell myself it was all mine, and
+      what was more convincing, draw substantial dividends. My fortune, I called
+      it; and it represented, when expressed in dollars, or even British pounds,
+      an honest pot of money; when extended into francs, a veritable fortune.
+      Perhaps I have let the cat out of the bag; perhaps you see already where
+      my hopes were pointing, and begin to blame my inconsistency. But I must
+      first tell you my excuse, and the change that had befallen Pinkerton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      About a week after the picnic to which he escorted Mamie, Pinkerton avowed
+      the state of his affections. From what I had observed on board the
+      steamer, where methought Mamie waited on him with her limpid eyes, I
+      encouraged the bashful lover to proceed; and the very next evening he was
+      carrying me to call on his affianced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must befriend her, Loudon, as you have always befriended me,&rdquo;
+      he said, pathetically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By saying disagreeable things? I doubt if that be the way to a
+      young lady's favour,&rdquo; I replied; &ldquo;and since this picnicking I
+      begin to be a man of some experience.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, you do nobly there; I can't describe how I admire you,&rdquo;
+      he cried. &ldquo;Not that she will ever need it; she has had every
+      advantage. God knows what I have done to deserve her. O man, what a
+      responsibility this is for a rough fellow and not always truthful!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Brace up, old man, brace up!&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But when we reached Mamie's boarding-house, it was almost with tears that
+      he presented me. &ldquo;Here is Loudon, Mamie,&rdquo; were his words.
+      &ldquo;I want you to love him; he has a grand nature.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are certainly no stranger to me, Mr. Dodd,&rdquo; was her
+      gracious expression. &ldquo;James is never weary of descanting on your
+      goodness.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear lady,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;when you know our friend a
+      little better, you will make a large allowance for his warm heart. My
+      goodness has consisted in allowing him to feed and clothe and toil for me
+      when he could ill afford it. If I am now alive, it is to him I owe it; no
+      man had a kinder friend. You must take good care of him,&rdquo; I added,
+      laying my hand on his shoulder, &ldquo;and keep him in good order, for he
+      needs it.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pinkerton was much affected by this speech, and so, I fear, was Mamie. I
+      admit it was a tactless performance. &ldquo;When you know our friend a
+      little better,&rdquo; was not happily said; and even &ldquo;keep him in
+      good order, for he needs it&rdquo; might be construed into matter of
+      offence; but I lay it before you in all confidence of your acquittal: was
+      the general tone of it &ldquo;patronising&rdquo;? Even if such was the
+      verdict of the lady, I cannot but suppose the blame was neither wholly
+      hers nor wholly mine; I cannot but suppose that Pinkerton had already
+      sickened the poor woman of my very name; so that if I had come with the
+      songs of Apollo, she must still have been disgusted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here, however, were two finger-posts to Paris. Jim was going to be
+      married, and so had the less need of my society. I had not pleased his
+      bride, and so was, perhaps, better absent. Late one evening I broached the
+      idea to my friend. It had been a great day for me; I had just banked my
+      five thousand catamountain dollars; and as Jim had refused to lay a finger
+      on the stock, risk and profit were both wholly mine, and I was celebrating
+      the event with stout and crackers. I began by telling him that if it
+      caused him any pain or any anxiety about his affairs, he had but to say
+      the word, and he should hear no more of my proposal. He was the truest and
+      best friend I ever had or was ever like to have; and it would be a strange
+      thing if I refused him any favour he was sure he wanted. At the same time
+      I wished him to be sure; for my life was wasting in my hands. I was like
+      one from home; all my true interests summoned me away. I must remind him,
+      besides, that he was now about to marry and assume new interests, and that
+      our extreme familiarity might be even painful to his wife.&mdash;&ldquo;O
+      no, Loudon; I feel you are wrong there,&rdquo; he interjected warmly;
+      &ldquo;she DOES appreciate your nature.&rdquo;&mdash;So much the better,
+      then, I continued; and went on to point out that our separation need not
+      be for long; that, in the way affairs were going, he might join me in two
+      years with a fortune, small, indeed, for the States, but in France almost
+      conspicuous; that we might unite our resources, and have one house in
+      Paris for the winter and a second near Fontainebleau for summer, where we
+      could be as happy as the day was long, and bring up little Pinkertons as
+      practical artistic workmen, far from the money-hunger of the West. &ldquo;Let
+      me go then,&rdquo; I concluded; &ldquo;not as a deserter, but as the
+      vanguard, to lead the march of the Pinkerton men.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So I argued and pleaded, not without emotion; my friend sitting opposite,
+      resting his chin upon his hand and (but for that single interjection)
+      silent. &ldquo;I have been looking for this, Loudon,&rdquo; said he, when
+      I had done. &ldquo;It does pain me, and that's the fact&mdash;I'm so
+      miserably selfish. And I believe it's a death blow to the picnics; for
+      it's idle to deny that you were the heart and soul of them with your wand
+      and your gallant bearing, and wit and humour and chivalry, and throwing
+      that kind of society atmosphere about the thing. But for all that, you're
+      right, and you ought to go. You may count on forty dollars a week; and if
+      Depew City&mdash;one of nature's centres for this State&mdash;pan out the
+      least as I expect, it may be double. But it's forty dollars anyway; and to
+      think that two years ago you were almost reduced to beggary!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I WAS reduced to it,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, the brutes gave you nothing, and I'm glad of it now!&rdquo;
+      cried Jim. &ldquo;It's the triumphant return I glory in! Think of the
+      master, and that cold-blooded Myner too! Yes, just let the Depew City boom
+      get on its legs, and you shall go; and two years later, day for day, I'll
+      shake hands with you in Paris, with Mamie on my arm, God bless her!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We talked in this vein far into the night. I was myself so exultant in my
+      new-found liberty, and Pinkerton so proud of my triumph, so happy in my
+      happiness, in so warm a glow about the gallant little woman of his choice,
+      and the very room so filled with castles in the air and cottages at
+      Fontainebleau, that it was little wonder if sleep fled our eyelids, and
+      three had followed two upon the office clock before Pinkerton unfolded the
+      mechanism of his patent sofa.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VIII. FACES ON THE CITY FRONT.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It is very much the custom to view life as if it were exactly ruled in
+      two, like sleep and waking; the provinces of play and business standing
+      separate. The business side of my career in San Francisco has been now
+      disposed of; I approach the chapter of diversion; and it will be found
+      they had about an equal share in building up the story of the Wrecker&mdash;a
+      gentleman whose appearance may be presently expected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With all my occupations, some six afternoons and two or three odd evenings
+      remained at my disposal every week: a circumstance the more agreeable as I
+      was a stranger in a city singularly picturesque. From what I had once
+      called myself, The Amateur Parisian, I grew (or declined) into a waterside
+      prowler, a lingerer on wharves, a frequenter of shy neighbourhoods, a
+      scraper of acquaintance with eccentric characters. I visited Chinese and
+      Mexican gambling-hells, German secret societies, sailors' boarding-houses,
+      and &ldquo;dives&rdquo; of every complexion of the disreputable and
+      dangerous. I have seen greasy Mexican hands pinned to the table with a
+      knife for cheating, seamen (when blood-money ran high) knocked down upon
+      the public street and carried insensible on board short-handed ships,
+      shots exchanged, and the smoke (and the company) dispersing from the doors
+      of the saloon. I have heard cold-minded Polacks debate upon the readiest
+      method of burning San Francisco to the ground, hot-headed working men and
+      women bawl and swear in the tribune at the Sandlot, and Kearney himself
+      open his subscription for a gallows, name the manufacturers who were to
+      grace it with their dangling bodies, and read aloud to the delighted
+      multitude a telegram of adhesion from a member of the State legislature:
+      all which preparations of proletarian war were (in a moment) breathed upon
+      and abolished by the mere name and fame of Mr. Coleman. That lion of the
+      Vigilantes had but to rouse himself and shake his ears, and the whole
+      brawling mob was silenced. I could not but reflect what a strange manner
+      of man this was, to be living unremarked there as a private merchant, and
+      to be so feared by a whole city; and if I was disappointed, in my character
+      of looker-on, to have the matter end ingloriously without the firing of a
+      shot or the hanging of a single millionnaire, philosophy tried to tell me
+      that this sight was truly the more picturesque. In a thousand towns and
+      different epochs I might have had occasion to behold the cowardice and
+      carnage of street fighting; where else, but only there and then, could I
+      have enjoyed a view of Coleman (the intermittent despot) walking
+      meditatively up hill in a quiet part of town, with a very rolling gait,
+      and slapping gently his great thigh?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Minora Canamus. This historic figure stalks silently through a corner of
+      the San Francisco of my memory: the rest is bric-a-brac, the reminiscences
+      of a vagrant sketcher. My delight was much in slums. Little Italy was a
+      haunt of mine; there I would look in at the windows of small eating-shops,
+      transported bodily from Genoa or Naples, with their macaroni, and chianti
+      flasks, and portraits of Garibaldi, and coloured political caricatures; or
+      (entering in) hold high debate with some ear-ringed fisher of the bay as
+      to the designs of &ldquo;Mr. Owstria&rdquo; and &ldquo;Mr. Rooshia.&rdquo;
+      I was often to be observed (had there been any to observe me) in that
+      dis-peopled, hill-side solitude of Little Mexico, with its crazy wooden
+      houses, endless crazy wooden stairs, and perilous mountain goat-paths in
+      the sand. Chinatown by a thousand eccentricities drew and held me; I could
+      never have enough of its ambiguous, interracial atmosphere, as of a
+      vitalised museum; never wonder enough at its outlandish,
+      necromantic-looking vegetables set forth to sell in commonplace American
+      shop-windows, its temple doors open and the scent of the joss-stick
+      streaming forth on the American air, its kites of Oriental fashion hanging
+      fouled in Western telegraph-wires, its flights of paper prayers which the
+      trade-wind hunts and dissipates along Western gutters. I was a frequent
+      wanderer on North Beach, gazing at the straits, and the huge Cape-Horners
+      creeping out to sea, and imminent Tamalpais. Thence, on my homeward way, I
+      might visit that strange and filthy shed, earth-paved and walled with the
+      cages of wild animals and birds, where at a ramshackle counter, amid the
+      yells of monkeys, and a poignant atmosphere of menagerie, forty-rod
+      whiskey was administered by a proprietor as dirty as his beasts. Nor did I
+      even neglect Nob Hill, which is itself a kind of slum, being the habitat
+      of the mere millionnaire. There they dwell upon the hill-top, high raised
+      above man's clamour, and the trade-wind blows between their palaces about
+      deserted streets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But San Francisco is not herself only. She is not only the most
+      interesting city in the Union, and the hugest smelting-pot of races and
+      the precious metals. She keeps, besides, the doors of the Pacific, and is
+      the port of entry to another world and an earlier epoch in man's history.
+      Nowhere else shall you observe (in the ancient phrase) so many tall ships
+      as here convene from round the Horn, from China, from Sydney, and the
+      Indies; but scarce remarked amid that crowd of deep-sea giants, another
+      class of craft, the Island schooner, circulates: low in the water, with
+      lofty spars and dainty lines, rigged and fashioned like a yacht, manned
+      with brown-skinned, soft-spoken, sweet-eyed native sailors, and equipped
+      with their great double-ender boats that tell a tale of boisterous
+      sea-beaches. These steal out and in again, unnoted by the world or even
+      the newspaper press, save for the line in the clearing column, &ldquo;Schooner
+      So-and-so for Yap and South Sea Islands&rdquo;&mdash;steal out with
+      nondescript cargoes of tinned salmon, gin, bolts of gaudy cotton stuff,
+      women's hats, and Waterbury watches, to return, after a year, piled as
+      high as to the eaves of the house with copra, or wallowing deep with the
+      shells of the tortoise or the pearl oyster. To me, in my character of the
+      Amateur Parisian, this island traffic, and even the island world, were
+      beyond the bounds of curiosity, and how much more of knowledge. I stood
+      there on the extreme shore of the West and of to-day. Seventeen hundred
+      years ago, and seven thousand miles to the east, a legionary stood,
+      perhaps, upon the wall of Antoninus, and looked northward toward the
+      mountains of the Picts. For all the interval of time and space, I, when I
+      looked from the cliff-house on the broad Pacific, was that man's heir and
+      analogue: each of us standing on the verge of the Roman Empire (or, as we
+      now call it, Western civilization), each of us gazing onward into zones
+      unromanised. But I was dull. I looked rather backward, keeping a kind eye
+      on Paris; and it required a series of converging incidents to change my
+      attitude of nonchalance for one of interest, and even longing, which I
+      little dreamed that I should live to gratify.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first of these incidents brought me in acquaintance with a certain San
+      Francisco character, who had something of a name beyond the limits of the
+      city, and was known to many lovers of good English. I had discovered a new
+      slum, a place of precarious, sandy cliffs, deep, sandy cuttings, solitary,
+      ancient houses, and the butt-ends of streets. It was already environed.
+      The ranks of the street-lamps threaded it unbroken. The city, upon all
+      sides of it, was tightly packed, and growled with traffic. To-day, I do
+      not doubt the very landmarks are all swept away; but it offered then,
+      within narrow limits, a delightful peace, and (in the morning, when I
+      chiefly went there) a seclusion almost rural. On a steep sand-hill, in
+      this neighbourhood, toppled, on the most insecure foundation, a certain
+      row of houses, each with a bit of garden, and all (I have to presume)
+      inhabited. Thither I used to mount by a crumbling footpath, and in front
+      of the last of the houses, would sit down to sketch. The very first day I
+      saw I was observed, out of the ground-floor window by a youngish,
+      good-looking fellow, prematurely bald, and with an expression both lively
+      and engaging. The second, as we were still the only figures in the
+      landscape, it was no more than natural that we should nod. The third, he
+      came out fairly from his intrenchments, praised my sketch, and with the
+      impromptu cordiality of artists carried me into his apartment; where I sat
+      presently in the midst of a museum of strange objects,&mdash;paddles and
+      battle-clubs and baskets, rough-hewn stone images, ornaments of threaded
+      shell, cocoanut bowls, snowy cocoanut plumes&mdash;evidences and examples
+      of another earth, another climate, another race, and another (if a ruder)
+      culture. Nor did these objects lack a fitting commentary in the
+      conversation of my new acquaintance. Doubtless you have read his book. You
+      know already how he tramped and starved, and had so fine a profit of
+      living, in his days among the islands; and meeting him, as I did, one
+      artist with another, after months of offices and picnics, you can imagine
+      with what charm he would speak, and with what pleasure I would hear. It
+      was in such talks, which we were both eager to repeat, that I first heard
+      the names&mdash;first fell under the spell&mdash;of the islands; and it
+      was from one of the first of them that I returned (a happy man) with <i>Omoo</i>
+      under one arm, and my friend's own adventures under the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The second incident was more dramatic, and had, besides, a bearing on my
+      future. I was standing, one day, near a boat-landing under Telegraph Hill.
+      A large barque, perhaps of eighteen hundred tons, was coming more than
+      usually close about the point to reach her moorings; and I was observing
+      her with languid inattention, when I observed two men to stride across the
+      bulwarks, drop into a shore boat, and, violently dispossessing the boatman
+      of his oars, pull toward the landing where I stood. In a surprisingly
+      short time they came tearing up the steps; and I could see that both were
+      too well dressed to be foremast hands&mdash;the first even with research,
+      and both, and specially the first, appeared under the empire of some
+      strong emotion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nearest police office!&rdquo; cried the leader.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This way,&rdquo; said I, immediately falling in with their
+      precipitate pace. &ldquo;What's wrong? What ship is that?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's the Gleaner,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;I am chief officer,
+      this gentleman's third; and we've to get in our depositions before the
+      crew. You see they might corral us with the captain; and that's no kind of
+      berth for me. I've sailed with some hard cases in my time, and seen pins
+      flying like sand on a squally day&mdash;but never a match to our old man.
+      It never let up from the Hook to the Farallones; and the last man was
+      dropped not sixteen hours ago. Packet rats our men were, and as tough a
+      crowd as ever sand-bagged a man's head in; but they looked sick enough
+      when the captain started in with his fancy shooting.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, he's done up,&rdquo; observed the other. &ldquo;He won't go to
+      sea no more.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You make me tired,&rdquo; retorted his superior. &ldquo;If he gets
+      ashore in one piece and isn't lynched in the next ten minutes, he'll do
+      yet. The owners have a longer memory than the public; they'll stand by
+      him; they don't find as smart a captain every day in the year.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, he's a son of a gun of a fine captain; there ain't no doubt of
+      that,&rdquo; concurred the other, heartily. &ldquo;Why, I don't suppose
+      there's been no wages paid aboard that Gleaner for three trips.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No wages?&rdquo; I exclaimed, for I was still a novice in maritime
+      affairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not to sailor-men before the mast,&rdquo; agreed the mate. &ldquo;Men
+      cleared out; wasn't the soft job they maybe took it for. She isn' the
+      first ship that never paid wages.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I could not but observe that our pace was progressively relaxing; and
+      indeed I have often wondered since whether the hurry of the start were not
+      intended for the gallery alone. Certain it is at least, that when we had
+      reached the police office, and the mates had made their deposition, and
+      told their horrid tale of five men murdered, some with savage passion,
+      some with cold brutality, between Sandy Hook and San Francisco, the police
+      were despatched in time to be too late. Before we arrived, the ruffian had
+      slipped out upon the dock, had mingled with the crowd, and found a refuge
+      in the house of an acquaintance; and the ship was only tenanted by his
+      late victims. Well for him that he had been thus speedy. For when word
+      began to go abroad among the shore-side characters, when the last victim
+      was carried by to the hospital, when those who had escaped (as by miracle)
+      from that floating shambles, began to circulate and show their wounds in
+      the crowd, it was strange to witness the agitation that seized and shook
+      that portion of the city. Men shed tears in public; bosses of
+      lodging-houses, long inured to brutality, and above all, brutality to
+      sailors, shook their fists at heaven: if hands could have been laid on the
+      captain of the Gleaner, his shrift would have been short. That night (so
+      gossip reports) he was headed up in a barrel and smuggled across the bay:
+      in two ships already he had braved the penitentiary and the gallows; and
+      yet, by last accounts, he now commands another on the Western Ocean.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As I have said, I was never quite certain whether Mr. Nares (the mate) did
+      not intend that his superior should escape. It would have been like his
+      preference of loyalty to law; it would have been like his prejudice, which
+      was all in favour of the after-guard. But it must remain a matter of
+      conjecture only. Well as I came to know him in the sequel, he was never
+      communicative on that point, nor indeed on any that concerned the voyage
+      of the Gleaner. Doubtless he had some reason for his reticence. Even
+      during our walk to the police office, he debated several times with
+      Johnson, the third officer, whether he ought not to give up himself, as
+      well as to denounce the captain. He had decided in the negative, arguing
+      that &ldquo;it would probably come to nothing; and even if there was a
+      stink, he had plenty good friends in San Francisco.&rdquo; And to nothing
+      it came; though it must have very nearly come to something, for Mr. Nares
+      disappeared immediately from view and was scarce less closely hidden than
+      his captain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Johnson, on the other hand, I often met. I could never learn this man's
+      country; and though he himself claimed to be American, neither his English
+      nor his education warranted the claim. In all likelihood he was of
+      Scandinavian birth and blood, long pickled in the forecastles of English
+      and American ships. It is possible that, like so many of his race in
+      similar positions, he had already lost his native tongue. In mind, at
+      least, he was quite denationalised; thought only in English&mdash;to call
+      it so; and though by nature one of the mildest, kindest, and most feebly
+      playful of mankind, he had been so long accustomed to the cruelty of sea
+      discipline, that his stories (told perhaps with a giggle) would sometimes
+      turn me chill. In appearance, he was tall, light of weight, bold and
+      high-bred of feature, dusky-haired, and with a face of a clean even brown:
+      the ornament of outdoor men. Seated in a chair, you might have passed him
+      off for a baronet or a military officer; but let him rise, and it was
+      Fo'c's'le Jack that came rolling toward you, crab-like; let him but open
+      his lips, and it was Fo'c's'le Jack that piped and drawled his
+      ungrammatical gibberish. He had sailed (among other places) much among the
+      islands; and after a Cape Horn passage with its snow-squalls and its
+      frozen sheets, he announced his intention of &ldquo;taking a turn among
+      them Kanakas.&rdquo; I thought I should have lost him soon; but according
+      to the unwritten usage of mariners, he had first to dissipate his wages.
+      &ldquo;Guess I'll have to paint this town red,&rdquo; was his hyperbolical
+      expression; for sure no man ever embarked upon a milder course of
+      dissipation, most of his days being passed in the little parlour behind
+      Black Tom's public house, with a select corps of old particular
+      acquaintances, all from the South Seas, and all patrons of a long yarn, a
+      short pipe, and glasses round.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Black Tom's, to the front, presented the appearance of a fourth-rate
+      saloon, devoted to Kanaka seamen, dirt, negrohead tobacco, bad cigars,
+      worse gin, and guitars and banjos in a state of decline. The proprietor, a
+      powerful coloured man, was at once a publican, a ward politician, leader
+      of some brigade of &ldquo;lambs&rdquo; or &ldquo;smashers,&rdquo; at the
+      wind of whose clubs the party bosses and the mayor were supposed to
+      tremble, and (what hurt nothing) an active and reliable crimp. His front
+      quarters, then, were noisy, disreputable, and not even safe. I have seen
+      worse frequented saloons where there were fewer scandals; for Tom was
+      often drunk himself; and there is no doubt the Lambs must have been a
+      useful body, or the place would have been closed. I remember one day, not
+      long before an election, seeing a blind man, very well dressed, led up to
+      the counter and remain a long while in consultation with the negro. The
+      pair looked so ill-assorted, and the awe with which the drinkers fell back
+      and left them in the midst of an impromptu privacy was so unusual in such
+      a place, that I turned to my next neighbour with a question. He told me
+      the blind man was a distinguished party boss, called by some the King of
+      San Francisco, but perhaps better known by his picturesque Chinese
+      nickname of the Blind White Devil. &ldquo;The Lambs must be wanted pretty
+      bad, I guess,&rdquo; my informant added. I have here a sketch of the Blind
+      White Devil leaning on the counter; on the next page, and taken the same
+      hour, a jotting of Black Tom threatening a whole crowd of customers with a
+      long Smith and Wesson: to such heights and depths we rose and fell in the
+      front parts of the saloon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile, away in the back quarters, sat the small informal South Sea
+      club, talking of another world and surely of a different century. Old
+      schooner captains they were, old South Sea traders, cooks, and mates: fine
+      creatures, softened by residence among a softer race: full men besides,
+      though not by reading, but by strange experience; and for days together I
+      could hear their yarns with an unfading pleasure. All had indeed some
+      touch of the poetic; for the beach-comber, when not a mere ruffian, is the
+      poor relation of the artist. Even through Johnson's inarticulate speech,
+      his &ldquo;O yes, there ain't no harm in them Kanakas,&rdquo; or &ldquo;O
+      yes, that's a son of a gun of a fine island, mountainious right down; I
+      didn't never ought to have left that island,&rdquo; there pierced a
+      certain gusto of appreciation: and some of the rest were master-talkers.
+      From their long tales, their traits of character and unpremeditated
+      landscape, there began to piece itself together in my head some image of
+      the islands and the island life: precipitous shores, spired mountain tops,
+      the deep shade of hanging forests, the unresting surf upon the reef, and
+      the unending peace of the lagoon; sun, moon, and stars of an imperial
+      brightness; man moving in these scenes scarce fallen, and woman lovelier
+      than Eve; the primal curse abrogated, the bed made ready for the stranger,
+      life set to perpetual music, and the guest welcomed, the boat urged, and
+      the long night beguiled, with poetry and choral song. A man must have been
+      an unsuccessful artist; he must have starved on the streets of Paris; he
+      must have been yoked to a commercial force like Pinkerton, before he can
+      conceive the longings that at times assailed me. The draughty, rowdy city
+      of San Francisco, the bustling office where my friend Jim paced like a
+      caged lion daily between ten and four, even (at times) the retrospect of
+      Paris, faded in comparison. Many a man less tempted would have thrown up
+      all to realise his visions; but I was by nature unadventurous and
+      uninitiative: to divert me from all former paths and send me cruising
+      through the isles of paradise, some force external to myself must be
+      exerted; Destiny herself must use the fitting wedge; and little as I
+      deemed it, that tool was already in her hand of brass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I sat, one afternoon, in the corner of a great, glassy, silvered saloon, a
+      free lunch at my one elbow, at the other a &ldquo;conscientious nude&rdquo;
+      from the brush of local talent; when, with the tramp of feet and a sudden
+      buzz of voices, the swing-doors were flung broadly open and the place
+      carried as by storm. The crowd which thus entered (mostly seafaring men,
+      and all prodigiously excited) contained a sort of kernel or general centre
+      of interest, which the rest merely surrounded and advertised, as children
+      in the Old World surround and escort the Punch-and-Judy man; the word went
+      round the bar like wildfire that these were Captain Trent and the
+      survivors of the British brig Flying Scud, picked up by a British war-ship
+      on Midway Island, arrived that morning in San Francisco Bay, and now fresh
+      from making the necessary declarations. Presently I had a good sight of
+      them: four brown, seamanlike fellows, standing by the counter, glass in
+      hand, the centre of a score of questioners. One was a Kanaka&mdash;the
+      cook, I was informed; one carried a cage with a canary, which occasionally
+      trilled into thin song; one had his left arm in a sling and looked
+      gentlemanlike, and somewhat sickly, as though the injury had been severe
+      and he was scarce recovered; and the captain himself&mdash;a red-faced,
+      blue-eyed, thickset man of five and forty&mdash;wore a bandage on his
+      right hand. The incident struck me; I was struck particularly to see
+      captain, cook, and foremost hands walking the street and visiting saloons
+      in company; and, as when anything impressed me, I got my sketch-book out,
+      and began to steal a sketch of the four castaways. The crowd, sympathising
+      with my design, made a clear lane across the room; and I was thus enabled,
+      all unobserved myself, to observe with a still-growing closeness the face
+      and the demeanour of Captain Trent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Warmed by whiskey and encouraged by the eagerness of the bystanders, that
+      gentleman was now rehearsing the history of his misfortune. It was but
+      scraps that reached me: how he &ldquo;filled her on the starboard tack,&rdquo;
+      and how &ldquo;it came up sudden out of the nor'nor'west,&rdquo; and
+      &ldquo;there she was, high and dry.&rdquo; Sometimes he would appeal to
+      one of the men&mdash;&ldquo;That was how it was, Jack?&rdquo;&mdash;and
+      the man would reply, &ldquo;That was the way of it, Captain Trent.&rdquo;
+      Lastly, he started a fresh tide of popular sympathy by enunciating the
+      sentiment, &ldquo;Damn all these Admirality Charts, and that's what I say!&rdquo;
+      From the nodding of heads and the murmurs of assent that followed, I could
+      see that Captain Trent had established himself in the public mind as a
+      gentleman and a thorough navigator: about which period, my sketch of the
+      four men and the canary-bird being finished, and all (especially the
+      canary-bird) excellent likenesses, I buckled up my book, and slipped from
+      the saloon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Little did I suppose that I was leaving Act I, Scene I, of the drama of my
+      life; and yet the scene, or rather the captain's face, lingered for some
+      time in my memory. I was no prophet, as I say; but I was something else: I
+      was an observer; and one thing I knew, I knew when a man was terrified.
+      Captain Trent, of the British brig Flying Scud, had been glib; he had been
+      ready; he had been loud; but in his blue eyes I could detect the chill,
+      and in the lines of his countenance spy the agitation of perpetual terror.
+      Was he trembling for his certificate? In my judgment, it was some livelier
+      kind of fear that thrilled in the man's marrow as he turned to drink. Was
+      it the result of recent shock, and had he not yet recovered the disaster
+      to his brig? I remembered how a friend of mine had been in a railway
+      accident, and shook and started for a month; and although Captain Trent of
+      the Flying Scud had none of the appearance of a nervous man, I told
+      myself, with incomplete conviction, that his must be a similar case.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IX. THE WRECK OF THE &ldquo;FLYING SCUD.&rdquo;
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The next morning I found Pinkerton, who had risen before me, seated at our
+      usual table, and deep in the perusal of what I will call the <i>Daily
+      Occidental</i>. This was a paper (I know not if it be so still) that stood
+      out alone among its brethren in the West; the others, down to their
+      smallest item, were defaced with capitals, head-lines, alliterations,
+      swaggering misquotations, and the shoddy picturesque and unpathetic pathos
+      of the Harry Millers: the <i>Occidental</i> alone appeared to be written
+      by a dull, sane, Christian gentleman, singly desirous of communicating
+      knowledge. It had not only this merit, which endeared it to me, but was
+      admittedly the best informed on business matters, which attracted
+      Pinkerton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Loudon,&rdquo; said he, looking up from the journal, &ldquo;you
+      sometimes think I have too many irons in the fire. My notion, on the other
+      hand, is, when you see a dollar lying, pick it up! Well, here I've tumbled
+      over a whole pile of 'em on a reef in the middle of the Pacific.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, Jim, you miserable fellow!&rdquo; I exclaimed; &ldquo;haven't
+      we Depew City, one of God's green centres for this State? haven't we&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just listen to this,&rdquo; interrupted Jim. &ldquo;It's miserable
+      copy; these <i>Occidental</i> reporter fellows have no fire; but the facts
+      are right enough, I guess.&rdquo; And he began to read:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;WRECK OF THE BRITISH BRIG, 'FLYING SCUD.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;H.B.M.S. Tempest, which arrived yesterday at this port, brings
+      Captain Trent and four men of the British brig Flying Scud, cast away
+      February 12th on Midway Island, and most providentially rescued the next
+      day. The Flying Scud was of 200 tons burthen, owned in London, and has
+      been out nearly two years tramping. Captain Trent left Hong Kong December
+      8th, bound for this port in rice and a small mixed cargo of silks, teas,
+      and China notions, the whole valued at $10,000, fully covered by
+      insurance. The log shows plenty of fine weather, with light airs, calms,
+      and squalls. In lat. 28 N., long. 177 W., his water going rotten, and
+      misled by Hoyt's <i>North Pacific Directory</i>, which informed him there
+      was a coaling station on the island, Captain Trent put in to Midway
+      Island. He found it a literal sandbank, surrounded by a coral reef mostly
+      submerged. Birds were very plenty, there was good fish in the lagoon, but
+      no firewood; and the water, which could be obtained by digging, brackish.
+      He found good holding-ground off the north end of the larger bank in
+      fifteen fathoms water; bottom sandy, with coral patches. Here he was
+      detained seven days by a calm, the crew suffering severely from the water,
+      which was gone quite bad; and it was only on the evening of the 12th, that
+      a little wind sprang up, coming puffy out of N.N.E. Late as it was,
+      Captain Trent immediately weighed anchor and attempted to get out. While
+      the vessel was beating up to the passage, the wind took a sudden lull, and
+      then veered squally into N. and even N.N.W., driving the brig ashore on
+      the sand at about twenty minutes before six o'clock. John Wallen, a native
+      of Finland, and Charles Holdorsen, a native of Sweden, were drowned
+      alongside, in attempting to lower a boat, neither being able to swim, the
+      squall very dark, and the noise of the breakers drowning everything. At
+      the same time John Brown, another of the crew, had his arm broken by the
+      falls. Captain Trent further informed the OCCIDENTAL reporter, that the
+      brig struck heavily at first bows on, he supposes upon coral; that she
+      then drove over the obstacle, and now lies in sand, much down by the head
+      and with a list to starboard. In the first collision she must have
+      sustained some damage, as she was making water forward. The rice will
+      probably be all destroyed: but the more valuable part of the cargo is
+      fortunately in the afterhold. Captain Trent was preparing his long-boat
+      for sea, when the providential arrival of the Tempest, pursuant to
+      Admiralty orders to call at islands in her course for castaways, saved the
+      gallant captain from all further danger. It is scarcely necessary to add
+      that both the officers and men of the unfortunate vessel speak in high
+      terms of the kindness they received on board the man-of-war. We print a
+      list of the survivors: Jacob Trent, master, of Hull, England; Elias
+      Goddedaal, mate, native of Christiansand, Sweden; Ah Wing, cook, native of
+      Sana, China; John Brown, native of Glasgow, Scotland; John Hardy, native
+      of London, England. The Flying Scud is ten years old, and this morning
+      will be sold as she stands, by order of Lloyd's agent, at public auction
+      for the benefit of the underwriters. The auction will take place in the
+      Merchants' Exchange at ten o'clock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Farther Particulars.&mdash;Later in the afternoon the OCCIDENTAL
+      reporter found Lieutenant Sebright, first officer of H.B.M.S. Tempest, at
+      the Palace Hotel. The gallant officer was somewhat pressed for time, but
+      confirmed the account given by Captain Trent in all particulars. He added
+      that the Flying Scud is in an excellent berth, and except in the highly
+      improbable event of a heavy N.W. gale, might last until next winter.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will never know anything of literature,&rdquo; said I, when Jim
+      had finished. &ldquo;That is a good, honest, plain piece of work, and
+      tells the story clearly. I see only one mistake: the cook is not a
+      Chinaman; he is a Kanaka, and I think a Hawaiian.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, how do you know that?&rdquo; asked Jim.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I saw the whole gang yesterday in a saloon,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;I
+      even heard the tale, or might have heard it, from Captain Trent himself,
+      who struck me as thirsty and nervous.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, that's neither here nor there,&rdquo; cried Pinkerton.
+      &ldquo;The point is, how about these dollars lying on a reef?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will it pay?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pay like a sugar trust!&rdquo; exclaimed Pinkerton. &ldquo;Don't
+      you see what this British officer says about the safety? Don't you see the
+      cargo's valued at ten thousand? Schooners are begging just now; I can get
+      my pick of them at two hundred and fifty a month; and how does that foot
+      up? It looks like three hundred per cent. to me.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You forget,&rdquo; I objected, &ldquo;the captain himself declares
+      the rice is damaged.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's a point, I know,&rdquo; admitted Jim. &ldquo;But the rice is
+      the sluggish article, anyway; it's little more account than ballast; it's
+      the tea and silks that I look to: all we have to find is the proportion,
+      and one look at the manifest will settle that. I've rung up Lloyd's on
+      purpose; the captain is to meet me there in an hour, and then I'll be as
+      posted on that brig as if I built her. Besides, you've no idea what
+      pickings there are about a wreck&mdash;copper, lead, rigging, anchors,
+      chains, even the crockery, Loudon!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You seem to me to forget one trifle,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;Before
+      you pick that wreck, you've got to buy her, and how much will she cost?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One hundred dollars,&rdquo; replied Jim, with the promptitude of an
+      automaton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How on earth do you guess that?&rdquo; I cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't guess; I know it,&rdquo; answered the Commercial Force.
+      &ldquo;My dear boy, I may be a galoot about literature, but you'll always
+      be an outsider in business. How do you suppose I bought the James L. Moody
+      for two hundred and fifty, her boats alone worth four times the money?
+      Because my name stood first in the list. Well it stands there again; I
+      have the naming of the figure, and I name a small one because of the
+      distance: but it wouldn't matter what I named; that would be the price.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It sounds mysterious enough,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;Is this public
+      auction conducted in a subterranean vault? Could a plain citizen&mdash;myself,
+      for instance&mdash;come and see?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, everything's open and above board!&rdquo; he cried indignantly.
+      &ldquo;Anybody can come, only nobody bids against us; and if he did, he
+      would get frozen out. It's been tried before now, and once was enough. We
+      hold the plant; we've got the connection; we can afford to go higher than
+      any outsider; there's two million dollars in the ring; and we stick at
+      nothing. Or suppose anybody did buy over our head&mdash;I tell you,
+      Loudon, he would think this town gone crazy; he could no more get business
+      through on the city front than I can dance; schooners, divers, men&mdash;all
+      he wanted&mdash;the prices would fly right up and strike him.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But how did you get in?&rdquo; I asked. &ldquo;You were once an
+      outsider like your neighbours, I suppose?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I took hold of that thing, Loudon, and just studied it up,&rdquo;
+      he replied. &ldquo;It took my fancy; it was so romantic, and then I saw
+      there was boodle in the thing; and I figured on the business till no man
+      alive could give me points. Nobody knew I had an eye on wrecks till one
+      fine morning I dropped in upon Douglas B. Longhurst in his den, gave him
+      all the facts and figures, and put it to him straight: 'Do you want me in
+      this ring? or shall I start another?' He took half an hour, and when I
+      came back, 'Pink,' says he, 'I've put your name on.' The first time I came
+      to the top, it was that Moody racket; now it's the Flying Scud.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whereupon Pinkerton, looking at his watch, uttered an exclamation, made a
+      hasty appointment with myself for the doors of the Merchants' Exchange,
+      and fled to examine manifests and interview the skipper. I finished my
+      cigarette with the deliberation of a man at the end of many picnics;
+      reflecting to myself that of all forms of the dollar hunt, this wrecking
+      had by far the most address to my imagination. Even as I went down town,
+      in the brisk bustle and chill of the familiar San Francisco thoroughfares,
+      I was haunted by a vision of the wreck, baking so far away in the strong
+      sun, under a cloud of sea-birds; and even then, and for no better reason,
+      my heart inclined towards the adventure. If not myself, something that was
+      mine, some one at least in my employment, should voyage to that
+      ocean-bounded pin-point and descend to that deserted cabin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pinkerton met me at the appointed moment, pinched of lip and more than
+      usually erect of bearing, like one conscious of great resolves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;it might be better, and it might be
+      worse. This Captain Trent is a remarkably honest fellow&mdash;one out of a
+      thousand. As soon as he knew I was in the market, he owned up about the
+      rice in so many words. By his calculation, if there's thirty mats of it
+      saved, it's an outside figure. However, the manifest was cheerier. There's
+      about five thousand dollars of the whole value in silks and teas and
+      nut-oils and that, all in the lazarette, and as safe as if it was in
+      Kearney Street. The brig was new coppered a year ago. There's upwards of a
+      hundred and fifty fathom away-up chain. It's not a bonanza, but there's
+      boodle in it; and we'll try it on.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was by that time hard on ten o'clock, and we turned at once into the
+      place of sale. The Flying Scud, although so important to ourselves,
+      appeared to attract a very humble share of popular attention. The
+      auctioneer was surrounded by perhaps a score of lookers-on, big fellows,
+      for the most part, of the true Western build, long in the leg, broad in
+      the shoulder, and adorned (to a plain man's taste) with needless finery. A
+      jaunty, ostentatious comradeship prevailed. Bets were flying, and
+      nicknames. &ldquo;The boys&rdquo; (as they would have called themselves)
+      were very boyish; and it was plain they were here in mirth, and not on
+      business. Behind, and certainly in strong contrast to these gentlemen, I
+      could detect the figure of my friend Captain Trent, come (as I could very
+      well imagine that a captain would) to hear the last of his old vessel.
+      Since yesterday, he had rigged himself anew in ready-made black clothes,
+      not very aptly fitted; the upper left-hand pocket showing a corner of silk
+      handkerchief, the lower, on the other side, bulging with papers. Pinkerton
+      had just given this man a high character. Certainly he seemed to have been
+      very frank, and I looked at him again to trace (if possible) that virtue
+      in his face. It was red and broad and flustered and (I thought) false. The
+      whole man looked sick with some unknown anxiety; and as he stood there,
+      unconscious of my observation, he tore at his nails, scowled on the floor,
+      or glanced suddenly, sharply, and fearfully at passers-by. I was still
+      gazing at the man in a kind of fascination, when the sale began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some preliminaries were rattled through, to the irreverent, uninterrupted
+      gambolling of the boys; and then, amid a trifle more attention, the
+      auctioneer sounded for some two or three minutes the pipe of the charmer.
+      Fine brig&mdash;new copper&mdash;valuable fittings&mdash;three fine boats&mdash;remarkably
+      choice cargo&mdash;what the auctioneer would call a perfectly safe
+      investment; nay, gentlemen, he would go further, he would put a figure on
+      it: he had no hesitation (had that bold auctioneer) in putting it in
+      figures; and in his view, what with this and that, and one thing and
+      another, the purchaser might expect to clear a sum equal to the entire
+      estimated value of the cargo; or, gentlemen, in other words, a sum of ten
+      thousand dollars. At this modest computation the roof immediately above
+      the speaker's head (I suppose, through the intervention of a spectator of
+      ventriloquial tastes) uttered a clear &ldquo;Cock-a-doodle-doo!&rdquo;&mdash;whereat
+      all laughed, the auctioneer himself obligingly joining.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, gentlemen, what shall we say?&rdquo; resumed that gentleman,
+      plainly ogling Pinkerton,&mdash;&ldquo;what shall we say for this
+      remarkable opportunity?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One hundred dollars,&rdquo; said Pinkerton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One hundred dollars from Mr. Pinkerton,&rdquo; went the auctioneer,
+      &ldquo;one hundred dollars. No other gentleman inclined to make any
+      advance? One hundred dollars, only one hundred dollars&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The auctioneer was droning on to some such tune as this, and I, on my
+      part, was watching with something between sympathy and amazement the
+      undisguised emotion of Captain Trent, when we were all startled by the
+      interjection of a bid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And fifty,&rdquo; said a sharp voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pinkerton, the auctioneer, and the boys, who were all equally in the open
+      secret of the ring, were now all equally and simultaneously taken aback.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg your pardon,&rdquo; said the auctioneer. &ldquo;Anybody bid?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And fifty,&rdquo; reiterated the voice, which I was now able to
+      trace to its origin, on the lips of a small, unseemly rag of human-kind.
+      The speaker's skin was gray and blotched; he spoke in a kind of broken
+      song, with much variety of key; his gestures seemed (as in the disease
+      called Saint Vitus's dance) to be imperfectly under control; he was badly
+      dressed; he carried himself with an air of shrinking assumption, as though
+      he were proud to be where he was and to do what he was doing, and yet half
+      expected to be called in question and kicked out. I think I never saw a
+      man more of a piece; and the type was new to me; I had never before set
+      eyes upon his parallel, and I thought instinctively of Balzac and the
+      lower regions of the <i>Comedie Humaine</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pinkerton stared a moment on the intruder with no friendly eye, tore a
+      leaf from his note-book, and scribbled a line in pencil, turned, beckoned
+      a messenger boy, and whispered, &ldquo;To Longhurst.&rdquo; Next moment
+      the boy had sped upon his errand, and Pinkerton was again facing the
+      auctioneer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Two hundred dollars,&rdquo; said Jim.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And fifty,&rdquo; said the enemy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This looks lively,&rdquo; whispered I to Pinkerton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; the little beast means cold drawn biz,&rdquo; returned my
+      friend. &ldquo;Well, he'll have to have a lesson. Wait till I see
+      Longhurst. Three hundred,&rdquo; he added aloud.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And fifty,&rdquo; came the echo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was about this moment when my eye fell again on Captain Trent. A deeper
+      shade had mounted to his crimson face: the new coat was unbuttoned and all
+      flying open; the new silk handkerchief in busy requisition; and the man's
+      eye, of a clear sailor blue, shone glassy with excitement. He was anxious
+      still, but now (if I could read a face) there was hope in his anxiety.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jim,&rdquo; I whispered, &ldquo;look at Trent. Bet you what you
+      please he was expecting this.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; was the reply, &ldquo;there's some blame' thing going
+      on here.&rdquo; And he renewed his bid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The figure had run up into the neighbourhood of a thousand when I was
+      aware of a sensation in the faces opposite, and looking over my shoulder,
+      saw a very large, bland, handsome man come strolling forth and make a
+      little signal to the auctioneer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One word, Mr. Borden,&rdquo; said he; and then to Jim, &ldquo;Well,
+      Pink, where are we up to now?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pinkerton gave him the figure. &ldquo;I ran up to that on my own
+      responsibility, Mr. Longhurst,&rdquo; he added, with a flush. &ldquo;I
+      thought it the square thing.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And so it was,&rdquo; said Mr. Longhurst, patting him kindly on the
+      shoulder, like a gratified uncle. &ldquo;Well, you can drop out now; we
+      take hold ourselves. You can run it up to five thousand; and if he likes
+      to go beyond that, he's welcome to the bargain.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By the by, who is he?&rdquo; asked Pinkerton. &ldquo;He looks away
+      down.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've sent Billy to find out.&rdquo; And at the very moment Mr.
+      Longhurst received from the hands of one of the expensive young gentlemen
+      a folded paper. It was passed round from one to another till it came to
+      me, and I read: &ldquo;Harry D. Bellairs, Attorney-at-Law; defended Clara
+      Varden; twice nearly disbarred.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, that gets me!&rdquo; observed Mr. Longhurst. &ldquo;Who can
+      have put up a shyster [1] like that? Nobody with money, that's a sure
+      thing. Suppose you tried a big bluff? I think I would, Pink. Well, ta-ta!
+      Your partner, Mr. Dodd? Happy to have the pleasure of your acquaintance,
+      sir.&rdquo; And the great man withdrew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;[1] A low lawyer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, what do you think of Douglas B.?&rdquo; whispered Pinkerton,
+      looking reverently after him as he departed. &ldquo;Six foot of perfect
+      gentleman and culture to his boots.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During this interview the auction had stood transparently arrested, the
+      auctioneer, the spectators, and even Bellairs, all well aware that Mr.
+      Longhurst was the principal, and Jim but a speaking-trumpet. But now that
+      the Olympian Jupiter was gone, Mr. Borden thought proper to affect
+      severity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, come, Mr. Pinkerton. Any advance?&rdquo; he snapped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Pinkerton, resolved on the big bluff, replied, &ldquo;Two thousand
+      dollars.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bellairs preserved his composure. &ldquo;And fifty,&rdquo; said he. But
+      there was a stir among the onlookers, and what was of more importance,
+      Captain Trent had turned pale and visibly gulped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pitch it in again, Jim,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;Trent is weakening.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Three thousand,&rdquo; said Jim.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And fifty,&rdquo; said Bellairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then the bidding returned to its original movement by hundreds and
+      fifties; but I had been able in the meanwhile to draw two conclusions. In
+      the first place, Bellairs had made his last advance with a smile of
+      gratified vanity; and I could see the creature was glorying in the kudos
+      of an unusual position and secure of ultimate success. In the second,
+      Trent had once more changed colour at the thousand leap, and his relief,
+      when he heard the answering fifty was manifest and unaffected. Here then
+      was a problem: both were presumably in the same interest, yet the one was
+      not in the confidence of the other. Nor was this all. A few bids later it
+      chanced that my eye encountered that of Captain Trent, and his, which
+      glittered with excitement, was instantly, and I thought guiltily,
+      withdrawn. He wished, then, to conceal his interest? As Jim had said,
+      there was some blamed thing going on. And for certain, here were these two
+      men, so strangely united, so strangely divided, both sharp-set to keep the
+      wreck from us, and that at an exorbitant figure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Was the wreck worth more than we supposed? A sudden heat was kindled in my
+      brain; the bids were nearing Longhurst's limit of five thousand; another
+      minute, and all would be too late. Tearing a leaf from my sketch-book, and
+      inspired (I suppose) by vanity in my own powers of inference and
+      observation, I took the one mad decision of my life. &ldquo;If you care to
+      go ahead,&rdquo; I wrote, &ldquo;I'm in for all I'm worth.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim read and looked round at me like one bewildered; then his eyes
+      lightened, and turning again to the auctioneer, he bid, &ldquo;Five
+      thousand one hundred dollars.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And fifty,&rdquo; said monotonous Bellairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently Pinkerton scribbled, &ldquo;What can it be?&rdquo; and I
+      answered, still on paper: &ldquo;I can't imagine; but there's something.
+      Watch Bellairs; he'll go up to the ten thousand, see if he don't.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And he did, and we followed. Long before this, word had gone abroad that
+      there was battle royal: we were surrounded by a crowd that looked on
+      wondering; and when Pinkerton had offered ten thousand dollars (the
+      outside value of the cargo, even were it safe in San Francisco Bay) and
+      Bellairs, smirking from ear to ear to be the centre of so much attention,
+      had jerked out his answering, &ldquo;And fifty,&rdquo; wonder deepened to
+      excitement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ten thousand one hundred,&rdquo; said Jim; and even as he spoke he
+      made a sudden gesture with his hand, his face changed, and I could see
+      that he had guessed, or thought that he had guessed, the mystery. As he
+      scrawled another memorandum in his note-book, his hand shook like a
+      telegraph-operator's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Chinese ship,&rdquo; ran the legend; and then, in big, tremulous
+      half-text, and with a flourish that overran the margin, &ldquo;Opium!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To be sure! thought I: this must be the secret. I knew that scarce a ship
+      came in from any Chinese port, but she carried somewhere, behind a
+      bulkhead, or in some cunning hollow of the beams, a nest of the valuable
+      poison. Doubtless there was some such treasure on the Flying Scud. How
+      much was it worth? We knew not, we were gambling in the dark; but Trent
+      knew, and Bellairs; and we could only watch and judge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By this time neither Pinkerton nor I were of sound mind. Pinkerton was
+      beside himself, his eyes like lamps. I shook in every member. To any
+      stranger entering (say) in the course of the fifteenth thousand, we should
+      probably have cut a poorer figure than Bellairs himself. But we did not
+      pause; and the crowd watched us, now in silence, now with a buzz of
+      whispers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Seventeen thousand had been reached, when Douglas B. Longhurst, forcing
+      his way into the opposite row of faces, conspicuously and repeatedly shook
+      his head at Jim. Jim's answer was a note of two words: &ldquo;My racket!&rdquo;
+      which, when the great man had perused, he shook his finger warningly and
+      departed, I thought, with a sorrowful countenance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Although Mr. Longhurst knew nothing of Bellairs, the shady lawyer knew all
+      about the Wrecker Boss. He had seen him enter the ring with manifest
+      expectation; he saw him depart, and the bids continue, with manifest
+      surprise and disappointment. &ldquo;Hullo,&rdquo; he plainly thought,
+      &ldquo;this is not the ring I'm fighting, then?&rdquo; And he determined
+      to put on a spurt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eighteen thousand,&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And fifty,&rdquo; said Jim, taking a leaf out of his adversary's
+      book.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Twenty thousand,&rdquo; from Bellairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And fifty,&rdquo; from Jim, with a little nervous titter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And with one consent they returned to the old pace, only now it was
+      Bellairs who took the hundreds, and Jim who did the fifty business. But by
+      this time our idea had gone abroad. I could hear the word &ldquo;opium&rdquo;
+      pass from mouth to mouth; and by the looks directed at us, I could see we
+      were supposed to have some private information. And here an incident
+      occurred highly typical of San Francisco. Close at my back there had stood
+      for some time a stout, middle-aged gentleman, with pleasant eyes, hair
+      pleasantly grizzled, and a ruddy, pleasing face. All of a sudden he
+      appeared as a third competitor, skied the Flying Scud with four fat bids
+      of a thousand dollars each, and then as suddenly fled the field, remaining
+      thenceforth (as before) a silent, interested spectator.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ever since Mr. Longhurst's useless intervention, Bellairs had seemed
+      uneasy; and at this new attack, he began (in his turn) to scribble a note
+      between the bids. I imagined naturally enough that it would go to Captain
+      Trent; but when it was done, and the writer turned and looked behind him
+      in the crowd, to my unspeakable amazement, he did not seem to remark the
+      captain's presence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Messenger boy, messenger boy!&rdquo; I heard him say. &ldquo;Somebody
+      call me a messenger boy.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last somebody did, but it was not the captain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's sending for instructions,&rdquo; I wrote to Pinkerton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For money,&rdquo; he wrote back. &ldquo;Shall I strike out? I think
+      this is the time.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thirty thousand,&rdquo; said Pinkerton, making a leap of close upon
+      three thousand dollars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I could see doubt in Bellairs's eye; then, sudden resolution. &ldquo;Thirty-five
+      thousand,&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Forty thousand,&rdquo; said Pinkerton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a long pause, during which Bellairs's countenance was as a book;
+      and then, not much too soon for the impending hammer, &ldquo;Forty
+      thousand and five dollars,&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pinkerton and I exchanged eloquent glances. We were of one mind. Bellairs
+      had tried a bluff; now he perceived his mistake, and was bidding against
+      time; he was trying to spin out the sale until the messenger boy returned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Forty-five thousand dollars,&rdquo; said Pinkerton: his voice was
+      like a ghost's and tottered with emotion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Forty-five thousand and five dollars,&rdquo; said Bellairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fifty thousand,&rdquo; said Pinkerton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg your pardon, Mr. Pinkerton. Did I hear you make an advance,
+      sir?&rdquo; asked the auctioneer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;I have a difficulty in speaking,&rdquo; gasped Jim. &ldquo;It's
+      fifty thousand, Mr. Borden.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bellairs was on his feet in a moment. &ldquo;Auctioneer,&rdquo; he said,
+      &ldquo;I have to beg the favour of three moments at the telephone. In this
+      matter, I am acting on behalf of a certain party to whom I have just
+      written&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have nothing to do with any of this,&rdquo; said the auctioneer,
+      brutally. &ldquo;I am here to sell this wreck. Do you make any advance on
+      fifty thousand?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have the honour to explain to you, sir,&rdquo; returned Bellairs,
+      with a miserable assumption of dignity. &ldquo;Fifty thousand was the
+      figure named by my principal; but if you will give me the small favour of
+      two moments at the telephone&mdash;&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, nonsense!&rdquo; said the auctioneer. &ldquo;If you make no
+      advance, I'll knock it down to Mr. Pinkerton.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I warn you,&rdquo; cried the attorney, with sudden shrillness.
+      &ldquo;Have a care what you're about. You are here to sell for the
+      underwriters, let me tell you&mdash;not to act for Mr. Douglas Longhurst.
+      This sale has been already disgracefully interrupted to allow that person
+      to hold a consultation with his minions. It has been much commented on.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There was no complaint at the time,&rdquo; said the auctioneer,
+      manifestly discountenanced. &ldquo;You should have complained at the time.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not here to conduct this sale,&rdquo; replied Bellairs;
+      &ldquo;I am not paid for that.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I am, you see,&rdquo; retorted the auctioneer, his impudence
+      quite restored; and he resumed his sing-song. &ldquo;Any advance on fifty
+      thousand dollars? No advance on fifty thousand? No advance, gentlemen?
+      Going at fifty thousand, the wreck of the brig Flying Scud&mdash;going&mdash;going&mdash;gone!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My God, Jim, can we pay the money?&rdquo; I cried, as the stroke of
+      the hammer seemed to recall me from a dream.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's got to be raised,&rdquo; said he, white as a sheet. &ldquo;It'll
+      be a hell of a strain, Loudon. The credit's good for it, I think; but I
+      shall have to get around. Write me a cheque for your stuff. Meet me at the
+      Occidental in an hour.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I wrote my cheque at a desk, and I declare I could never have recognised
+      my signature. Jim was gone in a moment; Trent had vanished even earlier;
+      only Bellairs remained exchanging insults with the auctioneer; and,
+      behold! as I pushed my way out of the exchange, who should run full tilt
+      into my arms, but the messenger boy?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was by so near a margin that we became the owners of the Flying Scud.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER X. IN WHICH THE CREW VANISH.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      At the door of the exchange I found myself along-side of the short,
+      middle-aged gentleman who had made an appearance, so vigorous and so
+      brief, in the great battle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Congratulate you, Mr. Dodd,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You and your
+      friend stuck to your guns nobly.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No thanks to you, sir,&rdquo; I replied, &ldquo;running us up a
+      thousand at a time, and tempting all the speculators in San Francisco to
+      come and have a try.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, that was temporary insanity,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;and I thank
+      the higher powers I am still a free man. Walking this way, Mr. Dodd? I'll
+      walk along with you. It's pleasant for an old fogy like myself to see the
+      young bloods in the ring; I've done some pretty wild gambles in my time in
+      this very city, when it was a smaller place and I was a younger man. Yes,
+      I know you, Mr. Dodd. By sight, I may say I know you extremely well, you
+      and your followers, the fellows in the kilts, eh? Pardon me. But I have
+      the misfortune to own a little box on the Saucelito shore. I'll be glad to
+      see you there any Sunday&mdash;without the fellows in kilts, you know; and
+      I can give you a bottle of wine, and show you the best collection of
+      Arctic voyages in the States. Morgan is my name&mdash;Judge Morgan&mdash;a
+      Welshman and a forty-niner.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, if you're a pioneer,&rdquo; cried I, &ldquo;come to me and I'll
+      provide you with an axe.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'll want your axes for yourself, I fancy,&rdquo; he returned,
+      with one of his quick looks. &ldquo;Unless you have private knowledge,
+      there will be a good deal of rather violent wrecking to do before you find
+      that&mdash;opium, do you call it?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, it's either opium, or we are stark, staring mad,&rdquo; I
+      replied. &ldquo;But I assure you we have no private information. We went
+      in (as I suppose you did yourself) on observation.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An observer, sir?&rdquo; inquired the judge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I may say it is my trade&mdash;or, rather, was,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well now, and what did you think of Bellairs?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very little indeed,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I may tell you,&rdquo; continued the judge, &ldquo;that to me, the
+      employment of a fellow like that appears inexplicable. I knew him; he
+      knows me, too; he has often heard from me in court; and I assure you the
+      man is utterly blown upon; it is not safe to trust him with a dollar; and
+      here we find him dealing up to fifty thousand. I can't think who can have
+      so trusted him, but I am very sure it was a stranger in San Francisco.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Some one for the owners, I suppose,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Surely not!&rdquo; exclaimed the judge. &ldquo;Owners in London can
+      have nothing to say to opium smuggled between Hong Kong and San Francisco.
+      I should rather fancy they would be the last to hear of it&mdash;until the
+      ship was seized. No; I was thinking of the captain. But where would he get
+      the money? above all, after having laid out so much to buy the stuff in
+      China? Unless, indeed, he were acting for some one in 'Frisco; and in that
+      case&mdash;here we go round again in the vicious circle&mdash;Bellairs
+      would not have been employed.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think I can assure you it was not the captain,&rdquo; said I;
+      &ldquo;for he and Bellairs are not acquainted.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wasn't that the captain with the red face and coloured
+      handkerchief? He seemed to me to follow Bellairs's game with the most
+      thrilling interest,&rdquo; objected Mr. Morgan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perfectly true,&rdquo; said I; &ldquo;Trent is deeply interested;
+      he very likely knew Bellairs, and he certainly knew what he was there for;
+      but I can put my hand in the fire that Bellairs didn't know Trent.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Another singularity,&rdquo; observed the judge. &ldquo;Well, we
+      have had a capital forenoon. But you take an old lawyer's advice, and get
+      to Midway Island as fast as you can. There's a pot of money on the table,
+      and Bellairs and Co. are not the men to stick at trifles.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With this parting counsel Judge Morgan shook hands and made off along
+      Montgomery Street, while I entered the Occidental Hotel, on the steps of
+      which we had finished our conversation. I was well known to the clerks,
+      and as soon as it was understood that I was there to wait for Pinkerton
+      and lunch, I was invited to a seat inside the counter. Here, then, in a
+      retired corner, I was beginning to come a little to myself after these so
+      violent experiences, when who should come hurrying in, and (after a moment
+      with a clerk) fly to one of the telephone boxes but Mr. Henry D. Bellairs
+      in person? Call it what you will, but the impulse was irresistible, and I
+      rose and took a place immediately at the man's back. It may be some excuse
+      that I had often practised this very innocent form of eavesdropping upon
+      strangers, and for fun. Indeed, I scarce know anything that gives a lower
+      view of man's intelligence than to overhear (as you thus do) one side of a
+      communication.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Central,&rdquo; said the attorney, &ldquo;2241 and 584 B&rdquo; (or
+      some such numbers)&mdash;&ldquo;Who's that?&mdash;All right&mdash;Mr.
+      Bellairs&mdash;Occidental; the wires are fouled in the other place&mdash;Yes,
+      about three minutes&mdash;Yes&mdash;Yes&mdash;Your figure, I am sorry to
+      say&mdash;No&mdash;I had no authority&mdash;Neither more nor less&mdash;I
+      have every reason to suppose so&mdash;O, Pinkerton, Montana Block&mdash;Yes&mdash;Yes&mdash;Very
+      good, sir&mdash;As you will, sir&mdash;Disconnect 584 B.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bellairs turned to leave; at sight of me behind him, up flew his hands,
+      and he winced and cringed, as though in fear of bodily attack. &ldquo;O,
+      it's you!&rdquo; he cried; and then, somewhat recovered, &ldquo;Mr.
+      Pinkerton's partner, I believe? I am pleased to see you, sir&mdash;to
+      congratulate you on your late success.&rdquo; And with that he was gone,
+      obsequiously bowing as he passed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now a madcap humour came upon me. It was plain Bellairs had been
+      communicating with his principal; I knew the number, if not the name;
+      should I ring up at once, it was more than likely he would return in
+      person to the telephone; why should not I dash (vocally) into the presence
+      of this mysterious person, and have some fun for my money. I pressed the
+      bell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Central,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;connect again 2241 and 584 B.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A phantom central repeated the numbers; there was a pause, and then
+      &ldquo;Two two four one,&rdquo; came in a tiny voice into my ear&mdash;a
+      voice with the English sing-song&mdash;the voice plainly of a gentleman.
+      &ldquo;Is that you again, Mr. Bellairs?&rdquo; it trilled. &ldquo;I tell
+      you it's no use. Is that you, Mr. Bellairs? Who is that?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I only want to put a single question,&rdquo; said I, civilly.
+      &ldquo;Why do you want to buy the Flying Scud?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No answer came. The telephone vibrated and hummed in miniature with all
+      the numerous talk of a great city; but the voice of 2241 was silent. Once
+      and twice I put my question; but the tiny, sing-song English voice, I
+      heard no more. The man, then, had fled? fled from an impertinent question?
+      It scarce seemed natural to me; unless on the principle that the wicked
+      fleeth when no man pursueth. I took the telephone list and turned the
+      number up: &ldquo;2241, Mrs. Keane, res. 942 Mission Street.&rdquo; And
+      that, short of driving to the house and renewing my impertinence in
+      person, was all that I could do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet, as I resumed my seat in the corner of the office, I was conscious of
+      a new element of the uncertain, the underhand, perhaps even the dangerous,
+      in our adventure; and there was now a new picture in my mental gallery, to
+      hang beside that of the wreck under its canopy of sea-birds and of Captain
+      Trent mopping his red brow&mdash;the picture of a man with a telephone
+      dice-box to his ear, and at the small voice of a single question, struck
+      suddenly as white as ashes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From these considerations I was awakened by the striking of the clock. An
+      hour and nearly twenty minutes had elapsed since Pinkerton departed for
+      the money: he was twenty minutes behind time; and to me who knew so well
+      his gluttonous despatch of business and had so frequently admired his iron
+      punctuality, the fact spoke volumes. The twenty minutes slowly stretched
+      into an hour; the hour had nearly extended to a second; and I still sat in
+      my corner of the office, or paced the marble pavement of the hall, a prey
+      to the most wretched anxiety and penitence. The hour for lunch was nearly
+      over before I remembered that I had not eaten. Heaven knows I had no
+      appetite; but there might still be much to do&mdash;it was needful I
+      should keep myself in proper trim, if it were only to digest the now too
+      probable bad news; and leaving word at the office for Pinkerton, I sat
+      down to table and called for soup, oysters, and a pint of champagne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was not long set, before my friend returned. He looked pale and rather
+      old, refused to hear of food, and called for tea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose all's up?&rdquo; said I, with an incredible sinking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; he replied; &ldquo;I've pulled it through, Loudon; just
+      pulled it through. I couldn't have raised another cent in all 'Frisco.
+      People don't like it; Longhurst even went back on me; said he wasn't a
+      three-card-monte man.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, what's the odds?&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;That's all we wanted,
+      isn't it?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Loudon, I tell you I've had to pay blood for that money,&rdquo;
+      cried my friend, with almost savage energy and gloom. &ldquo;It's all on
+      ninety days, too; I couldn't get another day&mdash;not another day. If we
+      go ahead with this affair, Loudon, you'll have to go yourself and make the
+      fur fly. I'll stay of course&mdash;I've got to stay and face the trouble
+      in this city; though, I tell you, I just long to go. I would show these
+      fat brutes of sailors what work was; I would be all through that wreck and
+      out at the other end, before they had boosted themselves upon the deck!
+      But you'll do your level best, Loudon; I depend on you for that. You must
+      be all fire and grit and dash from the word 'go.' That schooner and the
+      boodle on board of her are bound to be here before three months, or it's
+      B. U. S. T.&mdash;bust.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll swear I'll do my best, Jim; I'll work double tides,&rdquo;
+      said I. &ldquo;It is my fault that you are in this thing, and I'll get you
+      out again or kill myself. But what is that you say? 'If we go ahead?' Have
+      we any choice, then?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm coming to that,&rdquo; said Jim. &ldquo;It isn't that I doubt
+      the investment. Don't blame yourself for that; you showed a fine, sound
+      business instinct: I always knew it was in you, but then it ripped right
+      out. I guess that little beast of an attorney knew what he was doing; and
+      he wanted nothing better than to go beyond. No, there's profit in the
+      deal; it's not that; it's these ninety-day bills, and the strain I've
+      given the credit, for I've been up and down, borrowing, and begging and
+      bribing to borrow. I don't believe there's another man but me in 'Frisco,&rdquo;
+      he cried, with a sudden fervor of self admiration, &ldquo;who could have
+      raised that last ten thousand!&mdash;Then there's another thing. I had
+      hoped you might have peddled that opium through the islands, which is
+      safer and more profitable. But with this three-month limit, you must make
+      tracks for Honolulu straight, and communicate by steamer. I'll try to put
+      up something for you there; I'll have a man spoken to who's posted on that
+      line of biz. Keep a bright lookout for him as soon's you make the islands;
+      for it's on the cards he might pick you up at sea in a whaleboat or a
+      steam-launch, and bring the dollars right on board.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It shows how much I had suffered morally during my sojourn in San
+      Francisco, that even now when our fortunes trembled in the balance, I
+      should have consented to become a smuggler and (of all things) a smuggler
+      of opium. Yet I did, and that in silence; without a protest, not without a
+      twinge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And suppose,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;suppose the opium is so securely
+      hidden that I can't get hands on it?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you will stay there till that brig is kindling-wood, and stay
+      and split that kindling-wood with your penknife,&rdquo; cried Pinkerton.
+      &ldquo;The stuff is there; we know that; and it must be found. But all
+      this is only the one string to our bow&mdash;though I tell you I've gone
+      into it head-first, as if it was our bottom dollar. Why, the first thing I
+      did before I'd raised a cent, and with this other notion in my head
+      already&mdash;the first thing I did was to secure the schooner. The Nora
+      Creina, she is, sixty-four tons, quite big enough for our purpose since
+      the rice is spoiled, and the fastest thing of her tonnage out of San
+      Francisco. For a bonus of two hundred, and a monthly charter of three, I
+      have her for my own time; wages and provisions, say four hundred more: a
+      drop in the bucket. They began firing the cargo out of her (she was part
+      loaded) near two hours ago; and about the same time John Smith got the
+      order for the stores. That's what I call business.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No doubt of that,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;But the other notion?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, here it is,&rdquo; said Jim. &ldquo;You agree with me that
+      Bellairs was ready to go higher?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I saw where he was coming. &ldquo;Yes&mdash;and why shouldn't he?&rdquo;
+      said I. &ldquo;Is that the line?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's the line, Loudon Dodd,&rdquo; assented Jim. &ldquo;If
+      Bellairs and his principal have any desire to go me better, I'm their man.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A sudden thought, a sudden fear, shot into my mind. What if I had been
+      right? What if my childish pleasantry had frightened the principal away,
+      and thus destroyed our chance? Shame closed my mouth; I began
+      instinctively a long course of reticence; and it was without a word of my
+      meeting with Bellairs, or my discovery of the address in Mission Street,
+      that I continued the discussion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Doubtless fifty thousand was originally mentioned as a round sum,&rdquo;
+      said I, &ldquo;or at least, so Bellairs supposed. But at the same time it
+      may be an outside sum; and to cover the expenses we have already incurred
+      for the money and the schooner&mdash;I am far from blaming you; I see how
+      needful it was to be ready for either event&mdash;but to cover them we
+      shall want a rather large advance.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bellairs will go to sixty thousand; it's my belief, if he were
+      properly handled, he would take the hundred,&rdquo; replied Pinkerton.
+      &ldquo;Look back on the way the sale ran at the end.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is my own impression as regards Bellairs,&rdquo; I admitted.
+      &ldquo;The point I am trying to make is that Bellairs himself may be
+      mistaken; that what he supposed to be a round sum was really an outside
+      figure.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, Loudon, if that is so,&rdquo; said Jim, with extraordinary
+      gravity of face and voice, &ldquo;if that is so, let him take the Flying
+      Scud at fifty thousand, and joy go with her! I prefer the loss.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that so, Jim? Are we dipped as bad as that?&rdquo; I cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We've put our hand farther out than we can pull it in again,
+      Loudon,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;Why, man, that fifty thousand dollars,
+      before we get clear again, will cost us nearer seventy. Yes, it figures up
+      overhead to more than ten per cent a month; and I could do no better, and
+      there isn't the man breathing could have done as well. It was a miracle,
+      Loudon. I couldn't but admire myself. O, if we had just the four months!
+      And you know, Loudon, it may still be done. With your energy and charm, if
+      the worst comes to the worst, you can run that schooner as you ran one of
+      your picnics; and we may have luck. And, O, man! if we do pull it through,
+      what a dashing operation it will be! What an advertisement! what a thing
+      to talk of, and remember all our lives! However,&rdquo; he broke off
+      suddenly, &ldquo;we must try the safe thing first. Here's for the shyster!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was another struggle in my mind, whether I should even now admit my
+      knowledge of the Mission Street address. But I had let the favourable
+      moment slip. I had now, which made it the more awkward, not merely the
+      original discovery, but my late suppression to confess. I could not help
+      reasoning, besides, that the more natural course was to approach the
+      principal by the road of his agent's office; and there weighed upon my
+      spirits a conviction that we were already too late, and that the man was
+      gone two hours ago. Once more, then, I held my peace; and after an
+      exchange of words at the telephone to assure ourselves he was at home, we
+      set out for the attorney's office.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The endless streets of any American city pass, from one end to another,
+      through strange degrees and vicissitudes of splendour and distress,
+      running under the same name between monumental warehouses, the dens and
+      taverns of thieves, and the sward and shrubbery of villas. In San
+      Francisco, the sharp inequalities of the ground, and the sea bordering on
+      so many sides, greatly exaggerate these contrasts. The street for which we
+      were now bound took its rise among blowing sands, somewhere in view of the
+      Lone Mountain Cemetery; ran for a term across that rather windy Olympus of
+      Nob Hill, or perhaps just skirted its frontier; passed almost immediately
+      after through a stage of little houses, rather impudently painted, and
+      offering to the eye of the observer this diagnostic peculiarity, that the
+      huge brass plates upon the small and highly coloured doors bore only the
+      first names of ladies&mdash;Norah or Lily or Florence; traversed China
+      Town, where it was doubtless undermined with opium cellars, and its blocks
+      pierced, after the similitude of rabbit-warrens, with a hundred doors and
+      passages and galleries; enjoyed a glimpse of high publicity at the corner
+      of Kearney; and proceeded, among dives and warehouses, towards the City
+      Front and the region of the water-rats. In this last stage of its career,
+      where it was both grimy and solitary, and alternately quiet and roaring to
+      the wheels of drays, we found a certain house of some pretension to
+      neatness, and furnished with a rustic outside stair. On the pillar of the
+      stair a black plate bore in gilded lettering this device: &ldquo;Harry D.
+      Bellairs, Attorney-at-law. Consultations, 9 to 6.&rdquo; On ascending the
+      stairs, a door was found to stand open on the balcony, with this further
+      inscription, &ldquo;Mr. Bellairs In.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder what we do next,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Guess we sail right in,&rdquo; returned Jim, and suited the action
+      to the word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The room in which we found ourselves was clean, but extremely bare. A
+      rather old-fashioned secretaire stood by the wall, with a chair drawn to
+      the desk; in one corner was a shelf with half-a-dozen law books; and I can
+      remember literally not another stick of furniture. One inference imposed
+      itself: Mr. Bellairs was in the habit of sitting down himself and
+      suffering his clients to stand. At the far end, and veiled by a curtain of
+      red baize, a second door communicated with the interior of the house.
+      Hence, after some coughing and stamping, we elicited the shyster, who came
+      timorously forth, for all the world like a man in fear of bodily assault,
+      and then, recognising his guests, suffered from what I can only call a
+      nervous paroxysm of courtesy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Pinkerton and partner!&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;I will go and
+      fetch you seats.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not the least,&rdquo; said Jim. &ldquo;No time. Much rather stand.
+      This is business, Mr. Bellairs. This morning, as you know, I bought the
+      wreck, Flying Scud.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lawyer nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And bought her,&rdquo; pursued my friend, &ldquo;at a figure out of
+      all proportion to the cargo and the circumstances, as they appeared?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And now you think better of it, and would like to be off with your
+      bargain? I have been figuring upon this,&rdquo; returned the lawyer.
+      &ldquo;My client, I will not hide from you, was displeased with me for
+      putting her so high. I think we were both too heated, Mr. Pinkerton:
+      rivalry&mdash;the spirit of competition. But I will be quite frank&mdash;I
+      know when I am dealing with gentlemen&mdash;and I am almost certain, if
+      you leave the matter in my hands, my client would relieve you of the
+      bargain, so as you would lose&rdquo;&mdash;he consulted our faces with
+      gimlet-eyed calculation&mdash;&ldquo;nothing,&rdquo; he added shrilly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And here Pinkerton amazed me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's a little too thin,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;I have the wreck.
+      I know there's boodle in her, and I mean to keep her. What I want is some
+      points which may save me needless expense, and which I'm prepared to pay
+      for, money down. The thing for you to consider is just this: am I to deal
+      with you or direct with your principal? If you are prepared to give me the
+      facts right off, why, name your figure. Only one thing!&rdquo; added Jim,
+      holding a finger up, &ldquo;when I say 'money down,' I mean bills payable
+      when the ship returns, and if the information proves reliable. I don't buy
+      pigs in pokes.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had seen the lawyer's face light up for a moment, and then, at the sound
+      of Jim's proviso, miserably fade. &ldquo;I guess you know more about this
+      wreck than I do, Mr. Pinkerton,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;I only know that I
+      was told to buy the thing, and tried, and couldn't.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What I like about you, Mr. Bellairs, is that you waste no time,&rdquo;
+      said Jim. &ldquo;Now then, your client's name and address.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On consideration,&rdquo; replied the lawyer, with indescribable
+      furtivity, &ldquo;I cannot see that I am entitled to communicate my
+      client's name. I will sound him for you with pleasure, if you care to
+      instruct me; but I cannot see that I can give you his address.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well,&rdquo; said Jim, and put his hat on. &ldquo;Rather a
+      strong step, isn't it?&rdquo; (Between every sentence was a clear pause.)
+      &ldquo;Not think better of it? Well, come&mdash;call it a dollar?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Pinkerton, sir!&rdquo; exclaimed the offended attorney; and,
+      indeed, I myself was almost afraid that Jim had mistaken his man and gone
+      too far.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No present use for a dollar?&rdquo; says Jim. &ldquo;Well, look
+      here, Mr. Bellairs: we're both busy men, and I'll go to my outside figure
+      with you right away&mdash;&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop this, Pinkerton,&rdquo; I broke in. &ldquo;I know the address:
+      924 Mission Street.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I do not know whether Pinkerton or Bellairs was the more taken aback.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why in snakes didn't you say so, Loudon?&rdquo; cried my friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You didn't ask for it before,&rdquo; said I, colouring to my
+      temples under his troubled eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Bellairs who broke silence, kindly supplying me with all that I had
+      yet to learn. &ldquo;Since you know Mr. Dickson's address,&rdquo; said he,
+      plainly burning to be rid of us, &ldquo;I suppose I need detain you no
+      longer.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I do not know how Pinkerton felt, but I had death in my soul as we came
+      down the outside stair, from the den of this blotched spider. My whole
+      being was strung, waiting for Jim's first question, and prepared to blurt
+      out, I believe, almost with tears, a full avowal. But my friend asked
+      nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We must hack it,&rdquo; said he, tearing off in the direction of
+      the nearest stand. &ldquo;No time to be lost. You saw how I changed
+      ground. No use in paying the shyster's commission.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again I expected a reference to my suppression; again I was disappointed.
+      It was plain Jim feared the subject, and I felt I almost hated him for
+      that fear. At last, when we were already in the hack and driving towards
+      Mission Street, I could bear my suspense no longer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You do not ask me about that address,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said he, quickly and timidly. &ldquo;What was it? I
+      would like to know.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The note of timidity offended me like a buffet; my temper rose as hot as
+      mustard. &ldquo;I must request you do not ask me,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;It
+      is a matter I cannot explain.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The moment the foolish words were said, that moment I would have given
+      worlds to recall them: how much more, when Pinkerton, patting my hand,
+      replied: &ldquo;All right, dear boy; not another word; that's all done.
+      I'm convinced it's perfectly right.&rdquo; To return upon the subject was
+      beyond my courage; but I vowed inwardly that I should do my utmost in the
+      future for this mad speculation, and that I would cut myself in pieces
+      before Jim should lose one dollar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We had no sooner arrived at the address than I had other things to think
+      of.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Dickson? He's gone,&rdquo; said the landlady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Where had he gone?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm sure I can't tell you,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;He was quite
+      a stranger to me.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did he express his baggage, ma'am?&rdquo; asked Pinkerton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hadn't any,&rdquo; was the reply. &ldquo;He came last night and
+      left again to-day with a satchel.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When did he leave?&rdquo; I inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was about noon,&rdquo; replied the landlady. &ldquo;Some one
+      rang up the telephone, and asked for him; and I reckon he got some news,
+      for he left right away, although his rooms were taken by the week. He
+      seemed considerable put out: I reckon it was a death.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My heart sank; perhaps my idiotic jest had indeed driven him away; and
+      again I asked myself, Why? and whirled for a moment in a vortex of
+      untenable hypotheses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What was he like, ma'am?&rdquo; Pinkerton was asking, when I
+      returned to consciousness of my surroundings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A clean shaved man,&rdquo; said the woman, and could be led or
+      driven into no more significant description.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pull up at the nearest drug-store,&rdquo; said Pinkerton to the
+      driver; and when there, the telephone was put in operation, and the
+      message sped to the Pacific Mail Steamship Company's office&mdash;this was
+      in the days before Spreckels had arisen&mdash;&ldquo;When does the next
+      China steamer touch at Honolulu?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The City of Pekin; she cast off the dock to-day, at half-past one,&rdquo;
+      came the reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's a clear case of bolt,&rdquo; said Jim. &ldquo;He's skipped, or
+      my name's not Pinkerton. He's gone to head us off at Midway Island.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Somehow I was not so sure; there were elements in the case, not known to
+      Pinkerton&mdash;the fears of the captain, for example&mdash;that inclined
+      me otherwise; and the idea that I had terrified Mr. Dickson into flight,
+      though resting on so slender a foundation, clung obstinately in my mind.
+      &ldquo;Shouldn't we see the list of passengers?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dickson is such a blamed common name,&rdquo; returned Jim; &ldquo;and
+      then, as like as not, he would change it.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this I had another intuition. A negative of a street scene, taken
+      unconsciously when I was absorbed in other thought, rose in my memory with
+      not a feature blurred: a view, from Bellairs's door as we were coming
+      down, of muddy roadway, passing drays, matted telegraph wires, a Chinaboy
+      with a basket on his head, and (almost opposite) a corner grocery with the
+      name of Dickson in great gilt letters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;you are right; he would change it. And
+      anyway, I don't believe it was his name at all; I believe he took it from
+      a corner grocery beside Bellairs's.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As like as not,&rdquo; said Jim, still standing on the sidewalk
+      with contracted brows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, what shall we do next?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The natural thing would be to rush the schooner,&rdquo; he replied.
+      &ldquo;But I don't know. I telephoned the captain to go at it head down
+      and heels in air; he answered like a little man; and I guess he's getting
+      around. I believe, Loudon, we'll give Trent a chance. Trent was in it; he
+      was in it up to the neck; even if he couldn't buy, he could give us the
+      straight tip.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think so, too,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;Where shall we find him?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;British consulate, of course,&rdquo; said Jim. &ldquo;And that's
+      another reason for taking him first. We can hustle that schooner up all
+      evening; but when the consulate's shut, it's shut.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the consulate, we learned that Captain Trent had alighted (such is I
+      believe the classic phrase) at the What Cheer House. To that large and
+      unaristocratic hostelry we drove, and addressed ourselves to a large
+      clerk, who was chewing a toothpick and looking straight before him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Captain Jacob Trent?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gone,&rdquo; said the clerk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where has he gone?&rdquo; asked Pinkerton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cain't say,&rdquo; said the clerk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When did he go?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't know,&rdquo; said the clerk, and with the simplicity of a
+      monarch offered us the spectacle of his broad back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What might have happened next I dread to picture, for Pinkerton's
+      excitement had been growing steadily, and now burned dangerously high; but
+      we were spared extremities by the intervention of a second clerk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why! Mr. Dodd!&rdquo; he exclaimed, running forward to the counter.
+      &ldquo;Glad to see you, sir! Can I do anything in your way?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How virtuous actions blossom! Here was a young man to whose pleased ears I
+      had rehearsed <i>Just before the battle, mother,</i> at some weekly
+      picnic; and now, in that tense moment of my life, he came (from the
+      machine) to be my helper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Captain Trent, of the wreck? O yes, Mr. Dodd; he left about twelve;
+      he and another of the men. The Kanaka went earlier by the City of Pekin; I
+      know that; I remember expressing his chest. Captain Trent? I'll inquire,
+      Mr. Dodd. Yes, they were all here. Here are the names on the register;
+      perhaps you would care to look at them while I go and see about the
+      baggage?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I drew the book toward me, and stood looking at the four names all written
+      in the same hand, rather a big and rather a bad one: Trent, Brown, Hardy,
+      and (instead of Ah Sing) Jos. Amalu.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pinkerton,&rdquo; said I, suddenly, &ldquo;have you that <i>Occidental</i>
+      in your pocket?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never left me,&rdquo; said Pinkerton, producing the paper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I turned to the account of the wreck. &ldquo;Here,&rdquo; said I; &ldquo;here's
+      the name. 'Elias Goddedaal, mate.' Why do we never come across Elias
+      Goddedaal?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's so,&rdquo; said Jim. &ldquo;Was he with the rest in that
+      saloon when you saw them?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't believe it,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;They were only four, and
+      there was none that behaved like a mate.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this moment the clerk returned with his report.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The captain,&rdquo; it appeared, &ldquo;came with some kind of an
+      express waggon, and he and the man took off three chests and a big
+      satchel. Our porter helped to put them on, but they drove the cart
+      themselves. The porter thinks they went down town. It was about one.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Still in time for the City of Pekin,&rdquo; observed Jim.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How many of them were here?&rdquo; I inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Three, sir, and the Kanaka,&rdquo; replied the clerk. &ldquo;I
+      can't somehow fin out about the third, but he's gone too.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Goddedaal, the mate, wasn't here then?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, Mr. Dodd, none but what you see,&rdquo; says the clerk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nor you never heard where he was?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. Any particular reason for finding these men, Mr. Dodd?&rdquo;
+      inquired the clerk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This gentleman and I have bought the wreck,&rdquo; I explained;
+      &ldquo;we wished to get some information, and it is very annoying to find
+      the men all gone.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A certain group had gradually formed about us, for the wreck was still a
+      matter of interest; and at this, one of the bystanders, a rough seafaring
+      man, spoke suddenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess the mate won't be gone,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;He's main
+      sick; never left the sick-bay aboard the Tempest; so they tell ME.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim took me by the sleeve. &ldquo;Back to the consulate,&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But even at the consulate nothing was known of Mr. Goddedaal. The doctor
+      of the Tempest had certified him very sick; he had sent his papers in, but
+      never appeared in person before the authorities.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you a telephone laid on to the Tempest?&rdquo; asked
+      Pinkerton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Laid on yesterday,&rdquo; said the clerk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mind asking, or letting me ask? We are very anxious to get
+      hold of Mr. Goddedaal.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right,&rdquo; said the clerk, and turned to the telephone.
+      &ldquo;I'm sorry,&rdquo; he said presently, &ldquo;Mr. Goddedaal has left
+      the ship, and no one knows where he is.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you pay the men's passage home?&rdquo; I inquired, a sudden
+      thought striking me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If they want it,&rdquo; said the clerk; &ldquo;sometimes they
+      don't. But we paid the Kanaka's passage to Honolulu this morning; and by
+      what Captain Trent was saying, I understand the rest are going home
+      together.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you haven't paid them?&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not yet,&rdquo; said the clerk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you would be a good deal surprised, if I were to tell you they
+      were gone already?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, I should think you were mistaken,&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Such is the fact, however,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sure you must be mistaken,&rdquo; he repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May I use your telephone one moment?&rdquo; asked Pinkerton; and as
+      soon as permission had been granted, I heard him ring up the
+      printing-office where our advertisements were usually handled. More I did
+      not hear; for suddenly recalling the big, bad hand in the register of the
+      What Cheer House, I asked the consulate clerk if he had a specimen of
+      Captain Trent's writing. Whereupon I learned that the captain could not
+      write, having cut his hand open a little before the loss of the brig; that
+      the latter part of the log even had been written up by Mr. Goddedaal; and
+      that Trent had always signed with his left hand. By the time I had gleaned
+      this information, Pinkerton was ready.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's all that we can do. Now for the schooner,&rdquo; said he;
+      &ldquo;and by to-morrow evening I lay hands on Goddedaal, or my name's not
+      Pinkerton.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How have you managed?&rdquo; I inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'll see before you get to bed,&rdquo; said Pinkerton. &ldquo;And
+      now, after all this backwarding and forwarding, and that hotel clerk, and
+      that bug Bellairs, it'll be a change and a kind of consolation to see the
+      schooner. I guess things are humming there.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But on the wharf, when we reached it, there was no sign of bustle, and,
+      but for the galley smoke, no mark of life on the Norah Creina. Pinkerton's
+      face grew pale, and his mouth straightened, as he leaped on board.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where's the captain of this&mdash;&mdash;?&rdquo; and he left the
+      phrase unfinished, finding no epithet sufficiently energetic for his
+      thoughts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It did not appear whom or what he was addressing; but a head, presumably
+      the cook's, appeared in answer at the galley door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the cabin, at dinner,&rdquo; said the cook deliberately, chewing
+      as he spoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that cargo out?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, sir.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;None of it?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, there's some of it out. We'll get at the rest of it livelier
+      to-morrow, I guess.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess there'll be something broken first,&rdquo; said Pinkerton,
+      and strode to the cabin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here we found a man, fat, dark, and quiet, seated gravely at what seemed a
+      liberal meal. He looked up upon our entrance; and seeing Pinkerton
+      continue to stand facing him in silence, hat on head, arms folded, and
+      lips compressed, an expression of mingled wonder and annoyance began to
+      dawn upon his placid face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well!&rdquo; said Jim; &ldquo;and so this is what you call rushing
+      around?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who are you?&rdquo; cries the captain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Me! I'm Pinkerton!&rdquo; retorted Jim, as though the name had been
+      a talisman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're not very civil, whoever you are,&rdquo; was the reply. But
+      still a certain effect had been produced, for he scrambled to his feet,
+      and added hastily, &ldquo;A man must have a bit of dinner, you know, Mr.
+      Pinkerton.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where's your mate?&rdquo; snapped Jim.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's up town,&rdquo; returned the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Up town!&rdquo; sneered Pinkerton. &ldquo;Now, I'll tell you what
+      you are: you're a Fraud; and if I wasn't afraid of dirtying my boot, I
+      would kick you and your dinner into that dock.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll tell you something, too,&rdquo; retorted the captain, duskily
+      flushing. &ldquo;I wouldn't sail this ship for the man you are, if you
+      went upon your knees. I've dealt with gentlemen up to now.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can tell you the names of a number of gentlemen you'll never deal
+      with any more, and that's the whole of Longhurst's gang,&rdquo; said Jim.
+      &ldquo;I'll put your pipe out in that quarter, my friend. Here, rout out
+      your traps as quick as look at it, and take your vermin along with you.
+      I'll have a captain in, this very night, that's a sailor, and some sailors
+      to work for him.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll go when I please, and that's to-morrow morning,&rdquo; cried
+      the captain after us, as we departed for the shore.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's something gone wrong with the world to-day; it must have
+      come bottom up!&rdquo; wailed Pinkerton. &ldquo;Bellairs, and then the
+      hotel clerk, and now This Fraud! And what am I to do for a captain,
+      Loudon, with Longhurst gone home an hour ago, and the boys all scattered?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;Jump in!&rdquo; And then to the
+      driver: &ldquo;Do you know Black Tom's?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thither then we rattled; passed through the bar, and found (as I had
+      hoped) Johnson in the enjoyment of club life. The table had been thrust
+      upon one side; a South Sea merchant was discoursing music from a
+      mouth-organ in one corner; and in the middle of the floor Johnson and a
+      fellow-seaman, their arms clasped about each other's bodies, somewhat
+      heavily danced. The room was both cold and close; a jet of gas, which
+      continually menaced the heads of the performers, shed a coarse
+      illumination; the mouth-organ sounded shrill and dismal; and the faces of
+      all concerned were church-like in their gravity. It were, of course,
+      indelicate to interrupt these solemn frolics; so we edged ourselves to
+      chairs, for all the world like belated comers in a concert-room, and
+      patiently waited for the end. At length the organist, having exhausted his
+      supply of breath, ceased abruptly in the middle of a bar. With the
+      cessation of the strain, the dancers likewise came to a full stop, swayed
+      a moment, still embracing, and then separated and looked about the circle
+      for applause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well danced!&rdquo; said one; but it appears the compliment
+      was not strong enough for the performers, who (forgetful of the proverb)
+      took up the tale in person.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Johnson. &ldquo;I mayn't be no sailor, but I can
+      dance!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And his late partner, with an almost pathetic conviction, added, &ldquo;My
+      foot is as light as a feather.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Seeing how the wind set, you may be sure I added a few words of praise
+      before I carried Johnson alone into the passage: to whom, thus mollified,
+      I told so much as I judged needful of our situation, and begged him, if he
+      would not take the job himself, to find me a smart man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Me!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;I couldn't no more do it than I could
+      try to go to hell!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought you were a mate?&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So I am a mate,&rdquo; giggled Johnson, &ldquo;and you don't catch
+      me shipping noways else. But I'll tell you what, I believe I can get you
+      Arty Nares: you seen Arty; first-rate navigator and a son of a gun for
+      style.&rdquo; And he proceeded to explain to me that Mr. Nares, who had
+      the promise of a fine barque in six months, after things had quieted down,
+      was in the meantime living very private, and would be pleased to have a
+      change of air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I called out Pinkerton and told him. &ldquo;Nares!&rdquo; he cried, as
+      soon as I had come to the name. &ldquo;I would jump at the chance of a man
+      that had had Nares's trousers on! Why, Loudon, he's the smartest
+      deep-water mate out of San Francisco, and draws his dividends regular in
+      service and out.&rdquo; This hearty indorsation clinched the proposal;
+      Johnson agreed to produce Nares before six the following morning; and
+      Black Tom, being called into the consultation, promised us four smart
+      hands for the same hour, and even (what appeared to all of us excessive)
+      promised them sober.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The streets were fully lighted when we left Black Tom's: street after
+      street sparkling with gas or electricity, line after line of distant
+      luminaries climbing the steep sides of hills towards the overvaulting
+      darkness; and on the other hand, where the waters of the bay invisibly
+      trembled, a hundred riding lanterns marked the position of a hundred
+      ships. The sea-fog flew high in heaven; and at the level of man's life and
+      business it was clear and chill. By silent consent, we paid the hack off,
+      and proceeded arm in arm towards the Poodle Dog for dinner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At one of the first hoardings, I was aware of a bill-sticker at work: it
+      was a late hour for this employment, and I checked Pinkerton until the
+      sheet should be unfolded. This is what I read:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS REWARD.
+
+     OFFICERS AND MEN OF THE
+
+     WRECKED BRIG FLYING SCUD
+
+     APPLYING,
+
+     PERSONALLY OR BY LETTER,
+
+     AT THE OFFICE OF JAMES PINKERTON, MONTANA
+     BLOCK,
+
+     BEFORE NOON TO-MORROW, TUESDAY, 12TH,
+
+     WILL RECEIVE
+
+     TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS REWARD.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is your idea, Pinkerton!&rdquo; I cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. They've lost no time; I'll say that for them&mdash;not like
+      the Fraud,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;But mind you, Loudon, that's not half of
+      it. The cream of the idea's here: we know our man's sick; well, a copy of
+      that has been mailed to every hospital, every doctor, and every drug-store
+      in San Francisco.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of course, from the nature of our business, Pinkerton could do a thing of
+      the kind at a figure extremely reduced; for all that, I was appalled at
+      the extravagance, and said so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What matter a few dollars now?&rdquo; he replied sadly. &ldquo;It's
+      in three months that the pull comes, Loudon.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We walked on again in silence, not without a shiver. Even at the Poodle
+      Dog, we took our food with small appetite and less speech; and it was not
+      until he was warmed with a third glass of champagne that Pinkerton cleared
+      his throat and looked upon me with a deprecating eye.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Loudon,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;there was a subject you didn't wish
+      to be referred to. I only want to do so indirectly. It wasn't&rdquo;&mdash;he
+      faltered&mdash;&ldquo;it wasn't because you were dissatisfied with me?&rdquo;
+      he concluded, with a quaver.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pinkerton!&rdquo; cried I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no, not a word just now,&rdquo; he hastened to proceed. &ldquo;Let
+      me speak first. I appreciate, though I can't imitate, the delicacy of your
+      nature; and I can well understand you would rather die than speak of it,
+      and yet might feel disappointed. I did think I could have done better
+      myself. But when I found how tight money was in this city, and a man like
+      Douglas B. Longhurst&mdash;a forty-niner, the man that stood at bay in a
+      corn patch for five hours against the San Diablo squatters&mdash;weakening
+      on the operation, I tell you, Loudon, I began to despair; and&mdash;I may
+      have made mistakes, no doubt there are thousands who could have done
+      better&mdash;but I give you a loyal hand on it, I did my best.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My poor Jim,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;as if I ever doubted you! as if
+      I didn't know you had done wonders! All day I've been admiring your energy
+      and resource. And as for that affair&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, Loudon, no more, not a word more! I don't want to hear,&rdquo;
+      cried Jim.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, to tell you the truth, I don't want to tell you,&rdquo; said
+      I; &ldquo;for it's a thing I'm ashamed of.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ashamed, Loudon? O, don't say that; don't use such an expression
+      even in jest!&rdquo; protested Pinkerton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you never do anything you're ashamed of?&rdquo; I inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; says he, rolling his eyes. &ldquo;Why? I'm sometimes
+      sorry afterwards, when it pans out different from what I figured. But I
+      can't see what I would want to be ashamed for.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I sat a while considering with admiration the simplicity of my friend's
+      character. Then I sighed. &ldquo;Do you know, Jim, what I'm sorriest for?&rdquo;
+      said I. &ldquo;At this rate, I can't be best man at your marriage.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My marriage!&rdquo; he repeated, echoing the sigh. &ldquo;No
+      marriage for me now. I'm going right down to-night to break it to her. I
+      think that's what's shaken me all day. I feel as if I had had no right
+      (after I was engaged) to operate so widely.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you know, Jim, it was my doing, and you must lay the blame on
+      me,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a cent of it!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;I was as eager as
+      yourself, only not so bright at the beginning. No; I've myself to thank
+      for it; but it's a wrench.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While Jim departed on his dolorous mission, I returned alone to the
+      office, lit the gas, and sat down to reflect on the events of that
+      momentous day: on the strange features of the tale that had been so far
+      unfolded, the disappearances, the terrors, the great sums of money; and on
+      the dangerous and ungrateful task that awaited me in the immediate future.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is difficult, in the retrospect of such affairs, to avoid attributing
+      to ourselves in the past a measure of the knowledge we possess to-day. But
+      I may say, and yet be well within the mark, that I was consumed that night
+      with a fever of suspicion and curiosity; exhausted my fancy in solutions,
+      which I still dismissed as incommensurable with the facts; and in the
+      mystery by which I saw myself surrounded, found a precious stimulus for my
+      courage and a convenient soothing draught for conscience. Even had all
+      been plain sailing, I do not hint that I should have drawn back. Smuggling
+      is one of the meanest of crimes, for by that we rob a whole country pro
+      rata, and are therefore certain to impoverish the poor: to smuggle opium
+      is an offence particularly dark, since it stands related not so much to
+      murder, as to massacre. Upon all these points I was quite clear; my
+      sympathy was all in arms against my interest; and had not Jim been
+      involved, I could have dwelt almost with satisfaction on the idea of my
+      failure. But Jim, his whole fortune, and his marriage, depended upon my
+      success; and I preferred the interests of my friend before those of all
+      the islanders in the South Seas. This is a poor, private morality, if you
+      like; but it is mine, and the best I have; and I am not half so much
+      ashamed of having embarked at all on this adventure, as I am proud that
+      (while I was in it, and for the sake of my friend) I was up early and down
+      late, set my own hand to everything, took dangers as they came, and for
+      once in my life played the man throughout. At the same time, I could have
+      desired another field of energy; and I was the more grateful for the
+      redeeming element of mystery. Without that, though I might have gone ahead
+      and done as well, it would scarce have been with ardour; and what inspired
+      me that night with an impatient greed of the sea, the island, and the
+      wreck, was the hope that I might stumble there upon the answer to a
+      hundred questions, and learn why Captain Trent fanned his red face in the
+      exchange, and why Mr. Dickson fled from the telephone in the Mission
+      Street lodging-house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XI. IN WHICH JIM AND I TAKE DIFFERENT WAYS.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      I was unhappy when I closed my eyes; and it was to unhappiness that I
+      opened them again next morning, to a confused sense of some calamity still
+      inarticulate, and to the consciousness of jaded limbs and of a swimming
+      head. I must have lain for some time inert and stupidly miserable, before
+      I became aware of a reiterated knocking at the door; with which discovery
+      all my wits flowed back in their accustomed channels, and I remembered the
+      sale, and the wreck, and Goddedaal, and Nares, and Johnson, and Black Tom,
+      and the troubles of yesterday, and the manifold engagements of the day
+      that was to come. The thought thrilled me like a trumpet in the hour of
+      battle. In a moment, I had leaped from bed, crossed the office where
+      Pinkerton lay in a deep trance of sleep on the convertible sofa, and stood
+      in the doorway, in my night gear, to receive our visitors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Johnson was first, by way of usher, smiling. From a little behind, with
+      his Sunday hat tilted forward over his brow, and a cigar glowing between
+      his lips, Captain Nares acknowledged our previous acquaintance with a
+      succinct nod. Behind him again, in the top of the stairway, a knot of
+      sailors, the new crew of the Norah Creina, stood polishing the wall with
+      back and elbow. These I left without to their reflections. But our two
+      officers I carried at once into the office, where (taking Jim by the
+      shoulder) I shook him slowly into consciousness. He sat up, all abroad for
+      the moment, and stared on the new captain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jim,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;this is Captain Nares. Captain, Mr.
+      Pinkerton.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nares repeated his curt nod, still without speech; and I thought he held
+      us both under a watchful scrutiny.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O!&rdquo; says Jim, &ldquo;this is Captain Nares, is it? Good
+      morning, Captain Nares. Happy to have the pleasure of your acquaintance,
+      sir. I know you well by reputation.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perhaps, under the circumstances of the moment, this was scarce a welcome
+      speech. At least, Nares received it with a grunt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, Captain,&rdquo; Jim continued, &ldquo;you know about the size
+      of the business? You're to take the Nora Creina to Midway Island, break up
+      a wreck, call at Honolulu, and back to this port? I suppose that's
+      understood?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; returned Nares, with the same unamiable reserve,
+      &ldquo;for a reason, which I guess you know, the cruise may suit me; but
+      there's a point or two to settle. We shall have to talk, Mr. Pinkerton.
+      But whether I go or not, somebody will; there's no sense in losing time;
+      and you might give Mr. Johnson a note, let him take the hands right down,
+      and set to to overhaul the rigging. The beasts look sober,&rdquo; he
+      added, with an air of great disgust, &ldquo;and need putting to work to
+      keep them so.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This being agreed upon, Nares watched his subordinate depart and drew a
+      visible breath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And now we're alone and can talk,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;What's
+      this thing about? It's been advertised like Barnum's museum; that poster
+      of yours has set the Front talking; that's an objection in itself, for I'm
+      laying a little dark just now; and anyway, before I take the ship, I
+      require to know what I'm going after.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thereupon Pinkerton gave him the whole tale, beginning with a businesslike
+      precision, and working himself up, as he went on, to the boiling-point of
+      narrative enthusiasm. Nares sat and smoked, hat still on head, and
+      acknowledged each fresh feature of the story with a frowning nod. But his
+      pale blue eyes betrayed him, and lighted visibly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now you see for yourself,&rdquo; Pinkerton concluded: &ldquo;there's
+      every last chance that Trent has skipped to Honolulu, and it won't take
+      much of that fifty thousand dollars to charter a smart schooner down to
+      Midway. Here's where I want a man!&rdquo; cried Jim, with contagious
+      energy. &ldquo;That wreck's mine; I've paid for it, money down; and if
+      it's got to be fought for, I want to see it fought for lively. If you're
+      not back in ninety days, I tell you plainly, I'll make one of the biggest
+      busts ever seen upon this coast; it's life or death for Mr. Dodd and me.
+      As like as not, it'll come to grapples on the island; and when I heard
+      your name last night&mdash;and a blame' sight more this morning when I saw
+      the eye you've got in your head&mdash;I said, 'Nares is good enough for
+      me!'&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess,&rdquo; observed Nares, studying the ash of his cigar,
+      &ldquo;the sooner I get that schooner outside the Farallones, the better
+      you'll be pleased.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're the man I dreamed of!&rdquo; cried Jim, bouncing on the bed.
+      &ldquo;There's not five per cent of fraud in all your carcase.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just hold on,&rdquo; said Nares. &ldquo;There's another point. I
+      heard some talk about a supercargo.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's Mr. Dodd, here, my partner,&rdquo; said Jim.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't see it,&rdquo; returned the captain drily. &ldquo;One
+      captain's enough for any ship that ever I was aboard.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now don't you start disappointing me,&rdquo; said Pinkerton;
+      &ldquo;for you're talking without thought. I'm not going to give you the
+      run of the books of this firm, am I? I guess not. Well, this is not only a
+      cruise; it's a business operation; and that's in the hands of my partner.
+      You sail that ship, you see to breaking up that wreck and keeping the men
+      upon the jump, and you'll find your hands about full. Only, no mistake
+      about one thing: it has to be done to Mr. Dodd's satisfaction; for it's
+      Mr. Dodd that's paying.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm accustomed to give satisfaction,&rdquo; said Mr. Nares, with a
+      dark flush.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And so you will here!&rdquo; cried Pinkerton. &ldquo;I understand
+      you. You're prickly to handle, but you're straight all through.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The position's got to be understood, though,&rdquo; returned Nares,
+      perhaps a trifle mollified. &ldquo;My position, I mean. I'm not going to
+      ship sailing-master; it's enough out of my way already, to set a foot on
+      this mosquito schooner.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I'll tell you,&rdquo; retorted Jim, with an indescribable
+      twinkle: &ldquo;you just meet me on the ballast, and we'll make it a
+      barquentine.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nares laughed a little; tactless Pinkerton had once more gained a victory
+      in tact. &ldquo;Then there's another point,&rdquo; resumed the captain,
+      tacitly relinquishing the last. &ldquo;How about the owners?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, you leave that to me; I'm one of Longhurst's crowd, you know,&rdquo;
+      said Jim, with sudden bristling vanity. &ldquo;Any man that's good enough
+      for me, is good enough for them.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who are they?&rdquo; asked Nares.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;M'Intyre and Spittal,&rdquo; said Jim.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, well, give me a card of yours,&rdquo; said the captain: &ldquo;you
+      needn't bother to write; I keep M'Intyre and Spittal in my vest-pocket.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Boast for boast; it was always thus with Nares and Pinkerton&mdash;the two
+      vainest men of my acquaintance. And having thus reinstated himself in his
+      own opinion, the captain rose, and, with a couple of his stiff nods,
+      departed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jim,&rdquo; I cried, as the door closed behind him, &ldquo;I don't
+      like that man.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You've just got to, Loudon,&rdquo; returned Jim. &ldquo;He's a
+      typical American seaman&mdash;brave as a lion, full of resource, and
+      stands high with his owners. He's a man with a record.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For brutality at sea,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say what you like,&rdquo; exclaimed Pinkerton, &ldquo;it was a good
+      hour we got him in: I'd trust Mamie's life to him to-morrow.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, and talking of Mamie?&rdquo; says I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim paused with his trousers half on. &ldquo;She's the gallantest little
+      soul God ever made!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;Loudon, I'd meant to knock you
+      up last night, and I hope you won't take it unfriendly that I didn't. I
+      went in and looked at you asleep; and I saw you were all broken up, and
+      let you be. The news would keep, anyway; and even you, Loudon, couldn't
+      feel it the same way as I did.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What news?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's this way,&rdquo; says Jim. &ldquo;I told her how we stood, and
+      that I backed down from marrying. 'Are you tired of me?' says she: God
+      bless her! Well, I explained the whole thing over again, the chance of
+      smash, your absence unavoidable, the point I made of having you for the
+      best man, and that. 'If you're not tired of me, I think I see one way to
+      manage,' says she. 'Let's get married to-morrow, and Mr. Loudon can be
+      best man before he goes to sea.' That's how she said it, crisp and bright,
+      like one of Dickens's characters. It was no good for me to talk about the
+      smash. 'You'll want me all the more,' she said. Loudon, I only pray I can
+      make it up to her; I prayed for it last night beside your bed, while you
+      lay sleeping&mdash;for you, and Mamie and myself; and&mdash;I don't know
+      if you quite believe in prayer, I'm a bit Ingersollian myself&mdash;but a
+      kind of sweetness came over me, and I couldn't help but think it was an
+      answer. Never was a man so lucky! You and me and Mamie; it's a triple
+      cord, Loudon. If either of you were to die! And she likes you so much, and
+      thinks you so accomplished and distingue-looking, and was just as set as I
+      was to have you for best man. 'Mr. Loudon,' she calls you; seems to me so
+      friendly! And she sat up till three in the morning fixing up a costume for
+      the marriage; it did me good to see her, Loudon, and to see that needle
+      going, going, and to say 'All this hurry, Jim, is just to marry you!' I
+      couldn't believe it; it was so like some blame' fairy story. To think of
+      those old tin-type times about turned my head; I was so unrefined then,
+      and so illiterate, and so lonesome; and here I am in clover, and I'm
+      blamed if I can see what I've done to deserve it.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So he poured forth with innocent volubility the fulness of his heart; and
+      I, from these irregular communications, must pick out, here a little and
+      there a little, the particulars of his new plan. They were to be married,
+      sure enough, that day; the wedding breakfast was to be at Frank's; the
+      evening to be passed in a visit of God-speed aboard the Norah Creina; and
+      then we were to part, Jim and I, he to his married life, I on my
+      sea-enterprise. If ever I cherished an ill-feeling for Miss Mamie, I
+      forgave her now; so brave and kind, so pretty and venturesome, was her
+      decision. The weather frowned overhead with a leaden sky, and San
+      Francisco had never (in all my experience) looked so bleak and gaunt, and
+      shoddy, and crazy, like a city prematurely old; but through all my
+      wanderings and errands to and fro, by the dock side or in the jostling
+      street, among rude sounds and ugly sights, there ran in my mind, like a
+      tiny strain of music, the thought of my friend's happiness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For that was indeed a day of many and incongruous occupations. Breakfast
+      was scarce swallowed before Jim must run to the City Hall and Frank's
+      about the cares of marriage, and I hurry to John Smith's upon the account
+      of stores, and thence, on a visit of certification, to the Norah Creina.
+      Methought she looked smaller than ever, sundry great ships overspiring her
+      from close without. She was already a nightmare of disorder; and the wharf
+      alongside was piled with a world of casks, and cases, and tins, and tools,
+      and coils of rope, and miniature barrels of giant powder, such as it
+      seemed no human ingenuity could stuff on board of her. Johnson was in the
+      waist, in a red shirt and dungaree trousers, his eye kindled with
+      activity. With him I exchanged a word or two; thence stepped aft along the
+      narrow alleyway between the house and the rail, and down the companion to
+      the main cabin, where the captain sat with the commissioner at wine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I gazed with disaffection at the little box which for many a day I was to
+      call home. On the starboard was a stateroom for the captain; on the port,
+      a pair of frowsy berths, one over the other, and abutting astern upon the
+      side of an unsavoury cupboard. The walls were yellow and damp, the floor
+      black and greasy; there was a prodigious litter of straw, old newspapers,
+      and broken packing-cases; and by way of ornament, only a glass-rack, a
+      thermometer presented &ldquo;with compliments&rdquo; of some advertising
+      whiskey-dealer, and a swinging lamp. It was hard to foresee that, before a
+      week was up, I should regard that cabin as cheerful, lightsome, airy, and
+      even spacious.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was presented to the commissioner, and to a young friend of his whom he
+      had brought with him for the purpose (apparently) of smoking cigars; and
+      after we had pledged one another in a glass of California port, a trifle
+      sweet and sticky for a morning beverage, the functionary spread his papers
+      on the table, and the hands were summoned. Down they trooped, accordingly,
+      into the cabin; and stood eyeing the ceiling or the floor, the picture of
+      sheepish embarrassment, and with a common air of wanting to expectorate
+      and not quite daring. In admirable contrast, stood the Chinese cook, easy,
+      dignified, set apart by spotless raiment, the hidalgo of the seas.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I daresay you never had occasion to assist at the farce which followed.
+      Our shipping laws in the United States (thanks to the inimitable Dana) are
+      conceived in a spirit of paternal stringency, and proceed throughout on
+      the hypothesis that poor Jack is an imbecile, and the other parties to the
+      contract, rogues and ruffians. A long and wordy paper of precautions, a
+      fo'c's'le bill of rights, must be read separately to each man. I had now
+      the benefit of hearing it five times in brisk succession; and you would
+      suppose I was acquainted with its contents. But the commissioner (worthy
+      man) spends his days in doing little else; and when we bear in mind the
+      parallel case of the irreverent curate, we need not be surprised that he
+      took the passage tempo prestissimo, in one roulade of gabble&mdash;that I,
+      with the trained attention of an educated man, could gather but a fraction
+      of its import&mdash;and the sailors nothing. No profanity in giving
+      orders, no sheath-knives, Midway Island and any other port the master may
+      direct, not to exceed six calendar months, and to this port to be paid
+      off: so it seemed to run, with surprising verbiage; so ended. And with the
+      end, the commissioner, in each case, fetched a deep breath, resumed his
+      natural voice, and proceeded to business. &ldquo;Now, my man,&rdquo; he
+      would say, &ldquo;you ship A. B. at so many dollars, American gold coin.
+      Sign your name here, if you have one, and can write.&rdquo; Whereupon, and
+      the name (with infinite hard breathing) being signed, the commissioner
+      would proceed to fill in the man's appearance, height, etc., on the
+      official form. In this task of literary portraiture he seemed to rely
+      wholly upon temperament; for I could not perceive him to cast one glance
+      on any of his models. He was assisted, however, by a running commentary
+      from the captain: &ldquo;Hair blue and eyes red, nose five foot seven, and
+      stature broken&rdquo;&mdash;jests as old, presumably, as the American
+      marine; and, like the similar pleasantries of the billiard board,
+      perennially relished. The highest note of humour was reached in the case
+      of the Chinese cook, who was shipped under the name of &ldquo;One Lung,&rdquo;
+      to the sound of his own protests and the self-approving chuckles of the
+      functionary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, captain,&rdquo; said the latter, when the men were gone, and
+      he had bundled up his papers, &ldquo;the law requires you to carry a
+      slop-chest and a chest of medicines.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess I know that,&rdquo; said Nares.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess you do,&rdquo; returned the commissioner, and helped
+      himself to port.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But when he was gone, I appealed to Nares on the same subject, for I was
+      well aware we carried none of these provisions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; drawled Nares, &ldquo;there's sixty pounds of
+      niggerhead on the quay, isn't there? and twenty pounds of salts; and I
+      never travel without some painkiller in my gripsack.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As a matter of fact, we were richer. The captain had the usual sailor's
+      provision of quack medicines, with which, in the usual sailor fashion, he
+      would daily drug himself, displaying an extreme inconstancy, and flitting
+      from Kennedy's Red Discovery to Kennedy's White, and from Hood's
+      Sarsaparilla to Mother Seigel's Syrup. And there were, besides, some
+      mildewed and half-empty bottles, the labels obliterated, over which Nares
+      would sometimes sniff and speculate. &ldquo;Seems to smell like diarrhoea
+      stuff,&rdquo; he would remark. &ldquo;I wish't I knew, and I would try it.&rdquo;
+      But the slop-chest was indeed represented by the plugs of niggerhead, and
+      nothing else. Thus paternal laws are made, thus they are evaded; and the
+      schooner put to sea, like plenty of her neighbours, liable to a fine of
+      six hundred dollars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This characteristic scene, which has delayed me overlong, was but a moment
+      in that day of exercise and agitation. To fit out a schooner for sea, and
+      improvise a marriage between dawn and dusk, involves heroic effort. All
+      day Jim and I ran, and tramped, and laughed, and came near crying, and
+      fell in sudden anxious consultations, and were sped (with a prepared
+      sarcasm on our lips) to some fallacious milliner, and made dashes to the
+      schooner and John Smith's, and at every second corner were reminded (by
+      our own huge posters) of our desperate estate. Between whiles, I had found
+      the time to hover at some half-a-dozen jewellers' windows; and my present,
+      thus intemperately chosen, was graciously accepted. I believe, indeed,
+      that was the last (though not the least) of my concerns, before the old
+      minister, shabby and benign, was routed from his house and led to the
+      office like a performing poodle; and there, in the growing dusk, under the
+      cold glitter of Thirteen Star, two hundred strong, and beside the garish
+      glories of the agricultural engine, Mamie and Jim were made one. The scene
+      was incongruous, but the business pretty, whimsical, and affecting: the
+      typewriters with such kindly faces and fine posies, Mamie so demure, and
+      Jim&mdash;how shall I describe that poor, transfigured Jim? He began by
+      taking the minister aside to the far end of the office. I knew not what he
+      said, but I have reason to believe he was protesting his unfitness; for he
+      wept as he said it: and the old minister, himself genuinely moved, was
+      heard to console and encourage him, and at one time to use this
+      expression: &ldquo;I assure you, Mr. Pinkerton, there are not many who can
+      say so much&rdquo;&mdash;from which I gathered that my friend had tempered
+      his self-accusations with at least one legitimate boast. From this ghostly
+      counselling, Jim turned to me; and though he never got beyond the
+      explosive utterance of my name and one fierce handgrip, communicated some
+      of his own emotion, like a charge of electricity, to his best man. We
+      stood up to the ceremony at last, in a general and kindly discomposure.
+      Jim was all abroad; and the divine himself betrayed his sympathy in voice
+      and demeanour, and concluded with a fatherly allocution, in which he
+      congratulated Mamie (calling her &ldquo;my dear&rdquo;) upon the fortune
+      of an excellent husband, and protested he had rarely married a more
+      interesting couple. At this stage, like a glory descending, there was
+      handed in, ex machina, the card of Douglas B. Longhurst, with
+      congratulations and four dozen Perrier-Jouet. A bottle was opened; and the
+      minister pledged the bride, and the bridesmaids simpered and tasted, and I
+      made a speech with airy bacchanalianism, glass in hand. But poor Jim must
+      leave the wine untasted. &ldquo;Don't touch it,&rdquo; I had found the
+      opportunity to whisper; &ldquo;in your state it will make you as drunk as
+      a fiddler.&rdquo; And Jim had wrung my hand with a &ldquo;God bless you,
+      Loudon!&mdash;saved me again!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hard following upon this, the supper passed off at Frank's with somewhat
+      tremulous gaiety. And thence, with one half of the Perrier-Jouet&mdash;I
+      would accept no more&mdash;we voyaged in a hack to the Norah Creina.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a dear little ship!&rdquo; cried Mamie, as our miniature craft
+      was pointed out to her. And then, on second thought, she turned to the
+      best man. &ldquo;And how brave you must be, Mr. Dodd,&rdquo; she cried,
+      &ldquo;to go in that tiny thing so far upon the ocean!&rdquo; And I
+      perceived I had risen in the lady's estimation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The dear little ship presented a horrid picture of confusion, and its
+      occupants of weariness and ill-humour. From the cabin the cook was storing
+      tins into the lazarette, and the four hands, sweaty and sullen, were
+      passing them from one to another from the waist. Johnson was three parts
+      asleep over the table; and in his bunk, in his own cabin, the captain
+      sourly chewed and puffed at a cigar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;See here,&rdquo; he said, rising; &ldquo;you'll be sorry you came.
+      We can't stop work if we're to get away to-morrow. A ship getting ready
+      for sea is no place for people, anyway. You'll only interrupt my men.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was on the point of answering something tart; but Jim, who was
+      acquainted with the breed, as he was with most things that had a bearing
+      on affairs, made haste to pour in oil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Captain,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I know we're a nuisance here, and
+      that you've had a rough time. But all we want is that you should drink one
+      glass of wine with us, Perrier-Jouet, from Longhurst, on the occasion of
+      my marriage, and Loudon's&mdash;Mr. Dodd's&mdash;departure.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, it's your lookout,&rdquo; said Nares. &ldquo;I don't mind
+      half an hour. Spell, O!&rdquo; he added to the men; &ldquo;go and kick
+      your heels for half an hour, and then you can turn to again a trifle
+      livelier. Johnson, see if you can't wipe off a chair for the lady.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His tone was no more gracious than his language; but when Mamie had turned
+      upon him the soft fire of her eyes, and informed him that he was the first
+      sea-captain she had ever met, &ldquo;except captains of steamers, of
+      course&rdquo;&mdash;she so qualified the statement&mdash;and had expressed
+      a lively sense of his courage, and perhaps implied (for I suppose the arts
+      of ladies are the same as those of men) a modest consciousness of his good
+      looks, our bear began insensibly to soften; and it was already part as an
+      apology, though still with unaffected heat of temper, that he volunteered
+      some sketch of his annoyances.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A pretty mess we've had!&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;Half the stores
+      were wrong; I'll wring John Smith's neck for him some of these days. Then
+      two newspaper beasts came down, and tried to raise copy out of me, till I
+      threatened them with the first thing handy; and then some kind of
+      missionary bug, wanting to work his passage to Raiatea or somewhere. I
+      told him I would take him off the wharf with the butt end of my boot, and
+      he went away cursing. This vessel's been depreciated by the look of him.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While the captain spoke, with his strange, humorous, arrogant abruptness,
+      I observed Jim to be sizing him up, like a thing at once quaint and
+      familiar, and with a scrutiny that was both curious and knowing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One word, dear boy,&rdquo; he said, turning suddenly to me. And
+      when he had drawn me on deck, &ldquo;That man,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;will
+      carry sail till your hair grows white; but never you let on, never breathe
+      a word. I know his line: he'll die before he'll take advice; and if you
+      get his back up, he'll run you right under. I don't often jam in my
+      advice, Loudon; and when I do, it means I'm thoroughly posted.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The little party in the cabin, so disastrously begun, finished, under the
+      mellowing influence of wine and woman, in excellent feeling and with some
+      hilarity. Mamie, in a plush Gainsborough hat and a gown of wine-coloured
+      silk, sat, an apparent queen, among her rude surroundings and companions.
+      The dusky litter of the cabin set off her radiant trimness: tarry Johnson
+      was a foil to her fair beauty; she glowed in that poor place, fair as a
+      star; until even I, who was not usually of her admirers, caught a spark of
+      admiration; and even the captain, who was in no courtly humour, proposed
+      that the scene should be commemorated by my pencil. It was the last act of
+      the evening. Hurriedly as I went about my task, the half-hour had
+      lengthened out to more than three before it was completed: Mamie in full
+      value, the rest of the party figuring in outline only, and the artist
+      himself introduced in a back view, which was pronounced a likeness. But it
+      was to Mamie that I devoted the best of my attention; and it was with her
+      I made my chief success.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O!&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;am I really like that? No wonder Jim
+      ...&rdquo; She paused. &ldquo;Why it's just as lovely as he's good!&rdquo;
+      she cried: an epigram which was appreciated, and repeated as we made our
+      salutations, and called out after the retreating couple as they passed
+      away under the lamplight on the wharf.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus it was that our farewells were smuggled through under an ambuscade of
+      laughter, and the parting over ere I knew it was begun. The figures
+      vanished, the steps died away along the silent city front; on board, the
+      men had returned to their labours, the captain to his solitary cigar; and
+      after that long and complex day of business and emotion, I was at last
+      alone and free. It was, perhaps, chiefly fatigue that made my heart so
+      heavy. I leaned at least upon the house, and stared at the foggy heaven,
+      or over the rail at the wavering reflection of the lamps, like a man that
+      was quite done with hope and would have welcomed the asylum of the grave.
+      And all at once, as I thus stood, the City of Pekin flashed into my mind,
+      racing her thirteen knots for Honolulu, with the hated Trent&mdash;perhaps
+      with the mysterious Goddedaal&mdash;on board; and with the thought, the
+      blood leaped and careered through all my body. It seemed no chase at all;
+      it seemed we had no chance, as we lay there bound to iron pillars, and
+      fooling away the precious moments over tins of beans. &ldquo;Let them get
+      there first!&rdquo; I thought. &ldquo;Let them! We can't be long behind.&rdquo;
+      And from that moment, I date myself a man of a rounded experience: nothing
+      had lacked but this, that I should entertain and welcome the grim thought
+      of bloodshed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was long before the toil remitted in the cabin, and it was worth my
+      while to get to bed; long after that, before sleep favoured me; and scarce
+      a moment later (or so it seemed) when I was recalled to consciousness by
+      bawling men and the jar of straining hawsers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The schooner was cast off before I got on deck. In the misty obscurity of
+      the first dawn, I saw the tug heading us with glowing fires and blowing
+      smoke, and heard her beat the roughened waters of the bay. Beside us, on
+      her flock of hills, the lighted city towered up and stood swollen in the
+      raw fog. It was strange to see her burn on thus wastefully, with
+      half-quenched luminaries, when the dawn was already grown strong enough to
+      show me, and to suffer me to recognise, a solitary figure standing by the
+      piles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Or was it really the eye, and not rather the heart, that identified that
+      shadow in the dusk, among the shoreside lamps? I know not. It was Jim, at
+      least; Jim, come for a last look; and we had but time to wave a
+      valedictory gesture and exchange a wordless cry. This was our second
+      parting, and our capacities were now reversed. It was mine to play the
+      Argonaut, to speed affairs, to plan and to accomplish&mdash;if need were,
+      at the price of life; it was his to sit at home, to study the calendar,
+      and to wait. I knew besides another thing that gave me joy. I knew that my
+      friend had succeeded in my education; that the romance of business, if our
+      fantastic purchase merited the name, had at last stirred my dilletante
+      nature; and, as we swept under cloudy Tamalpais and through the roaring
+      narrows of the bay, the Yankee blood sang in my veins with suspense and
+      exultation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Outside the heads, as if to meet my desire, we found it blowing fresh from
+      the northeast. No time had been lost. The sun was not yet up before the
+      tug cast off the hawser, gave us a salute of three whistles, and turned
+      homeward toward the coast, which now began to gleam along its margin with
+      the earliest rays of day. There was no other ship in view when the Norah
+      Creina, lying over under all plain sail, began her long and lonely voyage
+      to the wreck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XII. THE &ldquo;NORAH CREINA.&rdquo;
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      I love to recall the glad monotony of a Pacific voyage, when the trades
+      are not stinted, and the ship, day after day, goes free. The mountain
+      scenery of trade-wind clouds, watched (and in my case painted) under every
+      vicissitude of light&mdash;blotting stars, withering in the moon's glory,
+      barring the scarlet eve, lying across the dawn collapsed into the
+      unfeatured morning bank, or at noon raising their snowy summits between
+      the blue roof of heaven and the blue floor of sea; the small, busy, and
+      deliberate world of the schooner, with its unfamiliar scenes, the spearing
+      of dolphin from the bowsprit end, the holy war on sharks, the cook making
+      bread on the main hatch; reefing down before a violent squall, with the
+      men hanging out on the foot-ropes; the squall itself, the catch at the
+      heart, the opened sluices of the sky; and the relief, the renewed
+      loveliness of life, when all is over, the sun forth again, and our
+      out-fought enemy only a blot upon the leeward sea. I love to recall, and
+      would that I could reproduce that life, the unforgettable, the
+      unrememberable. The memory, which shows so wise a backwardness in
+      registering pain, is besides an imperfect recorder of extended pleasures;
+      and a long-continued well-being escapes (as it were, by its mass) our
+      petty methods of commemoration. On a part of our life's map there lies a
+      roseate, undecipherable haze, and that is all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of one thing, if I am at all to trust my own annals, I was delightedly
+      conscious. Day after day, in the sun-gilded cabin, the whiskey-dealer's
+      thermometer stood at 84. Day after day, the air had the same indescribable
+      liveliness and sweetness, soft and nimble, and cool as the cheek of
+      health. Day after day the sun flamed; night after night the moon beaconed,
+      or the stars paraded their lustrous regiment. I was aware of a spiritual
+      change, or, perhaps, rather a molecular reconstitution. My bones were
+      sweeter to me. I had come home to my own climate, and looked back with
+      pity on those damp and wintry zones, miscalled the temperate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Two years of this, and comfortable quarters to live in, kind of
+      shake the grit out of a man,&rdquo; the captain remarked; &ldquo;can't
+      make out to be happy anywhere else. A townie of mine was lost down this
+      way, in a coalship that took fire at sea. He struck the beach somewhere in
+      the Navigators; and he wrote to me that when he left the place, it would
+      be feet first. He's well off, too, and his father owns some coasting craft
+      Down East; but Billy prefers the beach, and hot rolls off the bread-fruit
+      trees.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A voice told me I was on the same track as Billy. But when was this? Our
+      outward track in the Norah Creina lay well to the northward; and perhaps
+      it is but the impression of a few pet days which I have unconsciously
+      spread longer, or perhaps the feeling grew upon me later, in the run to
+      Honolulu. One thing I am sure: it was before I had ever seen an island
+      worthy of the name that I must date my loyalty to the South Seas. The
+      blank sea itself grew desirable under such skies; and wherever the
+      trade-wind blows, I know no better country than a schooner's deck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But for the tugging anxiety as to the journey's end, the journey itself
+      must thus have counted for the best of holidays. My physical well-being
+      was over-proof; effects of sea and sky kept me for ever busy with my
+      pencil; and I had no lack of intellectual exercise of a different order in
+      the study of my inconsistent friend, the captain. I call him friend, here
+      on the threshold; but that is to look well ahead. At first, I was too much
+      horrified by what I considered his barbarities, too much puzzled by his
+      shifting humours, and too frequently annoyed by his small vanities, to
+      regard him otherwise than as the cross of my existence. It was only by
+      degrees, in his rare hours of pleasantness, when he forgot (and made me
+      forget) the weaknesses to which he was so prone, that he won me to a kind
+      of unconsenting fondness. Lastly, the faults were all embraced in a more
+      generous view: I saw them in their place, like discords in a musical
+      progression; and accepted them and found them picturesque, as we accept
+      and admire, in the habitable face of nature, the smoky head of the volcano
+      or the pernicious thicket of the swamp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was come of good people Down East, and had the beginnings of a thorough
+      education. His temper had been ungovernable from the first; and it is
+      likely the defect was inherited, and the blame of the rupture not entirely
+      his. He ran away at least to sea; suffered horrible maltreatment, which
+      seemed to have rather hardened than enlightened him; ran away again to
+      shore in a South American port; proved his capacity and made money,
+      although still a child; fell among thieves and was robbed; worked back a
+      passage to the States, and knocked one morning at the door of an old lady
+      whose orchard he had often robbed. The introduction appears insufficient;
+      but Nares knew what he was doing. The sight of her old neighbourly
+      depredator shivering at the door in tatters, the very oddity of his
+      appeal, touched a soft spot in the spinster's heart. &ldquo;I always had a
+      fancy for the old lady,&rdquo; Nares said, &ldquo;even when she used to
+      stampede me out of the orchard, and shake her thimble and her old curls at
+      me out of the window as I was going by; I always thought she was a kind of
+      pleasant old girl. Well, when she came to the door that morning, I told
+      her so, and that I was stone-broke; and she took me right in, and fetched
+      out the pie.&rdquo; She clothed him, taught him, and had him to sea again
+      in better shape, welcomed him to her hearth on his return from every
+      cruise, and when she died bequeathed him her possessions. &ldquo;She was a
+      good old girl,&rdquo; he would say. &ldquo;I tell you, Mr. Dodd, it was a
+      queer thing to see me and the old lady talking a pasear in the garden, and
+      the old man scowling at us over the pickets. She lived right next door to
+      the old man, and I guess that's just what took me there. I wanted him to
+      know that I was badly beat, you see, and would rather go to the devil than
+      to him. What made the dig harder, he had quarrelled with the old lady
+      about me and the orchard: I guess that made him rage. Yes, I was a beast
+      when I was young. But I was always pretty good to the old lady.&rdquo;
+      Since then he had prospered, not uneventfully, in his profession; the old
+      lady's money had fallen in during the voyage of the Gleaner, and he was
+      now, as soon as the smoke of that engagement cleared away, secure of his
+      ship. I suppose he was about thirty: a powerful, active man, with a blue
+      eye, a thick head of hair, about the colour of oakum and growing low over
+      the brow; clean-shaved and lean about the jaw; a good singer; a good
+      performer on that sea-instrument, the accordion; a quick observer, a close
+      reasoner; when he pleased, of a really elegant address; and when he chose,
+      the greatest brute upon the seas.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His usage of the men, his hazing, his bullying, his perpetual
+      fault-finding for no cause, his perpetual and brutal sarcasm, might have
+      raised a mutiny in a slave galley. Suppose the steersman's eye to have
+      wandered: &ldquo;You &mdash;&mdash;, &mdash;&mdash;, little, mutton-faced
+      Dutchman,&rdquo; Nares would bawl; &ldquo;you want a booting to keep you
+      on your course! I know a little city-front slush when I see one. Just you
+      glue your eye to that compass, or I'll show you round the vessel at the
+      butt-end of my boot.&rdquo; Or suppose a hand to linger aft, whither he
+      had perhaps been summoned not a minute before. &ldquo;Mr. Daniells, will
+      you oblige me by stepping clear of that main-sheet?&rdquo; the captain
+      might begin, with truculent courtesy. &ldquo;Thank you. And perhaps you'll
+      be so kind as to tell me what the hell you're doing on my quarter-deck? I
+      want no dirt of your sort here. Is there nothing for you to do? Where's
+      the mate? Don't you set ME to find work for you, or I'll find you some
+      that will keep you on your back a fortnight.&rdquo; Such allocutions,
+      conceived with a perfect knowledge of his audience, so that every insult
+      carried home, were delivered with a mien so menacing, and an eye so
+      fiercely cruel, that his unhappy subordinates shrank and quailed. Too
+      often violence followed; too often I have heard and seen and boiled at the
+      cowardly aggression; and the victim, his hands bound by law, has risen
+      again from deck and crawled forward stupefied&mdash;I know not what
+      passion of revenge in his wronged heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It seems strange I should have grown to like this tyrant. It may even seem
+      strange that I should have stood by and suffered his excesses to proceed.
+      But I was not quite such a chicken as to interfere in public; for I would
+      rather have a man or two mishandled than one half of us butchered in a
+      mutiny and the rest suffer on the gallows. And in private, I was unceasing
+      in my protests.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Captain,&rdquo; I once said to him, appealing to his patriotism,
+      which was of a hardy quality, &ldquo;this is no way to treat American
+      seamen. You don't call it American to treat men like dogs?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Americans?&rdquo; he said grimly. &ldquo;Do you call these Dutchmen
+      and Scattermouches [1] Americans? I've been fourteen years to sea, all but
+      one trip under American colours, and I've never laid eye on an American
+      foremast hand. There used to be such things in the old days, when
+      thirty-five dollars were the wages out of Boston; and then you could see
+      ships handled and run the way they want to be. But that's all past and
+      gone; and nowadays the only thing that flies in an American ship is a
+      belaying-pin. You don't know; you haven't a guess. How would you like to
+      go on deck for your middle watch, fourteen months on end, with all your
+      duty to do and every one's life depending on you, and expect to get a
+      knife ripped into you as you come out of your stateroom, or be sand-bagged
+      as you pass the boat, or get tripped into the hold, if the hatches are off
+      in fine weather? That kind of shakes the starch out of the brotherly love
+      and New Jerusalem business. You go through the mill, and you'll have a
+      bigger grudge against every old shellback that dirties his plate in the
+      three oceans, than the Bank of California could settle up. No; it has an
+      ugly look to it, but the only way to run a ship is to make yourself a
+      terror.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;[1] In sea-lingo (Pacific) DUTCHMAN includes
+      all Teutons and folk from the basin of the Baltic; SCATTERMOUCH, all
+      Latins and Levantines.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, Captain,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;there are degrees in
+      everything. You know American ships have a bad name; you know perfectly
+      well if it wasn't for the high wage and the good food, there's not a man
+      would ship in one if he could help; and even as it is, some prefer a
+      British ship, beastly food and all.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, the lime-juicers?&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;There's plenty booting
+      in lime-juicers, I guess; though I don't deny but what some of them are
+      soft.&rdquo; And with that he smiled like a man recalling something.
+      &ldquo;Look here, that brings a yarn in my head,&rdquo; he resumed;
+      &ldquo;and for the sake of the joke, I'll give myself away. It was in
+      1874, I shipped mate in the British ship Maria, from 'Frisco for
+      Melbourne. She was the queerest craft in some ways that ever I was aboard
+      of. The food was a caution; there was nothing fit to put your lips to&mdash;but
+      the lime-juice, which was from the end bin no doubt: it used to make me
+      sick to see the men's dinners, and sorry to see my own. The old man was
+      good enough, I guess; Green was his name; a mild, fatherly old galoot. But
+      the hands were the lowest gang I ever handled; and whenever I tried to
+      knock a little spirit into them, the old man took their part! It was
+      Gilbert and Sullivan on the high seas; but you bet I wouldn't let any man
+      dictate to me. 'You give me your orders, Captain Green,' I said, 'and
+      you'll find I'll carry them out; that's all you've got to say. You'll find
+      I do my duty,' I said; 'how I do it is my lookout; and there's no man born
+      that's going to give me lessons.' Well, there was plenty dirt on board
+      that Maria first and last. Of course, the old man put my back up, and, of
+      course, he put up the crew's; and I had to regular fight my way through
+      every watch. The men got to hate me, so's I would hear them grit their
+      teeth when I came up. At last, one day, I saw a big hulking beast of a
+      Dutchman booting the ship's boy. I made one shoot of it off the house and
+      laid that Dutchman out. Up he came, and I laid him out again. 'Now,' I
+      said, 'if there's a kick left in you, just mention it, and I'll stamp your
+      ribs in like a packing-case.' He thought better of it, and never let on;
+      lay there as mild as a deacon at a funeral; and they took him below to
+      reflect on his native Dutchland. One night we got caught in rather a dirty
+      thing about 25 south. I guess we were all asleep; for the first thing I
+      knew there was the fore-royal gone. I ran forward, bawling blue hell; and
+      just as I came by the foremast, something struck me right through the
+      forearm and stuck there. I put my other hand up, and by George! it was the
+      grain; the beasts had speared me like a porpoise. 'Cap'n!' I cried.&mdash;'What's
+      wrong?' says he.&mdash;'They've grained me,' says I.&mdash;'Grained you?'
+      says he. 'Well, I've been looking for that.'&mdash;&mdash;'And by God,' I
+      cried, 'I want to have some of these beasts murdered for it!'&mdash;'Now,
+      Mr. Nares,' says he, 'you better go below. If I had been one of the men,
+      you'd have got more than this. And I want no more of your language on
+      deck. You've cost me my fore-royal already,' says he; 'and if you carry
+      on, you'll have the three sticks out of her.' That was old man Green's
+      idea of supporting officers. But you wait a bit; the cream's coming. We
+      made Melbourne right enough, and the old man said: 'Mr. Nares, you and me
+      don't draw together. You're a first-rate seaman, no mistake of that; but
+      you're the most disagreeable man I ever sailed with; and your language and
+      your conduct to the crew I cannot stomach. I guess we'll separate.' I
+      didn't care about the berth, you may be sure; but I felt kind of mean; and
+      if he made one kind of stink, I thought I could make another. So I said I
+      would go ashore and see how things stood; went, found I was all right, and
+      came aboard again on the top rail.&mdash;'Are you getting your traps
+      together, Mr. Nares?' says the old man.&mdash;'No,' says I, 'I don't know
+      as we'll separate much before 'Frisco; at least,' I said, 'it's a point
+      for your consideration. I'm very willing to say good-by to the Maria, but
+      I don't know whether you'll care to start me out with three months'
+      wages.' He got his money-box right away. 'My son,' says he, 'I think it
+      cheap at the money.' He had me there.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a singular tale for a man to tell of himself; above all, in the
+      midst of our discussion; but it was quite in character for Nares. I never
+      made a good hit in our disputes, I never justly resented any act or speech
+      of his, but what I found it long after carefully posted in his day-book
+      and reckoned (here was the man's oddity) to my credit. It was the same
+      with his father, whom he had hated; he would give a sketch of the old
+      fellow, frank and credible, and yet so honestly touched that it was
+      charming. I have never met a man so strangely constituted: to possess a
+      reason of the most equal justice, to have his nerves at the same time
+      quivering with petty spite, and to act upon the nerves and not the reason.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A kindred wonder in my eyes was the nature of his courage. There was never
+      a braver man: he went out to welcome danger; an emergency (came it never
+      so sudden) strung him like a tonic. And yet, upon the other hand, I have
+      known none so nervous, so oppressed with possibilities, looking upon the
+      world at large, and the life of a sailor in particular, with so constant
+      and haggard a consideration of the ugly chances. All his courage was in
+      blood, not merely cold, but icy with reasoned apprehension. He would lay
+      our little craft rail under, and &ldquo;hang on&rdquo; in a squall, until
+      I gave myself up for lost, and the men were rushing to their stations of
+      their own accord. &ldquo;There,&rdquo; he would say, &ldquo;I guess
+      there's not a man on board would have hung on as long as I did that time;
+      they'll have to give up thinking me no schooner sailor. I guess I can
+      shave just as near capsizing as any other captain of this vessel, drunk or
+      sober.&rdquo; And then he would fall to repining and wishing himself well
+      out of the enterprise, and dilate on the peril of the seas, the particular
+      dangers of the schooner rig, which he abhorred, the various ways in which
+      we might go to the bottom, and the prodigious fleet of ships that have
+      sailed out in the course of history, dwindled from the eyes of watchers,
+      and returned no more. &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he would wind up, &ldquo;I guess
+      it don't much matter. I can't see what any one wants to live for, anyway.
+      If I could get into some one else's apple-tree, and be about twelve years
+      old, and just stick the way I was, eating stolen apples, I won't say. But
+      there's no sense in this grown-up business&mdash;sailorising, politics,
+      the piety mill, and all the rest of it. Good clean drowning is good enough
+      for me.&rdquo; It is hard to imagine any more depressing talk for a poor
+      landsman on a dirty night; it is hard to imagine anything less sailor-like
+      (as sailors are supposed to be, and generally are) than this persistent
+      harping on the minor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I was to see more of the man's gloomy constancy ere the cruise was at
+      an end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the morning of the seventeenth day I came on deck, to find the schooner
+      under double reefs, and flying rather wild before a heavy run of sea.
+      Snoring trades and humming sails had been our portion hitherto. We were
+      already nearing the island. My restrained excitement had begun again to
+      overmaster me; and for some time my only book had been the patent log that
+      trailed over the taffrail, and my chief interest the daily observation and
+      our caterpillar progress across the chart. My first glance, which was at
+      the compass, and my second, which was at the log, were all that I could
+      wish. We lay our course; we had been doing over eight since nine the night
+      before; and I drew a heavy breath of satisfaction. And then I know not
+      what odd and wintry appearance of the sea and sky knocked suddenly at my
+      heart. I observed the schooner to look more than usually small, the men
+      silent and studious of the weather. Nares, in one of his rusty humours,
+      afforded me no shadow of a morning salutation. He, too, seemed to observe
+      the behaviour of the ship with an intent and anxious scrutiny. What I
+      liked still less, Johnson himself was at the wheel, which he span busily,
+      often with a visible effort; and as the seas ranged up behind us, black
+      and imminent, he kept casting behind him eyes of animal swiftness, and
+      drawing in his neck between his shoulders, like a man dodging a blow. From
+      these signs, I gathered that all was not exactly for the best; and I would
+      have given a good handful of dollars for a plain answer to the questions
+      which I dared not put. Had I dared, with the present danger signal in the
+      captain's face, I should only have been reminded of my position as
+      supercargo&mdash;an office never touched upon in kindness&mdash;and
+      advised, in a very indigestible manner, to go below. There was nothing for
+      it, therefore, but to entertain my vague apprehensions as best I should be
+      able, until it pleased the captain to enlighten me of his own accord. This
+      he did sooner than I had expected; as soon, indeed, as the Chinaman had
+      summoned us to breakfast, and we sat face to face across the narrow board.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;See here, Mr. Dodd,&rdquo; he began, looking at me rather queerly,
+      &ldquo;here is a business point arisen. This sea's been running up for the
+      last two days, and now it's too high for comfort. The glass is falling,
+      the wind is breezing up, and I won't say but what there's dirt in it. If I
+      lay her to, we may have to ride out a gale of wind and drift God knows
+      where&mdash;on these French Frigate Shoals, for instance. If I keep her as
+      she goes, we'll make that island to-morrow afternoon, and have the lee of
+      it to lie under, if we can't make out to run in. The point you have to
+      figure on, is whether you'll take the big chances of that Captain Trent
+      making the place before you, or take the risk of something happening. I'm
+      to run this ship to your satisfaction,&rdquo; he added, with an ugly
+      sneer. &ldquo;Well, here's a point for the supercargo.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Captain,&rdquo; I returned, with my heart in my mouth, &ldquo;risk
+      is better than certain failure.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Life is all risk, Mr. Dodd,&rdquo; he remarked. &ldquo;But there's
+      one thing: it's now or never; in half an hour, Archdeacon Gabriel couldn't
+      lay her to, if he came down stairs on purpose.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;Let's run.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Run goes,&rdquo; said he; and with that he fell to breakfast, and
+      passed half an hour in stowing away pie and devoutly wishing himself back
+      in San Francisco.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When we came on deck again, he took the wheel from Johnson&mdash;it
+      appears they could trust none among the hands&mdash;and I stood close
+      beside him, feeling safe in this proximity, and tasting a fearful joy from
+      our surroundings and the consciousness of my decision. The breeze had
+      already risen, and as it tore over our heads, it uttered at times a long
+      hooting note that sent my heart into my boots. The sea pursued us without
+      remission, leaping to the assault of the low rail. The quarter-deck was
+      all awash, and we must close the companion doors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And all this, if you please, for Mr. Pinkerton's dollars!&rdquo;
+      the captain suddenly exclaimed. &ldquo;There's many a fine fellow gone
+      under, Mr. Dodd, because of drivers like your friend. What do they care
+      for a ship or two? Insured, I guess. What do they care for sailors' lives
+      alongside of a few thousand dollars? What they want is speed between
+      ports, and a damned fool of a captain that'll drive a ship under as I'm
+      doing this one. You can put in the morning, asking why I do it.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I sheered off to another part of the vessel as fast as civility permitted.
+      This was not at all the talk that I desired, nor was the train of
+      reflection which it started anyway welcome. Here I was, running some
+      hazard of my life, and perilling the lives of seven others; exactly for
+      what end, I was now at liberty to ask myself. For a very large amount of a
+      very deadly poison, was the obvious answer; and I thought if all tales
+      were true, and I were soon to be subjected to cross-examination at the bar
+      of Eternal Justice, it was one which would not increase my popularity with
+      the court. &ldquo;Well, never mind, Jim,&rdquo; thought I. &ldquo;I'm
+      doing it for you.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before eleven, a third reef was taken in the mainsail; and Johnson filled
+      the cabin with a storm-sail of No. 1 duck and sat cross-legged on the
+      streaming floor, vigorously putting it to rights with a couple of the
+      hands. By dinner I had fled the deck, and sat in the bench corner, giddy,
+      dumb, and stupefied with terror. The frightened leaps of the poor Norah
+      Creina, spanking like a stag for bare existence, bruised me between the
+      table and the berths. Overhead, the wild huntsman of the storm passed
+      continuously in one blare of mingled noises; screaming wind, straining
+      timber, lashing rope's end, pounding block and bursting sea contributed;
+      and I could have thought there was at times another, a more piercing, a
+      more human note, that dominated all, like the wailing of an angel; I could
+      have thought I knew the angel's name, and that his wings were black. It
+      seemed incredible that any creature of man's art could long endure the
+      barbarous mishandling of the seas, kicked as the schooner was from
+      mountain side to mountain side, beaten and blown upon and wrenched in
+      every joint and sinew, like a child upon the rack. There was not a plank
+      of her that did not cry aloud for mercy; and as she continued to hold
+      together, I became conscious of a growing sympathy with her endeavours, a
+      growing admiration for her gallant staunchness, that amused and at times
+      obliterated my terrors for myself. God bless every man that swung a mallet
+      on that tiny and strong hull! It was not for wages only that he laboured,
+      but to save men's lives.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All the rest of the day, and all the following night, I sat in the corner
+      or lay wakeful in my bunk; and it was only with the return of morning that
+      a new phase of my alarms drove me once more on deck. A gloomier interval I
+      never passed. Johnson and Nares steadily relieved each other at the wheel
+      and came below. The first glance of each was at the glass, which he
+      repeatedly knuckled and frowned upon; for it was sagging lower all the
+      time. Then, if Johnson were the visitor, he would pick a snack out of the
+      cupboard, and stand, braced against the table, eating it, and perhaps
+      obliging me with a word or two of his hee-haw conversation: how it was
+      &ldquo;a son of a gun of a cold night on deck, Mr. Dodd&rdquo; (with a
+      grin); how &ldquo;it wasn't no night for panjammers, he could tell me&rdquo;:
+      having transacted all which, he would throw himself down in his bunk and
+      sleep his two hours with compunction. But the captain neither ate nor
+      slept. &ldquo;You there, Mr. Dodd?&rdquo; he would say, after the
+      obligatory visit to the glass. &ldquo;Well, my son, we're one hundred and
+      four miles&rdquo; (or whatever it was) &ldquo;off the island, and scudding
+      for all we're worth. We'll make it to-morrow about four, or not, as the
+      case may be. That's the news. And now, Mr. Dodd, I've stretched a point
+      for you; you can see I'm dead tired; so just you stretch away back to your
+      bunk again.&rdquo; And with this attempt at geniality, his teeth would
+      settle hard down on his cigar, and he would pass his spell below staring
+      and blinking at the cabin lamp through a cloud of tobacco smoke. He has
+      told me since that he was happy, which I should never have divined.
+      &ldquo;You see,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;the wind we had was never anything
+      out of the way; but the sea was really nasty, the schooner wanted a lot of
+      humouring, and it was clear from the glass that we were close to some
+      dirt. We might be running out of it, or we might be running right crack
+      into it. Well, there's always something sublime about a big deal like
+      that; and it kind of raises a man in his own liking. We're a queer kind of
+      beasts, Mr. Dodd.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The morning broke with sinister brightness; the air alarmingly
+      transparent, the sky pure, the rim of the horizon clear and strong against
+      the heavens. The wind and the wild seas, now vastly swollen, indefatigably
+      hunted us. I stood on deck, choking with fear; I seemed to lose all power
+      upon my limbs; my knees were as paper when she plunged into the murderous
+      valleys; my heart collapsed when some black mountain fell in avalanche
+      beside her counter, and the water, that was more than spray, swept round
+      my ankles like a torrent. I was conscious of but one strong desire, to
+      bear myself decently in my terrors, and whatever should happen to my life,
+      preserve my character: as the captain said, we are a queer kind of beasts.
+      Breakfast time came, and I made shift to swallow some hot tea. Then I must
+      stagger below to take the time, reading the chronometer with dizzy eyes,
+      and marvelling the while what value there could be in observations taken
+      in a ship launched (as ours then was) like a missile among flying seas.
+      The forenoon dragged on in a grinding monotony of peril; every spoke of
+      the wheel a rash, but an obliged experiment&mdash;rash as a forlorn hope,
+      needful as the leap that lands a fireman from a burning staircase. Noon
+      was made; the captain dined on his day's work, and I on watching him; and
+      our place was entered on the chart with a meticulous precision which
+      seemed to me half pitiful and half absurd, since the next eye to behold
+      that sheet of paper might be the eye of an exploring fish. One o'clock
+      came, then two; the captain gloomed and chafed, as he held to the coaming
+      of the house, and if ever I saw dormant murder in man's eye, it was in
+      his. God help the hand that should have disobeyed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of a sudden, he turned towards the mate, who was doing his trick at the
+      wheel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Two points on the port bow,&rdquo; I heard him say. And he took the
+      wheel himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Johnson nodded, wiped his eyes with the back of his wet hand, watched a
+      chance as the vessel lunged up hill, and got to the main rigging, where he
+      swarmed aloft. Up and up, I watched him go, hanging on at every ugly
+      plunge, gaining with every lull of the schooner's movement, until,
+      clambering into the cross-trees and clinging with one arm around the
+      masts, I could see him take one comprehensive sweep of the southwesterly
+      horizon. The next moment, he had slid down the backstay and stood on deck,
+      with a grin, a nod, and a gesture of the finger that said &ldquo;yes&rdquo;;
+      the next again, and he was back sweating and squirming at the wheel, his
+      tired face streaming and smiling, and his hair and the rags and corners of
+      his clothes lashing round him in the wind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nares went below, fetched up his binocular, and fell into a silent perusal
+      of the sea-line; I also, with my unaided eyesight. Little by little, in
+      that white waste of water, I began to make out a quarter where the
+      whiteness appeared more condensed: the sky above was whitish likewise, and
+      misty like a squall; and little by little there thrilled upon my ears a
+      note deeper and more terrible than the yelling of the gale&mdash;the long,
+      thundering roll of breakers. Nares wiped his night glass on his sleeve and
+      passed it to me, motioning, as he did so, with his hand. An endless
+      wilderness of raging billows came and went and danced in the circle of the
+      glass; now and then a pale corner of sky, or the strong line of the
+      horizon rugged with the heads of waves; and then of a sudden&mdash;come
+      and gone ere I could fix it, with a swallow's swiftness&mdash;one glimpse
+      of what we had come so far and paid so dear to see: the masts and rigging
+      of a brig pencilled on heaven, with an ensign streaming at the main, and
+      the ragged ribbons of a topsail thrashing from the yard. Again and again,
+      with toilful searching, I recalled that apparition. There was no sign of
+      any land; the wreck stood between sea and sky, a thing the most isolated I
+      had ever viewed; but as we drew nearer, I perceived her to be defended by
+      a line of breakers which drew off on either hand, and marked, indeed, the
+      nearest segment of the reef. Heavy spray hung over them like a smoke, some
+      hundred feet into the air; and the sound of their consecutive explosions
+      rolled like a cannonade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In half an hour we were close in; for perhaps as long again, we skirted
+      that formidable barrier toward its farther side; and presently the sea
+      began insensibly to moderate and the ship to go more sweetly. We had
+      gained the lee of the island as (for form's sake) I may call that ring of
+      foam and haze and thunder; and shaking out a reef, wore ship and headed
+      for the passage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIII. THE ISLAND AND THE WRECK.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      All hands were filled with joy. It was betrayed in their alacrity and easy
+      faces: Johnson smiling broadly at the wheel, Nares studying the sketch
+      chart of the island with an eye at peace, and the hands clustered forward,
+      eagerly talking and pointing: so manifest was our escape, so wonderful the
+      attraction of a single foot of earth after so many suns had set and risen
+      on an empty sea. To add to the relief, besides, by one of those malicious
+      coincidences which suggest for fate the image of an underbred and grinning
+      schoolboy, we had no sooner worn ship than the wind began to abate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For myself, however, I did but exchange anxieties. I was no sooner out of
+      one fear than I fell upon another; no sooner secure that I should myself
+      make the intended haven, than I began to be convinced that Trent was there
+      before me. I climbed into the rigging, stood on the board, and eagerly
+      scanned that ring of coral reef and bursting breaker, and the blue lagoon
+      which they enclosed. The two islets within began to show plainly&mdash;Middle
+      Brooks and Lower Brooks Island, the Directory named them: two low,
+      bush-covered, rolling strips of sand, each with glittering beaches, each
+      perhaps a mile or a mile and a half in length, running east and west, and
+      divided by a narrow channel. Over these, innumerable as maggots, there
+      hovered, chattered, screamed and clanged, millions of twinkling sea-birds:
+      white and black; the black by far the largest. With singular
+      scintillations, this vortex of winged life swayed to and fro in the strong
+      sunshine, whirled continually through itself, and would now and again
+      burst asunder and scatter as wide as the lagoon: so that I was
+      irresistibly reminded of what I had read of nebular convulsions. A thin
+      cloud overspread the area of the reef and the adjacent sea&mdash;the dust,
+      as I could not but fancy, of earlier explosions. And a little apart, there
+      was yet another focus of centrifugal and centripetal flight, where, hard
+      by the deafening line of breakers, her sails (all but the tattered
+      topsail) snugly furled down, and the red rag that marks Old England on the
+      seas beating, union down, at the main&mdash;the Flying Scud, the fruit of
+      so many toilers, a recollection in so many lives of men, whose tall spars
+      had been mirrored in the remotest corners of the sea&mdash;lay stationary
+      at last and forever, in the first stage of naval dissolution. Towards her,
+      the taut Norah Creina, vulture-wise, wriggled to windward: come from so
+      far to pick her bones. And, look as I pleased, there was no other presence
+      of man or of man's handiwork; no Honolulu schooner lay there crowded with
+      armed rivals, no smoke rose from the fire at which I fancied Trent cooking
+      a meal of sea-birds. It seemed, after all, we were in time, and I drew a
+      mighty breath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had not arrived at this reviving certainty before the breakers were
+      already close aboard, the leadsman at his station, and the captain posted
+      in the fore cross-trees to con us through the coral lumps of the lagoon.
+      All circumstances were in our favour, the light behind, the sun low, the
+      wind still fresh and steady, and the tide about the turn. A moment later
+      we shot at racing speed betwixt two pier heads of broken water; the lead
+      began to be cast, the captain to bawl down his anxious directions, the
+      schooner to tack and dodge among the scattered dangers of the lagoon; and
+      at one bell in the first dog watch, we had come to our anchor off the
+      north-east end of Middle Brooks Island, in five fathoms water. The sails
+      were gasketted and covered, the boats emptied of the miscellaneous stores
+      and odds and ends of sea-furniture, that accumulate in the course of a
+      voyage, the kedge sent ashore, and the decks tidied down: a good
+      three-quarters of an hour's work, during which I raged about the deck like
+      a man with a strong toothache. The transition from the wild sea to the
+      comparative immobility of the lagoon had wrought strange distress among my
+      nerves: I could not hold still whether in hand or foot; the slowness of
+      the men, tired as dogs after our rough experience outside, irritated me
+      like something personal; and the irrational screaming of the sea-birds
+      saddened me like a dirge. It was a relief when, with Nares, and a couple
+      of hands, I might drop into the boat and move off at last for the Flying
+      Scud.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She looks kind of pitiful, don't she?&rdquo; observed the captain,
+      nodding towards the wreck, from which we were separated by some half a
+      mile. &ldquo;Looks as if she didn't like her berth, and Captain Trent had
+      used her badly. Give her ginger, boys!&rdquo; he added to the hands,
+      &ldquo;and you can all have shore liberty to-night to see the birds and
+      paint the town red.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We all laughed at the pleasantry, and the boat skimmed the faster over the
+      rippling face of the lagoon. The Flying Scud would have seemed small
+      enough beside the wharves of San Francisco, but she was some thrice the
+      size of the Norah Creina, which had been so long our continent; and as we
+      craned up at her wall-sides, she impressed us with a mountain magnitude.
+      She lay head to the reef, where the huge blue wall of the rollers was for
+      ever ranging up and crumbling down; and to gain her starboard side, we
+      must pass below the stern. The rudder was hard aport, and we could read
+      the legend:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     FLYING SCUD
+
+     HULL
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      On the other side, about the break of the poop, some half a fathom of rope
+      ladder trailed over the rail, and by this we made our entrance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was a roomy ship inside, with a raised poop standing some three feet
+      higher than the deck, and a small forward house, for the men's bunks and
+      the galley, just abaft the foremast. There was one boat on the house, and
+      another and larger one, in beds on deck, on either hand of it. She had
+      been painted white, with tropical economy, outside and in; and we found,
+      later on, that the stanchions of the rail, hoops of the scuttle but, etc.,
+      were picked out with green. At that time, however, when we first stepped
+      aboard, all was hidden under the droppings of innumerable sea-birds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The birds themselves gyrated and screamed meanwhile among the rigging; and
+      when we looked into the galley, their outrush drove us back.
+      Savage-looking fowl they were, savagely beaked, and some of the black ones
+      great as eagles. Half-buried in the slush, we were aware of a litter of
+      kegs in the waist; and these, on being somewhat cleaned, proved to be
+      water beakers and quarter casks of mess beef with some colonial brand,
+      doubtless collected there before the Tempest hove in sight, and while
+      Trent and his men had no better expectation than to strike for Honolulu in
+      the boats. Nothing else was notable on deck, save where the loose topsail
+      had played some havoc with the rigging, and there hung, and swayed, and
+      sang in the declining wind, a raffle of intorted cordage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With a shyness that was almost awe, Nares and I descended the companion.
+      The stair turned upon itself and landed us just forward of a thwart-ship
+      bulkhead that cut the poop in two. The fore part formed a kind of
+      miscellaneous store-room, with a double-bunked division for the cook (as
+      Nares supposed) and second mate. The after part contained, in the midst,
+      the main cabin, running in a kind of bow into the curvature of the stern;
+      on the port side, a pantry opening forward and a stateroom for the mate;
+      and on the starboard, the captain's berth and water-closet. Into these we
+      did but glance: the main cabin holding us. It was dark, for the sea-birds
+      had obscured the skylight with their droppings; it smelt rank and fusty;
+      and it was beset with a loud swarm of flies that beat continually in our
+      faces. Supposing them close attendants upon man and his broken meat, I
+      marvelled how they had found their way to Midway reef; it was sure at
+      least some vessel must have brought them, and that long ago, for they had
+      multiplied exceedingly. Part of the floor was strewn with a confusion of
+      clothes, books, nautical instruments, odds and ends of finery, and such
+      trash as might be expected from the turning out of several seamen's
+      chests, upon a sudden emergency and after a long cruise. It was strange in
+      that dim cabin, quivering with the near thunder of the breakers and
+      pierced with the screaming of the fowls, to turn over so many things that
+      other men had coveted, and prized, and worn on their warm bodies&mdash;frayed
+      old underclothing, pyjamas of strange design, duck suits in every stage of
+      rustiness, oil skins, pilot coats, bottles of scent, embroidered shirts,
+      jackets of Ponjee silk&mdash;clothes for the night watch at sea or the day
+      ashore in the hotel verandah; and mingled among these, books, cigars,
+      fancy pipes, quantities of tobacco, many keys, a rusty pistol, and a
+      sprinkling of cheap curiosities&mdash;Benares brass, Chinese jars and
+      pictures, and bottles of odd shells in cotton, each designed no doubt for
+      somebody at home&mdash;perhaps in Hull, of which Trent had been a native
+      and his ship a citizen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thence we turned our attention to the table, which stood spread, as if for
+      a meal, with stout ship's crockery and the remains of food&mdash;a pot of
+      marmalade, dregs of coffee in the mugs, unrecognisable remains of foods,
+      bread, some toast, and a tin of condensed milk. The table-cloth,
+      originally of a red colour, was stained a dark brown at the captain's end,
+      apparently with coffee; at the other end, it had been folded back, and a
+      pen and ink-pot stood on the bare table. Stools were here and there about
+      the table, irregularly placed, as though the meal had been finished and
+      the men smoking and chatting; and one of the stools lay on the floor,
+      broken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;See! they were writing up the log,&rdquo; said Nares, pointing to
+      the ink-bottle. &ldquo;Caught napping, as usual. I wonder if there ever
+      was a captain yet, that lost a ship with his log-book up to date? He
+      generally has about a month to fill up on a clean break, like Charles
+      Dickens and his serial novels.&mdash;What a regular, lime-juicer spread!&rdquo;
+      he added contemptuously. &ldquo;Marmalade&mdash;and toast for the old man!
+      Nasty, slovenly pigs!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was something in this criticism of the absent that jarred upon my
+      feelings. I had no love indeed for Captain Trent or any of his vanished
+      gang; but the desertion and decay of this once habitable cabin struck me
+      hard: the death of man's handiwork is melancholy like the death of man
+      himself; and I was impressed with an involuntary and irrational sense of
+      tragedy in my surroundings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This sickens me,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Let's go on deck and
+      breathe.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The captain nodded. &ldquo;It IS kind of lonely, isn't it?&rdquo; he said.
+      &ldquo;But I can't go up till I get the code signals. I want to run up
+      'Got Left' or something, just to brighten up this island home. Captain
+      Trent hasn't been here yet, but he'll drop in before long; and it'll cheer
+      him up to see a signal on the brig.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Isn't there some official expression we could use?&rdquo; I asked,
+      vastly taken by the fancy. &ldquo;'Sold for the benefit of the
+      underwriters: for further particulars, apply to J. Pinkerton, Montana
+      Block, S.F.'&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; returned Nares, &ldquo;I won't say but what an old
+      navy quartermaster might telegraph all that, if you gave him a day to do
+      it in and a pound of tobacco for himself. But it's above my register. I
+      must try something short and sweet: KB, urgent signal, 'Heave all aback';
+      or LM, urgent, 'The berth you're now in is not safe'; or what do you say
+      to PQH?&mdash;'Tell my owners the ship answers remarkably well.'&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's premature,&rdquo; I replied; &ldquo;but it seems calculated to
+      give pain to Trent. PQH for me.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The flags were found in Trent's cabin, neatly stored behind a lettered
+      grating; Nares chose what he required and (I following) returned on deck,
+      where the sun had already dipped, and the dusk was coming.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here! don't touch that, you fool!&rdquo; shouted the captain to one
+      of the hands, who was drinking from the scuttle but. &ldquo;That water's
+      rotten!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Beg pardon, sir,&rdquo; replied the man. &ldquo;Tastes quite sweet.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let me see,&rdquo; returned Nares, and he took the dipper and held
+      it to his lips. &ldquo;Yes, it's all right,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Must
+      have rotted and come sweet again. Queer, isn't it, Mr. Dodd? Though I've
+      known the same on a Cape Horner.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was something in his intonation that made me look him in the face;
+      he stood a little on tiptoe to look right and left about the ship, like a
+      man filled with curiosity, and his whole expression and bearing testified
+      to some suppressed excitement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't believe what you're saying!&rdquo; I broke out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, I don't know but what I do!&rdquo; he replied, laying a hand
+      upon me soothingly. &ldquo;The thing's very possible. Only, I'm bothered
+      about something else.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And with that he called a hand, gave him the code flags, and stepped
+      himself to the main signal halliards, which vibrated under the weight of
+      the ensign overhead. A minute later, the American colours, which we had
+      brought in the boat, replaced the English red, and PQH was fluttering at
+      the fore.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, then,&rdquo; said Nares, who had watched the breaking out of
+      his signal with the old-maidish particularity of an American sailor,
+      &ldquo;out with those handspikes, and let's see what water there is in the
+      lagoon.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bars were shoved home; the barbarous cacophony of the clanking pump
+      rose in the waist; and streams of ill-smelling water gushed on deck and
+      made valleys in the slab guano. Nares leaned on the rail, watching the
+      steady stream of bilge as though he found some interest in it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it that bothers you?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I'll tell you one thing shortly,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;But
+      here's another. Do you see those boats there, one on the house and two on
+      the beds? Well, where is the boat Trent lowered when he lost the hands?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Got it aboard again, I suppose,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, if you'll tell me why!&rdquo; returned the captain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then it must have been another,&rdquo; I suggested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She might have carried another on the main hatch, I won't deny,&rdquo;
+      admitted Nares; &ldquo;but I can't see what she wanted with it, unless it
+      was for the old man to go out and play the accordion in, on moonlight
+      nights.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It can't much matter, anyway,&rdquo; I reflected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, I don't suppose it does,&rdquo; said he, glancing over his
+      shoulder at the spouting of the scuppers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how long are we to keep up this racket?&rdquo; I asked. &ldquo;We're
+      simply pumping up the lagoon. Captain Trent himself said she had settled
+      down and was full forward.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did he?&rdquo; said Nares, with a significant dryness. And almost
+      as he spoke the pumps sucked, and sucked again, and the men threw down
+      their bars. &ldquo;There, what do you make of that?&rdquo; he asked.
+      &ldquo;Now, I'll tell, Mr. Dodd,&rdquo; he went on, lowering his voice,
+      but not shifting from his easy attitude against the rail, &ldquo;this ship
+      is as sound as the Norah Creina. I had a guess of it before we came
+      aboard, and now I know.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's not possible!&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;What do you make of
+      Trent?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't make anything of Trent; I don't know whether he's a liar or
+      only an old wife; I simply tell you what's the fact,&rdquo; said Nares.
+      &ldquo;And I'll tell you something more,&rdquo; he added: &ldquo;I've
+      taken the ground myself in deep-water vessels; I know what I'm saying; and
+      I say that, when she first struck and before she bedded down, seven or
+      eight hours' work would have got this hooker off, and there's no man that
+      ever went two years to sea but must have known it.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I could only utter an exclamation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nares raised his finger warningly. &ldquo;Don't let THEM get hold of it,&rdquo;
+      said he. &ldquo;Think what you like, but say nothing.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I glanced round; the dusk was melting into early night; the twinkle of a
+      lantern marked the schooner's position in the distance; and our men, free
+      from further labour, stood grouped together in the waist, their faces
+      illuminated by their glowing pipes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why didn't Trent get her off?&rdquo; inquired the captain. &ldquo;Why
+      did he want to buy her back in 'Frisco for these fabulous sums, when he
+      might have sailed her into the bay himself?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps he never knew her value until then,&rdquo; I suggested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish we knew her value now,&rdquo; exclaimed Nares. &ldquo;However,
+      I don't want to depress you; I'm sorry for you, Mr. Dodd; I know how
+      bothering it must be to you; and the best I can say's this: I haven't
+      taken much time getting down, and now I'm here I mean to work this thing
+      in proper style. I just want to put your mind at rest: you shall have no
+      trouble with me.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was something trusty and friendly in his voice; and I found myself
+      gripping hands with him, in that hard, short shake that means so much with
+      English-speaking people.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We'll do, old fellow,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;We've shaken down into
+      pretty good friends, you and me; and you won't find me working the
+      business any the less hard for that. And now let's scoot for supper.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After supper, with the idle curiosity of the seafarer, we pulled ashore in
+      a fine moonlight, and landed on Middle Brook's Island. A flat beach
+      surrounded it upon all sides; and the midst was occupied by a thicket of
+      bushes, the highest of them scarcely five feet high, in which the sea-fowl
+      lived. Through this we tried at first to strike; but it were easier to
+      cross Trafalgar Square on a day of demonstration than to invade these
+      haunts of sleeping sea-birds. The nests sank, and the eggs burst under
+      footing; wings beat in our faces, beaks menaced our eyes, our minds were
+      confounded with the screeching, and the coil spread over the island and
+      mounted high into the air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess we'll saunter round the beach,&rdquo; said Nares, when we
+      had made good our retreat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The hands were all busy after sea-birds' eggs, so there were none to
+      follow us. Our way lay on the crisp sand by the margin of the water: on
+      one side, the thicket from which we had been dislodged; on the other, the
+      face of the lagoon, barred with a broad path of moonlight, and beyond
+      that, the line, alternately dark and shining, alternately hove high and
+      fallen prone, of the external breakers. The beach was strewn with bits of
+      wreck and drift: some redwood and spruce logs, no less than two lower
+      masts of junks, and the stern-post of a European ship; all of which we
+      looked on with a shade of serious concern, speaking of the dangers of the
+      sea and the hard case of castaways. In this sober vein we made the greater
+      part of the circuit of the island; had a near view of its neighbour from
+      the southern end; walked the whole length of the westerly side in the
+      shadow of the thicket; and came forth again into the moonlight at the
+      opposite extremity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On our right, at the distance of about half a mile, the schooner lay
+      faintly heaving at her anchors. About half a mile down the beach, at a
+      spot still hidden from us by the thicket, an upboiling of the birds showed
+      where the men were still (with sailor-like insatiability) collecting eggs.
+      And right before us, in a small indentation of the sand, we were aware of
+      a boat lying high and dry, and right side up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nares crouched back into the shadow of the bushes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What the devil's this?&rdquo; he whispered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Trent,&rdquo; I suggested, with a beating heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We were damned fools to come ashore unarmed,&rdquo; said he.
+      &ldquo;But I've got to know where I stand.&rdquo; In the shadow, his face
+      looked conspicuously white, and his voice betrayed a strong excitement. He
+      took his boat's whistle from his pocket. &ldquo;In case I might want to
+      play a tune,&rdquo; said he, grimly, and thrusting it between his teeth,
+      advanced into the moonlit open; which we crossed with rapid steps, looking
+      guiltily about us as we went. Not a leaf stirred; and the boat, when we
+      came up to it, offered convincing proof of long desertion. She was an
+      eighteen-foot whaleboat of the ordinary type, equipped with oars and
+      thole-pins. Two or three quarter-casks lay on the bilge amidships, one of
+      which must have been broached, and now stank horribly; and these, upon
+      examination, proved to bear the same New Zealand brand as the beef on
+      board the wreck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, here's the boat,&rdquo; said I; &ldquo;here's one of your
+      difficulties cleared away.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;H'm,&rdquo; said he. There was a little water in the bilge, and
+      here he stooped and tasted it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fresh,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Only rain-water.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't object to that?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then, what ails you?&rdquo; I cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In plain United States, Mr. Dodd,&rdquo; he returned, &ldquo;a
+      whaleboat, five ash sweeps, and a barrel of stinking pork.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Or, in other words, the whole thing?&rdquo; I commented.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, it's this way,&rdquo; he condescended to explain. &ldquo;I've
+      no use for a fourth boat at all; but a boat of this model tops the
+      business. I don't say the type's not common in these waters; it's as
+      common as dirt; the traders carry them for surf-boats. But the Flying
+      Scud? a deep-water tramp, who was lime-juicing around between big ports,
+      Calcutta and Rangoon and 'Frisco and the Canton River? No, I don't see it.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We were leaning over the gunwale of the boat as we spoke. The captain
+      stood nearest the bow, and he was idly playing with the trailing painter,
+      when a thought arrested him. He hauled the line in hand over hand, and
+      stared, and remained staring, at the end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anything wrong with it?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you know, Mr. Dodd,&rdquo; said he, in a queer voice, &ldquo;this
+      painter's been cut? A sailor always seizes a rope's end, but this is
+      sliced short off with the cold steel. This won't do at all for the men,&rdquo;
+      he added. &ldquo;Just stand by till I fix it up more natural.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Any guess what it all means?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, it means one thing,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;It means Trent was
+      a liar. I guess the story of the Flying Scud was a sight more picturesque
+      than he gave out.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Half an hour later, the whaleboat was lying astern of the Norah Creina;
+      and Nares and I sought our bunks, silent and half-bewildered by our late
+      discoveries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIV. THE CABIN OF THE &ldquo;FLYING SCUD.&rdquo;
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The sun of the morrow had not cleared the morning bank: the lake of the
+      lagoon, the islets, and the wall of breakers now beginning to subside,
+      still lay clearly pictured in the flushed obscurity of early day, when we
+      stepped again upon the deck of the Flying Scud: Nares, myself, the mate,
+      two of the hands, and one dozen bright, virgin axes, in war against that
+      massive structure. I think we all drew pleasurable breath; so profound in
+      man is the instinct of destruction, so engaging is the interest of the
+      chase. For we were now about to taste, in a supreme degree, the double
+      joys of demolishing a toy and playing &ldquo;Hide the handkerchief&rdquo;:
+      sports from which we had all perhaps desisted since the days of infancy.
+      And the toy we were to burst in pieces was a deep-sea ship; and the hidden
+      good for which we were to hunt was a prodigious fortune.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The decks were washed down, the main hatch removed, and a gun-tackle
+      purchase rigged before the boat arrived with breakfast. I had grown so
+      suspicious of the wreck, that it was a positive relief to me to look down
+      into the hold, and see it full, or nearly full, of undeniable rice packed
+      in the Chinese fashion in boluses of matting. Breakfast over, Johnson and
+      the hands turned to upon the cargo; while Nares and I, having smashed open
+      the skylight and rigged up a windsail on deck, began the work of rummaging
+      the cabins.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I must not be expected to describe our first day's work, or (for that
+      matter) any of the rest, in order and detail as it occurred. Such
+      particularity might have been possible for several officers and a draft of
+      men from a ship of war, accompanied by an experienced secretary with a
+      knowledge of shorthand. For two plain human beings, unaccustomed to the
+      use of the broad-axe and consumed with an impatient greed of the result,
+      the whole business melts, in the retrospect, into a nightmare of exertion,
+      heat, hurry, and bewilderment; sweat pouring from the face like rain, the
+      scurry of rats, the choking exhalations of the bilge, and the throbs and
+      splinterings of the toiling axes. I shall content myself with giving the
+      cream of our discoveries in a logical rather than a temporal order; though
+      the two indeed practically coincided, and we had finished our exploration
+      of the cabin, before we could be certain of the nature of the cargo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nares and I began operations by tossing up pell-mell through the
+      companion, and piling in a squalid heap about the wheel, all clothes,
+      personal effects, the crockery, the carpet, stale victuals, tins of meat,
+      and in a word, all movables from the main cabin. Thence, we transferred
+      our attention to the captain's quarters on the starboard side. Using the
+      blankets for a basket, we sent up the books, instruments, and clothes to
+      swell our growing midden on the deck; and then Nares, going on hands and
+      knees, began to forage underneath the bed. Box after box of Manilla cigars
+      rewarded his search. I took occasion to smash some of these boxes open,
+      and even to guillotine the bundles of cigars; but quite in vain&mdash;no
+      secret cache of opium encouraged me to continue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess I've got hold of the dicky now!&rdquo; exclaimed Nares, and
+      turning round from my perquisitions, I found he had drawn forth a heavy
+      iron box, secured to the bulkhead by chain and padlock. On this he was now
+      gazing, not with the triumph that instantly inflamed my own bosom, but
+      with a somewhat foolish appearance of surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By George, we have it now!&rdquo; I cried, and would have shaken
+      hands with my companion; but he did not see, or would not accept, the
+      salutation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let's see what's in it first,&rdquo; he remarked dryly. And he
+      adjusted the box upon its side, and with some blows of an axe burst the
+      lock open. I threw myself beside him, as he replaced the box on its bottom
+      and removed the lid. I cannot tell what I expected; a million's worth of
+      diamonds might perhaps have pleased me; my cheeks burned, my heart
+      throbbed to bursting; and lo! there was disclosed but a trayful of papers,
+      neatly taped, and a cheque-book of the customary pattern. I made a snatch
+      at the tray to see what was beneath; but the captain's hand fell on mine,
+      heavy and hard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, boss!&rdquo; he cried, not unkindly, &ldquo;is this to be run
+      shipshape? or is it a Dutch grab-racket?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And he proceeded to untie and run over the contents of the papers, with a
+      serious face and what seemed an ostentation of delay. Me and my impatience
+      it would appear he had forgotten; for when he was quite done, he sat a
+      while thinking, whistled a bar or two, refolded the papers, tied them up
+      again; and then, and not before, deliberately raised the tray.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I saw a cigar-box, tied with a piece of fishing-line, and four fat
+      canvas-bags. Nares whipped out his knife, cut the line, and opened the
+      box. It was about half full of sovereigns.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And the bags?&rdquo; I whispered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The captain ripped them open one by one, and a flood of mixed silver coin
+      burst forth and rattled in the rusty bottom of the box. Without a word, he
+      set to work to count the gold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is this?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's the ship's money,&rdquo; he returned, doggedly continuing his
+      work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The ship's money?&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;That's the money Trent
+      tramped and traded with? And there's his cheque-book to draw upon his
+      owners? And he has left it?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess he has,&rdquo; said Nares, austerely, jotting down a note
+      of the gold; and I was abashed into silence till his task should be
+      completed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It came, I think, to three hundred and seventy-eight pounds sterling; some
+      nineteen pounds of it in silver: all of which we turned again into the
+      chest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what do you think of that?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Dodd,&rdquo; he replied, &ldquo;you see something of the
+      rumness of this job, but not the whole. The specie bothers you, but what
+      gets me is the papers. Are you aware that the master of a ship has charge
+      of all the cash in hand, pays the men advances, receives freight and
+      passage money, and runs up bills in every port? All this he does as the
+      owner's confidential agent, and his integrity is proved by his receipted
+      bills. I tell you, the captain of a ship is more likely to forget his
+      pants than these bills which guarantee his character. I've known men drown
+      to save them: bad men, too; but this is the shipmaster's honour. And here
+      this Captain Trent&mdash;not hurried, not threatened with anything but a
+      free passage in a British man-of-war&mdash;has left them all behind! I
+      don't want to express myself too strongly, because the facts appear
+      against me, but the thing is impossible.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dinner came to us not long after, and we ate it on deck, in a grim
+      silence, each privately racking his brain for some solution of the
+      mysteries. I was indeed so swallowed up in these considerations, that the
+      wreck, the lagoon, the islets, and the strident sea-fowl, the strong sun
+      then beating on my head, and even the gloomy countenance of the captain at
+      my elbow, all vanished from the field of consciousness. My mind was a
+      blackboard, on which I scrawled and blotted out hypotheses; comparing each
+      with the pictorial records in my memory: cyphering with pictures. In the
+      course of this tense mental exercise I recalled and studied the faces of
+      one memorial masterpiece, the scene of the saloon; and here I found
+      myself, on a sudden, looking in the eyes of the Kanaka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's one thing I can put beyond doubt, at all events,&rdquo; I
+      cried, relinquishing my dinner and getting briskly afoot. &ldquo;There was
+      that Kanaka I saw in the bar with Captain Trent, the fellow the newspapers
+      and ship's articles made out to be a Chinaman. I mean to rout his quarters
+      out and settle that.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right,&rdquo; said Nares. &ldquo;I'll lazy off a bit longer,
+      Mr. Dodd; I feel pretty rocky and mean.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We had thoroughly cleared out the three after-compartments of the ship:
+      all the stuff from the main cabin and the mate's and captain's quarters
+      lay piled about the wheel; but in the forward stateroom with the two
+      bunks, where Nares had said the mate and cook most likely berthed, we had
+      as yet done nothing. Thither I went. It was very bare; a few photographs
+      were tacked on the bulkhead, one of them indecent; a single chest stood
+      open, and, like all we had yet found, it had been partly rifled. An armful
+      of two-shilling novels proved to me beyond a doubt it was a European's; no
+      Chinaman would have possessed any, and the most literate Kanaka
+      conceivable in a ship's galley was not likely to have gone beyond one. It
+      was plain, then, that the cook had not berthed aft, and I must look
+      elsewhere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The men had stamped down the nests and driven the birds from the galley,
+      so that I could now enter without contest. One door had been already
+      blocked with rice; the place was in part darkness, full of a foul stale
+      smell, and a cloud of nasty flies; it had been left, besides, in some
+      disorder, or else the birds, during their time of tenancy, had knocked the
+      things about; and the floor, like the deck before we washed it, was spread
+      with pasty filth. Against the wall, in the far corner, I found a handsome
+      chest of camphor-wood bound with brass, such as Chinamen and sailors love,
+      and indeed all of mankind that plies in the Pacific. From its outside view
+      I could thus make no deduction; and, strange to say, the interior was
+      concealed. All the other chests, as I have said already, we had found
+      gaping open, and their contents scattered abroad; the same remark we found
+      to apply afterwards in the quarters of the seamen; only this camphor-wood
+      chest, a singular exception, was both closed and locked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I took an axe to it, readily forced the paltry Chinese fastening, and,
+      like a Custom-House officer, plunged my hands among the contents. For some
+      while I groped among linen and cotton. Then my teeth were set on edge with
+      silk, of which I drew forth several strips covered with mysterious
+      characters. And these settled the business, for I recognised them as a
+      kind of bed-hanging popular with the commoner class of the Chinese. Nor
+      were further evidences wanting, such as night-clothes of an extraordinary
+      design, a three-stringed Chinese fiddle, a silk handkerchief full of roots
+      and herbs, and a neat apparatus for smoking opium, with a liberal
+      provision of the drug. Plainly, then, the cook had been a Chinaman; and,
+      if so, who was Jos. Amalu? Or had Jos. stolen the chest before he
+      proceeded to ship under a false name and domicile? It was possible, as
+      anything was possible in such a welter; but, regarded as a solution, it
+      only led and left me deeper in the bog. For why should this chest have
+      been deserted and neglected, when the others were rummaged or removed? and
+      where had Jos. come by that second chest, with which (according to the
+      clerk at the What Cheer) he had started for Honolulu?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how have YOU fared?&rdquo; inquired the captain, whom I found
+      luxuriously reclining in our mound of litter. And the accent on the
+      pronoun, the heightened colour of the speaker's face, and the contained
+      excitement in his tones, advertised me at once that I had not been alone
+      to make discoveries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have found a Chinaman's chest in the galley,&rdquo; said I,
+      &ldquo;and John (if there was any John) was not so much as at the pains to
+      take his opium.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nares seemed to take it mighty quietly. &ldquo;That so?&rdquo; said he.
+      &ldquo;Now, cast your eyes on that and own you're beaten!&rdquo; And with
+      a formidable clap of his open hand he flattened out before me, on the
+      deck, a pair of newspapers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I gazed upon them dully, being in no mood for fresh discoveries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look at them, Mr. Dodd,&rdquo; cried the captain sharply. &ldquo;Can't
+      you look at them?&rdquo; And he ran a dirty thumb along the title. &ldquo;'<i>Sydney
+      Morning Herald</i>, November 26th,' can't you make that out?&rdquo; he
+      cried, with rising energy. &ldquo;And don't you know, sir, that not
+      thirteen days after this paper appeared in New South Pole, this ship we're
+      standing in heaved her blessed anchors out of China? How did the <i>Sydney
+      Morning Herald</i> get to Hong Kong in thirteen days? Trent made no land,
+      he spoke no ship, till he got here. Then he either got it here or in Hong
+      Kong. I give you your choice, my son!&rdquo; he cried, and fell back among
+      the clothes like a man weary of life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where did you find them?&rdquo; I asked. &ldquo;In that black bag?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Guess so,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You needn't fool with it. There's
+      nothing else but a lead-pencil and a kind of worked-out knife.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked in the bag, however, and was well rewarded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Every man to his trade, captain,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;You're a
+      sailor, and you've given me plenty of points; but I am an artist, and
+      allow me to inform you this is quite as strange as all the rest. The knife
+      is a palette-knife; the pencil a Winsor and Newton, and a B B B at that. A
+      palette-knife and a B B B on a tramp brig! It's against the laws of
+      nature.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It would sicken a dog, wouldn't it?&rdquo; said Nares.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I continued, &ldquo;it's been used by an artist, too:
+      see how it's sharpened&mdash;not for writing&mdash;no man could write with
+      that. An artist, and straight from Sydney? How can he come in?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, that's natural enough,&rdquo; sneered Nares. &ldquo;They cabled
+      him to come up and illustrate this dime novel.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We fell a while silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Captain,&rdquo; I said at last, &ldquo;there is something deuced
+      underhand about this brig. You tell me you've been to sea a good part of
+      your life. You must have seen shady things done on ships, and heard of
+      more. Well, what is this? is it insurance? is it piracy? what is it ABOUT?
+      what can it be for?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Dodd,&rdquo; returned Nares, &ldquo;you're right about me
+      having been to sea the bigger part of my life. And you're right again when
+      you think I know a good many ways in which a dishonest captain mayn't be
+      on the square, nor do exactly the right thing by his owners, and
+      altogether be just a little too smart by ninety-nine and three-quarters.
+      There's a good many ways, but not so many as you'd think; and not one that
+      has any mortal thing to do with Trent. Trent and his whole racket has got
+      to do with nothing&mdash;that's the bed-rock fact; there's no sense to it,
+      and no use in it, and no story to it: it's a beastly dream. And don't you
+      run away with that notion that landsmen take about ships. A society
+      actress don't go around more publicly than what a ship does, nor is more
+      interviewed, nor more humbugged, nor more run after by all sorts of little
+      fussinesses in brass buttons. And more than an actress, a ship has a deal
+      to lose; she's capital, and the actress only character&mdash;if she's
+      that. The ports of the world are thick with people ready to kick a captain
+      into the penitentiary if he's not as bright as a dollar and as honest as
+      the morning star; and what with Lloyd keeping watch and watch in every
+      corner of the three oceans, and the insurance leeches, and the consuls,
+      and the customs bugs, and the medicos, you can only get the idea by
+      thinking of a landsman watched by a hundred and fifty detectives, or a
+      stranger in a village Down East.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, but at sea?&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You make me tired,&rdquo; retorted the captain. &ldquo;What's the
+      use&mdash;at sea? Everything's got to come to bearings at some port,
+      hasn't it? You can't stop at sea for ever, can you?&mdash;No; the Flying
+      Scud is rubbish; if it meant anything, it would have to mean something so
+      almighty intricate that James G. Blaine hasn't got the brains to engineer
+      it; and I vote for more axeing, pioneering, and opening up the resources
+      of this phenomenal brig, and less general fuss,&rdquo; he added, arising.
+      &ldquo;The dime-museum symptoms will drop in of themselves, I guess, to
+      keep us cheery.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But it appeared we were at the end of discoveries for the day; and we left
+      the brig about sundown, without being further puzzled or further
+      enlightened. The best of the cabin spoils&mdash;books, instruments,
+      papers, silks, and curiosities&mdash;we carried along with us in a
+      blanket, however, to divert the evening hours; and when supper was over,
+      and the table cleared, and Johnson set down to a dreary game of cribbage
+      between his right hand and his left, the captain and I turned out our
+      blanket on the floor, and sat side by side to examine and appraise the
+      spoils.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The books were the first to engage our notice. These were rather numerous
+      (as Nares contemptuously put it) &ldquo;for a lime-juicer.&rdquo; Scorn of
+      the British mercantile marine glows in the breast of every Yankee merchant
+      captain; as the scorn is not reciprocated, I can only suppose it justified
+      in fact; and certainly the old country mariner appears of a less studious
+      disposition. The more credit to the officers of the Flying Scud, who had
+      quite a library, both literary and professional. There were Findlay's five
+      directories of the world&mdash;all broken-backed, as is usual with
+      Findlay, and all marked and scribbled over with corrections and additions&mdash;several
+      books of navigation, a signal code, and an Admiralty book of a sort of
+      orange hue, called <i>Islands of the Eastern Pacific Ocean, Vol. III.</i>,
+      which appeared from its imprint to be the latest authority, and showed
+      marks of frequent consultation in the passages about the French Frigate
+      Shoals, the Harman, Cure, Pearl, and Hermes reefs, Lisiansky Island, Ocean
+      Island, and the place where we then lay&mdash;Brooks or Midway. A volume
+      of Macaulay's <i>Essays</i> and a shilling Shakespeare led the van of the
+      belles lettres; the rest were novels: several Miss Braddons&mdash;of
+      course, <i>Aurora Floyd</i>, which has penetrated to every isle of the
+      Pacific, a good many cheap detective books, <i>Rob Roy</i>, Auerbach's <i>Auf
+      der Hohe</i> in the German, and a prize temperance story, pillaged (to
+      judge by the stamp) from an Anglo-Indian circulating library.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Admiralty man gives a fine picture of our island,&rdquo;
+      remarked Nares, who had turned up Midway Island. &ldquo;He draws the
+      dreariness rather mild, but you can make out he knows the place.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Captain,&rdquo; I cried, &ldquo;you've struck another point in this
+      mad business. See here,&rdquo; I went on eagerly, drawing from my pocket a
+      crumpled fragment of the <i>Daily Occidental</i> which I had inherited
+      from Jim: &ldquo;'misled by Hoyt's Pacific Directory'? Where's Hoyt?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let's look into that,&rdquo; said Nares. &ldquo;I got that book on
+      purpose for this cruise.&rdquo; Therewith he fetched it from the shelf in
+      his berth, turned to Midway Island, and read the account aloud. It stated
+      with precision that the Pacific Mail Company were about to form a depot
+      there, in preference to Honolulu, and that they had already a station on
+      the island.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder who gives these Directory men their information,&rdquo;
+      Nares reflected. &ldquo;Nobody can blame Trent after that. I never got in
+      company with squarer lying; it reminds a man of a presidential campaign.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All very well,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;That's your Hoyt, and a fine,
+      tall copy. But what I want to know is, where is Trent's Hoyt?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Took it with him,&rdquo; chuckled Nares. &ldquo;He had left
+      everything else, bills and money and all the rest; he was bound to take
+      something, or it would have aroused attention on the Tempest: 'Happy
+      thought,' says he, 'let's take Hoyt.'&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And has it not occurred to you,&rdquo; I went on, &ldquo;that all
+      the Hoyts in creation couldn't have misled Trent, since he had in his hand
+      that red admiralty book, an official publication, later in date, and
+      particularly full on Midway Island?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's a fact!&rdquo; cried Nares; &ldquo;and I bet the first Hoyt
+      he ever saw was out of the mercantile library of San Francisco. Looks as
+      if he had brought her here on purpose, don't it? But then that's
+      inconsistent with the steam-crusher of the sale. That's the trouble with
+      this brig racket; any one can make half a dozen theories for sixty or
+      seventy per cent of it; but when they're made, there's always a fathom or
+      two of slack hanging out of the other end.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I believe our attention fell next on the papers, of which we had
+      altogether a considerable bulk. I had hoped to find among these matter for
+      a full-length character of Captain Trent; but here I was doomed, on the
+      whole, to disappointment. We could make out he was an orderly man, for all
+      his bills were docketed and preserved. That he was convivial, and inclined
+      to be frugal even in conviviality, several documents proclaimed. Such
+      letters as we found were, with one exception, arid notes from tradesmen.
+      The exception, signed Hannah Trent, was a somewhat fervid appeal for a
+      loan. &ldquo;You know what misfortunes I have had to bear,&rdquo; wrote
+      Hannah, &ldquo;and how much I am disappointed in George. The landlady
+      appeared a true friend when I first came here, and I thought her a perfect
+      lady. But she has come out since then in her true colours; and if you will
+      not be softened by this last appeal, I can't think what is to become of
+      your affectionate&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; and then the signature. This
+      document was without place or date, and a voice told me that it had gone
+      likewise without answer. On the whole, there were few letters anywhere in
+      the ship; but we found one before we were finished, in a seaman's chest,
+      of which I must transcribe some sentences. It was dated from some place on
+      the Clyde. &ldquo;My dearist son,&rdquo; it ran, &ldquo;this is to tell
+      you your dearist father passed away, Jan twelft, in the peace of the Lord.
+      He had your photo and dear David's lade upon his bed, made me sit by him.
+      Let's be a' thegither, he said, and gave you all his blessing. O my dear
+      laddie, why were nae you and Davie here? He would have had a happier
+      passage. He spok of both of ye all night most beautiful, and how ye used
+      to stravaig on the Saturday afternoons, and of auld Kelvinside. Sooth the
+      tune to me, he said, though it was the Sabbath, and I had to sooth him
+      Kelvin Grove, and he looked at his fiddle, the dear man. I cannae bear the
+      sight of it, he'll never play it mair. O my lamb, come home to me, I'm all
+      by my lane now.&rdquo; The rest was in a religious vein and quite
+      conventional. I have never seen any one more put out than Nares, when I
+      handed him this letter; he had read but a few words, before he cast it
+      down; it was perhaps a minute ere he picked it up again, and the
+      performance was repeated the third time before he reached the end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's touching, isn't it?&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For all answer, Nares exploded in a brutal oath; and it was some half an
+      hour later that he vouchsafed an explanation. &ldquo;I'll tell you what
+      broke me up about that letter,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;My old man played
+      the fiddle, played it all out of tune: one of the things he played was <i>Martyrdom,</i>
+      I remember&mdash;it was all martyrdom to me. He was a pig of a father, and
+      I was a pig of a son; but it sort of came over me I would like to hear
+      that fiddle squeak again. Natural,&rdquo; he added; &ldquo;I guess we're
+      all beasts.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All sons are, I guess,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;I have the same
+      trouble on my conscience: we can shake hands on that.&rdquo; Which (oddly
+      enough, perhaps) we did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Amongst the papers we found a considerable sprinkling of photographs; for
+      the most part either of very debonair-looking young ladies or old women of
+      the lodging-house persuasion. But one among them was the means of our
+      crowning discovery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They're not pretty, are they, Mr. Dodd?&rdquo; said Nares, as he
+      passed it over.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who?&rdquo; I asked, mechanically taking the card (it was a
+      quarter-plate) in hand, and smothering a yawn; for the hour was late, the
+      day had been laborious, and I was wearying for bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Trent and Company,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;That's a historic picture
+      of the gang.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I held it to the light, my curiosity at a low ebb: I had seen Captain
+      Trent once, and had no delight in viewing him again. It was a photograph
+      of the deck of the brig, taken from forward: all in apple-pie order; the
+      hands gathered in the waist, the officers on the poop. At the foot of the
+      card was written &ldquo;Brig Flying Scud, Rangoon,&rdquo; and a date; and
+      above or below each individual figure the name had been carefully noted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As I continued to gaze, a shock went through me; the dimness of sleep and
+      fatigue lifted from my eyes, as fog lifts in the channel; and I beheld
+      with startled clearness the photographic presentment of a crowd of
+      strangers. &ldquo;J. Trent, Master&rdquo; at the top of the card directed
+      me to a smallish, weazened man, with bushy eyebrows and full white beard,
+      dressed in a frock coat and white trousers; a flower stuck in his
+      button-hole, his bearded chin set forward, his mouth clenched with
+      habitual determination. There was not much of the sailor in his looks, but
+      plenty of the martinet: a dry, precise man, who might pass for a preacher
+      in some rigid sect; and whatever he was, not the Captain Trent of San
+      Francisco. The men, too, were all new to me: the cook, an unmistakable
+      Chinaman, in his characteristic dress, standing apart on the poop steps.
+      But perhaps I turned on the whole with the greatest curiosity to the
+      figure labelled &ldquo;E. Goddedaal, 1st off.&rdquo; He whom I had never
+      seen, he might be the identical; he might be the clue and spring of all
+      this mystery; and I scanned his features with the eye of a detective. He
+      was of great stature, seemingly blonde as a viking, his hair clustering
+      round his head in frowsy curls, and two enormous whiskers, like the tusks
+      of some strange animal, jutting from his cheeks. With these virile
+      appendages and the defiant attitude in which he stood, the expression of
+      his face only imperfectly harmonised. It was wild, heroic, and womanish
+      looking; and I felt I was prepared to hear he was a sentimentalist, and to
+      see him weep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For some while I digested my discovery in private, reflecting how best,
+      and how with most of drama, I might share it with the captain. Then my
+      sketch-book came in my head; and I fished it out from where it lay, with
+      other miscellaneous possessions, at the foot of my bunk and turned to my
+      sketch of Captain Trent and the survivors of the British brig Flying Scud
+      in the San Francisco bar-room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nares,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I've told you how I first saw Captain
+      Trent in that saloon in 'Frisco? how he came with his men, one of them a
+      Kanaka with a canary-bird in a cage? and how I saw him afterwards at the
+      auction, frightened to death, and as much surprised at how the figures
+      skipped up as anybody there? Well,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;there's the man I
+      saw&rdquo;&mdash;and I laid the sketch before him&mdash;&ldquo;there's
+      Trent of 'Frisco and there are his three hands. Find one of them in the
+      photograph, and I'll be obliged.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nares compared the two in silence. &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he said at last,
+      &ldquo;I call this rather a relief: seems to clear the horizon. We might
+      have guessed at something of the kind from the double ration of chests
+      that figured.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does it explain anything?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It would explain everything,&rdquo; Nares replied, &ldquo;but for
+      the steam-crusher. It'll all tally as neat as a patent puzzle, if you
+      leave out the way these people bid the wreck up. And there we come to a
+      stone wall. But whatever it is, Mr. Dodd, it's on the crook.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And looks like piracy,&rdquo; I added.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Looks like blind hookey!&rdquo; cried the captain. &ldquo;No, don't
+      you deceive yourself; neither your head nor mine is big enough to put a
+      name on this business.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XV. THE CARGO OF THE &ldquo;FLYING SCUD.&rdquo;
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      In my early days I was a man, the most wedded to his idols of my
+      generation. I was a dweller under roofs: the gull of that which we call
+      civilisation; a superstitious votary of the plastic arts; a cit; and a
+      prop of restaurants. I had a comrade in those days, somewhat of an
+      outsider, though he moved in the company of artists, and a man famous in
+      our small world for gallantry, knee breeches, and dry and pregnant
+      sayings. He, looking on the long meals and waxing bellies of the French,
+      whom I confess I somewhat imitated, branded me as &ldquo;a cultivator of
+      restaurant fat.&rdquo; And I believe he had his finger on the dangerous
+      spot; I believe, if things had gone smooth with me, I should be now
+      swollen like a prize-ox in body, and fallen in mind to a thing perhaps as
+      low as many types of bourgeois&mdash;the implicit or exclusive artist.
+      That was a home word of Pinkerton's, deserving to be writ in letters of
+      gold on the portico of every school of art: &ldquo;What I can't see is why
+      you should want to do nothing else.&rdquo; The dull man is made, not by
+      the nature, but by the degree of his immersion in a single business. And
+      all the more if that be sedentary, uneventful, and ingloriously safe. More
+      than one half of him will then remain unexercised and undeveloped; the
+      rest will be distended and deformed by over-nutrition, over-cerebration,
+      and the heat of rooms. And I have often marvelled at the impudence of
+      gentlemen, who describe and pass judgment on the life of man, in almost
+      perfect ignorance of all its necessary elements and natural careers. Those
+      who dwell in clubs and studios may paint excellent pictures or write
+      enchanting novels. There is one thing that they should not do: they should
+      pass no judgment on man's destiny, for it is a thing with which they are
+      unacquainted. Their own life is an excrescence of the moment, doomed, in
+      the vicissitude of history, to pass and disappear: the eternal life of
+      man, spent under sun and rain and in rude physical effort, lies upon one
+      side, scarce changed since the beginning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I would I could have carried along with me to Midway Island all the
+      writers and the prating artists of my time. Day after day of hope
+      deferred, of heat, of unremitting toil; night after night of aching limbs,
+      bruised hands, and a mind obscured with the grateful vacancy of physical
+      fatigue: the scene, the nature of my employment; the rugged speech and
+      faces of my fellow-toilers, the glare of the day on deck, the stinking
+      twilight in the bilge, the shrill myriads of the ocean-fowl: above all,
+      the sense of our immitigable isolation from the world and from the current
+      epoch;&mdash;keeping another time, some eras old; the new day heralded by
+      no daily paper, only by the rising sun; and the State, the churches, the
+      peopled empires, war, and the rumours of war, and the voices of the arts,
+      all gone silent as in the days ere they were yet invented. Such were the
+      conditions of my new experience in life, of which (if I had been able) I
+      would have had all my confreres and contemporaries to partake: forgetting,
+      for that while, the orthodoxies of the moment, and devoted to a single and
+      material purpose under the eye of heaven.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of the nature of our task, I must continue to give some summary idea. The
+      forecastle was lumbered with ship's chandlery, the hold nigh full of rice,
+      the lazarette crowded with the teas and silks. These must all be dug out;
+      and that made but a fraction of our task. The hold was ceiled throughout;
+      a part, where perhaps some delicate cargo was once stored, had been lined,
+      in addition, with inch boards; and between every beam there was a movable
+      panel into the bilge. Any of these, the bulkheads of the cabins, the very
+      timbers of the hull itself, might be the place of hiding. It was therefore
+      necessary to demolish, as we proceeded, a great part of the ship's inner
+      skin and fittings, and to auscultate what remained, like a doctor sounding
+      for a lung disease. Upon the return, from any beam or bulkhead, of a flat
+      or doubtful sound, we must up axe and hew into the timber: a violent and&mdash;from
+      the amount of dry rot in the wreck&mdash;a mortifying exercise. Every
+      night saw a deeper inroad into the bones of the Flying Scud&mdash;more
+      beams tapped and hewn in splinters, more planking peeled away and tossed
+      aside&mdash;and every night saw us as far as ever from the end and object
+      of our arduous devastation. In this perpetual disappointment, my courage
+      did not fail me, but my spirits dwindled; and Nares himself grew silent
+      and morose. At night, when supper was done, we passed an hour in the
+      cabin, mostly without speech: I, sometimes dozing over a book; Nares,
+      sullenly but busily drilling sea-shells with the instrument called a
+      Yankee Fiddle. A stranger might have supposed we were estranged; as a
+      matter of fact, in this silent comradeship of labour, our intimacy grew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had been struck, at the first beginning of our enterprise upon the
+      wreck, to find the men so ready at the captain's lightest word. I dare not
+      say they liked, but I can never deny that they admired him thoroughly. A
+      mild word from his mouth was more valued than flattery and half a dollar
+      from myself; if he relaxed at all from his habitual attitude of censure,
+      smiling alacrity surrounded him; and I was led to think his theory of
+      captainship, even if pushed to excess, reposed upon some ground of reason.
+      But even terror and admiration of the captain failed us before the end.
+      The men wearied of the hopeless, unremunerative quest and the long strain
+      of labour. They began to shirk and grumble. Retribution fell on them at
+      once, and retribution multiplied the grumblings. With every day it took
+      harder driving to keep them to the daily drudge; and we, in our narrow
+      boundaries, were kept conscious every moment of the ill-will of our
+      assistants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In spite of the best care, the object of our search was perfectly well
+      known to all on board; and there had leaked out besides some knowledge of
+      those inconsistencies that had so greatly amazed the captain and myself. I
+      could overhear the men debate the character of Captain Trent, and set
+      forth competing theories of where the opium was stowed; and as they seemed
+      to have been eavesdropping on ourselves, I thought little shame to prick
+      up my ears when I had the return chance of spying upon them, in this way.
+      I could diagnose their temper and judge how far they were informed upon
+      the mystery of the Flying Scud. It was after having thus overheard some
+      almost mutinous speeches that a fortunate idea crossed my mind. At night,
+      I matured it in my bed, and the first thing the next morning, broached it
+      to the captain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Suppose I spirit up the hands a bit,&rdquo; I asked, &ldquo;by the
+      offer of a reward?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you think you're getting your month's wages out of them the way
+      it is, I don't,&rdquo; was his reply. &ldquo;However, they are all the men
+      you've got, and you're the supercargo.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This, from a person of the captain's character, might be regarded as
+      complete adhesion; and the crew were accordingly called aft. Never had the
+      captain worn a front more menacing. It was supposed by all that some
+      misdeed had been discovered, and some surprising punishment was to be
+      announced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;See here, you!&rdquo; he threw at them over his shoulder as he
+      walked the deck, &ldquo;Mr. Dodd here is going to offer a reward to the
+      first man who strikes the opium in that wreck. There's two ways of making
+      a donkey go; both good, I guess: the one's kicks and the other's carrots.
+      Mr. Dodd's going to try the carrots. Well, my sons,&rdquo;&mdash;and here
+      he faced the men for the first time with his hands behind him&mdash;&ldquo;if
+      that opium's not found in five days, you can come to me for the kicks.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He nodded to the present narrator, who took up the tale. &ldquo;Here is
+      what I propose, men,&rdquo; said I: &ldquo;I put up one hundred and fifty
+      dollars. If any man can lay hands on the stuff right away, and off his own
+      club, he shall have the hundred and fifty down. If any one can put us on
+      the scent of where to look, he shall have a hundred and twenty-five, and
+      the balance shall be for the lucky one who actually picks it up. We'll
+      call it the Pinkerton Stakes, captain,&rdquo; I added, with a smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Call it the Grand Combination Sweep, then,&rdquo; cries he. &ldquo;For
+      I go you better.&mdash;Look here, men, I make up this jack-pot to two
+      hundred and fifty dollars, American gold coin.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you, Captain Nares,&rdquo; said I; &ldquo;that was handsomely
+      done.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was kindly meant,&rdquo; he returned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The offer was not made in vain; the hands had scarce yet realised the
+      magnitude of the reward, they had scarce begun to buzz aloud in the
+      extremity of hope and wonder, ere the Chinese cook stepped forward with
+      gracious gestures and explanatory smiles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Captain,&rdquo; he began, &ldquo;I serv-um two year Melican navy;
+      serv-um six year mail-boat steward. Savvy plenty.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oho!&rdquo; cried Nares, &ldquo;you savvy plenty, do you? (Beggar's
+      seen this trick in the mail-boats, I guess.) Well, why you no savvy a
+      little sooner, sonny?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think bimeby make-um reward,&rdquo; replied the cook, with
+      smiling dignity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you can't say fairer than that,&rdquo; the captain admitted,
+      &ldquo;and now the reward's offered, you'll talk? Speak up, then. Suppose
+      you speak true, you get reward. See?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think long time,&rdquo; replied the Chinaman. &ldquo;See plenty
+      litty mat lice; too-muchy plenty litty mat lice; sixty ton, litty mat
+      lice. I think all-e-time: perhaps plenty opium plenty litty mat lice.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, Mr. Dodd, how does that strike you?&rdquo; asked the captain.
+      &ldquo;He may be right, he may be wrong. He's likely to be right: for if
+      he isn't, where can the stuff be? On the other hand, if he's wrong, we
+      destroy a hundred and fifty tons of good rice for nothing. It's a point to
+      be considered.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't hesitate,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;Let's get to the bottom of
+      the thing. The rice is nothing; the rice will neither make nor break us.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's how I expected you to see it,&rdquo; returned Nares.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And we called the boat away and set forth on our new quest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The hold was now almost entirely emptied; the mats (of which there went
+      forty to the short ton) had been stacked on deck, and now crowded the
+      ship's waist and forecastle. It was our task to disembowel and explore six
+      thousand individual mats, and incidentally to destroy a hundred and fifty
+      tons of valuable food. Nor were the circumstances of the day's business
+      less strange than its essential nature. Each man of us, armed with a great
+      knife, attacked the pile from his own quarter, slashed into the nearest
+      mat, burrowed in it with his hands, and shed forth the rice upon the deck,
+      where it heaped up, overflowed, and was trodden down, poured at last into
+      the scuppers, and occasionally spouted from the vents. About the wreck,
+      thus transformed into an overflowing granary, the sea-fowl swarmed in
+      myriads and with surprising insolence. The sight of so much food
+      confounded them; they deafened us with their shrill tongues, swooped in
+      our midst, dashed in our faces, and snatched the grain from between our
+      fingers. The men&mdash;their hands bleeding from these assaults&mdash;turned
+      savagely on the offensive, drove their knives into the birds, drew them
+      out crimsoned, and turned again to dig among the rice, unmindful of the
+      gawking creatures that struggled and died among their feet. We made a
+      singular picture: the hovering and diving birds; the bodies of the dead
+      discolouring the rice with blood; the scuppers vomiting breadstuff; the
+      men, frenzied by the gold hunt, toiling, slaying, and shouting aloud: over
+      all, the lofty intricacy of rigging and the radiant heaven of the Pacific.
+      Every man there toiled in the immediate hope of fifty dollars; and I, of
+      fifty thousand. Small wonder if we waded callously in blood and food.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was perhaps about ten in the forenoon when the scene was interrupted.
+      Nares, who had just ripped open a fresh mat, drew forth, and slung at his
+      feet, among the rice, a papered tin box.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How's that?&rdquo; he shouted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A cry broke from all hands: the next moment, forgetting their own
+      disappointment, in that contagious sentiment of success, they gave three
+      cheers that scared the sea-birds; and the next, they had crowded round the
+      captain, and were jostling together and groping with emulous hands in the
+      new-opened mat. Box after box rewarded them, six in all; wrapped, as I
+      have said, in a paper envelope, and the paper printed on, in Chinese
+      characters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nares turned to me and shook my hand. &ldquo;I began to think we should
+      never see this day,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;I congratulate you, Mr. Dodd,
+      on having pulled it through.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The captain's tones affected me profoundly; and when Johnson and the men
+      pressed round me in turn with congratulations, the tears came in my eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;These are five-tael boxes, more than two pounds,&rdquo; said Nares,
+      weighing one in his hand. &ldquo;Say two hundred and fifty dollars to the
+      mat. Lay into it, boys! We'll make Mr. Dodd a millionnaire before dark.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was strange to see with what a fury we fell to. The men had now nothing
+      to expect; the mere idea of great sums inspired them with disinterested
+      ardour. Mats were slashed and disembowelled, the rice flowed to our knees
+      in the ship's waist, the sweat ran in our eyes and blinded us, our arms
+      ached to agony; and yet our fire abated not. Dinner came; we were too
+      weary to eat, too hoarse for conversation; and yet dinner was scarce done,
+      before we were afoot again and delving in the rice. Before nightfall not a
+      mat was unexplored, and we were face to face with the astonishing result.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For of all the inexplicable things in the story of the Flying Scud, here
+      was the most inexplicable. Out of the six thousand mats, only twenty were
+      found to have been sugared; in each we found the same amount, about twelve
+      pounds of drug; making a grand total of two hundred and forty pounds. By
+      the last San Francisco quotation, opium was selling for a fraction over
+      twenty dollars a pound; but it had been known not long before to bring as
+      much as forty in Honolulu, where it was contraband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Taking, then, this high Honolulu figure, the value of the opium on board
+      the Flying Scud fell considerably short of ten thousand dollars, while at
+      the San Francisco rate it lacked a trifle of five thousand. And fifty
+      thousand was the price that Jim and I had paid for it. And Bellairs had
+      been eager to go higher! There is no language to express the stupor with
+      which I contemplated this result.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It may be argued we were not yet sure; there might be yet another cache;
+      and you may be certain in that hour of my distress the argument was not
+      forgotten. There was never a ship more ardently perquested; no stone was
+      left unturned, and no expedient untried; day after day of growing despair,
+      we punched and dug in the brig's vitals, exciting the men with promises
+      and presents; evening after evening Nares and I sat face to face in the
+      narrow cabin, racking our minds for some neglected possibility of search.
+      I could stake my salvation on the certainty of the result: in all that
+      ship there was nothing left of value but the timber and the copper nails.
+      So that our case was lamentably plain; we had paid fifty thousand dollars,
+      borne the charges of the schooner, and paid fancy interest on money; and
+      if things went well with us, we might realise fifteen per cent of the
+      first outlay. We were not merely bankrupt, we were comic bankrupts: a fair
+      butt for jeering in the streets. I hope I bore the blow with a good
+      countenance; indeed, my mind had long been quite made up, and since the
+      day we found the opium I had known the result. But the thought of Jim and
+      Mamie ached in me like a physical pain, and I shrank from speech and
+      companionship.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was in this frame of mind when the captain proposed that we should land
+      upon the island. I saw he had something to say, and only feared it might
+      be consolation; for I could just bear my grief, not bungling sympathy; and
+      yet I had no choice but to accede to his proposal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We walked awhile along the beach in silence. The sun overhead reverberated
+      rays of heat; the staring sand, the glaring lagoon, tortured our eyes; and
+      the birds and the boom of the far-away breakers made a savage symphony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't require to tell you the game's up?&rdquo; Nares asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was thinking of getting to sea to-morrow,&rdquo; he pursued.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The best thing you can do,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall we say Honolulu?&rdquo; he inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, yes; let's stick to the programme,&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;Honolulu
+      be it!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was another silence, and then Nares cleared his throat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We've been pretty good friends, you and me, Mr. Dodd,&rdquo; he
+      resumed. &ldquo;We've been going through the kind of thing that tries a
+      man. We've had the hardest kind of work, we've been badly backed, and now
+      we're badly beaten. And we've fetched through without a word of
+      disagreement. I don't say this to praise myself: it's my trade; it's what
+      I'm paid for, and trained for, and brought up to. But it was another thing
+      for you; it was all new to you; and it did me good to see you stand right
+      up to it and swing right into it, day in, day out. And then see how you've
+      taken this disappointment, when everybody knows you must have been
+      tautened up to shying-point! I wish you'd let me tell you, Mr. Dodd, that
+      you've stood out mighty manly and handsomely in all this business, and
+      made every one like you and admire you. And I wish you'd let me tell you,
+      besides, that I've taken this wreck business as much to heart as you have;
+      something kind of rises in my throat when I think we're beaten; and if I
+      thought waiting would do it, I would stick on this reef until we starved.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I tried in vain to thank him for these generous words, but he was
+      beforehand with me in a moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn't bring you ashore to sound my praises,&rdquo; he
+      interrupted. &ldquo;We understand one another now, that's all; and I guess
+      you can trust me. What I wished to speak about is more important, and it's
+      got to be faced. What are we to do about the Flying Scud and the dime
+      novel?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I really have thought nothing about that,&rdquo; I replied. &ldquo;But
+      I expect I mean to get at the bottom of it; and if the bogus Captain Trent
+      is to be found on the earth's surface, I guess I mean to find him.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All you've got to do is talk,&rdquo; said Nares; &ldquo;you can
+      make the biggest kind of boom; it isn't often the reporters have a chance
+      at such a yarn as this; and I can tell you how it will go. It will go by
+      telegraph, Mr. Dodd; it'll be telegraphed by the column, and head-lined,
+      and frothed up, and denied by authority, and it'll hit bogus Captain Trent
+      in a Mexican bar-room, and knock over bogus Goddedaal in a slum somewhere
+      up the Baltic, and bowl down Hardy and Brown in sailors' music halls round
+      Greenock. O, there's no doubt you can have a regular domestic Judgment
+      Day. The only point is whether you deliberately want to.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I deliberately don't want one thing: I
+      deliberately don't want to make a public exhibition of myself and
+      Pinkerton: so moral&mdash;smuggling opium; such damned fools&mdash;paying
+      fifty thousand for a 'dead horse'!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No doubt it might damage you in a business sense,&rdquo; the
+      captain agreed. &ldquo;And I'm pleased you take that view; for I've turned
+      kind of soft upon the job. There's been some crookedness about, no doubt
+      of it; but, Law bless you! if we dropped upon the troupe, all the premier
+      artists would slip right out with the boodle in their grip-sacks, and
+      you'd only collar a lot of old mutton-headed shell-backs that didn't know
+      the back of the business from the front. I don't take much stock in
+      Mercantile Jack, you know that; but, poor devil, he's got to go where he's
+      told; and if you make trouble, ten to one it'll make you sick to see the
+      innocents who have to stand the racket. It would be different if we
+      understood the operation; but we don't, you see: there's a lot of queer
+      corners in life; and my vote is to let the blame' thing lie.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You speak as if we had that in our power,&rdquo; I objected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And so we have,&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What about the men?&rdquo; I asked. &ldquo;They know too much by
+      half; and you can't keep them from talking.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can't I?&rdquo; returned Nares. &ldquo;I bet a boarding-master can!
+      They can be all half-seas-over, when they get ashore, blind drunk by dark,
+      and cruising out of the Golden Gate in different deep-sea ships by the
+      next morning. Can't keep them from talking, can't I? Well, I can make 'em
+      talk separate, leastways. If a whole crew came talking, parties would
+      listen; but if it's only one lone old shell-back, it's the usual yarn. And
+      at least, they needn't talk before six months, or&mdash;if we have luck,
+      and there's a whaler handy&mdash;three years. And by that time, Mr. Dodd,
+      it's ancient history.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's what they call Shanghaiing, isn't it?&rdquo; I asked.
+      &ldquo;I thought it belonged to the dime novel.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, dime novels are right enough,&rdquo; returned the captain.
+      &ldquo;Nothing wrong with the dime novel, only that things happen thicker
+      than they do in life, and the practical seamanship is off-colour.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So we can keep the business to ourselves,&rdquo; I mused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's one other person that might blab,&rdquo; said the captain.
+      &ldquo;Though I don't believe she has anything left to tell.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And who is SHE?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The old girl there,&rdquo; he answered, pointing to the wreck.
+      &ldquo;I know there's nothing in her; but somehow I'm afraid of some one
+      else&mdash;it's the last thing you'd expect, so it's just the first
+      that'll happen&mdash;some one dropping into this God-forgotten island
+      where nobody drops in, waltzing into that wreck that we've grown old with
+      searching, stooping straight down, and picking right up the very thing
+      that tells the story. What's that to me? you may ask, and why am I gone
+      Soft Tommy on this Museum of Crooks? They've smashed up you and Mr.
+      Pinkerton; they've turned my hair grey with conundrums; they've been up to
+      larks, no doubt; and that's all I know of them&mdash;you say. Well, and
+      that's just where it is. I don't know enough; I don't know what's
+      uppermost; it's just such a lot of miscellaneous eventualities as I don't
+      care to go stirring up; and I ask you to let me deal with the old girl
+      after a patent of my own.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly&mdash;what you please,&rdquo; said I, scarce with
+      attention, for a new thought now occupied my brain. &ldquo;Captain,&rdquo;
+      I broke out, &ldquo;you are wrong: we cannot hush this up. There is one
+      thing you have forgotten.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is that?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A bogus Captain Trent, a bogus Goddedaal, a whole bogus crew, have
+      all started home,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;If we are right, not one of them
+      will reach his journey's end. And do you mean to say that such a
+      circumstance as that can pass without remark?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sailors,&rdquo; said the captain, &ldquo;only sailors! If they were
+      all bound for one place, in a body, I don't say so; but they're all going
+      separate&mdash;to Hull, to Sweden, to the Clyde, to the Thames. Well, at
+      each place, what is it? Nothing new. Only one sailor man missing: got
+      drunk, or got drowned, or got left: the proper sailor's end.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Something bitter in the thought and in the speaker's tones struck me hard.
+      &ldquo;Here is one that has got left!&rdquo; I cried, getting sharply to
+      my feet; for we had been some time seated. &ldquo;I wish it were the
+      other. I don't&mdash;don't relish going home to Jim with this!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;See here,&rdquo; said Nares, with ready tact, &ldquo;I must be
+      getting aboard. Johnson's in the brig annexing chandlery and canvas, and
+      there's some things in the Norah that want fixing against we go to sea.
+      Would you like to be left here in the chicken-ranch? I'll send for you to
+      supper.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I embraced the proposal with delight. Solitude, in my frame of mind, was
+      not too dearly purchased at the risk of sunstroke or sand-blindness; and
+      soon I was alone on the ill-omened islet. I should find it hard to tell of
+      what I thought&mdash;of Jim, of Mamie, of our lost fortune, of my lost
+      hopes, of the doom before me: to turn to at some mechanical occupation in
+      some subaltern rank, and to toil there, unremarked and unamused, until the
+      hour of the last deliverance. I was, at least, so sunk in sadness that I
+      scarce remarked where I was going; and chance (or some finer sense that
+      lives in us, and only guides us when the mind is in abeyance) conducted my
+      steps into a quarter of the island where the birds were few. By some
+      devious route, which I was unable to retrace for my return, I was thus
+      able to mount, without interruption, to the highest point of land. And
+      here I was recalled to consciousness by a last discovery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The spot on which I stood was level, and commanded a wide view of the
+      lagoon, the bounding reef, the round horizon. Nearer hand I saw the sister
+      islet, the wreck, the Norah Creina, and the Norah's boat already moving
+      shoreward. For the sun was now low, flaming on the sea's verge; and the
+      galley chimney smoked on board the schooner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It thus befell that though my discovery was both affecting and suggestive,
+      I had no leisure to examine further. What I saw was the blackened embers
+      of fire of wreck. By all the signs, it must have blazed to a good height
+      and burned for days; from the scantling of a spar that lay upon the margin
+      only half consumed, it must have been the work of more than one; and I
+      received at once the image of a forlorn troop of castaways, houseless in
+      that lost corner of the earth, and feeding there their fire of signal. The
+      next moment a hail reached me from the boat; and bursting through the
+      bushes and the rising sea-fowl, I said farewell (I trust for ever) to that
+      desert isle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVI. IN WHICH I TURN SMUGGLER, AND THE CAPTAIN CASUIST
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The last night at Midway, I had little sleep; the next morning, after the
+      sun was risen, and the clatter of departure had begun to reign on deck, I
+      lay a long while dozing; and when at last I stepped from the companion,
+      the schooner was already leaping through the pass into the open sea. Close
+      on her board, the huge scroll of a breaker unfurled itself along the reef
+      with a prodigious clamour; and behind I saw the wreck vomiting into the
+      morning air a coil of smoke. The wreaths already blew out far to leeward,
+      flames already glittered in the cabin skylight; and the sea-fowl were
+      scattered in surprise as wide as the lagoon. As we drew farther off, the
+      conflagration of the Flying Scud flamed higher; and long after we had
+      dropped all signs of Midway Island, the smoke still hung in the horizon
+      like that of a distant steamer. With the fading out of that last vestige,
+      the Norah Creina, passed again into the empty world of cloud and water by
+      which she had approached; and the next features that appeared, eleven days
+      later, to break the line of sky, were the arid mountains of Oahu.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It has often since been a comfortable thought to me that we had thus
+      destroyed the tell-tale remnants of the Flying Scud; and often a strange
+      one that my last sight and reminiscence of that fatal ship should be a
+      pillar of smoke on the horizon. To so many others besides myself the same
+      appearance had played a part in the various stages of that business:
+      luring some to what they little imagined, filling some with unimaginable
+      terrors. But ours was the last smoke raised in the story; and with its
+      dying away the secret of the Flying Scud became a private property.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was by the first light of dawn that we saw, close on board, the
+      metropolitan island of Hawaii. We held along the coast, as near as we
+      could venture, with a fresh breeze and under an unclouded heaven;
+      beholding, as we went, the arid mountain sides and scrubby cocoa-palms of
+      that somewhat melancholy archipelago. About four of the afternoon we
+      turned Waimanolo Point, the westerly headland of the great bight of
+      Honolulu; showed ourselves for twenty minutes in full view; and then fell
+      again to leeward, and put in the rest of daylight, plying under shortened
+      sail under the lee of Waimanolo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A little after dark we beat once more about the point, and crept
+      cautiously toward the mouth of the Pearl Lochs, where Jim and I had
+      arranged I was to meet the smugglers. The night was happily obscure, the
+      water smooth. We showed, according to instructions, no light on deck: only
+      a red lantern dropped from either cathead to within a couple of feet of
+      the water. A lookout was stationed on the bowsprit end, another in the
+      crosstrees; and the whole ship's company crowded forward, scouting for
+      enemies or friends. It was now the crucial moment of our enterprise; we
+      were now risking liberty and credit; and that for a sum so small to a man
+      in my bankrupt situation, that I could have laughed aloud in bitterness.
+      But the piece had been arranged, and we must play it to the finish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For some while, we saw nothing but the dark mountain outline of the
+      island, the torches of native fishermen glittering here and there along
+      the foreshore, and right in the midst that cluster of brave lights with
+      which the town of Honolulu advertises itself to the seaward. Presently a
+      ruddy star appeared inshore of us, and seemed to draw near unsteadily.
+      This was the anticipated signal; and we made haste to show the
+      countersign, lowering a white light from the quarter, extinguishing the
+      two others, and laying the schooner incontinently to. The star approached
+      slowly; the sounds of oars and of men's speech came to us across the
+      water; and then a voice hailed us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that Mr. Dodd?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I returned. &ldquo;Is Jim Pinkerton there?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, sir,&rdquo; replied the voice. &ldquo;But there's one of his
+      crowd here; name of Speedy.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm here, Mr. Dodd,&rdquo; added Speedy himself. &ldquo;I have
+      letters for you.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right,&rdquo; I replied. &ldquo;Come aboard, gentlemen, and let
+      me see my mail.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A whaleboat accordingly ranged alongside, and three men boarded us: my old
+      San Francisco friend, the stock-gambler Speedy, a little wizened person of
+      the name of Sharpe, and a big, flourishing, dissipated-looking man called
+      Fowler. The two last (I learned afterward) were frequent partners; Sharpe
+      supplied the capital, and Fowler, who was quite a character in the islands
+      and occupied a considerable station, brought activity, daring, and a
+      private influence, highly necessary in the case. Both seemed to approach
+      the business with a keen sense of romance; and I believe this was the
+      chief attraction, at least with Fowler&mdash;for whom I early conceived a
+      sentiment of liking. But in that first moment I had something else to
+      think of than to judge my new acquaintances; and before Speedy had fished
+      out the letters, the full extent of our misfortune was revealed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We've rather bad news for you, Mr. Dodd,&rdquo; said Fowler.
+      &ldquo;Your firm's gone up.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Already!&rdquo; I exclaimed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, it was thought rather a wonder Pinkerton held on as long as
+      he did,&rdquo; was the reply. &ldquo;The wreck deal was too big for your
+      credit; you were doing a big business, no doubt, but you were doing it on
+      precious little capital; and when the strain came, you were bound to go.
+      Pinkerton's through all right: seven cents dividend; some remarks made,
+      but nothing to hurt; the press let you down easy&mdash;I guess Jim had
+      relations there. The only trouble is, that all this Flying Scud affair got
+      in the papers with the rest; everybody's wide awake in Honolulu, and the
+      sooner we get the stuff in and the dollars out, the better for all
+      concerned.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gentlemen,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;you must excuse me. My friend, the
+      captain here, will drink a glass of champagne with you to give you
+      patience; but as for myself, I am unfit even for ordinary conversation
+      till I have read these letters.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They demurred a little: and indeed the danger of delay seemed obvious; but
+      the sight of my distress, which I was unable entirely to control, appealed
+      strongly to their good-nature; and I was suffered at last to get by myself
+      on deck, where, by the light of a lantern smuggled under shelter of the
+      low rail, I read the following wretched correspondence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear Loudon,&rdquo; ran the first, &ldquo;this will be handed
+      you by your friend Speedy of the Catamount. His sterling character and
+      loyal devotion to yourself pointed him out as the best man for our
+      purposes in Honolulu&mdash;the parties on the spot being difficult to
+      manipulate. A man called Billy Fowler (you must have heard of Billy) is
+      the boss; he is in politics some, and squares the officers. I have hard
+      times before me in the city, but I feel as bright as a dollar and as
+      strong as John L. Sullivan. What with Mamie here, and my partner speeding
+      over the seas, and the bonanza in the wreck, I feel like I could juggle
+      with the Pyramids of Egypt, same as conjurers do with aluminium balls. My
+      earnest prayers follow you, Loudon, that you may feel the way I do&mdash;just
+      inspired! My feet don't touch the ground; I kind of swim. Mamie is like
+      Moses and Aaron that held up the other individual's arms. She carries me
+      along like a horse and buggy. I am beating the record.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your true partner,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;J. PINKERTON.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Number two was in a different style:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dearest Loudon, how am I to prepare you for this dire
+      intelligence? O dear me, it will strike you to the earth. The Fiat has
+      gone forth; our firm went bust at a quarter before twelve. It was a bill
+      of Bradley's (for $200) that brought these vast operations to a close, and
+      evolved liabilities of upwards of two hundred and fifty thousand. O, the
+      shame and pity of it! and you but three weeks gone! Loudon, don't blame
+      your partner: if human hands and brains could have sufficed, I would have
+      held the thing together. But it just slowly crumbled; Bradley was the last
+      kick, but the blamed business just MELTED. I give the liabilities; it's
+      supposed they're all in; for the cowards were waiting, and the claims were
+      filed like taking tickets to hear Patti. I don't quite have the hang of
+      the assets yet, our interests were so extended; but I am at it day and
+      night, and I guess will make a creditable dividend. If the wreck pans out
+      only half the way it ought, we'll turn the laugh still. I am as full of
+      grit and work as ever, and just tower above our troubles. Mamie is a host
+      in herself. Somehow I feel like it was only me that had gone bust, and you
+      and she soared clear of it. Hurry up. That's all you have to do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yours ever,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;J. PINKERTON.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The third was yet more altered:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My poor Loudon,&rdquo; it began, &ldquo;I labour far into the night
+      getting our affairs in order; you could not believe their vastness and
+      complexity. Douglas B. Longhurst said humorously that the receiver's work
+      would be cut out for him. I cannot deny that some of them have a
+      speculative look. God forbid a sensitive, refined spirit like yours should
+      ever come face to face with a Commissioner in Bankruptcy; these men get
+      all the sweetness knocked right out of them. But I could bear up better if
+      it weren't for press comments. Often and often, Loudon, I recall to mind
+      your most legitimate critiques of the press system. They published an
+      interview with me, not the least like what I said, and with JEERING
+      comments; it would make your blood boil, it was literally INHUMANE; I
+      wouldn't have written it about a yellow dog that was in trouble like what
+      I am. Mamie just winced, the first time she has turned a hair right
+      through the whole catastrophe. How wonderfully true was what you said long
+      ago in Paris, about touching on people's personal appearance! The fellow
+      said&mdash;&rdquo; And then these words had been scored through; and my
+      distressed friend turned to another subject. &ldquo;I cannot bear to dwell
+      upon our assets. They simply don't show up. Even Thirteen Star, as sound a
+      line as can be produced upon this coast, goes begging. The wreck has
+      thrown a blight on all we ever touched. And where's the use? God never
+      made a wreck big enough to fill our deficit. I am haunted by the thought
+      that you may blame me; I know how I despised your remonstrances. O,
+      Loudon, don't be hard on your miserable partner. The funny-dog business is
+      what kills. I fear your stern rectitude of mind like the eye of God. I
+      cannot think but what some of my books seem mixed up; otherwise, I don't
+      seem to see my way as plain as I could wish to. Or else my brain is gone
+      soft. Loudon, if there should be any unpleasantness, you can trust me to
+      do the right thing and keep you clear. I've been telling them already, how
+      you had no business grip and never saw the books. O, I trust I have done
+      right in this! I knew it was a liberty; I know you may justly complain;
+      but it was some things that were said. And mind you, all legitimate
+      business! Not even your shrinking sensitiveness could find fault with the
+      first look of one of them, if they had panned out right. And you know, the
+      Flying Scud was the biggest gamble of the crowd, and that was your own
+      idea. Mamie says she never could bear to look you in the face, if that
+      idea had been mine, she is SO conscientious!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your broken-hearted
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;JIM.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The last began without formality:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is the end of me commercially. I give up; my nerve is gone. I
+      suppose I ought to be glad; for we're through the court. I don't know as
+      ever I knew how, and I'm sure I don't remember. If it pans out&mdash;the
+      wreck, I mean&mdash;we'll go to Europe, and live on the interest of our
+      money. No more work for me. I shake when people speak to me. I have gone
+      on, hoping and hoping, and working and working, and the lead has pinched
+      right out. I want to lie on my back in a garden and read Shakespeare and
+      E. P. Roe. Don't suppose it's cowardice, Loudon. I'm a sick man. Rest is
+      what I must have. I've worked hard all my life; I never spared myself;
+      every dollar I ever made, I've coined my brains for it. I've never done a
+      mean thing; I've lived respectable, and given to the poor. Who has a
+      better right to a holiday than I have? And I mean to have a year of it
+      straight out; and if I don't, I shall lie right down here in my tracks,
+      and die of worry and brain trouble. Don't mistake. That's so. If there are
+      any pickings at all, TRUST SPEEDY; don't let the creditors get wind of
+      what there is. I helped you when you were down; help me now. Don't deceive
+      yourself; you've got to help me right now, or never. I am clerking, and
+      NOT FIT TO CYPHER. Mamie's typewriting at the Phoenix Guano Exchange, down
+      town. The light is right out of my life. I know you'll not like to do what
+      I propose. Think only of this; that it's life or death for
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;JIM PINKERTON.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;P.S. Our figure was seven per cent. O, what a fall was there! Well,
+      well, it's past mending; I don't want to whine. But, Loudon, I do want to
+      live. No more ambition; all I ask is life. I have so much to make it sweet
+      to me! I am clerking, and USELESS AT THAT. I know I would have fired such
+      a clerk inside of forty minutes, in MY time. But my time's over. I can
+      only cling on to you. Don't fail
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;JIM PINKERTON.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was yet one more postscript, yet one more outburst of self-pity and
+      pathetic adjuration; and a doctor's opinion, unpromising enough, was
+      besides enclosed. I pass them both in silence. I think shame to have
+      shown, at so great length, the half-baked virtues of my friend dissolving
+      in the crucible of sickness and distress; and the effect upon my spirits
+      can be judged already. I got to my feet when I had done, drew a deep
+      breath, and stared hard at Honolulu. One moment the world seemed at an
+      end; the next, I was conscious of a rush of independent energy. On Jim I
+      could rely no longer; I must now take hold myself. I must decide and act
+      on my own better thoughts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The word was easy to say; the thing, at the first blush, was
+      undiscoverable. I was overwhelmed with miserable, womanish pity for my
+      broken friend; his outcries grieved my spirit; I saw him then and now&mdash;then,
+      so invincible; now, brought so low&mdash;and knew neither how to refuse,
+      nor how to consent to his proposal. The remembrance of my father, who had
+      fallen in the same field unstained, the image of his monument
+      incongruously rising, a fear of the law, a chill air that seemed to blow
+      upon my fancy from the doors of prisons, and the imaginary clank of
+      fetters, recalled me to a different resolve. And then again, the wails of
+      my sick partner intervened. So I stood hesitating, and yet with a strong
+      sense of capacity behind: sure, if I could but choose my path, that I
+      should walk in it with resolution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then I remembered that I had a friend on board, and stepped to the
+      companion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gentlemen,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;only a few moments more: but
+      these, I regret to say, I must make more tedious still by removing your
+      companion. It is indispensable that I should have a word or two with
+      Captain Nares.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Both the smugglers were afoot at once, protesting. The business, they
+      declared, must be despatched at once; they had run risk enough, with a
+      conscience; and they must either finish now, or go.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The choice is yours, gentlemen,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;and, I
+      believe, the eagerness. I am not yet sure that I have anything in your
+      way; even if I have, there are a hundred things to be considered; and I
+      assure you it is not at all my habit to do business with a pistol to my
+      head.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is all very proper, Mr. Dodd; there is no wish to coerce you,
+      believe me,&rdquo; said Fowler; &ldquo;only, please consider our position.
+      It is really dangerous; we were not the only people to see your schooner
+      off Waimanolo.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Fowler,&rdquo; I replied, &ldquo;I was not born yesterday. Will
+      you allow me to express an opinion, in which I may be quite wrong, but to
+      which I am entirely wedded? If the custom-house officers had been coming,
+      they would have been here now. In other words, somebody is working the
+      oracle, and (for a good guess) his name is Fowler.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Both men laughed loud and long; and being supplied with another bottle of
+      Longhurst's champagne, suffered the captain and myself to leave them
+      without further word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I gave Nares the correspondence, and he skimmed it through.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, captain,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I want a fresh mind on this.
+      What does it mean?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's large enough text,&rdquo; replied the captain. &ldquo;It means
+      you're to stake your pile on Speedy, hand him over all you can, and hold
+      your tongue. I almost wish you hadn't shown it me,&rdquo; he added
+      wearily. &ldquo;What with the specie from the wreck and the opium money,
+      it comes to a biggish deal.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's supposing that I do it?&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Exactly,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;supposing you do it.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And there are pros and cons to that,&rdquo; I observed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's San Quentin, to start in with,&rdquo; said the captain;
+      &ldquo;and suppose you clear the penitentiary, there's the nasty taste in
+      the mouth. The figure's big enough to make bad trouble, but it's not big
+      enough to be picturesque; and I should guess a man always feels kind of
+      small who has sold himself under six cyphers. That would be my way, at
+      least; there's an excitement about a million that might carry me on; but
+      the other way, I should feel kind of lonely when I woke in bed. Then
+      there's Speedy. Do you know him well?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I do not,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, of course he can vamoose with the entire speculation, if he
+      chooses,&rdquo; pursued the captain, &ldquo;and if he don't I can't see
+      but what you've got to support and bed and board with him to the end of
+      time. I guess it would weary me. Then there's Mr. Pinkerton, of course.
+      He's been a good friend to you, hasn't he? Stood by you, and all that? and
+      pulled you through for all he was worth?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That he has,&rdquo; I cried; &ldquo;I could never begin telling you
+      my debt to him!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, and that's a consideration,&rdquo; said the captain. &ldquo;As
+      a matter of principle, I wouldn't look at this business at the money. 'Not
+      good enough,' would be my word. But even principle goes under when it
+      comes to friends&mdash;the right sort, I mean. This Pinkerton is
+      frightened, and he seems sick; the medico don't seem to care a cent about
+      his state of health; and you've got to figure how you would like it if he
+      came to die. Remember, the risk of this little swindle is all yours; it's
+      no sort of risk to Mr. Pinkerton. Well, you've got to put it that way
+      plainly, and see how you like the sound of it: my friend Pinkerton is in
+      danger of the New Jerusalem, I am in danger of San Quentin; which risk do
+      I propose to run?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's an ugly way to put it,&rdquo; I objected, &ldquo;and perhaps
+      hardly fair. There's right and wrong to be considered.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't know the parties,&rdquo; replied Nares; &ldquo;and I'm coming
+      to them, anyway. For it strikes me, when it came to smuggling opium, you
+      walked right up?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So I did,&rdquo; I said; &ldquo;sick I am to have to say it!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All the same,&rdquo; continued Nares, &ldquo;you went into the
+      opium-smuggling with your head down; and a good deal of fussing I've
+      listened to, that you hadn't more of it to smuggle. Now, maybe your
+      partner's not quite fixed the same as you are; maybe he sees precious
+      little difference between the one thing and the other.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You could not say truer: he sees none, I do believe,&rdquo; cried
+      I; &ldquo;and though I see one, I could never tell you how.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We never can,&rdquo; said the oracular Nares; &ldquo;taste is all a
+      matter of opinion. But the point is, how will your friend take it? You
+      refuse a favour, and you take the high horse at the same time; you
+      disappoint him, and you rap him over the knuckles. It won't do, Mr. Dodd;
+      no friendship can stand that. You must be as good as your friend, or as
+      bad as your friend, or start on a fresh deal without him.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't see it!&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;You don't know Jim!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you WILL see,&rdquo; said Nares. &ldquo;And now, here's
+      another point. This bit of money looks mighty big to Mr. Pinkerton; it may
+      spell life or health to him; but among all your creditors, I don't see
+      that it amounts to a hill of beans&mdash;I don't believe it'll pay their
+      car-fares all round. And don't you think you'll ever get thanked. You were
+      known to pay a long price for the chance of rummaging that wreck; you do
+      the rummaging, you come home, and you hand over ten thousand&mdash;or
+      twenty, if you like&mdash;a part of which you'll have to own up you made
+      by smuggling; and, mind! you'll never get Billy Fowler to stick his name
+      to a receipt. Now just glance at the transaction from the outside, and see
+      what a clear case it makes. Your ten thousand is a sop; and people will
+      only wonder you were so damned impudent as to offer such a small one!
+      Whichever way you take it, Mr. Dodd, the bottom's out of your character;
+      so there's one thing less to be considered.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I daresay you'll scarce believe me,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;but I
+      feel that a positive relief.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must be made some way different from me, then,&rdquo; returned
+      Nares. &ldquo;And, talking about me, I might just mention how I stand.
+      You'll have no trouble from me&mdash;you've trouble enough of your own;
+      and I'm friend enough, when a friend's in need, to shut my eyes and go
+      right where he tells me. All the same, I'm rather queerly fixed. My
+      owners'll have to rank with the rest on their charter-party. Here am I,
+      their representative! and I have to look over the ship's side while the
+      bankrupt walks his assets ashore in Mr. Speedy's hat-box. It's a thing I
+      wouldn't do for James G. Blaine; but I'll do it for you, Mr. Dodd, and
+      only sorry I can't do more.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you, captain; my mind is made up,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;I'll
+      go straight, RUAT COELUM! I never understood that old tag before to-night.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope it isn't my business that decides you?&rdquo; asked the
+      captain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll never deny it was an element,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;I hope, I
+      hope I'm not cowardly; I hope I could steal for Jim myself; but when it
+      comes to dragging in you and Speedy, and this one and the other, why, Jim
+      has got to die, and there's an end. I'll try and work for him when I get
+      to 'Frisco, I suppose; and I suppose I'll fail, and look on at his death,
+      and kick myself: it can't be helped&mdash;I'll fight it on this line.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't say as you're wrong,&rdquo; replied Nares, &ldquo;and I'll
+      be hanged if I know if you're right. It suits me anyway. And look here&mdash;hadn't
+      you better just show our friends over the side?&rdquo; he added; &ldquo;no
+      good of being at the risk and worry of smuggling for the benefit of
+      creditors.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't think of the creditors,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;But I've kept
+      this pair so long, I haven't got the brass to fire them now.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Indeed, I believe that was my only reason for entering upon a transaction
+      which was now outside my interest, but which (as it chanced) repaid me
+      fifty-fold in entertainment. Fowler and Sharpe were both preternaturally
+      sharp; they did me the honour in the beginning to attribute to myself
+      their proper vices; and before we were done had grown to regard me with an
+      esteem akin to worship. This proud position I attained by no more
+      recondite arts, than telling the mere truth and unaffectedly displaying my
+      indifference to the result. I have doubtless stated the essentials of all
+      good diplomacy, which may be rather regarded, therefore, as a grace of
+      state, than the effect of management. For to tell the truth is not in
+      itself diplomatic, and to have no care for the result a thing involuntary.
+      When I mentioned, for instance, that I had but two hundred and forty
+      pounds of drug, my smugglers exchanged meaning glances, as who should say,
+      &ldquo;Here is a foeman worthy of our steel!&rdquo; But when I carelessly
+      proposed thirty-five dollars a pound, as an amendment to their offered
+      twenty, and wound up with the remark: &ldquo;The whole thing is a matter
+      of moonshine to me, gentlemen. Take it or want it, and fill your glasses&rdquo;&mdash;I
+      had the indescribable gratification to see Sharpe nudge Fowler warningly,
+      and Fowler choke down the jovial acceptance that stood ready on his lips,
+      and lamely substitute a &ldquo;No&mdash;no more wine, please, Mr. Dodd!&rdquo;
+      Nor was this all: for when the affair was settled at fifty dollars a pound&mdash;a
+      shrewd stroke of business for my creditors&mdash;and our friends had got
+      on board their whaleboat and shoved off, it appeared they were imperfectly
+      acquainted with the conveyance of sound upon still water, and I had the
+      joy to overhear the following testimonial.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Deep man, that Dodd,&rdquo; said Sharpe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And the bass-toned Fowler echoed, &ldquo;Damned if I understand his game.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus we were left once more alone upon the Norah Creina; and the news of
+      the night, and the lamentations of Pinkerton, and the thought of my own
+      harsh decision, returned and besieged me in the dark. According to all the
+      rubbish I had read, I should have been sustained by the warm consciousness
+      of virtue. Alas, I had but the one feeling: that I had sacrificed my sick
+      friend to the fear of prison-cells and stupid starers. And no moralist has
+      yet advanced so far as to number cowardice amongst the things that are
+      their own reward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVII. LIGHT FROM THE MAN OF WAR.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      In the early sunlight of the next day, we tossed close off the buoy and
+      saw the city sparkle in its groves about the foot of the Punch-bowl, and
+      the masts clustering thick in the small harbour. A good breeze, which had
+      risen with the sea, carried us triumphantly through the intricacies of the
+      passage; and we had soon brought up not far from the landing-stairs. I
+      remember to have remarked an ugly horned reptile of a modern warship in
+      the usual moorings across the port, but my mind was so profoundly plunged
+      in melancholy that I paid no heed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Indeed, I had little time at my disposal. Messieurs Sharpe and Fowler had
+      left the night before in the persuasion that I was a liar of the first
+      magnitude; the genial belief brought them aboard again with the earliest
+      opportunity, proffering help to one who had proved how little he required
+      it, and hospitality to so respectable a character. I had business to mind,
+      I had some need both of assistance and diversion; I liked Fowler&mdash;I
+      don't know why; and in short, I let them do with me as they desired. No
+      creditor intervening, I spent the first half of the day inquiring into the
+      conditions of the tea and silk market under the auspices of Sharpe;
+      lunched with him in a private apartment at the Hawaiian Hotel&mdash;for
+      Sharpe was a teetotaler in public; and about four in the afternoon was
+      delivered into the hands of Fowler. This gentleman owned a bungalow on the
+      Waikiki beach; and there in company with certain young bloods of Honolulu,
+      I was entertained to a sea-bathe, indiscriminate cocktails, a dinner, a
+      hula-hula, and (to round off the night), poker and assorted liquors. To
+      lose money in the small hours to pale, intoxicated youth, has always
+      appeared to me a pleasure overrated. In my then frame of mind, I confess I
+      found it even delightful; put up my money (or rather my creditors'), and
+      put down Fowler's champagne with equal avidity and success; and awoke the
+      next morning to a mild headache and the rather agreeable lees of the last
+      night's excitement. The young bloods, many of whom were still far from
+      sober, had taken the kitchen into their own hands, vice the Chinaman
+      deposed; and since each was engaged upon a dish of his own, and none had
+      the least scruple in demolishing his neighbour's handiwork, I became early
+      convinced that many eggs would be broken and few omelets made. The
+      discovery of a jug of milk and a crust of bread enabled me to stay my
+      appetite; and since it was Sunday, when no business could be done, and the
+      festivities were to be renewed that night in the abode of Fowler, it
+      occurred to me to slip silently away and enjoy some air and solitude.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I turned seaward under the dead crater known as Diamond Head. My way was
+      for some time under the shade of certain thickets of green, thorny trees,
+      dotted with houses. Here I enjoyed some pictures of the native life:
+      wide-eyed, naked children, mingled with pigs; a youth asleep under a tree;
+      an old gentleman spelling through glasses his Hawaiian Bible; the somewhat
+      embarrassing spectacle of a lady at her bath in a spring; and the glimpse
+      of gaudy-coloured gowns in the deep shade of the houses. Thence I found a
+      road along the beach itself, wading in sand, opposed and buffeted by the
+      whole weight of the Trade: on one hand, the glittering and sounding surf,
+      and the bay lively with many sails; on the other, precipitous, arid
+      gullies and sheer cliffs, mounting towards the crater and the blue sky.
+      For all the companionship of skimming vessels, the place struck me with a
+      sense of solitude. There came in my head what I had been told the day
+      before at dinner, of a cavern above in the bowels of the volcano, a place
+      only to be visited with the light of torches, a treasure-house of the
+      bones of priests and warriors, and clamorous with the voice of an unseen
+      river pouring seaward through the crannies of the mountain. At the
+      thought, it was revealed to me suddenly, how the bungalows, and the
+      Fowlers, and the bright busy town and crowding ships, were all children of
+      yesterday; and for centuries before, the obscure life of the natives, with
+      its glories and ambitions, its joys and crimes and agonies, had rolled
+      unseen, like the mountain river, in that sea-girt place. Not Chaldea
+      appeared more ancient, nor the Pyramids of Egypt more abstruse; and I
+      heard time measured by &ldquo;the drums and tramplings&rdquo; of
+      immemorial conquests, and saw myself the creature of an hour. Over the
+      bankruptcy of Pinkerton and Dodd, of Montana Block, S. F., and the
+      conscientious troubles of the junior partner, the spirit of eternity was
+      seen to smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To this mood of philosophic sadness, my excesses of the night before no
+      doubt contributed; for more things than virtue are at times their own
+      reward: but I was greatly healed at least of my distresses. And while I
+      was yet enjoying my abstracted humour, a turn of the beach brought me in
+      view of the signal-station, with its watch-house and flag-staff, perched
+      on the immediate margin of a cliff. The house was new and clean and bald,
+      and stood naked to the Trades. The wind beat about it in loud squalls; the
+      seaward windows rattled without mercy; the breach of the surf below
+      contributed its increment of noise; and the fall of my foot in the narrow
+      verandah passed unheard by those within.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were two on whom I thus entered unexpectedly: the look-out man, with
+      grizzled beard, keen seaman's eyes, and that brand on his countenance that
+      comes of solitary living; and a visitor, an oldish, oratorical fellow, in
+      the smart tropical array of the British man-o'-war's man, perched on a
+      table, and smoking a cigar. I was made pleasantly welcome, and was soon
+      listening with amusement to the sea-lawyer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, if I hadn't have been born an Englishman,&rdquo; was one of his
+      sentiments, &ldquo;damn me! I'd rather 'a been born a Frenchy! I'd like to
+      see another nation fit to black their boots.&rdquo; Presently after, he
+      developed his views on home politics with similar trenchancy. &ldquo;I'd
+      rather be a brute beast than what I'd be a liberal,&rdquo; he said.
+      &ldquo;Carrying banners and that! a pig's got more sense. Why, look at our
+      chief engineer&mdash;they do say he carried a banner with his own 'ands:
+      'Hooroar for Gladstone!' I suppose, or 'Down with the Aristocracy!' What
+      'arm does the aristocracy do? Show me a country any good without one! Not
+      the States; why, it's the 'ome of corruption! I knew a man&mdash;he was a
+      good man, 'ome born&mdash;who was signal quartermaster in the Wyandotte.
+      He told me he could never have got there if he hadn't have 'run with the
+      boys'&mdash;told it me as I'm telling you. Now, we're all British subjects
+      here&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; he was going on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am afraid I am an American,&rdquo; I said apologetically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He seemed the least bit taken aback, but recovered himself; and with the
+      ready tact of his betters, paid me the usual British compliment on the
+      riposte. &ldquo;You don't say so!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;Well, I give
+      you my word of honour, I'd never have guessed it. Nobody could tell it on
+      you,&rdquo; said he, as though it were some form of liquor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I thanked him, as I always do, at this particular stage, with his
+      compatriots: not so much perhaps for the compliment to myself and my poor
+      country, as for the revelation (which is ever fresh to me) of Britannic
+      self-sufficiency and taste. And he was so far softened by my gratitude as
+      to add a word of praise on the American method of lacing sails. &ldquo;You're
+      ahead of us in lacing sails,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You can say that with
+      a clear conscience.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you,&rdquo; I replied. &ldquo;I shall certainly do so.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this rate, we got along swimmingly; and when I rose to retrace my steps
+      to the Fowlery, he at once started to his feet and offered me the welcome
+      solace of his company for the return. I believe I discovered much alacrity
+      at the idea, for the creature (who seemed to be unique, or to represent a
+      type like that of the dodo) entertained me hugely. But when he had
+      produced his hat, I found I was in the way of more than entertainment; for
+      on the ribbon I could read the legend: &ldquo;H.M.S. Tempest.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I say,&rdquo; I began, when our adieus were paid, and we were
+      scrambling down the path from the look-out, &ldquo;it was your ship that
+      picked up the men on board the Flying Scud, wasn't it?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You may say so,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;And a blessed good job for
+      the Flying-Scuds. It's a God-forsaken spot, that Midway Island.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've just come from there,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;It was I who
+      bought the wreck.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Beg your pardon, sir,&rdquo; cried the sailor: &ldquo;gen'lem'n in
+      the white schooner?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The same,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My friend saluted, as though we were now, for the first time, formally
+      introduced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; I continued, &ldquo;I am rather taken up with the
+      whole story; and I wish you would tell me what you can of how the men were
+      saved.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was like this,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;We had orders to call at
+      Midway after castaways, and had our distance pretty nigh run down the day
+      before. We steamed half-speed all night, looking to make it about noon;
+      for old Tootles&mdash;beg your pardon, sir&mdash;the captain&mdash;was
+      precious scared of the place at night. Well, there's nasty, filthy
+      currents round that Midway; YOU know, as has been there; and one on 'em
+      must have set us down. Leastways, about six bells, when we had ought to
+      been miles away, some one sees a sail, and lo and be'old, there was the
+      spars of a full-rigged brig! We raised her pretty fast, and the island
+      after her; and made out she was hard aground, canted on her bilge, and had
+      her ens'n flying, union down. It was breaking 'igh on the reef, and we
+      laid well out, and sent a couple of boats. I didn't go in neither; only
+      stood and looked on; but it seems they was all badly scared and muddled,
+      and didn't know which end was uppermost. One on 'em kep' snivelling and
+      wringing of his 'ands; he come on board all of a sop like a monthly nurse.
+      That Trent, he come first, with his 'and in a bloody rag. I was near 'em
+      as I am to you; and I could make out he was all to bits&mdash;'eard his
+      breath rattle in his blooming lungs as he come down the ladder. Yes, they
+      was a scared lot, small blame to 'em, I say! The next after Trent, come
+      him as was mate.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Goddedaal!&rdquo; I exclaimed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And a good name for him too,&rdquo; chuckled the man-o'-war's man,
+      who probably confounded the word with a familiar oath. &ldquo;A good name
+      too; only it weren't his. He was a gen'lem'n born, sir, as had gone
+      maskewerading. One of our officers knowed him at 'ome, reckonises him,
+      steps up, 'olds out his 'and right off, and says he: ''Ullo, Norrie, old
+      chappie!' he says. The other was coming up, as bold as look at it; didn't
+      seem put out&mdash;that's where blood tells, sir! Well, no sooner does he
+      'ear his born name given him, than he turns as white as the Day of
+      Judgment, stares at Mr. Sebright like he was looking at a ghost, and then
+      (I give you my word of honour) turned to, and doubled up in a dead faint.
+      'Take him down to my berth,' says Mr. Sebright. ''Tis poor old Norrie
+      Carthew,' he says.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what&mdash;what sort of a gentleman was this Mr. Carthew?&rdquo;
+      I gasped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The ward-room steward told me he was come of the best blood in
+      England,&rdquo; was my friend's reply: &ldquo;Eton and 'Arrow bred;&mdash;and
+      might have been a bar'net!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, but to look at?&rdquo; I corrected him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The same as you or me,&rdquo; was the uncompromising answer:
+      &ldquo;not much to look at. I didn't know he was a gen'lem'n; but then, I
+      never see him cleaned up.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How was that?&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;O yes, I remember: he was sick
+      all the way to 'Frisco, was he not?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sick, or sorry, or something,&rdquo; returned my informant. &ldquo;My
+      belief, he didn't hanker after showing up. He kep' close; the ward-room
+      steward, what took his meals in, told me he ate nex' to nothing; and he
+      was fetched ashore at 'Frisco on the quiet. Here was how it was. It seems
+      his brother had took and died, him as had the estate. This one had gone in
+      for his beer, by what I could make out; the old folks at 'ome had turned
+      rusty; no one knew where he had gone to. Here he was, slaving in a
+      merchant brig, shipwrecked on Midway, and packing up his duds for a long
+      voyage in a open boat. He comes on board our ship, and by God, here he is
+      a landed proprietor, and may be in Parliament to-morrow! It's no less than
+      natural he should keep dark: so would you and me in the same box.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I daresay,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;But you saw more of the others?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To be sure,&rdquo; says he: &ldquo;no 'arm in them from what I see.
+      There was one 'Ardy there: colonial born he was, and had been through a
+      power of money. There was no nonsense about 'Ardy; he had been up, and he
+      had come down, and took it so. His 'eart was in the right place; and he
+      was well-informed, and knew French; and Latin, I believe, like a native! I
+      liked that 'Ardy; he was a good-looking boy, too.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did they say much about the wreck?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There wasn't much to say, I reckon,&rdquo; replied the man-o'-war's
+      man. &ldquo;It was all in the papers. 'Ardy used to yarn most about the
+      coins he had gone through; he had lived with book-makers, and jockeys, and
+      pugs, and actors, and all that: a precious low lot!&rdquo; added this
+      judicious person. &ldquo;But it's about here my 'orse is moored, and by
+      your leave I'll be getting ahead.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One moment,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;Is Mr. Sebright on board?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, sir, he's ashore to-day,&rdquo; said the sailor. &ldquo;I took
+      up a bag for him to the 'otel.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With that we parted. Presently after my friend overtook and passed me on a
+      hired steed which seemed to scorn its cavalier; and I was left in the dust
+      of his passage, a prey to whirling thoughts. For I now stood, or seemed to
+      stand, on the immediate threshold of these mysteries. I knew the name of
+      the man Dickson&mdash;his name was Carthew; I knew where the money came
+      from that opposed us at the sale&mdash;it was part of Carthew's
+      inheritance; and in my gallery of illustrations to the history of the
+      wreck, one more picture hung; perhaps the most dramatic of the series. It
+      showed me the deck of a warship in that distant part of the great ocean,
+      the officers and seamen looking curiously on; and a man of birth and
+      education, who had been sailing under an alias on a trading brig, and was
+      now rescued from desperate peril, felled like an ox by the bare sound of
+      his own name. I could not fail to be reminded of my own experience at the
+      Occidental telephone. The hero of three styles, Dickson, Goddedaal, or
+      Carthew, must be the owner of a lively&mdash;or a loaded&mdash;conscience,
+      and the reflection recalled to me the photograph found on board the Flying
+      Scud; just such a man, I reasoned, would be capable of just such starts
+      and crises, and I inclined to think that Goddedaal (or Carthew) was the
+      mainspring of the mystery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One thing was plain: as long as the Tempest was in reach, I must make the
+      acquaintance of both Sebright and the doctor. To this end, I excused
+      myself with Mr. Fowler, returned to Honolulu, and passed the remainder of
+      the day hanging vainly round the cool verandahs of the hotel. It was near
+      nine o'clock at night before I was rewarded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is the gentleman you were asking for,&rdquo; said the clerk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I beheld a man in tweeds, of an incomparable languor of demeanour, and
+      carrying a cane with genteel effort. From the name, I had looked to find a
+      sort of Viking and young ruler of the battle and the tempest; and I was
+      the more disappointed, and not a little alarmed, to come face to face with
+      this impracticable type.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe I have the pleasure of addressing Lieutenant Sebright,&rdquo;
+      said I, stepping forward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aw, yes,&rdquo; replied the hero; &ldquo;but, aw! I dawn't knaw
+      you, do I?&rdquo; (He spoke for all the world like Lord Foppington in the
+      old play&mdash;a proof of the perennial nature of man's affectations. But
+      his limping dialect, I scorn to continue to reproduce.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was with the intention of making myself known, that I have taken
+      this step,&rdquo; said I, entirely unabashed (for impudence begets in me
+      its like&mdash;perhaps my only martial attribute). &ldquo;We have a common
+      subject of interest, to me very lively; and I believe I may be in a
+      position to be of some service to a friend of yours&mdash;to give him, at
+      least, some very welcome information.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The last clause was a sop to my conscience: I could not pretend, even to
+      myself, either the power or the will to serve Mr. Carthew; but I felt sure
+      he would like to hear the Flying Scud was burned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know&mdash;I&mdash;I don't understand you,&rdquo; stammered
+      my victim. &ldquo;I don't have any friends in Honolulu, don't you know?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The friend to whom I refer is English,&rdquo; I replied. &ldquo;It
+      is Mr. Carthew, whom you picked up at Midway. My firm has bought the
+      wreck; I am just returned from breaking her up; and&mdash;to make my
+      business quite clear to you&mdash;I have a communication it is necessary I
+      should make; and have to trouble you for Mr. Carthew's address.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It will be seen how rapidly I had dropped all hope of interesting the
+      frigid British bear. He, on his side, was plainly on thorns at my
+      insistence; I judged he was suffering torments of alarm lest I should
+      prove an undesirable acquaintance; diagnosed him for a shy, dull, vain,
+      unamiable animal, without adequate defence&mdash;a sort of dishoused
+      snail; and concluded, rightly enough, that he would consent to anything to
+      bring our interview to a conclusion. A moment later, he had fled, leaving
+      me with a sheet of paper, thus inscribed:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Norris Carthew,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stallbridge-le-Carthew,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dorset.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I might have cried victory, the field of battle and some of the enemy's
+      baggage remaining in my occupation. As a matter of fact, my moral
+      sufferings during the engagement had rivalled those of Mr. Sebright; I was
+      left incapable of fresh hostilities; I owned that the navy of old England
+      was (for me) invincible as of yore; and giving up all thought of the
+      doctor, inclined to salute her veteran flag, in the future, from a prudent
+      distance. Such was my inclination, when I retired to rest; and my first
+      experience the next morning strengthened it to certainty. For I had the
+      pleasure of encountering my fair antagonist on his way on board; and he
+      honoured me with a recognition so disgustingly dry, that my impatience
+      overflowed, and (recalling the tactics of Nelson) I neglected to perceive
+      or to return it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Judge of my astonishment, some half-hour later, to receive a note of
+      invitation from the Tempest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear Sir,&rdquo; it began, &ldquo;we are all naturally very much
+      interested in the wreck of the Flying Scud, and as soon as I mentioned
+      that I had the pleasure of making your acquaintance, a very general wish
+      was expressed that you would come and dine on board. It will give us all
+      the greatest pleasure to see you to-night, or in case you should be
+      otherwise engaged, to luncheon either to-morrow or to-day.&rdquo; A note
+      of the hours followed, and the document wound up with the name of &ldquo;J.
+      Lascelles Sebright,&rdquo; under an undeniable statement that he was
+      sincerely mine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, Mr. Lascelles Sebright,&rdquo; I reflected, &ldquo;you are not,
+      but I begin to suspect that (like the lady in the song) you are another's.
+      You have mentioned your adventure, my friend; you have been blown up; you
+      have got your orders; this note has been dictated; and I am asked on board
+      (in spite of your melancholy protests) not to meet the men, and not to
+      talk about the Flying Scud, but to undergo the scrutiny of some one
+      interested in Carthew: the doctor, for a wager. And for a second wager,
+      all this springs from your facility in giving the address.&rdquo; I lost
+      no time in answering the billet, electing for the earliest occasion; and
+      at the appointed hour, a somewhat blackguard-looking boat's crew from the
+      Norah Creina conveyed me under the guns of the Tempest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ward-room appeared pleased to see me; Sebright's brother officers, in
+      contrast to himself, took a boyish interest in my cruise; and much was
+      talked of the Flying Scud; of how she had been lost, of how I had found
+      her, and of the weather, the anchorage, and the currents about Midway
+      Island. Carthew was referred to more than once without embarrassment; the
+      parallel case of a late Earl of Aberdeen, who died mate on board a Yankee
+      schooner, was adduced. If they told me little of the man, it was because
+      they had not much to tell, and only felt an interest in his recognition
+      and pity for his prolonged ill-health. I could never think the subject was
+      avoided; and it was clear that the officers, far from practising
+      concealment, had nothing to conceal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So far, then, all seemed natural, and yet the doctor troubled me. This was
+      a tall, rugged, plain man, on the wrong side of fifty, already gray, and
+      with a restless mouth and bushy eyebrows: he spoke seldom, but then with
+      gaiety; and his great, quaking, silent laughter was infectious. I could
+      make out that he was at once the quiz of the ward-room and perfectly
+      respected; and I made sure that he observed me covertly. It is certain I
+      returned the compliment. If Carthew had feigned sickness&mdash;and all
+      seemed to point in that direction&mdash;here was the man who knew all&mdash;or
+      certainly knew much. His strong, sterling face progressively and silently
+      persuaded of his full knowledge. That was not the mouth, these were not
+      the eyes, of one who would act in ignorance, or could be led at random.
+      Nor again was it the face of a man squeamish in the case of malefactors;
+      there was even a touch of Brutus there, and something of the hanging
+      judge. In short, he seemed the last character for the part assigned him in
+      my theories; and wonder and curiosity contended in my mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Luncheon was over, and an adjournment to the smoking-room proposed, when
+      (upon a sudden impulse) I burned my ships, and pleading indisposition,
+      requested to consult the doctor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is nothing the matter with my body, Dr. Urquart,&rdquo; said
+      I, as soon as we were alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He hummed, his mouth worked, he regarded me steadily with his gray eyes,
+      but resolutely held his peace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want to talk to you about the Flying Scud and Mr. Carthew,&rdquo;
+      I resumed. &ldquo;Come: you must have expected this. I am sure you know
+      all; you are shrewd, and must have a guess that I know much. How are we to
+      stand to one another? and how am I to stand to Mr. Carthew?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not fully understand you,&rdquo; he replied, after a pause;
+      and then, after another: &ldquo;It is the spirit I refer to, Mr. Dodd.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The spirit of my inquiries?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think we are at cross-purposes,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;The spirit
+      is precisely what I came in quest of. I bought the Flying Scud at a
+      ruinous figure, run up by Mr. Carthew through an agent; and I am, in
+      consequence, a bankrupt. But if I have found no fortune in the wreck, I
+      have found unmistakable evidences of foul play. Conceive my position: I am
+      ruined through this man, whom I never saw; I might very well desire
+      revenge or compensation; and I think you will admit I have the means to
+      extort either.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He made no sign in answer to this challenge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can you not understand, then,&rdquo; I resumed, &ldquo;the spirit
+      in which I come to one who is surely in the secret, and ask him, honestly
+      and plainly: How do I stand to Mr. Carthew?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must ask you to be more explicit,&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You do not help me much,&rdquo; I retorted. &ldquo;But see if you
+      can understand: my conscience is not very fine-spun; still, I have one.
+      Now, there are degrees of foul play, to some of which I have no particular
+      objection. I am sure with Mr. Carthew, I am not at all the person to forgo
+      an advantage; and I have much curiosity. But on the other hand, I have no
+      taste for persecution; and I ask you to believe that I am not the man to
+      make bad worse, or heap trouble on the unfortunate.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; I think I understand,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;Suppose I pass
+      you my word that, whatever may have occurred, there were excuses&mdash;great
+      excuses&mdash;I may say, very great?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It would have weight with me, doctor,&rdquo; I replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I may go further,&rdquo; he pursued. &ldquo;Suppose I had been
+      there, or you had been there: after a certain event had taken place, it's
+      a grave question what we might have done&mdash;it's even a question what
+      we could have done&mdash;ourselves. Or take me. I will be plain with you,
+      and own that I am in possession of the facts. You have a shrewd guess how
+      I have acted in that knowledge. May I ask you to judge from the character
+      of my action, something of the nature of that knowledge, which I have no
+      call, nor yet no title, to share with you?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I cannot convey a sense of the rugged conviction and judicial emphasis of
+      Dr. Urquart's speech. To those who did not hear him, it may appear as if
+      he fed me on enigmas; to myself, who heard, I seemed to have received a
+      lesson and a compliment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thank you,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I feel you have said as much as
+      possible, and more than I had any right to ask. I take that as a mark of
+      confidence, which I will try to deserve. I hope, sir, you will let me
+      regard you as a friend.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He evaded my proffered friendship with a blunt proposal to rejoin the
+      mess; and yet a moment later, contrived to alleviate the snub. For, as we
+      entered the smoking-room, he laid his hand on my shoulder with a kind
+      familiarity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have just prescribed for Mr. Dodd,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;a glass
+      of our Madeira.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have never again met Dr. Urquart: but he wrote himself so clear upon my
+      memory that I think I see him still. And indeed I had cause to remember
+      the man for the sake of his communication. It was hard enough to make a
+      theory fit the circumstances of the Flying Scud; but one in which the
+      chief actor should stand the least excused, and might retain the esteem or
+      at least the pity of a man like Dr. Urquart, failed me utterly. Here at
+      least was the end of my discoveries; I learned no more, till I learned
+      all; and my reader has the evidence complete. Is he more astute than I
+      was? or, like me, does he give it up?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVIII. CROSS-QUESTIONS AND CROOKED ANSWERS.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      I have said hard words of San Francisco; they must scarce be literally
+      understood (one cannot suppose the Israelites did justice to the land of
+      Pharaoh); and the city took a fine revenge of me on my return. She had
+      never worn a more becoming guise; the sun shone, the air was lively, the
+      people had flowers in their button-holes and smiles upon their faces; and
+      as I made my way towards Jim's place of employment, with some very black
+      anxieties at heart, I seemed to myself a blot on the surrounding gaiety.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My destination was in a by-street in a mean, rickety building; &ldquo;The
+      Franklin H. Dodge Steam Printing Company&rdquo; appeared upon its front,
+      and in characters of greater freshness, so as to suggest recent
+      conversion, the watch-cry, &ldquo;White Labour Only.&rdquo; In the office,
+      in a dusty pen, Jim sat alone before a table. A wretched change had
+      overtaken him in clothes, body, and bearing; he looked sick and shabby; he
+      who had once rejoiced in his day's employment, like a horse among
+      pastures, now sat staring on a column of accounts, idly chewing a pen, at
+      times heavily sighing, the picture of inefficiency and inattention. He was
+      sunk deep in a painful reverie; he neither saw nor heard me; and I stood
+      and watched him unobserved. I had a sudden vain relenting. Repentance
+      bludgeoned me. As I had predicted to Nares, I stood and kicked myself.
+      Here was I come home again, my honour saved; there was my friend in want
+      of rest, nursing, and a generous diet; and I asked myself with Falstaff,
+      &ldquo;What is in that word honour? what is that honour?&rdquo; and, like
+      Falstaff, I told myself that it was air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jim!&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Loudon!&rdquo; he gasped, and jumped from his chair and stood
+      shaking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next moment I was over the barrier, and we were hand in hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My poor old man!&rdquo; I cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank God, you're home at last!&rdquo; he gulped, and kept patting
+      my shoulder with his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've no good news for you, Jim!&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You've come&mdash;that's the good news that I want,&rdquo; he
+      replied. &ldquo;O, how I've longed for you, Loudon!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I couldn't do what you wrote me,&rdquo; I said, lowering my voice.
+      &ldquo;The creditors have it all. I couldn't do it.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ssh!&rdquo; returned Jim. &ldquo;I was crazy when wrote. I could
+      never have looked Mamie in the face if we had done it. O, Loudon, what a
+      gift that woman is! You think you know something of life: you just don't
+      know anything. It's the GOODNESS of the woman, it's a revelation!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's all right,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;That's how I hoped to hear
+      you, Jim.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And so the Flying Scud was a fraud,&rdquo; he resumed. &ldquo;I
+      didn't quite understand your letter, but I made out that.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fraud is a mild term for it,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;The creditors
+      will never believe what fools we were. And that reminds me,&rdquo; I
+      continued, rejoicing in the transition, &ldquo;how about the bankruptcy?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You were lucky to be out of that,&rdquo; answered Jim, shaking his
+      head; &ldquo;you were lucky not to see the papers. The <i>Occidental</i>
+      called me a fifth-rate Kerbstone broker with water on the brain; another
+      said I was a tree-frog that had got into the same meadow with Longhurst,
+      and had blown myself out till I went pop. It was rough on a man in his
+      honeymoon; so was what they said about my looks, and what I had on, and
+      the way I perspired. But I braced myself up with the Flying Scud. How did
+      it exactly figure out anyway? I don't seem to catch on to that story,
+      Loudon.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The devil you don't!&rdquo; thinks I to myself; and then aloud:
+      &ldquo;You see we had neither one of us good luck. I didn't do much more
+      than cover current expenses; and you got floored immediately. How did we
+      come to go so soon?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, we'll have to have a talk over all this,&rdquo; said Jim with
+      a sudden start. &ldquo;I should be getting to my books; and I guess you
+      had better go up right away to Mamie. She's at Speedy's. She expects you
+      with impatience. She regards you in the light of a favourite brother,
+      Loudon.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Any scheme was welcome which allowed me to postpone the hour of
+      explanation, and avoid (were it only for a breathing space) the topic of
+      the Flying Scud. I hastened accordingly to Bush Street. Mrs. Speedy,
+      already rejoicing in the return of a spouse, hailed me with acclamation.
+      &ldquo;And it's beautiful you're looking, Mr. Dodd, my dear,&rdquo; she
+      was kind enough to say. &ldquo;And a miracle they naygur waheenies let ye
+      lave the oilands. I have my suspicions of Shpeedy,&rdquo; she added,
+      roguishly. &ldquo;Did ye see him after the naygresses now?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I gave Speedy an unblemished character.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The one of ye will niver bethray the other,&rdquo; said the playful
+      dame, and ushered me into a bare room, where Mamie sat working a
+      type-writer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was touched by the cordiality of her greeting. With the prettiest
+      gesture in the world she gave me both her hands; wheeled forth a chair;
+      and produced, from a cupboard, a tin of my favourite tobacco, and a book
+      of my exclusive cigarette papers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There!&rdquo; she cried; &ldquo;you see, Mr. Loudon, we were all
+      prepared for you; the things were bought the very day you sailed.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I imagined she had always intended me a pleasant welcome; but the certain
+      fervour of sincerity, which I could not help remarking, flowed from an
+      unexpected source. Captain Nares, with a kindness for which I can never be
+      sufficiently grateful, had stolen a moment from his occupations, driven to
+      call on Mamie, and drawn her a generous picture of my prowess at the
+      wreck. She was careful not to breathe a word of this interview, till she
+      had led me on to tell my adventures for myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! Captain Nares was better,&rdquo; she cried, when I had done.
+      &ldquo;From your account, I have only learned one new thing, that you are
+      modest as well as brave.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I cannot tell with what sort of disclamation I sought to reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is of no use,&rdquo; said Mamie. &ldquo;I know a hero. And when
+      I heard of you working all day like a common labourer, with your hands
+      bleeding and your nails broken&mdash;and how you told the captain to
+      'crack on' (I think he said) in the storm, when he was terrified himself&mdash;and
+      the danger of that horrid mutiny&rdquo;&mdash;(Nares had been obligingly
+      dipping his brush in earthquake and eclipse)&mdash;&ldquo;and how it was
+      all done, in part at least, for Jim and me&mdash;I felt we could never say
+      how we admired and thanked you.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mamie,&rdquo; I cried, &ldquo;don't talk of thanks; it is not a
+      word to be used between friends. Jim and I have been prosperous together;
+      now we shall be poor together. We've done our best, and that's all that
+      need be said. The next thing is for me to find a situation, and send you
+      and Jim up country for a long holiday in the redwoods&mdash;for a holiday
+      Jim has got to have.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jim can't take your money, Mr. Loudon,&rdquo; said Mamie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jim?&rdquo; cried I. &ldquo;He's got to. Didn't I take his?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently after, Jim himself arrived, and before he had yet done mopping
+      his brow, he was at me with the accursed subject. &ldquo;Now, Loudon,&rdquo;
+      said he, &ldquo;here we are all together, the day's work done and the
+      evening before us; just start in with the whole story.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One word on business first,&rdquo; said I, speaking from the lips
+      outward, and meanwhile (in the private apartments of my brain) trying for
+      the thousandth time to find some plausible arrangement of my story.
+      &ldquo;I want to have a notion how we stand about the bankruptcy.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, that's ancient history,&rdquo; cried Jim. &ldquo;We paid seven
+      cents, and a wonder we did as well. The receiver&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+      (methought a spasm seized him at the name of this official, and he broke
+      off). &ldquo;But it's all past and done with anyway; and what I want to
+      get at is the facts about the wreck. I don't seem to understand it;
+      appears to me like as there was something underneath.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There was nothing IN it, anyway,&rdquo; I said, with a forced
+      laugh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's what I want to judge of,&rdquo; returned Jim.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How the mischief is it I can never keep you to that bankruptcy? It
+      looks as if you avoided it,&rdquo; said I&mdash;for a man in my situation,
+      with unpardonable folly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't it look a little as if you were trying to avoid the wreck?&rdquo;
+      asked Jim.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was my own doing; there was no retreat. &ldquo;My dear fellow, if you
+      make a point of it, here goes!&rdquo; said I, and launched with spurious
+      gaiety into the current of my tale. I told it with point and spirit;
+      described the island and the wreck, mimicked Anderson and the Chinese,
+      maintained the suspense.... My pen has stumbled on the fatal word. I
+      maintained the suspense so well that it was never relieved; and when I
+      stopped&mdash;I dare not say concluded, where there was no conclusion&mdash;I
+      found Jim and Mamie regarding me with surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo; said Jim.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, that's all,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But how do you explain it?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can't explain it,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mamie wagged her head ominously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, great Caesar's ghost! the money was offered!&rdquo; cried Jim.
+      &ldquo;It won't do, Loudon; it's nonsense, on the face of it! I don't say
+      but what you and Nares did your best; I'm sure, of course, you did; but I
+      do say, you got fooled. I say the stuff is in that ship to-day, and I say
+      I mean to get it.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is nothing in the ship, I tell you, but old wood and iron!&rdquo;
+      said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'll see,&rdquo; said Jim. &ldquo;Next time I go myself. I'll
+      take Mamie for the trip; Longhurst won't refuse me the expense of a
+      schooner. You wait till I get the searching of her.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you can't search her!&rdquo; cried I. &ldquo;She's burned.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Burned!&rdquo; cried Mamie, starting a little from the attitude of
+      quiescent capacity in which she had hitherto sat to hear me, her hands
+      folded in her lap.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was an appreciable pause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg your pardon, Loudon,&rdquo; began Jim at last, &ldquo;but why
+      in snakes did you burn her?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was an idea of Nares's,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is certainly the strangest circumstance of all,&rdquo;
+      observed Mamie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must say, Loudon, it does seem kind of unexpected,&rdquo; added
+      Jim. &ldquo;It seems kind of crazy even. What did you&mdash;what did Nares
+      expect to gain by burning her?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know; it didn't seem to matter; we had got all there was to
+      get,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's the very point,&rdquo; cried Jim. &ldquo;It was quite plain
+      you hadn't.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What made you so sure?&rdquo; asked Mamie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How can I tell you?&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;We had been all through
+      her. We WERE sure; that's all that I can say.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I begin to think you were,&rdquo; she returned, with a significant
+      emphasis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim hurriedly intervened. &ldquo;What I don't quite make out, Loudon, is
+      that you don't seem to appreciate the peculiarities of the thing,&rdquo;
+      said he. &ldquo;It doesn't seem to have struck you same as it does me.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pshaw! why go on with this?&rdquo; cried Mamie, suddenly rising.
+      &ldquo;Mr. Dodd is not telling us either what he thinks or what he knows.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mamie!&rdquo; cried Jim.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You need not be concerned for his feelings, James; he is not
+      concerned for yours,&rdquo; returned the lady. &ldquo;He dare not deny it,
+      besides. And this is not the first time he has practised reticence. Have
+      you forgotten that he knew the address, and did not tell it you until that
+      man had escaped?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim turned to me pleadingly&mdash;we were all on our feet. &ldquo;Loudon,&rdquo;
+      he said, &ldquo;you see Mamie has some fancy; and I must say there's just
+      a sort of a shadow of an excuse; for it IS bewildering&mdash;even to me,
+      Loudon, with my trained business intelligence. For God's sake, clear it
+      up.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This serves me right,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;I should not have tried
+      to keep you in the dark; I should have told you at first that I was
+      pledged to secrecy; I should have asked you to trust me in the beginning.
+      It is all I can do now. There is more of the story, but it concerns none
+      of us, and my tongue is tied. I have given my word of honour. You must
+      trust me and try to forgive me.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I daresay I am very stupid, Mr. Dodd,&rdquo; began Mamie, with an
+      alarming sweetness, &ldquo;but I thought you went upon this trip as my
+      husband's representative and with my husband's money? You tell us now that
+      you are pledged, but I should have thought you were pledged first of all
+      to James. You say it does not concern us; we are poor people, and my
+      husband is sick, and it concerns us a great deal to understand how we come
+      to have lost our money, and why our representative comes back to us with
+      nothing. You ask that we should trust you; you do not seem to understand;
+      the question we are asking ourselves is whether we have not trusted you
+      too much.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not ask you to trust me,&rdquo; I replied. &ldquo;I ask Jim.
+      He knows me.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You think you can do what you please with James; you trust to his
+      affection, do you not? And me, I suppose, you do not consider,&rdquo; said
+      Mamie. &ldquo;But it was perhaps an unfortunate day for you when we were
+      married, for I at least am not blind. The crew run away, the ship is sold
+      for a great deal of money, you know that man's address and you conceal it,
+      you do not find what you were sent to look for, and yet you burn the ship;
+      and now, when we ask explanations, you are pledged to secrecy! But I am
+      pledged to no such thing; I will not stand by in silence and see my sick
+      and ruined husband betrayed by his condescending friend. I will give you
+      the truth for once. Mr. Dodd, you have been bought and sold.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mamie,&rdquo; cried Jim, &ldquo;no more of this! It's me you're
+      striking; it's only me you hurt. You don't know, you cannot understand
+      these things. Why, to-day, if it hadn't been for Loudon, I couldn't have
+      looked you in the face. He saved my honesty.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have heard plenty of this talk before,&rdquo; she replied.
+      &ldquo;You are a sweet-hearted fool, and I love you for it. But I am a
+      clear-headed woman; my eyes are open, and I understand this man's
+      hypocrisy. Did he not come here to-day and pretend he would take a
+      situation&mdash;pretend he would share his hard-earned wages with us until
+      you were well? Pretend! It makes me furious! His wages! a share of his
+      wages! That would have been your pittance, that would have been your share
+      of the Flying Scud&mdash;you who worked and toiled for him when he was a
+      beggar in the streets of Paris. But we do not want your charity; thank
+      God, I can work for my own husband! See what it is to have obliged a
+      gentleman. He would let you pick him up when he was begging; he would
+      stand and look on, and let you black his shoes, and sneer at you. For you
+      were always sneering at my James; you always looked down upon him in your
+      heart, you know it!&rdquo; She turned back to Jim. &ldquo;And now when he
+      is rich,&rdquo; she began, and then swooped again on me. &ldquo;For you
+      are rich, I dare you to deny it; I defy you to look me in the face and try
+      to deny that you are rich&mdash;rich with our money&mdash;my husband's
+      money&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Heaven knows to what a height she might have risen, being, by this time,
+      bodily whirled away in her own hurricane of words. Heart-sickness, a black
+      depression, a treacherous sympathy with my assailant, pity unutterable for
+      poor Jim, already filled, divided, and abashed my spirit. Flight seemed
+      the only remedy; and making a private sign to Jim, as if to ask
+      permission, I slunk from the unequal field.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was but a little way down the street, when I was arrested by the sound
+      of some one running, and Jim's voice calling me by name. He had followed
+      me with a letter which had been long awaiting my return.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I took it in a dream. &ldquo;This has been a devil of a business,&rdquo;
+      said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't think hard of Mamie,&rdquo; he pleaded. &ldquo;It's the way
+      she's made; it's her high-toned loyalty. And of course I know it's all
+      right. I know your sterling character; but you didn't, somehow, make out
+      to give us the thing straight, Loudon. Anybody might have&mdash;I mean it&mdash;I
+      mean&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never mind what you mean, my poor Jim,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;She's
+      a gallant little woman and a loyal wife: and I thought her splendid. My
+      story was as fishy as the devil. I'll never think the less of either her
+      or you.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It'll blow over; it must blow over,&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It never can,&rdquo; I returned, sighing: &ldquo;and don't you try
+      to make it! Don't name me, unless it's with an oath. And get home to her
+      right away. Good by, my best of friends. Good by, and God bless you. We
+      shall never meet again.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O Loudon, that we should live to say such words!&rdquo; he cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had no views on life, beyond an occasional impulse to commit suicide, or
+      to get drunk, and drifted down the street, semi-conscious, walking
+      apparently on air, in the light-headedness of grief. I had money in my
+      pocket, whether mine or my creditors' I had no means of guessing; and, the
+      Poodle Dog lying in my path, I went mechanically in and took a table. A
+      waiter attended me, and I suppose I gave my orders; for presently I found
+      myself, with a sudden return of consciousness, beginning dinner. On the
+      white cloth at my elbow lay the letter, addressed in a clerk's hand, and
+      bearing an English stamp and the Edinburgh postmark. A bowl of bouillon
+      and a glass of wine awakened in one corner of my brain (where all the rest
+      was in mourning, the blinds down as for a funeral) a faint stir of
+      curiosity; and while I waited the next course, wondering the while what I
+      had ordered, I opened and began to read the epoch-making document.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;DEAR SIR: I am charged with the melancholy duty of announcing to
+      you the death of your excellent grandfather, Mr. Alexander Loudon, on the
+      17th ult. On Sunday the 13th, he went to church as usual in the forenoon,
+      and stopped on his way home, at the corner of Princes Street, in one of
+      our seasonable east winds, to talk with an old friend. The same evening
+      acute bronchitis declared itself; from the first, Dr. M'Combie anticipated
+      a fatal result, and the old gentleman appeared to have no illusion as to
+      his own state. He repeatedly assured me it was 'by' with him now; 'and
+      high time, too,' he once added with characteristic asperity. He was not in
+      the least changed on the approach of death: only (what I am sure must be
+      very grateful to your feelings) he seemed to think and speak even more
+      kindly than usual of yourself: referring to you as 'Jeannie's yin,' with
+      strong expressions of regard. 'He was the only one I ever liket of the
+      hale jing-bang,' was one of his expressions; and you will be glad to know
+      that he dwelt particularly on the dutiful respect you had always displayed
+      in your relations. The small codicil, by which he bequeaths you his
+      Molesworth and other professional works, was added (you will observe) on
+      the day before his death; so that you were in his thoughts until the end.
+      I should say that, though rather a trying patient, he was most tenderly
+      nursed by your uncle, and your cousin, Miss Euphemia. I enclose a copy of
+      the testament, by which you will see that you share equally with Mr. Adam,
+      and that I hold at your disposal a sum nearly approaching seventeen
+      thousand pounds. I beg to congratulate you on this considerable
+      acquisition, and expect your orders, to which I shall hasten to give my
+      best attention. Thinking that you might desire to return at once to this
+      country, and not knowing how you may be placed, I enclose a credit for six
+      hundred pounds. Please sign the accompanying slip, and let me have it at
+      your earliest convenience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am, dear sir, yours truly,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;W. RUTHERFORD GREGG.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God bless the old gentleman!&rdquo; I thought; &ldquo;and for that
+      matter God bless Uncle Adam! and my cousin Euphemia! and Mr. Gregg!&rdquo;
+      I had a vision of that grey old life now brought to an end&mdash;&ldquo;and
+      high time too&rdquo;&mdash;a vision of those Sabbath streets alternately
+      vacant and filled with silent people; of the babel of the bells, the
+      long-drawn psalmody, the shrewd sting of the east wind, the hollow,
+      echoing, dreary house to which &ldquo;Ecky&rdquo; had returned with the
+      hand of death already on his shoulder; a vision, too, of the long, rough
+      country lad, perhaps a serious courtier of the lasses in the hawthorn den,
+      perhaps a rustic dancer on the green, who had first earned and answered to
+      that harsh diminutive. And I asked myself if, on the whole, poor Ecky had
+      succeeded in life; if the last state of that man were not on the whole
+      worse than the first; and the house in Randolph Crescent a less admirable
+      dwelling than the hamlet where he saw the day and grew to manhood. Here
+      was a consolatory thought for one who was himself a failure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yes, I declare the word came in my mind; and all the while, in another
+      partition of the brain, I was glowing and singing for my new-found
+      opulence. The pile of gold&mdash;four thousand two hundred and fifty
+      double eagles, seventeen thousand ugly sovereigns, twenty-one thousand two
+      hundred and fifty Napoleons&mdash;danced, and rang and ran molten, and lit
+      up life with their effulgence, in the eye of fancy. Here were all things
+      made plain to me: Paradise&mdash;Paris, I mean&mdash;Regained, Carthew
+      protected, Jim restored, the creditors...
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The creditors!&rdquo; I repeated, and sank back benumbed. It was
+      all theirs to the last farthing: my grandfather had died too soon to save
+      me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I must have somewhere a rare vein of decision. In that revolutionary
+      moment, I found myself prepared for all extremes except the one: ready to
+      do anything, or to go anywhere, so long as I might save my money. At the
+      worst, there was flight, flight to some of those blest countries where the
+      serpent, extradition, has not yet entered in.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     On no condition is extradition
+     Allowed in Callao!
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &mdash;the old lawless words haunted me; and I saw myself hugging my gold
+      in the company of such men as had once made and sung them, in the rude and
+      bloody wharfside drinking-shops of Chili and Peru. The run of my ill-luck,
+      the breach of my old friendship, this bubble fortune flaunted for a moment
+      in my eyes and snatched again, had made me desperate and (in the
+      expressive vulgarism) ugly. To drink vile spirits among vile companions by
+      the flare of a pine-torch; to go burthened with my furtive treasure in a
+      belt; to fight for it knife in hand, rolling on a clay floor; to flee
+      perpetually in fresh ships and to be chased through the sea from isle to
+      isle, seemed, in my then frame of mind, a welcome series of events.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That was for the worst; but it began to dawn slowly on my mind that there
+      was yet a possible better. Once escaped, once safe in Callao, I might
+      approach my creditors with a good grace; and properly handled by a cunning
+      agent, it was just possible they might accept some easy composition. The
+      hope recalled me to the bankruptcy. It was strange, I reflected: often as
+      I had questioned Jim, he had never obliged me with an answer. In his haste
+      for news about the wreck, my own no less legitimate curiosity had gone
+      disappointed. Hateful as the thought was to me, I must return at once and
+      find out where I stood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I left my dinner still unfinished, paying for the whole, of course, and
+      tossing the waiter a gold piece. I was reckless; I knew not what was mine
+      and cared not: I must take what I could get and give as I was able; to rob
+      and to squander seemed the complementary parts of my new destiny. I walked
+      up Bush Street, whistling, brazening myself to confront Mamie in the first
+      place, and the world at large and a certain visionary judge upon a bench
+      in the second. Just outside, I stopped and lighted a cigar to give me
+      greater countenance; and puffing this and wearing what (I am sure) was a
+      wretched assumption of braggadocio, I reappeared on the scene of my
+      disgrace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My friend and his wife were finishing a poor meal&mdash;rags of old
+      mutton, the remainder cakes from breakfast eaten cold, and a starveling
+      pot of coffee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg your pardon, Mrs. Pinkerton,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;Sorry to
+      inflict my presence where it cannot be desired; but there is a piece of
+      business necessary to be discussed.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pray do not consider me,&rdquo; said Mamie, rising, and she sailed
+      into the adjoining bedroom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim watched her go and shook his head; he looked miserably old and ill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it, now?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps you remember you answered none of my questions,&rdquo; said
+      I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your questions?&rdquo; faltered Jim.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Even so, Jim. My questions,&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;I put
+      questions as well as yourself; and however little I may have satisfied
+      Mamie with my answers, I beg to remind you that you gave me none at all.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mean about the bankruptcy?&rdquo; asked Jim.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He writhed in his chair. &ldquo;The straight truth is, I was ashamed,&rdquo;
+      he said. &ldquo;I was trying to dodge you. I've been playing fast and
+      loose with you, Loudon; I've deceived you from the first, I blush to own
+      it. And here you came home and put the very question I was fearing. Why
+      did we bust so soon? Your keen business eye had not deceived you. That's
+      the point, that's my shame; that's what killed me this afternoon when
+      Mamie was treating you so, and my conscience was telling me all the time,
+      Thou art the man.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What was it, Jim?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What I had been at all the time, Loudon,&rdquo; he wailed; &ldquo;and
+      I don't know how I'm to look you in the face and say it, after my
+      duplicity. It was stocks,&rdquo; he added in a whisper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you were afraid to tell me that!&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;You
+      poor, old, cheerless dreamer! what would it matter what you did or didn't?
+      Can't you see we're doomed? And anyway, that's not my point. It's how I
+      stand that I want to know. There is a particular reason. Am I clear? Have
+      I a certificate, or what have I to do to get one? And when will it be
+      dated? You can't think what hangs by it!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's the worst of all,&rdquo; said Jim, like a man in a dream,
+      &ldquo;I can't see how to tell him!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you mean?&rdquo; I cried, a small pang of terror at my
+      heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm afraid I sacrificed you, Loudon,&rdquo; he said, looking at me
+      pitifully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sacrificed me?&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;How? What do you mean by
+      sacrifice?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know it'll shock your delicate self-respect,&rdquo; he said;
+      &ldquo;but what was I to do? Things looked so bad. The receiver&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+      (as usual, the name stuck in his throat, and he began afresh). &ldquo;There
+      was a lot of talk; the reporters were after me already; there was the
+      trouble and all about the Mexican business; and I got scared right out,
+      and I guess I lost my head. You weren't there, you see, and that was my
+      temptation.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not know how long he might thus beat about the bush with dreadful
+      hintings, and I was already beside myself with terror. What had he done? I
+      saw he had been tempted; I knew from his letters that he was in no
+      condition to resist. How had he sacrificed the absent?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jim,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;you must speak right out. I've got all
+      that I can carry.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he said&mdash;&ldquo;I know it was a liberty&mdash;I
+      made it out you were no business man, only a stone-broke painter; that
+      half the time you didn't know anything anyway, particularly money and
+      accounts. I said you never could be got to understand whose was whose. I
+      had to say that because of some entries in the books&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For God's sake,&rdquo; I cried, &ldquo;put me out of this agony!
+      What did you accuse me of?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Accuse you of?&rdquo; repeated Jim. &ldquo;Of what I'm telling you.
+      And there being no deed of partnership, I made out you were only a kind of
+      clerk that I called a partner just to give you taffy; and so I got you
+      ranked a creditor on the estate for your wages and the money you had lent.
+      And&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I believe I reeled. &ldquo;A creditor!&rdquo; I roared; &ldquo;a creditor!
+      I'm not in the bankruptcy at all?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Jim. &ldquo;I know it was a liberty&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, damn your liberty! read that,&rdquo; I cried, dashing the letter
+      before him on the table, &ldquo;and call in your wife, and be done with
+      eating this truck &ldquo;&mdash;as I spoke, I slung the cold mutton in the
+      empty grate&mdash;&ldquo;and let's all go and have a champagne supper.
+      I've dined&mdash;I'm sure I don't remember what I had; I'd dine again ten
+      scores of times upon a night like this. Read it, you blaying ass! I'm not
+      insane. Here, Mamie,&rdquo; I continued, opening the bedroom door, &ldquo;come
+      out and make it up with me, and go and kiss your husband; and I'll tell
+      you what, after the supper, let's go to some place where there's a band,
+      and I'll waltz with you till sunrise.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What does it all mean?&rdquo; cried Jim.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It means we have a champagne supper to-night, and all go to Napa
+      Valley or to Monterey to-morrow,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;Mamie, go and get
+      your things on; and you, Jim, sit down right where you are, take a sheet
+      of paper, and tell Franklin Dodge to go to Texas. Mamie, you were right,
+      my dear; I was rich all the time, and didn't know it.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIX. TRAVELS WITH A SHYSTER.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The absorbing and disastrous adventure of the Flying Scud was now quite
+      ended; we had dashed into these deep waters and we had escaped again to
+      starve, we had been ruined and were saved, had quarrelled and made up;
+      there remained nothing but to sing Te Deum, draw a line, and begin on a
+      fresh page of my unwritten diary. I do not pretend that I recovered all I
+      had lost with Mamie; it would have been more than I had merited; and I had
+      certainly been more uncommunicative than became either the partner or the
+      friend. But she accepted the position handsomely; and during the week that
+      I now passed with them, both she and Jim had the grace to spare me
+      questions. It was to Calistoga that we went; there was some rumour of a
+      Napa land-boom at the moment, the possibility of stir attracted Jim, and
+      he informed me he would find a certain joy in looking on, much as Napoleon
+      on St. Helena took a pleasure to read military works. The field of his
+      ambition was quite closed; he was done with action; and looked forward to
+      a ranch in a mountain dingle, a patch of corn, a pair of kine, a leisurely
+      and contemplative age in the green shade of forests. &ldquo;Just let me
+      get down on my back in a hayfield,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;and you'll find
+      there's no more snap to me than that much putty.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And for two days the perfervid being actually rested. The third, he was
+      observed in consultation with the local editor, and owned he was in two
+      minds about purchasing the press and paper. &ldquo;It's a kind of a hold
+      for an idle man,&rdquo; he said, pleadingly; &ldquo;and if the section was
+      to open up the way it ought to, there might be dollars in the thing.&rdquo;
+      On the fourth day he was gone till dinner-time alone; on the fifth we made
+      a long picnic drive to the fresh field of enterprise; and the sixth was
+      passed entirely in the preparation of prospectuses. The pioneer of McBride
+      City was already upright and self-reliant as of yore; the fire rekindled
+      in his eye, the ring restored to his voice; a charger sniffing battle and
+      saying ha-ha, among the spears. On the seventh morning we signed a deed of
+      partnership, for Jim would not accept a dollar of my money otherwise; and
+      having once more engaged myself&mdash;or that mortal part of me, my purse&mdash;among
+      the wheels of his machinery, I returned alone to San Francisco and took
+      quarters in the Palace Hotel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The same night I had Nares to dinner. His sunburnt face, his queer and
+      personal strain of talk, recalled days that were scarce over and that
+      seemed already distant. Through the music of the band outside, and the
+      chink and clatter of the dining-room, it seemed to me as if I heard the
+      foaming of the surf and the voices of the sea-birds about Midway Island.
+      The bruises on our hands were not yet healed; and there we sat, waited on
+      by elaborate darkies, eating pompano and drinking iced champagne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Think of our dinners on the Norah, captain, and then oblige me by
+      looking round the room for contrast.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He took the scene in slowly. &ldquo;Yes, it is like a dream,&rdquo; he
+      said: &ldquo;like as if the darkies were really about as big as dimes; and
+      a great big scuttle might open up there, and Johnson stick in a great big
+      head and shoulders, and cry, 'Eight bells!'&mdash;and the whole thing
+      vanish.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, it's the other thing that has done that,&rdquo; I replied.
+      &ldquo;It's all bygone now, all dead and buried. Amen! say I.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know that, Mr. Dodd; and to tell you the fact, I don't
+      believe it,&rdquo; said Nares. &ldquo;There's more Flying Scud in the
+      oven; and the baker's name, I take it, is Bellairs. He tackled me the day
+      we came in: sort of a razee of poor old humanity&mdash;jury clothes&mdash;full
+      new suit of pimples: knew him at once from your description. I let him
+      pump me till I saw his game. He knows a good deal that we don't know, a
+      good deal that we do, and suspects the balance. There's trouble brewing
+      for somebody.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was surprised I had not thought of this before. Bellairs had been behind
+      the scenes; he had known Dickson; he knew the flight of the crew; it was
+      hardly possible but what he should suspect; it was certain if he
+      suspected, that he would seek to trade on the suspicion. And sure enough,
+      I was not yet dressed the next morning ere the lawyer was knocking at my
+      door. I let him in, for I was curious; and he, after some ambiguous
+      prolegomena, roundly proposed I should go shares with him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shares in what?&rdquo; I inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you will allow me to clothe my idea in a somewhat vulgar form,&rdquo;
+      said he, &ldquo;I might ask you, did you go to Midway for your health?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know that I did,&rdquo; I replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Similarly, Mr. Dodd, you may be sure I would never have taken the
+      present step without influential grounds,&rdquo; pursued the lawyer.
+      &ldquo;Intrusion is foreign to my character. But you and I, sir, are
+      engaged on the same ends. If we can continue to work the thing in company,
+      I place at your disposal my knowledge of the law and a considerable
+      practice in delicate negotiations similar to this. Should you refuse to
+      consent, you might find in me a formidable and&rdquo;&mdash;he hesitated&mdash;&ldquo;and
+      to my own regret, perhaps a dangerous competitor.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you get this by heart?&rdquo; I asked, genially.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I advise YOU to!&rdquo; he said, with a sudden sparkle of temper
+      and menace, instantly gone, instantly succeeded by fresh cringing. &ldquo;I
+      assure you, sir, I arrive in the character of a friend; and I believe you
+      underestimate my information. If I may instance an example, I am
+      acquainted to the last dime with what you made (or rather lost), and I
+      know you have since cashed a considerable draft on London.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you infer?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know where that draft came from,&rdquo; he cried, wincing back
+      like one who has greatly dared, and instantly regrets the venture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So?&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You forget I was Mr. Dickson's confidential agent,&rdquo; he
+      explained. &ldquo;You had his address, Mr. Dodd. We were the only two that
+      he communicated with in San Francisco. You see my deductions are quite
+      obvious: you see how open and frank I deal with you, as I should wish to
+      do with any gentleman with whom I was conjoined in business. You see how
+      much I know; and it can scarcely escape your strong common-sense, how much
+      better it would be if I knew all. You cannot hope to get rid of me at this
+      time of day, I have my place in the affair, I cannot be shaken off; I am,
+      if you will excuse a rather technical pleasantry, an encumbrance on the
+      estate. The actual harm I can do, I leave you to valuate for yourself. But
+      without going so far, Mr. Dodd, and without in any way inconveniencing
+      myself, I could make things very uncomfortable. For instance, Mr.
+      Pinkerton's liquidation. You and I know, sir&mdash;and you better than I&mdash;on
+      what a large fund you draw. Is Mr. Pinkerton in the thing at all? It was
+      you only who knew the address, and you were concealing it. Suppose I
+      should communicate with Mr. Pinkerton&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look here!&rdquo; I interrupted, &ldquo;communicate with him (if
+      you will permit me to clothe my idea in a vulgar shape) till you are blue
+      in the face. There is only one person with whom I refuse to allow you to
+      communicate further, and that is myself. Good morning.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He could not conceal his rage, disappointment, and surprise; and in the
+      passage (I have no doubt) was shaken by St. Vitus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was disgusted by this interview; it struck me hard to be suspected on
+      all hands, and to hear again from this trafficker what I had heard already
+      from Jim's wife; and yet my strongest impression was different and might
+      rather be described as an impersonal fear. There was something against
+      nature in the man's craven impudence; it was as though a lamb had butted
+      me; such daring at the hands of such a dastard, implied unchangeable
+      resolve, a great pressure of necessity, and powerful means. I thought of
+      the unknown Carthew, and it sickened me to see this ferret on his trail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon inquiry I found the lawyer was but just disbarred for some
+      malpractice; and the discovery added excessively to my disquiet. Here was
+      a rascal without money or the means of making it, thrust out of the doors
+      of his own trade, publicly shamed, and doubtless in a deuce of a bad
+      temper with the universe. Here, on the other hand, was a man with a
+      secret; rich, terrified, practically in hiding; who had been willing to
+      pay ten thousand pounds for the bones of the Flying Scud. I slipped
+      insensibly into a mental alliance with the victim; the business weighed on
+      me; all day long, I was wondering how much the lawyer knew, how much he
+      guessed, and when he would open his attack.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some of these problems are unsolved to this day; others were soon made
+      clear. Where he got Carthew's name is still a mystery; perhaps some sailor
+      on the Tempest, perhaps my own sea-lawyer served him for a tool; but I was
+      actually at his elbow when he learned the address. It fell so. One
+      evening, when I had an engagement and was killing time until the hour, I
+      chanced to walk in the court of the hotel while the band played. The place
+      was bright as day with the electric light; and I recognised, at some
+      distance among the loiterers, the person of Bellairs in talk with a
+      gentleman whose face appeared familiar. It was certainly some one I had
+      seen, and seen recently; but who or where, I knew not. A porter standing
+      hard by, gave me the necessary hint. The stranger was an English navy man,
+      invalided home from Honolulu, where he had left his ship; indeed, it was
+      only from the change of clothes and the effects of sickness, that I had
+      not immediately recognised my friend and correspondent, Lieutenant
+      Sebright.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The conjunction of these planets seeming ominous, I drew near; but it
+      seemed Bellairs had done his business; he vanished in the crowd, and I
+      found my officer alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you know whom you have been talking to, Mr. Sebright?&rdquo; I
+      began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;I don't know him from Adam. Anything
+      wrong?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is a disreputable lawyer, recently disbarred,&rdquo; said I.
+      &ldquo;I wish I had seen you in time. I trust you told him nothing about
+      Carthew?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He flushed to his ears. &ldquo;I'm awfully sorry,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;He
+      seemed civil, and I wanted to get rid of him. It was only the address he
+      asked.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you gave it?&rdquo; I cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm really awfully sorry,&rdquo; said Sebright. &ldquo;I'm afraid I
+      did.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God forgive you!&rdquo; was my only comment, and I turned my back
+      upon the blunderer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fat was in the fire now: Bellairs had the address, and I was the more
+      deceived or Carthew would have news of him. So strong was this impression,
+      and so painful, that the next morning I had the curiosity to pay the
+      lawyer's den a visit. An old woman was scrubbing the stair, and the board
+      was down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lawyer Bellairs?&rdquo; said the old woman. &ldquo;Gone East this
+      morning. There's Lawyer Dean next block up.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not trouble Lawyer Dean, but walked slowly back to my hotel,
+      ruminating as I went. The image of the old woman washing that desecrated
+      stair had struck my fancy; it seemed that all the water-supply of the city
+      and all the soap in the State would scarce suffice to cleanse it, it had
+      been so long a clearing-house of dingy secrets and a factory of sordid
+      fraud. And now the corner was untenanted; some judge, like a careful
+      housewife, had knocked down the web, and the bloated spider was scuttling
+      elsewhere after new victims. I had of late (as I have said) insensibly
+      taken sides with Carthew; now when his enemy was at his heels, my interest
+      grew more warm; and I began to wonder if I could not help. The drama of
+      the Flying Scud was entering on a new phase. It had been singular from the
+      first: it promised an extraordinary conclusion; and I, who had paid so
+      much to learn the beginning, might pay a little more and see the end. I
+      lingered in San Francisco, indemnifying myself after the hardships of the
+      cruise, spending money, regretting it, continually promising departure for
+      the morrow. Why not go indeed, and keep a watch upon Bellairs? If I missed
+      him, there was no harm done, I was the nearer Paris. If I found and kept
+      his trail, it was hard if I could not put some stick in his machinery, and
+      at the worst I could promise myself interesting scenes and revelations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In such a mixed humour, I made up what it pleases me to call my mind, and
+      once more involved myself in the story of Carthew and the Flying Scud. The
+      same night I wrote a letter of farewell to Jim, and one of anxious warning
+      to Dr. Urquart begging him to set Carthew on his guard; the morrow saw me
+      in the ferry-boat; and ten days later, I was walking the hurricane deck on
+      the City of Denver. By that time my mind was pretty much made down again,
+      its natural condition: I told myself that I was bound for Paris or
+      Fontainebleau to resume the study of the arts; and I thought no more of
+      Carthew or Bellairs, or only to smile at my own fondness. The one I could
+      not serve, even if I wanted; the other I had no means of finding, even if
+      I could have at all influenced him after he was found.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And for all that, I was close on the heels of an absurd adventure. My
+      neighbour at table that evening was a 'Frisco man whom I knew slightly. I
+      found he had crossed the plains two days in front of me, and this was the
+      first steamer that had left New York for Europe since his arrival. Two
+      days before me meant a day before Bellairs; and dinner was scarce done
+      before I was closeted with the purser.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bellairs?&rdquo; he repeated. &ldquo;Not in the saloon, I am sure.
+      He may be in the second class. The lists are not made out, but&mdash;Hullo!
+      'Harry D. Bellairs?' That the name? He's there right enough.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And the next morning I saw him on the forward deck, sitting in a chair, a
+      book in his hand, a shabby puma skin rug about his knees: the picture of
+      respectable decay. Off and on, I kept him in my eye. He read a good deal,
+      he stood and looked upon the sea, he talked occasionally with his
+      neighbours, and once when a child fell he picked it up and soothed it. I
+      damned him in my heart; the book, which I was sure he did not read&mdash;the
+      sea, to which I was ready to take oath he was indifferent&mdash;the child,
+      whom I was certain he would as lieve have tossed overboard&mdash;all
+      seemed to me elements in a theatrical performance; and I made no doubt he
+      was already nosing after the secrets of his fellow-passengers. I took no
+      pains to conceal myself, my scorn for the creature being as strong as my
+      disgust. But he never looked my way, and it was night before I learned he
+      had observed me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was smoking by the engine-room door, for the air was a little sharp,
+      when a voice rose close beside me in the darkness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg your pardon, Mr. Dodd,&rdquo; it said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That you, Bellairs?&rdquo; I replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A single word, sir. Your presence on this ship has no connection
+      with our interview?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;You have no idea, Mr. Dodd, of
+      returning upon your determination?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;None,&rdquo; said I; and then, seeing he still lingered, I was
+      polite enough to add &ldquo;Good evening;&rdquo; at which he sighed and
+      went away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next day, he was there again with the chair and the puma skin; read
+      his book and looked at the sea with the same constancy; and though there
+      was no child to be picked up, I observed him to attend repeatedly on a
+      sick woman. Nothing fosters suspicion like the act of watching; a man
+      spied upon can hardly blow his nose but we accuse him of designs; and I
+      took an early opportunity to go forward and see the woman for myself. She
+      was poor, elderly, and painfully plain; I stood abashed at the sight, felt
+      I owed Bellairs amends for the injustice of my thoughts, and seeing him
+      standing by the rail in his usual attitude of contemplation, walked up and
+      addressed him by name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You seem very fond of the sea,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I may really call it a passion, Mr. Dodd,&rdquo; he replied.
+      &ldquo;And the tall cataract haunted me like a passion,&rdquo; he quoted.
+      &ldquo;I never weary of the sea, sir. This is my first ocean voyage. I
+      find it a glorious experience.&rdquo; And once more my disbarred lawyer
+      dropped into poetry: &ldquo;Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though I had learned the piece in my reading-book at school, I came into
+      the world a little too late on the one hand&mdash;and I daresay a little
+      too early on the other&mdash;to think much of Byron; and the sonorous
+      verse, prodigiously well delivered, struck me with surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are fond of poetry, too?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am a great reader,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;At one time I had
+      begun to amass quite a small but well selected library; and when that was
+      scattered, I still managed to preserve a few volumes&mdash;chiefly of
+      pieces designed for recitation&mdash;which have been my travelling
+      companions.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that one of them?&rdquo; I asked, pointing to the volume in his
+      hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, sir,&rdquo; he replied, showing me a translation of the <i>Sorrows
+      of Werther</i>, &ldquo;that is a novel I picked up some time ago. It has
+      afforded me great pleasure, though immoral.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, immoral!&rdquo; cried I, indignant as usual at any complication
+      of art and ethics.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Surely you cannot deny that, sir&mdash;if you know the book,&rdquo;
+      he said. &ldquo;The passion is illicit, although certainly drawn with a
+      good deal of pathos. It is not a work one could possibly put into the
+      hands of a lady; which is to be regretted on all accounts, for I do not
+      know how it may strike you; but it seems to me&mdash;as a depiction, if I
+      make myself clear&mdash;to rise high above its compeers&mdash;even famous
+      compeers. Even in Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, or Hawthorne, the sentiment
+      of love appears to me to be frequently done less justice to.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are expressing a very general opinion,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that so, indeed, sir?&rdquo; he exclaimed, with unmistakable
+      excitement. &ldquo;Is the book well known? and who was GO-EATH? I am
+      interested in that, because upon the title-page the usual initials are
+      omitted, and it runs simply 'by GO-EATH.' Was he an author of distinction?
+      Has he written other works?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such was our first interview, the first of many; and in all he showed the
+      same attractive qualities and defects. His taste for literature was native
+      and unaffected; his sentimentality, although extreme and a thought
+      ridiculous, was plainly genuine. I wondered at my own innocent wonder. I
+      knew that Homer nodded, that Caesar had compiled a jest-book, that Turner
+      lived by preference the life of Puggy Booth, that Shelley made paper
+      boats, and Wordsworth wore green spectacles! and with all this mass of
+      evidence before me, I had expected Bellairs to be entirely of one piece,
+      subdued to what he worked in, a spy all through. As I abominated the man's
+      trade, so I had expected to detest the man himself; and behold, I liked
+      him. Poor devil! he was essentially a man on wires, all sensibility and
+      tremor, brimful of a cheap poetry, not without parts, quite without
+      courage. His boldness was despair; the gulf behind him thrust him on; he
+      was one of those who might commit a murder rather than confess the theft
+      of a postage-stamp. I was sure that his coming interview with Carthew rode
+      his imagination like a nightmare; when the thought crossed his mind, I
+      used to think I knew of it, and that the qualm appeared in his face
+      visibly. Yet he would never flinch: necessity stalking at his back, famine
+      (his old pursuer) talking in his ear; and I used to wonder whether I most
+      admired, or most despised, this quivering heroism for evil. The image that
+      occurred to me after his visit was just; I had been butted by a lamb; and
+      the phase of life that I was now studying might be called the Revolt of a
+      Sheep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It could be said of him that he had learned in sorrow what he taught in
+      song&mdash;or wrong; and his life was that of one of his victims. He was
+      born in the back parts of the State of New York; his father a farmer, who
+      became subsequently bankrupt and went West. The lawyer and money-lender
+      who had ruined this poor family seems to have conceived in the end a
+      feeling of remorse; he turned the father out indeed, but he offered, in
+      compensation, to charge himself with one of the sons: and Harry, the fifth
+      child and already sickly, was chosen to be left behind. He made himself
+      useful in the office; picked up the scattered rudiments of an education;
+      read right and left; attended and debated at the Young Men's Christian
+      Association; and in all his early years, was the model for a good
+      story-book. His landlady's daughter was his bane. He showed me her
+      photograph; she was a big, handsome, dashing, dressy, vulgar hussy,
+      without character, without tenderness, without mind, and (as the result
+      proved) without virtue. The sickly and timid boy was in the house; he was
+      handy; when she was otherwise unoccupied, she used and played with him:
+      Romeo and Cressida; till in that dreary life of a poor boy in a country
+      town, she grew to be the light of his days and the subject of his dreams.
+      He worked hard, like Jacob, for a wife; he surpassed his patron in sharp
+      practice; he was made head clerk; and the same night, encouraged by a
+      hundred freedoms, depressed by the sense of his youth and his infirmities,
+      he offered marriage and was received with laughter. Not a year had passed,
+      before his master, conscious of growing infirmities, took him for a
+      partner; he proposed again; he was accepted; led two years of troubled
+      married life; and awoke one morning to find his wife had run away with a
+      dashing drummer, and had left him heavily in debt. The debt, and not the
+      drummer, was supposed to be the cause of the hegira; she had concealed her
+      liabilities, they were on the point of bursting forth, she was weary of
+      Bellairs; and she took the drummer as she might have taken a cab. The blow
+      disabled her husband, his partner was dead; he was now alone in the
+      business, for which he was no longer fit; the debts hampered him;
+      bankruptcy followed; and he fled from city to city, falling daily into
+      lower practice. It is to be considered that he had been taught, and had
+      learned as a delightful duty, a kind of business whose highest merit is to
+      escape the commentaries of the bench: that of the usurious lawyer in a
+      county town. With this training, he was now shot, a penniless stranger,
+      into the deeper gulfs of cities; and the result is scarce a thing to be
+      surprised at.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you heard of your wife again?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He displayed a pitiful agitation. &ldquo;I am afraid you will think ill of
+      me,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you taken her back?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, sir. I trust I have too much self-respect,&rdquo; he answered,
+      &ldquo;and, at least, I was never tempted. She won't come, she dislikes,
+      she seems to have conceived a positive distaste for me, and yet I was
+      considered an indulgent husband.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are still in relations, then?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I place myself in your hands, Mr. Dodd,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;The
+      world is very hard; I have found it bitter hard myself&mdash;bitter hard
+      to live. How much worse for a woman, and one who has placed herself (by
+      her own misconduct, I am far from denying that) in so unfortunate a
+      position!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In short, you support her?&rdquo; I suggested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I cannot deny it. I practically do,&rdquo; he admitted. &ldquo;It
+      has been a mill-stone round my neck. But I think she is grateful. You can
+      see for yourself.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He handed me a letter in a sprawling, ignorant hand, but written with
+      violet ink on fine, pink paper with a monogram. It was very foolishly
+      expressed, and I thought (except for a few obvious cajoleries) very
+      heartless and greedy in meaning. The writer said she had been sick, which
+      I disbelieved; declared the last remittance was all gone in doctor's
+      bills, for which I took the liberty of substituting dress, drink, and
+      monograms; and prayed for an increase, which I could only hope had been
+      denied her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think she is really grateful?&rdquo; he asked, with some
+      eagerness, as I returned it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I daresay,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;Has she any claim on you?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O no, sir. I divorced her,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;I have a very
+      strong sense of self-respect in such matters, and I divorced her
+      immediately.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What sort of life is she leading now?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will not deceive you, Mr. Dodd. I do not know, I make a point of
+      not knowing; it appears more dignified. I have been very harshly
+      criticised,&rdquo; he added, sighing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It will be seen that I had fallen into an ignominious intimacy with the
+      man I had gone out to thwart. My pity for the creature, his admiration for
+      myself, his pleasure in my society, which was clearly unassumed, were the
+      bonds with which I was fettered; perhaps I should add, in honesty, my own
+      ill-regulated interest in the phases of life and human character. The fact
+      is (at least) that we spent hours together daily, and that I was nearly as
+      much on the forward deck as in the saloon. Yet all the while I could never
+      forget he was a shabby trickster, embarked that very moment in a dirty
+      enterprise. I used to tell myself at first that our acquaintance was a
+      stroke of art, and that I was somehow fortifying Carthew. I told myself, I
+      say; but I was no such fool as to believe it, even then. In these
+      circumstances I displayed the two chief qualities of my character on the
+      largest scale&mdash;my helplessness and my instinctive love of
+      procrastination&mdash;and fell upon a course of action so ridiculous that
+      I blush when I recall it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We reached Liverpool one forenoon, the rain falling thickly and
+      insidiously on the filthy town. I had no plans, beyond a sensible
+      unwillingness to let my rascal escape; and I ended by going to the same
+      inn with him, dining with him, walking with him in the wet streets, and
+      hearing with him in a penny gaff that venerable piece, <i>The
+      Ticket-of-Leave Man</i>. It was one of his first visits to a theatre,
+      against which places of entertainment he had a strong prejudice; and his
+      innocent, pompous talk, innocent old quotations, and innocent reverence
+      for the character of Hawkshaw delighted me beyond relief. In charity to
+      myself, I dwell upon and perhaps exaggerate my pleasures. I have need of
+      all conceivable excuses, when I confess that I went to bed without one
+      word upon the matter of Carthew, but not without having covenanted with my
+      rascal for a visit to Chester the next day. At Chester we did the
+      Cathedral, walked on the walls, discussed Shakespeare and the musical
+      glasses&mdash;and made a fresh engagement for the morrow. I do not know,
+      and I am glad to have forgotten, how long these travels were continued. We
+      visited at least, by singular zigzags, Stratford, Warwick, Coventry,
+      Gloucester, Bristol, Bath, and Wells. At each stage we spoke dutifully of
+      the scene and its associations; I sketched, the Shyster spouted poetry and
+      copied epitaphs. Who could doubt we were the usual Americans, travelling
+      with a design of self-improvement? Who was to guess that one was a
+      blackmailer, trembling to approach the scene of action&mdash;the other a
+      helpless, amateur detective, waiting on events?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is unnecessary to remark that none occurred, or none the least suitable
+      with my design of protecting Carthew. Two trifles, indeed, completed
+      though they scarcely changed my conception of the Shyster. The first was
+      observed in Gloucester, where we spent Sunday, and I proposed we should
+      hear service in the cathedral. To my surprise, the creature had an ISM of
+      his own, to which he was loyal; and he left me to go alone to the
+      cathedral&mdash;or perhaps not to go at all&mdash;and stole off down a
+      deserted alley to some Bethel or Ebenezer of the proper shade. When we met
+      again at lunch, I rallied him, and he grew restive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You need employ no circumlocutions with me, Mr. Dodd,&rdquo; he
+      said suddenly. &ldquo;You regard my behaviour from an unfavourable point
+      of view: you regard me, I much fear, as hypocritical.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was somewhat confused by the attack. &ldquo;You know what I think of
+      your trade,&rdquo; I replied, lamely and coarsely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Excuse me, if I seem to press the subject,&rdquo; he continued,
+      &ldquo;but if you think my life erroneous, would you have me neglect the
+      means of grace? Because you consider me in the wrong on one point, would
+      you have me place myself on the wrong in all? Surely, sir, the church is
+      for the sinner.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you ask a blessing on your present enterprise?&rdquo; I
+      sneered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had a bad attack of St. Vitus, his face was changed, and his eyes
+      flashed. &ldquo;I will tell you what I did!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;I
+      prayed for an unfortunate man and a wretched woman whom he tries to
+      support.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I cannot pretend that I found any repartee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The second incident was at Bristol, where I lost sight of my gentleman
+      some hours. From this eclipse, he returned to me with thick speech,
+      wandering footsteps, and a back all whitened with plaster. I had half
+      expected, yet I could have wept to see it. All disabilities were piled on
+      that weak back&mdash;domestic misfortune, nervous disease, a displeasing
+      exterior, empty pockets, and the slavery of vice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I will never deny that our prolonged conjunction was the result of double
+      cowardice. Each was afraid to leave the other, each was afraid to speak,
+      or knew not what to say. Save for my ill-judged allusion at Gloucester,
+      the subject uppermost in both our minds was buried. Carthew,
+      Stallbridge-le-Carthew, Stallbridge-Minster&mdash;which we had long since
+      (and severally) identified to be the nearest station&mdash;even the name
+      of Dorsetshire was studiously avoided. And yet we were making progress all
+      the time, tacking across broad England like an unweatherly vessel on a
+      wind; approaching our destination, not openly, but by a sort of flying
+      sap. And at length, I can scarce tell how, we were set down by a dilatory
+      butt-end of local train on the untenanted platform of Stallbridge-Minster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The town was ancient and compact: a domino of tiled houses and walled
+      gardens, dwarfed by the disproportionate bigness of the church. From the
+      midst of the thoroughfare which divided it in half, fields and trees were
+      visible at either end; and through the sally-port of every street, there
+      flowed in from the country a silent invasion of green grass. Bees and
+      birds appeared to make the majority of the inhabitants; every garden had
+      its row of hives, the eaves of every house were plastered with the nests
+      of swallows, and the pinnacles of the church were flickered about all day
+      long by a multitude of wings. The town was of Roman foundation; and as I
+      looked out that afternoon from the low windows of the inn, I should scarce
+      have been surprised to see a centurion coming up the street with a fatigue
+      draft of legionaries. In short, Stallbridge-Minster was one of those towns
+      which appear to be maintained by England for the instruction and delight
+      of the American rambler; to which he seems guided by an instinct not less
+      surprising than the setter's; and which he visits and quits with equal
+      enthusiasm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was not at all in the humour of the tourist. I had wasted weeks of time
+      and accomplished nothing; we were on the eve of the engagement, and I had
+      neither plans nor allies. I had thrust myself into the trade of private
+      providence and amateur detective; I was spending money and I was reaping
+      disgrace. All the time, I kept telling myself that I must at least speak;
+      that this ignominious silence should have been broken long ago, and must
+      be broken now. I should have broken it when he first proposed to come to
+      Stallbridge-Minster; I should have broken it in the train; I should break
+      it there and then, on the inn doorstep, as the omnibus rolled off. I
+      turned toward him at the thought; he seemed to wince, the words died on my
+      lips, and I proposed instead that we should visit the Minster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While we were engaged upon this duty, it came on to rain in a manner
+      worthy of the tropics. The vault reverberated; every gargoyle instantly
+      poured its full discharge; we waded back to the inn, ankle-deep in
+      impromptu brooks; and the rest of the afternoon sat weatherbound,
+      hearkening to the sonorous deluge. For two hours I talked of indifferent
+      matters, laboriously feeding the conversation; for two hours my mind was
+      quite made up to do my duty instantly&mdash;and at each particular instant
+      I postponed it till the next. To screw up my faltering courage, I called
+      at dinner for some sparkling wine. It proved when it came to be
+      detestable; I could not put it to my lips; and Bellairs, who had as much
+      palate as a weevil, was left to finish it himself. Doubtless the wine
+      flushed him; doubtless he may have observed my embarrassment of the
+      afternoon; doubtless he was conscious that we were approaching a crisis,
+      and that that evening, if I did not join with him, I must declare myself
+      an open enemy. At least he fled. Dinner was done; this was the time when I
+      had bound myself to break my silence; no more delays were to be allowed,
+      no more excuses received. I went upstairs after some tobacco; which I felt
+      to be a mere necessity in the circumstances; and when I returned, the man
+      was gone. The waiter told me he had left the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rain still plumped, like a vast shower-bath, over the deserted town.
+      The night was dark and windless: the street lit glimmeringly from end to
+      end, lamps, house windows, and the reflections in the rain-pools all
+      contributing. From a public-house on the other side of the way, I heard a
+      harp twang and a doleful voice upraised in the &ldquo;Larboard Watch,&rdquo;
+      &ldquo;The Anchor's Weighed,&rdquo; and other naval ditties. Where had my
+      Shyster wandered? In all likelihood to that lyrical tavern; there was no
+      choice of diversion; in comparison with Stallbridge-Minster on a rainy
+      night, a sheepfold would seem gay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again I passed in review the points of my interview, on which I was always
+      constantly resolved so long as my adversary was absent from the scene: and
+      again they struck me as inadequate. From this dispiriting exercise I
+      turned to the native amusements of the inn coffee-room, and studied for
+      some time the mezzotints that frowned upon the wall. The railway guide,
+      after showing me how soon I could leave Stallbridge and how quickly I
+      could reach Paris, failed to hold my attention. An illustrated
+      advertisement book of hotels brought me very low indeed; and when it came
+      to the local paper, I could have wept. At this point, I found a passing
+      solace in a copy of Whittaker's Almanac, and obtained in fifty minutes
+      more information than I have yet been able to use.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then a fresh apprehension assailed me. Suppose Bellairs had given me the
+      slip? suppose he was now rolling on the road to Stallbridge-le-Carthew? or
+      perhaps there already and laying before a very white-faced auditor his
+      threats and propositions? A hasty person might have instantly pursued.
+      Whatever I am, I am not hasty, and I was aware of three grave objections.
+      In the first place, I could not be certain that Bellairs was gone. In the
+      second, I had no taste whatever for a long drive at that hour of the night
+      and in so merciless a rain. In the third, I had no idea how I was to get
+      admitted if I went, and no idea what I should say if I got admitted.
+      &ldquo;In short,&rdquo; I concluded, &ldquo;the whole situation is the
+      merest farce. You have thrust yourself in where you had no business and
+      have no power. You would be quite as useful in San Francisco; far happier
+      in Paris; and being (by the wrath of God) at Stallbridge-Minster, the
+      wisest thing is to go quietly to bed.&rdquo; On the way to my room, I saw
+      (in a flash) that which I ought to have done long ago, and which it was
+      now too late to think of&mdash;written to Carthew, I mean, detailing the
+      facts and describing Bellairs, letting him defend himself if he were able,
+      and giving him time to flee if he were not. It was the last blow to my
+      self-respect; and I flung myself into my bed with contumely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have no guess what hour it was, when I was wakened by the entrance of
+      Bellairs carrying a candle. He had been drunk, for he was bedaubed with
+      mire from head to foot; but he was now sober and under the empire of some
+      violent emotion which he controlled with difficulty. He trembled visibly;
+      and more than once, during the interview which followed, tears suddenly
+      and silently overflowed his cheeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have to ask your pardon, sir, for this untimely visit,&rdquo; he
+      said. &ldquo;I make no defence, I have no excuse, I have disgraced myself,
+      I am properly punished; I appear before you to appeal to you in mercy for
+      the most trifling aid or, God help me! I fear I may go mad.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What on earth is wrong?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have been robbed,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I have no defence to
+      offer; it was of my own fault, I am properly punished.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, gracious goodness me!&rdquo; I cried, &ldquo;who is there to
+      rob you in a place like this?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can form no opinion,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;I have no idea. I
+      was lying in a ditch inanimate. This is a degrading confession, sir; I can
+      only say in self-defence that perhaps (in your good nature) you have made
+      yourself partly responsible for my shame. I am not used to these rich
+      wines.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In what form was your money? Perhaps it may be traced,&rdquo; I
+      suggested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was in English sovereigns. I changed it in New York; I got very
+      good exchange,&rdquo; he said, and then, with a momentary outbreak,
+      &ldquo;God in heaven, how I toiled for it!&rdquo; he cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That doesn't sound encouraging,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;It may be
+      worth while to apply to the police, but it doesn't sound a hopeful case.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I have no hope in that direction,&rdquo; said Bellairs. &ldquo;My
+      hopes, Mr. Dodd, are all fixed upon yourself. I could easily convince you
+      that a small, a very small advance, would be in the nature of an excellent
+      investment; but I prefer to rely on your humanity. Our acquaintance began
+      on an unusual footing; but you have now known me for some time, we have
+      been some time&mdash;I was going to say we had been almost intimate. Under
+      the impulse of instinctive sympathy, I have bared my heart to you, Mr.
+      Dodd, as I have done to few; and I believe&mdash;I trust&mdash;I may say
+      that I feel sure&mdash;you heard me with a kindly sentiment. This is what
+      brings me to your side at this most inexcusable hour. But put yourself in
+      my place&mdash;how could I sleep&mdash;how could I dream of sleeping, in
+      this blackness of remorse and despair? There was a friend at hand&mdash;so
+      I ventured to think of you; it was instinctive; I fled to your side, as
+      the drowning man clutches at a straw. These expressions are not
+      exaggerated, they scarcely serve to express the agitation of my mind. And
+      think, sir, how easily you can restore me to hope and, I may say, to
+      reason. A small loan, which shall be faithfully repaid. Five hundred
+      dollars would be ample.&rdquo; He watched me with burning eyes. &ldquo;Four
+      hundred would do. I believe, Mr. Dodd, that I could manage with economy on
+      two.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And then you will repay me out of Carthew's pocket?&rdquo; I said.
+      &ldquo;I am much obliged. But I will tell you what I will do: I will see
+      you on board a steamer, pay your fare through to San Francisco, and place
+      fifty dollars in the purser's hands, to be given you in New York.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He drank in my words; his face represented an ecstasy of cunning thought.
+      I could read there, plain as print, that he but thought to overreach me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what am I to do in 'Frisco?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;I am
+      disbarred, I have no trade, I cannot dig, to beg&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; he
+      paused in the citation. &ldquo;And you know that I am not alone,&rdquo; he
+      added, &ldquo;others depend upon me.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will write to Pinkerton,&rdquo; I returned. &ldquo;I feel sure he
+      can help you to some employment, and in the meantime, and for three months
+      after your arrival, he shall pay to yourself personally, on the first and
+      the fifteenth, twenty-five dollars.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Dodd, I scarce believe you can be serious in this offer,&rdquo;
+      he replied. &ldquo;Have you forgotten the circumstances of the case? Do
+      you know these people are the magnates of the section? They were spoken of
+      to-night in the saloon; their wealth must amount to many millions of
+      dollars in real estate alone; their house is one of the sights of the
+      locality, and you offer me a bribe of a few hundred!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I offer you no bribe, Mr. Bellairs, I give you alms,&rdquo; I
+      returned. &ldquo;I will do nothing to forward you in your hateful
+      business; yet I would not willingly have you starve.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give me a hundred dollars then, and be done with it,&rdquo; he
+      cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will do what I have said, and neither more nor less,&rdquo; said
+      I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take care,&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;You are playing a fool's game;
+      you are making an enemy for nothing; you will gain nothing by this, I warn
+      you of it!&rdquo; And then with one of his changes, &ldquo;Seventy dollars&mdash;only
+      seventy&mdash;in mercy, Mr. Dodd, in common charity. Don't dash the bowl
+      from my lips! You have a kindly heart. Think of my position, remember my
+      unhappy wife.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You should have thought of her before,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;I have
+      made my offer, and I wish to sleep.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that your last word, sir? Pray consider; pray weigh both sides:
+      my misery, your own danger. I warn you&mdash;I beseech you; measure it
+      well before you answer,&rdquo; so he half pleaded, half threatened me,
+      with clasped hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My first word, and my last,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The change upon the man was shocking. In the storm of anger that now shook
+      him, the lees of his intoxication rose again to the surface; his face was
+      deformed, his words insane with fury; his pantomime excessive in itself,
+      was distorted by an access of St. Vitus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will perhaps allow me to inform you of my cold opinion,&rdquo;
+      he began, apparently self-possessed, truly bursting with rage: &ldquo;when
+      I am a glorified saint, I shall see you howling for a drop of water and
+      exult to see you. That your last word! Take it in your face, you spy, you
+      false friend, you fat hypocrite! I defy, I defy and despise and spit upon
+      you! I'm on the trail, his trail or yours, I smell blood, I'll follow it
+      on my hands and knees, I'll starve to follow it! I'll hunt you down, hunt
+      you, hunt you down! If I were strong, I'd tear your vitals out, here in
+      this room&mdash;tear them out&mdash;I'd tear them out! Damn, damn, damn!
+      You think me weak! I can bite, bite to the blood, bite you, hurt you,
+      disgrace you ...&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was thus incoherently raging, when the scene was interrupted by the
+      arrival of the landlord and inn servants in various degrees of deshabille,
+      and to them I gave my temporary lunatic in charge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take him to his room,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;he's only drunk.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These were my words; but I knew better. After all my study of Mr.
+      Bellairs, one discovery had been reserved for the last moment: that of his
+      latent and essential madness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XX. STALLBRIDGE-LE-CARTHEW.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Long before I was awake, the shyster had disappeared, leaving his bill
+      unpaid. I did not need to inquire where he was gone, I knew too well, I
+      knew there was nothing left me but to follow; and about ten in the
+      morning, set forth in a gig for Stallbridge-le-Carthew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The road, for the first quarter of the way, deserts the valley of the
+      river, and crosses the summit of a chalk-down, grazed over by flocks of
+      sheep and haunted by innumerable larks. It was a pleasant but a vacant
+      scene, arousing but not holding the attention; and my mind returned to the
+      violent passage of the night before. My thought of the man I was pursuing
+      had been greatly changed. I conceived of him, somewhere in front of me,
+      upon his dangerous errand, not to be turned aside, not to be stopped, by
+      either fear or reason. I had called him a ferret; I conceived him now as a
+      mad dog. Methought he would run, not walk; methought, as he ran, that he
+      would bark and froth at the lips; methought, if the great wall of China
+      were to rise across his path, he would attack it with his nails.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently the road left the down, returned by a precipitous descent into
+      the valley of the Stall, and ran thenceforward among enclosed fields and
+      under the continuous shade of trees. I was told we had now entered on the
+      Carthew property. By and by, a battlemented wall appeared on the left
+      hand, and a little after I had my first glimpse of the mansion. It stood
+      in a hollow of a bosky park, crowded to a degree that surprised and even
+      displeased me, with huge timber and dense shrubberies of laurel and
+      rhododendron. Even from this low station and the thronging neighbourhood
+      of the trees, the pile rose conspicuous like a cathedral. Behind, as we
+      continued to skirt the park wall, I began to make out a straggling town of
+      offices which became conjoined to the rear with those of the home farm. On
+      the left was an ornamental water sailed in by many swans. On the right
+      extended a flower garden, laid in the old manner, and at this season of
+      the year, as brilliant as stained glass. The front of the house presented
+      a facade of more than sixty windows, surmounted by a formal pediment and
+      raised upon a terrace. A wide avenue, part in gravel, part in turf, and
+      bordered by triple alleys, ran to the great double gateways. It was
+      impossible to look without surprise on a place that had been prepared
+      through so many generations, had cost so many tons of minted gold, and was
+      maintained in order by so great a company of emulous servants. And yet of
+      these there was no sign but the perfection of their work. The whole domain
+      was drawn to the line and weeded like the front plot of some suburban
+      amateur; and I looked in vain for any belated gardener, and listened in
+      vain for any sounds of labour. Some lowing of cattle and much calling of
+      birds alone disturbed the stillness, and even the little hamlet, which
+      clustered at the gates, appeared to hold its breath in awe of its great
+      neighbour, like a troop of children who should have strayed into a king's
+      anteroom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Carthew Arms, the small but very comfortable inn, was a mere appendage
+      and outpost of the family whose name it bore. Engraved portraits of
+      by-gone Carthews adorned the walls; Fielding Carthew, Recorder of the city
+      of London; Major-General John Carthew in uniform, commanding some military
+      operations; the Right Honourable Bailley Carthew, Member of Parliament for
+      Stallbridge, standing by a table and brandishing a document; Singleton
+      Carthew, Esquire, represented in the foreground of a herd of cattle&mdash;doubtless
+      at the desire of his tenantry, who had made him a compliment of this work
+      of art; and the Venerable Archdeacon Carthew, D.D., LL.D., A.M., laying
+      his hand on the head of a little child in a manner highly frigid and
+      ridiculous. So far as my memory serves me, there were no other pictures in
+      this exclusive hostelry; and I was not surprised to learn that the
+      landlord was an ex-butler, the landlady an ex-lady's-maid, from the great
+      house; and that the bar-parlour was a sort of perquisite of former
+      servants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To an American, the sense of the domination of this family over so
+      considerable a tract of earth was even oppressive; and as I considered
+      their simple annals, gathered from the legends of the engravings, surprise
+      began to mingle with my disgust. &ldquo;Mr. Recorder&rdquo; doubtless
+      occupies an honourable post; but I thought that, in the course of so many
+      generations, one Carthew might have clambered higher. The soldier had
+      stuck at Major-General; the churchman bloomed unremarked in an
+      archidiaconate; and though the Right Honourable Bailley seemed to have
+      sneaked into the privy council, I have still to learn what he did when he
+      had got there. Such vast means, so long a start, and such a modest
+      standard of achievement, struck in me a strong sense of the dulness of
+      that race.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I found that to come to the hamlet and not visit the Hall, would be
+      regarded as a slight. To feed the swans, to see the peacocks and the
+      Raphaels&mdash;for these commonplace people actually possessed two
+      Raphaels&mdash;to risk life and limb among a famous breed of cattle called
+      the Carthew Chillinghams, and to do homage to the sire (still living) of
+      Donibristle, a renowned winner of the oaks: these, it seemed, were the
+      inevitable stations of the pilgrimage. I was not so foolish as to resist,
+      for I might have need before I was done of general good-will; and two
+      pieces of news fell in which changed my resignation to alacrity. It
+      appeared in the first place, that Mr. Norris was from home &ldquo;travelling
+      &ldquo;; in the second, that a visitor had been before me and already made
+      the tour of the Carthew curiosities. I thought I knew who this must be; I
+      was anxious to learn what he had done and seen; and fortune so far
+      favoured me that the under-gardener singled out to be my guide had already
+      performed the same function for my predecessor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;an American gentleman right
+      enough. At least, I don't think he was quite a gentleman, but a very civil
+      person.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The person, it seems, had been civil enough to be delighted with the
+      Carthew Chillinghams, to perform the whole pilgrimage with rising
+      admiration, and to have almost prostrated himself before the shrine of
+      Donibristle's sire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He told me, sir,&rdquo; continued the gratified under-gardener,
+      &ldquo;that he had often read of the 'stately 'omes of England,' but ours
+      was the first he had the chance to see. When he came to the 'ead of the
+      long alley, he fetched his breath. 'This is indeed a lordly domain!' he
+      cries. And it was natural he should be interested in the place, for it
+      seems Mr. Carthew had been kind to him in the States. In fact, he seemed a
+      grateful kind of person, and wonderful taken up with flowers.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I heard this story with amazement. The phrases quoted told their own tale;
+      they were plainly from the shyster's mint. A few hours back I had seen him
+      a mere bedlamite and fit for a strait-waistcoat; he was penniless in a
+      strange country; it was highly probable he had gone without breakfast; the
+      absence of Norris must have been a crushing blow; the man (by all reason)
+      should have been despairing. And now I heard of him, clothed and in his
+      right mind, deliberate, insinuating, admiring vistas, smelling flowers,
+      and talking like a book. The strength of character implied amazed and
+      daunted me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is curious,&rdquo; I said to the under-gardener. &ldquo;I have
+      had the pleasure of some acquaintance with Mr. Carthew myself; and I
+      believe none of our western friends ever were in England. Who can this
+      person be? He couldn't&mdash;no, that's impossible, he could never have
+      had the impudence. His name was not Bellairs?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn't 'ear the name, sir. Do you know anything against him?&rdquo;
+      cried my guide.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;he is certainly not the person Carthew
+      would like to have here in his absence.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good gracious me!&rdquo; exclaimed the gardener. &ldquo;He was so
+      pleasant spoken, too; I thought he was some form of a schoolmaster.
+      Perhaps, sir, you wouldn't mind going right up to Mr. Denman? I
+      recommended him to Mr. Denman, when he had done the grounds. Mr. Denman is
+      our butler, sir,&rdquo; he added.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The proposal was welcome, particularly as affording me a graceful retreat
+      from the neighbourhood of the Carthew Chillinghams; and, giving up our
+      projected circuit, we took a short cut through the shrubbery and across
+      the bowling green to the back quarters of the Hall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bowling green was surrounded by a great hedge of yew, and entered by
+      an archway in the quick. As we were issuing from this passage, my
+      conductor arrested me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Honourable Lady Ann Carthew,&rdquo; he said, in an august
+      whisper. And looking over his shoulder, I was aware of an old lady with a
+      stick, hobbling somewhat briskly along the garden path. She must have been
+      extremely handsome in her youth; and even the limp with which she walked
+      could not deprive her of an unusual and almost menacing dignity of
+      bearing. Melancholy was impressed besides on every feature, and her eyes,
+      as she looked straight before her, seemed to contemplate misfortune.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She seems sad,&rdquo; said I, when she had hobbled past and we had
+      resumed our walk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She enjoy rather poor spirits, sir,&rdquo; responded the
+      under-gardener. &ldquo;Mr. Carthew&mdash;the old gentleman, I mean&mdash;died
+      less than a year ago; Lord Tillibody, her ladyship's brother, two months
+      after; and then there was the sad business about the young gentleman.
+      Killed in the 'unting-field, sir; and her ladyship's favourite. The
+      present Mr. Norris has never been so equally.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So I have understood,&rdquo; said I, persistently, and (I think)
+      gracefully pursuing my inquiries and fortifying my position as a family
+      friend. &ldquo;Dear, dear, how sad! And has this change&mdash;poor
+      Carthew's return, and all&mdash;has this not mended matters?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, no, sir, not a sign of it,&rdquo; was the reply. &ldquo;Worse,
+      we think, than ever.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear, dear!&rdquo; said I again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When Mr. Norris arrived, she DID seem glad to see him,&rdquo; he
+      pursued; &ldquo;and we were all pleased, I'm sure; for no one knows the
+      young gentleman but what likes him. Ah, sir, it didn't last long! That
+      very night they had a talk, and fell out or something; her ladyship took
+      on most painful; it was like old days, but worse. And the next morning Mr.
+      Norris was off again upon his travels. 'Denman,' he said to Mr. Denman,
+      'Denman, I'll never come back,' he said, and shook him by the 'and. I
+      wouldn't be saying all this to a stranger, sir,&rdquo; added my informant,
+      overcome with a sudden fear lest he had gone too far.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had indeed told me much, and much that was unsuspected by himself. On
+      that stormy night of his return, Carthew had told his story; the old lady
+      had more upon her mind than mere bereavements; and among the mental
+      pictures on which she looked, as she walked staring down the path, was one
+      of Midway Island and the Flying Scud.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Denman heard my inquiries with discomposure, but informed me the
+      shyster was already gone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gone?&rdquo; cried I. &ldquo;Then what can he have come for? One
+      thing I can tell you, it was not to see the house.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't see it could have been anything else,&rdquo; replied the
+      butler.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You may depend upon it it was,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;And whatever
+      it was, he has got it. By the way, where is Mr. Carthew at present? I was
+      sorry to find he was from home.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is engaged in travelling, sir,&rdquo; replied the butler, dryly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, bravo!&rdquo; cried I. &ldquo;I laid a trap for you there, Mr.
+      Denman. Now I need not ask you; I am sure you did not tell this prying
+      stranger.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To be sure not, sir,&rdquo; said the butler.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I went through the form of &ldquo;shaking him by the 'and&rdquo;&mdash;like
+      Mr. Norris&mdash;not, however, with genuine enthusiasm. For I had failed
+      ingloriously to get the address for myself; and I felt a sure conviction
+      that Bellairs had done better, or he had still been here and still
+      cultivating Mr. Denman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had escaped the grounds and the cattle; I could not escape the house. A
+      lady with silver hair, a slender silver voice, and a stream of
+      insignificant information not to be diverted, led me through the picture
+      gallery, the music-room, the great dining-room, the long drawing-room, the
+      Indian room, the theatre, and every corner (as I thought) of that
+      interminable mansion. There was but one place reserved; the garden-room,
+      whither Lady Ann had now retired. I paused a moment on the outside of the
+      door, and smiled to myself. The situation was indeed strange, and these
+      thin boards divided the secret of the Flying Scud.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All the while, as I went to and fro, I was considering the visit and
+      departure of Bellairs. That he had got the address, I was quite certain:
+      that he had not got it by direct questioning, I was convinced; some
+      ingenuity, some lucky accident, had served him. A similar chance, an equal
+      ingenuity, was required; or I was left helpless, the ferret must run down
+      his prey, the great oaks fall, the Raphaels be scattered, the house let to
+      some stockbroker suddenly made rich, and the name which now filled the
+      mouths of five or six parishes dwindle to a memory. Strange that such
+      great matters, so old a mansion, a family so ancient and so dull, should
+      come to depend for perpetuity upon the intelligence, the discretion, and
+      the cunning of a Latin-Quarter student! What Bellairs had done, I must do
+      likewise. Chance or ingenuity, ingenuity or chance&mdash;so I continued to
+      ring the changes as I walked down the avenue, casting back occasional
+      glances at the red brick facade and the twinkling windows of the house.
+      How was I to command chance? where was I to find the ingenuity?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These reflections brought me to the door of the inn. And here, pursuant to
+      my policy of keeping well with all men, I immediately smoothed my brow,
+      and accepted (being the only guest in the house) an invitation to dine
+      with the family in the bar-parlour. I sat down accordingly with Mr. Higgs
+      the ex-butler, Mrs. Higgs the ex-lady's-maid, and Miss Agnes Higgs their
+      frowsy-headed little girl, the least promising and (as the event showed)
+      the most useful of the lot. The talk ran endlessly on the great house and
+      the great family; the roast beef, the Yorkshire pudding, the jam-roll, and
+      the cheddar cheese came and went, and still the stream flowed on; near
+      four generations of Carthews were touched upon without eliciting one point
+      of interest; and we had killed Mr. Henry in &ldquo;the 'unting-field,&rdquo;
+      with a vast elaboration of painful circumstance, and buried him in the
+      midst of a whole sorrowing county, before I could so much as manage to
+      bring upon the stage my intimate friend, Mr. Norris. At the name, the
+      ex-butler grew diplomatic, and the ex-lady's-maid tender. He was the only
+      person of the whole featureless series who seemed to have accomplished
+      anything worth mention; and his achievements, poor dog, seemed to have
+      been confined to going to the devil and leaving some regrets. He had been
+      the image of the Right Honourable Bailley, one of the lights of that dim
+      house, and a career of distinction had been predicted of him in
+      consequence almost from the cradle. But before he was out of long clothes,
+      the cloven foot began to show; he proved to be no Carthew, developed a
+      taste for low pleasures and bad company, went birdnesting with a
+      stable-boy before he was eleven, and when he was near twenty, and might
+      have been expected to display at least some rudiments of the family
+      gravity, rambled the country over with a knapsack, making sketches and
+      keeping company in wayside inns. He had no pride about him, I was told; he
+      would sit down with any man; and it was somewhat woundingly implied that I
+      was indebted to this peculiarity for my own acquaintance with the hero.
+      Unhappily, Mr. Norris was not only eccentric, he was fast. His debts were
+      still remembered at the University; still more, it appeared, the highly
+      humorous circumstances attending his expulsion. &ldquo;He was always fond
+      of his jest,&rdquo; commented Mrs. Higgs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That he were!&rdquo; observed her lord.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But it was after he went into the diplomatic service that the real trouble
+      began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It seems, sir, that he went the pace extraordinary,&rdquo; said the
+      ex-butler, with a solemn gusto.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His debts were somethink awful,&rdquo; said the lady's-maid.
+      &ldquo;And as nice a young gentleman all the time as you would wish to
+      see!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When word came to Mr. Carthew's ears, the turn up was 'orrible,&rdquo;
+      continued Mr. Higgs. &ldquo;I remember it as if it was yesterday. The bell
+      was rung after her la'ship was gone, which I answered it myself, supposing
+      it were the coffee. There was Mr. Carthew on his feet. ''Iggs,' he says,
+      pointing with his stick, for he had a turn of the gout, 'order the
+      dog-cart instantly for this son of mine which has disgraced hisself.' Mr.
+      Norris say nothink: he sit there with his 'ead down, making belief to be
+      looking at a walnut. You might have bowled me over with a straw,&rdquo;
+      said Mr. Higgs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Had he done anything very bad?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not he, Mr. Dodsley!&rdquo; cried the lady&mdash;it was so she had
+      conceived my name. &ldquo;He never did anythink to all really wrong in his
+      poor life. The 'ole affair was a disgrace. It was all rank favouritising.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mrs. 'Iggs! Mrs. 'Iggs!&rdquo; cried the butler warningly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, what do I care?&rdquo; retorted the lady, shaking her
+      ringlets. &ldquo;You know it was yourself, Mr. 'Iggs, and so did every
+      member of the staff.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While I was getting these facts and opinions, I by no means neglected the
+      child. She was not attractive; but fortunately she had reached the corrupt
+      age of seven, when half a crown appears about as large as a saucer and is
+      fully as rare as the dodo. For a shilling down, sixpence in her money-box,
+      and an American gold dollar which I happened to find in my pocket, I
+      bought the creature soul and body. She declared her intention to accompany
+      me to the ends of the earth; and had to be chidden by her sire for drawing
+      comparisons between myself and her uncle William, highly damaging to the
+      latter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dinner was scarce done, the cloth was not yet removed, when Miss Agnes
+      must needs climb into my lap with her stamp album, a relic of the
+      generosity of Uncle William. There are few things I despise more than old
+      stamps, unless perhaps it be crests; for cattle (from the Carthew
+      Chillinghams down to the old gate-keeper's milk-cow in the lane) contempt
+      is far from being my first sentiment. But it seemed I was doomed to pass
+      that day in viewing curiosities, and smothering a yawn, I devoted myself
+      once more to tread the well-known round. I fancy Uncle William must have
+      begun the collection himself and tired of it, for the book (to my
+      surprise) was quite respectably filled. There were the varying shades of
+      the English penny, Russians with the coloured heart, old undecipherable
+      Thurn-und-Taxis, obsolete triangular Cape of Good Hopes, Swan Rivers with
+      the Swan, and Guianas with the sailing ship. Upon all these I looked with
+      the eyes of a fish and the spirit of a sheep; I think indeed I was at
+      times asleep; and it was probably in one of these moments that I capsized
+      the album, and there fell from the end of it, upon the floor, a
+      considerable number of what I believe to be called &ldquo;exchanges.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here, against all probability, my chance had come to me; for as I
+      gallantly picked them up, I was struck with the disproportionate amount of
+      five-sous French stamps. Some one, I reasoned, must write very regularly
+      from France to the neighbourhood of Stallbridge-le-Carthew. Could it be
+      Norris? On one stamp I made out an initial C; upon a second I got as far
+      as CH; beyond which point, the postmark used was in every instance
+      undecipherable. CH, when you consider that about a quarter of the towns in
+      France begin with &ldquo;chateau,&rdquo; was an insufficient clue; and I
+      promptly annexed the plainest of the collection in order to consult the
+      post-office.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The wretched infant took me in the fact. &ldquo;Naughty man, to 'teal my
+      'tamp!&rdquo; she cried; and when I would have brazened it off with a
+      denial, recovered and displayed the stolen article.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My position was now highly false; and I believe it was in mere pity that
+      Mrs. Higgs came to my rescue with a welcome proposition. If the gentleman
+      was really interested in stamps, she said, probably supposing me a
+      monomaniac on the point, he should see Mr. Denman's album. Mr. Denman had
+      been collecting forty years, and his collection was said to be worth a
+      mint of money. &ldquo;Agnes,&rdquo; she went on, &ldquo;if you were a kind
+      little girl, you would run over to the 'All, tell Mr. Denman there's a
+      connaisseer in the 'ouse, and ask him if one of the young gentlemen might
+      bring the album down.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should like to see his exchanges too,&rdquo; I cried, rising to
+      the occasion. &ldquo;I may have some of mine in my pocket-book and we
+      might trade.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Half an hour later Mr. Denman arrived himself with a most unconscionable
+      volume under his arm. &ldquo;Ah, sir,&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;when I 'eard
+      you was a collector, I dropped all. It's a saying of mine, Mr. Dodsley,
+      that collecting stamps makes all collectors kin. It's a bond, sir; it
+      creates a bond.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon the truth of this, I cannot say; but there is no doubt that the
+      attempt to pass yourself off for a collector falsely creates a precarious
+      situation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, here's the second issue!&rdquo; I would say, after consulting
+      the legend at the side. &ldquo;The pink&mdash;no, I mean the mauve&mdash;yes,
+      that's the beauty of this lot. Though of course, as you say,&rdquo; I
+      would hasten to add, &ldquo;this yellow on the thin paper is more rare.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Indeed I must certainly have been detected, had I not plied Mr. Denman in
+      self-defence with his favourite liquor&mdash;a port so excellent that it
+      could never have ripened in the cellar of the Carthew Arms, but must have
+      been transported, under cloud of night, from the neighbouring vaults of
+      the great house. At each threat of exposure, and in particular whenever I
+      was directly challenged for an opinion, I made haste to fill the butler's
+      glass, and by the time we had got to the exchanges, he was in a condition
+      in which no stamp collector need be seriously feared. God forbid I should
+      hint that he was drunk; he seemed incapable of the necessary liveliness;
+      but the man's eyes were set, and so long as he was suffered to talk
+      without interruption, he seemed careless of my heeding him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Mr. Denman's exchanges, as in those of little Agnes, the same
+      peculiarity was to be remarked, an undue preponderance of that despicably
+      common stamp, the French twenty-five centimes. And here joining them in
+      stealthy review, I found the C and the CH; then something of an A just
+      following; and then a terminal Y. Here was also the whole name spelt out
+      to me; it seemed familiar, too; and yet for some time I could not bridge
+      the imperfection. Then I came upon another stamp, in which an L was
+      legible before the Y, and in a moment the word leaped up complete.
+      Chailly, that was the name; Chailly-en-Biere, the post town of Barbizon&mdash;ah,
+      there was the very place for any man to hide himself&mdash;there was the
+      very place for Mr. Norris, who had rambled over England making sketches&mdash;the
+      very place for Goddedaal, who had left a palette-knife on board the Flying
+      Scud. Singular, indeed, that while I was drifting over England with the
+      shyster, the man we were in quest of awaited me at my own ultimate
+      destination.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whether Mr. Denman had shown his album to Bellairs, whether, indeed,
+      Bellairs could have caught (as I did) this hint from an obliterated
+      postmark, I shall never know, and it mattered not. We were equal now; my
+      task at Stallbridge-le-Carthew was accomplished; my interest in
+      postage-stamps died shamelessly away; the astonished Denman was bowed out;
+      and ordering the horse to be put in, I plunged into the study of the
+      time-table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXI. FACE TO FACE.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      I fell from the skies on Barbizon about two o'clock of a September
+      afternoon. It is the dead hour of the day; all the workers have gone
+      painting, all the idlers strolling, in the forest or the plain; the
+      winding causewayed street is solitary, and the inn deserted. I was the
+      more pleased to find one of my old companions in the dining-room; his town
+      clothes marked him for a man in the act of departure; and indeed his
+      portmanteau lay beside him on the floor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, Stennis,&rdquo; I cried, &ldquo;you're the last man I expected
+      to find here.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You won't find me here long,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;King Pandion
+      he is dead; all his friends are lapped in lead. For men of our antiquity,
+      the poor old shop is played out.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have had playmates, I have had companions,&rdquo; I quoted in
+      return. We were both moved, I think, to meet again in this scene of our
+      old pleasure parties so unexpectedly, after so long an interval, and both
+      already so much altered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is the sentiment,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;All, all are gone,
+      the old familiar faces. I have been here a week, and the only living
+      creature who seemed to recollect me was the Pharaon. Bar the Sirons, of
+      course, and the perennial Bodmer.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is there no survivor?&rdquo; I inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of our geological epoch? not one,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;This is
+      the city of Petra in Edom.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what sort of Bedouins encamp among the ruins?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Youth, Dodd, youth; blooming, conscious youth,&rdquo; he returned.
+      &ldquo;Such a gang, such reptiles! to think we were like that! I wonder
+      Siron didn't sweep us from his premises.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps we weren't so bad,&rdquo; I suggested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't let me depress you,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;We were both
+      Anglo-Saxons, anyway, and the only redeeming feature to-day is another.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The thought of my quest, a moment driven out by this rencounter, revived
+      in my mind. &ldquo;Who is he?&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;Tell me about him.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What, the Redeeming Feature?&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;Well, he's a
+      very pleasing creature, rather dim, and dull, and genteel, but really
+      pleasing. He is very British, though, the artless Briton! Perhaps you'll
+      find him too much so for the transatlantic nerves. Come to think of it, on
+      the other hand, you ought to get on famously. He is an admirer of your
+      great republic in one of its (excuse me) shoddiest features; he takes in
+      and sedulously reads a lot of American papers. I warned you he was
+      artless.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What papers are they?&rdquo; cried I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;San Francisco papers,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;He gets a bale of them
+      about twice a week, and studies them like the Bible. That's one of his
+      weaknesses; another is to be incalculably rich. He has taken Masson's old
+      studio&mdash;you remember?&mdash;at the corner of the road; he has
+      furnished it regardless of expense, and lives there surrounded with vins
+      fins and works of art. When the youth of to-day goes up to the Caverne des
+      Brigands to make punch&mdash;they do all that we did, like some nauseous
+      form of ape (I never appreciated before what a creature of tradition
+      mankind is)&mdash;this Madden follows with a basket of champagne. I told
+      him he was wrong, and the punch tasted better; but he thought the boys
+      liked the style of the thing, and I suppose they do. He is a very
+      good-natured soul, and a very melancholy, and rather a helpless. O, and he
+      has a third weakness which I came near forgetting. He paints. He has never
+      been taught, and he's past thirty, and he paints.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Rather well, I think,&rdquo; was the reply. &ldquo;That's the
+      annoying part of it. See for yourself. That panel is his.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I stepped toward the window. It was the old familiar room, with the tables
+      set like a Greek P, and the sideboard, and the aphasiac piano, and the
+      panels on the wall. There were Romeo and Juliet, Antwerp from the river,
+      Enfield's ships among the ice, and the huge huntsman winding a huge horn;
+      mingled with them a few new ones, the thin crop of a succeeding
+      generation, not better and not worse. It was to one of these I was
+      directed; a thing coarsely and wittily handled, mostly with the
+      palette-knife, the colour in some parts excellent, the canvas in others
+      loaded with mere clay. But it was the scene, and not the art or want of
+      it, that riveted my notice. The foreground was of sand and scrub and
+      wreckwood; in the middle distance the many-hued and smooth expanse of a
+      lagoon, enclosed by a wall of breakers; beyond, a blue strip of ocean. The
+      sky was cloudless, and I could hear the surf break. For the place was
+      Midway Island; the point of view the very spot at which I had landed with
+      the captain for the first time, and from which I had re-embarked the day
+      before we sailed. I had already been gazing for some seconds, before my
+      attention was arrested by a blur on the sea-line; and stooping to look, I
+      recognised the smoke of a steamer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said I, turning toward Stennis, &ldquo;it has merit.
+      What is it?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A fancy piece,&rdquo; he returned. &ldquo;That's what pleased me.
+      So few of the fellows in our time had the imagination of a garden snail.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madden, you say his name is?&rdquo; I pursued.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madden,&rdquo; he repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has he travelled much?&rdquo; I inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I haven't an idea. He is one of the least autobiographical of men.
+      He sits, and smokes, and giggles, and sometimes he makes small jests; but
+      his contributions to the art of pleasing are generally confined to looking
+      like a gentleman and being one. No,&rdquo; added Stennis, &ldquo;he'll
+      never suit you, Dodd; you like more head on your liquor. You'll find him
+      as dull as ditch water.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has he big blonde side-whiskers like tusks?&rdquo; I asked, mindful
+      of the photograph of Goddedaal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly not: why should he?&rdquo; was the reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does he write many letters?&rdquo; I continued.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God knows,&rdquo; said Stennis. &ldquo;What is wrong with you? I
+      never saw you taken this way before.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The fact is, I think I know the man,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;I think
+      I'm looking for him. I rather think he is my long-lost brother.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not twins, anyway,&rdquo; returned Stennis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And about the same time, a carriage driving up to the inn, he took his
+      departure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I walked till dinner-time in the plain, keeping to the fields; for I
+      instinctively shunned observation, and was racked by many incongruous and
+      impatient feelings. Here was a man whose voice I had once heard, whose
+      doings had filled so many days of my life with interest and distress, whom
+      I had lain awake to dream of like a lover; and now his hand was on the
+      door; now we were to meet; now I was to learn at last the mystery of the
+      substituted crew. The sun went down over the plain of the Angelus, and as
+      the hour approached, my courage lessened. I let the laggard peasants pass
+      me on the homeward way. The lamps were lit, the soup was served, the
+      company were all at table, and the room sounded already with multitudinous
+      talk before I entered. I took my place and found I was opposite to Madden.
+      Over six feet high and well set up, the hair dark and streaked with
+      silver, the eyes dark and kindly, the mouth very good-natured, the teeth
+      admirable; linen and hands exquisite; English clothes, an English voice,
+      an English bearing: the man stood out conspicuous from the company. Yet he
+      had made himself at home, and seemed to enjoy a certain quiet popularity
+      among the noisy boys of the table d'hote. He had an odd, silver giggle of
+      a laugh, that sounded nervous even when he was really amused, and accorded
+      ill with his big stature and manly, melancholy face. This laugh fell in
+      continually all through dinner like the note of the triangle in a piece of
+      modern French music; and he had at times a kind of pleasantry, rather of
+      manner than of words, with which he started or maintained the merriment.
+      He took his share in these diversions, not so much like a man in high
+      spirits, but like one of an approved good nature, habitually
+      self-forgetful, accustomed to please and to follow others. I have remarked
+      in old soldiers much the same smiling sadness and sociable
+      self-effacement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I feared to look at him, lest my glances should betray my deep excitement,
+      and chance served me so well that the soup was scarce removed before we
+      were naturally introduced. My first sip of Chateau Siron, a vintage from
+      which I had been long estranged, startled me into speech.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, this'll never do!&rdquo; I cried, in English.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dreadful stuff, isn't it?&rdquo; said Madden, in the same language.
+      &ldquo;Do let me ask you to share my bottle. They call it Chambertin,
+      which it isn't; but it's fairly palatable, and there's nothing in this
+      house that a man can drink at all.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I accepted; anything would do that paved the way to better knowledge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your name is Madden, I think,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;My old friend
+      Stennis told me about you when I came.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I am sorry he went; I feel such a Grandfather William, alone
+      among all these lads,&rdquo; he replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My name is Dodd,&rdquo; I resumed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;so Madame Siron told me.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dodd, of San Francisco,&rdquo; I continued. &ldquo;Late of
+      Pinkerton and Dodd.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Montana Block, I think?&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The same,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Neither of us looked at each other; but I could see his hand deliberately
+      making bread pills.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's a nice thing of yours,&rdquo; I pursued, &ldquo;that panel.
+      The foreground is a little clayey, perhaps, but the lagoon is excellent.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You ought to know,&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; returned I, &ldquo;I'm rather a good judge of&mdash;that
+      panel.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a considerable pause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know a man by the name of Bellairs, don't you?&rdquo; he
+      resumed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; cried I, &ldquo;you have heard from Doctor Urquart?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This very morning,&rdquo; he replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, there is no hurry about Bellairs,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;It's
+      rather a long story and rather a silly one. But I think we have a good
+      deal to tell each other, and perhaps we had better wait till we are more
+      alone.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think so,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;Not that any of these fellows
+      know English, but we'll be more comfortable over at my place. Your health,
+      Dodd.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And we took wine together across the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus had this singular introduction passed unperceived in the midst of
+      more than thirty persons, art students, ladies in dressing-gowns and
+      covered with rice powder, six foot of Siron whisking dishes over our head,
+      and his noisy sons clattering in and out with fresh relays.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One question more,&rdquo; said I: &ldquo;Did you recognise my
+      voice?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your voice?&rdquo; he repeated. &ldquo;How should I? I had never
+      heard it&mdash;we have never met.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And yet, we have been in conversation before now,&rdquo; said I,
+      &ldquo;and I asked you a question which you never answered, and which I
+      have since had many thousand better reasons for putting to myself.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned suddenly white. &ldquo;Good God!&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;are you
+      the man in the telephone?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, well!&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;It would take a good deal of
+      magnanimity to forgive you that. What nights I have passed! That little
+      whisper has whistled in my ear ever since, like the wind in a keyhole. Who
+      could it be? What could it mean? I suppose I have had more real, solid
+      misery out of that ...&rdquo; He paused, and looked troubled. &ldquo;Though
+      I had more to bother me, or ought to have,&rdquo; he added, and slowly
+      emptied his glass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It seems we were born to drive each other crazy with conundrums,&rdquo;
+      said I. &ldquo;I have often thought my head would split.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Carthew burst into his foolish laugh. &ldquo;And yet neither you nor I had
+      the worst of the puzzle,&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;There were others deeper
+      in.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And who were they?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The underwriters,&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, to be sure!&rdquo; cried I, &ldquo;I never thought of that.
+      What could they make of it?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing,&rdquo; replied Carthew. &ldquo;It couldn't be explained.
+      They were a crowd of small dealers at Lloyd's who took it up in syndicate;
+      one of them has a carriage now; and people say he is a deuce of a deep
+      fellow, and has the makings of a great financier. Another furnished a
+      small villa on the profits. But they're all hopelessly muddled; and when
+      they meet each other, they don't know where to look, like the Augurs.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dinner was no sooner at an end than he carried me across the road to
+      Masson's old studio. It was strangely changed. On the walls were tapestry,
+      a few good etchings, and some amazing pictures&mdash;a Rousseau, a Corot,
+      a really superb old Crome, a Whistler, and a piece which my host claimed
+      (and I believe) to be a Titian. The room was furnished with comfortable
+      English smoking-room chairs, some American rockers, and an elaborate
+      business table; spirits and soda-water (with the mark of Schweppe, no
+      less) stood ready on a butler's tray, and in one corner, behind a
+      half-drawn curtain, I spied a camp-bed and a capacious tub. Such a room in
+      Barbizon astonished the beholder, like the glories of the cave of Monte
+      Cristo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;we are quiet. Sit down, if you don't
+      mind, and tell me your story all through.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I did as he asked, beginning with the day when Jim showed me the passage
+      in the <i>Daily Occidental</i>, and winding up with the stamp album and
+      the Chailly postmark. It was a long business; and Carthew made it longer,
+      for he was insatiable of details; and it had struck midnight on the old
+      eight-day clock in the corner, before I had made an end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And now,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;turn about: I must tell you my
+      side, much as I hate it. Mine is a beastly story. You'll wonder how I can
+      sleep. I've told it once before, Mr. Dodd.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To Lady Ann?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As you suppose,&rdquo; he answered; &ldquo;and to say the truth, I
+      had sworn never to tell it again. Only, you seem somehow entitled to the
+      thing; you have paid dear enough, God knows; and God knows I hope you may
+      like it, now you've got it!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With that he began his yarn. A new day had dawned, the cocks crew in the
+      village and the early woodmen were afoot, when he concluded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXII. THE REMITTANCE MAN.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Singleton Carthew, the father of Norris, was heavily built and feebly
+      vitalised, sensitive as a musician, dull as a sheep, and conscientious as
+      a dog. He took his position with seriousness, even with pomp; the long
+      rooms, the silent servants, seemed in his eyes like the observances of
+      some religion of which he was the mortal god. He had the stupid man's
+      intolerance of stupidity in others; the vain man's exquisite alarm lest it
+      should be detected in himself. And on both sides Norris irritated and
+      offended him. He thought his son a fool, and he suspected that his son
+      returned the compliment with interest. The history of their relation was
+      simple; they met seldom, they quarrelled often. To his mother, a fiery,
+      pungent, practical woman, already disappointed in her husband and her
+      elder son, Norris was only a fresh disappointment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet the lad's faults were no great matter; he was diffident, placable,
+      passive, unambitious, unenterprising; life did not much attract him; he
+      watched it like a curious and dull exhibition, not much amused, and not
+      tempted in the least to take a part. He beheld his father ponderously
+      grinding sand, his mother fierily breaking butterflies, his brother
+      labouring at the pleasures of the Hawbuck with the ardour of a soldier in
+      a doubtful battle; and the vital sceptic looked on wondering. They were
+      careful and troubled about many things; for him there seemed not even one
+      thing needful. He was born disenchanted, the world's promises awoke no
+      echo in his bosom, the world's activities and the world's distinctions
+      seemed to him equally without a base in fact. He liked the open air; he
+      liked comradeship, it mattered not with whom, his comrades were only a
+      remedy for solitude. And he had a taste for painted art. An array of fine
+      pictures looked upon his childhood, and from these roods of jewelled
+      canvas he received an indelible impression. The gallery at Stallbridge
+      betokened generations of picture lovers; Norris was perhaps the first of
+      his race to hold the pencil. The taste was genuine, it grew and
+      strengthened with his growth; and yet he suffered it to be suppressed with
+      scarce a struggle. Time came for him to go to Oxford, and he resisted
+      faintly. He was stupid, he said; it was no good to put him through the
+      mill; he wished to be a painter. The words fell on his father like a
+      thunderbolt, and Norris made haste to give way. &ldquo;It didn't really
+      matter, don't you know?&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;And it seemed an awful
+      shame to vex the old boy.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To Oxford he went obediently, hopelessly; and at Oxford became the hero of
+      a certain circle. He was active and adroit; when he was in the humour, he
+      excelled in many sports; and his singular melancholy detachment gave him a
+      place apart. He set a fashion in his clique. Envious undergraduates sought
+      to parody his unaffected lack of zeal and fear; it was a kind of new
+      Byronism more composed and dignified. &ldquo;Nothing really mattered&rdquo;;
+      among other things, this formula embraced the dons; and though he always
+      meant to be civil, the effect on the college authorities was one of
+      startling rudeness. His indifference cut like insolence; and in some
+      outbreak of his constitutional levity (the complement of his melancholy)
+      he was &ldquo;sent down&rdquo; in the middle of the second year.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The event was new in the annals of the Carthews, and Singleton was
+      prepared to make the most of it. It had been long his practice to prophesy
+      for his second son a career of ruin and disgrace. There is an advantage in
+      this artless parental habit. Doubtless the father is interested in his
+      son; but doubtless also the prophet grows to be interested in his
+      prophecies. If the one goes wrong, the others come true. Old Carthew drew
+      from this source esoteric consolations; he dwelt at length on his own
+      foresight; he produced variations hitherto unheard from the old theme
+      &ldquo;I told you so,&rdquo; coupled his son's name with the gallows and
+      the hulks, and spoke of his small handful of college debts as though he
+      must raise money on a mortgage to discharge them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't think that is fair, sir,&rdquo; said Norris. &ldquo;I lived
+      at college exactly as you told me. I am sorry I was sent down, and you
+      have a perfect right to blame me for that; but you have no right to pitch
+      into me about these debts.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The effect upon a stupid man not unjustly incensed need scarcely be
+      described. For a while Singleton raved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll tell you what, father,&rdquo; said Norris at last, &ldquo;I
+      don't think this is going to do. I think you had better let me take to
+      painting. It's the only thing I take a spark of interest in. I shall never
+      be steady as long as I'm at anything else.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When you stand here, sir, to the neck in disgrace,&rdquo; said the
+      father, &ldquo;I should have hoped you would have had more good taste than
+      to repeat this levity.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The hint was taken; the levity was never more obtruded on the father's
+      notice, and Norris was inexorably launched upon a backward voyage. He went
+      abroad to study foreign languages, which he learned, at a very expensive
+      rate; and a fresh crop of debts fell soon to be paid, with similar
+      lamentations, which were in this case perfectly justified, and to which
+      Norris paid no regard. He had been unfairly treated over the Oxford
+      affair; and with a spice of malice very surprising in one so placable, and
+      an obstinacy remarkable in one so weak, refused from that day forward to
+      exercise the least captaincy on his expenses. He wasted what he would; he
+      allowed his servants to despoil him at their pleasure; he sowed
+      insolvency; and when the crop was ripe, notified his father with
+      exasperating calm. His own capital was put in his hands, he was planted in
+      the diplomatic service and told he must depend upon himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He did so till he was twenty-five; by which time he had spent his money,
+      laid in a handsome choice of debts, and acquired (like so many other
+      melancholic and uninterested persons) a habit of gambling. An Austrian
+      colonel&mdash;the same who afterwards hanged himself at Monte Carlo&mdash;gave
+      him a lesson which lasted two-and-twenty hours, and left him wrecked and
+      helpless. Old Singleton once more repurchased the honour of his name, this
+      time at a fancy figure; and Norris was set afloat again on stern
+      conditions. An allowance of three hundred pounds in the year was to be
+      paid to him quarterly by a lawyer in Sydney, New South Wales. He was not
+      to write. Should he fail on any quarter-day to be in Sydney, he was to be
+      held for dead, and the allowance tacitly withdrawn. Should he return to
+      Europe, an advertisement publicly disowning him was to appear in every
+      paper of repute.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was one of his most annoying features as a son, that he was always
+      polite, always just, and in whatever whirlwind of domestic anger, always
+      calm. He expected trouble; when trouble came, he was unmoved: he might
+      have said with Singleton, &ldquo;I told you so&rdquo;; he was content with
+      thinking, &ldquo;just as I expected.&rdquo; On the fall of these last
+      thunderbolts, he bore himself like a person only distantly interested in
+      the event; pocketed the money and the reproaches, obeyed orders
+      punctually; took ship and came to Sydney. Some men are still lads at
+      twenty-five; and so it was with Norris. Eighteen days after he landed, his
+      quarter's allowance was all gone, and with the light-hearted hopefulness
+      of strangers in what is called a new country, he began to besiege offices
+      and apply for all manner of incongruous situations. Everywhere, and last
+      of all from his lodgings, he was bowed out; and found himself reduced, in
+      a very elegant suit of summer tweeds, to herd and camp with the degraded
+      outcasts of the city.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this strait, he had recourse to the lawyer who paid him his allowance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Try to remember that my time is valuable, Mr. Carthew,&rdquo; said
+      the lawyer. &ldquo;It is quite unnecessary you should enlarge on the
+      peculiar position in which you stand. Remittance men, as we call them
+      here, are not so rare in my experience; and in such cases I act upon a
+      system. I make you a present of a sovereign; here it is. Every day you
+      choose to call, my clerk will advance you a shilling; on Saturday, since
+      my office is closed on Sunday, he will advance you half a crown. My
+      conditions are these: that you do not come to me, but to my clerk; that
+      you do not come here the worse of liquor; and you go away the moment you
+      are paid and have signed a receipt. I wish you a good-morning.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have to thank you, I suppose,&rdquo; said Carthew. &ldquo;My
+      position is so wretched that I cannot even refuse this starvation
+      allowance.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Starvation!&rdquo; said the lawyer, smiling. &ldquo;No man will
+      starve here on a shilling a day. I had on my hands another young
+      gentleman, who remained continuously intoxicated for six years on the same
+      allowance.&rdquo; And he once more busied himself with his papers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the time that followed, the image of the smiling lawyer haunted
+      Carthew's memory. &ldquo;That three minutes' talk was all the education I
+      ever had worth talking of,&rdquo; says he. &ldquo;It was all life in a
+      nut-shell. Confound it! I thought, have I got to the point of envying that
+      ancient fossil?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Every morning for the next two or three weeks, the stroke of ten found
+      Norris, unkempt and haggard, at the lawyer's door. The long day and longer
+      night he spent in the Domain, now on a bench, now on the grass under a
+      Norfolk Island pine, the companion of perhaps the lowest class on earth,
+      the Larrikins of Sydney. Morning after morning, the dawn behind the
+      lighthouse recalled him from slumber; and he would stand and gaze upon the
+      changing east, the fading lenses, the smokeless city, and the many-armed
+      and many-masted harbour growing slowly clear under his eyes. His
+      bed-fellows (so to call them) were less active; they lay sprawled upon the
+      grass and benches, the dingy men, the frowsy women, prolonging their late
+      repose; and Carthew wandered among the sleeping bodies alone, and cursed
+      the incurable stupidity of his behaviour. Day brought a new society of
+      nursery-maids and children, and fresh-dressed and (I am sorry to say)
+      tight-laced maidens, and gay people in rich traps; upon the skirts of
+      which Carthew and &ldquo;the other blackguards&rdquo;&mdash;his own bitter
+      phrase&mdash;skulked, and chewed grass, and looked on. Day passed, the
+      light died, the green and leafy precinct sparkled with lamps or lay in
+      shadow, and the round of the night began again, the loitering women, the
+      lurking men, the sudden outburst of screams, the sound of flying feet.
+      &ldquo;You mayn't believe it,&rdquo; says Carthew, &ldquo;but I got to
+      that pitch that I didn't care a hang. I have been wakened out of my sleep
+      to hear a woman screaming, and I have only turned upon my other side. Yes,
+      it's a queer place, where the dowagers and the kids walk all day, and at
+      night you can hear people bawling for help as if it was the Forest of
+      Bondy, with the lights of a great town all round, and parties spinning
+      through in cabs from Government House and dinner with my lord!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Norris's diversion, having none other, to scrape acquaintance,
+      where, how, and with whom he could. Many a long dull talk he held upon the
+      benches or the grass; many a strange waif he came to know; many strange
+      things he heard, and saw some that were abominable. It was to one of these
+      last that he owed his deliverance from the Domain. For some time the rain
+      had been merciless; one night after another he had been obliged to
+      squander fourpence on a bed and reduce his board to the remaining
+      eightpence: and he sat one morning near the Macquarrie Street entrance,
+      hungry, for he had gone without breakfast, and wet, as he had already been
+      for several days, when the cries of an animal in distress attracted his
+      attention. Some fifty yards away, in the extreme angle of the grass, a
+      party of the chronically unemployed had got hold of a dog, whom they were
+      torturing in a manner not to be described. The heart of Norris, which had
+      grown indifferent to the cries of human anger or distress, woke at the
+      appeal of the dumb creature. He ran amongst the Larrikins, scattered them,
+      rescued the dog, and stood at bay. They were six in number, shambling
+      gallowsbirds; but for once the proverb was right, cruelty was coupled with
+      cowardice, and the wretches cursed him and made off. It chanced that this
+      act of prowess had not passed unwitnessed. On a bench near by there was
+      seated a shopkeeper's assistant out of employ, a diminutive, cheerful,
+      red-headed creature by the name of Hemstead. He was the last man to have
+      interfered himself, for his discretion more than equalled his valour; but
+      he made haste to congratulate Carthew, and to warn him he might not always
+      be so fortunate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They're a dyngerous lot of people about this park. My word! it
+      doesn't do to ply with them!&rdquo; he observed, in that RYCY AUSTRYLIAN
+      English, which (as it has received the imprimatur of Mr. Froude) we should
+      all make haste to imitate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, I'm one of that lot myself,&rdquo; returned Carthew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hemstead laughed and remarked that he knew a gentleman when he saw one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For all that, I am simply one of the unemployed,&rdquo; said
+      Carthew, seating himself beside his new acquaintance, as he had sat (since
+      this experience began) beside so many dozen others.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm out of a plyce myself,&rdquo; said Hemstead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You beat me all the way and back,&rdquo; says Carthew. &ldquo;My
+      trouble is that I have never been in one.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose you've no tryde?&rdquo; asked Hemstead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know how to spend money,&rdquo; replied Carthew, &ldquo;and I
+      really do know something of horses and something of the sea. But the
+      unions head me off; if it weren't for them, I might have had a dozen
+      berths.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My word!&rdquo; cried the sympathetic listener. &ldquo;Ever try the
+      mounted police?&rdquo; he inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did, and was bowled out,&rdquo; was the reply; &ldquo;couldn't
+      pass the doctors.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, what do you think of the ryleways, then?&rdquo; asked
+      Hemstead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do YOU think of them, if you come to that?&rdquo; asked
+      Carthew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, <i>I</i> don't think of them; I don't go in for manual labour,&rdquo;
+      said the little man proudly. &ldquo;But if a man don't mind that, he's
+      pretty sure of a job there.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By George, you tell me where to go!&rdquo; cried Carthew, rising.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The heavy rains continued, the country was already overrun with floods;
+      the railway system daily required more hands, daily the superintendent
+      advertised; but &ldquo;the unemployed&rdquo; preferred the resources of
+      charity and rapine, and a navvy, even an amateur navvy, commanded money in
+      the market. The same night, after a tedious journey, and a change of
+      trains to pass a landslip, Norris found himself in a muddy cutting behind
+      South Clifton, attacking his first shift of manual labour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For weeks the rain scarce relented. The whole front of the mountain
+      slipped seaward from above, avalanches of clay, rock, and uprooted forest
+      spewed over the cliffs and fell upon the beach or in the breakers. Houses
+      were carried bodily away and smashed like nuts; others were menaced and
+      deserted, the door locked, the chimney cold, the dwellers fled elsewhere
+      for safety. Night and day the fire blazed in the encampment; night and day
+      hot coffee was served to the overdriven toilers in the shift; night and
+      day the engineer of the section made his rounds with words of
+      encouragement, hearty and rough and well suited to his men. Night and day,
+      too, the telegraph clicked with disastrous news and anxious inquiry. Along
+      the terraced line of rail, rare trains came creeping and signalling; and
+      paused at the threatened corner, like living things conscious of peril.
+      The commandant of the post would hastily review his labours, make (with a
+      dry throat) the signal to advance; and the whole squad line the way and
+      look on in a choking silence, or burst into a brief cheer as the train
+      cleared the point of danger and shot on, perhaps through the thin sunshine
+      between squalls, perhaps with blinking lamps into the gathering, rainy
+      twilight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One such scene Carthew will remember till he dies. It blew great guns from
+      the seaward; a huge surf bombarded, five hundred feet below him, the steep
+      mountain's foot; close in was a vessel in distress, firing shots from a
+      fowling-piece, if any help might come. So he saw and heard her the moment
+      before the train appeared and paused, throwing up a Babylonian tower of
+      smoke into the rain, and oppressing men's hearts with the scream of her
+      whistle. The engineer was there himself; he paled as he made the signal:
+      the engine came at a foot's pace; but the whole bulk of mountain shook and
+      seemed to nod seaward, and the watching navvies instinctively clutched at
+      shrubs and trees: vain precautions, vain as the shots from the poor
+      sailors. Once again fear was disappointed; the train passed unscathed; and
+      Norris, drawing a long breath, remembered the labouring ship and glanced
+      below. She was gone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So the days and the nights passed: Homeric labour in Homeric circumstance.
+      Carthew was sick with sleeplessness and coffee; his hands, softened by the
+      wet, were cut to ribbons; yet he enjoyed a peace of mind and health of
+      body hitherto unknown. Plenty of open air, plenty of physical exertion, a
+      continual instancy of toil; here was what had been hitherto lacking in
+      that misdirected life, and the true cure of vital scepticism. To get the
+      train through: there was the recurrent problem; no time remained to ask if
+      it were necessary. Carthew, the idler, the spendthrift, the drifting
+      dilettant, was soon remarked, praised, and advanced. The engineer swore by
+      him and pointed him out for an example. &ldquo;I've a new chum, up here,&rdquo;
+      Norris overheard him saying, &ldquo;a young swell. He's worth any two in
+      the squad.&rdquo; The words fell on the ears of the discarded son like
+      music; and from that moment, he not only found an interest, he took a
+      pride, in his plebeian tasks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The press of work was still at its highest when quarter-day approached.
+      Norris was now raised to a position of some trust; at his discretion,
+      trains were stopped or forwarded at the dangerous cornice near North
+      Clifton; and he found in this responsibility both terror and delight. The
+      thought of the seventy-five pounds that would soon await him at the
+      lawyer's, and of his own obligation to be present every quarter-day in
+      Sydney, filled him for a little with divided councils. Then he made up his
+      mind, walked in a slack moment to the inn at Clifton, ordered a sheet of
+      paper and a bottle of beer, and wrote, explaining that he held a good
+      appointment which he would lose if he came to Sydney, and asking the
+      lawyer to accept this letter as an evidence of his presence in the colony,
+      and retain the money till next quarter-day. The answer came in course of
+      post, and was not merely favourable but cordial. &ldquo;Although what you
+      propose is contrary to the terms of my instructions,&rdquo; it ran,
+      &ldquo;I willingly accept the responsibility of granting your request. I
+      should say I am agreeably disappointed in your behaviour. My experience
+      has not led me to found much expectations on gentlemen in your position.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rains abated, and the temporary labour was discharged; not Norris, to
+      whom the engineer clung as to found money; not Norris, who found himself a
+      ganger on the line in the regular staff of navvies. His camp was pitched
+      in a grey wilderness of rock and forest, far from any house; as he sat
+      with his mates about the evening fire, the trains passing on the track
+      were their next and indeed their only neighbours, except the wild things
+      of the wood. Lovely weather, light and monotonous employment, long hours
+      of somnolent camp-fire talk, long sleepless nights, when he reviewed his
+      foolish and fruitless career as he rose and walked in the moonlit forest,
+      an occasional paper of which he would read all, the advertisements with as
+      much relish as the text: such was the tenor of an existence which soon
+      began to weary and harass him. He lacked and regretted the fatigue, the
+      furious hurry, the suspense, the fires, the midnight coffee, the rude and
+      mud-bespattered poetry of the first toilful weeks. In the quietness of his
+      new surroundings, a voice summoned him from this exorbital part of life,
+      and about the middle of October he threw up his situation and bade
+      farewell to the camp of tents and the shoulder of Bald Mountain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Clad in his rough clothes, with a bundle on his shoulder and his
+      accumulated wages in his pocket, he entered Sydney for the second time,
+      and walked with pleasure and some bewilderment in the cheerful streets,
+      like a man landed from a voyage. The sight of the people led him on. He
+      forgot his necessary errands, he forgot to eat. He wandered in moving
+      multitudes like a stick upon a river. Last he came to the Domain and
+      strolled there, and remembered his shame and sufferings, and looked with
+      poignant curiosity at his successors. Hemstead, not much shabbier and no
+      less cheerful than before, he recognised and addressed like an old family
+      friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That was a good turn you did me,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;That
+      railway was the making of me. I hope you've had luck yourself.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My word, no!&rdquo; replied the little man. &ldquo;I just sit here
+      and read the <i>Dead Bird</i>. It's the depression in tryde, you see.
+      There's no positions goin' that a man like me would care to look at.&rdquo;
+      And he showed Norris his certificates and written characters, one from a
+      grocer in Wooloomooloo, one from an ironmonger, and a third from a
+      billiard saloon. &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I tried bein' a
+      billiard marker. It's no account; these lyte hours are no use for a man's
+      health. I won't be no man's slyve,&rdquo; he added firmly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the principle that he who is too proud to be a slave is usually not too
+      modest to become a pensioner, Carthew gave him half a sovereign, and
+      departed, being suddenly struck with hunger, in the direction of the Paris
+      House. When he came to that quarter of the city, the barristers were
+      trotting in the streets in wig and gown, and he stood to observe them with
+      his bundle on his shoulder, and his mind full of curious recollections of
+      the past.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By George!&rdquo; cried a voice, &ldquo;it's Mr. Carthew!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And turning about he found himself face to face with a handsome sunburnt
+      youth, somewhat fatted, arrayed in the finest of fine raiment, and
+      sporting about a sovereign's worth of flowers in his buttonhole. Norris
+      had met him during his first days in Sydney at a farewell supper; had even
+      escorted him on board a schooner full of cockroaches and black-boy
+      sailors, in which he was bound for six months among the islands; and had
+      kept him ever since in entertained remembrance. Tom Hadden (known to the
+      bulk of Sydney folk as Tommy) was heir to a considerable property, which a
+      prophetic father had placed in the hands of rigorous trustees. The income
+      supported Mr. Hadden in splendour for about three months out of twelve;
+      the rest of the year he passed in retreat among the islands. He was now
+      about a week returned from his eclipse, pervading Sydney in hansom cabs
+      and airing the first bloom of six new suits of clothes; and yet the
+      unaffected creature hailed Carthew in his working jeans and with the
+      damning bundle on his shoulder, as he might have claimed acquaintance with
+      a duke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come and have a drink!&rdquo; was his cheerful cry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm just going to have lunch at the Paris House,&rdquo; returned
+      Carthew. &ldquo;It's a long time since I have had a decent meal.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Splendid scheme!&rdquo; said Hadden. &ldquo;I've only had breakfast
+      half an hour ago; but we'll have a private room, and I'll manage to pick
+      something. It'll brace me up. I was on an awful tear last night, and I've
+      met no end of fellows this morning.&rdquo; To meet a fellow, and to stand
+      and share a drink, were with Tom synonymous terms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were soon at table in the corner room up-stairs, and paying due
+      attention to the best fare in Sydney. The odd similarity of their
+      positions drew them together, and they began soon to exchange confidences.
+      Carthew related his privations in the Domain and his toils as a navvy;
+      Hadden gave his experience as an amateur copra merchant in the South Seas,
+      and drew a humorous picture of life in a coral island. Of the two plans of
+      retirement, Carthew gathered that his own had been vastly the more
+      lucrative; but Hadden's trading outfit had consisted largely of bottled
+      stout and brown sherry for his own consumption.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had champagne too,&rdquo; said Hadden, &ldquo;but I kept that in
+      case of sickness, until I didn't seem to be going to be sick, and then I
+      opened a pint every Sunday. Used to sleep all morning, then breakfast with
+      my pint of fizz, and lie in a hammock and read Hallam's <i>Middle Ages</i>.
+      Have you read that? I always take something solid to the islands. There's
+      no doubt I did the thing in rather a fine style; but if it was gone about
+      a little cheaper, or there were two of us to bear the expense, it ought to
+      pay hand over fist. I've got the influence, you see. I'm a chief now, and
+      sit in the speak-house under my own strip of roof. I'd like to see them
+      taboo ME! They daren't try it; I've a strong party, I can tell you. Why,
+      I've had upwards of thirty cowtops sitting in my front verandah eating
+      tins of salmon.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cowtops?&rdquo; asked Carthew, &ldquo;what are they?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's what Hallam would call feudal retainers,&rdquo; explained
+      Hadden, not without vainglory. &ldquo;They're My Followers. They belong to
+      My Family. I tell you, they come expensive, though; you can't fill up all
+      these retainers on tinned salmon for nothing; but whenever I could get it,
+      I would give 'em squid. Squid's good for natives, but I don't care for it,
+      do you?&mdash;or shark either. It's like the working classes at home. With
+      copra at the price it is, they ought to be willing to bear their share of
+      the loss; and so I've told them again and again. I think it's a man's duty
+      to open their minds, and I try to, but you can't get political economy
+      into them; it doesn't seem to reach their intelligence.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was an expression still sticking in Carthew's memory, and he
+      returned upon it with a smile. &ldquo;Talking of political economy,&rdquo;
+      said he, &ldquo;you said if there were two of us to bear the expense, the
+      profits would increase. How do you make out that?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll show you! I'll figure it out for you!&rdquo; cried Hadden, and
+      with a pencil on the back of the bill of fare proceeded to perform
+      miracles. He was a man, or let us rather say a lad, of unusual projective
+      power. Give him the faintest hint of any speculation, and the figures
+      flowed from him by the page. A lively imagination and a ready though
+      inaccurate memory supplied his data; he delivered himself with an
+      inimitable heat that made him seem the picture of pugnacity; lavished
+      contradiction; had a form of words, with or without significance, for
+      every form of criticism; and the looker-on alternately smiled at his
+      simplicity and fervour, or was amazed by his unexpected shrewdness. He was
+      a kind of Pinkerton in play. I have called Jim's the romance of business;
+      this was its Arabian tale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you any idea what this would cost?&rdquo; he asked, pausing at
+      an item.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not I,&rdquo; said Carthew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ten pounds ought to be ample,&rdquo; concluded the projector.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, nonsense!&rdquo; cried Carthew. &ldquo;Fifty at the very least.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You told me yourself this moment you knew nothing about it!&rdquo;
+      cried Tommy. &ldquo;How can I make a calculation, if you blow hot and
+      cold? You don't seem able to be serious!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But he consented to raise his estimate to twenty; and a little after, the
+      calculation coming out with a deficit, cut it down again to five pounds
+      ten, with the remark, &ldquo;I told you it was nonsense. This sort of
+      thing has to be done strictly, or where's the use?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some of these processes struck Carthew as unsound; and he was at times
+      altogether thrown out by the capricious startings of the prophet's mind.
+      These plunges seemed to be gone into for exercise and by the way, like the
+      curvets of a willing horse. Gradually the thing took shape; the glittering
+      if baseless edifice arose; and the hare still ran on the mountains, but
+      the soup was already served in silver plate. Carthew in a few days could
+      command a hundred and fifty pounds; Hadden was ready with five hundred;
+      why should they not recruit a fellow or two more, charter an old ship, and
+      go cruising on their own account? Carthew was an experienced yachtsman;
+      Hadden professed himself able to &ldquo;work an approximate sight.&rdquo;
+      Money was undoubtedly to be made, or why should so many vessels cruise
+      about the islands? they, who worked their own ship, were sure of a still
+      higher profit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And whatever else comes of it, you see,&rdquo; cried Hadden,
+      &ldquo;we get our keep for nothing. Come, buy some togs, that's the first
+      thing you have to do of course; and then we'll take a hansom and go to the
+      Currency Lass.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm going to stick to the togs I have,&rdquo; said Norris.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you?&rdquo; cried Hadden. &ldquo;Well, I must say I admire you.
+      You're a regular sage. It's what you call Pythagoreanism, isn't it? if I
+      haven't forgotten my philosophy.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I call it economy,&rdquo; returned Carthew. &ldquo;If we are
+      going to try this thing on, I shall want every sixpence.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'll see if we're going to try it!&rdquo; cried Tommy, rising
+      radiant from table. &ldquo;Only, mark you, Carthew, it must be all in your
+      name. I have capital, you see; but you're all right. You can play vacuus
+      viator, if the thing goes wrong.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought we had just proved it was quite safe,&rdquo; said
+      Carthew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's nothing safe in business, my boy,&rdquo; replied the sage;
+      &ldquo;not even bookmaking.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The public house and tea garden called the Currency Lass represented a
+      moderate fortune gained by its proprietor, Captain Bostock, during a long,
+      active, and occasionally historic career among the islands. Anywhere from
+      Tonga to the Admiralty Isles, he knew the ropes and could lie in the
+      native dialect. He had seen the end of sandal wood, the end of oil, and
+      the beginning of copra; and he was himself a commercial pioneer, the first
+      that ever carried human teeth into the Gilberts. He was tried for his life
+      in Fiji in Sir Arthur Gordon's time; and if ever he prayed at all, the
+      name of Sir Arthur was certainly not forgotten. He was speared in seven
+      places in New Ireland&mdash;the same time his mate was killed&mdash;the
+      famous &ldquo;outrage on the brig Jolly Roger&rdquo;; but the treacherous
+      savages made little by their wickedness, and Bostock, in spite of their
+      teeth, got seventy-five head of volunteer labour on board, of whom not
+      more than a dozen died of injuries. He had a hand, besides, in the amiable
+      pleasantry which cost the life of Patteson; and when the sham bishop
+      landed, prayed, and gave his benediction to the natives, Bostock, arrayed
+      in a female chemise out of the traderoom, had stood at his right hand and
+      boomed amens. This, when he was sure he was among good fellows, was his
+      favourite yarn. &ldquo;Two hundred head of labour for a hatful of amens,&rdquo;
+      he used to name the tale; and its sequel, the death of the real bishop,
+      struck him as a circumstance of extraordinary humour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Many of these details were communicated in the hansom, to the surprise of
+      Carthew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do we want to visit this old ruffian?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You wait till you hear him,&rdquo; replied Tommy. &ldquo;That man
+      knows everything.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On descending from the hansom at the Currency Lass, Hadden was struck with
+      the appearance of the cabman, a gross, salt-looking man, red-faced,
+      blue-eyed, short-handed and short-winded, perhaps nearing forty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Surely I know you?&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;Have you driven me
+      before?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Many's the time, Mr. Hadden,&rdquo; returned the driver. &ldquo;The
+      last time you was back from the islands, it was me that drove you to the
+      races, sir.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right: jump down and have a drink then,&rdquo; said Tom, and he
+      turned and led the way into the garden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Captain Bostock met the party: he was a slow, sour old man, with fishy
+      eyes; greeted Tommy offhand, and (as was afterwards remembered) exchanged
+      winks with the driver.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A bottle of beer for the cabman there at that table,&rdquo; said
+      Tom. &ldquo;Whatever you please from shandygaff to champagne at this one
+      here; and you sit down with us. Let me make you acquainted with my friend,
+      Mr. Carthew. I've come on business, Billy; I want to consult you as a
+      friend; I'm going into the island trade upon my own account.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Doubtless the captain was a mine of counsel, but opportunity was denied
+      him. He could not venture on a statement, he was scarce allowed to finish
+      a phrase, before Hadden swept him from the field with a volley of protest
+      and correction. That projector, his face blazing with inspiration, first
+      laid before him at inordinate length a question, and as soon as he
+      attempted to reply, leaped at his throat, called his facts in question,
+      derided his policy, and at times thundered on him from the heights of
+      moral indignation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg your pardon,&rdquo; he said once. &ldquo;I am a gentleman,
+      Mr. Carthew here is a gentleman, and we don't mean to do that class of
+      business. Can't you see who you are talking to? Can't you talk sense?
+      Can't you give us 'a dead bird' for a good traderoom?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I don't suppose I can,&rdquo; returned old Bostock; &ldquo;not
+      when I can't hear my own voice for two seconds together. It was gin and
+      guns I did it with.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take your gin and guns to Putney!&rdquo; cried Hadden. &ldquo;It
+      was the thing in your times, that's right enough; but you're old now, and
+      the game's up. I'll tell you what's wanted now-a-days, Bill Bostock,&rdquo;
+      said he; and did, and took ten minutes to it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Carthew could not refrain from smiling. He began to think less seriously
+      of the scheme, Hadden appearing too irresponsible a guide; but on the
+      other hand, he enjoyed himself amazingly. It was far from being the same
+      with Captain Bostock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know a sight, don't you?&rdquo; remarked that gentleman,
+      bitterly, when Tommy paused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know a sight more than you, if that's what you mean,&rdquo;
+      retorted Tom. &ldquo;It stands to reason I do. You're not a man of any
+      education; you've been all your life at sea or in the islands; you don't
+      suppose you can give points to a man like me?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here's your health, Tommy,&rdquo; returned Bostock. &ldquo;You'll
+      make an A-one bake in the New Hebrides.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's what I call talking,&rdquo; cried Tom, not perhaps grasping
+      the spirit of this doubtful compliment. &ldquo;Now you give me your
+      attention. We have the money and the enterprise, and I have the
+      experience: what we want is a cheap, smart boat, a good captain, and an
+      introduction to some house that will give us credit for the trade.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I'll tell you,&rdquo; said Captain Bostock. &ldquo;I have
+      seen men like you baked and eaten, and complained of afterwards. Some was
+      tough, and some hadn't no flaviour,&rdquo; he added grimly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you mean by that?&rdquo; cried Tom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean I don't care,&rdquo; cried Bostock. &ldquo;It ain't any of
+      my interests. I haven't underwrote your life. Only I'm blest if I'm not
+      sorry for the cannibal as tries to eat your head. And what I recommend is
+      a cheap, smart coffin and a good undertaker. See if you can find a house
+      to give you credit for a coffin! Look at your friend there; HE'S got some
+      sense; he's laughing at you so as he can't stand.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The exact degree of ill-feeling in Mr. Bostock's mind was difficult to
+      gauge; perhaps there was not much, perhaps he regarded his remarks as a
+      form of courtly badinage. But there is little doubt that Hadden resented
+      them. He had even risen from his place, and the conference was on the
+      point of breaking up, when a new voice joined suddenly in the
+      conversation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The cabman sat with his back turned upon the party, smoking a meerschaum
+      pipe. Not a word of Tommy's eloquence had missed him, and he now faced
+      suddenly about with these amazing words:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Excuse me, gentlemen; if you'll buy me the ship I want, I'll get
+      you the trade on credit.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a pause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, what do YOU, mean?&rdquo; gasped Tommy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Better tell 'em who I am, Billy,&rdquo; said the cabman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Think it safe, Joe?&rdquo; inquired Mr. Bostock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll take my risk of it,&rdquo; returned the cabman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gentlemen,&rdquo; said Bostock, rising solemnly, &ldquo;let me make
+      you acquainted with Captain Wicks of the Grace Darling.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, gentlemen, that is what I am,&rdquo; said the cabman. &ldquo;You
+      know I've been in trouble; and I don't deny but what I struck the blow,
+      and where was I to get evidence of my provocation? So I turned to and took
+      a cab, and I've driven one for three year now and nobody the wiser.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg your pardon,&rdquo; said Carthew, joining almost for the
+      first time; &ldquo;I'm a new chum. What was the charge?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Murder,&rdquo; said Captain Wicks, &ldquo;and I don't deny but what
+      I struck the blow. And there's no sense in my trying to deny I was afraid
+      to go to trial, or why would I be here? But it's a fact it was flat
+      mutiny. Ask Billy here. He knows how it was.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Carthew breathed long; he had a strange, half-pleasurable sense of wading
+      deeper in the tide of life. &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;you were
+      going on to say?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was going on to say this,&rdquo; said the captain sturdily.
+      &ldquo;I've overheard what Mr. Hadden has been saying, and I think he
+      talks good sense. I like some of his ideas first chop. He's sound on
+      traderooms; he's all there on the traderoom, and I see that he and I would
+      pull together. Then you're both gentlemen, and I like that,&rdquo;
+      observed Captain Wicks. &ldquo;And then I'll tell you I'm tired of this
+      cabbing cruise, and I want to get to work again. Now, here's my offer.
+      I've a little money I can stake up,&mdash;all of a hundred anyway. Then my
+      old firm will give me trade, and jump at the chance; they never lost by
+      me; they know what I'm worth as supercargo. And, last of all, you want a
+      good captain to sail your ship for you. Well, here I am. I've sailed
+      schooners for ten years. Ask Billy if I can handle a schooner.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No man better,&rdquo; said Billy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And as for my character as a shipmate,&rdquo; concluded Wicks,
+      &ldquo;go and ask my old firm.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But look here!&rdquo; cried Hadden, &ldquo;how do you mean to
+      manage? You can whisk round in a hansom, and no questions asked. But if
+      you try to come on a quarter-deck, my boy, you'll get nabbed.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll have to keep back till the last,&rdquo; replied Wicks, &ldquo;and
+      take another name.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But how about clearing? what other name?&rdquo; asked Tommy, a
+      little bewildered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know yet,&rdquo; returned the captain, with a grin. &ldquo;I'll
+      see what the name is on my new certificate, and that'll be good enough for
+      me. If I can't get one to buy, though I never heard of such a thing,
+      there's old Kirkup, he's turned some sort of farmer down Bondi way; he'll
+      hire me his.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You seemed to speak as if you had a ship in view,&rdquo; said
+      Carthew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So I have, too,&rdquo; said Captain Wicks, &ldquo;and a beauty.
+      Schooner yacht Dream; got lines you never saw the beat of; and a witch to
+      go. She passed me once off Thursday Island, doing two knots to my one and
+      laying a point and a half better; and the Grace Darling was a ship that I
+      was proud of. I took and tore my hair. The Dream's been MY dream ever
+      since. That was in her old days, when she carried a blue ens'n. Grant
+      Sanderson was the party as owned her; he was rich and mad, and got a fever
+      at last somewhere about the Fly River, and took and died. The captain
+      brought the body back to Sydney, and paid off. Well, it turned out Grant
+      Sanderson had left any quantity of wills and any quantity of widows, and
+      no fellow could make out which was the genuine article. All the widows
+      brought lawsuits against all the rest, and every will had a firm of
+      lawyers on the quarterdeck as long as your arm. They tell me it was one of
+      the biggest turns-to that ever was seen, bar Tichborne; the Lord
+      Chamberlain himself was floored, and so was the Lord Chancellor; and all
+      that time the Dream lay rotting up by Glebe Point. Well, it's done now;
+      they've picked out a widow and a will; tossed up for it, as like as not;
+      and the Dream's for sale. She'll go cheap; she's had a long turn-to at
+      rotting.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What size is she?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, big enough. We don't want her bigger. A hundred and ninety,
+      going two hundred,&rdquo; replied the captain. &ldquo;She's fully big for
+      us three; it would be all the better if we had another hand, though it's a
+      pity too, when you can pick up natives for half nothing. Then we must have
+      a cook. I can fix raw sailor-men, but there's no going to sea with a
+      new-chum cook. I can lay hands on the man we want for that: a Highway boy,
+      an old shipmate of mine, of the name of Amalu. Cooks first rate, and it's
+      always better to have a native; he aint fly, you can turn him to as you
+      please, and he don't know enough to stand out for his rights.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the moment that Captain Wicks joined in the conversation, Carthew
+      recovered interest and confidence; the man (whatever he might have done)
+      was plainly good-natured, and plainly capable; if he thought well of the
+      enterprise, offered to contribute money, brought experience, and could
+      thus solve at a word the problem of the trade, Carthew was content to go
+      ahead. As for Hadden, his cup was full; he and Bostock forgave each other
+      in champagne; toast followed toast; it was proposed and carried amid
+      acclamation to change the name of the schooner (when she should be bought)
+      to the Currency Lass; and the Currency Lass Island Trading Company was
+      practically founded before dusk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Three days later, Carthew stood before the lawyer, still in his jean suit,
+      received his hundred and fifty pounds, and proceeded rather timidly to ask
+      for more indulgence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have a chance to get on in the world,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;By
+      to-morrow evening I expect to be part owner of a ship.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dangerous property, Mr. Carthew,&rdquo; said the lawyer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not if the partners work her themselves and stand to go down along
+      with her,&rdquo; was the reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I conceive it possible you might make something of it in that way,&rdquo;
+      returned the other. &ldquo;But are you a seaman? I thought you had been in
+      the diplomatic service.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am an old yachtsman,&rdquo; said Norris. &ldquo;And I must do the
+      best I can. A fellow can't live in New South Wales upon diplomacy. But the
+      point I wish to prepare you for is this. It will be impossible I should
+      present myself here next quarter-day; we expect to make a six months'
+      cruise of it among the islands.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sorry, Mr. Carthew: I can't hear of that,&rdquo; replied the
+      lawyer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean upon the same conditions as the last,&rdquo; said Carthew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The conditions are exactly opposite,&rdquo; said the lawyer.
+      &ldquo;Last time I had reason to know you were in the colony; and even
+      then I stretched a point. This time, by your own confession, you are
+      contemplating a breach of the agreement; and I give you warning if you
+      carry it out and I receive proof of it (for I will agree to regard this
+      conversation as confidential) I shall have no choice but to do my duty. Be
+      here on quarter-day, or your allowance ceases.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is very hard and, I think, rather silly,&rdquo; returned
+      Carthew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not of my doing. I have my instructions,&rdquo; said the
+      lawyer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you so read these instructions, that I am to be prohibited from
+      making an honest livelihood?&rdquo; asked Carthew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us be frank,&rdquo; said the lawyer. &ldquo;I find nothing in
+      these instructions about an honest livelihood. I have no reason to suppose
+      my clients care anything about that. I have reason to suppose only one
+      thing,&mdash;that they mean you shall stay in this colony, and to guess
+      another, Mr. Carthew. And to guess another.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you mean by that?&rdquo; asked Norris.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean that I imagine, on very strong grounds, that your family
+      desire to see no more of you,&rdquo; said the lawyer. &ldquo;O, they may
+      be very wrong; but that is the impression conveyed, that is what I suppose
+      I am paid to bring about, and I have no choice but to try and earn my
+      hire.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would scorn to deceive you,&rdquo; said Norris, with a strong
+      flush, &ldquo;you have guessed rightly. My family refuse to see me; but I
+      am not going to England, I am going to the islands. How does that affect
+      the islands?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, but I don't know that you are going to the islands,&rdquo; said
+      the lawyer, looking down, and spearing the blotting-paper with a pencil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg your pardon. I have the pleasure of informing you,&rdquo;
+      said Norris.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am afraid, Mr. Carthew, that I cannot regard that communication
+      as official,&rdquo; was the slow reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not accustomed to have my word doubted!&rdquo; cried Norris.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush! I allow no one to raise his voice in my office,&rdquo; said
+      the lawyer. &ldquo;And for that matter&mdash;you seem to be a young
+      gentleman of sense&mdash;consider what I know of you. You are a discarded
+      son; your family pays money to be shut of you. What have you done? I don't
+      know. But do you not see how foolish I should be, if I exposed my business
+      reputation on the safeguard of the honour of a gentleman of whom I know
+      just so much and no more? This interview is very disagreeable. Why prolong
+      it? Write home, get my instructions changed, and I will change my
+      behaviour. Not otherwise.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am very fond of three hundred a year,&rdquo; said Norris, &ldquo;but
+      I cannot pay the price required. I shall not have the pleasure of seeing
+      you again.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must please yourself,&rdquo; said the lawyer. &ldquo;Fail to be
+      here next quarter-day, and the thing stops. But I warn you, and I mean the
+      warning in a friendly spirit. Three months later you will be here begging,
+      and I shall have no choice but to show you in the street.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish you a good-evening,&rdquo; said Norris.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The same to you, Mr. Carthew,&rdquo; retorted the lawyer, and rang
+      for his clerk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So it befell that Norris during what remained to him of arduous days in
+      Sydney, saw not again the face of his legal adviser; and he was already at
+      sea, and land was out of sight, when Hadden brought him a Sydney paper,
+      over which he had been dozing in the shadow of the galley, and showed him
+      an advertisement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Norris Carthew is earnestly entreated to call without delay at
+      the office of Mr. &mdash;&mdash;, where important intelligence awaits him.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It must manage to wait for me six months,&rdquo; said Norris,
+      lightly enough, but yet conscious of a pang of curiosity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIII. THE BUDGET OF THE &ldquo;CURRENCY LASS.&rdquo;
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Before noon on the 26th November, there cleared from the port of Sydney
+      the schooner, Currency Lass. The owner, Norris Carthew, was on board in
+      the somewhat unusual position of mate; the master's name purported to be
+      William Kirkup; the cook was a Hawaiian boy, Joseph Amalu; and there were
+      two hands before the mast, Thomas Hadden and Richard Hemstead, the latter
+      chosen partly because of his humble character, partly because he had an
+      odd-job-man's handiness with tools. The Currency Lass was bound for the
+      South Sea Islands, and first of all for Butaritari in the Gilberts, on a
+      register; but it was understood about the harbour that her cruise was more
+      than half a pleasure trip. A friend of the late Grant Sanderson (of
+      Auchentroon and Kilclarty) might have recognised in that tall-masted ship,
+      the transformed and rechristened Dream; and the Lloyd's surveyor, had the
+      services of such a one been called in requisition, must have found
+      abundant subject of remark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For time, during her three years' inaction, had eaten deep into the Dream
+      and her fittings; she had sold in consequence a shade above her value as
+      old junk; and the three adventurers had scarce been able to afford even
+      the most vital repairs. The rigging, indeed, had been partly renewed, and
+      the rest set up; all Grant Sanderson's old canvas had been patched
+      together into one decently serviceable suit of sails; Grant Sanderson's
+      masts still stood, and might have wondered at themselves. &ldquo;I haven't
+      the heart to tap them,&rdquo; Captain Wicks used to observe, as he
+      squinted up their height or patted their rotundity; and &ldquo;as rotten
+      as our foremast&rdquo; was an accepted metaphor in the ship's company. The
+      sequel rather suggests it may have been sounder than was thought; but no
+      one knew for certain, just as no one except the captain appreciated the
+      dangers of the cruise. The captain, indeed, saw with clear eyes and spoke
+      his mind aloud; and though a man of an astonishing hot-blooded courage,
+      following life and taking its dangers in the spirit of a hound upon the
+      slot, he had made a point of a big whaleboat. &ldquo;Take your choice,&rdquo;
+      he had said; &ldquo;either new masts and rigging or that boat. I simply
+      ain't going to sea without the one or the other. Chicken coops are good
+      enough, no doubt, and so is a dinghy; but they ain't for Joe.&rdquo; And
+      his partners had been forced to consent, and saw six and thirty pounds of
+      their small capital vanish in the turn of a hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All four had toiled the best part of six weeks getting ready; and though
+      Captain Wicks was of course not seen or heard of, a fifth was there to
+      help them, a fellow in a bushy red beard, which he would sometimes lay
+      aside when he was below, and who strikingly resembled Captain Wicks in
+      voice and character. As for Captain Kirkup, he did not appear till the
+      last moment, when he proved to be a burly mariner, bearded like Abou Ben
+      Adhem. All the way down the harbour and through the Heads, his milk-white
+      whiskers blew in the wind and were conspicuous from shore; but the
+      Currency Lass had no sooner turned her back upon the lighthouse, than he
+      went below for the inside of five seconds and reappeared clean shaven. So
+      many doublings and devices were required to get to sea with an unseaworthy
+      ship and a captain that was &ldquo;wanted.&rdquo; Nor might even these
+      have sufficed, but for the fact that Hadden was a public character, and
+      the whole cruise regarded with an eye of indulgence as one of Tom's
+      engaging eccentricities. The ship, besides, had been a yacht before; and
+      it came the more natural to allow her still some of the dangerous
+      liberties of her old employment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A strange ship they had made of it, her lofty spars disfigured with
+      patched canvas, her panelled cabin fitted for a traderoom with rude
+      shelves. And the life they led in that anomalous schooner was no less
+      curious than herself. Amalu alone berthed forward; the rest occupied
+      staterooms, camped upon the satin divans, and sat down in Grant
+      Sanderson's parquetry smoking-room to meals of junk and potatoes, bad of
+      their kind and often scant in quantity. Hemstead grumbled; Tommy had
+      occasional moments of revolt and increased the ordinary by a few haphazard
+      tins or a bottle of his own brown sherry. But Hemstead grumbled from
+      habit, Tommy revolted only for the moment, and there was underneath a real
+      and general acquiescence in these hardships. For besides onions and
+      potatoes, the Currency Lass may be said to have gone to sea without
+      stores. She carried two thousand pounds' worth of assorted trade, advanced
+      on credit, their whole hope and fortune. It was upon this that they
+      subsisted&mdash;mice in their own granary. They dined upon their future
+      profits; and every scanty meal was so much in the savings bank.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Republican as were their manners, there was no practical, at least no
+      dangerous, lack of discipline. Wicks was the only sailor on board, there
+      was none to criticise; and besides, he was so easy-going, and so
+      merry-minded, that none could bear to disappoint him. Carthew did his
+      best, partly for the love of doing it, partly for love of the captain;
+      Amalu was a willing drudge, and even Hemstead and Hadden turned to upon
+      occasion with a will. Tommy's department was the trade and traderoom; he
+      would work down in the hold or over the shelves of the cabin, till the
+      Sydney dandy was unrecognizable; come up at last, draw a bucket of
+      sea-water, bathe, change, and lie down on deck over a big sheaf of Sydney
+      <i>Heralds</i> and <i>Dead Birds</i>, or perhaps with a volume of Buckle's
+      <i>History of Civilisation</i>, the standard work selected for that
+      cruise. In the latter case, a smile went round the ship, for Buckle almost
+      invariably laid his student out, and when Tom awoke again he was almost
+      always in the humour for brown sherry. The connection was so well
+      established that &ldquo;a glass of Buckle&rdquo; or &ldquo;a bottle of
+      civilisation&rdquo; became current pleasantries on board the Currency
+      Lass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hemstead's province was that of the repairs, and he had his hands full.
+      Nothing on board but was decayed in a proportion; the lamps leaked; so did
+      the decks; door-knobs came off in the hand, mouldings parted company with
+      the panels, the pump declined to suck, and the defective bathroom came
+      near to swamp the ship. Wicks insisted that all the nails were long ago
+      consumed, and that she was only glued together by the rust. &ldquo;You
+      shouldn't make me laugh so much, Tommy,&rdquo; he would say. &ldquo;I'm
+      afraid I'll shake the sternpost out of her.&rdquo; And, as Hemstead went
+      to and fro with his tool basket on an endless round of tinkering, Wicks
+      lost no opportunity of chaffing him upon his duties. &ldquo;If you'd turn
+      to at sailoring or washing paint or something useful, now,&rdquo; he would
+      say, &ldquo;I could see the fun of it. But to be mending things that
+      haven't no insides to them appears to me the height of foolishness.&rdquo;
+      And doubtless these continual pleasantries helped to reassure the
+      landsmen, who went to and fro unmoved, under circumstances that might have
+      daunted Nelson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The weather was from the outset splendid, and the wind fair and steady.
+      The ship sailed like a witch. &ldquo;This Currency Lass is a powerful old
+      girl, and has more complaints than I would care to put a name on,&rdquo;
+      the captain would say, as he pricked the chart; &ldquo;but she could show
+      her blooming heels to anything of her size in the Western Pacific.&rdquo;
+      To wash decks, relieve the wheel, do the day's work after dinner on the
+      smoking-room table, and take in kites at night,&mdash;such was the easy
+      routine of their life. In the evening&mdash;above all, if Tommy had
+      produced some of his civilisation&mdash;yarns and music were the rule.
+      Amalu had a sweet Hawaiian voice; and Hemstead, a great hand upon the
+      banjo, accompanied his own quavering tenor with effect. There was a sense
+      in which the little man could sing. It was great to hear him deliver <i>My
+      Boy Tammie</i> in Austrylian; and the words (some of the worst of the
+      ruffian Macneil's) were hailed in his version with inextinguishable mirth.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Where hye ye been a' dye?
+</pre>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     he would ask, and answer himself:&mdash;
+
+     I've been by burn and flowery brye,
+     Meadow green an' mountain grye,
+     Courtin' o' this young thing,
+     Just come frye her mammie.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      It was the accepted jest for all hands to greet the conclusion of this
+      song with the simultaneous cry: &ldquo;My word!&rdquo; thus winging the
+      arrow of ridicule with a feather from the singer's wing. But he had his
+      revenge with <i>Home, Sweet Home,</i> and <i>Where is my Wandering Boy
+      To-night?</i>&mdash;ditties into which he threw the most intolerable
+      pathos. It appeared he had no home, nor had ever had one, nor yet any
+      vestige of a family, except a truculent uncle, a baker in Newcastle,
+      N.S.W. His domestic sentiment was therefore wholly in the air, and
+      expressed an unrealised ideal. Or perhaps, of all his experiences, this of
+      the Currency Lass, with its kindly, playful, and tolerant society,
+      approached it the most nearly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is perhaps because I know the sequel, but I can never think upon this
+      voyage without a profound sense of pity and mystery; of the ship (once the
+      whim of a rich blackguard) faring with her battered fineries and upon her
+      homely errand, across the plains of ocean, and past the gorgeous scenery
+      of dawn and sunset; and the ship's company, so strangely assembled, so
+      Britishly chuckle-headed, filling their days with chaff in place of
+      conversation; no human book on board with them except Hadden's Buckle, and
+      not a creature fit either to read or to understand it; and the one mark of
+      any civilised interest, being when Carthew filled in his spare hours with
+      the pencil and the brush: the whole unconscious crew of them posting in
+      the meanwhile towards so tragic a disaster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Twenty-eight days out of Sydney, on Christmas eve, they fetched up to the
+      entrance of the lagoon, and plied all that night outside, keeping their
+      position by the lights of fishers on the reef and the outlines of the
+      palms against the cloudy sky. With the break of day, the schooner was hove
+      to, and the signal for a pilot shown. But it was plain her lights must
+      have been observed in the darkness by the native fishermen, and word
+      carried to the settlement, for a boat was already under weigh. She came
+      towards them across the lagoon under a great press of sail, lying
+      dangerously down, so that at times, in the heavier puffs, they thought she
+      would turn turtle; covered the distance in fine style, luffed up smartly
+      alongside, and emitted a haggard looking white man in pyjamas.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-mornin', Cap'n,&rdquo; said he, when he had made good his
+      entrance. &ldquo;I was taking you for a Fiji man-of-war, what with your
+      flush decks and them spars. Well, gen'lemen all, here's wishing you a
+      Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,&rdquo; he added, and lurched against
+      a stay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, you're never the pilot?&rdquo; exclaimed Wicks, studying him
+      with a profound disfavour. &ldquo;You've never taken a ship in&mdash;don't
+      tell me!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I should guess I have,&rdquo; returned the pilot. &ldquo;I'm
+      Captain Dobbs, I am; and when I take charge, the captain of that ship can
+      go below and shave.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, man alive! you're drunk, man!&rdquo; cried the captain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Drunk!&rdquo; repeated Dobbs. &ldquo;You can't have seen much life
+      if you call me drunk. I'm only just beginning. Come night, I won't say; I
+      guess I'll be properly full by then. But now I'm the soberest man in all
+      Big Muggin.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It won't do,&rdquo; retorted Wicks. &ldquo;Not for Joseph, sir. I
+      can't have you piling up my schooner.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right,&rdquo; said Dobbs, &ldquo;lay and rot where you are, or
+      take and go in and pile her up for yourself like the captain of the
+      Leslie. That's business, I guess; grudged me twenty dollars' pilotage, and
+      lost twenty thousand in trade and a brand new schooner; ripped the keel
+      right off of her, and she went down in the inside of four minutes, and
+      lies in twenty fathom, trade and all.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's all this?&rdquo; cried Wicks. &ldquo;Trade? What vessel was
+      this Leslie, anyhow?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Consigned to Cohen and Co., from 'Frisco,&rdquo; returned the
+      pilot, &ldquo;and badly wanted. There's a barque inside filling up for
+      Hamburg&mdash;you see her spars over there; and there's two more ships
+      due, all the way from Germany, one in two months, they say, and one in
+      three; Cohen and Co.'s agent (that's Mr. Topelius) has taken and lain down
+      with the jaundice on the strength of it. I guess most people would, in his
+      shoes; no trade, no copra, and twenty hundred ton of shipping due. If
+      you've any copra on board, cap'n, here's your chance. Topelius will buy,
+      gold down, and give three cents. It's all found money to him, the way it
+      is, whatever he pays for it. And that's what come of going back on the
+      pilot.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Excuse me one moment, Captain Dobbs. I wish to speak with my mate,&rdquo;
+      said the captain, whose face had begun to shine and his eyes to sparkle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please yourself,&rdquo; replied the pilot. &ldquo;You couldn't
+      think of offering a man a nip, could you? just to brace him up. This kind
+      of thing looks damned inhospitable, and gives a schooner a bad name.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll talk about that after the anchor's down,&rdquo; returned
+      Wicks, and he drew Carthew forward. &ldquo;I say,&rdquo; he whispered,
+      &ldquo;here's a fortune.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How much do you call that?&rdquo; asked Carthew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can't put a figure on it yet&mdash;I daren't!&rdquo; said the
+      captain. &ldquo;We might cruise twenty years and not find the match of it.
+      And suppose another ship came in to-night? Everything's possible! And the
+      difficulty is this Dobbs. He's as drunk as a marine. How can we trust him?
+      We ain't insured&mdash;worse luck!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Suppose you took him aloft and got him to point out the channel?&rdquo;
+      suggested Carthew. &ldquo;If he tallied at all with the chart, and didn't
+      fall out of the rigging, perhaps we might risk it.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, all's risk here,&rdquo; returned the captain. &ldquo;Take the
+      wheel yourself, and stand by. Mind, if there's two orders, follow mine,
+      not his. Set the cook for'ard with the heads'ls, and the two others at the
+      main sheet, and see they don't sit on it.&rdquo; With that he called the
+      pilot; they swarmed aloft in the fore rigging, and presently after there
+      was bawled down the welcome order to ease sheets and fill away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At a quarter before nine o'clock on Christmas morning the anchor was let
+      go.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first cruise of the Currency Lass had thus ended in a stroke of
+      fortune almost beyond hope. She had brought two thousand pounds' worth of
+      trade, straight as a homing pigeon, to the place where it was most
+      required. And Captain Wicks (or, rather, Captain Kirkup) showed himself
+      the man to make the best of his advantage. For hard upon two days he
+      walked a verandah with Topelius, for hard upon two days his partners
+      watched from the neighbouring public house the field of battle; and the
+      lamps were not yet lighted on the evening of the second before the enemy
+      surrendered. Wicks came across to the Sans Souci, as the saloon was
+      called, his face nigh black, his eyes almost closed and all bloodshot, and
+      yet bright as lighted matches.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come out here, boys,&rdquo; he said; and when they were some way
+      off among the palms, &ldquo;I hold twenty-four,&rdquo; he added in a voice
+      scarcely recognizable, and doubtless referring to the venerable game of
+      cribbage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you mean?&rdquo; asked Tommy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've sold the trade,&rdquo; answered Wicks; &ldquo;or, rather, I've
+      sold only some of it, for I've kept back all the mess beef and half the
+      flour and biscuit; and, by God, we're still provisioned for four months!
+      By God, it's as good as stolen!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My word!&rdquo; cried Hemstead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what have you sold it for?&rdquo; gasped Carthew, the captain's
+      almost insane excitement shaking his nerve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let me tell it my own way,&rdquo; cried Wicks, loosening his neck.
+      &ldquo;Let me get at it gradual, or I'll explode. I've not only sold it,
+      boys, I've wrung out a charter on my own terms to 'Frisco and back; on my
+      own terms. I made a point of it. I fooled him first by making believe I
+      wanted copra, which of course I knew he wouldn't hear of&mdash;couldn't,
+      in fact; and whenever he showed fight, I trotted out the copra, and that
+      man dived! I would take nothing but copra, you see; and so I've got the
+      blooming lot in specie&mdash;all but two short bills on 'Frisco. And the
+      sum? Well, this whole adventure, including two thousand pounds of credit,
+      cost us two thousand seven hundred and some odd. That's all paid back; in
+      thirty days' cruise we've paid for the schooner and the trade. Heard ever
+      any man the match of that? And it's not all! For besides that,&rdquo; said
+      the captain, hammering his words, &ldquo;we've got Thirteen Blooming
+      Hundred Pounds of profit to divide. I bled him in four Thou.!&rdquo; he
+      cried, in a voice that broke like a schoolboy's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a moment the partners looked upon their chief with stupefaction,
+      incredulous surprise their only feeling. Tommy was the first to grasp the
+      consequences.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here,&rdquo; he said, in a hard, business tone. &ldquo;Come back to
+      that saloon. I've got to get drunk.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must please excuse me, boys,&rdquo; said the captain,
+      earnestly. &ldquo;I daren't taste nothing. If I was to drink one glass of
+      beer, it's my belief I'd have the apoplexy. The last scrimmage, and the
+      blooming triumph, pretty nigh hand done me.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then, three cheers for the captain,&rdquo; proposed Tommy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Wicks held up a shaking hand. &ldquo;Not that either, boys,&rdquo; he
+      pleaded. &ldquo;Think of the other buffer, and let him down easy. If I'm
+      like this, just fancy what Topelius is! If he heard us singing out, he'd
+      have the staggers.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As a matter of fact, Topelius accepted his defeat with a good grace; but
+      the crew of the wrecked Leslie, who were in the same employment and loyal
+      to their firm, took the thing more bitterly. Rough words and ugly looks
+      were common. Once even they hooted Captain Wicks from the saloon verandah;
+      the Currency Lasses drew out on the other side; for some minutes there had
+      like to have been a battle in Butaritari; and though the occasion passed
+      off without blows, it left on either side an increase of ill-feeling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No such small matter could affect the happiness of the successful traders.
+      Five days more the ship lay in the lagoon, with little employment for any
+      one but Tommy and the captain, for Topelius's natives discharged cargo and
+      brought ballast; the time passed like a pleasant dream; the adventurers
+      sat up half the night debating and praising their good fortune, or strayed
+      by day in the narrow isle, gaping like Cockney tourists; and on the first
+      of the new year, the Currency Lass weighed anchor for the second time and
+      set sail for 'Frisco, attended by the same fine weather and good luck. She
+      crossed the doldrums with but small delay; on a wind and in ballast of
+      broken coral, she outdid expectations; and, what added to the happiness of
+      the ship's company, the small amount of work that fell on them to do, was
+      now lessened by the presence of another hand. This was the boatswain of
+      the Leslie; he had been on bad terms with his own captain, had already
+      spent his wages in the saloons of Butaritari, had wearied of the place,
+      and while all his shipmates coldly refused to set foot on board the
+      Currency Lass, he had offered to work his passage to the coast. He was a
+      north of Ireland man, between Scotch and Irish, rough, loud, humorous, and
+      emotional, not without sterling qualities, and an expert and careful
+      sailor. His frame of mind was different indeed from that of his new
+      shipmates; instead of making an unexpected fortune, he had lost a berth;
+      and he was besides disgusted with the rations, and really appalled at the
+      condition of the schooner. A stateroom door had stuck, the first day at
+      sea, and Mac (as they called him) laid his strength to it and plucked it
+      from the hinges.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Glory!&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;this ship's rotten.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe you, my boy,&rdquo; said Captain Wicks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next day the sailor was observed with his nose aloft.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't you get looking at these sticks,&rdquo; the captain said,
+      &ldquo;or you'll have a fit and fall overboard.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mac turned towards the speaker with rather a wild eye. &ldquo;Why, I see
+      what looks like a patch of dry rot up yonder, that I bet I could stick my
+      fist into,&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Looks as if a fellow could stick his head into it, don't it?&rdquo;
+      returned Wicks. &ldquo;But there's no good prying into things that can't
+      be mended.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think I was a Currency Ass to come on board of her!&rdquo;
+      reflected Mac.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I never said she was seaworthy,&rdquo; replied the captain:
+      &ldquo;I only said she could show her blooming heels to anything afloat.
+      And besides, I don't know that it's dry rot; I kind of sometimes hope it
+      isn't. Here; turn to and heave the log; that'll cheer you up.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, there's no denying it, you're a holy captain,&rdquo; said
+      Mac.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And from that day on, he made but the one reference to the ship's
+      condition; and that was whenever Tommy drew upon his cellar. &ldquo;Here's
+      to the junk trade!&rdquo; he would say, as he held out his can of sherry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do you always say that?&rdquo; asked Tommy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had an uncle in the business,&rdquo; replied Mac, and launched at
+      once into a yarn, in which an incredible number of the characters were
+      &ldquo;laid out as nice as you would want to see,&rdquo; and the oaths
+      made up about two-fifths of every conversation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Only once he gave them a taste of his violence; he talked of it, indeed,
+      often; &ldquo;I'm rather a voilent man,&rdquo; he would say, not without
+      pride; but this was the only specimen. Of a sudden, he turned on Hemstead
+      in the ship's waist, knocked him against the foresail boom, then knocked
+      him under it, and had set him up and knocked him down once more, before
+      any one had drawn a breath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here! Belay that!&rdquo; roared Wicks, leaping to his feet. &ldquo;I
+      won't have none of this.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mac turned to the captain with ready civility. &ldquo;I only want to learn
+      him manners,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;He took and called me Irishman.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did he?&rdquo; said Wicks. &ldquo;O, that's a different story! What
+      made you do it, you tomfool? You ain't big enough to call any man that.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn't call him it,&rdquo; spluttered Hemstead, through his blood
+      and tears. &ldquo;I only mentioned-like he was.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, let's have no more of it,&rdquo; said Wicks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you ARE Irish, ain't you?&rdquo; Carthew asked of his new
+      shipmate shortly after.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I may be,&rdquo; replied Mac, &ldquo;but I'll allow no Sydney duck
+      to call me so. No,&rdquo; he added, with a sudden heated countenance,
+      &ldquo;nor any Britisher that walks! Why, look here,&rdquo; he went on,
+      &ldquo;you're a young swell, aren't you? Suppose I called you that! 'I'll
+      show you,' you would say, and turn to and take it out of me straight.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the 28th of January, when in lat. 27 degrees 20' N., long. 177 degrees
+      W., the wind chopped suddenly into the west, not very strong, but puffy
+      and with flaws of rain. The captain, eager for easting, made a fair wind
+      of it and guyed the booms out wing and wing. It was Tommy's trick at the
+      wheel, and as it was within half an hour of the relief (seven thirty in
+      the morning), the captain judged it not worth while to change him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The puffs were heavy but short; there was nothing to be called a squall,
+      no danger to the ship, and scarce more than usual to the doubtful spars.
+      All hands were on deck in their oilskins, expecting breakfast; the galley
+      smoked, the ship smelt of coffee, all were in good humour to be speeding
+      eastward a full nine; when the rotten foresail tore suddenly between two
+      cloths and then split to either hand. It was for all the world as though
+      some archangel with a huge sword had slashed it with the figure of a
+      cross; all hands ran to secure the slatting canvas; and in the sudden
+      uproar and alert, Tommy Hadden lost his head. Many of his days have been
+      passed since then in explaining how the thing happened; of these
+      explanations it will be sufficient to say that they were all different and
+      none satisfactory; and the gross fact remains that the main boom gybed,
+      carried away the tackle, broke the mainmast some three feet above the deck
+      and whipped it overboard. For near a minute the suspected foremast
+      gallantly resisted; then followed its companion; and by the time the wreck
+      was cleared, of the whole beautiful fabric that enabled them to skim the
+      seas, two ragged stumps remained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In these vast and solitary waters, to be dismasted is perhaps the worst
+      calamity. Let the ship turn turtle and go down, and at least the pang is
+      over. But men chained on a hulk may pass months scanning the empty sea
+      line and counting the steps of death's invisible approach. There is no
+      help but in the boats, and what a help is that! There heaved the Currency
+      Lass, for instance, a wingless lump, and the nearest human coast (that of
+      Kauai in the Sandwiches) lay about a thousand miles to south and east of
+      her. Over the way there, to men contemplating that passage in an open
+      boat, all kinds of misery, and the fear of death and of madness, brooded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A serious company sat down to breakfast; but the captain helped his
+      neighbours with a smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, boys,&rdquo; he said, after a pull at the hot coffee, &ldquo;we're
+      done with this Currency Lass, and no mistake. One good job: we made her
+      pay while she lasted, and she paid first rate; and if we were to try our
+      hand again, we can try in style. Another good job: we have a fine, stiff,
+      roomy boat, and you know who you have to thank for that. We've got six
+      lives to save, and a pot of money; and the point is, where are we to take
+      'em?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's all two thousand miles to the nearest of the Sandwiches, I
+      fancy,&rdquo; observed Mac.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, not so bad as that,&rdquo; returned the captain. &ldquo;But
+      it's bad enough: rather better'n a thousand.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know a man who once did twelve hundred in a boat,&rdquo; said
+      Mac, &ldquo;and he had all he wanted. He fetched ashore in the Marquesas,
+      and never set a foot on anything floating from that day to this. He said
+      he would rather put a pistol to his head and knock his brains out.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay, ay!&rdquo; said Wicks. &ldquo;Well I remember a boat's crew
+      that made this very island of Kauai, and from just about where we lie, or
+      a bit further. When they got up with the land, they were clean crazy.
+      There was an iron-bound coast and an Old Bob Ridley of a surf on. The
+      natives hailed 'em from fishing-boats, and sung out it couldn't be done at
+      the money. Much they cared! there was the land, that was all they knew;
+      and they turned to and drove the boat slap ashore in the thick of it, and
+      was all drowned but one. No; boat trips are my eye,&rdquo; concluded the
+      captain, gloomily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The tone was surprising in a man of his indomitable temper. &ldquo;Come,
+      Captain,&rdquo; said Carthew, &ldquo;you have something else up your
+      sleeve; out with it!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's a fact,&rdquo; admitted Wicks. &ldquo;You see there's a raft
+      of little bally reefs about here, kind of chicken-pox on the chart. Well,
+      I looked 'em all up, and there's one&mdash;Midway or Brooks they call it,
+      not forty mile from our assigned position&mdash;that I got news of. It
+      turns out it's a coaling station of the Pacific Mail,&rdquo; he said,
+      simply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, and I know it ain't no such a thing,&rdquo; said Mac. &ldquo;I
+      been quartermaster in that line myself.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right,&rdquo; returned Wicks. &ldquo;There's the book. Read
+      what Hoyt says&mdash;read it aloud and let the others hear.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hoyt's falsehood (as readers know) was explicit; incredulity was
+      impossible, and the news itself delightful beyond hope. Each saw in his
+      mind's eye the boat draw in to a trim island with a wharf, coal-sheds,
+      gardens, the Stars and Stripes and the white cottage of the keeper; saw
+      themselves idle a few weeks in tolerable quarters, and then step on board
+      the China mail, romantic waifs, and yet with pocketsful of money, calling
+      for champagne, and waited on by troops of stewards. Breakfast, that had
+      begun so dully, ended amid sober jubilation, and all hands turned
+      immediately to prepare the boat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now that all spars were gone, it was no easy job to get her launched. Some
+      of the necessary cargo was first stowed on board; the specie, in
+      particular, being packed in a strong chest and secured with lashings to
+      the afterthwart in case of a capsize. Then a piece of the bulwark was
+      razed to the level of the deck, and the boat swung thwart-ship, made fast
+      with a slack line to either stump, and successfully run out. For a voyage
+      of forty miles to hospitable quarters, not much food or water was
+      required; but they took both in superfluity. Amalu and Mac, both ingrained
+      sailor-men, had chests which were the headquarters of their lives; two
+      more chests with handbags, oilskins, and blankets supplied the others;
+      Hadden, amid general applause, added the last case of the brown sherry;
+      the captain brought the log, instruments, and chronometer; nor did
+      Hemstead forget the banjo or a pinned handkerchief of Butaritari shells.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was about three P.M. when they pushed off, and (the wind being still
+      westerly) fell to the oars. &ldquo;Well, we've got the guts out of YOU!&rdquo;
+      was the captain's nodded farewell to the hulk of the Currency Lass, which
+      presently shrank and faded in the sea. A little after a calm succeeded,
+      with much rain; and the first meal was eaten, and the watch below lay down
+      to their uneasy slumber on the bilge under a roaring shower-bath. The
+      twenty-ninth dawned overhead from out of ragged clouds; there is no moment
+      when a boat at sea appears so trenchantly black and so conspicuously
+      little; and the crew looked about them at the sky and water with a thrill
+      of loneliness and fear. With sunrise the trade set in, lusty and true to
+      the point; sail was made; the boat flew; and by about four in the
+      afternoon, they were well up with the closed part of the reef, and the
+      captain standing on the thwart, and holding by the mast, was studying the
+      island through the binoculars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, and where's your station?&rdquo; cried Mac.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't someway pick it up,&rdquo; replied the captain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, nor never will!&rdquo; retorted Mac, with a clang of despair
+      and triumph in his tones.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The truth was soon plain to all. No buoys, no beacons, no lights, no coal,
+      no station; the castaways pulled through a lagoon and landed on an isle,
+      where was no mark of man but wreckwood, and no sound but of the sea. For
+      the seafowl that harboured and lived there at the epoch of my visit were
+      then scattered into the uttermost parts of the ocean, and had left no
+      traces of their sojourn besides dropped feathers and addled eggs. It was
+      to this they had been sent, for this they had stooped all night over the
+      dripping oars, hourly moving further from relief. The boat, for as small
+      as it was, was yet eloquent of the hands of men, a thing alone indeed upon
+      the sea but yet in itself all human; and the isle, for which they had
+      exchanged it, was ingloriously savage, a place of distress, solitude, and
+      hunger unrelieved. There was a strong glare and shadow of the evening over
+      all; in which they sat or lay, not speaking, careless even to eat, men
+      swindled out of life and riches by a lying book. In the great good nature
+      of the whole party, no word of reproach had been addressed to Hadden, the
+      author of these disasters. But the new blow was less magnanimously borne,
+      and many angry glances rested on the captain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet it was himself who roused them from their lethargy. Grudgingly they
+      obeyed, drew the boat beyond tidemark, and followed him to the top of the
+      miserable islet, whence a view was commanded of the whole wheel of the
+      horizon, then part darkened under the coming night, part dyed with the
+      hues of the sunset and populous with the sunset clouds. Here the camp was
+      pitched and a tent run up with the oars, sails, and mast. And here Amalu,
+      at no man's bidding, from the mere instinct of habitual service, built a
+      fire and cooked a meal. Night was come, and the stars and the silver
+      sickle of new moon beamed overhead, before the meal was ready. The cold
+      sea shone about them, and the fire glowed in their faces, as they ate.
+      Tommy had opened his case, and the brown sherry went the round; but it was
+      long before they came to conversation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, is it to be Kauai after all?&rdquo; asked Mac suddenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is bad enough for me,&rdquo; said Tommy. &ldquo;Let's stick it
+      out where we are.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I can tell ye one thing,&rdquo; said Mac, &ldquo;if ye care
+      to hear it. When I was in the China mail, we once made this island. It's
+      in the course from Honolulu.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Deuce it is!&rdquo; cried Carthew. &ldquo;That settles it, then.
+      Let's stay. We must keep good fires going; and there's plenty wreck.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lashings of wreck!&rdquo; said the Irishman. &ldquo;There's nothing
+      here but wreck and coffin boards.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But we'll have to make a proper blyze,&rdquo; objected Hemstead.
+      &ldquo;You can't see a fire like this, not any wye awye, I mean.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can't you?&rdquo; said Carthew. &ldquo;Look round.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They did, and saw the hollow of the night, the bare, bright face of the
+      sea, and the stars regarding them; and the voices died in their bosoms at
+      the spectacle. In that huge isolation, it seemed they must be visible from
+      China on the one hand and California on the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My God, it's dreary!&rdquo; whispered Hemstead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dreary?&rdquo; cried Mac, and fell suddenly silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's better than a boat, anyway,&rdquo; said Hadden. &ldquo;I've
+      had my bellyful of boat.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What kills me is that specie!&rdquo; the captain broke out. &ldquo;Think
+      of all that riches,&mdash;four thousand in gold, bad silver, and short
+      bills&mdash;all found money, too!&mdash;and no more use than that much
+      dung!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll tell you one thing,&rdquo; said Tommy. &ldquo;I don't like it
+      being in the boat&mdash;I don't care to have it so far away.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, who's to take it?&rdquo; cried Mac, with a guffaw of evil
+      laughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But this was not at all the feeling of the partners, who rose, clambered
+      down the isle, brought back the inestimable treasure-chest slung upon two
+      oars, and set it conspicuous in the shining of the fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's my beauty!&rdquo; cried Wicks, viewing it with a cocked
+      head. &ldquo;That's better than a bonfire. What! we have a chest here, and
+      bills for close upon two thousand pounds; there's no show to that,&mdash;it
+      would go in your vest-pocket,&mdash;but the rest! upwards of forty pounds
+      avoirdupois of coined gold, and close on two hundredweight of Chile
+      silver! What! ain't that good enough to fetch a fleet? Do you mean to say
+      that won't affect a ship's compass? Do you mean to tell me that the
+      lookout won't turn to and SMELL it?&rdquo; he cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mac, who had no part nor lot in the bills, the forty pounds of gold, or
+      the two hundredweight of silver, heard this with impatience, and fell into
+      a bitter, choking laughter. &ldquo;You'll see!&rdquo; he said harshly.
+      &ldquo;You'll be glad to feed them bills into the fire before you're
+      through with ut!&rdquo; And he turned, passed by himself out of the ring
+      of the firelight, and stood gazing seaward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His speech and his departure extinguished instantly those sparks of better
+      humour kindled by the dinner and the chest. The group fell again to an
+      ill-favoured silence, and Hemstead began to touch the banjo, as was his
+      habit of an evening. His repertory was small: the chords of <i>Home, Sweet
+      Home</i> fell under his fingers; and when he had played the symphony, he
+      instinctively raised up his voice. &ldquo;Be it never so 'umble, there's
+      no plyce like 'ome,&rdquo; he sang. The last word was still upon his lips,
+      when the instrument was snatched from him and dashed into the fire; and he
+      turned with a cry to look into the furious countenance of Mac.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll be damned if I stand this!&rdquo; cried the captain, leaping
+      up belligerent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I told ye I was a voilent man,&rdquo; said Mac, with a movement of
+      deprecation very surprising in one of his character. &ldquo;Why don't he
+      give me a chance then? Haven't we enough to bear the way we are?&rdquo;
+      And to the wonder and dismay of all, the man choked upon a sob. &ldquo;It's
+      ashamed of meself I am,&rdquo; he said presently, his Irish accent
+      twenty-fold increased. &ldquo;I ask all your pardons for me voilence; and
+      especially the little man's, who is a harmless crayture, and here's me
+      hand to'm, if he'll condescind to take me by 't.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So this scene of barbarity and sentimentalism passed off, leaving behind
+      strange and incongruous impressions. True, every one was perhaps glad when
+      silence succeeded that all too appropriate music; true, Mac's apology and
+      subsequent behaviour rather raised him in the opinion of his
+      fellow-castaways. But the discordant note had been struck, and its
+      harmonics tingled in the brain. In that savage, houseless isle, the
+      passions of man had sounded, if only for the moment, and all men trembled
+      at the possibilities of horror.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was determined to stand watch and watch in case of passing vessels; and
+      Tommy, on fire with an idea, volunteered to stand the first. The rest
+      crawled under the tent, and were soon enjoying that comfortable gift of
+      sleep, which comes everywhere and to all men, quenching anxieties and
+      speeding time. And no sooner were all settled, no sooner had the drone of
+      many snorers begun to mingle with and overcome the surf, than Tommy stole
+      from his post with the case of sherry, and dropped it in a quiet cove in a
+      fathom of water. But the stormy inconstancy of Mac's behaviour had no
+      connection with a gill or two of wine; his passions, angry and otherwise,
+      were on a different sail plan from his neighbours'; and there were
+      possibilities of good and evil in that hybrid Celt beyond their prophecy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      About two in the morning, the starry sky&mdash;or so it seemed, for the
+      drowsy watchman had not observed the approach of any cloud&mdash;brimmed
+      over in a deluge; and for three days it rained without remission. The
+      islet was a sponge, the castaways sops; the view all gone, even the reef
+      concealed behind the curtain of the falling water. The fire was soon
+      drowned out; after a couple of boxes of matches had been scratched in
+      vain, it was decided to wait for better weather; and the party lived in
+      wretchedness on raw tins and a ration of hard bread.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By the 2nd February, in the dark hours of the morning watch, the clouds
+      were all blown by; the sun rose glorious; and once more the castaways sat
+      by a quick fire, and drank hot coffee with the greed of brutes and
+      sufferers. Thenceforward their affairs moved in a routine. A fire was
+      constantly maintained; and this occupied one hand continuously, and the
+      others for an hour or so in the day. Twice a day, all hands bathed in the
+      lagoon, their chief, almost their only pleasure. Often they fished in the
+      lagoon with good success. And the rest was passed in lolling, strolling,
+      yarns, and disputation. The time of the China steamers was calculated to a
+      nicety; which done, the thought was rejected and ignored. It was one that
+      would not bear consideration. The boat voyage having been tacitly set
+      aside, the desperate part chosen to wait there for the coming of help or
+      of starvation, no man had courage left to look his bargain in the face,
+      far less to discuss it with his neighbours. But the unuttered terror
+      haunted them; in every hour of idleness, at every moment of silence, it
+      returned, and breathed a chill about the circle, and carried men's eyes to
+      the horizon. Then, in a panic of self-defence, they would rally to some
+      other subject. And, in that lone spot, what else was to be found to speak
+      of but the treasure?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That was indeed the chief singularity, the one thing conspicuous in their
+      island life; the presence of that chest of bills and specie dominated the
+      mind like a cathedral; and there were besides connected with it, certain
+      irking problems well fitted to occupy the idle. Two thousand pounds were
+      due to the Sydney firm: two thousand pounds were clear profit, and fell to
+      be divided in varying proportions among six. It had been agreed how the
+      partners were to range; every pound of capital subscribed, every pound
+      that fell due in wages, was to count for one &ldquo;lay.&rdquo; Of these,
+      Tommy could claim five hundred and ten, Carthew one hundred and seventy,
+      Wicks one hundred and forty, and Hemstead and Amalu ten apiece: eight
+      hundred and forty &ldquo;lays&rdquo; in all. What was the value of a lay?
+      This was at first debated in the air and chiefly by the strength of
+      Tommy's lungs. Then followed a series of incorrect calculations; from
+      which they issued, arithmetically foiled, but agreed from weariness upon
+      an approximate value of 2 pounds, 7 shillings 7 1/4 pence. The figures
+      were admittedly incorrect; the sum of the shares came not to 2000 pounds,
+      but to 1996 pounds, 6 shillings: 3 pounds, 14 shillings being thus left
+      unclaimed. But it was the nearest they had yet found, and the highest as
+      well, so that the partners were made the less critical by the
+      contemplation of their splendid dividends. Wicks put in 100 pounds and
+      stood to draw captain's wages for two months; his taking was 333 pounds 3
+      shillings 6 1/2 pence. Carthew had put in 150 pounds: he was to take out
+      401 pounds, 18 shillings 6 1/2 pence. Tommy's 500 pounds had grown to be
+      1213 pounds 12 shillings 9 3/4 pence; and Amalu and Hemstead, ranking for
+      wages only, had 22 pounds, 16 shillings 1/2 pence, each.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From talking and brooding on these figures, it was but a step to opening
+      the chest; and once the chest open, the glamour of the cash was
+      irresistible. Each felt that he must see his treasure separate with the
+      eye of flesh, handle it in the hard coin, mark it for his own, and stand
+      forth to himself the approved owner. And here an insurmountable difficulty
+      barred the way. There were some seventeen shillings in English silver: the
+      rest was Chile; and the Chile dollar, which had been taken at the rate of
+      six to the pound sterling, was practically their smallest coin. It was
+      decided, therefore, to divide the pounds only, and to throw the shillings,
+      pence, and fractions in a common fund. This, with the three pound fourteen
+      already in the heel, made a total of seven pounds one shilling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll tell you,&rdquo; said Wicks. &ldquo;Let Carthew and Tommy and
+      me take one pound apiece, and Hemstead and Amalu split the other four, and
+      toss up for the odd bob.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, rot!&rdquo; said Carthew. &ldquo;Tommy and I are bursting
+      already. We can take half a sov' each, and let the other three have forty
+      shillings.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll tell you now&mdash;it's not worth splitting,&rdquo; broke in
+      Mac. &ldquo;I've cards in my chest. Why don't you play for the slump sum?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In that idle place, the proposal was accepted with delight. Mac, as the
+      owner of the cards, was given a stake; the sum was played for in five
+      games of cribbage; and when Amalu, the last survivor in the tournament,
+      was beaten by Mac, it was found the dinner hour was past. After a hasty
+      meal, they fell again immediately to cards, this time (on Carthew's
+      proposal) to Van John. It was then probably two P.M. of the 9th February;
+      and they played with varying chances for twelve hours, slept heavily, and
+      rose late on the morrow to resume the game. All day of the 10th, with
+      grudging intervals for food, and with one long absence on the part of
+      Tommy from which he returned dripping with the case of sherry, they
+      continued to deal and stake. Night fell: they drew the closer to the fire.
+      It was maybe two in the morning, and Tommy was selling his deal by
+      auction, as usual with that timid player; when Carthew, who didn't intend
+      to bid, had a moment of leisure and looked round him. He beheld the
+      moonlight on the sea, the money piled and scattered in that incongruous
+      place, the perturbed faces of the players; he felt in his own breast the
+      familiar tumult; and it seemed as if there rose in his ears a sound of
+      music, and the moon seemed still to shine upon a sea, but the sea was
+      changed, and the Casino towered from among lamplit gardens, and the money
+      clinked on the green board. &ldquo;Good God!&rdquo; he thought, &ldquo;am
+      I gambling again?&rdquo; He looked the more curiously about the sandy
+      table. He and Mac had played and won like gamblers; the mingled gold and
+      silver lay by their places in the heap. Amalu and Hemstead had each more
+      than held their own, but Tommy was cruel far to leeward, and the captain
+      was reduced to perhaps fifty pounds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I say, let's knock off,&rdquo; said Carthew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give that man a glass of Buckle,&rdquo; said some one, and a fresh
+      bottle was opened, and the game went inexorably on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Carthew was himself too heavy a winner to withdraw or to say more; and all
+      the rest of the night he must look on at the progress of this folly, and
+      make gallant attempts to lose with the not uncommon consequence of winning
+      more. The first dawn of the 11th February found him well-nigh desperate.
+      It chanced he was then dealer, and still winning. He had just dealt a
+      round of many tens; every one had staked heavily; the captain had put up
+      all that remained to him, twelve pounds in gold and a few dollars; and
+      Carthew, looking privately at his cards before he showed them, found he
+      held a natural.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;See here, you fellows,&rdquo; he broke out, &ldquo;this is a
+      sickening business, and I'm done with it for one.&rdquo; So saying, he
+      showed his cards, tore them across, and rose from the ground.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The company stared and murmured in mere amazement; but Mac stepped
+      gallantly to his support.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We've had enough of it, I do believe,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;But of
+      course it was all fun, and here's my counters back. All counters in, boys!&rdquo;
+      and he began to pour his winnings into the chest, which stood fortunately
+      near him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Carthew stepped across and wrung him by the hand. &ldquo;I'll never forget
+      this,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what are ye going to do with the Highway boy and the plumber?&rdquo;
+      inquired Mac, in a low tone of voice. &ldquo;They've both wan, ye see.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's true!&rdquo; said Carthew aloud. &ldquo;Amalu and Hemstead,
+      count your winnings; Tommy and I pay that.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was carried without speech: the pair glad enough to receive their
+      winnings, it mattered not from whence; and Tommy, who had lost about five
+      hundred pounds, delighted with the compromise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how about Mac?&rdquo; asked Hemstead. &ldquo;Is he to lose all?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg your pardon, plumber. I'm sure ye mean well,&rdquo; returned
+      the Irishman, &ldquo;but you'd better shut your face, for I'm not that
+      kind of a man. If I t'ought I had wan that money fair, there's never a
+      soul here could get it from me. But I t'ought it was in fun; that was my
+      mistake, ye see; and there's no man big enough upon this island to give a
+      present to my mother's son. So there's my opinion to ye, plumber, and you
+      can put it in your pockut till required.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I will say, Mac, you're a gentleman,&rdquo; said Carthew, as
+      he helped him to shovel back his winnings into the treasure chest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Divil a fear of it, sir! a drunken sailor-man,&rdquo; said Mac.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The captain had sat somewhile with his face in his hands: now he rose
+      mechanically, shaking and stumbling like a drunkard after a debauch. But
+      as he rose, his face was altered, and his voice rang out over the isle,
+      &ldquo;Sail, ho!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All turned at the cry, and there, in the wild light of the morning,
+      heading straight for Midway Reef, was the brig Flying Scud of Hull.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0024" id="link2HCH0024">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIV. A HARD BARGAIN.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The ship which thus appeared before the castaways had long &ldquo;tramped&rdquo;
+      the ocean, wandering from one port to another as freights offered. She was
+      two years out from London, by the Cape of Good Hope, India, and the
+      Archipelago; and was now bound for San Francisco in the hope of working
+      homeward round the Horn. Her captain was one Jacob Trent. He had retired
+      some five years before to a suburban cottage, a patch of cabbages, a gig,
+      and the conduct of what he called a Bank. The name appears to have been
+      misleading. Borrowers were accustomed to choose works of art and utility
+      in the front shop; loaves of sugar and bolts of broadcloth were deposited
+      in pledge; and it was a part of the manager's duty to dash in his gig on
+      Saturday evenings from one small retailer's to another, and to annex in
+      each the bulk of the week's takings. His was thus an active life, and to a
+      man of the type of a rat, filled with recondite joys. An unexpected loss,
+      a law suit, and the unintelligent commentary of the judge upon the bench,
+      combined to disgust him of the business. I was so extraordinarily
+      fortunate as to find, in an old newspaper, a report of the proceedings in
+      Lyall v. The Cardiff Mutual Accommodation Banking Co. &ldquo;I confess I
+      fail entirely to understand the nature of the business,&rdquo; the judge
+      had remarked, while Trent was being examined in chief; a little after, on
+      fuller information&mdash;&ldquo;They call it a bank,&rdquo; he had opined,
+      &ldquo;but it seems to me to be an unlicensed pawnshop&rdquo;; and he
+      wound up with this appalling allocution: &ldquo;Mr. Trent, I must put you
+      on your guard; you must be very careful, or we shall see you here again.&rdquo;
+      In the inside of a week the captain disposed of the bank, the cottage, and
+      the gig and horse; and to sea again in the Flying Scud, where he did well
+      and gave high satisfaction to his owners. But the glory clung to him; he
+      was a plain sailor-man, he said, but he could never long allow you to
+      forget that he had been a banker.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His mate, Elias Goddedaal, was a huge viking of a man, six feet three and
+      of proportionate mass, strong, sober, industrious, musical, and
+      sentimental. He ran continually over into Swedish melodies, chiefly in the
+      minor. He had paid nine dollars to hear Patti; to hear Nilsson, he had
+      deserted a ship and two months' wages; and he was ready at any time to
+      walk ten miles for a good concert, or seven to a reasonable play. On board
+      he had three treasures: a canary bird, a concertina, and a blinding copy
+      of the works of Shakespeare. He had a gift, peculiarly Scandinavian, of
+      making friends at sight: an elemental innocence commended him; he was
+      without fear, without reproach, and without money or the hope of making
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Holdorsen was second mate, and berthed aft, but messed usually with the
+      hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of one more of the crew, some image lives. This was a foremast hand out of
+      the Clyde, of the name of Brown. A small, dark, thickset creature, with
+      dog's eyes, of a disposition incomparably mild and harmless, he knocked
+      about seas and cities, the uncomplaining whiptop of one vice. &ldquo;The
+      drink is my trouble, ye see,&rdquo; he said to Carthew shyly; &ldquo;and
+      it's the more shame to me because I'm come of very good people at Bowling,
+      down the wa'er.&rdquo; The letter that so much affected Nares, in case the
+      reader should remember it, was addressed to this man Brown.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such was the ship that now carried joy into the bosoms of the castaways.
+      After the fatigue and the bestial emotions of their night of play, the
+      approach of salvation shook them from all self-control. Their hands
+      trembled, their eyes shone, they laughed and shouted like children as they
+      cleared their camp: and some one beginning to whistle <i>Marching Through
+      Georgia,</i> the remainder of the packing was conducted, amidst a thousand
+      interruptions, to these martial strains. But the strong head of Wicks was
+      only partly turned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Boys,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;easy all! We're going aboard of a ship
+      of which we don't know nothing; we've got a chest of specie, and seeing
+      the weight, we can't turn to and deny it. Now, suppose she was fishy;
+      suppose it was some kind of a Bully Hayes business! It's my opinion we'd
+      better be on hand with the pistols.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Every man of the party but Hemstead had some kind of a revolver; these
+      were accordingly loaded and disposed about the persons of the castaways,
+      and the packing was resumed and finished in the same rapturous spirit as
+      it was begun. The sun was not yet ten degrees above the eastern sea, but
+      the brig was already close in and hove to, before they had launched the
+      boat and sped, shouting at the oars, towards the passage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was blowing fresh outside, with a strong send of sea. The spray flew in
+      the oarsmen's faces. They saw the Union Jack blow abroad from the Flying
+      Scud, the men clustered at the rail, the cook in the galley door, the
+      captain on the quarter-deck with a pith helmet and binoculars. And the
+      whole familiar business, the comfort, company, and safety of a ship,
+      heaving nearer at each stroke, maddened them with joy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wicks was the first to catch the line, and swarm on board, helping hands
+      grabbing him as he came and hauling him across the rail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Captain, sir, I suppose?&rdquo; he said, turning to the hard old
+      man in the pith helmet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Captain Trent, sir,&rdquo; returned the old gentleman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I'm Captain Kirkup, and this is the crew of the Sydney
+      schooner Currency Lass, dismasted at sea January 28th.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay, ay,&rdquo; said Trent. &ldquo;Well, you're all right now. Lucky
+      for you I saw your signal. I didn't know I was so near this beastly
+      island, there must be a drift to the south'ard here; and when I came on
+      deck this morning at eight bells, I thought it was a ship afire.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It had been agreed that, while Wicks was to board the ship and do the
+      civil, the rest were to remain in the whaleboat and see the treasure safe.
+      A tackle was passed down to them; to this they made fast the invaluable
+      chest, and gave the word to heave. But the unexpected weight brought the
+      hand at the tackle to a stand; two others ran to tail on and help him, and
+      the thing caught the eye of Trent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Vast heaving!&rdquo; he cried sharply; and then to Wicks: &ldquo;What's
+      that? I don't ever remember to have seen a chest weigh like that.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's money,&rdquo; said Wicks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's what?&rdquo; cried Trent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Specie,&rdquo; said Wicks; &ldquo;saved from the wreck.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Trent looked at him sharply. &ldquo;Here, let go that chest again, Mr.
+      Goddedaal,&rdquo; he commanded, &ldquo;shove the boat off, and stream her
+      with a line astern.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay, ay, sir!&rdquo; from Goddedaal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What the devil's wrong?&rdquo; asked Wicks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing, I daresay,&rdquo; returned Trent. &ldquo;But you'll allow
+      it's a queer thing when a boat turns up in mid-ocean with half a ton of
+      specie,&mdash;and everybody armed,&rdquo; he added, pointing to Wicks's
+      pocket. &ldquo;Your boat will lay comfortably astern, while you come below
+      and make yourself satisfactory.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, if that's all!&rdquo; said Wicks. &ldquo;My log and papers are
+      as right as the mail; nothing fishy about us.&rdquo; And he hailed his
+      friends in the boat, bidding them have patience, and turned to follow
+      Captain Trent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This way, Captain Kirkup,&rdquo; said the latter. &ldquo;And don't
+      blame a man for too much caution; no offence intended; and these China
+      rivers shake a fellow's nerve. All I want is just to see you're what you
+      say you are; it's only my duty, sir, and what you would do yourself in the
+      circumstances. I've not always been a ship-captain: I was a banker once,
+      and I tell you that's the trade to learn caution in. You have to keep your
+      weather-eye lifting Saturday nights.&rdquo; And with a dry, business-like
+      cordiality, he produced a bottle of gin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The captains pledged each other; the papers were overhauled; the tale of
+      Topelius and the trade was told in appreciative ears and cemented their
+      acquaintance. Trent's suspicions, thus finally disposed of, were succeeded
+      by a fit of profound thought, during which he sat lethargic and stern,
+      looking at and drumming on the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anything more?&rdquo; asked Wicks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What sort of a place is it inside?&rdquo; inquired Trent, sudden as
+      though Wicks had touched a spring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's a good enough lagoon&mdash;a few horses' heads, but nothing to
+      mention,&rdquo; answered Wicks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've a good mind to go in,&rdquo; said Trent. &ldquo;I was new
+      rigged in China; it's given very bad, and I'm getting frightened for my
+      sticks. We could set it up as good as new in a day. For I daresay your lot
+      would turn to and give us a hand?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see if we don't!&rdquo; said Wicks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So be it, then,&rdquo; concluded Trent. &ldquo;A stitch in time
+      saves nine.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They returned on deck; Wicks cried the news to the Currency Lasses; the
+      foretopsail was filled again, and the brig ran into the lagoon lively, the
+      whaleboat dancing in her wake, and came to single anchor off Middle Brooks
+      Island before eight. She was boarded by the castaways, breakfast was
+      served, the baggage slung on board and piled in the waist, and all hands
+      turned to upon the rigging. All day the work continued, the two crews
+      rivalling each other in expense of strength. Dinner was served on deck,
+      the officers messing aft under the slack of the spanker, the men
+      fraternising forward. Trent appeared in excellent spirits, served out grog
+      to all hands, opened a bottle of Cape wine for the after-table, and
+      obliged his guests with many details of the life of a financier in
+      Cardiff. He had been forty years at sea, had five times suffered
+      shipwreck, was once nine months the prisoner of a pepper rajah, and had
+      seen service under fire in Chinese rivers; but the only thing he cared to
+      talk of, the only thing of which he was vain, or with which he thought it
+      possible to interest a stranger, was his career as a money-lender in the
+      slums of a seaport town.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The afternoon spell told cruelly on the Currency Lasses. Already exhausted
+      as they were with sleeplessness and excitement, they did the last hours of
+      this violent employment on bare nerves; and when Trent was at last
+      satisfied with the condition of his rigging, expected eagerly the word to
+      put to sea. But the captain seemed in no hurry. He went and walked by
+      himself softly, like a man in thought. Presently he hailed Wicks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're a kind of company, ain't you, Captain Kirkup?&rdquo; he
+      inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, we're all on board on lays,&rdquo; was the reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then, you won't mind if I ask the lot of you down to tea in
+      the cabin?&rdquo; asked Trent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wicks was amazed, but he naturally ventured no remark; and a little after,
+      the six Currency Lasses sat down with Trent and Goddedaal to a spread of
+      marmalade, butter, toast, sardines, tinned tongue, and steaming tea. The
+      food was not very good, and I have no doubt Nares would have reviled it,
+      but it was manna to the castaways. Goddedaal waited on them with a
+      kindness far before courtesy, a kindness like that of some old, honest
+      countrywoman in her farm. It was remembered afterwards that Trent took
+      little share in these attentions, but sat much absorbed in thought, and
+      seemed to remember and forget the presence of his guests alternately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently he addressed the Chinaman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Clear out!&rdquo; said he, and watched him till he had disappeared
+      in the stair. &ldquo;Now, gentlemen,&rdquo; he went on, &ldquo;I
+      understand you're a joint-stock sort of crew, and that's why I've had you
+      all down; for there's a point I want made clear. You see what sort of a
+      ship this is&mdash;a good ship, though I say it, and you see what the
+      rations are&mdash;good enough for sailor-men.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a hurried murmur of approval, but curiosity for what was coming
+      next prevented an articulate reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; continued Trent, making bread pills and looking hard
+      at the middle of the table, &ldquo;I'm glad of course to be able to give
+      you a passage to 'Frisco; one sailor-man should help another, that's my
+      motto. But when you want a thing in this world, you generally always have
+      to pay for it.&rdquo; He laughed a brief, joyless laugh. &ldquo;I have no
+      idea of losing by my kindness.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have no idea you should, captain,&rdquo; said Wicks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are ready to pay anything in reason,&rdquo; added Carthew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the words, Goddedaal, who sat next to him, touched him with his elbow,
+      and the two mates exchanged a significant look. The character of Captain
+      Trent was given and taken in that silent second.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In reason?&rdquo; repeated the captain of the brig. &ldquo;I was
+      waiting for that. Reason's between two people, and there's only one here.
+      I'm the judge; I'm reason. If you want an advance you have to pay for it&rdquo;&mdash;he
+      hastily corrected himself&mdash;&ldquo;If you want a passage in my ship,
+      you have to pay my price,&rdquo; he substituted. &ldquo;That's business, I
+      believe. I don't want you; you want me.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, sir,&rdquo; said Carthew, &ldquo;and what IS your price?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The captain made bread pills. &ldquo;If I were like you,&rdquo; he said,
+      &ldquo;when you got hold of that merchant in the Gilberts, I might
+      surprise you. You had your chance then; seems to me it's mine now. Turn
+      about's fair play. What kind of mercy did you have on that Gilbert
+      merchant?&rdquo; he cried, with a sudden stridency. &ldquo;Not that I
+      blame you. All's fair in love and business,&rdquo; and he laughed again, a
+      little frosty giggle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, sir?&rdquo; said Carthew, gravely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, this ship's mine, I think?&rdquo; he asked sharply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I'm of that way of thinking meself,&rdquo; observed Mac.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I say it's mine, sir!&rdquo; reiterated Trent, like a man trying to
+      be angry. &ldquo;And I tell you all, if I was a driver like what you are,
+      I would take the lot. But there's two thousand pounds there that don't
+      belong to you, and I'm an honest man. Give me the two thousand that's
+      yours, and I'll give you a passage to the coast, and land every man-jack
+      of you in 'Frisco with fifteen pounds in his pocket, and the captain here
+      with twenty-five.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Goddedaal laid down his head on the table like a man ashamed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're joking,&rdquo; said Wicks, purple in the face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Am I?&rdquo; said Trent. &ldquo;Please yourselves. You're under no
+      compulsion. This ship's mine, but there's that Brooks Island don't belong
+      to me, and you can lay there till you die for what I care.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's more than your blooming brig's worth!&rdquo; cried Wicks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's my price anyway,&rdquo; returned Trent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And do you mean to say you would land us there to starve?&rdquo;
+      cried Tommy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Captain Trent laughed the third time. &ldquo;Starve? I defy you to,&rdquo;
+      said he. &ldquo;I'll sell you all the provisions you want at a fair
+      profit.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg your pardon, sir,&rdquo; said Mac, &ldquo;but my case is by
+      itself I'm working me passage; I got no share in that two thousand pounds
+      nor nothing in my pockut; and I'll be glad to know what you have to say to
+      me?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I ain't a hard man,&rdquo; said Trent. &ldquo;That shall make no
+      difference. I'll take you with the rest, only of course you get no fifteen
+      pound.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The impudence was so extreme and startling, that all breathed deep, and
+      Goddedaal raised up his face and looked his superior sternly in the eye.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Mac was more articulate. &ldquo;And you're what ye call a British
+      sayman, I suppose? the sorrow in your guts!&rdquo; he cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One more such word, and I clap you in irons!&rdquo; said Trent,
+      rising gleefully at the face of opposition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And where would I be the while you were doin' ut?&rdquo; asked Mac.
+      &ldquo;After you and your rigging, too! Ye ould puggy, ye haven't the
+      civility of a bug, and I'll learn ye some.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His voice did not even rise as he uttered the threat; no man present,
+      Trent least of all, expected that which followed. The Irishman's hand rose
+      suddenly from below the table, an open clasp-knife balanced on the palm;
+      there was a movement swift as conjuring; Trent started half to his feet,
+      turning a little as he rose so as to escape the table, and the movement
+      was his bane. The missile struck him in the jugular; he fell forward, and
+      his blood flowed among the dishes on the cloth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The suddenness of the attack and the catastrophe, the instant change from
+      peace to war and from life to death, held all men spellbound. Yet a moment
+      they sat about the table staring open-mouthed upon the prostrate captain
+      and the flowing blood. The next, Goddedaal had leaped to his feet, caught
+      up the stool on which he had been sitting, and swung it high in air, a man
+      transfigured, roaring (as he stood) so that men's ears were stunned with
+      it. There was no thought of battle in the Currency Lasses; none drew his
+      weapon; all huddled helplessly from before the face of the baresark
+      Scandinavian. His first blow sent Mac to ground with a broken arm. His
+      second bashed out the brains of Hemstead. He turned from one to another,
+      menacing and trumpeting like a wounded elephant, exulting in his rage. But
+      there was no counsel, no light of reason, in that ecstasy of battle; and
+      he shied from the pursuit of victory to hail fresh blows upon the supine
+      Hemstead, so that the stool was shattered and the cabin rang with their
+      violence. The sight of that post-mortem cruelty recalled Carthew to the
+      life of instinct, and his revolver was in hand and he had aimed and fired
+      before he knew. The ear-bursting sound of the report was accompanied by a
+      yell of pain; the colossus paused, swayed, tottered, and fell headlong on
+      the body of his victim.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the instant silence that succeeded, the sound of feet pounding on the
+      deck and in the companion leaped into hearing; and a face, that of the
+      sailor Holdorsen, appeared below the bulkheads in the cabin doorway.
+      Carthew shattered it with a second shot, for he was a marksman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pistols!&rdquo; he cried, and charged at the companion, Wicks at
+      his heels, Tommy and Amalu following. They trod the body of Holdorsen
+      underfoot, and flew up-stairs and forth into the dusky blaze of a sunset
+      red as blood. The numbers were still equal, but the Flying Scuds dreamed
+      not of defence, and fled with one accord for the forecastle scuttle. Brown
+      was first in flight; he disappeared below unscathed; the Chinaman followed
+      head-foremost with a ball in his side; and the others shinned into the
+      rigging.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A fierce composure settled upon Wicks and Carthew, their fighting second
+      wind. They posted Tommy at the fore and Amalu at the main to guard the
+      masts and shrouds, and going themselves into the waist, poured out a box
+      of cartridges on deck and filled the chambers. The poor devils aloft
+      bleated aloud for mercy. But the hour of any mercy was gone by; the cup
+      was brewed and must be drunken to the dregs; since so many had fallen all
+      must fall. The light was bad, the cheap revolvers fouled and carried wild,
+      the screaming wretches were swift to flatten themselves against the masts
+      and yards or find a momentary refuge in the hanging sails. The fell
+      business took long, but it was done at last. Hardy the Londoner was shot
+      on the foreroyal yard, and hung horribly suspended in the brails. Wallen,
+      the other, had his jaw broken on the maintop-gallant crosstrees, and
+      exposed himself, shrieking, till a second shot dropped him on the deck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This had been bad enough, but worse remained behind. There was still Brown
+      in the forepeak. Tommy, with a sudden clamour of weeping, begged for his
+      life. &ldquo;One man can't hurt us,&rdquo; he sobbed. &ldquo;We can't go
+      on with this. I spoke to him at dinner. He's an awful decent little cad.
+      It can't be done. Nobody can go into that place and murder him. It's too
+      damned wicked.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sound of his supplications was perhaps audible to the unfortunate
+      below.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One left, and we all hang,&rdquo; said Wicks. &ldquo;Brown must go
+      the same road.&rdquo; The big man was deadly white and trembled like an
+      aspen; and he had no sooner finished speaking, than he went to the ship's
+      side and vomited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We can never do it if we wait,&rdquo; said Carthew. &ldquo;Now or
+      never,&rdquo; and he marched towards the scuttle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no, no!&rdquo; wailed Tommy, clutching at his jacket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Carthew flung him off, and stepped down the ladder, his heart rising
+      with disgust and shame. The Chinaman lay on the floor, still groaning; the
+      place was pitch dark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Brown!&rdquo; cried Carthew, &ldquo;Brown, where are you?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His heart smote him for the treacherous apostrophe, but no answer came.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He groped in the bunks: they were all empty. Then he moved towards the
+      forepeak, which was hampered with coils of rope and spare chandlery in
+      general.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Brown!&rdquo; he said again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here, sir,&rdquo; answered a shaking voice; and the poor invisible
+      caitiff called on him by name, and poured forth out of the darkness an
+      endless, garrulous appeal for mercy. A sense of danger, of daring, had
+      alone nerved Carthew to enter the forecastle; and here was the enemy
+      crying and pleading like a frightened child. His obsequious &ldquo;Here,
+      sir,&rdquo; his horrid fluency of obtestation, made the murder tenfold
+      more revolting. Twice Carthew raised the pistol, once he pressed the
+      trigger (or thought he did) with all his might, but no explosion followed;
+      and with that the lees of his courage ran quite out, and he turned and
+      fled from before his victim.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wicks sat on the fore hatch, raised the face of a man of seventy, and
+      looked a wordless question. Carthew shook his head. With such composure as
+      a man displays marching towards the gallows, Wicks arose, walked to the
+      scuttle, and went down. Brown thought it was Carthew returning, and
+      discovered himself, half crawling from his shelter, with another
+      incoherent burst of pleading. Wicks emptied his revolver at the voice,
+      which broke into mouse-like whimperings and groans. Silence succeeded, and
+      the murderer ran on deck like one possessed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The other three were now all gathered on the fore hatch, and Wicks took
+      his place beside them without question asked or answered. They sat close,
+      like children in the dark, and shook each other with their shaking. The
+      dusk continued to fall; and there was no sound but the beating of the surf
+      and the occasional hiccup of a sob from Tommy Hadden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God, if there was another ship!&rdquo; cried Carthew of a sudden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wicks started and looked aloft with the trick of all seamen, and shuddered
+      as he saw the hanging figure on the royal yard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I went aloft, I'd fall,&rdquo; he said simply. &ldquo;I'm done
+      up.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Amalu who volunteered, climbed to the very truck, swept the fading
+      horizon, and announced nothing within sight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No odds,&rdquo; said Wicks. &ldquo;We can't sleep ...&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sleep!&rdquo; echoed Carthew; and it seemed as if the whole of
+      Shakespeare's <i>Macbeth</i> thundered at the gallop through his mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then, we can't sit and chitter here,&rdquo; said Wicks,
+      &ldquo;till we've cleaned ship; and I can't turn to till I've had gin, and
+      the gin's in the cabin, and who's to fetch it?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will,&rdquo; said Carthew, &ldquo;if any one has matches.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Amalu passed him a box, and he went aft and down the companion and into
+      the cabin, stumbling upon bodies. Then he struck a match, and his looks
+      fell upon two living eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo; asked Mac, for it was he who still survived in that
+      shambles of a cabin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's done; they're all dead,&rdquo; answered Carthew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Christ!&rdquo; said the Irishman, and fainted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The gin was found in the dead captain's cabin; it was brought on deck, and
+      all hands had a dram, and attacked their farther task. The night was come,
+      the moon would not be up for hours; a lamp was set on the main hatch to
+      light Amalu as he washed down decks; and the galley lantern was taken to
+      guide the others in their graveyard business. Holdorsen, Hemstead, Trent,
+      and Goddedaal were first disposed of, the last still breathing as he went
+      over the side; Wallen followed; and then Wicks, steadied by the gin, went
+      aloft with a boathook and succeeded in dislodging Hardy. The Chinaman was
+      their last task; he seemed to be light-headed, talked aloud in his unknown
+      language as they brought him up, and it was only with the splash of his
+      sinking body that the gibberish ceased. Brown, by common consent, was left
+      alone. Flesh and blood could go no further.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All this time they had been drinking undiluted gin like water; three
+      bottles stood broached in different quarters; and none passed without a
+      gulp. Tommy collapsed against the mainmast; Wicks fell on his face on the
+      poop ladder and moved no more; Amalu had vanished unobserved. Carthew was
+      the last afoot: he stood swaying at the break of the poop, and the
+      lantern, which he still carried, swung with his movement. His head hummed;
+      it swarmed with broken thoughts; memory of that day's abominations flared
+      up and died down within him like the light of a lamp in a strong draught.
+      And then he had a drunkard's inspiration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There must be no more of this,&rdquo; he thought, and stumbled once
+      more below.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The absence of Holdorsen's body brought him to a stand. He stood and
+      stared at the empty floor, and then remembered and smiled. From the
+      captain's room he took the open case with one dozen and three bottles of
+      gin, put the lantern inside, and walked precariously forth. Mac was once
+      more conscious, his eyes haggard, his face drawn with pain and flushed
+      with fever; and Carthew remembered he had never been seen to, had lain
+      there helpless, and was so to lie all night, injured, perhaps dying. But
+      it was now too late; reason had now fled from that silent ship. If Carthew
+      could get on deck again, it was as much as he could hope; and casting on
+      the unfortunate a glance of pity, the tragic drunkard shouldered his way
+      up the companion, dropped the case overboard, and fell in the scuppers
+      helpless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0025" id="link2HCH0025">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXV. A BAD BARGAIN.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      With the first colour in the east, Carthew awoke and sat up. A while he
+      gazed at the scroll of the morning bank and the spars and hanging canvas
+      of the brig, like a man who wakes in a strange bed, with a child's
+      simplicity of wonder. He wondered above all what ailed him, what he had
+      lost, what disfavour had been done him, which he knew he should resent,
+      yet had forgotten. And then, like a river bursting through a dam, the
+      truth rolled on him its instantaneous volume: his memory teemed with
+      speech and pictures that he should never again forget; and he sprang to
+      his feet, stood a moment hand to brow, and began to walk violently to and
+      fro by the companion. As he walked, he wrung his hands. &ldquo;God&mdash;God&mdash;God,&rdquo;
+      he kept saying, with no thought of prayer, uttering a mere voice of agony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The time may have been long or short, it was perhaps minutes, perhaps only
+      seconds, ere he awoke to find himself observed, and saw the captain
+      sitting up and watching him over the break of the poop, a strange
+      blindness as of fever in his eyes, a haggard knot of corrugations on his
+      brow. Cain saw himself in a mirror. For a flash they looked upon each
+      other, and then glanced guiltily aside; and Carthew fled from the eye of
+      his accomplice, and stood leaning on the taffrail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An hour went by, while the day came brighter, and the sun rose and drank
+      up the clouds: an hour of silence in the ship, an hour of agony beyond
+      narration for the sufferers. Brown's gabbling prayers, the cries of the
+      sailors in the rigging, strains of the dead Hemstead's minstrelsy, ran
+      together in Carthew's mind, with sickening iteration. He neither acquitted
+      nor condemned himself: he did not think, he suffered. In the bright water
+      into which he stared, the pictures changed and were repeated: the baresark
+      rage of Goddedaal; the blood-red light of the sunset into which they had
+      run forth; the face of the babbling Chinaman as they cast him over; the
+      face of the captain, seen a moment since, as he awoke from drunkenness
+      into remorse. And time passed, and the sun swam higher, and his torment
+      was not abated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then were fulfilled many sayings, and the weakest of these condemned
+      brought relief and healing to the others. Amalu the drudge awoke (like the
+      rest) to sickness of body and distress of mind; but the habit of obedience
+      ruled in that simple spirit, and appalled to be so late, he went direct
+      into the galley, kindled the fire, and began to get breakfast. At the
+      rattle of dishes, the snapping of the fire, and the thin smoke that went
+      up straight into the air, the spell was lifted. The condemned felt once
+      more the good dry land of habit under foot; they touched again the
+      familiar guide-ropes of sanity; they were restored to a sense of the
+      blessed revolution and return of all things earthly. The captain drew a
+      bucket of water and began to bathe. Tommy sat up, watched him awhile, and
+      slowly followed his example; and Carthew, remembering his last thoughts of
+      the night before, hastened to the cabin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mac was awake; perhaps had not slept. Over his head Goddedaal's canary
+      twittered shrilly from its cage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How are you?&rdquo; asked Carthew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Me arrum's broke,&rdquo; returned Mac; &ldquo;but I can stand that.
+      It's this place I can't abide. I was coming on deck anyway.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stay where you are, though,&rdquo; said Carthew. &ldquo;It's deadly
+      hot above, and there's no wind. I'll wash out this&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+      and he paused, seeking a word and not finding one for the grisly foulness
+      of the cabin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Faith, I'll be obliged to ye, then,&rdquo; replied the Irishman. He
+      spoke mild and meek, like a sick child with its mother. There was now no
+      violence in the violent man; and as Carthew fetched a bucket and swab and
+      the steward's sponge, and began to cleanse the field of battle, he
+      alternately watched him or shut his eyes and sighed like a man near
+      fainting. &ldquo;I have to ask all your pardons,&rdquo; he began again
+      presently, &ldquo;and the more shame to me as I got ye into trouble and
+      couldn't do nothing when it came. Ye saved me life, sir; ye're a clane
+      shot.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For God's sake, don't talk of it!&rdquo; cried Carthew. &ldquo;It
+      can't be talked of; you don't know what it was. It was nothing down here;
+      they fought. On deck&mdash;O, my God!&rdquo; And Carthew, with the bloody
+      sponge pressed to his face, struggled a moment with hysteria.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Kape cool, Mr. Cart'ew. It's done now,&rdquo; said Mac; &ldquo;and
+      ye may bless God ye're not in pain and helpless in the bargain.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was no more said by one or other, and the cabin was pretty well
+      cleansed when a stroke on the ship's bell summoned Carthew to breakfast.
+      Tommy had been busy in the meanwhile; he had hauled the whaleboat close
+      aboard, and already lowered into it a small keg of beef that he found
+      ready broached beside the galley door; it was plain he had but the one
+      idea&mdash;to escape.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have a shipful of stores to draw upon,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Well,
+      what are we staying for? Let's get off at once for Hawaii. I've begun
+      preparing already.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mac has his arm broken,&rdquo; observed Carthew; &ldquo;how would
+      he stand the voyage?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A broken arm?&rdquo; repeated the captain. &ldquo;That all? I'll
+      set it after breakfast. I thought he was dead like the rest. That madman
+      hit out like&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; and there, at the evocation of the
+      battle, his voice ceased and the talk died with it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After breakfast, the three white men went down into the cabin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've come to set your arm,&rdquo; said the captain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg your pardon, captain,&rdquo; replied Mac; &ldquo;but the
+      firrst thing ye got to do is to get this ship to sea. We'll talk of me
+      arrum after that.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, there's no such blooming hurry,&rdquo; returned Wicks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When the next ship sails in, ye'll tell me stories!&rdquo; retorted
+      Mac.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But there's nothing so unlikely in the world,&rdquo; objected
+      Carthew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't be deceivin' yourself,&rdquo; said Mac. &ldquo;If ye want a
+      ship, divil a one'll look near ye in six year; but if ye don't, ye may
+      take my word for ut, we'll have a squadron layin' here.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's what I say,&rdquo; cried Tommy; &ldquo;that's what I call
+      sense! Let's stock that whaleboat and be off.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what will Captain Wicks be thinking of the whaleboat?&rdquo;
+      asked the Irishman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't think of it at all,&rdquo; said Wicks. &ldquo;We've a
+      smart-looking brig under foot; that's all the whaleboat I want.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Excuse me!&rdquo; cried Tommy. &ldquo;That's childish talk. You've
+      got a brig, to be sure, and what use is she? You daren't go anywhere in
+      her. What port are you to sail for?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For the port of Davy Jones's Locker, my son,&rdquo; replied the
+      captain. &ldquo;This brig's going to be lost at sea. I'll tell you where,
+      too, and that's about forty miles to windward of Kauai. We're going to
+      stay by her till she's down; and once the masts are under, she's the
+      Flying Scud no more, and we never heard of such a brig; and it's the crew
+      of the schooner Currency Lass that comes ashore in the boat, and takes the
+      first chance to Sydney.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Captain dear, that's the first Christian word I've heard of ut!&rdquo;
+      cried Mac. &ldquo;And now, just let me arrum be, jewel, and get the brig
+      outside.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm as anxious as yourself, Mac,&rdquo; returned Wicks; &ldquo;but
+      there's not wind enough to swear by. So let's see your arm, and no more
+      talk.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The arm was set and splinted; the body of Brown fetched from the forepeak,
+      where it lay still and cold, and committed to the waters of the lagoon;
+      and the washing of the cabin rudely finished. All these were done ere
+      midday; and it was past three when the first cat's-paw ruffled the lagoon,
+      and the wind came in a dry squall, which presently sobered to a steady
+      breeze.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The interval was passed by all in feverish impatience, and by one of the
+      party in secret and extreme concern of mind. Captain Wicks was a
+      fore-and-aft sailor; he could take a schooner through a Scotch reel, felt
+      her mouth and divined her temper like a rider with a horse; she, on her
+      side, recognising her master and following his wishes like a dog. But by a
+      not very unusual train of circumstance, the man's dexterity was partial
+      and circumscribed. On a schooner's deck he was Rembrandt or (at the least)
+      Mr. Whistler; on board a brig he was Pierre Grassou. Again and again in
+      the course of the morning, he had reasoned out his policy and rehearsed
+      his orders; and ever with the same depression and weariness. It was
+      guess-work; it was chance; the ship might behave as he expected, and might
+      not; suppose she failed him, he stood there helpless, beggared of all the
+      proved resources of experience. Had not all hands been so weary, had he
+      not feared to communicate his own misgivings, he could have towed her out.
+      But these reasons sufficed, and the most he could do was to take all
+      possible precautions. Accordingly he had Carthew aft, explained what was
+      to be done with anxious patience, and visited along with him the various
+      sheets and braces.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope I'll remember,&rdquo; said Carthew. &ldquo;It seems awfully
+      muddled.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's the rottenest kind of rig,&rdquo; the captain admitted:
+      &ldquo;all blooming pocket handkerchiefs! And not one sailor-man on deck!
+      Ah, if she'd only been a brigantine, now! But it's lucky the passage is so
+      plain; there's no manoeuvring to mention. We get under way before the
+      wind, and run right so till we begin to get foul of the island; then we
+      haul our wind and lie as near south-east as may be till we're on that
+      line; 'bout ship there and stand straight out on the port tack. Catch the
+      idea?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I see the idea,&rdquo; replied Carthew, rather dismally, and
+      the two incompetents studied for a long time in silence the complicated
+      gear above their heads.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the time came when these rehearsals must be put in practice. The sails
+      were lowered, and all hands heaved the anchor short. The whaleboat was
+      then cut adrift, the upper topsails and the spanker set, the yards braced
+      up, and the spanker sheet hauled out to starboard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Heave away on your anchor, Mr. Carthew.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anchor's gone, sir.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Set jibs.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was done, and the brig still hung enchanted. Wicks, his head full of a
+      schooner's mainsail, turned his mind to the spanker. First he hauled in
+      the sheet, and then he hauled it out, with no result.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Brail the damned thing up!&rdquo; he bawled at last, with a red
+      face. &ldquo;There ain't no sense in it.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the last stroke of bewilderment for the poor captain, that he had
+      no sooner brailed up the spanker than the vessel came before the wind. The
+      laws of nature seemed to him to be suspended; he was like a man in a world
+      of pantomime tricks; the cause of any result, and the probable result of
+      any action, equally concealed from him. He was the more careful not to
+      shake the nerve of his amateur assistants. He stood there with a face like
+      a torch; but he gave his orders with aplomb; and indeed, now the ship was
+      under weigh, supposed his difficulties over.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lower topsails and courses were then set, and the brig began to walk
+      the water like a thing of life, her forefoot discoursing music, the birds
+      flying and crying over her spars. Bit by bit the passage began to open and
+      the blue sea to show between the flanking breakers on the reef; bit by
+      bit, on the starboard bow, the low land of the islet began to heave closer
+      aboard. The yards were braced up, the spanker sheet hauled aft again; the
+      brig was close hauled, lay down to her work like a thing in earnest, and
+      had soon drawn near to the point of advantage, where she might stay and
+      lie out of the lagoon in a single tack.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wicks took the wheel himself, swelling with success. He kept the brig full
+      to give her heels, and began to bark his orders: &ldquo;Ready about.
+      Helm's a-lee. Tacks and sheets. Mainsail haul.&rdquo; And then the fatal
+      words: &ldquo;That'll do your mainsail; jump forrard and haul round your
+      foreyards.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To stay a square-rigged ship is an affair of knowledge and swift sight;
+      and a man used to the succinct evolutions of a schooner will always tend
+      to be too hasty with a brig. It was so now. The order came too soon; the
+      topsails set flat aback; the ship was in irons. Even yet, had the helm
+      been reversed, they might have saved her. But to think of a stern-board at
+      all, far more to think of profiting by one, were foreign to the
+      schooner-sailor's mind. Wicks made haste instead to wear ship, a manoeuvre
+      for which room was wanting, and the Flying Scud took ground on a bank of
+      sand and coral about twenty minutes before five.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wicks was no hand with a square-rigger, and he had shown it. But he was a
+      sailor and a born captain of men for all homely purposes, where intellect
+      is not required and an eye in a man's head and a heart under his jacket
+      will suffice. Before the others had time to understand the misfortune, he
+      was bawling fresh orders, and had the sails clewed up, and took soundings
+      round the ship.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She lies lovely,&rdquo; he remarked, and ordered out a boat with
+      the starboard anchor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here! steady!&rdquo; cried Tommy. &ldquo;You ain't going to turn us
+      to, to warp her off?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am though,&rdquo; replied Wicks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I won't set a hand to such tomfoolery for one,&rdquo; replied
+      Tommy. &ldquo;I'm dead beat.&rdquo; He went and sat down doggedly on the
+      main hatch. &ldquo;You got us on; get us off again,&rdquo; he added.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Carthew and Wicks turned to each other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps you don't know how tired we are,&rdquo; said Carthew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The tide's flowing!&rdquo; cried the captain. &ldquo;You wouldn't
+      have me miss a rising tide?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, gammon! there's tides to-morrow!&rdquo; retorted Tommy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I'll tell you what,&rdquo; added Carthew, &ldquo;the breeze is
+      failing fast, and the sun will soon be down. We may get into all kinds of
+      fresh mess in the dark and with nothing but light airs.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't deny it,&rdquo; answered Wicks, and stood awhile as if in
+      thought. &ldquo;But what I can't make out,&rdquo; he began again, with
+      agitation, &ldquo;what I can't make out is what you're made of! To stay in
+      this place is beyond me. There's the bloody sun going down&mdash;and to
+      stay here is beyond me!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The others looked upon him with horrified surprise. This fall of their
+      chief pillar&mdash;this irrational passion in the practical man, suddenly
+      barred out of his true sphere, the sphere of action&mdash;shocked and
+      daunted them. But it gave to another and unseen hearer the chance for
+      which he had been waiting. Mac, on the striking of the brig, had crawled
+      up the companion, and he now showed himself and spoke up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Captain Wicks,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;it's me that brought this
+      trouble on the lot of ye. I'm sorry for ut, I ask all your pardons, and if
+      there's any one can say 'I forgive ye,' it'll make my soul the lighter.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wicks stared upon the man in amaze; then his self-control returned to him.
+      &ldquo;We're all in glass houses here,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;we ain't
+      going to turn to and throw stones. I forgive you, sure enough; and much
+      good may it do you!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The others spoke to the same purpose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thank ye for ut, and 'tis done like gentlemen,&rdquo; said Mac.
+      &ldquo;But there's another thing I have upon my mind. I hope we're all
+      Prodestan's here?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It appeared they were; it seemed a small thing for the Protestant religion
+      to rejoice in!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, that's as it should be,&rdquo; continued Mac. &ldquo;And why
+      shouldn't we say the Lord's Prayer? There can't be no hurt in ut.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had the same quiet, pleading, childlike way with him as in the morning;
+      and the others accepted his proposal, and knelt down without a word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Knale if ye like!&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;I'll stand.&rdquo; And he
+      covered his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So the prayer was said to the accompaniment of the surf and seabirds, and
+      all rose refreshed and felt lightened of a load. Up to then, they had
+      cherished their guilty memories in private, or only referred to them in
+      the heat of a moment and fallen immediately silent. Now they had faced
+      their remorse in company, and the worst seemed over. Nor was it only that.
+      But the petition &ldquo;Forgive us our trespasses,&rdquo; falling in so
+      apposite after they had themselves forgiven the immediate author of their
+      miseries, sounded like an absolution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tea was taken on deck in the time of the sunset, and not long after the
+      five castaways&mdash;castaways once more&mdash;lay down to sleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Day dawned windless and hot. Their slumbers had been too profound to be
+      refreshing, and they woke listless, and sat up, and stared about them with
+      dull eyes. Only Wicks, smelling a hard day's work ahead, was more alert.
+      He went first to the well, sounded it once and then a second time, and
+      stood awhile with a grim look, so that all could see he was dissatisfied.
+      Then he shook himself, stripped to the buff, clambered on the rail, drew
+      himself up and raised his arms to plunge. The dive was never taken. He
+      stood instead transfixed, his eyes on the horizon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hand up that glass,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a trice they were all swarming aloft, the nude captain leading with the
+      glass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the northern horizon was a finger of grey smoke, straight in the
+      windless air like a point of admiration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you make it?&rdquo; they asked of Wicks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's truck down,&rdquo; he replied; &ldquo;no telling yet. By the
+      way the smoke builds, she must be heading right here.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What can she be?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She might be a China mail,&rdquo; returned Wicks, &ldquo;and she
+      might be a blooming man-of-war, come to look for castaways. Here! This
+      ain't the time to stand staring. On deck, boys!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was the first on deck, as he had been the first aloft, handed down the
+      ensign, bent it again to the signal halliards, and ran it up union down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now hear me,&rdquo; he said, jumping into his trousers, &ldquo;and
+      everything I say you grip on to. If that's a man-of-war, she'll be in a
+      tearing hurry; all these ships are what don't do nothing and have their
+      expenses paid. That's our chance; for we'll go with them, and they won't
+      take the time to look twice or to ask a question. I'm Captain Trent;
+      Carthew, you're Goddedaal; Tommy, you're Hardy; Mac's Brown; Amalu&mdash;Hold
+      hard! we can't make a Chinaman of him! Ah Wing must have deserted; Amalu
+      stowed away; and I turned him to as cook, and was never at the bother to
+      sign him. Catch the idea? Say your names.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And that pale company recited their lesson earnestly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What were the names of the other two?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;Him
+      Carthew shot in the companion, and the one I caught in the jaw on the main
+      top-gallant?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Holdorsen and Wallen,&rdquo; said some one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, they're drowned,&rdquo; continued Wicks; &ldquo;drowned
+      alongside trying to lower a boat. We had a bit of a squall last night:
+      that's how we got ashore.&rdquo; He ran and squinted at the compass.
+      &ldquo;Squall out of nor'-nor'-west-half-west; blew hard; every one in a
+      mess, falls jammed, and Holdorsen and Wallen spilt overboard. See? Clear
+      your blooming heads!&rdquo; He was in his jacket now, and spoke with a
+      feverish impatience and contention that rang like anger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But is it safe?&rdquo; asked Tommy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Safe?&rdquo; bellowed the captain. &ldquo;We're standing on the
+      drop, you moon-calf! If that ship's bound for China (which she don't look
+      to be), we're lost as soon as we arrive; if she's bound the other way, she
+      comes from China, don't she? Well, if there's a man on board of her that
+      ever clapped eyes on Trent or any blooming hand out of this brig, we'll
+      all be in irons in two hours. Safe! no, it ain't safe; it's a beggarly
+      last chance to shave the gallows, and that's what it is.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this convincing picture, fear took hold on all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hadn't we a hundred times better stay by the brig?&rdquo; cried
+      Carthew. &ldquo;They would give us a hand to float her off.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'll make me waste this holy day in chattering!&rdquo; cried
+      Wicks. &ldquo;Look here, when I sounded the well this morning, there was
+      two foot of water there against eight inches last night. What's wrong? I
+      don't know; might be nothing; might be the worst kind of smash. And then,
+      there we are in for a thousand miles in an open boat, if that's your
+      taste!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But it may be nothing, and anyway their carpenters are bound to
+      help us repair her,&rdquo; argued Carthew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Moses Murphy!&rdquo; cried the captain. &ldquo;How did she strike?
+      Bows on, I believe. And she's down by the head now. If any carpenter comes
+      tinkering here, where'll he go first? Down in the forepeak, I suppose! And
+      then, how about all that blood among the chandlery? You would think you
+      were a lot of members of Parliament discussing Plimsoll; and you're just a
+      pack of murderers with the halter round your neck. Any other ass got any
+      time to waste? No? Thank God for that! Now, all hands! I'm going below,
+      and I leave you here on deck. You get the boat cover off that boat; then
+      you turn to and open the specie chest. There are five of us; get five
+      chests, and divide the specie equal among the five&mdash;put it at the
+      bottom&mdash;and go at it like tigers. Get blankets, or canvas, or
+      clothes, so it won't rattle. It'll make five pretty heavy chests, but we
+      can't help that. You, Carthew&mdash;dash me!&mdash;You, Mr. Goddedaal,
+      come below. We've our share before us.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And he cast another glance at the smoke, and hurried below with Carthew at
+      his heels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The logs were found in the main cabin behind the canary's cage; two of
+      them, one kept by Trent, one by Goddedaal. Wicks looked first at one, then
+      at the other, and his lip stuck out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can you forge hand of write?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Carthew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's luck for you&mdash;no more can I!&rdquo; cried the captain.
+      &ldquo;Hullo! here's worse yet, here's this Goddedaal up to date; he must
+      have filled it in before supper. See for yourself: 'Smoke observed.&mdash;Captain
+      Kirkup and five hands of the schooner Currency Lass.' Ah! this is better,&rdquo;
+      he added, turning to the other log. &ldquo;The old man ain't written
+      anything for a clear fortnight. We'll dispose of your log altogether, Mr.
+      Goddedaal, and stick to the old man's&mdash;to mine, I mean; only I ain't
+      going to write it up, for reasons of my own. You are. You're going to sit
+      down right here and fill it in the way I tell you.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How to explain the loss of mine?&rdquo; asked Carthew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You never kept one,&rdquo; replied the captain. &ldquo;Gross
+      neglect of duty. You'll catch it.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And the change of writing?&rdquo; resumed Carthew. &ldquo;You
+      began; why do you stop and why do I come in? And you'll have to sign
+      anyway.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O! I've met with an accident and can't write,&rdquo; replied Wicks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An accident?&rdquo; repeated Carthew. &ldquo;It don't sound
+      natural. What kind of an accident?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wicks spread his hand face-up on the table, and drove a knife through his
+      palm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That kind of an accident,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;There's a way to
+      draw to windward of most difficulties, if you've a head on your shoulders.&rdquo;
+      He began to bind up his hand with a handkerchief, glancing the while over
+      Goddedaal's log. &ldquo;Hullo!&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;this'll never do for
+      us&mdash;this is an impossible kind of a yarn. Here, to begin with, is
+      this Captain Trent trying some fancy course, leastways he's a thousand
+      miles to south'ard of the great circle. And here, it seems, he was close
+      up with this island on the sixth, sails all these days, and is close up
+      with it again by daylight on the eleventh.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Goddedaal said they had the deuce's luck,&rdquo; said Carthew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, it don't look like real life&mdash;that's all I can say,&rdquo;
+      returned Wicks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's the way it was, though,&rdquo; argued Carthew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So it is; and what the better are we for that, if it don't look so?&rdquo;
+      cried the captain, sounding unwonted depths of art criticism. &ldquo;Here!
+      try and see if you can't tie this bandage; I'm bleeding like a pig.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Carthew sought to adjust the handkerchief, his patient seemed sunk in a
+      deep muse, his eye veiled, his mouth partly open. The job was yet scarce
+      done, when he sprang to his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have it,&rdquo; he broke out, and ran on deck. &ldquo;Here, boys!&rdquo;
+      he cried, &ldquo;we didn't come here on the eleventh; we came in here on
+      the evening of the sixth, and lay here ever since becalmed. As soon as
+      you've done with these chests,&rdquo; he added, &ldquo;you can turn to and
+      roll out beef and water breakers; it'll look more shipshape&mdash;like as
+      if we were getting ready for the boat voyage.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And he was back again in a moment, cooking the new log. Goddedaal's was
+      then carefully destroyed, and a hunt began for the ship's papers. Of all
+      the agonies of that breathless morning, this was perhaps the most
+      poignant. Here and there the two men searched, cursing, cannoning
+      together, streaming with heat, freezing with terror. News was bawled down
+      to them that the ship was indeed a man-of-war, that she was close up, that
+      she was lowering a boat; and still they sought in vain. By what accident
+      they missed the iron box with the money and accounts, is hard to fancy;
+      but they did. And the vital documents were found at last in the pocket of
+      Trent's shore-going coat, where he had left them when last he came on
+      board.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wicks smiled for the first time that morning. &ldquo;None too soon,&rdquo;
+      said he. &ldquo;And now for it! Take these others for me; I'm afraid I'll
+      get them mixed if I keep both.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are they?&rdquo; Carthew asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They're the Kirkup and Currency Lass papers,&rdquo; he replied.
+      &ldquo;Pray God we need 'em again!&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Boat's inside the lagoon, sir,&rdquo; hailed down Mac, who sat by
+      the skylight doing sentry while the others worked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Time we were on deck, then, Mr. Goddedaal,&rdquo; said Wicks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As they turned to leave the cabin, the canary burst into piercing song.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My God!&rdquo; cried Carthew, with a gulp, &ldquo;we can't leave
+      that wretched bird to starve. It was poor Goddedaal's.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bring the bally thing along!&rdquo; cried the captain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And they went on deck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An ugly brute of a modern man-of-war lay just without the reef, now quite
+      inert, now giving a flap or two with her propeller. Nearer hand, and just
+      within, a big white boat came skimming to the stroke of many oars, her
+      ensign blowing at the stern.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One word more,&rdquo; said Wicks, after he had taken in the scene.
+      &ldquo;Mac, you've been in China ports? All right; then you can speak for
+      yourself. The rest of you I kept on board all the time we were in
+      Hongkong, hoping you would desert; but you fooled me and stuck to the
+      brig. That'll make your lying come easier.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The boat was now close at hand; a boy in the stern sheets was the only
+      officer, and a poor one plainly, for the men were talking as they pulled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank God, they've only sent a kind of a middy!&rdquo; ejaculated
+      Wicks. &ldquo;Here you, Hardy, stand for'ard! I'll have no deck hands on
+      my quarter-deck,&rdquo; he cried, and the reproof braced the whole crew
+      like a cold douche.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The boat came alongside with perfect neatness, and the boy officer stepped
+      on board, where he was respectfully greeted by Wicks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You the master of this ship?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir,&rdquo; said Wicks. &ldquo;Trent is my name, and this is
+      the Flying Scud of Hull.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You seem to have got into a mess,&rdquo; said the officer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you'll step aft with me here, I'll tell you all there is of it,&rdquo;
+      said Wicks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, man, you're shaking!&rdquo; cried the officer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So would you, perhaps, if you had been in the same berth,&rdquo;
+      returned Wicks; and he told the whole story of the rotten water, the long
+      calm, the squall, the seamen drowned; glibly and hotly; talking, with his
+      head in the lion's mouth, like one pleading in the dock. I heard the same
+      tale from the same narrator in the saloon in San Francisco; and even then
+      his bearing filled me with suspicion. But the officer was no observer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, the captain is in no end of a hurry,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;but
+      I was instructed to give you all the assistance in my power, and signal
+      back for another boat if more hands were necessary. What can I do for you?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, we won't keep you no time,&rdquo; replied Wicks cheerily.
+      &ldquo;We're all ready, bless you&mdash;men's chests, chronometer, papers
+      and all.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean to leave her?&rdquo; cried the officer. &ldquo;She
+      seems to me to lie nicely; can't we get your ship off?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So we could, and no mistake; but how we're to keep her afloat's
+      another question. Her bows is stove in,&rdquo; replied Wicks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The officer coloured to the eyes. He was incompetent and knew he was;
+      thought he was already detected, and feared to expose himself again. There
+      was nothing further from his mind than that the captain should deceive
+      him; if the captain was pleased, why, so was he. &ldquo;All right,&rdquo;
+      he said. &ldquo;Tell your men to get their chests aboard.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Goddedaal, turn the hands to to get the chests aboard,&rdquo;
+      said Wicks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The four Currency Lasses had waited the while on tenter-hooks. This
+      welcome news broke upon them like the sun at midnight; and Hadden burst
+      into a storm of tears, sobbing aloud as he heaved upon the tackle. But the
+      work went none the less briskly forward; chests, men, and bundles were got
+      over the side with alacrity; the boat was shoved off; it moved out of the
+      long shadow of the Flying Scud, and its bows were pointed at the passage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So much, then, was accomplished. The sham wreck had passed muster; they
+      were clear of her, they were safe away; and the water widened between them
+      and her damning evidences. On the other hand, they were drawing nearer to
+      the ship of war, which might very well prove to be their prison and a
+      hangman's cart to bear them to the gallows&mdash;of which they had not yet
+      learned either whence she came or whither she was bound; and the doubt
+      weighed upon their heart like mountains.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Wicks who did the talking. The sound was small in Carthew's ears,
+      like the voices of men miles away, but the meaning of each word struck
+      home to him like a bullet. &ldquo;What did you say your ship was?&rdquo;
+      inquired Wicks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tempest, don't you know?&rdquo; returned the officer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Don't you know? What could that mean? Perhaps nothing: perhaps that the
+      ships had met already. Wicks took his courage in both hands. &ldquo;Where
+      is she bound?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, we're just looking in at all these miserable islands here,&rdquo;
+      said the officer. &ldquo;Then we bear up for San Francisco.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, yes, you're from China ways, like us?&rdquo; pursued Wicks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hong Kong,&rdquo; said the officer, and spat over the side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hong Kong. Then the game was up; as soon as they set foot on board, they
+      would be seized; the wreck would be examined, the blood found, the lagoon
+      perhaps dredged, and the bodies of the dead would reappear to testify. An
+      impulse almost incontrollable bade Carthew rise from the thwart, shriek
+      out aloud, and leap overboard; it seemed so vain a thing to dissemble
+      longer, to dally with the inevitable, to spin out some hundred seconds
+      more of agonised suspense, with shame and death thus visibly approaching.
+      But the indomitable Wicks persevered. His face was like a skull, his voice
+      scarce recognisable; the dullest of men and officers (it seemed) must have
+      remarked that telltale countenance and broken utterance. And still he
+      persevered, bent upon certitude.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nice place, Hong Kong?&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm sure I don't know,&rdquo; said the officer. &ldquo;Only a day
+      and a half there; called for orders and came straight on here. Never heard
+      of such a beastly cruise.&rdquo; And he went on describing and lamenting
+      the untoward fortunes of the Tempest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Wicks and Carthew heeded him no longer. They lay back on the gunnel,
+      breathing deep, sunk in a stupor of the body: the mind within still nimbly
+      and agreeably at work, measuring the past danger, exulting in the present
+      relief, numbering with ecstasy their ultimate chances of escape. For the
+      voyage in the man-of-war they were now safe; yet a few more days of peril,
+      activity, and presence of mind in San Francisco, and the whole horrid tale
+      was blotted out; and Wicks again became Kirkup, and Goddedaal became
+      Carthew&mdash;men beyond all shot of possible suspicion, men who had never
+      heard of the Flying Scud, who had never been in sight of Midway Reef.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So they came alongside, under many craning heads of seamen and projecting
+      mouths of guns; so they climbed on board somnambulous, and looked blindly
+      about them at the tall spars, the white decks, and the crowding ship's
+      company, and heard men as from far away, and answered them at random.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then a hand fell softly on Carthew's shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, Norrie, old chappie, where have you dropped from? All the
+      world's been looking for you. Don't you know you've come into your
+      kingdom?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned, beheld the face of his old schoolmate Sebright, and fell
+      unconscious at his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor was attending him, a while later, in Lieutenant Sebright's
+      cabin, when he came to himself. He opened his eyes, looked hard in the
+      strange face, and spoke with a kind of solemn vigour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Brown must go the same road,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;now or never.&rdquo;
+      And then paused, and his reason coming to him with more clearness, spoke
+      again: &ldquo;What was I saying? Where am I? Who are you?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am the doctor of the Tempest,&rdquo; was the reply. &ldquo;You
+      are in Lieutenant Sebright's berth, and you may dismiss all concern from
+      your mind. Your troubles are over, Mr. Carthew.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do you call me that?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;Ah, I remember&mdash;Sebright
+      knew me! O!&rdquo; and he groaned and shook. &ldquo;Send down Wicks to me;
+      I must see Wicks at once!&rdquo; he cried, and seized the doctor's wrist
+      with unconscious violence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right,&rdquo; said the doctor. &ldquo;Let's make a bargain. You
+      swallow down this draught, and I'll go and fetch Wicks.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And he gave the wretched man an opiate that laid him out within ten
+      minutes and in all likelihood preserved his reason.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the doctor's next business to attend to Mac; and he found occasion,
+      while engaged upon his arm, to make the man repeat the names of the
+      rescued crew. It was now the turn of the captain, and there is no doubt he
+      was no longer the man that we have seen; sudden relief, the sense of
+      perfect safety, a square meal and a good glass of grog, had all combined
+      to relax his vigilance and depress his energy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When was this done?&rdquo; asked the doctor, looking at the wound.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;More than a week ago,&rdquo; replied Wicks, thinking singly of his
+      log.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hey?&rdquo; cried the doctor, and he raised his hand and looked the
+      captain in the eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't remember exactly,&rdquo; faltered Wicks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And at this remarkable falsehood, the suspicions of the doctor were at
+      once quadrupled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By the way, which of you is called Wicks?&rdquo; he asked easily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's that?&rdquo; snapped the captain, falling white as paper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wicks,&rdquo; repeated the doctor; &ldquo;which of you is he?
+      that's surely a plain question.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wicks stared upon his questioner in silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Which is Brown, then?&rdquo; pursued the doctor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you talking of? what do you mean by this?&rdquo; cried
+      Wicks, snatching his half-bandaged hand away, so that the blood sprinkled
+      in the surgeon's face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not trouble to remove it. Looking straight at his victim, he
+      pursued his questions. &ldquo;Why must Brown go the same way?&rdquo; he
+      asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wicks fell trembling on a locker. &ldquo;Carthew's told you,&rdquo; he
+      cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; replied the doctor, &ldquo;he has not. But he and you
+      between you have set me thinking, and I think there's something wrong.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give me some grog,&rdquo; said Wicks. &ldquo;I'd rather tell than
+      have you find out. I'm damned if it's half as bad as what any one would
+      think.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And with the help of a couple of strong grogs, the tragedy of the Flying
+      Scud was told for the first time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a fortunate series of accidents that brought the story to the
+      doctor. He understood and pitied the position of these wretched men, and
+      came whole-heartedly to their assistance. He and Wicks and Carthew (so
+      soon as he was recovered) held a hundred councils and prepared a policy
+      for San Francisco. It was he who certified &ldquo;Goddedaal&rdquo; unfit
+      to be moved and smuggled Carthew ashore under cloud of night; it was he
+      who kept Wicks's wound open that he might sign with his left hand; he who
+      took all their Chile silver and (in the course of the first day) got it
+      converted for them into portable gold. He used his influence in the
+      wardroom to keep the tongues of the young officers in order, so that
+      Carthew's identification was kept out of the papers. And he rendered
+      another service yet more important. He had a friend in San Francisco, a
+      millionaire; to this man he privately presented Carthew as a young
+      gentleman come newly into a huge estate, but troubled with Jew debts which
+      he was trying to settle on the quiet. The millionaire came readily to
+      help; and it was with his money that the wrecker gang was to be fought.
+      What was his name, out of a thousand guesses? It was Douglas Longhurst.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As long as the Currency Lasses could all disappear under fresh names, it
+      did not greatly matter if the brig were bought, or any small discrepancies
+      should be discovered in the wrecking. The identification of one of their
+      number had changed all that. The smallest scandal must now direct
+      attention to the movements of Norris. It would be asked how he who had
+      sailed in a schooner from Sydney, had turned up so shortly after in a brig
+      out of Hong Kong; and from one question to another all his original
+      shipmates were pretty sure to be involved. Hence arose naturally the idea
+      of preventing danger, profiting by Carthew's new-found wealth, and buying
+      the brig under an alias; and it was put in hand with equal energy and
+      caution. Carthew took lodgings alone under a false name, picked up
+      Bellairs at random, and commissioned him to buy the wreck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What figure, if you please?&rdquo; the lawyer asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want it bought,&rdquo; replied Carthew. &ldquo;I don't mind about
+      the price.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Any price is no price,&rdquo; said Bellairs. &ldquo;Put a name upon
+      it.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Call it ten thousand pounds then, if you like!&rdquo; said Carthew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the meanwhile, the captain had to walk the streets, appear in the
+      consulate, be cross-examined by Lloyd's agent, be badgered about his lost
+      accounts, sign papers with his left hand, and repeat his lies to every
+      skipper in San Francisco: not knowing at what moment he might run into the
+      arms of some old friend who should hail him by the name of Wicks, or some
+      new enemy who should be in a position to deny him that of Trent. And the
+      latter incident did actually befall him, but was transformed by his stout
+      countenance into an element of strength. It was in the consulate (of all
+      untoward places) that he suddenly heard a big voice inquiring for Captain
+      Trent. He turned with the customary sinking at his heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;YOU ain't Captain Trent!&rdquo; said the stranger, falling back.
+      &ldquo;Why, what's all this? They tell me you're passing off as Captain
+      Trent&mdash;Captain Jacob Trent&mdash;a man I knew since I was that high.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, you're thinking of my uncle as had the bank in Cardiff,&rdquo;
+      replied Wicks, with desperate aplomb.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I declare I never knew he had a nevvy!&rdquo; said the stranger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you see he has!&rdquo; says Wicks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how is the old man?&rdquo; asked the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fit as a fiddle,&rdquo; answered Wicks, and was opportunely
+      summoned by the clerk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This alert was the only one until the morning of the sale, when he was
+      once more alarmed by his interview with Jim; and it was with some anxiety
+      that he attended the sale, knowing only that Carthew was to be
+      represented, but neither who was to represent him nor what were the
+      instructions given. I suppose Captain Wicks is a good life. In spite of
+      his personal appearance and his own known uneasiness, I suppose he is
+      secure from apoplexy, or it must have struck him there and then, as he
+      looked on at the stages of that insane sale and saw the old brig and her
+      not very valuable cargo knocked down at last to a total stranger for ten
+      thousand pounds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It had been agreed that he was to avoid Carthew, and above all Carthew's
+      lodging, so that no connexion might be traced between the crew and the
+      pseudonymous purchaser. But the hour for caution was gone by, and he
+      caught a tram and made all speed to Mission Street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Carthew met him in the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come away, come away from here,&rdquo; said Carthew; and when they
+      were clear of the house, &ldquo;All's up!&rdquo; he added.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, you've heard of the sale, then?&rdquo; said Wicks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The sale!&rdquo; cried Carthew. &ldquo;I declare I had forgotten
+      it.&rdquo; And he told of the voice in the telephone, and the maddening
+      question: &ldquo;Why did you want to buy the Flying Scud?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This circumstance, coming on the back of the monstrous improbabilities of
+      the sale, was enough to have shaken the reason of Immanuel Kant. The earth
+      seemed banded together to defeat them; the stones and the boys on the
+      street appeared to be in possession of their guilty secret. Flight was
+      their one thought. The treasure of the Currency Lass they packed in
+      waist-belts, expressed their chests to an imaginary address in British
+      Columbia, and left San Francisco the same afternoon, booked for Los
+      Angeles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next day they pursued their retreat by the Southern Pacific route,
+      which Carthew followed on his way to England; but the other three branched
+      off for Mexico.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_EPIL" id="link2H_EPIL">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      EPILOGUE:
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      TO WILL H. LOW.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      DEAR LOW: The other day (at Manihiki of all places) I had the pleasure to
+      meet Dodd. We sat some two hours in the neat, little, toy-like church, set
+      with pews after the manner of Europe, and inlaid with mother-of-pearl in
+      the style (I suppose) of the New Jerusalem. The natives, who are decidedly
+      the most attractive inhabitants of this planet, crowded round us in the
+      pew, and fawned upon and patted us; and here it was I put my questions,
+      and Dodd answered me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I first carried him back to the night in Barbizon when Carthew told his
+      story, and asked him what was done about Bellairs. It seemed he had put
+      the matter to his friend at once, and that Carthew took it with an
+      inimitable lightness. &ldquo;He's poor, and I'm rich,&rdquo; he had said.
+      &ldquo;I can afford to smile at him. I go somewhere else, that's all&mdash;somewhere
+      that's far away and dear to get to. Persia would be found to answer, I
+      fancy. No end of a place, Persia. Why not come with me?&rdquo; And they
+      had left the next afternoon for Constantinople, on their way to Teheran.
+      Of the shyster, it is only known (by a newspaper paragraph) that he
+      returned somehow to San Francisco and died in the hospital.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now there's another point,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;There you are off
+      to Persia with a millionaire, and rich yourself. How come you here in the
+      South Seas, running a trader?&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He said, with a smile, that I had not yet heard of Jim's last bankruptcy.
+      &ldquo;I was about cleaned out once more,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;and then
+      it was that Carthew had this schooner built, and put me in as supercargo.
+      It's his yacht and it's my trader; and as nearly all the expenses go to
+      the yacht, I do pretty well. As for Jim, he's right again: one of the best
+      businesses, they say, in the West, fruit, cereals, and real estate; and he
+      has a Tartar of a partner now&mdash;Nares, no less. Nares will keep him
+      straight, Nares has a big head. They have their country-places next door
+      at Saucelito, and I stayed with them time about, the last time I was on
+      the coast. Jim had a paper of his own&mdash;I think he has a notion of
+      being senator one of these days&mdash;and he wanted me to throw up the
+      schooner and come and write his editorials. He holds strong views on the
+      State Constitution, and so does Mamie.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what became of the other three Currency Lasses after they left
+      Carthew?&rdquo; I inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, it seems they had a huge spree in the city of Mexico,&rdquo;
+      said Dodd; &ldquo;and then Hadden and the Irishman took a turn at the gold
+      fields in Venezuela, and Wicks went on alone to Valparaiso. There's a
+      Kirkup in the Chilean navy to this day, I saw the name in the papers about
+      the Balmaceda war. Hadden soon wearied of the mines, and I met him the
+      other day in Sydney. The last news he had from Venezuela, Mac had been
+      knocked over in an attack on the gold train. So there's only the three of
+      them left, for Amalu scarcely counts. He lives on his own land in Maui, at
+      the side of Hale-a-ka-la, where he keeps Goddedaal's canary; and they say
+      he sticks to his dollars, which is a wonder in a Kanaka. He had a
+      considerable pile to start with, for not only Hemstead's share but
+      Carthew's was divided equally among the other four&mdash;Mac being
+      counted.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did that make for him altogether?&rdquo; I could not help
+      asking, for I had been diverted by the number of calculations in his
+      narrative.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One hundred and twenty-eight pounds nineteen shillings and eleven
+      pence halfpenny,&rdquo; he replied with composure. &ldquo;That's leaving
+      out what little he won at Van John. It's something for a Kanaka, you know.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And about that time we were at last obliged to yield to the solicitations
+      of our native admirers, and go to the pastor's house to drink green
+      cocoanuts. The ship I was in was sailing the same night, for Dodd had been
+      beforehand and got all the shell in the island; and though he pressed me
+      to desert and return with him to Auckland (whither he was now bound to
+      pick up Carthew) I was firm in my refusal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The truth is, since I have been mixed up with Havens and Dodd in the
+      design to publish the latter's narrative, I seem to feel no want for
+      Carthew's society. Of course I am wholly modern in sentiment, and think
+      nothing more noble than to publish people's private affairs at so much a
+      line. They like it, and if they don't, they ought to. But a still small
+      voice keeps telling me they will not like it always, and perhaps not
+      always stand it. Memory besides supplies me with the face of a pressman
+      (in the sacred phrase) who proved altogether too modern for one of his
+      neighbours, and
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Qui nunc it per iter tenebricosum
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      as it were, marshalling us our way. I am in no haste to
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &mdash;nos proecedens&mdash;
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      be that man's successor. Carthew has a record as &ldquo;a clane shot,&rdquo;
+      and for some years Samoa will be good enough for me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We agreed to separate, accordingly; but he took me on board in his own
+      boat with the hard-wood fittings, and entertained me on the way with an
+      account of his late visit to Butaritari, whither he had gone on an errand
+      for Carthew, to see how Topelius was getting along, and, if necessary, to
+      give him a helping hand. But Topelius was in great force, and had
+      patronised and&mdash;well&mdash;out-manoeuvred him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Carthew will be pleased,&rdquo; said Dodd; &ldquo;for there's no
+      doubt they oppressed the man abominably when they were in the Currency
+      Lass. It's diamond cut diamond now.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This, I think, was the most of the news I got from my friend Loudon; and I
+      hope I was well inspired, and have put all the questions to which you
+      would be curious to hear an answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But there is one more that I daresay you are burning to put to myself; and
+      that is, what your own name is doing in this place, cropping up (as it
+      were uncalled-for) on the stern of our poor ship? If you were not born in
+      Arcadia, you linger in fancy on its margin; your thoughts are busied with
+      the flutes of antiquity, with daffodils, and the classic poplar, and the
+      footsteps of the nymphs, and the elegant and moving aridity of ancient
+      art. Why dedicate to you a tale of a caste so modern;&mdash;full of
+      details of our barbaric manners and unstable morals;&mdash;full of the
+      need and the lust of money, so that there is scarce a page in which the
+      dollars do not jingle;&mdash;full of the unrest and movement of our
+      century, so that the reader is hurried from place to place and sea to sea,
+      and the book is less a romance than a panorama&mdash;in the end, as
+      blood-bespattered as an epic?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, you are a man interested in all problems of art, even the most
+      vulgar; and it may amuse you to hear the genesis and growth of <i>The
+      Wrecker</i>. On board the schooner Equator, almost within sight of the
+      Johnstone Islands (if anybody knows where these are) and on a moonlit
+      night when it was a joy to be alive, the authors were amused with several
+      stories of the sale of wrecks. The subject tempted them; and they sat
+      apart in the alley-way to discuss its possibilities. &ldquo;What a tangle
+      it would make,&rdquo; suggested one, &ldquo;if the wrong crew were aboard.
+      But how to get the wrong crew there?&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;I have it!&rdquo;
+      cried the other; &ldquo;the so-and-so affair!&rdquo; For not so many
+      months before, and not so many hundred miles from where we were then
+      sailing, a proposition almost tantamount to that of Captain Trent had been
+      made by a British skipper to some British castaways.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before we turned in, the scaffolding of the tale had been put together.
+      But the question of treatment was as usual more obscure. We had long been
+      at once attracted and repelled by that very modern form of the police
+      novel or mystery story, which consists in beginning your yarn anywhere but
+      at the beginning, and finishing it anywhere but at the end; attracted by
+      its peculiar interest when done, and the peculiar difficulties that attend
+      its execution; repelled by that appearance of insincerity and shallowness
+      of tone, which seems its inevitable drawback. For the mind of the reader,
+      always bent to pick up clews, receives no impression of reality or life,
+      rather of an airless, elaborate mechanism; and the book remains
+      enthralling, but insignificant, like a game of chess, not a work of human
+      art. It seemed the cause might lie partly in the abrupt attack; and that
+      if the tale were gradually approached, some of the characters introduced
+      (as it were) beforehand, and the book started in the tone of a novel of
+      manners and experience briefly treated, this defect might be lessened and
+      our mystery seem to inhere in life. The tone of the age, its movement, the
+      mingling of races and classes in the dollar hunt, the fiery and not quite
+      unromantic struggle for existence with its changing trades and scenery,
+      and two types in particular, that of the American handy-man of business
+      and that of the Yankee merchant sailor&mdash;we agreed to dwell upon at
+      some length, and make the woof to our not very precious warp. Hence Dodd's
+      father, and Pinkerton, and Nares, and the Dromedary picnics, and the
+      railway work in New South Wales&mdash;the last an unsolicited testimonial
+      from the powers that be, for the tale was half written before I saw
+      Carthew's squad toil in the rainy cutting at South Clifton, or heard from
+      the engineer of his &ldquo;young swell.&rdquo; After we had invented at
+      some expense of time this method of approaching and fortifying our police
+      novel, it occurred to us it had been invented previously by some one else,
+      and was in fact&mdash;however painfully different the results may seem&mdash;the
+      method of Charles Dickens in his later work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I see you staring. Here, you will say, is a prodigious quantity of theory
+      to our halfpenny worth of police novel; and withal not a shadow of an
+      answer to your question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, some of us like theory. After so long a piece of practice, these may
+      be indulged for a few pages. And the answer is at hand. It was plainly
+      desirable, from every point of view of convenience and contrast, that our
+      hero and narrator should partly stand aside from those with whom he
+      mingles, and be but a pressed-man in the dollar hunt. Thus it was that
+      Loudon Dodd became a student of the plastic arts, and that our
+      globe-trotting story came to visit Paris and look in at Barbizon. And thus
+      it is, dear Low, that your name appears in the address of this epilogue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For sure, if any person can here appreciate and read between the lines, it
+      must be you&mdash;and one other, our friend. All the dominos will be
+      transparent to your better knowledge; the statuary contract will be to you
+      a piece of ancient history; and you will not have now heard for the first
+      time of the dangers of Roussillon. Dead leaves from the Bas Breau, echoes
+      from Lavenue's and the Rue Racine, memories of a common past, let these be
+      your bookmarkers as you read. And if you care for naught else in the
+      story, be a little pleased to breathe once more for a moment the airs of
+      our youth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The End.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Wrecker, by
+Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
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+</pre>
+  </body>
+</html>
diff --git a/old/1024.txt b/old/1024.txt
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+Project Gutenberg's The Wrecker, by Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Wrecker
+
+Author: Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
+
+Release Date: February 11, 2006 [EBook #1024]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WRECKER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Tony Adam and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+THE WRECKER
+
+by Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
+
+
+
+
+PROLOGUE.
+
+
+
+
+IN THE MARQUESAS.
+
+It was about three o'clock of a winter's afternoon in Tai-o-hae, the
+French capital and port of entry of the Marquesas Islands. The trades
+blew strong and squally; the surf roared loud on the shingle beach; and
+the fifty-ton schooner of war, that carries the flag and influence of
+France about the islands of the cannibal group, rolled at her moorings
+under Prison Hill. The clouds hung low and black on the surrounding
+amphitheatre of mountains; rain had fallen earlier in the day, real
+tropic rain, a waterspout for violence; and the green and gloomy brow of
+the mountain was still seamed with many silver threads of torrent.
+
+In these hot and healthy islands winter is but a name. The rain had not
+refreshed, nor could the wind invigorate, the dwellers of Tai-o-hae:
+away at one end, indeed, the commandant was directing some changes in
+the residency garden beyond Prison Hill; and the gardeners, being
+all convicts, had no choice but to continue to obey. All other folks
+slumbered and took their rest: Vaekehu, the native queen, in her
+trim house under the rustling palms; the Tahitian commissary, in his
+beflagged official residence; the merchants, in their deserted stores;
+and even the club-servant in the club, his head fallen forward on
+the bottle-counter, under the map of the world and the cards of navy
+officers. In the whole length of the single shoreside street, with its
+scattered board houses looking to the sea, its grateful shade of palms
+and green jungle of puraos, no moving figure could be seen. Only, at
+the end of the rickety pier, that once (in the prosperous days of the
+American rebellion) was used to groan under the cotton of John Hart,
+there might have been spied upon a pile of lumber the famous tattooed
+white man, the living curiosity of Tai-o-hae.
+
+
+His eyes were open, staring down the bay. He saw the mountains droop,
+as they approached the entrance, and break down in cliffs; the surf boil
+white round the two sentinel islets; and between, on the narrow bight
+of blue horizon, Ua-pu upraise the ghost of her pinnacled mountain tops.
+But his mind would take no account of these familiar features; as he
+dodged in and out along the frontier line of sleep and waking, memory
+would serve him with broken fragments of the past: brown faces and
+white, of skipper and shipmate, king and chief, would arise before his
+mind and vanish; he would recall old voyages, old landfalls in the hour
+of dawn; he would hear again the drums beat for a man-eating festival;
+perhaps he would summon up the form of that island princess for the love
+of whom he had submitted his body to the cruel hands of the tattooer,
+and now sat on the lumber, at the pier-end of Tai-o-hae, so strange
+a figure of a European. Or perhaps from yet further back, sounds and
+scents of England and his childhood might assail him: the merry clamour
+of cathedral bells, the broom upon the foreland, the song of the river
+on the weir.
+
+It is bold water at the mouth of the bay; you can steer a ship about
+either sentinel, close enough to toss a biscuit on the rocks. Thus
+it chanced that, as the tattooed man sat dozing and dreaming, he was
+startled into wakefulness and animation by the appearance of a flying
+jib beyond the western islet. Two more headsails followed; and before
+the tattooed man had scrambled to his feet, a topsail schooner, of some
+hundred tons, had luffed about the sentinel and was standing up the bay,
+close-hauled.
+
+The sleeping city awakened by enchantment. Natives appeared upon all
+sides, hailing each other with the magic cry "Ehippy"--ship; the Queen
+stepped forth on her verandah, shading her eyes under a hand that was
+a miracle of the fine art of tattooing; the commandant broke from his
+domestic convicts and ran into the residency for his glass; the harbour
+master, who was also the gaoler, came speeding down the Prison Hill; the
+seventeen brown Kanakas and the French boatswain's mate, that make up
+the complement of the war-schooner, crowded on the forward deck; and the
+various English, Americans, Germans, Poles, Corsicans, and Scots--the
+merchants and the clerks of Tai-o-hae--deserted their places of
+business, and gathered, according to invariable custom, on the road
+before the club.
+
+So quickly did these dozen whites collect, so short are the distances
+in Tai-o-hae, that they were already exchanging guesses as to the
+nationality and business of the strange vessel, before she had gone
+about upon her second board towards the anchorage. A moment after,
+English colours were broken out at the main truck.
+
+"I told you she was a Johnny Bull--knew it by her headsails," said an
+evergreen old salt, still qualified (if he could anywhere have found
+an owner unacquainted with his story) to adorn another quarter-deck and
+lose another ship.
+
+"She has American lines, anyway," said the astute Scots engineer of the
+gin-mill; "it's my belief she's a yacht."
+
+"That's it," said the old salt, "a yacht! look at her davits, and the
+boat over the stern."
+
+"A yacht in your eye!" said a Glasgow voice. "Look at her red ensign! A
+yacht! not much she isn't!"
+
+"You can close the store, anyway, Tom," observed a gentlemanly German.
+"Bon jour, mon Prince!" he added, as a dark, intelligent native cantered
+by on a neat chestnut. "Vous allez boire un verre de biere?"
+
+But Prince Stanilas Moanatini, the only reasonably busy human creature
+on the island, was riding hot-spur to view this morning's landslip on
+the mountain road: the sun already visibly declined; night was imminent;
+and if he would avoid the perils of darkness and precipice, and the
+fear of the dead, the haunters of the jungle, he must for once decline
+a hospitable invitation. Even had he been minded to alight, it presently
+appeared there would be difficulty as to the refreshment offered.
+
+"Beer!" cried the Glasgow voice. "No such a thing; I tell you there's
+only eight bottles in the club! Here's the first time I've seen British
+colours in this port! and the man that sails under them has got to drink
+that beer."
+
+The proposal struck the public mind as fair, though far from cheering;
+for some time back, indeed, the very name of beer had been a sound of
+sorrow in the club, and the evenings had passed in dolorous computation.
+
+"Here is Havens," said one, as if welcoming a fresh topic. "What do you
+think of her, Havens?"
+
+"I don't think," replied Havens, a tall, bland, cool-looking, leisurely
+Englishman, attired in spotless duck, and deliberately dealing with a
+cigarette. "I may say I know. She's consigned to me from Auckland by
+Donald & Edenborough. I am on my way aboard."
+
+"What ship is she?" asked the ancient mariner.
+
+"Haven't an idea," returned Havens. "Some tramp they have chartered."
+
+With that he placidly resumed his walk, and was soon seated in the
+stern-sheets of a whaleboat manned by uproarious Kanakas, himself
+daintily perched out of the way of the least maculation, giving his
+commands in an unobtrusive, dinner-table tone of voice, and sweeping
+neatly enough alongside the schooner.
+
+A weather-beaten captain received him at the gangway.
+
+"You are consigned to us, I think," said he. "I am Mr. Havens."
+
+"That is right, sir," replied the captain, shaking hands. "You will find
+the owner, Mr. Dodd, below. Mind the fresh paint on the house."
+
+Havens stepped along the alley-way, and descended the ladder into the
+main cabin.
+
+"Mr. Dodd, I believe," said he, addressing a smallish, bearded
+gentleman, who sat writing at the table. "Why," he cried, "it isn't
+Loudon Dodd?"
+
+"Myself, my dear fellow," replied Mr. Dodd, springing to his feet with
+companionable alacrity. "I had a half-hope it might be you, when I found
+your name on the papers. Well, there's no change in you; still the same
+placid, fresh-looking Britisher."
+
+"I can't return the compliment; for you seem to have become a Britisher
+yourself," said Havens.
+
+"I promise you, I am quite unchanged," returned Dodd. "The red
+tablecloth at the top of the stick is not my flag; it's my partner's.
+He is not dead, but sleepeth. There he is," he added, pointing to a bust
+which formed one of the numerous unexpected ornaments of that unusual
+cabin.
+
+Havens politely studied it. "A fine bust," said he; "and a very
+nice-looking fellow."
+
+"Yes; he's a good fellow," said Dodd. "He runs me now. It's all his
+money."
+
+"He doesn't seem to be particularly short of it," added the other,
+peering with growing wonder round the cabin.
+
+"His money, my taste," said Dodd. "The black-walnut bookshelves are Old
+English; the books all mine,--mostly Renaissance French. You should see
+how the beach-combers wilt away when they go round them looking for a
+change of Seaside Library novels. The mirrors are genuine Venice; that's
+a good piece in the corner. The daubs are mine--and his; the mudding
+mine."
+
+"Mudding? What is that?" asked Havens.
+
+"These bronzes," replied Dodd. "I began life as a sculptor."
+
+"Yes; I remember something about that," said the other. "I think, too,
+you said you were interested in Californian real estate."
+
+"Surely, I never went so far as that," said Dodd. "Interested? I guess
+not. Involved, perhaps. I was born an artist; I never took an interest
+in anything but art. If I were to pile up this old schooner to-morrow,"
+he added, "I declare I believe I would try the thing again!"
+
+"Insured?" inquired Havens.
+
+"Yes," responded Dodd. "There's some fool in 'Frisco who insures us, and
+comes down like a wolf on the fold on the profits; but we'll get even
+with him some day."
+
+"Well, I suppose it's all right about the cargo," said Havens.
+
+"O, I suppose so!" replied Dodd. "Shall we go into the papers?"
+
+"We'll have all to-morrow, you know," said Havens; "and they'll be
+rather expecting you at the club. C'est l'heure de l'absinthe. Of
+course, Loudon, you'll dine with me later on?"
+
+Mr. Dodd signified his acquiescence; drew on his white coat, not without
+a trifling difficulty, for he was a man of middle age, and well-to-do;
+arranged his beard and moustaches at one of the Venetian mirrors; and,
+taking a broad felt hat, led the way through the trade-room into the
+ship's waist.
+
+The stern boat was waiting alongside,--a boat of an elegant model, with
+cushions and polished hard-wood fittings.
+
+"You steer," observed Loudon. "You know the best place to land."
+
+"I never like to steer another man's boat," replied Havens.
+
+"Call it my partner's, and cry quits," returned Loudon, getting
+nonchalantly down the side.
+
+Havens followed and took the yoke lines without further protest. "I am
+sure I don't know how you make this pay," he said. "To begin with,
+she is too big for the trade, to my taste; and then you carry so much
+style."
+
+"I don't know that she does pay," returned Loudon. "I never pretend to
+be a business man. My partner appears happy; and the money is all his,
+as I told you--I only bring the want of business habits."
+
+"You rather like the berth, I suppose?" suggested Havens.
+
+"Yes," said Loudon; "it seems odd, but I rather do."
+
+While they were yet on board, the sun had dipped; the sunset gun (a
+rifle) cracked from the war-schooner, and the colours had been
+handed down. Dusk was deepening as they came ashore; and the Cercle
+Internationale (as the club is officially and significantly named) began
+to shine, from under its low verandas, with the light of many lamps. The
+good hours of the twenty-four drew on; the hateful, poisonous day-fly
+of Nukahiva, was beginning to desist from its activity; the land-breeze
+came in refreshing draughts; and the club men gathered together for the
+hour of absinthe. To the commandant himself, to the man whom he was then
+contending with at billiards--a trader from the next island, honorary
+member of the club, and once carpenter's mate on board a Yankee
+war-ship--to the doctor of the port, to the Brigadier of Gendarmerie, to
+the opium farmer, and to all the white men whom the tide of commerce,
+or the chances of shipwreck and desertion, had stranded on the beach of
+Tai-o-hae, Mr. Loudon Dodd was formally presented; by all (since he was
+a man of pleasing exterior, smooth ways, and an unexceptionable flow of
+talk, whether in French or English) he was excellently well received;
+and presently, with one of the last eight bottles of beer on a table
+at his elbow, found himself the rather silent centre-piece of a voluble
+group on the verandah.
+
+Talk in the South Seas is all upon one pattern; it is a wide ocean,
+indeed, but a narrow world: you shall never talk long and not hear the
+name of Bully Hayes, a naval hero whose exploits and deserved extinction
+left Europe cold; commerce will be touched on, copra, shell, perhaps
+cotton or fungus; but in a far-away, dilettante fashion, as by men
+not deeply interested; through all, the names of schooners and their
+captains, will keep coming and going, thick as may-flies; and news
+of the last shipwreck will be placidly exchanged and debated. To a
+stranger, this conversation will at first seem scarcely brilliant; but
+he will soon catch the tone; and by the time he shall have moved a
+year or so in the island world, and come across a good number of the
+schooners so that every captain's name calls up a figure in pyjamas or
+white duck, and becomes used to a certain laxity of moral tone which
+prevails (as in memory of Mr. Hayes) on smuggling, ship-scuttling,
+barratry, piracy, the labour trade, and other kindred fields of human
+activity, he will find Polynesia no less amusing and no less instructive
+than Pall Mall or Paris.
+
+Mr. Loudon Dodd, though he was new to the group of the Marquesas, was
+already an old, salted trader; he knew the ships and the captains; he
+had assisted, in other islands, at the first steps of some career of
+which he now heard the culmination, or (vice versa) he had brought
+with him from further south the end of some story which had begun in
+Tai-o-hae. Among other matter of interest, like other arrivals in
+the South Seas, he had a wreck to announce. The John T. Richards, it
+appeared, had met the fate of other island schooners.
+
+"Dickinson piled her up on Palmerston Island," Dodd announced.
+
+"Who were the owners?" inquired one of the club men.
+
+"O, the usual parties!" returned Loudon,--"Capsicum & Co."
+
+A smile and a glance of intelligence went round the group; and perhaps
+Loudon gave voice to the general sentiment by remarking, "Talk of good
+business! I know nothing better than a schooner, a competent captain,
+and a sound, reliable reef."
+
+"Good business! There's no such a thing!" said the Glasgow man. "Nobody
+makes anything but the missionaries--dash it!"
+
+"I don't know," said another. "There's a good deal in opium."
+
+"It's a good job to strike a tabooed pearl-island, say, about the fourth
+year," remarked a third; "skim the whole lagoon on the sly, and up stick
+and away before the French get wind of you."
+
+"A pig nokket of cold is good," observed a German.
+
+"There's something in wrecks, too," said Havens. "Look at that man in
+Honolulu, and the ship that went ashore on Waikiki Reef; it was blowing
+a kona, hard; and she began to break up as soon as she touched. Lloyd's
+agent had her sold inside an hour; and before dark, when she went to
+pieces in earnest, the man that bought her had feathered his nest. Three
+more hours of daylight, and he might have retired from business. As it
+was, he built a house on Beretania Street, and called it for the ship."
+
+"Yes, there's something in wrecks sometimes," said the Glasgow voice;
+"but not often."
+
+"As a general rule, there's deuced little in anything," said Havens.
+
+"Well, I believe that's a Christian fact," cried the other. "What I want
+is a secret; get hold of a rich man by the right place, and make him
+squeal."
+
+"I suppose you know it's not thought to be the ticket," returned Havens.
+
+"I don't care for that; it's good enough for me," cried the man from
+Glasgow, stoutly. "The only devil of it is, a fellow can never find a
+secret in a place like the South Seas: only in London and Paris."
+
+"M'Gibbon's been reading some dime-novel, I suppose," said one club man.
+
+"He's been reading _Aurora Floyd_," remarked another.
+
+"And what if I have?" cried M'Gibbon. "It's all true. Look at
+the newspapers! It's just your confounded ignorance that sets you
+snickering. I tell you, it's as much a trade as underwriting, and a
+dashed sight more honest."
+
+The sudden acrimony of these remarks called Loudon (who was a man of
+peace) from his reserve. "It's rather singular," said he, "but I seem to
+have practised about all these means of livelihood."
+
+"Tit you effer vind a nokket?" inquired the inarticulate German,
+eagerly.
+
+"No. I have been most kinds of fool in my time," returned Loudon, "but
+not the gold-digging variety. Every man has a sane spot somewhere."
+
+"Well, then," suggested some one, "did you ever smuggle opium?"
+
+"Yes, I did," said Loudon.
+
+"Was there money in that?"
+
+"All the way," responded Loudon.
+
+"And perhaps you bought a wreck?" asked another.
+
+"Yes, sir," said Loudon.
+
+"How did that pan out?" pursued the questioner.
+
+"Well, mine was a peculiar kind of wreck," replied Loudon. "I don't
+know, on the whole, that I can recommend that branch of industry."
+
+"Did she break up?" asked some one.
+
+"I guess it was rather I that broke down," says Loudon. "Head not big
+enough."
+
+"Ever try the blackmail?" inquired Havens.
+
+"Simple as you see me sitting here!" responded Dodd.
+
+"Good business?"
+
+"Well, I'm not a lucky man, you see," returned the stranger. "It ought
+to have been good."
+
+"You had a secret?" asked the Glasgow man.
+
+"As big as the State of Texas."
+
+"And the other man was rich?"
+
+"He wasn't exactly Jay Gould, but I guess he could buy these islands if
+he wanted."
+
+"Why, what was wrong, then? Couldn't you get hands on him?"
+
+"It took time, but I had him cornered at last; and then----"
+
+"What then?"
+
+"The speculation turned bottom up. I became the man's bosom friend."
+
+"The deuce you did!"
+
+"He couldn't have been particular, you mean?" asked Dodd pleasantly.
+"Well, no; he's a man of rather large sympathies."
+
+"If you're done talking nonsense, Loudon," said Havens, "let's be
+getting to my place for dinner."
+
+Outside, the night was full of the roaring of the surf. Scattered lights
+glowed in the green thicket. Native women came by twos and threes out of
+the darkness, smiled and ogled the two whites, perhaps wooed them with
+a strain of laughter, and went by again, bequeathing to the air a
+heady perfume of palm-oil and frangipani blossom. From the club to Mr.
+Havens's residence was but a step or two, and to any dweller in Europe
+they must have seemed steps in fairyland. If such an one could but have
+followed our two friends into the wide-verandahed house, sat down
+with them in the cool trellised room, where the wine shone on the
+lamp-lighted tablecloth; tasted of their exotic food--the raw fish, the
+breadfruit, the cooked bananas, the roast pig served with the inimitable
+miti, and that king of delicacies, palm-tree salad; seen and heard by
+fits and starts, now peering round the corner of the door, now railing
+within against invisible assistants, a certain comely young native lady
+in a sacque, who seemed too modest to be a member of the family, and too
+imperious to be less; and then if such an one were whisked again through
+space to Upper Tooting, or wherever else he honored the domestic gods,
+"I have had a dream," I think he would say, as he sat up, rubbing his
+eyes, in the familiar chimney-corner chair, "I have had a dream of a
+place, and I declare I believe it must be heaven." But to Dodd and his
+entertainer, all this amenity of the tropic night and all these dainties
+of the island table, were grown things of custom; and they fell to meat
+like men who were hungry, and drifted into idle talk like men who were a
+trifle bored.
+
+The scene in the club was referred to.
+
+"I never heard you talk so much nonsense, Loudon," said the host.
+
+"Well, it seemed to me there was sulphur in the air, so I talked for
+talking," returned the other. "But it was none of it nonsense."
+
+"Do you mean to say it was true?" cried Havens,--"that about the opium
+and the wreck, and the blackmailing and the man who became your friend?"
+
+"Every last word of it," said Loudon.
+
+"You seem to have been seeing life," returned the other.
+
+"Yes, it's a queer yarn," said his friend; "if you think you would like,
+I'll tell it you."
+
+Here follows the yarn of Loudon Dodd, not as he told it to his friend,
+but as he subsequently wrote it.
+
+
+
+
+THE YARN.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. A SOUND COMMERCIAL EDUCATION.
+
+
+The beginning of this yarn is my poor father's character. There
+never was a better man, nor a handsomer, nor (in my view) a more
+unhappy--unhappy in his business, in his pleasures, in his place of
+residence, and (I am sorry to say it) in his son. He had begun life as a
+land-surveyor, soon became interested in real estate, branched off into
+many other speculations, and had the name of one of the smartest men in
+the State of Muskegon. "Dodd has a big head," people used to say; but I
+was never so sure of his capacity. His luck, at least, was beyond doubt
+for long; his assiduity, always. He fought in that daily battle of
+money-grubbing, with a kind of sad-eyed loyalty like a martyr's; rose
+early, ate fast, came home dispirited and over-weary, even from success;
+grudged himself all pleasure, if his nature was capable of taking any,
+which I sometimes wondered; and laid out, upon some deal in wheat or
+corner in aluminium, the essence of which was little better than highway
+robbery, treasures of conscientiousness and self-denial.
+
+Unluckily, I never cared a cent for anything but art, and never shall.
+My idea of man's chief end was to enrich the world with things of
+beauty, and have a fairly good time myself while doing so. I do not
+think I mentioned that second part, which is the only one I have managed
+to carry out; but my father must have suspected the suppression, for he
+branded the whole affair as self-indulgence.
+
+"Well," I remember crying once, "and what is your life? You are only
+trying to get money, and to get it from other people at that."
+
+He sighed bitterly (which was very much his habit), and shook his poor
+head at me. "Ah, Loudon, Loudon!" said he, "you boys think yourselves
+very smart. But, struggle as you please, a man has to work in this
+world. He must be an honest man or a thief, Loudon."
+
+You can see for yourself how vain it was to argue with my father.
+The despair that seized upon me after such an interview was, besides,
+embittered by remorse; for I was at times petulant, but he invariably
+gentle; and I was fighting, after all, for my own liberty and pleasure,
+he singly for what he thought to be my good. And all the time he never
+despaired. "There is good stuff in you, Loudon," he would say; "there
+is the right stuff in you. Blood will tell, and you will come right in
+time. I am not afraid my boy will ever disgrace me; I am only vexed he
+should sometimes talk nonsense." And then he would pat my shoulder or
+my hand with a kind of motherly way he had, very affecting in a man so
+strong and beautiful.
+
+As soon as I had graduated from the high school, he packed me off to the
+Muskegon Commercial Academy. You are a foreigner, and you will have a
+difficulty in accepting the reality of this seat of education. I assure
+you before I begin that I am wholly serious. The place really existed,
+possibly exists to-day: we were proud of it in the State, as something
+exceptionally nineteenth century and civilized; and my father, when he
+saw me to the cars, no doubt considered he was putting me in a straight
+line for the Presidency and the New Jerusalem.
+
+"Loudon," said he, "I am now giving you a chance that Julius Caesar
+could not have given to his son--a chance to see life as it is, before
+your own turn comes to start in earnest. Avoid rash speculation, try
+to behave like a gentleman; and if you will take my advice, confine
+yourself to a safe, conservative business in railroads. Breadstuffs are
+tempting, but very dangerous; I would not try breadstuffs at your time
+of life; but you may feel your way a little in other commodities. Take
+a pride to keep your books posted, and never throw good money after bad.
+There, my dear boy, kiss me good-by; and never forget that you are an
+only chick, and that your dad watches your career with fond suspense."
+
+The commercial college was a fine, roomy establishment, pleasantly
+situate among woods. The air was healthy, the food excellent, the
+premium high. Electric wires connected it (to use the words of the
+prospectus) with "the various world centres." The reading-room was well
+supplied with "commercial organs." The talk was that of Wall Street; and
+the pupils (from fifty to a hundred lads) were principally engaged
+in rooking or trying to rook one another for nominal sums in what was
+called "college paper." We had class hours, indeed, in the morning, when
+we studied German, French, book-keeping, and the like goodly matters;
+but the bulk of our day and the gist of the education centred in the
+exchange, where we were taught to gamble in produce and securities.
+Since not one of the participants possessed a bushel of wheat or a
+dollar's worth of stock, legitimate business was of course impossible
+from the beginning. It was cold-drawn gambling, without colour or
+disguise. Just that which is the impediment and destruction of all
+genuine commercial enterprise, just that we were taught with every
+luxury of stage effect. Our simulacrum of a market was ruled by the real
+markets outside, so that we might experience the course and vicissitude
+of prices. We must keep books, and our ledgers were overhauled at
+the month's end by the principal or his assistants. To add a spice
+of verisimilitude, "college paper" (like poker chips) had an actual
+marketable value. It was bought for each pupil by anxious parents and
+guardians at the rate of one cent for the dollar. The same pupil, when
+his education was complete, resold, at the same figure, so much as was
+left him to the college; and even in the midst of his curriculum, a
+successful operator would sometimes realize a proportion of his holding,
+and stand a supper on the sly in the neighbouring hamlet. In short,
+if there was ever a worse education, it must have been in that academy
+where Oliver met Charlie Bates.
+
+When I was first guided into the exchange to have my desk pointed out
+by one of the assistant teachers, I was overwhelmed by the clamour and
+confusion. Certain blackboards at the other end of the building were
+covered with figures continually replaced. As each new set appeared, the
+pupils swayed to and fro, and roared out aloud with a formidable and
+to me quite meaningless vociferation; leaping at the same time upon
+the desks and benches, signalling with arms and heads, and scribbling
+briskly in note-books. I thought I had never beheld a scene more
+disagreeable; and when I considered that the whole traffic was illusory,
+and all the money then upon the market would scarce have sufficed to
+buy a pair of skates, I was at first astonished, although not for long.
+Indeed, I had no sooner called to mind how grown-up men and women of
+considerable estate will lose their temper about half-penny points, than
+(making an immediate allowance for my fellow-students) I transferred
+the whole of my astonishment to the assistant teacher, who--poor
+gentleman--had quite forgot to show me to my desk, and stood in the
+midst of this hurly-burly, absorbed and seemingly transported.
+
+"Look, look," he shouted in my ear; "a falling market! The bears have
+had it all their own way since yesterday."
+
+"It can't matter," I replied, making him hear with difficulty, for I was
+unused to speak in such a babel, "since it is all fun."
+
+"True," said he; "and you must always bear in mind that the real profit
+is in the book-keeping. I trust, Dodd, to be able to congratulate
+you upon your books. You are to start in with ten thousand dollars of
+college paper, a very liberal figure, which should see you through the
+whole curriculum, if you keep to a safe, conservative business.... Why,
+what's that?" he broke off, once more attracted by the changing figures
+on the board. "Seven, four, three! Dodd, you are in luck: this is the
+most spirited rally we have had this term. And to think that the same
+scene is now transpiring in New York, Chicago, St. Louis, and rival
+business centres! For two cents, I would try a flutter with the
+boys myself," he cried, rubbing his hands; "only it's against the
+regulations."
+
+"What would you do, sir?" I asked.
+
+"Do?" he cried, with glittering eyes. "Buy for all I was worth!"
+
+"Would that be a safe, conservative business?" I inquired, as innocent
+as a lamb.
+
+He looked daggers at me. "See that sandy-haired man in glasses?" he
+asked, as if to change the subject. "That's Billson, our most prominent
+undergraduate. We build confidently on Billson's future. You could not
+do better, Dodd, than follow Billson."
+
+Presently after, in the midst of a still growing tumult, the figures
+coming and going more busily than ever on the board, and the hall
+resounding like Pandemonium with the howls of operators, the assistant
+teacher left me to my own resources at my desk. The next boy was posting
+up his ledger, figuring his morning's loss, as I discovered later on;
+and from this ungenial task he was readily diverted by the sight of a
+new face.
+
+"Say, Freshman," he said, "what's your name? What? Son of Big Head Dodd?
+What's your figure? Ten thousand? O, you're away up! What a soft-headed
+clam you must be to touch your books!"
+
+I asked him what else I could do, since the books were to be examined
+once a month.
+
+"Why, you galoot, you get a clerk!" cries he. "One of our dead
+beats--that's all they're here for. If you're a successful operator, you
+need never do a stroke of work in this old college."
+
+The noise had now become deafening; and my new friend, telling me that
+some one had certainly "gone down," that he must know the news, and
+that he would bring me a clerk when he returned, buttoned his coat and
+plunged into the tossing throng. It proved that he was right: some one
+had gone down; a prince had fallen in Israel; the corner in lard had
+proved fatal to the mighty; and the clerk who was brought back to keep
+my books, spare me all work, and get all my share of the education, at
+a thousand dollars a month, college paper (ten dollars, United States
+currency) was no other than the prominent Billson whom I could do no
+better than follow. The poor lad was very unhappy. It's the only good
+thing I have to say for Muskegon Commercial College, that we were all,
+even the small fry, deeply mortified to be posted as defaulters; and the
+collapse of a merchant prince like Billson, who had ridden pretty high
+in his days of prosperity, was, of course, particularly hard to bear.
+But the spirit of make-believe conquered even the bitterness of recent
+shame; and my clerk took his orders, and fell to his new duties, with
+decorum and civility.
+
+Such were my first impressions in this absurd place of education; and,
+to be frank, they were far from disagreeable. As long as I was rich, my
+evenings and afternoons would be my own; the clerk must keep my books,
+the clerk could do the jostling and bawling in the exchange; and I could
+turn my mind to landscape-painting and Balzac's novels, which were then
+my two preoccupations. To remain rich, then, became my problem; or, in
+other words, to do a safe, conservative line of business. I am looking
+for that line still; and I believe the nearest thing to it in this
+imperfect world is the sort of speculation sometimes insidiously
+proposed to childhood, in the formula, "Heads, I win; tails, you lose."
+Mindful of my father's parting words, I turned my attention timidly to
+railroads; and for a month or so maintained a position of inglorious
+security, dealing for small amounts in the most inert stocks, and
+bearing (as best I could) the scorn of my hired clerk. One day I
+had ventured a little further by way of experiment; and, in the sure
+expectation they would continue to go down, sold several thousand
+dollars of Pan-Handle Preference (I think it was). I had no sooner
+made this venture than some fools in New York began to bull the market;
+Pan-Handles rose like a balloon; and in the inside of half an hour I saw
+my position compromised. Blood will tell, as my father said; and I stuck
+to it gallantly: all afternoon I continued selling that infernal
+stock, all afternoon it continued skying. I suppose I had come (a frail
+cockle-shell) athwart the hawse of Jay Gould; and, indeed, I think I
+remember that this vagary in the market proved subsequently to be the
+first move in a considerable deal. That evening, at least, the name of
+H. Loudon Dodd held the first rank in our collegiate gazette, and I and
+Billson (once more thrown upon the world) were competing for the same
+clerkship. The present object takes the present eye. My disaster,
+for the moment, was the more conspicuous; and it was I that got the
+situation. So you see, even in Muskegon Commercial College, there were
+lessons to be learned.
+
+For my own part, I cared very little whether I lost or won at a game so
+random, so complex, and so dull; but it was sorry news to write to my
+poor father, and I employed all the resources of my eloquence. I told
+him (what was the truth) that the successful boys had none of the
+education; so that if he wished me to learn, he should rejoice at my
+misfortune. I went on (not very consistently) to beg him to set me up
+again, when I would solemnly promise to do a safe business in reliable
+railroads. Lastly (becoming somewhat carried away), I assured him I was
+totally unfit for business, and implored him to take me away from this
+abominable place, and let me go to Paris to study art. He answered
+briefly, gently, and sadly, telling me the vacation was near at hand,
+when we could talk things over.
+
+When the time came, he met me at the depot, and I was shocked to see
+him looking older. He seemed to have no thought but to console me
+and restore (what he supposed I had lost) my courage. I must not be
+down-hearted; many of the best men had made a failure in the beginning.
+I told him I had no head for business, and his kind face darkened. "You
+must not say that, Loudon," he replied; "I will never believe my son to
+be a coward."
+
+"But I don't like it," I pleaded. "It hasn't got any interest for me,
+and art has. I know I could do more in art," and I reminded him that
+a successful painter gains large sums; that a picture of Meissonier's
+would sell for many thousand dollars.
+
+"And do you think, Loudon," he replied, "that a man who can paint a
+thousand dollar picture has not grit enough to keep his end up in
+the stock market? No, sir; this Mason (of whom you speak) or our
+own American Bierstadt--if you were to put them down in a wheat pit
+to-morrow, they would show their mettle. Come, Loudon, my dear; heaven
+knows I have no thought but your own good, and I will offer you a
+bargain. I start you again next term with ten thousand dollars; show
+yourself a man, and double it, and then (if you still wish to go to
+Paris, which I know you won't) I'll let you go. But to let you run away
+as if you were whipped, is what I am too proud to do."
+
+My heart leaped at this proposal, and then sank again. It seemed easier
+to paint a Meissonier on the spot than to win ten thousand dollars
+on that mimic stock exchange. Nor could I help reflecting on the
+singularity of such a test for a man's capacity to be a painter. I
+ventured even to comment on this.
+
+He sighed deeply. "You forget, my dear," said he, "I am a judge of
+the one, and not of the other. You might have the genius of Bierstadt
+himself, and I would be none the wiser."
+
+"And then," I continued, "it's scarcely fair. The other boys are helped
+by their people, who telegraph and give them pointers. There's Jim
+Costello, who never budges without a word from his father in New York.
+And then, don't you see, if anybody is to win, somebody must lose?"
+
+"I'll keep you posted," cried my father, with unusual animation; "I did
+not know it was allowed. I'll wire you in the office cipher, and we'll
+make it a kind of partnership business, Loudon:--Dodd & Son, eh?" and
+he patted my shoulder and repeated, "Dodd & Son, Dodd & Son," with the
+kindliest amusement.
+
+If my father was to give me pointers, and the commercial college was to
+be a stepping-stone to Paris, I could look my future in the face. The
+old boy, too, was so pleased at the idea of our association in this
+foolery that he immediately plucked up spirit. Thus it befell that those
+who had met at the depot like a pair of mutes, sat down to table with
+holiday faces.
+
+And now I have to introduce a new character that never said a word nor
+wagged a finger, and yet shaped my whole subsequent career. You have
+crossed the States, so that in all likelihood you have seen the head
+of it, parcel-gilt and curiously fluted, rising among trees from a wide
+plain; for this new character was no other than the State capitol of
+Muskegon, then first projected. My father had embraced the idea with a
+mixture of patriotism and commercial greed both perfectly genuine. He
+was of all the committees, he had subscribed a great deal of money, and
+he was making arrangements to have a finger in most of the contracts.
+Competitive plans had been sent in; at the time of my return from
+college my father was deep in their consideration; and as the idea
+entirely occupied his mind, the first evening did not pass away before
+he had called me into council. Here was a subject at last into which I
+could throw myself with pleasurable zeal. Architecture was new to me,
+indeed; but it was at least an art; and for all the arts I had a taste
+naturally classical and that capacity to take delighted pains which some
+famous idiot has supposed to be synonymous with genius. I threw myself
+headlong into my father's work, acquainted myself with all the plans,
+their merits and defects, read besides in special books, made myself
+a master of the theory of strains, studied the current prices
+of materials, and (in one word) "devilled" the whole business so
+thoroughly, that when the plans came up for consideration, Big Head Dodd
+was supposed to have earned fresh laurels. His arguments carried the
+day, his choice was approved by the committee, and I had the anonymous
+satisfaction to know that arguments and choice were wholly mine. In the
+recasting of the plan which followed, my part was even larger; for I
+designed and cast with my own hand a hot-air grating for the offices,
+which had the luck or merit to be accepted. The energy and aptitude
+which I displayed throughout delighted and surprised my father, and I
+believe, although I say it whose tongue should be tied, that they alone
+prevented Muskegon capitol from being the eyesore of my native State.
+
+Altogether, I was in a cheery frame of mind when I returned to the
+commercial college; and my earlier operations were crowned with a full
+measure of success. My father wrote and wired to me continually. "You
+are to exercise your own judgment, Loudon," he would say. "All that I do
+is to give you the figures; but whatever operation you take up must be
+upon your own responsibility, and whatever you earn will be entirely
+due to your own dash and forethought." For all that, it was always clear
+what he intended me to do, and I was always careful to do it. Inside
+of a month I was at the head of seventeen or eighteen thousand dollars,
+college paper. And here I fell a victim to one of the vices of the
+system. The paper (I have already explained) had a real value of one
+per cent; and cost, and could be sold for, currency. Unsuccessful
+speculators were thus always selling clothes, books, banjos, and
+sleeve-links, in order to pay their differences; the successful, on the
+other hand, were often tempted to realise, and enjoy some return upon
+their profits. Now I wanted thirty dollars' worth of artist-truck, for
+I was always sketching in the woods; my allowance was for the time
+exhausted; I had begun to regard the exchange (with my father's help)
+as a place where money was to be got for stooping; and in an evil hour
+I realised three thousand dollars of the college paper and bought my
+easel.
+
+It was a Wednesday morning when the things arrived, and set me in
+the seventh heaven of satisfaction. My father (for I can scarcely say
+myself) was trying at this time a "straddle" in wheat between Chicago
+and New York; the operation so called is, as you know, one of the
+most tempting and least safe upon the chess-board of finance. On the
+Thursday, luck began to turn against my father's calculations; and by
+the Friday evening, I was posted on the boards as a defaulter for the
+second time. Here was a rude blow: my father would have taken it ill
+enough in any case; for however much a man may resent the incapacity of
+an only son, he will feel his own more sensibly. But it chanced that, in
+our bitter cup of failure, there was one ingredient that might truly be
+called poisonous. He had been keeping the run of my position; he missed
+the three thousand dollars, paper; and in his view, I had stolen thirty
+dollars, currency. It was an extreme view perhaps; but in some senses,
+it was just: and my father, although (to my judgment) quite reckless of
+honesty in the essence of his operations, was the soul of honour as to
+their details. I had one grieved letter from him, dignified and tender;
+and during the rest of that wretched term, working as a clerk, selling
+my clothes and sketches to make futile speculations, my dream of Paris
+quite vanished. I was cheered by no word of kindness and helped by no
+hint of counsel from my father.
+
+All the time he was no doubt thinking of little else but his son, and
+what to do with him. I believe he had been really appalled by what he
+regarded as my laxity of principle, and began to think it might be
+well to preserve me from temptation; the architect of the capitol had,
+besides, spoken obligingly of my design; and while he was thus hanging
+between two minds, Fortune suddenly stepped in, and Muskegon State
+capitol reversed my destiny.
+
+"Loudon," said my father, as he met me at the depot, with a smiling
+countenance, "if you were to go to Paris, how long would it take you to
+become an experienced sculptor?"
+
+"How do you mean, father?" I cried. "Experienced?"
+
+"A man that could be entrusted with the highest styles," he answered;
+"the nude, for instance; and the patriotic and emblematical styles."
+
+"It might take three years," I replied.
+
+"You think Paris necessary?" he asked. "There are great advantages
+in our own country; and that man Prodgers appears to be a very clever
+sculptor, though I suppose he stands too high to go around giving
+lessons."
+
+"Paris is the only place," I assured him.
+
+"Well, I think myself it will sound better," he admitted. "A Young Man,
+a Native of this State, Son of a Leading Citizen, Studies Prosecuted
+under the Most Experienced Masters in Paris," he added, relishingly.
+
+"But, my dear dad, what is it all about?" I interrupted. "I never even
+dreamed of being a sculptor."
+
+"Well, here it is," said he. "I took up the statuary contract on our new
+capitol; I took it up at first as a deal; and then it occurred to me it
+would be better to keep it in the family. It meets your idea; there's
+considerable money in the thing; and it's patriotic. So, if you say the
+word, you shall go to Paris, and come back in three years to decorate
+the capitol of your native State. It's a big chance for you, Loudon; and
+I'll tell you what--every dollar you earn, I'll put another alongside of
+it. But the sooner you go, and the harder you work, the better; for
+if the first half-dozen statues aren't in a line with public taste in
+Muskegon, there will be trouble."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. ROUSSILLON WINE.
+
+
+My mother's family was Scotch, and it was judged fitting I should pay a
+visit on my way Paris-ward, to my Uncle Adam Loudon, a wealthy retired
+grocer of Edinburgh. He was very stiff and very ironical; he fed me
+well, lodged me sumptuously, and seemed to take it out of me all the
+time, cent per cent, in secret entertainment which caused his spectacles
+to glitter and his mouth to twitch. The ground of this ill-suppressed
+mirth (as well as I could make out) was simply the fact that I was an
+American. "Well," he would say, drawing out the word to infinity, "and
+I suppose now in your country, things will be so and so." And the whole
+group of my cousins would titter joyously. Repeated receptions of
+this sort must be at the root, I suppose, of what they call the Great
+American Jest; and I know I was myself goaded into saying that my
+friends went naked in the summer months, and that the Second Methodist
+Episcopal Church in Muskegon was decorated with scalps. I cannot say
+that these flights had any great success; they seemed to awaken little
+more surprise than the fact that my father was a Republican or that I
+had been taught in school to spell COLOUR without the U. If I had
+told them (what was after all the truth) that my father had paid a
+considerable annual sum to have me brought up in a gambling hell, the
+tittering and grinning of this dreadful family might perhaps have been
+excused.
+
+I cannot deny but I was sometimes tempted to knock my Uncle Adam down;
+and indeed I believe it must have come to a rupture at last, if they had
+not given a dinner party at which I was the lion. On this occasion, I
+learned (to my surprise and relief) that the incivility to which I had
+been subjected was a matter for the family circle and might be regarded
+almost in the light of an endearment. To strangers I was presented with
+consideration; and the account given of "my American brother-in-law,
+poor Janie's man, James K. Dodd, the well-known millionnaire of
+Muskegon," was calculated to enlarge the heart of a proud son.
+
+An aged assistant of my grandfather's, a pleasant, humble creature with
+a taste for whiskey, was at first deputed to be my guide about the city.
+With this harmless but hardly aristocratic companion, I went to Arthur's
+Seat and the Calton Hill, heard the band play in the Princes Street
+Gardens, inspected the regalia and the blood of Rizzio, and fell in love
+with the great castle on its cliff, the innumerable spires of churches,
+the stately buildings, the broad prospects, and those narrow and crowded
+lanes of the old town where my ancestors had lived and died in the days
+before Columbus.
+
+But there was another curiosity that interested me more deeply--my
+grandfather, Alexander Loudon. In his time, the old gentleman had been a
+working mason, and had risen from the ranks more, I think, by shrewdness
+than by merit. In his appearance, speech, and manners, he bore broad
+marks of his origin, which were gall and wormwood to my Uncle Adam.
+His nails, in spite of anxious supervision, were often in conspicuous
+mourning; his clothes hung about him in bags and wrinkles like a
+ploughman's Sunday coat; his accent was rude, broad, and dragging: take
+him at his best, and even when he could be induced to hold his tongue,
+his mere presence in a corner of the drawing-room, with his open-air
+wrinkles, his scanty hair, his battered hands, and the cheerful
+craftiness of his expression, advertised the whole gang of us for a
+self-made family. My aunt might mince and my cousins bridle; but there
+was no getting over the solid, physical fact of the stonemason in the
+chimney-corner.
+
+That is one advantage of being an American: it never occurred to me to
+be ashamed of my grandfather, and the old gentleman was quick to mark
+the difference. He held my mother in tender memory, perhaps because
+he was in the habit of daily contrasting her with Uncle Adam, whom he
+detested to the point of frenzy; and he set down to inheritance from
+his favourite my own becoming treatment of himself. On our walks abroad,
+which soon became daily, he would sometimes (after duly warning me
+to keep the matter dark from "Aadam") skulk into some old familiar
+pot-house; and there (if he had the luck to encounter any of his veteran
+cronies) he would present me to the company with manifest pride, casting
+at the same time a covert slur on the rest of his descendants. "This is
+my Jeannie's yin," he would say. "He's a fine fallow, him." The purpose
+of our excursions was not to seek antiquities or to enjoy famous
+prospects, but to visit one after another a series of doleful suburbs,
+for which it was the old gentleman's chief claim to renown that he had
+been the sole contractor, and too often the architect besides. I have
+rarely seen a more shocking exhibition: the bricks seemed to be blushing
+in the walls, and the slates on the roof to have turned pale with shame;
+but I was careful not to communicate these impressions to the aged
+artificer at my side; and when he would direct my attention to some
+fresh monstrosity--perhaps with the comment, "There's an idee of mine's:
+it's cheap and tasty, and had a graand run; the idee was soon stole, and
+there's whole deestricts near Glesgie with the goathic adeetion and
+that plunth,"--I would civilly make haste to admire and (what I found
+particularly delighted him) to inquire into the cost of each adornment.
+It will be conceived that Muskegon capitol was a frequent and a welcome
+ground of talk; I drew him all the plans from memory; and he, with the
+aid of a narrow volume full of figures and tables, which answered
+(I believe) to the name of Molesworth, and was his constant pocket
+companion, would draw up rough estimates and make imaginary offers on
+the various contracts. Our Muskegon builders he pronounced a pack of
+cormorants; and the congenial subject, together with my knowledge of
+architectural terms, the theory of strains, and the prices of materials
+in the States, formed a strong bond of union between what might have
+been otherwise an ill-assorted pair, and led my grandfather to pronounce
+me, with emphasis, "a real intalligent kind of a cheild." Thus a second
+time, as you will presently see, the capitol of my native State had
+influentially affected the current of my life.
+
+I left Edinburgh, however, with not the least idea that I had done a
+stroke of excellent business for myself, and singly delighted to escape
+out of a somewhat dreary house and plunge instead into the rainbow city
+of Paris. Every man has his own romance; mine clustered exclusively
+about the practice of the arts, the life of Latin Quarter students, and
+the world of Paris as depicted by that grimy wizard, the author of the
+_Comedie Humaine_. I was not disappointed--I could not have been; for
+I did not see the facts, I brought them with me ready-made. Z. Marcas
+lived next door to me in my ungainly, ill-smelling hotel of the Rue
+Racine; I dined at my villainous restaurant with Lousteau and with
+Rastignac: if a curricle nearly ran me down at a street-crossing, Maxime
+de Trailles would be the driver. I dined, I say, at a poor restaurant
+and lived in a poor hotel; and this was not from need, but sentiment.
+My father gave me a profuse allowance, and I might have lived (had I
+chosen) in the Quartier de l'Etoile and driven to my studies daily.
+Had I done so, the glamour must have fled: I should still have been
+but Loudon Dodd; whereas now I was a Latin Quarter student, Murger's
+successor, living in flesh and blood the life of one of those romances
+I had loved to read, to re-read, and to dream over, among the woods of
+Muskegon.
+
+At this time we were all a little Murger-mad in the Latin Quarter.
+The play of the _Vie de Boheme_ (a dreary, snivelling piece) had been
+produced at the Odeon, had run an unconscionable time--for Paris, and
+revived the freshness of the legend. The same business, you may say,
+or there and thereabout, was being privately enacted in consequence in
+every garret of the neighbourhood, and a good third of the students
+were consciously impersonating Rodolphe or Schaunard to their own
+incommunicable satisfaction. Some of us went far, and some farther. I
+always looked with awful envy (for instance) on a certain countryman of
+my own who had a studio in the Rue Monsieur le Prince, wore boots, and
+long hair in a net, and could be seen tramping off, in this guise, to
+the worst eating-house of the quarter, followed by a Corsican model, his
+mistress, in the conspicuous costume of her race and calling. It takes
+some greatness of soul to carry even folly to such heights as these; and
+for my own part, I had to content myself by pretending very arduously
+to be poor, by wearing a smoking-cap on the streets, and by pursuing,
+through a series of misadventures, that extinct mammal, the grisette.
+The most grievous part was the eating and the drinking. I was born with
+a dainty tooth and a palate for wine; and only a genuine devotion to
+romance could have supported me under the cat-civets that I had to
+swallow, and the red ink of Bercy I must wash them down withal. Every
+now and again, after a hard day at the studio, where I was steadily and
+far from unsuccessfully industrious, a wave of distaste would overbear
+me; I would slink away from my haunts and companions, indemnify myself
+for weeks of self-denial with fine wines and dainty dishes; seated
+perhaps on a terrace, perhaps in an arbour in a garden, with a volume
+of one of my favourite authors propped open in front of me, and now
+consulted awhile, and now forgotten:--so remain, relishing my situation,
+till night fell and the lights of the city kindled; and thence stroll
+homeward by the riverside, under the moon or stars, in a heaven of
+poetry and digestion.
+
+One such indulgence led me in the course of my second year into an
+adventure which I must relate: indeed, it is the very point I have been
+aiming for, since that was what brought me in acquaintance with Jim
+Pinkerton. I sat down alone to dinner one October day when the rusty
+leaves were falling and scuttling on the boulevard, and the minds of
+impressionable men inclined in about an equal degree towards sadness
+and conviviality. The restaurant was no great place, but boasted a
+considerable cellar and a long printed list of vintages. This I was
+perusing with the double zest of a man who is fond of wine and a lover
+of beautiful names, when my eye fell (near the end of the card) on that
+not very famous or familiar brand, Roussillon. I remembered it was a
+wine I had never tasted, ordered a bottle, found it excellent, and when
+I had discussed the contents, called (according to my habit) for a final
+pint. It appears they did not keep Roussillon in half-bottles. "All
+right," said I. "Another bottle." The tables at this eating-house are
+close together; and the next thing I can remember, I was in somewhat
+loud conversation with my nearest neighbours. From these I must have
+gradually extended my attentions; for I have a clear recollection of
+gazing about a room in which every chair was half turned round and every
+face turned smilingly to mine. I can even remember what I was saying at
+the moment; but after twenty years, the embers of shame are still alive;
+and I prefer to give your imagination the cue, by simply mentioning that
+my muse was the patriotic. It had been my design to adjourn for coffee
+in the company of some of these new friends; but I was no sooner on
+the sidewalk than I found myself unaccountably alone. The circumstance
+scarce surprised me at the time, much less now; but I was somewhat
+chagrined a little after to find I had walked into a kiosque. I began to
+wonder if I were any the worse for my last bottle, and decided to steady
+myself with coffee and brandy. In the Cafe de la Source, where I went
+for this restorative, the fountain was playing, and (what greatly
+surprised me) the mill and the various mechanical figures on the rockery
+appeared to have been freshly repaired and performed the most enchanting
+antics. The cafe was extraordinarily hot and bright, with every detail
+of a conspicuous clearness, from the faces of the guests to the type of
+the newspapers on the tables, and the whole apartment swang to and fro
+like a hammock, with an exhilarating motion. For some while I was so
+extremely pleased with these particulars that I thought I could never
+be weary of beholding them: then dropped of a sudden into a causeless
+sadness; and then, with the same swiftness and spontaneity, arrived at
+the conclusion that I was drunk and had better get to bed.
+
+It was but a step or two to my hotel, where I got my lighted candle from
+the porter and mounted the four flights to my own room. Although I could
+not deny that I was drunk, I was at the same time lucidly rational and
+practical. I had but one preoccupation--to be up in time on the morrow
+for my work; and when I observed the clock on my chimney-piece to have
+stopped, I decided to go down stairs again and give directions to the
+porter. Leaving the candle burning and my door open, to be a guide to me
+on my return, I set forth accordingly. The house was quite dark; but as
+there were only the three doors on each landing, it was impossible to
+wander, and I had nothing to do but descend the stairs until I saw the
+glimmer of the porter's night light. I counted four flights: no porter.
+It was possible, of course, that I had reckoned incorrectly; so I went
+down another and another, and another, still counting as I went, until
+I had reached the preposterous figure of nine flights. It was now quite
+clear that I had somehow passed the porter's lodge without remarking
+it; indeed, I was, at the lowest figure, five pairs of stairs below
+the street, and plunged in the very bowels of the earth. That my hotel
+should thus be founded upon catacombs was a discovery of considerable
+interest; and if I had not been in a frame of mind entirely
+businesslike, I might have continued to explore all night this
+subterranean empire. But I was bound I must be up betimes on the next
+morning, and for that end it was imperative that I should find the
+porter. I faced about accordingly, and counting with painful care,
+remounted towards the level of the street. Five, six, and seven flights
+I climbed, and still there was no porter. I began to be weary of the
+job, and reflecting that I was now close to my own room, decided I
+should go to bed. Eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen flights
+I mounted; and my open door seemed to be as wholly lost to me as the
+porter and his floating dip. I remembered that the house stood but
+six stories at its highest point, from which it appeared (on the most
+moderate computation) I was now three stories higher than the roof. My
+original sense of amusement was succeeded by a not unnatural irritation.
+"My room has just GOT to be here," said I, and I stepped towards the
+door with outspread arms. There was no door and no wall; in place of
+either there yawned before me a dark corridor, in which I continued to
+advance for some time without encountering the smallest opposition. And
+this in a house whose extreme area scantily contained three small rooms,
+a narrow landing, and the stair! The thing was manifestly nonsense;
+and you will scarcely be surprised to learn that I now began to lose
+my temper. At this juncture I perceived a filtering of light along
+the floor, stretched forth my hand which encountered the knob of a
+door-handle, and without further ceremony entered a room. A young lady
+was within; she was going to bed, and her toilet was far advanced, or
+the other way about, if you prefer.
+
+"I hope you will pardon this intrusion," said I; "but my room is No. 12,
+and something has gone wrong with this blamed house."
+
+She looked at me a moment; and then, "If you will step outside for a
+moment, I will take you there," says she.
+
+Thus, with perfect composure on both sides, the matter was arranged.
+I waited a while outside her door. Presently she rejoined me, in a
+dressing-gown, took my hand, led me up another flight, which made the
+fourth above the level of the roof, and shut me into my own room, where
+(being quite weary after these contraordinary explorations) I turned in,
+and slumbered like a child.
+
+I tell you the thing calmly, as it appeared to me to pass; but the next
+day, when I awoke and put memory in the witness-box, I could not conceal
+from myself that the tale presented a good many improbable features.
+I had no mind for the studio, after all, and went instead to the
+Luxembourg gardens, there, among the sparrows and the statues and the
+falling leaves, to cool and clear my head. It is a garden I have always
+loved. You sit there in a public place of history and fiction. Barras
+and Fouche have looked from these windows. Lousteau and de Banville (one
+as real as the other) have rhymed upon these benches. The city tramples
+by without the railings to a lively measure; and within and about you,
+trees rustle, children and sparrows utter their small cries, and the
+statues look on forever. Here, then, in a seat opposite the gallery
+entrance, I set to work on the events of the last night, to disengage
+(if it were possible) truth from fiction.
+
+The house, by daylight, had proved to be six stories high, the same as
+ever. I could find, with all my architectural experience, no room in its
+altitude for those interminable stairways, no width between its walls
+for that long corridor, where I had tramped at night. And there was yet
+a greater difficulty. I had read somewhere an aphorism that everything
+may be false to itself save human nature. A house might elongate or
+enlarge itself--or seem to do so to a gentleman who had been dining.
+The ocean might dry up, the rocks melt in the sun, the stars fall from
+heaven like autumn apples; and there was nothing in these incidents
+to boggle the philosopher. But the case of the young lady stood upon a
+different foundation. Girls were not good enough, or not good that way,
+or else they were too good. I was ready to accept any of these views:
+all pointed to the same conclusion, which I was thus already on the
+point of reaching, when a fresh argument occurred, and instantly
+confirmed it. I could remember the exact words we had each said; and I
+had spoken, and she had replied, in English. Plainly, then, the whole
+affair was an illusion: catacombs, and stairs, and charitable lady, all
+were equally the stuff of dreams.
+
+I had just come to this determination, when there blew a flaw of wind
+through the autumnal gardens; the dead leaves showered down, and a
+flight of sparrows, thick as a snowfall, wheeled above my head with
+sudden pipings. This agreeable bustle was the affair of a moment, but it
+startled me from the abstraction into which I had fallen like a summons.
+I sat briskly up, and as I did so, my eyes rested on the figure of a
+lady in a brown jacket and carrying a paint-box. By her side walked a
+fellow some years older than myself, with an easel under his arm; and
+alike by their course and cargo I might judge they were bound for the
+gallery, where the lady was, doubtless, engaged upon some copying.
+You can imagine my surprise when I recognized in her the heroine of my
+adventure. To put the matter beyond question, our eyes met, and she,
+seeing herself remembered and recalling the trim in which I had
+last beheld her, looked swiftly on the ground with just a shadow of
+confusion.
+
+I could not tell you to-day if she were plain or pretty; but she had
+behaved with so much good sense, and I had cut so poor a figure in
+her presence, that I became instantly fired with the desire to display
+myself in a more favorable light. The young man besides was possibly her
+brother; brothers are apt to be hasty, theirs being a part in which
+it is possible, at a comparatively early age, to assume the dignity
+of manhood; and it occurred to me it might be wise to forestall all
+possible complications by an apology.
+
+On this reasoning I drew near to the gallery door, and had hardly got in
+position before the young man came out. Thus it was that I came face to
+face with my third destiny; for my career has been entirely shaped
+by these three elements,--my father, the capitol of Muskegon, and my
+friend, Jim Pinkerton. As for the young lady with whom my mind was at
+the moment chiefly occupied, I was never to hear more of her from that
+day forward: an excellent example of the Blind Man's Buff that we call
+life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. TO INTRODUCE MR. PINKERTON.
+
+
+The stranger, I have said, was some years older than myself: a man of a
+good stature, a very lively face, cordial, agitated manners, and a gray
+eye as active as a fowl's.
+
+"May I have a word with you?" said I.
+
+"My dear sir," he replied, "I don't know what it can be about, but you
+may have a hundred if you like."
+
+"You have just left the side of a young lady," I continued, "towards
+whom I was led (very unintentionally) into the appearance of an offence.
+To speak to herself would be only to renew her embarrassment, and I
+seize the occasion of making my apology, and declaring my respect, to
+one of my own sex who is her friend, and perhaps," I added, with a bow,
+"her natural protector."
+
+"You are a countryman of mine; I know it!" he cried: "I am sure of it
+by your delicacy to a lady. You do her no more than justice. I was
+introduced to her the other night at tea, in the apartment of some
+people, friends of mine; and meeting her again this morning, I could not
+do less than carry her easel for her. My dear sir, what is your name?"
+
+I was disappointed to find he had so little bond with my young lady;
+and but that it was I who had sought the acquaintance, might have been
+tempted to retreat. At the same time, something in the stranger's eye
+engaged me.
+
+"My name," said I, "is Loudon Dodd; I am a student of sculpture here
+from Muskegon."
+
+"Of sculpture?" he cried, as though that would have been his last
+conjecture. "Mine is James Pinkerton; I am delighted to have the
+pleasure of your acquaintance."
+
+"Pinkerton!" it was now my turn to exclaim. "Are you Broken-Stool
+Pinkerton?"
+
+He admitted his identity with a laugh of boyish delight; and indeed any
+young man in the quarter might have been proud to own a sobriquet thus
+gallantly acquired.
+
+In order to explain the name, I must here digress into a chapter of
+the history of manners in the nineteenth century, very well worth
+commemoration for its own sake. In some of the studios at that date,
+the hazing of new pupils was both barbarous and obscene. Two incidents,
+following one on the heels of the other tended to produce an advance in
+civilization by the means (as so commonly happens) of a passing appeal
+to savage standards. The first was the arrival of a little gentleman
+from Armenia. He had a fez upon his head and (what nobody counted on) a
+dagger in his pocket. The hazing was set about in the customary style,
+and, perhaps in virtue of the victim's head-gear, even more boisterously
+than usual. He bore it at first with an inviting patience; but upon one
+of the students proceeding to an unpardonable freedom, plucked out
+his knife and suddenly plunged it in the belly of the jester. This
+gentleman, I am pleased to say, passed months upon a bed of sickness,
+before he was in a position to resume his studies. The second incident
+was that which had earned Pinkerton his reputation. In a crowded studio,
+while some very filthy brutalities were being practised on a trembling
+debutant, a tall, pale fellow sprang from his stool and (without the
+smallest preface or explanation) sang out, "All English and Americans to
+clear the shop!" Our race is brutal, but not filthy; and the summons
+was nobly responded to. Every Anglo-Saxon student seized his stool; in
+a moment the studio was full of bloody coxcombs, the French fleeing in
+disorder for the door, the victim liberated and amazed. In this feat of
+arms, both English-speaking nations covered themselves with glory;
+but I am proud to claim the author of the whole for an American, and
+a patriotic American at that, being the same gentleman who had
+subsequently to be held down in the bottom of a box during a performance
+of _L'Oncle Sam_, sobbing at intervals, "My country! O my country!"
+While yet another (my new acquaintance, Pinkerton) was supposed to have
+made the most conspicuous figure in the actual battle. At one blow, he
+had broken his own stool, and sent the largest of his opponents back
+foremost through what we used to call a "conscientious nude." It appears
+that, in the continuation of his flight, this fallen warrior issued on
+the boulevard still framed in the burst canvas.
+
+It will be understood how much talk the incident aroused in the
+students' quarter, and that I was highly gratified to make the
+acquaintance of my famous countryman. It chanced I was to see more of
+the quixotic side of his character before the morning was done; for as
+we continued to stroll together, I found myself near the studio of a
+young Frenchman whose work I had promised to examine, and in the fashion
+of the quarter carried up Pinkerton along with me. Some of my comrades
+of this date were pretty obnoxious fellows. I could almost always admire
+and respect the grown-up practitioners of art in Paris; but many of
+those who were still in a state of pupilage were sorry specimens, so
+much so that I used often to wonder where the painters came from, and
+where the brutes of students went to. A similar mystery hangs over the
+intermediate stages of the medical profession, and must have perplexed
+the least observant. The ruffian, at least, whom I now carried Pinkerton
+to visit, was one of the most crapulous in the quarter. He turned
+out for our delectation a huge "crust" (as we used to call it) of St.
+Stephen, wallowing in red upon his belly in an exhausted receiver, and
+a crowd of Hebrews in blue, green, and yellow, pelting him--apparently
+with buns; and while we gazed upon this contrivance, regaled us with
+a piece of his own recent biography, of which his mind was still very
+full, and which he seemed to fancy, represented him in a heroic posture.
+I was one of those cosmopolitan Americans, who accept the world (whether
+at home or abroad) as they find it, and whose favourite part is that
+of the spectator; yet even I was listening with ill-suppressed disgust,
+when I was aware of a violent plucking at my sleeve.
+
+"Is he saying he kicked her down stairs?" asked Pinkerton, white as St.
+Stephen.
+
+"Yes," said I: "his discarded mistress; and then he pelted her with
+stones. I suppose that's what gave him the idea for his picture. He has
+just been alleging the pathetic excuse that she was old enough to be his
+mother."
+
+Something like a sob broke from Pinkerton. "Tell him," he gasped--"I
+can't speak this language, though I understand a little; I never had any
+proper education--tell him I'm going to punch his head."
+
+"For God's sake, do nothing of the sort!" I cried. "They don't
+understand that sort of thing here." And I tried to bundle him out.
+
+"Tell him first what we think of him," he objected. "Let me tell him
+what he looks in the eyes of a pure-minded American"
+
+"Leave that to me," said I, thrusting Pinkerton clear through the door.
+
+"Qu'est-ce qu'il a?"[1] inquired the student.
+
+[1] "What's the matter with him?"
+
+"Monsieur se sent mal au coeur d'avoir trop regarde votre croute,"[2]
+said I, and made my escape, scarce with dignity, at Pinkerton's heels.
+
+[2] "The gentleman is sick at his stomach from having looked too long at
+your daub."
+
+"What did you say to him?" he asked.
+
+"The only thing that he could feel," was my reply.
+
+After this scene, the freedom with which I had ejected my new
+acquaintance, and the precipitation with which I had followed him, the
+least I could do was to propose luncheon. I have forgot the name of the
+place to which I led him, nothing loath; it was on the far side of the
+Luxembourg at least, with a garden behind, where we were speedily set
+face to face at table, and began to dig into each other's history
+and character, like terriers after rabbits, according to the approved
+fashion of youth.
+
+Pinkerton's parents were from the old country; there too, I incidentally
+gathered, he had himself been born, though it was a circumstance he
+seemed prone to forget. Whether he had run away, or his father had
+turned him out, I never fathomed; but about the age of twelve, he was
+thrown upon his own resources. A travelling tin-type photographer picked
+him up, like a haw out of a hedgerow, on a wayside in New Jersey; took
+a fancy to the urchin; carried him on with him in his wandering life;
+taught him all he knew himself--to take tin-types (as well as I can make
+out) and doubt the Scriptures; and died at last in Ohio at the corner
+of a road. "He was a grand specimen," cried Pinkerton; "I wish you could
+have seen him, Mr. Dodd. He had an appearance of magnanimity that used
+to remind me of the patriarchs." On the death of this random protector,
+the boy inherited the plant and continued the business. "It was a life
+I could have chosen, Mr. Dodd!" he cried. "I have been in all the finest
+scenes of that magnificent continent that we were born to be the heirs
+of. I wish you could see my collection of tin-types; I wish I had them
+here. They were taken for my own pleasure and to be a memento; and they
+show Nature in her grandest as well as her gentlest moments." As he
+tramped the Western States and Territories, taking tin-types, the boy
+was continually getting hold of books, good, bad, and indifferent,
+popular and abstruse, from the novels of Sylvanus Cobb to Euclid's
+Elements, both of which I found (to my almost equal wonder) he had
+managed to peruse: he was taking stock by the way, of the people, the
+products, and the country, with an eye unusually observant and a
+memory unusually retentive; and he was collecting for himself a body of
+magnanimous and semi-intellectual nonsense, which he supposed to be the
+natural thoughts and to contain the whole duty of the born American.
+To be pure-minded, to be patriotic, to get culture and money with both
+hands and with the same irrational fervour--these appeared to be the
+chief articles of his creed. In later days (not of course upon this
+first occasion) I would sometimes ask him why; and he had his answer
+pat. "To build up the type!" he would cry. "We're all committed to that;
+we're all under bond to fulfil the American Type! Loudon, the hope of
+the world is there. If we fail, like these old feudal monarchies, what
+is left?"
+
+The trade of a tin-typer proved too narrow for the lad's ambition; it
+was insusceptible of expansion, he explained, it was not truly modern;
+and by a sudden conversion of front, he became a railroad-scalper. The
+principles of this trade I never clearly understood; but its essence
+appears to be to cheat the railroads out of their due fare. "I threw my
+whole soul into it; I grudged myself food and sleep while I was at it;
+the most practised hands admitted I had caught on to the idea in a month
+and revolutionised the practice inside of a year," he said. "And there's
+interest in it, too. It's amusing to pick out some one going by, make up
+your mind about his character and tastes, dash out of the office and hit
+him flying with an offer of the very place he wants to go to. I don't
+think there was a scalper on the continent made fewer blunders. But I
+took it only as a stage. I was saving every dollar; I was looking
+ahead. I knew what I wanted--wealth, education, a refined home, and a
+conscientious, cultured lady for a wife; for, Mr. Dodd"--this with
+a formidable outcry--"every man is bound to marry above him: if the
+woman's not the man's superior, I brand it as mere sensuality. There was
+my idea, at least. That was what I was saving for; and enough, too! But
+it isn't every man, I know that--it's far from every man--could do what
+I did: close up the livest agency in Saint Jo, where he was coining
+dollars by the pot, set out alone, without a friend or a word of French,
+and settle down here to spend his capital learning art."
+
+"Was it an old taste?" I asked him, "or a sudden fancy?"
+
+"Neither, Mr. Dodd," he admitted. "Of course I had learned in my
+tin-typing excursions to glory and exult in the works of God. But it
+wasn't that. I just said to myself, What is most wanted in my age and
+country? More culture and more art, I said; and I chose the best place,
+saved my money, and came here to get them."
+
+The whole attitude of this young man warmed and shamed me. He had more
+fire in his little toe than I had in my whole carcase; he was stuffed to
+bursting with the manly virtues; thrift and courage glowed in him; and
+even if his artistic vocation seemed (to one of my exclusive tenets) not
+quite clear, who could predict what might be accomplished by a creature
+so full-blooded and so inspired with animal and intellectual energy? So,
+when he proposed that I should come and see his work (one of the regular
+stages of a Latin Quarter friendship), I followed him with interest and
+hope.
+
+He lodged parsimoniously at the top of a tall house near the
+Observatory, in a bare room, principally furnished with his own trunks
+and papered with his own despicable studies. No man has less taste for
+disagreeable duties than myself; perhaps there is only one subject on
+which I cannot flatter a man without a blush; but upon that, upon all
+that touches art, my sincerity is Roman. Once and twice I made the
+circuit of his walls in silence, spying in every corner for some spark
+of merit; he, meanwhile, following close at my heels, reading the
+verdict in my face with furtive glances, presenting some fresh study for
+my inspection with undisguised anxiety, and (after it had been silently
+weighed in the balances and found wanting) whisking it away with an open
+gesture of despair. By the time the second round was completed, we were
+both extremely depressed.
+
+"O!" he groaned, breaking the long silence, "it's quite unnecessary you
+should speak!"
+
+"Do you want me to be frank with you? I think you are wasting time,"
+said I.
+
+"You don't see any promise?" he inquired, beguiled by some return of
+hope, and turning upon me the embarrassing brightness of his eye. "Not
+in this still-life here, of the melon? One fellow thought it good."
+
+It was the least I could do to give the melon a more particular
+examination; which, when I had done, I could but shake my head. "I am
+truly sorry, Pinkerton," said I, "but I can't advise you to persevere."
+
+He seemed to recover his fortitude at the moment, rebounding from
+disappointment like a man of india-rubber. "Well," said he stoutly, "I
+don't know that I'm surprised. But I'll go on with the course; and throw
+my whole soul into it, too. You mustn't think the time is lost. It's all
+culture; it will help me to extend my relations when I get back home;
+it may fit me for a position on one of the illustrateds; and then I can
+always turn dealer," he said, uttering the monstrous proposition,
+which was enough to shake the Latin Quarter to the dust, with entire
+simplicity. "It's all experience, besides;" he continued, "and it seems
+to me there's a tendency to underrate experience, both as net profit and
+investment. Never mind. That's done with. But it took courage for you
+to say what you did, and I'll never forget it. Here's my hand, Mr. Dodd.
+I'm not your equal in culture or talent--"
+
+"You know nothing about that," I interrupted. "I have seen your work,
+but you haven't seen mine.
+
+"No more I have," he cried; "and let's go see it at once! But I know you
+are away up. I can feel it here."
+
+To say truth, I was almost ashamed to introduce him to my studio--my
+work, whether absolutely good or bad, being so vastly superior to his.
+But his spirits were now quite restored; and he amazed me, on the way,
+with his light-hearted talk and new projects. So that I began at last
+to understand how matters lay: that this was not an artist who had been
+deprived of the practice of his single art; but only a business man
+of very extended interests, informed (perhaps something of the most
+suddenly) that one investment out of twenty had gone wrong.
+
+As a matter of fact besides (although I never suspected it) he was
+already seeking consolation with another of the muses, and pleasing
+himself with the notion that he would repay me for my sincerity, cement
+our friendship, and (at one and the same blow) restore my estimation of
+his talents. Several times already, when I had been speaking of myself,
+he had pulled out a writing-pad and scribbled a brief note; and now,
+when we entered the studio, I saw it in his hand again, and the
+pencil go to his mouth, as he cast a comprehensive glance round the
+uncomfortable building.
+
+"Are you going to make a sketch of it?" I could not help asking, as I
+unveiled the Genius of Muskegon.
+
+"Ah, that's my secret," said he. "Never you mind. A mouse can help a
+lion."
+
+He walked round my statue and had the design explained to him. I had
+represented Muskegon as a young, almost a stripling, mother, with
+something of an Indian type; the babe upon her knees was winged, to
+indicate our soaring future; and her seat was a medley of sculptured
+fragments, Greek, Roman, and Gothic, to remind us of the older worlds
+from which we trace our generation.
+
+"Now, does this satisfy you, Mr. Dodd?" he inquired, as soon as I had
+explained to him the main features of the design.
+
+"Well," I said, "the fellows seem to think it's not a bad bonne femme
+for a beginner. I don't think it's entirely bad myself. Here is the best
+point; it builds up best from here. No, it seems to me it has a kind of
+merit," I admitted; "but I mean to do better."
+
+"Ah, that's the word!" cried Pinkerton. "There's the word I love!" and
+he scribbled in his pad.
+
+"What in creation ails you?" I inquired. "It's the most commonplace
+expression in the English language."
+
+"Better and better!" chuckled Pinkerton. "The unconsciousness of genius.
+Lord, but this is coming in beautiful!" and he scribbled again.
+
+"If you're going to be fulsome," said I, "I'll close the place of
+entertainment." And I threatened to replace the veil upon the Genius.
+
+"No, no," said he. "Don't be in a hurry. Give me a point or two. Show me
+what's particularly good."
+
+"I would rather you found that out for yourself," said I.
+
+"The trouble is," said he, "that I've never turned my attention to
+sculpture, beyond, of course, admiring it, as everybody must who has a
+soul. So do just be a good fellow, and explain to me what you like in
+it, and what you tried for, and where the merit comes in. It'll be all
+education for me."
+
+"Well, in sculpture, you see, the first thing you have to consider
+is the masses. It's, after all, a kind of architecture," I began, and
+delivered a lecture on that branch of art, with illustrations from
+my own masterpiece there present, all of which, if you don't mind,
+or whether you mind or not, I mean to conscientiously omit. Pinkerton
+listened with a fiery interest, questioned me with a certain
+uncultivated shrewdness, and continued to scratch down notes, and tear
+fresh sheets from his pad. I found it inspiring to have my words thus
+taken down like a professor's lecture; and having had no previous
+experience of the press, I was unaware that they were all being taken
+down wrong. For the same reason (incredible as it must appear in
+an American) I never entertained the least suspicion that they were
+destined to be dished up with a sauce of penny-a-lining gossip; and
+myself, my person, and my works of art butchered to make a holiday
+for the readers of a Sunday paper. Night had fallen over the Genius of
+Muskegon before the issue of my theoretic eloquence was stayed, nor did
+I separate from my new friend without an appointment for the morrow.
+
+I was indeed greatly taken with this first view of my countryman,
+and continued, on further acquaintance, to be interested, amused, and
+attracted by him in about equal proportions. I must not say he had a
+fault, not only because my mouth is sealed by gratitude, but because
+those he had sprang merely from his education, and you could see he had
+cultivated and improved them like virtues. For all that, I can never
+deny he was a troublous friend to me, and the trouble began early.
+
+It may have been a fortnight later that I divined the secret of the
+writing-pad. My wretch (it leaked out) wrote letters for a paper in the
+West, and had filled a part of one of them with descriptions of myself.
+I pointed out to him that he had no right to do so without asking my
+permission.
+
+"Why, this is just what I hoped!" he exclaimed. "I thought you didn't
+seem to catch on; only it seemed too good to be true."
+
+"But, my good fellow, you were bound to warn me," I objected.
+
+"I know it's generally considered etiquette," he admitted; "but between
+friends, and when it was only with a view of serving you, I thought it
+wouldn't matter. I wanted it (if possible) to come on you as a surprise;
+I wanted you just to waken, like Lord Byron, and find the papers full of
+you. You must admit it was a natural thought. And no man likes to boast
+of a favour beforehand."
+
+"But, heavens and earth! how do you know I think it a favour?" I cried.
+
+He became immediately plunged in despair. "You think it a liberty," said
+he; "I see that. I would rather have cut off my hand. I would stop it
+now, only it's too late; it's published by now. And I wrote it with so
+much pride and pleasure!"
+
+I could think of nothing but how to console him. "O, I daresay it's all
+right," said I. "I know you meant it kindly, and you would be sure to do
+it in good taste."
+
+"That you may swear to," he cried. "It's a pure, bright, A number 1
+paper; the St. Jo _Sunday Herald_. The idea of the series was quite my
+own; I interviewed the editor, put it to him straight; the freshness of
+the idea took him, and I walked out of that office with the contract in
+my pocket, and did my first Paris letter that evening in Saint Jo. The
+editor did no more than glance his eye down the headlines. 'You're the
+man for us,' said he."
+
+I was certainly far from reassured by this sketch of the class of
+literature in which I was to make my first appearance; but I said no
+more, and possessed my soul in patience, until the day came when I
+received a copy of a newspaper marked in the corner, "Compliments of
+J.P." I opened it with sensible shrinkings; and there, wedged between an
+account of a prize-fight and a skittish article upon chiropody--think of
+chiropody treated with a leer!--I came upon a column and a half in which
+myself and my poor statue were embalmed. Like the editor with the first
+of the series, I did but glance my eye down the head-lines and was more
+than satisfied.
+
+     ANOTHER OF PINKERTON'S SPICY CHATS.
+
+     ART PRACTITIONERS IN PARIS.
+
+     MUSKEGON'S COLUMNED CAPITOL.
+
+     SON OF MILLIONAIRE DODD,
+
+     PATRIOT AND ARTIST.
+
+     "HE MEANS TO DO BETTER."
+
+In the body of the text, besides, my eye caught, as it passed, some
+deadly expressions: "Figure somewhat fleshy," "bright, intellectual
+smile," "the unconsciousness of genius," "'Now, Mr. Dodd,' resumed the
+reporter, 'what would be your idea of a distinctively American quality
+in sculpture?'" It was true the question had been asked; it was true,
+alas! that I had answered; and now here was my reply, or some strange
+hash of it, gibbeted in the cold publicity of type. I thanked God that
+my French fellow-students were ignorant of English; but when I thought
+of the British--of Myner (for instance) or the Stennises--I think I
+could have fallen on Pinkerton and beat him.
+
+To divert my thoughts (if it were possible) from this calamity, I turned
+to a letter from my father which had arrived by the same post. The
+envelope contained a strip of newspaper-cutting; and my eye caught
+again, "Son of Millionaire Dodd--Figure somewhat fleshy," and the rest
+of the degrading nonsense. What would my father think of it? I wondered,
+and opened his manuscript. "My dearest boy," it began, "I send you a
+cutting which has pleased me very much, from a St. Joseph paper of
+high standing. At last you seem to be coming fairly to the front; and
+I cannot but reflect with delight and gratitude how very few youths of
+your age occupy nearly two columns of press-matter all to themselves.
+I only wish your dear mother had been here to read it over my shoulder;
+but we will hope she shares my grateful emotion in a better place. Of
+course I have sent a copy to your grandfather and uncle in Edinburgh;
+so you can keep the one I enclose. This Jim Pinkerton seems a valuable
+acquaintance; he has certainly great talent; and it is a good general
+rule to keep in with pressmen."
+
+I hope it will be set down to the right side of my account, but I had
+no sooner read these words, so touchingly silly, than my anger against
+Pinkerton was swallowed up in gratitude. Of all the circumstances of my
+career, my birth, perhaps, excepted, not one had given my poor father so
+profound a pleasure as this article in the _Sunday Herald_. What a fool,
+then, was I, to be lamenting! when I had at last, and for once, and
+at the cost of only a few blushes, paid back a fraction of my debt
+of gratitude. So that, when I next met Pinkerton, I took things very
+lightly; my father was pleased, and thought the letter very clever, I
+told him; for my own part, I had no taste for publicity: thought the
+public had no concern with the artist, only with his art; and though I
+owned he had handled it with great consideration, I should take it as a
+favour if he never did it again.
+
+"There it is," he said despondingly. "I've hurt you. You can't deceive
+me, Loudon. It's the want of tact, and it's incurable." He sat down, and
+leaned his head upon his hand. "I had no advantages when I was young,
+you see," he added.
+
+"Not in the least, my dear fellow," said I. "Only the next time you wish
+to do me a service, just speak about my work; leave my wretched person
+out, and my still more wretched conversation; and above all," I added,
+with an irrepressible shudder, "don't tell them how I said it! There's
+that phrase, now: 'With a proud, glad smile.' Who cares whether I smiled
+or not?"
+
+"Oh, there now, Loudon, you're entirely wrong," he broke in. "That's
+what the public likes; that's the merit of the thing, the literary
+value. It's to call up the scene before them; it's to enable the
+humblest citizen to enjoy that afternoon the same as I did. Think what
+it would have been to me when I was tramping around with my tin-types to
+find a column and a half of real, cultured conversation--an artist, in
+his studio abroad, talking of his art--and to know how he looked as he
+did it, and what the room was like, and what he had for breakfast; and
+to tell myself, eating tinned beans beside a creek, that if all went
+well, the same sort of thing would, sooner or later, happen to myself:
+why, Loudon, it would have been like a peephole into heaven!"
+
+"Well, if it gives so much pleasure," I admitted, "the sufferers
+shouldn't complain. Only give the other fellows a turn."
+
+The end of the matter was to bring myself and the journalist in a more
+close relation. If I know anything at all of human nature--and the IF
+is no mere figure of speech, but stands for honest doubt--no series
+of benefits conferred, or even dangers shared, would have so rapidly
+confirmed our friendship as this quarrel avoided, this fundamental
+difference of taste and training accepted and condoned.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. IN WHICH I EXPERIENCE EXTREMES OF FORTUNE.
+
+
+Whether it came from my training and repeated bankruptcy at the
+commercial college, or by direct inheritance from old Loudon, the
+Edinburgh mason, there can be no doubt about the fact that I was
+thrifty. Looking myself impartially over, I believe that is my only
+manly virtue. During my first two years in Paris I not only made it a
+point to keep well inside of my allowance, but accumulated considerable
+savings in the bank. You will say, with my masquerade of living as a
+penniless student, it must have been easy to do so: I should have had no
+difficulty, however, in doing the reverse. Indeed, it is wonderful I did
+not; and early in the third year, or soon after I had known Pinkerton, a
+singular incident proved it to have been equally wise. Quarter-day came,
+and brought no allowance. A letter of remonstrance was despatched, and
+for the first time in my experience, remained unanswered. A cablegram
+was more effectual; for it brought me at least a promise of attention.
+"Will write at once," my father telegraphed; but I waited long for his
+letter. I was puzzled, angry, and alarmed; but thanks to my previous
+thrift, I cannot say that I was ever practically embarrassed. The
+embarrassment, the distress, the agony, were all for my unhappy father
+at home in Muskegon, struggling for life and fortune against untoward
+chances, returning at night from a day of ill-starred shifts and
+ventures, to read and perhaps to weep over that last harsh letter from
+his only child, to which he lacked the courage to reply.
+
+Nearly three months after time, and when my economies were beginning
+to run low, I received at last a letter with the customary bills of
+exchange.
+
+"My dearest boy," it ran, "I believe, in the press of anxious business,
+your letters and even your allowance have been somewhile neglected. You
+must try to forgive your poor old dad, for he has had a trying time; and
+now when it is over, the doctor wants me to take my shotgun and go
+to the Adirondacks for a change. You must not fancy I am sick, only
+over-driven and under the weather. Many of our foremost operators have
+gone down: John T. M'Brady skipped to Canada with a trunkful of boodle;
+Billy Sandwith, Charlie Downs, Joe Kaiser, and many others of our
+leading men in this city bit the dust. But Big-Head Dodd has again
+weathered the blizzard, and I think I have fixed things so that we may
+be richer than ever before autumn.
+
+"Now I will tell you, my dear, what I propose. You say you are well
+advanced with your first statue; start in manfully and finish it, and if
+your teacher--I can never remember how to spell his name--will send me
+a certificate that it is up to market standard, you shall have ten
+thousand dollars to do what you like with, either at home or in Paris.
+I suggest, since you say the facilities for work are so much greater
+in that city, you would do well to buy or build a little home; and
+the first thing you know, your dad will be dropping in for a luncheon.
+Indeed, I would come now, for I am beginning to grow old, and I long to
+see my dear boy; but there are still some operations that want watching
+and nursing. Tell your friend, Mr. Pinkerton, that I read his letters
+every week; and though I have looked in vain lately for my Loudon's
+name, still I learn something of the life he is leading in that strange,
+old world, depicted by an able pen."
+
+Here was a letter that no young man could possibly digest in solitude.
+It marked one of those junctures when the confidant is necessary; and
+the confidant selected was none other than Jim Pinkerton. My father's
+message may have had an influence in this decision; but I scarce suppose
+so, for the intimacy was already far advanced. I had a genuine and
+lively taste for my compatriot; I laughed at, I scolded, and I loved
+him. He, upon his side, paid me a kind of doglike service of admiration,
+gazing at me from afar off as at one who had liberally enjoyed those
+"advantages" which he envied for himself. He followed at heel; his laugh
+was ready chorus; our friends gave him the nickname of "The Henchman."
+It was in this insidious form that servitude approached me.
+
+Pinkerton and I read and re-read the famous news: he, I can swear, with
+an enjoyment as unalloyed and far more vocal than my own. The statue was
+nearly done: a few days' work sufficed to prepare it for exhibition; the
+master was approached; he gave his consent; and one cloudless morning
+of May beheld us gathered in my studio for the hour of trial. The
+master wore his many-hued rosette; he came attended by two of my French
+fellow-pupils--friends of mine and both considerable sculptors in Paris
+at this hour. "Corporal John" (as we used to call him) breaking for once
+those habits of study and reserve which have since carried him so
+high in the opinion of the world, had left his easel of a morning to
+countenance a fellow-countryman in some suspense. My dear old Romney
+was there by particular request; for who that knew him would think
+a pleasure quite complete unless he shared it, or not support a
+mortification more easily if he were present to console? The party
+was completed by John Myner, the Englishman; by the brothers
+Stennis,--Stennis-aine and Stennis-frere, as they used to figure on
+their accounts at Barbizon--a pair of hare-brained Scots; and by the
+inevitable Jim, as white as a sheet and bedewed with the sweat of
+anxiety.
+
+I suppose I was little better myself when I unveiled the Genius of
+Muskegon. The master walked about it seriously; then he smiled.
+
+"It is already not so bad," said he, in that funny English of which he
+was so proud. "No, already not so bad."
+
+We all drew a deep breath of relief; and Corporal John (as the most
+considerable junior present) explained to him it was intended for a
+public building, a kind of prefecture--
+
+"He! Quoi?" cried he, relapsing into French. "Qu'est-ce que vous me
+chantez la? O, in America," he added, on further information being
+hastily furnished. "That is anozer sing. O, very good, very good."
+
+The idea of the required certificate had to be introduced to his mind
+in the light of a pleasantry--the fancy of a nabob little more advanced
+than the red Indians of "Fennimore Cooperr"; and it took all our talents
+combined to conceive a form of words that would be acceptable on
+both sides. One was found, however: Corporal John engrossed it in his
+undecipherable hand, the master lent it the sanction of his name and
+flourish, I slipped it into an envelope along with one of the two
+letters I had ready prepared in my pocket, and as the rest of us moved
+off along the boulevard to breakfast, Pinkerton was detached in a cab
+and duly committed it to the post.
+
+The breakfast was ordered at Lavenue's, where no one need be ashamed
+to entertain even the master; the table was laid in the garden; I had
+chosen the bill of fare myself; on the wine question we held a council
+of war with the most fortunate results; and the talk, as soon as the
+master laid aside his painful English, became fast and furious. There
+were a few interruptions, indeed, in the way of toasts. The master's
+health had to be drunk, and he responded in a little well-turned speech,
+full of neat allusions to my future and to the United States; my health
+followed; and then my father's must not only be proposed and drunk,
+but a full report must be despatched to him at once by cablegram--an
+extravagance which was almost the means of the master's dissolution.
+Choosing Corporal John to be his confidant (on the ground, I presume,
+that he was already too good an artist to be any longer an American
+except in name) he summed up his amazement in one oft-repeated
+formula--"C'est barbare!" Apart from these genial formalities, we
+talked, talked of art, and talked of it as only artists can. Here in the
+South Seas we talk schooners most of the time; in the Quarter we talked
+art with the like unflagging interest, and perhaps as much result.
+
+Before very long, the master went away; Corporal John (who was already a
+sort of young master) followed on his heels; and the rank and file were
+naturally relieved by their departure. We were now among equals; the
+bottle passed, the conversation sped. I think I can still hear the
+Stennis brothers pour forth their copious tirades; Dijon, my portly
+French fellow-student, drop witticisms well-conditioned like himself;
+and another (who was weak in foreign languages) dash hotly into the
+current of talk with some "Je trove que pore oon sontimong de delicacy,
+Corot ...," or some "Pour moi Corot est le plou ...," and then, his
+little raft of French foundering at once, scramble silently to shore
+again. He at least could understand; but to Pinkerton, I think the
+noise, the wine, the sun, the shadows of the leaves, and the esoteric
+glory of being seated at a foreign festival, made up the whole available
+means of entertainment.
+
+We sat down about half past eleven; I suppose it was two when,
+some point arising and some particular picture being instanced, an
+adjournment to the Louvre was proposed. I paid the score, and in a
+moment we were trooping down the Rue de Renne. It was smoking hot; Paris
+glittered with that superficial brilliancy which is so agreeable to the
+man in high spirits, and in moods of dejection so depressing; the wine
+sang in my ears, it danced and brightened in my eyes. The pictures that
+we saw that afternoon, as we sped briskly and loquaciously through the
+immortal galleries, appear to me, upon a retrospect, the loveliest
+of all; the comments we exchanged to have touched the highest mark of
+criticism, grave or gay.
+
+It was only when we issued again from the museum that a difference of
+race broke up the party. Dijon proposed an adjournment to a cafe, there
+to finish the afternoon on beer; the elder Stennis, revolted at the
+thought, moved for the country, a forest if possible, and a long walk.
+At once the English speakers rallied to the name of any exercise: even
+to me, who have been often twitted with my sedentary habits, the thought
+of country air and stillness proved invincibly attractive. It appeared,
+upon investigation, we had just time to hail a cab and catch one of the
+fast trains for Fontainebleau. Beyond the clothes we stood in, all were
+destitute of what is called (with dainty vagueness) personal effects;
+and it was earnestly mooted, on the other side, whether we had not time
+to call upon the way and pack a satchel? But the Stennis boys exclaimed
+upon our effeminacy. They had come from London, it appeared, a week
+before with nothing but greatcoats and tooth-brushes. No baggage--there
+was the secret of existence. It was expensive, to be sure; for every
+time you had to comb your hair, a barber must be paid, and every time
+you changed your linen, one shirt must be bought and another thrown
+away; but anything was better (argued these young gentlemen) than to
+be the slaves of haversacks. "A fellow has to get rid gradually of all
+material attachments; that was manhood" (said they); "and as long as you
+were bound down to anything,--house, umbrella, or portmanteau,--you were
+still tethered by the umbilical cord." Something engaging in this
+theory carried the most of us away. The two Frenchmen, indeed, retired,
+scoffing, to their bock; and Romney, being too poor to join the
+excursion on his own resources and too proud to borrow, melted
+unobtrusively away. Meanwhile the remainder of the company crowded
+the benches of a cab; the horse was urged (as horses have to be) by an
+appeal to the pocket of the driver; the train caught by the inside of
+a minute; and in less than an hour and a half we were breathing deep
+of the sweet air of the forest and stretching our legs up the hill from
+Fontainebleau octroi, bound for Barbizon. That the leading members of
+our party covered the distance in fifty-one minutes and a half is (I
+believe) one of the historic landmarks of the colony; but you will
+scarce be surprised to learn that I was somewhat in the rear. Myner,
+a comparatively philosophic Briton, kept me company in my deliberate
+advance; the glory of the sun's going down, the fall of the long
+shadows, the inimitable scent and the inspiration of the woods, attuned
+me more and more to walk in a silence which progressively infected my
+companion; and I remember that, when at last he spoke, I was startled
+from a deep abstraction.
+
+"Your father seems to be a pretty good kind of a father," said he. "Why
+don't he come to see you?" I was ready with some dozen of reasons, and
+had more in stock; but Myner, with that shrewdness which made him feared
+and admired, suddenly fixed me with his eye-glass and asked, "Ever press
+him?"
+
+The blood came in my face. No; I had never pressed him; I had never even
+encouraged him to come. I was proud of him; proud of his handsome looks,
+of his kind, gentle ways, of that bright face he could show when others
+were happy; proud, too (meanly proud, if you like) of his great wealth
+and startling liberalities. And yet he would have been in the way of my
+Paris life, of much of which he would have disapproved. I had feared to
+expose to criticism his innocent remarks on art; I had told myself, I
+had even partly believed, he did not want to come; I had been (and still
+am) convinced that he was sure to be unhappy out of Muskegon; in short,
+I had a thousand reasons, good and bad, not all of which could alter one
+iota of the fact that I knew he only waited for my invitation.
+
+"Thank you, Myner," said I; "you're a much better fellow than ever I
+supposed. I'll write to-night."
+
+"O, you're a pretty decent sort yourself," returned Myner, with more
+than his usual flippancy of manner, but (as I was gratefully aware) not
+a trace of his occasional irony of meaning.
+
+Well, these were brave days, on which I could dwell forever. Brave,
+too, were those that followed, when Pinkerton and I walked Paris and the
+suburbs, viewing and pricing houses for my new establishment, or covered
+ourselves with dust and returned laden with Chinese gods and brass
+warming-pans from the dealers in antiquities. I found Pinkerton well
+up in the situation of these establishments as well as in the current
+prices, and with quite a smattering of critical judgment; it turned out
+he was investing capital in pictures and curiosities for the States, and
+the superficial thoroughness of the creature appeared in the fact, that
+although he would never be a connoisseur, he was already something of
+an expert. The things themselves left him as near as may be cold; but he
+had a joy of his own in understanding how to buy and sell them.
+
+In such engagements the time passed until I might very well expect
+an answer from my father. Two mails followed each other, and brought
+nothing. By the third I received a long and almost incoherent letter
+of remorse, encouragement, consolation, and despair. From this pitiful
+document, which (with a movement of piety) I burned as soon as I had
+read it, I gathered that the bubble of my father's wealth was burst,
+that he was now both penniless and sick; and that I, so far from
+expecting ten thousand dollars to throw away in juvenile extravagance,
+must look no longer for the quarterly remittances on which I lived. My
+case was hard enough; but I had sense enough to perceive, and decency
+enough to do my duty. I sold my curiosities, or rather I sent Pinkerton
+to sell them; and he had previously bought and now disposed of them so
+wisely that the loss was trifling. This, with what remained of my last
+allowance, left me at the head of no less than five thousand francs.
+Five hundred I reserved for my own immediate necessities; the rest I
+mailed inside of the week to my father at Muskegon, where they came in
+time to pay his funeral expenses.
+
+The news of his death was scarcely a surprise and scarce a grief to me.
+I could not conceive my father a poor man. He had led too long a life
+of thoughtless and generous profusion to endure the change; and though I
+grieved for myself, I was able to rejoice that my father had been taken
+from the battle. I grieved, I say, for myself; and it is probable there
+were at the same date many thousands of persons grieving with less
+cause. I had lost my father; I had lost the allowance; my whole fortune
+(including what had been returned from Muskegon) scarce amounted to
+a thousand francs; and to crown my sorrows, the statuary contract
+had changed hands. The new contractor had a son of his own, or else a
+nephew; and it was signified to me, with business-like plainness, that I
+must find another market for my pigs. In the meanwhile I had given up my
+room, and slept on a truckle-bed in the corner of the studio, where as I
+read myself to sleep at night, and when I awoke in the morning, that now
+useless bulk, the Genius of Muskegon, was ever present to my eyes. Poor
+stone lady! born to be enthroned under the gilded, echoing dome of the
+new capitol, whither was she now to drift? for what base purposes be
+ultimately broken up, like an unseaworthy ship? and what should befall
+her ill-starred artificer, standing, with his thousand francs, on the
+threshold of a life so hard as that of the unbefriended sculptor?
+
+It was a subject often and earnestly debated by myself and Pinkerton.
+In his opinion, I should instantly discard my profession. "Just drop it,
+here and now," he would say. "Come back home with me, and let's throw
+our whole soul into business. I have the capital; you bring the culture.
+Dodd & Pinkerton--I never saw a better name for an advertisement; and
+you can't think, Loudon, how much depends upon a name." On my side, I
+would admit that a sculptor should possess one of three things--capital,
+influence, or an energy only to be qualified as hellish. The first two
+I had now lost; to the third I never had the smallest claim; and yet I
+wanted the cowardice (or perhaps it was the courage) to turn my back
+on my career without a fight. I told him, besides, that however poor
+my chances were in sculpture, I was convinced they were yet worse in
+business, for which I equally lacked taste and aptitude. But upon this
+head, he was my father over again; assured me that I spoke in ignorance;
+that any intelligent and cultured person was Bound to succeed; that I
+must, besides, have inherited some of my father's fitness; and, at
+any rate, that I had been regularly trained for that career in the
+commercial college.
+
+
+"Pinkerton," I said, "can't you understand that, as long as I was there,
+I never took the smallest interest in any stricken thing? The whole
+affair was poison to me."
+
+"It's not possible," he would cry; "it can't be; you couldn't live in
+the midst of it and not feel the charm; with all your poetry of soul,
+you couldn't help! Loudon," he would go on, "you drive me crazy. You
+expect a man to be all broken up about the sunset, and not to care a
+dime for a place where fortunes are fought for and made and lost all
+day; or for a career that consists in studying up life till you have it
+at your finger-ends, spying out every cranny where you can get your
+hand in and a dollar out, and standing there in the midst--one foot on
+bankruptcy, the other on a borrowed dollar, and the whole thing spinning
+round you like a mill--raking in the stamps, in spite of fate and
+fortune."
+
+To this romance of dickering I would reply with the romance (which is
+also the virtue) of art: reminding him of those examples of constancy
+through many tribulations, with which the role of Apollo is illustrated;
+from the case of Millet, to those of many of our friends and comrades,
+who had chosen this agreeable mountain path through life, and were now
+bravely clambering among rocks and brambles, penniless and hopeful.
+
+"You will never understand it, Pinkerton," I would say. "You look to the
+result, you want to see some profit of your endeavours: that is why you
+could never learn to paint, if you lived to be Methusalem. The result
+is always a fizzle: the eyes of the artist are turned in; he lives for
+a frame of mind. Look at Romney, now. There is the nature of the artist.
+He hasn't a cent; and if you offered him to-morrow the command of an
+army, or the presidentship of the United States, he wouldn't take it,
+and you know he wouldn't."
+
+"I suppose not," Pinkerton would cry, scouring his hair with both his
+hands; "and I can't see why; I can't see what in fits he would be after,
+not to; I don't seem to rise to these views. Of course, it's the
+fault of not having had advantages in early life; but, Loudon, I'm so
+miserably low that it seems to me silly. The fact is," he might add with
+a smile, "I don't seem to have the least use for a frame of mind without
+square meals; and you can't get it out of my head that it's a man's duty
+to die rich, if he can."
+
+"What for?" I asked him once.
+
+"O, I don't know," he replied. "Why in snakes should anybody want to be
+a sculptor, if you come to that? I would love to sculp myself. But what
+I can't see is why you should want to do nothing else. It seems to argue
+a poverty of nature."
+
+Whether or not he ever came to understand me--and I have been so tossed
+about since then that I am not very sure I understand myself--he soon
+perceived that I was perfectly in earnest; and after about ten days
+of argument, suddenly dropped the subject, and announced that he was
+wasting capital, and must go home at once. No doubt he should have gone
+long before, and had already lingered over his intended time for the
+sake of our companionship and my misfortune; but man is so unjustly
+minded that the very fact, which ought to have disarmed, only embittered
+my vexation. I resented his departure in the light of a desertion; I
+would not say, but doubtless I betrayed it; and something hang-dog in
+the man's face and bearing led me to believe he was himself remorseful.
+It is certain at least that, during the time of his preparations, we
+drew sensibly apart--a circumstance that I recall with shame. On the
+last day, he had me to dinner at a restaurant which he knew I had
+formerly frequented, and had only forsworn of late from considerations
+of economy. He seemed ill at ease; I was myself both sorry and sulky;
+and the meal passed with little conversation.
+
+"Now, Loudon," said he, with a visible effort, after the coffee was
+come and our pipes lighted, "you can never understand the gratitude and
+loyalty I bear you. You don't know what a boon it is to be taken up by
+a man that stands on the pinnacle of civilization; you can't think how
+it's refined and purified me, how it's appealed to my spiritual nature;
+and I want to tell you that I would die at your door like a dog."
+
+I don't know what answer I tried to make, but he cut me short.
+
+"Let me say it out!" he cried. "I revere you for your whole-souled
+devotion to art; I can't rise to it, but there's a strain of poetry in
+my nature, Loudon, that responds to it. I want you to carry it out, and
+I mean to help you."
+
+"Pinkerton, what nonsense is this?" I interrupted.
+
+"Now don't get mad, Loudon; this is a plain piece of business," said he;
+"it's done every day; it's even typical. How are all those fellows over
+here in Paris, Henderson, Sumner, Long?--it's all the same story: a
+young man just plum full of artistic genius on the one side, a man of
+business on the other who doesn't know what to do with his dollars--"
+
+"But, you fool, you're as poor as a rat," I cried.
+
+"You wait till I get my irons in the fire!" returned Pinkerton. "I'm
+bound to be rich; and I tell you I mean to have some of the fun as I go
+along. Here's your first allowance; take it at the hand of a friend; I'm
+one that holds friendship sacred as you do yourself. It's only a hundred
+francs; you'll get the same every month, and as soon as my business
+begins to expand we'll increase it to something fitting. And so far from
+it's being a favour, just let me handle your statuary for the American
+market, and I'll call it one of the smartest strokes of business in my
+life."
+
+It took me a long time, and it had cost us both much grateful and
+painful emotion, before I had finally managed to refuse his offer and
+compounded for a bottle of particular wine. He dropped the subject at
+last suddenly with a "Never mind; that's all done with," nor did he
+again refer to the subject, though we passed together the rest of the
+afternoon, and I accompanied him, on his departure; to the doors of the
+waiting-room at St. Lazare. I felt myself strangely alone; a voice told
+me that I had rejected both the counsels of wisdom and the helping
+hand of friendship; and as I passed through the great bright city on
+my homeward way, I measured it for the first time with the eye of an
+adversary.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. IN WHICH I AM DOWN ON MY LUCK IN PARIS.
+
+
+In no part of the world is starvation an agreeable business; but I
+believe it is admitted there is no worse place to starve in than this
+city of Paris. The appearances of life are there so especially gay,
+it is so much a magnified beer-garden, the houses are so ornate, the
+theatres so numerous, the very pace of the vehicles is so brisk, that a
+man in any deep concern of mind or pain of body is constantly driven in
+upon himself. In his own eyes, he seems the one serious creature moving
+in a world of horrible unreality; voluble people issuing from a
+cafe, the queue at theatre doors, Sunday cabfuls of second-rate
+pleasure-seekers, the bedizened ladies of the pavement, the show in the
+jewellers' windows--all the familiar sights contributing to flout his
+own unhappiness, want, and isolation. At the same time, if he be at all
+after my pattern, he is perhaps supported by a childish satisfaction:
+this is life at last, he may tell himself, this is the real thing;
+the bladders on which I was set swimming are now empty, my own weight
+depends upon the ocean; by my own exertions I must perish or succeed;
+and I am now enduring in the vivid fact, what I so much delighted to
+read of in the case of Lonsteau or Lucien, Rodolphe or Schaunard.
+
+Of the steps of my misery, I cannot tell at length. In ordinary times
+what were politically called "loans" (although they were never meant to
+be repaid) were matters of constant course among the students, and many
+a man has partly lived on them for years. But my misfortune befell me
+at an awkward juncture. Many of my friends were gone; others were
+themselves in a precarious situation. Romney (for instance) was reduced
+to tramping Paris in a pair of country sabots, his only suit of clothes
+so imperfect (in spite of cunningly adjusted pins) that the authorities
+at the Luxembourg suggested his withdrawal from the gallery. Dijon, too,
+was on a leeshore, designing clocks and gas-brackets for a dealer; and
+the most he could do was to offer me a corner of his studio where I
+might work. My own studio (it will be gathered) I had by that time lost;
+and in the course of my expulsion the Genius of Muskegon was finally
+separated from her author. To continue to possess a full-sized statue,
+a man must have a studio, a gallery, or at least the freedom of a back
+garden. He cannot carry it about with him, like a satchel, in the
+bottom of a cab, nor can he cohabit in a garret, ten by fifteen, with
+so momentous a companion. It was my first idea to leave her behind at
+my departure. There, in her birthplace, she might lend an inspiration,
+methought, to my successor. But the proprietor, with whom I had
+unhappily quarrelled, seized the occasion to be disagreeable, and called
+upon me to remove my property. For a man in such straits as I now found
+myself, the hire of a lorry was a consideration; and yet even that I
+could have faced, if I had had anywhere to drive to after it was hired.
+Hysterical laughter seized upon me as I beheld (in imagination) myself,
+the waggoner, and the Genius of Muskegon, standing in the public view of
+Paris, without the shadow of a destination; perhaps driving at last
+to the nearest rubbish heap, and dumping there, among the ordures of a
+city, the beloved child of my invention. From these extremities I was
+relieved by a seasonable offer, and I parted from the Genius of Muskegon
+for thirty francs. Where she now stands, under what name she is admired
+or criticised, history does not inform us; but I like to think she
+may adorn the shrubbery of some suburban tea-garden, where holiday
+shop-girls hang their hats upon the mother, and their swains (by way
+of an approach of gallantry) identify the winged infant with the god of
+love.
+
+In a certain cabman's eating-house on the outer boulevard I got credit
+for my midday meal. Supper I was supposed not to require, sitting
+down nightly to the delicate table of some rich acquaintances. This
+arrangement was extremely ill-considered. My fable, credible enough at
+first, and so long as my clothes were in good order, must have seemed
+worse than doubtful after my coat became frayed about the edges, and
+my boots began to squelch and pipe along the restaurant floors. The
+allowance of one meal a day besides, though suitable enough to the state
+of my finances, agreed poorly with my stomach. The restaurant was a
+place I had often visited experimentally, to taste the life of students
+then more unfortunate than myself; and I had never in those days entered
+it without disgust, or left it without nausea. It was strange to find
+myself sitting down with avidity, rising up with satisfaction, and
+counting the hours that divided me from my return to such a table. But
+hunger is a great magician; and so soon as I had spent my ready cash,
+and could no longer fill up on bowls of chocolate or hunks of bread,
+I must depend entirely on that cabman's eating-house, and upon certain
+rare, long-expected, long-remembered windfalls. Dijon (for instance)
+might get paid for some of his pot-boiling work, or else an old friend
+would pass through Paris; and then I would be entertained to a meal
+after my own soul, and contract a Latin Quarter loan, which would keep
+me in tobacco and my morning coffee for a fortnight. It might be thought
+the latter would appear the more important. It might be supposed that a
+life, led so near the confines of actual famine, should have dulled the
+nicety of my palate. On the contrary, the poorer a man's diet, the more
+sharply is he set on dainties. The last of my ready cash, about thirty
+francs, was deliberately squandered on a single dinner; and a great part
+of my time when I was alone was passed upon the details of imaginary
+feasts.
+
+One gleam of hope visited me--an order for a bust from a rich
+Southerner. He was free-handed, jolly of speech, merry of countenance;
+kept me in good humour through the sittings, and when they were over,
+carried me off with him to dinner and the sights of Paris. I ate well;
+I laid on flesh; by all accounts, I made a favourable likeness of the
+being, and I confess I thought my future was assured. But when the bust
+was done, and I had despatched it across the Atlantic, I could never
+so much as learn of its arrival. The blow felled me; I should have
+lain down and tried no stroke to right myself, had not the honour of
+my country been involved. For Dijon improved the opportunity in the
+European style; informing me (for the first time) of the manners of
+America: how it was a den of banditti without the smallest rudiment of
+law or order, and debts could be there only collected with a shotgun.
+"The whole world knows it," he would say; "you are alone, mon petit
+Loudon, you are alone to be in ignorance of these facts. The judges of
+the Supreme Court fought but the other day with stilettos on the bench
+at Cincinnati. You should read the little book of one of my friends: _Le
+Touriste dans le Far-West_; you will see it all there in good French."
+At last, incensed by days of such discussion, I undertook to prove to
+him the contrary, and put the affair in the hands of my late father's
+lawyer. From him I had the gratification of hearing, after a due
+interval, that my debtor was dead of the yellow fever in Key West, and
+had left his affairs in some confusion. I suppress his name; for though
+he treated me with cruel nonchalance, it is probable he meant to deal
+fairly in the end.
+
+Soon after this a shade of change in my reception at the cabman's
+eating-house marked the beginning of a new phase in my distress. The
+first day, I told myself it was but fancy; the next, I made quite sure
+it was a fact; the third, in mere panic I stayed away, and went for
+forty-eight hours fasting. This was an act of great unreason; for the
+debtor who stays away is but the more remarked, and the boarder who
+misses a meal is sure to be accused of infidelity. On the fourth day,
+therefore, I returned, inwardly quaking. The proprietor looked askance
+upon my entrance; the waitresses (who were his daughters) neglected my
+wants and sniffed at the affected joviality of my salutations; last and
+most plain, when I called for a suisse (such as was being served to all
+the other diners) I was bluntly told there were no more. It was obvious
+I was near the end of my tether; one plank divided me from want, and now
+I felt it tremble. I passed a sleepless night, and the first thing in
+the morning took my way to Myner's studio. It was a step I had long
+meditated and long refrained from; for I was scarce intimate with the
+Englishman; and though I knew him to possess plenty of money, neither
+his manner nor his reputation were the least encouraging to beggars.
+
+
+I found him at work on a picture, which I was able conscientiously
+to praise, dressed in his usual tweeds, plain, but pretty fresh, and
+standing out in disagreeable contrast to my own withered and degraded
+outfit. As we talked, he continued to shift his eyes watchfully between
+his handiwork and the fat model, who sat at the far end of the studio
+in a state of nature, with one arm gallantly arched above her head. My
+errand would have been difficult enough under the best of circumstances:
+placed between Myner, immersed in his art, and the white, fat, naked
+female in a ridiculous attitude, I found it quite impossible. Again and
+again I attempted to approach the point, again and again fell back on
+commendations of the picture; and it was not until the model had enjoyed
+an interval of repose, during which she took the conversation in her
+own hands and regaled us (in a soft, weak voice) with details as to her
+husband's prosperity, her sister's lamented decline from the paths
+of virtue, and the consequent wrath of her father, a peasant of stern
+principles, in the vicinity of Chalons on the Marne;--it was not, I say,
+until after this was over, and I had once more cleared my throat for
+the attack, and once more dropped aside into some commonplace about the
+picture, that Myner himself brought me suddenly and vigorously to the
+point.
+
+"You didn't come here to talk this rot," said he.
+
+"No," I replied sullenly; "I came to borrow money."
+
+He painted awhile in silence.
+
+"I don't think we were ever very intimate?" he asked.
+
+"Thank you," said I. "I can take my answer," and I made as if to go,
+rage boiling in my heart.
+
+"Of course you can go if you like," said Myner; "but I advise you to
+stay and have it out."
+
+"What more is there to say?" I cried. "You don't want to keep me here
+for a needless humiliation?"
+
+"Look here, Dodd, you must try and command your temper," said he. "This
+interview is of your own seeking, and not mine; if you suppose it's not
+disagreeable to me, you're wrong; and if you think I will give you money
+without knowing thoroughly about your prospects, you take me for a fool.
+Besides," he added, "if you come to look at it, you've got over the
+worst of it by now: you have done the asking, and you have every reason
+to know I mean to refuse. I hold out no false hopes, but it may be worth
+your while to let me judge."
+
+Thus--I was going to say--encouraged, I stumbled through my story; told
+him I had credit at the cabman's eating-house, but began to think it was
+drawing to a close; how Dijon lent me a corner of his studio, where I
+tried to model ornaments, figures for clocks, Time with the scythe, Leda
+and the swan, musketeers for candlesticks, and other kickshaws, which
+had never (up to that day) been honoured with the least approval.
+
+"And your room?" asked Myner.
+
+"O, my room is all right, I think," said I. "She is a very good old
+lady, and has never even mentioned her bill."
+
+"Because she is a very good old lady, I don't see why she should be
+fined," observed Myner.
+
+"What do you mean by that?" I cried.
+
+"I mean this," said he. "The French give a great deal of credit amongst
+themselves; they find it pays on the whole, or the system would hardly
+be continued; but I can't see where WE come in; I can't see that it's
+honest of us Anglo-Saxons to profit by their easy ways, and then skip
+over the Channel or (as you Yankees do) across the Atlantic."
+
+"But I'm not proposing to skip," I objected.
+
+"Exactly," he replied. "And shouldn't you? There's the problem. You
+seem to me to have a lack of sympathy for the proprietors of cabmen's
+eating-houses. By your own account you're not getting on: the longer you
+stay, it'll only be the more out of the pocket of the dear old lady at
+your lodgings. Now, I'll tell you what I'll do: if you consent to go,
+I'll pay your passage to New York, and your railway fare and expenses
+to Muskegon (if I have the name right) where your father lived, where he
+must have left friends, and where, no doubt, you'll find an opening. I
+don't seek any gratitude, for of course you'll think me a beast; but I
+do ask you to pay it back when you are able. At any rate, that's all
+I can do. It might be different if I thought you a genius, Dodd; but I
+don't, and I advise you not to."
+
+
+"I think that was uncalled for, at least," said I.
+
+"I daresay it was," he returned, with the same steadiness. "It seemed to
+me pertinent; and, besides, when you ask me for money upon no security,
+you treat me with the liberty of a friend, and it's to be presumed that
+I can do the like. But the point is, do you accept?"
+
+"No, thank you," said I; "I have another string to my bow."
+
+"All right," says Myner. "Be sure it's honest."
+
+"Honest? honest?" I cried. "What do you mean by calling my honesty in
+question?"
+
+"I won't, if you don't like it," he replied. "You seem to think
+honesty as easy as Blind Man's Buff: I don't. It's some difference of
+definition."
+
+I went straight from this irritating interview, during which Myner had
+never discontinued painting, to the studio of my old master. Only one
+card remained for me to play, and I was now resolved to play it: I
+must drop the gentleman and the frock-coat, and approach art in the
+workman's tunic.
+
+"Tiens, this little Dodd!" cried the master; and then, as his eye fell
+on my dilapidated clothing, I thought I could perceive his countenance
+to darken.
+
+I made my plea in English; for I knew, if he were vain of anything, it
+was of his achievement of the island tongue. "Master," said I, "will you
+take me in your studio again? but this time as a workman."
+
+"I sought your fazer was immensely reech," said he.
+
+I explained to him that I was now an orphan and penniless.
+
+He shook his head. "I have betterr workmen waiting at my door," said he,
+"far betterr workmen.
+
+"You used to think something of my work, sir," I pleaded.
+
+"Somesing, somesing--yes!" he cried; "enough for a son of a reech
+man--not enough for an orphan. Besides, I sought you might learn to be
+an artist; I did not sink you might learn to be a workman."
+
+On a certain bench on the outer boulevard, not far from the tomb of
+Napoleon, a bench shaded at that date by a shabby tree, and commanding
+a view of muddy roadway and blank wall, I sat down to wrestle with my
+misery. The weather was cheerless and dark; in three days I had eaten
+but once; I had no tobacco; my shoes were soaked, my trousers horrid
+with mire; my humour and all the circumstances of the time and place
+lugubriously attuned. Here were two men who had both spoken fairly of my
+work while I was rich and wanted nothing; now that I was poor and lacked
+all: "no genius," said the one; "not enough for an orphan," the other;
+and the first offered me my passage like a pauper immigrant, and the
+second refused me a day's wage as a hewer of stone--plain dealing for
+an empty belly. They had not been insincere in the past; they were not
+insincere to-day: change of circumstance had introduced a new criterion:
+that was all.
+
+But if I acquitted my two Job's comforters of insincerity, I was yet far
+from admitting them infallible. Artists had been contemned before,
+and had lived to turn the laugh on their contemners. How old was Corot
+before he struck the vein of his own precious metal? When had a young
+man been more derided (or more justly so) than the god of my admiration,
+Balzac? Or if I required a bolder inspiration, what had I to do but turn
+my head to where the gold dome of the Invalides glittered against inky
+squalls, and recall the tale of him sleeping there: from the day when a
+young artillery-sub could be giggled at and nicknamed Puss-in-Boots by
+frisky misses; on to the days of so many crowns and so many victories,
+and so many hundred mouths of cannon, and so many thousand war-hoofs
+trampling the roadways of astonished Europe eighty miles in front of
+the grand army? To go back, to give up, to proclaim myself a failure, an
+ambitious failure, first a rocket, then a stick! I, Loudon Dodd, who
+had refused all other livelihoods with scorn, and been advertised in the
+Saint Joseph _Sunday Herald_ as a patriot and an artist, to be returned
+upon my native Muskegon like damaged goods, and go the circuit of my
+father's acquaintance, cap in hand, and begging to sweep offices! No, by
+Napoleon! I would die at my chosen trade; and the two who had that
+day flouted me should live to envy my success, or to weep tears of
+unavailing penitence behind my pauper coffin.
+
+Meantime, if my courage was still undiminished, I was none the nearer to
+a meal. At no great distance my cabman's eating-house stood, at the
+tail of a muddy cab-rank, on the shores of a wide thoroughfare of mud,
+offering (to fancy) a face of ambiguous invitation. I might be received,
+I might once more fill my belly there; on the other hand, it was perhaps
+this day the bolt was destined to fall, and I might be expelled instead,
+with vulgar hubbub. It was policy to make the attempt, and I knew it was
+policy; but I had already, in the course of that one morning, endured
+too many affronts, and I felt I could rather starve than face another. I
+had courage and to spare for the future, none left for that day; courage
+for the main campaign, but not a spark of it for that preliminary
+skirmish of the cabman's restaurant. I continued accordingly to sit
+upon my bench, not far from the ashes of Napoleon, now drowsy, now
+light-headed, now in complete mental obstruction, or only conscious
+of an animal pleasure in quiescence; and now thinking, planning, and
+remembering with unexampled clearness, telling myself tales of sudden
+wealth, and gustfully ordering and greedily consuming imaginary meals:
+in the course of which I must have dropped asleep.
+
+It was towards dark that I was suddenly recalled to famine by a cold
+souse of rain, and sprang shivering to my feet. For a moment I stood
+bewildered: the whole train of my reasoning and dreaming passed afresh
+through my mind; I was again tempted, drawn as if with cords, by
+the image of the cabman's eating-house, and again recoiled from the
+possibility of insult. "Qui dort dine," thought I to myself; and took my
+homeward way with wavering footsteps, through rainy streets in which
+the lamps and the shop-windows now began to gleam; still marshalling
+imaginary dinners as I went.
+
+"Ah, Monsieur Dodd," said the porter, "there has been a registered
+letter for you. The facteur will bring it again to-morrow."
+
+A registered letter for me, who had been so long without one? Of what
+it could possibly contain, I had no vestige of a guess; nor did I delay
+myself guessing; far less from any conscious plan of dishonesty: the
+lies flowed from me like a natural secretion.
+
+"O," said I, "my remittance at last! What a bother I should have missed
+it! Can you lend me a hundred francs until to-morrow?"
+
+
+I had never attempted to borrow from the porter till that moment: the
+registered letter was, besides, my warranty; and he gave me what he
+had--three napoleons and some francs in silver. I pocketed the money
+carelessly, lingered a while chaffing, strolled leisurely to the door;
+and then (fast as my trembling legs could carry me) round the corner
+to the Cafe de Cluny. French waiters are deft and speedy; they were not
+deft enough for me; and I had scarce decency to let the man set the wine
+upon the table or put the butter alongside the bread, before my glass
+and my mouth were filled. Exquisite bread of the Cafe Cluny, exquisite
+first glass of old Pomard tingling to my wet feet, indescribable first
+olive culled from the hors d'oeuvre--I suppose, when I come to lie
+dying, and the lamp begins to grow dim, I shall still recall your
+savour. Over the rest of that meal, and the rest of the evening, clouds
+lie thick; clouds perhaps of Burgundy; perhaps, more properly, of famine
+and repletion.
+
+I remember clearly, at least, the shame, the despair, of the next
+morning, when I reviewed what I had done, and how I had swindled the
+poor honest porter; and, as if that were not enough, fairly burnt my
+ships, and brought bankruptcy home to that last refuge, my garret. The
+porter would expect his money; I could not pay him; here was scandal
+in the house; and I knew right well the cause of scandal would have to
+pack. "What do you mean by calling my honesty in question?" I had cried
+the day before, turning upon Myner. Ah, that day before! the day before
+Waterloo, the day before the Flood; the day before I had sold the roof
+over my head, my future, and my self-respect, for a dinner at the Cafe
+Cluny!
+
+In the midst of these lamentations the famous registered letter came
+to my door, with healing under its seals. It bore the postmark of
+San Francisco, where Pinkerton was already struggling to the neck in
+multifarious affairs: it renewed the offer of an allowance, which his
+improved estate permitted him to announce at the figure of two hundred
+francs a month; and in case I was in some immediate pinch, it enclosed
+an introductory draft for forty dollars. There are a thousand excellent
+reasons why a man, in this self-helpful epoch, should decline to be
+dependent on another; but the most numerous and cogent considerations
+all bow to a necessity as stern as mine; and the banks were scarce open
+ere the draft was cashed.
+
+It was early in December that I thus sold myself into slavery; and
+for six months I dragged a slowly lengthening chain of gratitude and
+uneasiness. At the cost of some debt I managed to excel myself and
+eclipse the Genius of Muskegon, in a small but highly patriotic Standard
+Bearer for the Salon; whither it was duly admitted, where it stood the
+proper length of days entirely unremarked, and whence it came back to me
+as patriotic as before. I threw my whole soul (as Pinkerton would have
+phrased it) into clocks and candlesticks; the devil a candlestick-maker
+would have anything to say to my designs. Even when Dijon, with his
+infinite good humour and infinite scorn for all such journey-work,
+consented to peddle them in indiscriminately with his own, the dealers
+still detected and rejected mine. Home they returned to me, true as
+the Standard Bearer; who now, at the head of quite a regiment of lesser
+idols, began to grow an eyesore in the scanty studio of my friend. Dijon
+and I have sat by the hour, and gazed upon that company of images. The
+severe, the frisky, the classical, the Louis Quinze, were there--from
+Joan of Arc in her soldierly cuirass to Leda with the swan; nay, and
+God forgive me for a man that knew better! the humorous was represented
+also. We sat and gazed, I say; we criticised, we turned them hither
+and thither; even upon the closest inspection they looked quite like
+statuettes; and yet nobody would have a gift of them!
+
+Vanity dies hard; in some obstinate cases it outlives the man: but
+about the sixth month, when I already owed near two hundred dollars
+to Pinkerton, and half as much again in debts scattered about Paris, I
+awoke one morning with a horrid sentiment of oppression, and found I
+was alone: my vanity had breathed her last during the night. I dared
+not plunge deeper in the bog; I saw no hope in my poor statuary; I owned
+myself beaten at last; and sitting down in my nightshirt beside the
+window, whence I had a glimpse of the tree-tops at the corner of the
+boulevard, and where the music of its early traffic fell agreeably upon
+my ear, I penned my farewell to Paris, to art, to my whole past life,
+and my whole former self. "I give in," I wrote. "When the next allowance
+arrives, I shall go straight out West, where you can do what you like
+with me."
+
+It is to be understood that Pinkerton had been, in a sense, pressing
+me to come from the beginning; depicting his isolation among new
+acquaintances, "who have none of them your culture," he wrote;
+expressing his friendship in terms so warm that it sometimes embarrassed
+me to think how poorly I could echo them; dwelling upon his need for
+assistance; and the next moment turning about to commend my resolution
+and press me to remain in Paris. "Only remember, Loudon," he would
+write, "if you ever DO tire of it, there's plenty of work here for
+you--honest, hard, well-paid work, developing the resources of this
+practically virgin State. And of course I needn't say what a pleasure
+it would be to me if we were going at it SHOULDER TO SHOULDER." I marvel
+(looking back) that I could so long have resisted these appeals, and
+continue to sink my friend's money in a manner that I knew him to
+dislike. At least, when I did awake to any sense of my position, I awoke
+to it entirely; and determined not only to follow his counsel for the
+future, but even as regards the past, to rectify his losses. For in this
+juncture of affairs I called to mind that I was not without a possible
+resource, and resolved, at whatever cost of mortification, to beard the
+Loudon family in their historic city.
+
+In the excellent Scots' phrase, I made a moonlight flitting, a thing
+never dignified, but in my case unusually easy. As I had scarce a pair
+of boots worth portage, I deserted the whole of my effects without
+a pang. Dijon fell heir to Joan of Arc, the Standard Bearer, and the
+Musketeers. He was present when I bought and frugally stocked my new
+portmanteau; and it was at the door of the trunk shop that I took my
+leave of him, for my last few hours in Paris must be spent alone. It
+was alone (and at a far higher figure than my finances warranted) that
+I discussed my dinner; alone that I took my ticket at Saint Lazare;
+all alone, though in a carriage full of people, that I watched the
+moon shine on the Seine flood with its tufted islets, on Rouen with her
+spires, and on the shipping in the harbour of Dieppe. When the first
+light of the morning called me from troubled slumbers on the deck, I
+beheld the dawn at first with pleasure; I watched with pleasure the
+green shores of England rising out of rosy haze; I took the salt air
+with delight into my nostrils; and then all came back to me; that I was
+no longer an artist, no longer myself; that I was leaving all I cared
+for, and returning to all that I detested, the slave of debt and
+gratitude, a public and a branded failure.
+
+From this picture of my own disgrace and wretchedness, it is not
+wonderful if my mind turned with relief to the thought of Pinkerton,
+waiting for me, as I knew, with unwearied affection, and regarding me
+with a respect that I had never deserved, and might therefore fairly
+hope that I should never forfeit. The inequality of our relation struck
+me rudely. I must have been stupid, indeed, if I could have considered
+the history of that friendship without shame--I, who had given so
+little, who had accepted and profited by so much. I had the whole day
+before me in London, and I determined (at least in words) to set the
+balance somewhat straighter. Seated in the corner of a public place, and
+calling for sheet after sheet of paper, I poured forth the expression of
+my gratitude, my penitence for the past, my resolutions for the future.
+Till now, I told him, my course had been mere selfishness. I had been
+selfish to my father and to my friend, taking their help, and denying
+them (which was all they asked) the poor gratification of my company and
+countenance.
+
+Wonderful are the consolations of literature! As soon as that letter was
+written and posted, the consciousness of virtue glowed in my veins like
+some rare vintage.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. IN WHICH I GO WEST.
+
+
+I reached my uncle's door next morning in time to sit down with the
+family to breakfast. More than three years had intervened almost without
+mutation in that stationary household, since I had sat there first, a
+young American freshman, bewildered among unfamiliar dainties, Finnan
+haddock, kippered salmon, baps and mutton ham, and had wearied my mind
+in vain to guess what should be under the tea-cosey. If there were
+any change at all, it seemed that I had risen in the family esteem. My
+father's death once fittingly referred to, with a ceremonial lengthening
+of Scotch upper lips and wagging of the female head, the party launched
+at once (God help me) into the more cheerful topic of my own successes.
+They had been so pleased to hear such good accounts of me; I was quite
+a great man now; where was that beautiful statue of the Genius of
+Something or other? "You haven't it here? not here? Really?" asks the
+sprightliest of my cousins, shaking curls at me; as though it were
+likely I had brought it in a cab, or kept it concealed about my person
+like a birthday surprise. In the bosom of this family, unaccustomed to
+the tropical nonsense of the West, it became plain the _Sunday Herald_
+and poor, blethering Pinkerton had been accepted for their face. It is
+not possible to invent a circumstance that could have more depressed
+me; and I am conscious that I behaved all through that breakfast like a
+whipt schoolboy.
+
+At length, the meal and family prayers being both happily over, I
+requested the favour of an interview with Uncle Adam on "the state of
+my affairs." At sound of this ominous expression, the good man's face
+conspicuously lengthened; and when my grandfather, having had the
+proposition repeated to him (for he was hard of hearing) announced his
+intention of being present at the interview, I could not but think that
+Uncle Adam's sorrow kindled into momentary irritation. Nothing, however,
+but the usual grim cordiality appeared upon the surface; and we all
+three passed ceremoniously to the adjoining library, a gloomy theatre
+for a depressing piece of business. My grandfather charged a clay pipe,
+and sat tremulously smoking in a corner of the fireless chimney; behind
+him, although the morning was both chill and dark, the window was partly
+open and the blind partly down: I cannot depict what an air he had of
+being out of place, like a man shipwrecked there. Uncle Adam had his
+station at the business table in the midst. Valuable rows of books
+looked down upon the place of torture; and I could hear sparrows
+chirping in the garden, and my sprightly cousin already banging the
+piano and pouring forth an acid stream of song from the drawing-room
+overhead.
+
+It was in these circumstances that, with all brevity of speech and a
+certain boyish sullenness of manner, looking the while upon the floor,
+I informed my relatives of my financial situation: the amount I owed
+Pinkerton; the hopelessness of any maintenance from sculpture; the
+career offered me in the States; and how, before becoming more beholden
+to a stranger, I had judged it right to lay the case before my family.
+
+"I am only sorry you did not come to me at first," said Uncle Adam. "I
+take the liberty to say it would have been more decent."
+
+"I think so too, Uncle Adam," I replied; "but you must bear in mind I
+was ignorant in what light you might regard my application."
+
+"I hope I would never turn my back on my own flesh and blood," he
+returned with emphasis; but to my anxious ear, with more of temper than
+affection. "I could never forget you were my sister's son. I regard
+this as a manifest duty. I have no choice but to accept the entire
+responsibility of the position you have made."
+
+I did not know what else to do but murmur "thank you."
+
+
+"Yes," he pursued, "and there is something providential in the
+circumstance that you come at the right time. In my old firm there is a
+vacancy; they call themselves Italian Warehousemen now," he continued,
+regarding me with a twinkle of humour; "so you may think yourself
+in luck: we were only grocers in my day. I shall place you there
+to-morrow."
+
+"Stop a moment, Uncle Adam," I broke in. "This is not at all what I
+am asking. I ask you to pay Pinkerton, who is a poor man. I ask you to
+clear my feet of debt, not to arrange my life or any part of it."
+
+"If I wished to be harsh, I might remind you that beggars cannot be
+choosers," said my uncle; "and as to managing your life, you have tried
+your own way already, and you see what you have made of it. You must now
+accept the guidance of those older and (whatever you may think of it)
+wiser than yourself. All these schemes of your friend (of whom I
+know nothing, by the by) and talk of openings in the West, I simply
+disregard. I have no idea whatever of your going trekking across
+a continent on a wild-goose chase. In this situation, which I
+am fortunately able to place at your disposal, and which many a
+well-conducted young man would be glad to jump at, you will receive, to
+begin with, eighteen shillings a week."
+
+"Eighteen shillings a week!" I cried. "Why, my poor friend gave me more
+than that for nothing!"
+
+"And I think it is this very friend you are now trying to repay?"
+observed my uncle, with an air of one advancing a strong argument.
+
+"Aadam!" said my grandfather.
+
+"I'm vexed you should be present at this business," quoth Uncle Adam,
+swinging rather obsequiously towards the stonemason; "but I must remind
+you it is of your own seeking."
+
+"Aadam!" repeated the old man.
+
+"Well, sir, I am listening," says my uncle.
+
+My grandfather took a puff or two in silence; and then, "Ye're makin' an
+awfu' poor appearance, Aadam," said he.
+
+My uncle visibly reared at the affront. "I'm sorry you should think
+so," said he, "and still more sorry you should say so before present
+company."
+
+"A believe that; A ken that, Aadam," returned old Loudon, dryly;
+"and the curiis thing is, I'm no very carin'. See here, ma man," he
+continued, addressing himself to me. "A'm your grandfaither, amn't I
+not? Never you mind what Aadam says. A'll see justice din ye. A'm rich."
+
+"Father," said Uncle Adam, "I would like one word with you in private."
+
+I rose to go.
+
+"Set down upon your hinderlands," cried my grandfather, almost savagely.
+"If Aadam has anything to say, let him say it. It's me that has the
+money here; and by Gravy! I'm goin' to be obeyed."
+
+Upon this scurvy encouragement, it appeared that my uncle had no remark
+to offer: twice challenged to "speak out and be done with it," he twice
+sullenly declined; and I may mention that about this period of the
+engagement, I began to be sorry for him.
+
+"See here, then, Jeannie's yin!" resumed my grandfather. "A'm goin' to
+give ye a set-off. Your mither was always my fav'rite, for A never could
+agree with Aadam. A like ye fine yoursel'; there's nae noansense aboot
+ye; ye've a fine nayteral idee of builder's work; ye've been to France,
+where they tell me they're grand at the stuccy. A splendid thing for
+ceilin's, the stuccy! and it's a vailyable disguise, too; A don't
+believe there's a builder in Scotland has used more stuccy than me. But
+as A was sayin', if ye'll follie that trade, with the capital that A'm
+goin' to give ye, ye may live yet to be as rich as mysel'. Ye see, ye
+would have always had a share of it when A was gone; it appears ye're
+needin' it now; well, ye'll get the less, as is only just and proper."
+
+Uncle Adam cleared his throat. "This is very handsome, father," said he;
+"and I am sure Loudon feels it so. Very handsome, and as you say, very
+just; but will you allow me to say that it had better, perhaps, be put
+in black and white?"
+
+The enmity always smouldering between the two men at this ill-judged
+interruption almost burst in flame. The stonemason turned upon his
+offspring, his long upper lip pulled down, for all the world, like a
+monkey's. He stared a while in virulent silence; and then "Get Gregg!"
+said he.
+
+The effect of these words was very visible. "He will be gone to his
+office," stammered my uncle.
+
+"Get Gregg!" repeated my grandfather.
+
+"I tell you, he will be gone to his office," reiterated Adam.
+
+"And I tell ye, he's takin' his smoke," retorted the old man.
+
+"Very well, then," cried my uncle, getting to his feet with some
+alacrity, as upon a sudden change of thought, "I will get him myself."
+
+"Ye will not!" cried my grandfather. "Ye will sit there upon your
+hinderland."
+
+"Then how the devil am I to get him?" my uncle broke forth, with not
+unnatural petulance.
+
+My grandfather (having no possible answer) grinned at his son with the
+malice of a schoolboy; then he rang the bell.
+
+"Take the garden key," said Uncle Adam to the servant; "go over to the
+garden, and if Mr. Gregg the lawyer is there (he generally sits under
+the red hawthorn), give him old Mr. Loudon's compliments, and will he
+step in here for a moment?"
+
+"Mr. Gregg the lawyer!" At once I understood (what had been puzzling me)
+the significance of my grandfather and the alarm of my poor uncle: the
+stonemason's will, it was supposed, hung trembling in the balance.
+
+"Look here, grandfather," I said, "I didn't want any of this. All
+I wanted was a loan of (say) two hundred pounds. I can take care
+of myself; I have prospects and opportunities, good friends in the
+States----"
+
+The old man waved me down. "It's me that speaks here," he said curtly;
+and we waited the coming of the lawyer in a triple silence. He appeared
+at last, the maid ushering him in--a spectacled, dry, but not ungenial
+looking man.
+
+
+"Here, Gregg," cried my grandfather. "Just a question: What has Aadam
+got to do with my will?"
+
+"I'm afraid I don't quite understand," said the lawyer, staring.
+
+"What has he got to do with it?" repeated the old man, smiting with his
+fist upon the arm of his chair. "Is my money mine's, or is it Aadam's?
+Can Aadam interfere?"
+
+"O, I see," said Mr. Gregg. "Certainly not. On the marriage of both
+of your children a certain sum was paid down and accepted in full of
+legitim. You have surely not forgotten the circumstance, Mr. Loudon?"
+
+"So that, if I like," concluded my grandfather, hammering out his
+words, "I can leave every doit I die possessed of to the Great
+Magunn?"--meaning probably the Great Mogul.
+
+"No doubt of it," replied Gregg, with a shadow of a smile.
+
+"Ye hear that, Aadam?" asked my grandfather.
+
+"I may be allowed to say I had no need to hear it," said my uncle.
+
+"Very well," says my grandfather. "You and Jeannie's yin can go for a
+bit walk. Me and Gregg has business."
+
+When once I was in the hall alone with Uncle Adam, I turned to him, sick
+at heart. "Uncle Adam," I said, "you can understand, better than I can
+say, how very painful all this is to me."
+
+"Yes, I am sorry you have seen your grandfather in so unamiable a
+light," replied this extraordinary man. "You shouldn't allow it
+to affect your mind though. He has sterling qualities, quite an
+extraordinary character; and I have no fear but he means to behave
+handsomely to you."
+
+His composure was beyond my imitation: the house could not contain
+me, nor could I even promise to return to it: in concession to which
+weakness, it was agreed that I should call in about an hour at the
+office of the lawyer, whom (as he left the library) Uncle Adam should
+waylay and inform of the arrangement. I suppose there was never a more
+topsy-turvy situation: you would have thought it was I who had suffered
+some rebuff, and that iron-sided Adam was a generous conqueror who
+scorned to take advantage.
+
+It was plain enough that I was to be endowed: to what extent and upon
+what conditions I was now left for an hour to meditate in the wide
+and solitary thoroughfares of the new town, taking counsel with
+street-corner statues of George IV. and William Pitt, improving my
+mind with the pictures in the window of a music-shop, and renewing my
+acquaintance with Edinburgh east wind. By the end of the hour I made my
+way to Mr. Gregg's office, where I was placed, with a few appropriate
+words, in possession of a cheque for two thousand pounds and a small
+parcel of architectural works.
+
+"Mr. Loudon bids me add," continued the lawyer, consulting a little
+sheet of notes, "that although these volumes are very valuable to the
+practical builder, you must be careful not to lose originality. He tells
+you also not to be 'hadden doun'--his own expression--by the theory of
+strains, and that Portland cement, properly sanded, will go a long way."
+
+I smiled, and remarked that I supposed it would.
+
+"I once lived in one of my excellent client's houses," observed the
+lawyer; "and I was tempted, in that case, to think it had gone far
+enough."
+
+"Under these circumstances, sir," said I, "you will be rather relieved
+to hear that I have no intention of becoming a builder."
+
+At this, he fairly laughed; and, the ice being broken, I was able to
+consult him as to my conduct. He insisted I must return to the house,
+at least, for luncheon, and one of my walks with Mr. Loudon. "For the
+evening, I will furnish you with an excuse, if you please," said he, "by
+asking you to a bachelor dinner with myself. But the luncheon and the
+walk are unavoidable. He is an old man, and, I believe, really fond of
+you; he would naturally feel aggrieved if there were any appearance of
+avoiding him; and as for Mr. Adam, do you know, I think your delicacy
+out of place.... And now, Mr. Dodd, what are you to do with this money?"
+
+Ay, there was the question. With two thousand pounds--fifty thousand
+francs--I might return to Paris and the arts, and be a prince and
+millionaire in that thrifty Latin Quarter. I think I had the grace, with
+one corner of my mind, to be glad that I had sent the London letter: I
+know very well that with the rest and worst of me, I repented bitterly
+of that precipitate act. On one point, however, my whole multiplex
+estate of man was unanimous: the letter being gone, there was no help
+but I must follow. The money was accordingly divided in two unequal
+shares: for the first, Mr. Gregg got me a bill in the name of Dijon to
+meet my liabilities in Paris; for the second, as I had already cash in
+hand for the expenses of my journey, he supplied me with drafts on San
+Francisco.
+
+The rest of my business in Edinburgh, not to dwell on a very agreeable
+dinner with the lawyer or the horrors of the family luncheon, took the
+form of an excursion with the stonemason, who led me this time to no
+suburb or work of his old hands, but with an impulse both natural and
+pretty, to that more enduring home which he had chosen for his clay. It
+was in a cemetery, by some strange chance, immured within the bulwarks
+of a prison; standing, besides, on the margin of a cliff, crowded with
+elderly stone memorials, and green with turf and ivy. The east wind
+(which I thought too harsh for the old man) continually shook the
+boughs, and the thin sun of a Scottish summer drew their dancing
+shadows.
+
+"I wanted ye to see the place," said he. "Yon's the stane. Euphemia
+Ross: that was my goodwife, your grandmither--hoots! I'm wrong; that was
+my first yin; I had no bairns by her;--yours is the second, Mary Murray,
+Born 1819, Died 1850: that's her--a fine, plain, decent sort of
+a creature, tak' her athegether. Alexander Loudon, Born Seventeen
+Ninety-Twa, Died--and then a hole in the ballant: that's me. Alexander's
+my name. They ca'd me Ecky when I was a boy. Eh, Ecky! ye're an awfu'
+auld man!"
+
+I had a second and sadder experience of graveyards at my next
+alighting-place, the city of Muskegon, now rendered conspicuous by
+the dome of the new capitol encaged in scaffolding. It was late in the
+afternoon when I arrived, and raining; and as I walked in great streets,
+of the very name of which I was quite ignorant--double, treble, and
+quadruple lines of horse-cars jingling by--hundred-fold wires of
+telegraph and telephone matting heaven above my head--huge, staring
+houses, garish and gloomy, flanking me from either hand--the thought of
+the Rue Racine, ay, and of the cabman's eating-house, brought tears to
+my eyes. The whole monotonous Babel had grown, or I should rather say
+swelled, with such a leap since my departure, that I must continually
+inquire my way; and the very cemetery was brand new. Death, however, had
+been active; the graves were already numerous, and I must pick my way
+in the rain, among the tawdry sepulchres of millionnaires, and past the
+plain black crosses of Hungarian labourers, till chance or instinct led
+me to the place that was my father's. The stone had been erected (I
+knew already) "by admiring friends"; I could now judge their taste in
+monuments; their taste in literature, methought, I could imagine, and I
+refrained from drawing near enough to read the terms of the inscription.
+But the name was in larger letters and stared at me--JAMES K. DODD.
+What a singular thing is a name, I thought; how it clings to a man, and
+continually misrepresents, and then survives him; and it flashed across
+my mind, with a mixture of regret and bitter mirth, that I had never
+known, and now probably never should know, what the K had represented.
+King, Kilter, Kay, Kaiser, I went, running over names at random, and
+then stumbled with ludicrous misspelling on Kornelius, and had nearly
+laughed aloud. I have never been more childish; I suppose (although the
+deeper voices of my nature seemed all dumb) because I have never been
+more moved. And at this last incongruous antic of my nerves, I was
+seized with a panic of remorse and fled the cemetery.
+
+Scarce less funereal was the rest of my experience in Muskegon, where,
+nevertheless, I lingered, visiting my father's circle, for some days. It
+was in piety to him I lingered; and I might have spared myself the pain.
+His memory was already quite gone out. For his sake, indeed, I was made
+welcome; and for mine the conversation rolled awhile with laborious
+effort on the virtues of the deceased. His former comrades dwelt, in
+my company, upon his business talents or his generosity for public
+purposes; when my back was turned, they remembered him no more. My
+father had loved me; I had left him alone to live and die among the
+indifferent; now I returned to find him dead and buried and forgotten.
+Unavailing penitence translated itself in my thoughts to fresh resolve.
+There was another poor soul who loved me: Pinkerton. I must not be
+guilty twice of the same error.
+
+A week perhaps had been thus wasted, nor had I prepared my friend for
+the delay. Accordingly, when I had changed trains at Council Bluffs, I
+was aware of a man appearing at the end of the car with a telegram in
+his hand and inquiring whether there were any one aboard "of the name of
+LONDON Dodd?" I thought the name near enough, claimed the despatch,
+and found it was from Pinkerton: "What day do you arrive? Awfully
+important." I sent him an answer giving day and hour, and at Ogden found
+a fresh despatch awaiting me: "That will do. Unspeakable relief. Meet
+you at Sacramento." In Paris days I had a private name for Pinkerton:
+"The Irrepressible" was what I had called him in hours of bitterness,
+and the name rose once more on my lips. What mischief was he up to now?
+What new bowl was my benignant monster brewing for his Frankenstein? In
+what new imbroglio should I alight on the Pacific coast? My trust in
+the man was entire, and my distrust perfect. I knew he would never
+mean amiss; but I was convinced he would almost never (in my sense) do
+aright.
+
+I suppose these vague anticipations added a shade of gloom to that
+already gloomy place of travel: Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, scowled
+in my face at least, and seemed to point me back again to that other
+native land of mine, the Latin Quarter. But when the Sierras had been
+climbed, and the train, after so long beating and panting, stretched
+itself upon the downward track--when I beheld that vast extent
+of prosperous country rolling seaward from the woods and the blue
+mountains, that illimitable spread of rippling corn, the trees growing
+and blowing in the merry weather, the country boys thronging aboard
+the train with figs and peaches, and the conductors, and the very
+darky stewards, visibly exulting in the change--up went my soul like a
+balloon; Care fell from his perch upon my shoulders; and when I spied
+my Pinkerton among the crowd at Sacramento, I thought of nothing but to
+shout and wave for him, and grasp him by the hand, like what he was--my
+dearest friend.
+
+"O Loudon!" he cried. "Man, how I've pined for you! And you haven't come
+an hour too soon. You're known here and waited for; I've been booming
+you already; you're billed for a lecture to-morrow night: _Student
+Life in Paris, Grave and Gay_: twelve hundred places booked at the last
+stock! Tut, man, you're looking thin! Here, try a drop of this." And
+he produced a case bottle, staringly labelled PINKERTON'S THIRTEEN STAR
+GOLDEN STATE BRANDY, WARRANTED ENTIRE.
+
+"God bless me!" said I, gasping and winking after my first plunge into
+this fiery fluid. "And what does 'Warranted Entire' mean?"
+
+"Why, Loudon! you ought to know that!" cried Pinkerton. "It's real,
+copper-bottomed English; you see it on all the old-time wayside
+hostelries over there."
+
+"But if I'm not mistaken, it means something Warranted Entirely
+different," said I, "and applies to the public house, and not the
+beverages sold."
+
+"It's very possible," said Jim, quite unabashed. "It's effective,
+anyway; and I can tell you, sir, it has boomed that spirit: it goes now
+by the gross of cases. By the way, I hope you won't mind; I've got your
+portrait all over San Francisco for the lecture, enlarged from that
+carte de visite: H. Loudon Dodd, the Americo-Parisienne Sculptor. Here's
+a proof of the small handbills; the posters are the same, only in red
+and blue, and the letters fourteen by one."
+
+I looked at the handbill, and my head turned. What was the use of
+words? why seek to explain to Pinkerton the knotted horrors of
+"Americo-Parisienne"? He took an early occasion to point it out as
+"rather a good phrase; gives the two sides at a glance: I wanted the
+lecture written up to that." Even after we had reached San Francisco,
+and at the actual physical shock of my own effigy placarded on the
+streets I had broken forth in petulant words, he never comprehended in
+the least the ground of my aversion.
+
+"If I had only known you disliked red lettering!" was as high as he
+could rise. "You are perfectly right: a clear-cut black is preferable,
+and shows a great deal further. The only thing that pains me is the
+portrait: I own I thought that a success. I'm dreadfully and truly
+sorry, my dear fellow: I see now it's not what you had a right to
+expect; but I did it, Loudon, for the best; and the press is all
+delighted."
+
+At the moment, sweeping through green tule swamps, I fell direct on the
+essential. "But, Pinkerton," I cried, "this lecture is the maddest of
+your madnesses. How can I prepare a lecture in thirty hours?"
+
+"All done, Loudon!" he exclaimed in triumph. "All ready. Trust me to
+pull a piece of business through. You'll find it all type-written in my
+desk at home. I put the best talent of San Francisco on the job: Harry
+Miller, the brightest pressman in the city."
+
+And so he rattled on, beyond reach of my modest protestations, blurting
+out his complicated interests, crying up his new acquaintances, and ever
+and again hungering to introduce me to some "whole-souled, grand fellow,
+as sharp as a needle," from whom, and the very thought of whom, my
+spirit shrank instinctively.
+
+Well, I was in for it: in for Pinkerton, in for the portrait, in for the
+type-written lecture. One promise I extorted--that I was never again to
+be committed in ignorance; even for that, when I saw how its extortion
+puzzled and depressed the Irrepressible, my soul repented me; and in all
+else I suffered myself to be led uncomplaining at his chariot wheels.
+The Irrepressible, did I say? The Irresistible were nigher truth.
+
+But the time to have seen me was when I sat down to Harry Miller's
+lecture. He was a facetious dog, this Harry Miller; he had a gallant way
+of skirting the indecent which (in my case) produced physical nausea;
+and he could be sentimental and even melodramatic about grisettes and
+starving genius. I found he had enjoyed the benefit of my correspondence
+with Pinkerton: adventures of my own were here and there horridly
+misrepresented, sentiments of my own echoed and exaggerated till I
+blushed to recognise them. I will do Harry Miller justice: he must have
+had a kind of talent, almost of genius; all attempts to lower his
+tone proving fruitless, and the Harry-Millerism ineradicable. Nay, the
+monster had a certain key of style, or want of style, so that certain
+milder passages, which I sought to introduce, discorded horribly, and
+impoverished (if that were possible) the general effect.
+
+By an early hour of the numbered evening I might have been observed at
+the sign of the Poodle Dog, dining with my agent: so Pinkerton delighted
+to describe himself. Thence, like an ox to the slaughter, he led me
+to the hall, where I stood presently alone, confronting assembled San
+Francisco, with no better allies than a table, a glass of water, and a
+mass of manuscript and typework, representing Harry Miller and myself.
+I read the lecture; for I had lacked both time and will to get the trash
+by heart--read it hurriedly, humbly, and with visible shame. Now and
+then I would catch in the auditorium an eye of some intelligence, now
+and then, in the manuscript, would stumble on a richer vein of Harry
+Miller, and my heart would fail me, and I gabbled. The audience yawned,
+it stirred uneasily, it muttered, grumbled, and broke forth at last
+in articulate cries of "Speak up!" and "Nobody can hear!" I took to
+skipping, and being extremely ill-acquainted with the country, almost
+invariably cut in again in the unintelligible midst of some new topic.
+What struck me as extremely ominous, these misfortunes were allowed to
+pass without a laugh. Indeed, I was beginning to fear the worst, and
+even personal indignity, when all at once the humour of the thing broke
+upon me strongly. I could have laughed aloud; and being again summoned
+to speak up, I faced my patrons for the first time with a smile. "Very
+well," I said, "I will try, though I don't suppose anybody wants to
+hear, and I can't see why anybody should." Audience and lecturer laughed
+together till the tears ran down; vociferous and repeated applause
+hailed my impromptu sally. Another hit which I made but a little after,
+as I turned three pages of the copy: "You see, I am leaving out as much
+as I possibly can," increased the esteem with which my patrons had begun
+to regard me; and when I left the stage at last, my departing form was
+cheered with laughter, stamping, shouting, and the waving of hats.
+
+Pinkerton was in the waiting-room, feverishly jotting in his
+pocket-book. As he saw me enter, he sprang up, and I declare the tears
+were trickling on his cheeks.
+
+"My dear boy," he cried, "I can never forgive myself, and you can never
+forgive me. Never mind: I did it for the best. And how nobly you clung
+on! I dreaded we should have had to return the money at the doors."
+
+"It would have been more honest if we had," said I.
+
+The pressmen followed me, Harry Miller in the front ranks; and I was
+amazed to find them, on the whole, a pleasant set of lads, probably
+more sinned against than sinning, and even Harry Miller apparently
+a gentleman. I had in oysters and champagne--for the receipts were
+excellent--and being in a high state of nervous tension, kept the table
+in a roar. Indeed, I was never in my life so well inspired as when I
+described my vigil over Harry Miller's literature or the series of my
+emotions as I faced the audience. The lads vowed I was the soul of good
+company and the prince of lecturers; and--so wonderful an institution
+is the popular press--if you had seen the notices next day in all the
+papers, you must have supposed my evening's entertainment an unqualified
+success.
+
+I was in excellent spirits when I returned home that night, but the
+miserable Pinkerton sorrowed for us both.
+
+"O, Loudon," he said, "I shall never forgive myself. When I saw you
+didn't catch on to the idea of the lecture, I should have given it
+myself!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. IRONS IN THE FIRE.
+
+
+Opes Strepitumque.
+
+The food of the body differs not so greatly for the fool or the sage,
+the elephant or the cock-sparrow; and similar chemical elements,
+variously disguised, support all mortals. A brief study of Pinkerton
+in his new setting convinced me of a kindred truth about that other and
+mental digestion, by which we extract what is called "fun for our money"
+out of life. In the same spirit as a schoolboy, deep in Mayne Reid,
+handles a dummy gun and crawls among imaginary forests, Pinkerton sped
+through Kearney Street upon his daily business, representing to himself
+a highly coloured part in life's performance, and happy for hours if
+he should have chanced to brush against a millionnaire. Reality was his
+romance; he gloried to be thus engaged; he wallowed in his business.
+Suppose a man to dig up a galleon on the Coromandel coast, his rakish
+schooner keeping the while an offing under easy sail, and he, by the
+blaze of a great fire of wreckwood, to measure ingots by the bucketful
+on the uproarious beach: such an one might realise a greater material
+spoil; he should have no more profit of romance than Pinkerton when he
+cast up his weekly balance-sheet in a bald office. Every dollar gained
+was like something brought ashore from a mysterious deep; every venture
+made was like a diver's plunge; and as he thrust his bold hand into the
+plexus of the money-market, he was delightedly aware of how he shook the
+pillars of existence, turned out men (as at a battle-cry) to labour
+in far countries, and set the gold twitching in the drawers of
+millionnaires.
+
+I could never fathom the full extent of his speculations; but there were
+five separate businesses which he avowed and carried like a banner. The
+Thirteen Star Golden State Brandy, Warranted Entire (a very flagrant
+distillation) filled a great part of his thoughts, and was kept before
+the public in an eloquent but misleading treatise: _Why Drink French
+Brandy? A Word to the Wise._ He kept an office for advertisers,
+counselling, designing, acting as middleman with printers and
+bill-stickers, for the inexperienced or the uninspired: the dull
+haberdasher came to him for ideas, the smart theatrical agent for his
+local knowledge; and one and all departed with a copy of his pamphlet:
+_How, When, and Where; or, the Advertiser's Vade-Mecum._ He had a tug
+chartered every Saturday afternoon and night, carried people outside the
+Heads, and provided them with lines and bait for six hours' fishing,
+at the rate of five dollars a person. I am told that some of
+them (doubtless adroit anglers) made a profit on the transaction.
+Occasionally he bought wrecks and condemned vessels; these latter (I
+cannot tell you how) found their way to sea again under aliases, and
+continued to stem the waves triumphantly enough under the colours of
+Bolivia or Nicaragua. Lastly, there was a certain agricultural engine,
+glorying in a great deal of vermilion and blue paint, and filling (it
+appeared) a "long-felt want," in which his interest was something like a
+tenth.
+
+This for the face or front of his concerns. "On the outside," as he
+phrased it, he was variously and mysteriously engaged. No dollar slept
+in his possession; rather he kept all simultaneously flying like a
+conjurer with oranges. My own earnings, when I began to have a share, he
+would but show me for a moment, and disperse again, like those illusive
+money gifts which are flashed in the eyes of childhood only to be
+entombed in the missionary box. And he would come down radiant from a
+weekly balance-sheet, clap me on the shoulder, declare himself a winner
+by Gargantuan figures, and prove destitute of a quarter for a drink.
+
+"What on earth have you done with it?" I would ask.
+
+"Into the mill again; all re-invested!" he would cry, with infinite
+delight. Investment was ever his word. He could not bear what he called
+gambling. "Never touch stocks, Loudon," he would say; "nothing but
+legitimate business." And yet, Heaven knows, many an indurated gambler
+might have drawn back appalled at the first hint of some of Pinkerton's
+investments! One, which I succeeded in tracking home, and instance for
+a specimen, was a seventh share in the charter of a certain ill-starred
+schooner bound for Mexico, to smuggle weapons on the one trip, and
+cigars upon the other. The latter end of this enterprise, involving (as
+it did) shipwreck, confiscation, and a lawsuit with the underwriters,
+was too painful to be dwelt upon at length. "It's proved a
+disappointment," was as far as my friend would go with me in words; but
+I knew, from observation, that the fabric of his fortunes tottered. For
+the rest, it was only by accident I got wind of the transaction; for
+Pinkerton, after a time, was shy of introducing me to his arcana: the
+reason you are to hear presently.
+
+The office which was (or should have been) the point of rest for so many
+evolving dollars stood in the heart of the city: a high and spacious
+room, with many plate-glass windows. A glazed cabinet of polished
+redwood offered to the eye a regiment of some two hundred bottles,
+conspicuously labelled. These were all charged with Pinkerton's Thirteen
+Star, although from across the room it would have required an expert to
+distinguish them from the same number of bottles of Courvoisier. I used
+to twit my friend with this resemblance, and propose a new edition of
+the pamphlet, with the title thus improved: _Why Drink French Brandy,
+when we give you the same labels?_ The doors of the cabinet revolved all
+day upon their hinges; and if there entered any one who was a stranger
+to the merits of the brand, he departed laden with a bottle. When I used
+to protest at this extravagance, "My dear Loudon," Pinkerton would cry,
+"you don't seem to catch on to business principles! The prime cost of
+the spirit is literally nothing. I couldn't find a cheaper advertisement
+if I tried." Against the side post of the cabinet there leaned a gaudy
+umbrella, preserved there as a relic. It appears that when Pinkerton was
+about to place Thirteen Star upon the market, the rainy season was
+at hand. He lay dark, almost in penury, awaiting the first shower, at
+which, as upon a signal, the main thoroughfares became dotted with his
+agents, vendors of advertisements; and the whole world of San Francisco,
+from the businessman fleeing for the ferry-boat, to the lady waiting
+at the corner for her car, sheltered itself under umbrellas with this
+strange device: Are you wet? Try Thirteen Star. "It was a mammoth boom,"
+said Pinkerton, with a sigh of delighted recollection. "There wasn't
+another umbrella to be seen. I stood at this window, Loudon, feasting
+my eyes; and I declare, I felt like Vanderbilt." And it was to this neat
+application of the local climate that he owed, not only much of the sale
+of Thirteen Star, but the whole business of his advertising agency.
+
+The large desk (to resume our survey of the office) stood about the
+middle, knee-deep in stacks of handbills and posters, of _Why Drink
+French Brandy?_ and _The Advertiser's Vade-Mecum._ It was flanked upon
+the one hand by two female type-writers, who rested not between
+the hours of nine and four, and upon the other by a model of the
+agricultural machine. The walls, where they were not broken by telephone
+boxes and a couple of photographs--one representing the wreck of the
+James L. Moody on a bold and broken coast, the other the Saturday tug
+alive with amateur fishers--almost disappeared under oil-paintings
+gaudily framed. Many of these were relics of the Latin Quarter, and I
+must do Pinkerton the justice to say that none of them were bad,
+and some had remarkable merit. They went off slowly but for handsome
+figures; and their places were progressively supplied with the work of
+local artists. These last it was one of my first duties to review and
+criticise. Some of them were villainous, yet all were saleable. I said
+so; and the next moment saw myself, the figure of a miserable renegade,
+bearing arms in the wrong camp. I was to look at pictures thenceforward,
+not with the eye of the artist, but the dealer; and I saw the stream
+widen that divided me from all I loved.
+
+"Now, Loudon," Pinkerton had said, the morning after the lecture, "now
+Loudon, we can go at it shoulder to shoulder. This is what I have longed
+for: I wanted two heads and four arms; and now I have 'em. You'll find
+it's just the same as art--all observation and imagination; only more
+movement. Just wait till you begin to feel the charm!"
+
+I might have waited long. Perhaps I lack a sense; for our whole
+existence seemed to me one dreary bustle, and the place we bustled in
+fitly to be called the Place of Yawning. I slept in a little den behind
+the office; Pinkerton, in the office itself, stretched on a patent sofa
+which sometimes collapsed, his slumbers still further menaced by an
+imminent clock with an alarm. Roused by this diabolical contrivance, we
+rose early, went forth early to breakfast, and returned by nine to what
+Pinkerton called work, and I distraction. Masses of letters must be
+opened, read, and answered; some by me at a subsidiary desk which had
+been introduced on the morning of my arrival; others by my bright-eyed
+friend, pacing the room like a caged lion as he dictated to the tinkling
+type-writers. Masses of wet proof had to be overhauled and scrawled upon
+with a blue pencil--"rustic"--"six-inch caps"--"bold spacing here"--or
+sometimes terms more fervid, as for instance this, which I remember
+Pinkerton to have spirted on the margin of an advertisement of Soothing
+Syrup: "Throw this all down. Have you never printed an advertisement?
+I'll be round in half an hour." The ledger and sale-book, besides,
+we had always with us. Such was the backbone of our occupation, and
+tolerable enough; but the far greater proportion of our time was
+consumed by visitors, whole-souled, grand fellows no doubt, and as sharp
+as a needle, but to me unfortunately not diverting. Some were apparently
+half-witted, and must be talked over by the hour before they could reach
+the humblest decision, which they only left the office to return again
+(ten minutes later) and rescind. Others came with a vast show of hurry
+and despatch, but I observed it to be principally show. The agricultural
+model for instance, which was practicable, proved a kind of flypaper for
+these busybodies. I have seen them blankly turn the crank of it for five
+minutes at a time, simulating (to nobody's deception) business interest:
+"Good thing this, Pinkerton? Sell much of it? Ha! Couldn't use it,
+I suppose, as a medium of advertisement for my article?"--which was
+perhaps toilet soap. Others (a still worse variety) carried us to
+neighbouring saloons to dice for cocktails and (after the cocktails were
+paid) for dollars on a corner of the counter. The attraction of dice for
+all these people was indeed extraordinary: at a certain club, where I
+once dined in the character of "my partner, Mr. Dodd," the dice-box came
+on the table with the wine, an artless substitute for after-dinner wit.
+
+Of all our visitors, I believe I preferred Emperor Norton; the very
+mention of whose name reminds me I am doing scanty justice to the
+folks of San Francisco. In what other city would a harmless madman who
+supposed himself emperor of the two Americas have been so fostered
+and encouraged? Where else would even the people of the streets have
+respected the poor soul's illusion? Where else would bankers and
+merchants have received his visits, cashed his cheques, and submitted to
+his small assessments? Where else would he have been suffered to attend
+and address the exhibition days of schools and colleges? where else,
+in God's green earth, have taken his pick of restaurants, ransacked
+the bill of fare, and departed scathless? They tell me he was even an
+exacting patron, threatening to withdraw his custom when dissatisfied;
+and I can believe it, for his face wore an expression distinctly
+gastronomical. Pinkerton had received from this monarch a cabinet
+appointment; I have seen the brevet, wondering mainly at the good nature
+of the printer who had executed the forms, and I think my friend was at
+the head either of foreign affairs or education: it mattered, indeed,
+nothing, the presentation being in all offices identical. It was at a
+comparatively early date that I saw Jim in the exercise of his public
+functions. His Majesty entered the office--a portly, rather flabby man,
+with the face of a gentleman, rendered unspeakably pathetic and absurd
+by the great sabre at his side and the peacock's feather in his hat.
+
+
+"I have called to remind you, Mr. Pinkerton, that you are somewhat in
+arrear of taxes," he said, with old-fashioned, stately courtesy.
+
+"Well, your Majesty, what is the amount?" asked Jim; and when the figure
+was named (it was generally two or three dollars), paid upon the nail
+and offered a bonus in the shape of Thirteen Star.
+
+"I am always delighted to patronise native industries," said Norton the
+First. "San Francisco is public-spirited in what concerns its Emperor;
+and indeed, sir, of all my domains, it is my favourite city."
+
+"Come," said I, when he was gone, "I prefer that customer to the lot."
+
+"It's really rather a distinction," Jim admitted. "I think it must have
+been the umbrella racket that attracted him."
+
+We were distinguished under the rose by the notice of other and greater
+men. There were days when Jim wore an air of unusual capacity and
+resolve, spoke with more brevity like one pressed for time, and took
+often on his tongue such phrases as "Longhurst told me so this morning,"
+or "I had it straight from Longhurst himself." It was no wonder, I used
+to think, that Pinkerton was called to council with such Titans; for the
+creature's quickness and resource were beyond praise. In the early
+days when he consulted me without reserve, pacing the room, projecting,
+ciphering, extending hypothetical interests, trebling imaginary capital,
+his "engine" (to renew an excellent old word) labouring full steam
+ahead, I could never decide whether my sense of respect or entertainment
+were the stronger. But these good hours were destined to curtailment.
+
+"Yes, it's smart enough," I once observed. "But, Pinkerton, do you think
+it's honest?"
+
+"You don't think it's honest!" he wailed. "O dear me, that ever I should
+have heard such an expression on your lips!"
+
+At sight of his distress, I plagiarised unblushingly from Myner. "You
+seem to think honesty as simple as Blind Man's Buff," said I. "It's a
+more delicate affair than that: delicate as any art."
+
+"O well! at that rate!" he exclaimed, with complete relief. "That's
+casuistry."
+
+"I am perfectly certain of one thing: that what you propose is
+dishonest," I returned.
+
+"Well, say no more about it. That's settled," he replied.
+
+Thus, almost at a word, my point was carried. But the trouble was that
+such differences continued to recur, until we began to regard each other
+with alarm. If there were one thing Pinkerton valued himself upon, it
+was his honesty; if there were one thing he clung to, it was my
+good opinion; and when both were involved, as was the case in these
+commercial cruces, the man was on the rack. My own position, if you
+consider how much I owed him, how hateful is the trade of fault-finder,
+and that yet I lived and fattened on these questionable operations,
+was perhaps equally distressing. If I had been more sterling or more
+combative things might have gone extremely far. But, in truth, I was
+just base enough to profit by what was not forced on my attention,
+rather than seek scenes: Pinkerton quite cunning enough to avail himself
+of my weakness; and it was a relief to both when he began to involve his
+proceedings in a decent mystery.
+
+Our last dispute, which had a most unlooked-for consequence, turned on
+the refitting of condemned ships. He had bought a miserable hulk, and
+came, rubbing his hands, to inform me she was already on the slip, under
+a new name, to be repaired. When first I had heard of this industry I
+suppose I scarcely comprehended; but much discussion had sharpened my
+faculties, and now my brow became heavy.
+
+"I can be no party to that, Pinkerton," said I.
+
+He leaped like a man shot. "What next?" he cried. "What ails you,
+anyway? You seem to me to dislike everything that's profitable."
+
+"This ship has been condemned by Lloyd's agent," said I.
+
+"But I tell you it's a deal. The ship's in splendid condition;
+there's next to nothing wrong with her but the garboard streak and the
+sternpost. I tell you Lloyd's is a ring like everybody else; only it's
+an English ring, and that's what deceives you. If it was American, you
+would be crying it down all day. It's Anglomania, common Anglomania," he
+cried, with growing irritation.
+
+"I will not make money by risking men's lives," was my ultimatum.
+
+"Great Caesar! isn't all speculation a risk? Isn't the fairest kind of
+shipowning to risk men's lives? And mining--how's that for risk? And
+look at the elevator business--there's danger, if you like! Didn't I
+take my risk when I bought her? She might have been too far gone; and
+where would I have been? Loudon," he cried, "I tell you the truth:
+you're too full of refinement for this world!"
+
+"I condemn you out of your own lips," I replied. "'The fairest kind of
+shipowning,' says you. If you please, let us only do the fairest kind of
+business."
+
+The shot told; the Irrepressible was silenced; and I profited by the
+chance to pour in a broadside of another sort. He was all sunk in
+money-getting, I pointed out; he never dreamed of anything but dollars.
+Where were all his generous, progressive sentiments? Where was his
+culture? I asked. And where was the American Type?
+
+"It's true, Loudon," he cried, striding up and down the room, and
+wildly scouring at his hair. "You're perfectly right. I'm becoming
+materialised. O, what a thing to have to say, what a confession to make!
+Materialised! Me! Loudon, this must go on no longer. You've been a loyal
+friend to me once more; give me your hand!--you've saved me again. I
+must do something to rouse the spiritual side; something desperate;
+study something, something dry and tough. What shall it be? Theology?
+Algebra? What's Algebra?"
+
+"It's dry and tough enough," said I; "a squared + 2ab + b squared."
+
+"It's stimulating, though?" he inquired.
+
+I told him I believed so, and that it was considered fortifying to
+Types.
+
+"Then that's the thing for me. I'll study Algebra," he concluded.
+
+The next day, by application to one of his type-writing women, he got
+word of a young lady, one Miss Mamie McBride, who was willing and able
+to conduct him in these bloomless meadows; and, her circumstances
+being lean, and terms consequently moderate, he and Mamie were soon
+in agreement for two lessons in the week. He took fire with unexampled
+rapidity; he seemed unable to tear himself away from the symbolic art;
+an hour's lesson occupied the whole evening; and the original two was
+soon increased to four, and then to five. I bade him beware of female
+blandishments. "The first thing you know, you'll be falling in love with
+the algebraist," said I.
+
+"Don't say it even in jest," he cried. "She's a lady I revere. I could
+no more lay a hand upon her than I could upon a spirit. Loudon, I don't
+believe God ever made a purer-minded woman."
+
+Which appeared to me too fervent to be reassuring.
+
+Meanwhile I had been long expostulating with my friend upon a different
+matter. "I'm the fifth wheel," I kept telling him. "For any use I am,
+I might as well be in Senegambia. The letters you give me to attend
+to might be answered by a sucking child. And I tell you what it is,
+Pinkerton: either you've got to find me some employment, or I'll have to
+start in and find it for myself."
+
+This I said with a corner of my eye in the usual quarter, toward the
+arts, little dreaming what destiny was to provide.
+
+"I've got it, Loudon," Pinkerton at last replied. "Got the idea on the
+Potrero cars. Found I hadn't a pencil, borrowed one from the conductor,
+and figured on it roughly all the way in town. I saw it was the thing at
+last; gives you a real show. All your talents and accomplishments come
+in. Here's a sketch advertisement. Just run your eye over it. 'Sun,
+Ozone, and Music! PINKERTON'S HEBDOMADARY PICNICS!' (That's a good,
+catching phrase, 'hebdomadary,' though it's hard to say. I made a note
+of it when I was looking in the dictionary how to spell hectagonal.
+'Well, you're a boss word,' I said. 'Before you're very much older, I'll
+have you in type as long as yourself.' And here it is, you see.) 'Five
+dollars a head, and ladies free. MONSTER OLIO OF ATTRACTIONS.' (How does
+that strike you?) 'Free luncheon under the greenwood tree. Dance on
+the elastic sward. Home again in the Bright Evening Hours. Manager and
+Honorary Steward, H. Loudon Dodd, Esq., the well-known connoisseur.'"
+
+
+Singular how a man runs from Scylla to Charybdis! I was so intent on
+securing the disappearance of a single epithet that I accepted the rest
+of the advertisement and all that it involved without discussion. So it
+befell that the words "well-known connoisseur" were deleted; but that
+H. Loudon Dodd became manager and honorary steward of Pinkerton's
+Hebdomadary Picnics, soon shortened, by popular consent, to the
+Dromedary.
+
+By eight o'clock, any Sunday morning, I was to be observed by an
+admiring public on the wharf. The garb and attributes of sacrifice
+consisted of a black frock coat, rosetted, its pockets bulging with
+sweetmeats and inferior cigars, trousers of light blue, a silk hat
+like a reflector, and a varnished wand. A goodly steamer guarded my
+one flank, panting and throbbing, flags fluttering fore and aft of her,
+illustrative of the Dromedary and patriotism. My other flank was covered
+by the ticket-office, strongly held by a trusty character of the Scots
+persuasion, rosetted like his superior and smoking a cigar to mark the
+occasion festive. At half-past, having assured myself that all was well
+with the free luncheons, I lit a cigar myself, and awaited the strains
+of the "Pioneer Band." I had never to wait long--they were German and
+punctual--and by a few minutes after the half-hour, I would hear them
+booming down street with a long military roll of drums, some score of
+gratuitous asses prancing at the head in bearskin hats and buckskin
+aprons, and conspicuous with resplendent axes. The band, of course,
+we paid for; but so strong is the San Franciscan passion for public
+masquerade, that the asses (as I say) were all gratuitous, pranced for
+the love of it, and cost us nothing but their luncheon.
+
+The musicians formed up in the bows of my steamer, and struck into
+a skittish polka; the asses mounted guard upon the gangway and the
+ticket-office; and presently after, in family parties of father, mother,
+and children, in the form of duplicate lovers or in that of solitary
+youth, the public began to descend upon us by the carful at a time; four
+to six hundred perhaps, with a strong German flavour, and all merry as
+children. When these had been shepherded on board, and the inevitable
+belated two or three had gained the deck amidst the cheering of the
+public, the hawser was cast off, and we plunged into the bay.
+
+And now behold the honorary steward in hour of duty and glory; see me
+circulate amid crowd, radiating affability and laughter, liberal with
+my sweetmeats and cigars. I say unblushing things to hobbledehoy girls,
+tell shy young persons this is the married people's boat, roguishly
+ask the abstracted if they are thinking of their sweethearts, offer
+Paterfamilias a cigar, am struck with the beauty and grow curious about
+the age of mamma's youngest who (I assure her gaily) will be a man
+before his mother; or perhaps it may occur to me, from the sensible
+expression of her face, that she is a person of good counsel, and I
+ask her earnestly if she knows any particularly pleasant place on the
+Saucelito or San Rafael coast, for the scene of our picnic is always
+supposed to be uncertain. The next moment I am back at my giddy badinage
+with the young ladies, wakening laughter as I go, and leaving in my wake
+applausive comments of "Isn't Mr. Dodd a funny gentleman?" and "O, I
+think he's just too nice!"
+
+An hour having passed in this airy manner, I start upon my rounds
+afresh, with a bag full of coloured tickets, all with pins attached, and
+all with legible inscriptions: "Old Germany," "California," "True Love,"
+"Old Fogies," "La Belle France," "Green Erin," "The Land of Cakes,"
+"Washington," "Blue Jay," "Robin Red-Breast,"--twenty of each
+denomination; for when it comes to the luncheon, we sit down by
+twenties. These are distributed with anxious tact--for, indeed, this
+is the most delicate part of my functions--but outwardly with reckless
+unconcern, amidst the gayest flutter and confusion; and are immediately
+after sported upon hats and bonnets, to the extreme diffusion of
+cordiality, total strangers hailing each other by "the number of their
+mess"--so we humorously name it--and the deck ringing with cries of,
+"Here, all Blue Jays to the rescue!" or, "I say, am I alone in this
+blame' ship? Ain't there no more Californians?"
+
+By this time we are drawing near to the appointed spot. I mount upon the
+bridge, the observed of all observers.
+
+"Captain," I say, in clear, emphatic tones, heard far and wide, "the
+majority of the company appear to be in favour of the little cove beyond
+One Tree Point."
+
+"All right, Mr. Dodd," responds the captain, heartily; "all one to me.
+I am not exactly sure of the place you mean; but just you stay here and
+pilot me."
+
+I do, pointing with my wand. I do pilot him, to the inexpressible
+entertainment of the picnic; for I am (why should I deny it?) the
+popular man. We slow down off the mouth of a grassy valley, watered by
+a brook, and set in pines and redwoods. The anchor is let go; the
+boats are lowered, two of them already packed with the materials of
+an impromptu bar; and the Pioneer Band, accompanied by the resplendent
+asses, fill the other, and move shoreward to the inviting strains of
+Buffalo Gals, won't you come out to-night? It is a part of our programme
+that one of the asses shall, from sheer clumsiness, in the course of
+this embarkation, drop a dummy axe into the water, whereupon the mirth
+of the picnic can hardly be assuaged. Upon one occasion, the dummy axe
+floated, and the laugh turned rather the wrong way.
+
+In from ten to twenty minutes the boats are along-side again, the messes
+are marshalled separately on the deck, and the picnic goes ashore,
+to find the band and the impromptu bar awaiting them. Then come the
+hampers, which are piled upon the beach, and surrounded by a stern
+guard of stalwart asses, axe on shoulder. It is here I take my place,
+note-book in hand, under a banner bearing the legend, "Come here for
+hampers." Each hamper contains a complete outfit for a separate twenty,
+cold provender, plates, glasses, knives, forks, and spoons: an agonized
+printed appeal from the fevered pen of Pinkerton, pasted on the inside
+of the lid, beseeches that care be taken of the glass and silver. Beer,
+wine, and lemonade are flowing already from the bar, and the various
+clans of twenty file away into the woods, with bottles under their arms,
+and the hampers strung upon a stick. Till one they feast there, in a
+very moderate seclusion, all being within earshot of the band. From one
+till four, dancing takes place upon the grass; the bar does a roaring
+business; and the honorary steward, who has already exhausted himself to
+bring life into the dullest of the messes, must now indefatigably dance
+with the plainest of the women. At four a bugle-call is sounded; and by
+half-past behold us on board again, pioneers, corrugated iron bar, empty
+bottles, and all; while the honorary steward, free at last, subsides
+into the captain's cabin over a brandy and soda and a book. Free at
+last, I say; yet there remains before him the frantic leave-takings
+at the pier, and a sober journey up to Pinkerton's office with two
+policemen and the day's takings in a bag.
+
+What I have here sketched was the routine. But we appealed to the taste
+of San Francisco more distinctly in particular fetes. "Ye Olde Time
+Pycke-Nycke," largely advertised in hand-bills beginning "Oyez, Oyez!"
+and largely frequented by knights, monks, and cavaliers, was drowned
+out by unseasonable rain, and returned to the city one of the saddest
+spectacles I ever remember to have witnessed. In pleasing contrast,
+and certainly our chief success, was "The Gathering of the Clans,"
+or Scottish picnic. So many milk-white knees were never before
+simultaneously exhibited in public, and to judge by the prevalence of
+"Royal Stewart" and the number of eagle's feathers, we were a high-born
+company. I threw forward the Scottish flank of my own ancestry, and
+passed muster as a clansman with applause. There was, indeed, but one
+small cloud on this red-letter day. I had laid in a large supply of
+the national beverage, in the shape of The "Rob Roy MacGregor O" Blend,
+Warranted Old and Vatted; and this must certainly have been a generous
+spirit, for I had some anxious work between four and half-past,
+conveying on board the inanimate forms of chieftains.
+
+To one of our ordinary festivities, where he was the life and soul of
+his own mess, Pinkerton himself came incognito, bringing the algebraist
+on his arm. Miss Mamie proved to be a well-enough-looking mouse, with
+a large, limpid eye, very good manners, and a flow of the most correct
+expressions I have ever heard upon the human lip. As Pinkerton's
+incognito was strict, I had little opportunity to cultivate the lady's
+acquaintance; but I was informed afterwards that she considered me "the
+wittiest gentleman she had ever met." "The Lord mend your taste in wit!"
+thought I; but I cannot conceal that such was the general impression.
+One of my pleasantries even went the round of San Francisco, and I have
+heard it (myself all unknown) bandied in saloons. To be unknown began at
+last to be a rare experience; a bustle woke upon my passage; above all,
+in humble neighbourhoods. "Who's that?" one would ask, and the other
+would cry, "That! Why, Dromedary Dodd!" or, with withering scorn, "Not
+know Mr. Dodd of the Picnics? Well!" and indeed I think it marked a
+rather barren destiny; for our picnics, if a trifle vulgar, were as gay
+and innocent as the age of gold; I am sure no people divert themselves
+so easily and so well: and even with the cares of my stewardship, I was
+often happy to be there.
+
+Indeed, there were but two drawbacks in the least considerable. The
+first was my terror of the hobbledehoy girls, to whom (from the demands
+of my situation) I was obliged to lay myself so open. The other, if less
+momentous, was more mortifying. In early days, at my mother's knee, as a
+man may say, I had acquired the unenviable accomplishment (which I have
+never since been able to lose) of singing _Just before the Battle._
+I have what the French call a fillet of voice, my best notes scarce
+audible about a dinner-table, and the upper register rather to be
+regarded as a higher power of silence: experts tell me besides that
+I sing flat; nor, if I were the best singer in the world, does _Just
+before the Battle_ occur to my mature taste as the song that I would
+choose to sing. In spite of all which considerations, at one picnic,
+memorably dull, and after I had exhausted every other art of pleasing,
+I gave, in desperation, my one song. From that hour my doom was gone
+forth. Either we had a chronic passenger (though I could never detect
+him), or the very wood and iron of the steamer must have retained the
+tradition. At every successive picnic word went round that Mr. Dodd was
+a singer; that Mr. Dodd sang _Just before the Battle_, and finally that
+now was the time when Mr. Dodd sang _Just before the Battle;_ so that
+the thing became a fixture like the dropping of the dummy axe, and you
+are to conceive me, Sunday after Sunday, piping up my lamentable
+ditty and covered, when it was done, with gratuitous applause. It is a
+beautiful trait in human nature that I was invariably offered an encore.
+
+I was well paid, however, even to sing. Pinkerton and I, after an
+average Sunday, had five hundred dollars to divide. Nay, and the picnics
+were the means, although indirectly, of bringing me a singular windfall.
+This was at the end of the season, after the "Grand Farewell Fancy Dress
+Gala." Many of the hampers had suffered severely; and it was judged
+wiser to save storage, dispose of them, and lay in a fresh stock when
+the campaign re-opened. Among my purchasers was a workingman of the
+name of Speedy, to whose house, after several unavailing letters, I
+must proceed in person, wondering to find myself once again on the wrong
+side, and playing the creditor to some one else's debtor. Speedy was
+in the belligerent stage of fear. He could not pay. It appeared he had
+already resold the hampers, and he defied me to do my worst. I did not
+like to lose my own money; I hated to lose Pinkerton's; and the bearing
+of my creditor incensed me.
+
+"Do you know, Mr. Speedy, that I can send you to the penitentiary?" said
+I, willing to read him a lesson.
+
+The dire expression was overheard in the next room. A large, fresh,
+motherly Irishwoman ran forth upon the instant, and fell to besiege me
+with caresses and appeals. "Sure now, and ye couldn't have the heart to
+ut, Mr. Dodd, you, that's so well known to be a pleasant gentleman; and
+it's a pleasant face ye have, and the picture of me own brother that's
+dead and gone. It's a truth that he's been drinking. Ye can smell it off
+of him, more blame to him. But, indade, and there's nothing in the
+house beyont the furnicher, and Thim Stock. It's the stock that ye'll
+be taking, dear. A sore penny it has cost me, first and last, and by
+all tales, not worth an owld tobacco pipe." Thus adjured, and somewhat
+embarrassed by the stern attitude I had adopted, I suffered myself to be
+invested with a considerable quantity of what is called wild-cat stock,
+in which this excellent if illogical female had been squandering her
+hard-earned gold. It could scarce be said to better my position, but the
+step quieted the woman; and, on the other hand, I could not think I was
+taking much risk, for the shares in question (they were those of what I
+will call the Catamount Silver Mine) had fallen some time before to the
+bed-rock quotation, and now lay perfectly inert, or were only kicked
+(like other waste paper) about the kennel of the exchange by bankrupt
+speculators.
+
+A month or two after, I perceived by the stock-list that Catamount
+had taken a bound; before afternoon, "thim stock" were worth a quite
+considerable pot of money; and I learned, upon inquiry, that a bonanza
+had been found in a condemned lead, and the mine was now expected to do
+wonders. Remarkable to philosophers how bonanzas are found in condemned
+leads, and how the stock is always at freezing-point immediately before!
+By some stroke of chance the, Speedys had held on to the right thing;
+they had escaped the syndicate; yet a little more, if I had not come to
+dun them, and Mrs. Speedy would have been buying a silk dress. I could
+not bear, of course, to profit by the accident, and returned to
+offer restitution. The house was in a bustle; the neighbours (all
+stock-gamblers themselves) had crowded to condole; and Mrs. Speedy sat
+with streaming tears, the centre of a sympathetic group. "For fifteen
+year I've been at ut," she was lamenting, as I entered, "and grudging
+the babes the very milk, more shame to me! to pay their dhirty
+assessments. And now, my dears, I should be a lady, and driving in my
+coach, if all had their rights; and a sorrow on that man Dodd! As soon
+as I set eyes on him, I seen the divil was in the house."
+
+It was upon these words that I made my entrance, which was therefore
+dramatic enough, though nothing to what followed. For when it appeared
+that I was come to restore the lost fortune, and when Mrs. Speedy (after
+copiously weeping on my bosom) had refused the restitution, and when
+Mr. Speedy (summoned to that end from a camp of the Grand Army of the
+Republic) had added his refusal, and when I had insisted, and they had
+insisted, and the neighbours had applauded and supported each of us in
+turn; and when at last it was agreed we were to hold the stock together,
+and share the proceeds in three parts--one for me, one for Mr. Speedy,
+and one for his spouse--I will leave you to conceive the enthusiasm that
+reigned in that small, bare apartment, with the sewing-machine in the
+one corner, and the babes asleep in the other, and pictures of Garfield
+and the Battle of Gettysburg on the yellow walls. Port wine was had in
+by a sympathiser, and we drank it mingled with tears.
+
+"And I dhrink to your health, my dear," sobbed Mrs. Speedy, especially
+affected by my gallantry in the matter of the third share; "and I'm
+sure we all dhrink to his health--Mr. Dodd of the picnics, no gentleman
+better known than him; and it's my prayer, dear, the good God may be
+long spared to see ye in health and happiness!"
+
+In the end I was the chief gainer; for I sold my third while it was
+worth five thousand dollars, but the Speedys more adventurously held on
+until the syndicate reversed the process, when they were happy to escape
+with perhaps a quarter of that sum. It was just as well; for the bulk
+of the money was (in Pinkerton's phrase) reinvested; and when next I saw
+Mrs. Speedy, she was still gorgeously dressed from the proceeds of the
+late success, but was already moist with tears over the new catastrophe.
+"We're froze out, me darlin'! All the money we had, dear, and the
+sewing-machine, and Jim's uniform, was in the Golden West; and the
+vipers has put on a new assessment."
+
+By the end of the year, therefore, this is how I stood. I had made
+
+     By Catamount Silver Mine..................... $5,000
+     By the picnics...............................  3,000
+     By the lecture...............................    600
+     By profit and loss on capital
+     in Pinkerton's business......................  1,350
+     ------
+     $9,950
+
+     to which must be added
+
+     What remained of my grandfather's
+     donation.....................................  8,500
+     ------
+     $18,450
+
+     It appears, on the other hand, that
+
+     I had spent..........................  4,000
+     -------
+     Which thus left me to the good............... $14,450
+
+A result on which I am not ashamed to say I looked with gratitude and
+pride. Some eight thousand (being late conquest) was liquid and actually
+tractile in the bank; the rest whirled beyond reach and even sight (save
+in the mirror of a balance-sheet) under the compelling spell of wizard
+Pinkerton. Dollars of mine were tacking off the shores of Mexico, in
+peril of the deep and the guarda-costas; they rang on saloon-counters
+in the city of Tombstone, Arizona; they shone in faro-tents among the
+mountain diggings; the imagination flagged in following them, so wide
+were they diffused, so briskly they span to the turning of the wizard's
+crank. But here, there, or everywhere I could still tell myself it was
+all mine, and what was more convincing, draw substantial dividends. My
+fortune, I called it; and it represented, when expressed in dollars, or
+even British pounds, an honest pot of money; when extended into francs,
+a veritable fortune. Perhaps I have let the cat out of the bag; perhaps
+you see already where my hopes were pointing, and begin to blame my
+inconsistency. But I must first tell you my excuse, and the change that
+had befallen Pinkerton.
+
+About a week after the picnic to which he escorted Mamie, Pinkerton
+avowed the state of his affections. From what I had observed on board
+the steamer, where methought Mamie waited on him with her limpid eyes,
+I encouraged the bashful lover to proceed; and the very next evening he
+was carrying me to call on his affianced.
+
+"You must befriend her, Loudon, as you have always befriended me," he
+said, pathetically.
+
+"By saying disagreeable things? I doubt if that be the way to a young
+lady's favour," I replied; "and since this picnicking I begin to be a
+man of some experience."
+
+"Yes, you do nobly there; I can't describe how I admire you," he cried.
+"Not that she will ever need it; she has had every advantage. God knows
+what I have done to deserve her. O man, what a responsibility this is
+for a rough fellow and not always truthful!"
+
+"Brace up, old man, brace up!" said I.
+
+But when we reached Mamie's boarding-house, it was almost with tears
+that he presented me. "Here is Loudon, Mamie," were his words. "I want
+you to love him; he has a grand nature."
+
+"You are certainly no stranger to me, Mr. Dodd," was her gracious
+expression. "James is never weary of descanting on your goodness."
+
+"My dear lady," said I, "when you know our friend a little better,
+you will make a large allowance for his warm heart. My goodness has
+consisted in allowing him to feed and clothe and toil for me when he
+could ill afford it. If I am now alive, it is to him I owe it; no man
+had a kinder friend. You must take good care of him," I added, laying my
+hand on his shoulder, "and keep him in good order, for he needs it."
+
+Pinkerton was much affected by this speech, and so, I fear, was Mamie. I
+admit it was a tactless performance. "When you know our friend a little
+better," was not happily said; and even "keep him in good order, for he
+needs it" might be construed into matter of offence; but I lay it before
+you in all confidence of your acquittal: was the general tone of it
+"patronising"? Even if such was the verdict of the lady, I cannot but
+suppose the blame was neither wholly hers nor wholly mine; I cannot but
+suppose that Pinkerton had already sickened the poor woman of my very
+name; so that if I had come with the songs of Apollo, she must still
+have been disgusted.
+
+Here, however, were two finger-posts to Paris. Jim was going to be
+married, and so had the less need of my society. I had not pleased his
+bride, and so was, perhaps, better absent. Late one evening I broached
+the idea to my friend. It had been a great day for me; I had just banked
+my five thousand catamountain dollars; and as Jim had refused to lay a
+finger on the stock, risk and profit were both wholly mine, and I was
+celebrating the event with stout and crackers. I began by telling him
+that if it caused him any pain or any anxiety about his affairs, he had
+but to say the word, and he should hear no more of my proposal. He was
+the truest and best friend I ever had or was ever like to have; and
+it would be a strange thing if I refused him any favour he was sure
+he wanted. At the same time I wished him to be sure; for my life was
+wasting in my hands. I was like one from home; all my true interests
+summoned me away. I must remind him, besides, that he was now about to
+marry and assume new interests, and that our extreme familiarity might
+be even painful to his wife.--"O no, Loudon; I feel you are wrong
+there," he interjected warmly; "she DOES appreciate your nature."--So
+much the better, then, I continued; and went on to point out that our
+separation need not be for long; that, in the way affairs were going,
+he might join me in two years with a fortune, small, indeed, for the
+States, but in France almost conspicuous; that we might unite our
+resources, and have one house in Paris for the winter and a second near
+Fontainebleau for summer, where we could be as happy as the day was
+long, and bring up little Pinkertons as practical artistic workmen, far
+from the money-hunger of the West. "Let me go then," I concluded; "not
+as a deserter, but as the vanguard, to lead the march of the Pinkerton
+men."
+
+So I argued and pleaded, not without emotion; my friend sitting
+opposite, resting his chin upon his hand and (but for that single
+interjection) silent. "I have been looking for this, Loudon," said he,
+when I had done. "It does pain me, and that's the fact--I'm so miserably
+selfish. And I believe it's a death blow to the picnics; for it's idle
+to deny that you were the heart and soul of them with your wand and your
+gallant bearing, and wit and humour and chivalry, and throwing that kind
+of society atmosphere about the thing. But for all that, you're right,
+and you ought to go. You may count on forty dollars a week; and if Depew
+City--one of nature's centres for this State--pan out the least as I
+expect, it may be double. But it's forty dollars anyway; and to think
+that two years ago you were almost reduced to beggary!"
+
+"I WAS reduced to it," said I.
+
+"Well, the brutes gave you nothing, and I'm glad of it now!" cried Jim.
+"It's the triumphant return I glory in! Think of the master, and that
+cold-blooded Myner too! Yes, just let the Depew City boom get on its
+legs, and you shall go; and two years later, day for day, I'll shake
+hands with you in Paris, with Mamie on my arm, God bless her!"
+
+We talked in this vein far into the night. I was myself so exultant in
+my new-found liberty, and Pinkerton so proud of my triumph, so happy in
+my happiness, in so warm a glow about the gallant little woman of his
+choice, and the very room so filled with castles in the air and cottages
+at Fontainebleau, that it was little wonder if sleep fled our eyelids,
+and three had followed two upon the office clock before Pinkerton
+unfolded the mechanism of his patent sofa.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. FACES ON THE CITY FRONT.
+
+
+It is very much the custom to view life as if it were exactly ruled in
+two, like sleep and waking; the provinces of play and business standing
+separate. The business side of my career in San Francisco has been now
+disposed of; I approach the chapter of diversion; and it will be found
+they had about an equal share in building up the story of the Wrecker--a
+gentleman whose appearance may be presently expected.
+
+With all my occupations, some six afternoons and two or three odd
+evenings remained at my disposal every week: a circumstance the more
+agreeable as I was a stranger in a city singularly picturesque.
+From what I had once called myself, The Amateur Parisian, I grew (or
+declined) into a waterside prowler, a lingerer on wharves, a frequenter
+of shy neighbourhoods, a scraper of acquaintance with eccentric
+characters. I visited Chinese and Mexican gambling-hells, German secret
+societies, sailors' boarding-houses, and "dives" of every complexion of
+the disreputable and dangerous. I have seen greasy Mexican hands pinned
+to the table with a knife for cheating, seamen (when blood-money ran
+high) knocked down upon the public street and carried insensible on
+board short-handed ships, shots exchanged, and the smoke (and the
+company) dispersing from the doors of the saloon. I have heard
+cold-minded Polacks debate upon the readiest method of burning San
+Francisco to the ground, hot-headed working men and women bawl and swear
+in the tribune at the Sandlot, and Kearney himself open his subscription
+for a gallows, name the manufacturers who were to grace it with their
+dangling bodies, and read aloud to the delighted multitude a telegram of
+adhesion from a member of the State legislature: all which preparations
+of proletarian war were (in a moment) breathed upon and abolished by the
+mere name and fame of Mr. Coleman. That lion of the Vigilantes had but
+to rouse himself and shake his ears, and the whole brawling mob was
+silenced. I could not but reflect what a strange manner of man this was,
+to be living unremarked there as a private merchant, and to be so
+feared by a whole city; and if I was disappointed, in my character of
+looker-on, to have the matter end ingloriously without the firing of a
+shot or the hanging of a single millionnaire, philosophy tried to tell
+me that this sight was truly the more picturesque. In a thousand towns
+and different epochs I might have had occasion to behold the cowardice
+and carnage of street fighting; where else, but only there and then,
+could I have enjoyed a view of Coleman (the intermittent despot) walking
+meditatively up hill in a quiet part of town, with a very rolling gait,
+and slapping gently his great thigh?
+
+Minora Canamus. This historic figure stalks silently through a corner
+of the San Francisco of my memory: the rest is bric-a-brac, the
+reminiscences of a vagrant sketcher. My delight was much in slums.
+Little Italy was a haunt of mine; there I would look in at the windows
+of small eating-shops, transported bodily from Genoa or Naples, with
+their macaroni, and chianti flasks, and portraits of Garibaldi, and
+coloured political caricatures; or (entering in) hold high debate with
+some ear-ringed fisher of the bay as to the designs of "Mr. Owstria" and
+"Mr. Rooshia." I was often to be observed (had there been any to observe
+me) in that dis-peopled, hill-side solitude of Little Mexico, with its
+crazy wooden houses, endless crazy wooden stairs, and perilous mountain
+goat-paths in the sand. Chinatown by a thousand eccentricities drew
+and held me; I could never have enough of its ambiguous, interracial
+atmosphere, as of a vitalised museum; never wonder enough at its
+outlandish, necromantic-looking vegetables set forth to sell in
+commonplace American shop-windows, its temple doors open and the scent
+of the joss-stick streaming forth on the American air, its kites of
+Oriental fashion hanging fouled in Western telegraph-wires, its flights
+of paper prayers which the trade-wind hunts and dissipates along
+Western gutters. I was a frequent wanderer on North Beach, gazing at
+the straits, and the huge Cape-Horners creeping out to sea, and imminent
+Tamalpais. Thence, on my homeward way, I might visit that strange and
+filthy shed, earth-paved and walled with the cages of wild animals and
+birds, where at a ramshackle counter, amid the yells of monkeys, and a
+poignant atmosphere of menagerie, forty-rod whiskey was administered by
+a proprietor as dirty as his beasts. Nor did I even neglect Nob
+Hill, which is itself a kind of slum, being the habitat of the mere
+millionnaire. There they dwell upon the hill-top, high raised above
+man's clamour, and the trade-wind blows between their palaces about
+deserted streets.
+
+But San Francisco is not herself only. She is not only the most
+interesting city in the Union, and the hugest smelting-pot of races and
+the precious metals. She keeps, besides, the doors of the Pacific, and
+is the port of entry to another world and an earlier epoch in man's
+history. Nowhere else shall you observe (in the ancient phrase) so many
+tall ships as here convene from round the Horn, from China, from Sydney,
+and the Indies; but scarce remarked amid that crowd of deep-sea giants,
+another class of craft, the Island schooner, circulates: low in the
+water, with lofty spars and dainty lines, rigged and fashioned like
+a yacht, manned with brown-skinned, soft-spoken, sweet-eyed native
+sailors, and equipped with their great double-ender boats that tell a
+tale of boisterous sea-beaches. These steal out and in again, unnoted by
+the world or even the newspaper press, save for the line in the clearing
+column, "Schooner So-and-so for Yap and South Sea Islands"--steal out
+with nondescript cargoes of tinned salmon, gin, bolts of gaudy cotton
+stuff, women's hats, and Waterbury watches, to return, after a year,
+piled as high as to the eaves of the house with copra, or wallowing
+deep with the shells of the tortoise or the pearl oyster. To me, in my
+character of the Amateur Parisian, this island traffic, and even the
+island world, were beyond the bounds of curiosity, and how much more of
+knowledge. I stood there on the extreme shore of the West and of to-day.
+Seventeen hundred years ago, and seven thousand miles to the east,
+a legionary stood, perhaps, upon the wall of Antoninus, and looked
+northward toward the mountains of the Picts. For all the interval of
+time and space, I, when I looked from the cliff-house on the broad
+Pacific, was that man's heir and analogue: each of us standing on the
+verge of the Roman Empire (or, as we now call it, Western civilization),
+each of us gazing onward into zones unromanised. But I was dull. I
+looked rather backward, keeping a kind eye on Paris; and it required a
+series of converging incidents to change my attitude of nonchalance for
+one of interest, and even longing, which I little dreamed that I should
+live to gratify.
+
+The first of these incidents brought me in acquaintance with a certain
+San Francisco character, who had something of a name beyond the limits
+of the city, and was known to many lovers of good English. I had
+discovered a new slum, a place of precarious, sandy cliffs, deep, sandy
+cuttings, solitary, ancient houses, and the butt-ends of streets. It was
+already environed. The ranks of the street-lamps threaded it unbroken.
+The city, upon all sides of it, was tightly packed, and growled with
+traffic. To-day, I do not doubt the very landmarks are all swept away;
+but it offered then, within narrow limits, a delightful peace, and (in
+the morning, when I chiefly went there) a seclusion almost rural. On a
+steep sand-hill, in this neighbourhood, toppled, on the most insecure
+foundation, a certain row of houses, each with a bit of garden, and all
+(I have to presume) inhabited. Thither I used to mount by a crumbling
+footpath, and in front of the last of the houses, would sit down to
+sketch. The very first day I saw I was observed, out of the ground-floor
+window by a youngish, good-looking fellow, prematurely bald, and with
+an expression both lively and engaging. The second, as we were still
+the only figures in the landscape, it was no more than natural that
+we should nod. The third, he came out fairly from his intrenchments,
+praised my sketch, and with the impromptu cordiality of artists carried
+me into his apartment; where I sat presently in the midst of a museum of
+strange objects,--paddles and battle-clubs and baskets, rough-hewn stone
+images, ornaments of threaded shell, cocoanut bowls, snowy cocoanut
+plumes--evidences and examples of another earth, another climate,
+another race, and another (if a ruder) culture. Nor did these objects
+lack a fitting commentary in the conversation of my new acquaintance.
+Doubtless you have read his book. You know already how he tramped and
+starved, and had so fine a profit of living, in his days among the
+islands; and meeting him, as I did, one artist with another, after
+months of offices and picnics, you can imagine with what charm he would
+speak, and with what pleasure I would hear. It was in such talks, which
+we were both eager to repeat, that I first heard the names--first fell
+under the spell--of the islands; and it was from one of the first of
+them that I returned (a happy man) with _Omoo_ under one arm, and my
+friend's own adventures under the other.
+
+The second incident was more dramatic, and had, besides, a bearing on
+my future. I was standing, one day, near a boat-landing under Telegraph
+Hill. A large barque, perhaps of eighteen hundred tons, was coming more
+than usually close about the point to reach her moorings; and I was
+observing her with languid inattention, when I observed two men to
+stride across the bulwarks, drop into a shore boat, and, violently
+dispossessing the boatman of his oars, pull toward the landing where I
+stood. In a surprisingly short time they came tearing up the steps; and
+I could see that both were too well dressed to be foremast hands--the
+first even with research, and both, and specially the first, appeared
+under the empire of some strong emotion.
+
+"Nearest police office!" cried the leader.
+
+"This way," said I, immediately falling in with their precipitate pace.
+"What's wrong? What ship is that?"
+
+"That's the Gleaner," he replied. "I am chief officer, this gentleman's
+third; and we've to get in our depositions before the crew. You see they
+might corral us with the captain; and that's no kind of berth for me.
+I've sailed with some hard cases in my time, and seen pins flying like
+sand on a squally day--but never a match to our old man. It never let
+up from the Hook to the Farallones; and the last man was dropped not
+sixteen hours ago. Packet rats our men were, and as tough a crowd as
+ever sand-bagged a man's head in; but they looked sick enough when the
+captain started in with his fancy shooting."
+
+"O, he's done up," observed the other. "He won't go to sea no more."
+
+"You make me tired," retorted his superior. "If he gets ashore in one
+piece and isn't lynched in the next ten minutes, he'll do yet. The
+owners have a longer memory than the public; they'll stand by him; they
+don't find as smart a captain every day in the year."
+
+"O, he's a son of a gun of a fine captain; there ain't no doubt of
+that," concurred the other, heartily. "Why, I don't suppose there's been
+no wages paid aboard that Gleaner for three trips."
+
+"No wages?" I exclaimed, for I was still a novice in maritime affairs.
+
+"Not to sailor-men before the mast," agreed the mate. "Men cleared out;
+wasn't the soft job they maybe took it for. She isn' the first ship that
+never paid wages."
+
+I could not but observe that our pace was progressively relaxing; and
+indeed I have often wondered since whether the hurry of the start were
+not intended for the gallery alone. Certain it is at least, that when we
+had reached the police office, and the mates had made their deposition,
+and told their horrid tale of five men murdered, some with savage
+passion, some with cold brutality, between Sandy Hook and San Francisco,
+the police were despatched in time to be too late. Before we arrived,
+the ruffian had slipped out upon the dock, had mingled with the crowd,
+and found a refuge in the house of an acquaintance; and the ship was
+only tenanted by his late victims. Well for him that he had been
+thus speedy. For when word began to go abroad among the shore-side
+characters, when the last victim was carried by to the hospital, when
+those who had escaped (as by miracle) from that floating shambles,
+began to circulate and show their wounds in the crowd, it was strange
+to witness the agitation that seized and shook that portion of the
+city. Men shed tears in public; bosses of lodging-houses, long inured
+to brutality, and above all, brutality to sailors, shook their fists at
+heaven: if hands could have been laid on the captain of the Gleaner,
+his shrift would have been short. That night (so gossip reports) he was
+headed up in a barrel and smuggled across the bay: in two ships already
+he had braved the penitentiary and the gallows; and yet, by last
+accounts, he now commands another on the Western Ocean.
+
+As I have said, I was never quite certain whether Mr. Nares (the mate)
+did not intend that his superior should escape. It would have been like
+his preference of loyalty to law; it would have been like his prejudice,
+which was all in favour of the after-guard. But it must remain a matter
+of conjecture only. Well as I came to know him in the sequel, he was
+never communicative on that point, nor indeed on any that concerned the
+voyage of the Gleaner. Doubtless he had some reason for his reticence.
+Even during our walk to the police office, he debated several times with
+Johnson, the third officer, whether he ought not to give up himself, as
+well as to denounce the captain. He had decided in the negative, arguing
+that "it would probably come to nothing; and even if there was a stink,
+he had plenty good friends in San Francisco." And to nothing it came;
+though it must have very nearly come to something, for Mr. Nares
+disappeared immediately from view and was scarce less closely hidden
+than his captain.
+
+Johnson, on the other hand, I often met. I could never learn this man's
+country; and though he himself claimed to be American, neither his
+English nor his education warranted the claim. In all likelihood he
+was of Scandinavian birth and blood, long pickled in the forecastles
+of English and American ships. It is possible that, like so many of his
+race in similar positions, he had already lost his native tongue. In
+mind, at least, he was quite denationalised; thought only in English--to
+call it so; and though by nature one of the mildest, kindest, and most
+feebly playful of mankind, he had been so long accustomed to the cruelty
+of sea discipline, that his stories (told perhaps with a giggle) would
+sometimes turn me chill. In appearance, he was tall, light of weight,
+bold and high-bred of feature, dusky-haired, and with a face of a clean
+even brown: the ornament of outdoor men. Seated in a chair, you might
+have passed him off for a baronet or a military officer; but let him
+rise, and it was Fo'c's'le Jack that came rolling toward you, crab-like;
+let him but open his lips, and it was Fo'c's'le Jack that piped and
+drawled his ungrammatical gibberish. He had sailed (among other
+places) much among the islands; and after a Cape Horn passage with
+its snow-squalls and its frozen sheets, he announced his intention of
+"taking a turn among them Kanakas." I thought I should have lost him
+soon; but according to the unwritten usage of mariners, he had first to
+dissipate his wages. "Guess I'll have to paint this town red," was his
+hyperbolical expression; for sure no man ever embarked upon a milder
+course of dissipation, most of his days being passed in the little
+parlour behind Black Tom's public house, with a select corps of old
+particular acquaintances, all from the South Seas, and all patrons of a
+long yarn, a short pipe, and glasses round.
+
+Black Tom's, to the front, presented the appearance of a fourth-rate
+saloon, devoted to Kanaka seamen, dirt, negrohead tobacco, bad cigars,
+worse gin, and guitars and banjos in a state of decline. The proprietor,
+a powerful coloured man, was at once a publican, a ward politician,
+leader of some brigade of "lambs" or "smashers," at the wind of whose
+clubs the party bosses and the mayor were supposed to tremble, and (what
+hurt nothing) an active and reliable crimp. His front quarters,
+then, were noisy, disreputable, and not even safe. I have seen worse
+frequented saloons where there were fewer scandals; for Tom was often
+drunk himself; and there is no doubt the Lambs must have been a useful
+body, or the place would have been closed. I remember one day, not long
+before an election, seeing a blind man, very well dressed, led up to the
+counter and remain a long while in consultation with the negro. The pair
+looked so ill-assorted, and the awe with which the drinkers fell back
+and left them in the midst of an impromptu privacy was so unusual in
+such a place, that I turned to my next neighbour with a question. He
+told me the blind man was a distinguished party boss, called by some
+the King of San Francisco, but perhaps better known by his picturesque
+Chinese nickname of the Blind White Devil. "The Lambs must be wanted
+pretty bad, I guess," my informant added. I have here a sketch of the
+Blind White Devil leaning on the counter; on the next page, and taken
+the same hour, a jotting of Black Tom threatening a whole crowd of
+customers with a long Smith and Wesson: to such heights and depths we
+rose and fell in the front parts of the saloon.
+
+
+Meanwhile, away in the back quarters, sat the small informal South Sea
+club, talking of another world and surely of a different century. Old
+schooner captains they were, old South Sea traders, cooks, and mates:
+fine creatures, softened by residence among a softer race: full men
+besides, though not by reading, but by strange experience; and for days
+together I could hear their yarns with an unfading pleasure. All had
+indeed some touch of the poetic; for the beach-comber, when not a mere
+ruffian, is the poor relation of the artist. Even through Johnson's
+inarticulate speech, his "O yes, there ain't no harm in them Kanakas,"
+or "O yes, that's a son of a gun of a fine island, mountainious right
+down; I didn't never ought to have left that island," there pierced a
+certain gusto of appreciation: and some of the rest were master-talkers.
+From their long tales, their traits of character and unpremeditated
+landscape, there began to piece itself together in my head some image
+of the islands and the island life: precipitous shores, spired mountain
+tops, the deep shade of hanging forests, the unresting surf upon the
+reef, and the unending peace of the lagoon; sun, moon, and stars of an
+imperial brightness; man moving in these scenes scarce fallen, and woman
+lovelier than Eve; the primal curse abrogated, the bed made ready for
+the stranger, life set to perpetual music, and the guest welcomed, the
+boat urged, and the long night beguiled, with poetry and choral song. A
+man must have been an unsuccessful artist; he must have starved on the
+streets of Paris; he must have been yoked to a commercial force like
+Pinkerton, before he can conceive the longings that at times assailed
+me. The draughty, rowdy city of San Francisco, the bustling office where
+my friend Jim paced like a caged lion daily between ten and four, even
+(at times) the retrospect of Paris, faded in comparison. Many a man less
+tempted would have thrown up all to realise his visions; but I was by
+nature unadventurous and uninitiative: to divert me from all former
+paths and send me cruising through the isles of paradise, some force
+external to myself must be exerted; Destiny herself must use the fitting
+wedge; and little as I deemed it, that tool was already in her hand of
+brass.
+
+I sat, one afternoon, in the corner of a great, glassy, silvered saloon,
+a free lunch at my one elbow, at the other a "conscientious nude" from
+the brush of local talent; when, with the tramp of feet and a sudden
+buzz of voices, the swing-doors were flung broadly open and the place
+carried as by storm. The crowd which thus entered (mostly seafaring
+men, and all prodigiously excited) contained a sort of kernel or general
+centre of interest, which the rest merely surrounded and advertised, as
+children in the Old World surround and escort the Punch-and-Judy man;
+the word went round the bar like wildfire that these were Captain
+Trent and the survivors of the British brig Flying Scud, picked up by a
+British war-ship on Midway Island, arrived that morning in San Francisco
+Bay, and now fresh from making the necessary declarations. Presently I
+had a good sight of them: four brown, seamanlike fellows, standing by
+the counter, glass in hand, the centre of a score of questioners.
+One was a Kanaka--the cook, I was informed; one carried a cage with a
+canary, which occasionally trilled into thin song; one had his left arm
+in a sling and looked gentlemanlike, and somewhat sickly, as though
+the injury had been severe and he was scarce recovered; and the captain
+himself--a red-faced, blue-eyed, thickset man of five and forty--wore
+a bandage on his right hand. The incident struck me; I was struck
+particularly to see captain, cook, and foremost hands walking the street
+and visiting saloons in company; and, as when anything impressed me,
+I got my sketch-book out, and began to steal a sketch of the four
+castaways. The crowd, sympathising with my design, made a clear lane
+across the room; and I was thus enabled, all unobserved myself, to
+observe with a still-growing closeness the face and the demeanour of
+Captain Trent.
+
+Warmed by whiskey and encouraged by the eagerness of the bystanders,
+that gentleman was now rehearsing the history of his misfortune. It was
+but scraps that reached me: how he "filled her on the starboard tack,"
+and how "it came up sudden out of the nor'nor'west," and "there she was,
+high and dry." Sometimes he would appeal to one of the men--"That was
+how it was, Jack?"--and the man would reply, "That was the way of it,
+Captain Trent." Lastly, he started a fresh tide of popular sympathy by
+enunciating the sentiment, "Damn all these Admirality Charts, and that's
+what I say!" From the nodding of heads and the murmurs of assent that
+followed, I could see that Captain Trent had established himself in the
+public mind as a gentleman and a thorough navigator: about which period,
+my sketch of the four men and the canary-bird being finished, and all
+(especially the canary-bird) excellent likenesses, I buckled up my book,
+and slipped from the saloon.
+
+Little did I suppose that I was leaving Act I, Scene I, of the drama of
+my life; and yet the scene, or rather the captain's face, lingered for
+some time in my memory. I was no prophet, as I say; but I was something
+else: I was an observer; and one thing I knew, I knew when a man was
+terrified. Captain Trent, of the British brig Flying Scud, had been
+glib; he had been ready; he had been loud; but in his blue eyes I could
+detect the chill, and in the lines of his countenance spy the agitation
+of perpetual terror. Was he trembling for his certificate? In my
+judgment, it was some livelier kind of fear that thrilled in the man's
+marrow as he turned to drink. Was it the result of recent shock, and had
+he not yet recovered the disaster to his brig? I remembered how a friend
+of mine had been in a railway accident, and shook and started for a
+month; and although Captain Trent of the Flying Scud had none of the
+appearance of a nervous man, I told myself, with incomplete conviction,
+that his must be a similar case.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. THE WRECK OF THE "FLYING SCUD."
+
+
+The next morning I found Pinkerton, who had risen before me, seated at
+our usual table, and deep in the perusal of what I will call the _Daily
+Occidental_. This was a paper (I know not if it be so still) that stood
+out alone among its brethren in the West; the others, down to their
+smallest item, were defaced with capitals, head-lines, alliterations,
+swaggering misquotations, and the shoddy picturesque and unpathetic
+pathos of the Harry Millers: the _Occidental_ alone appeared to be
+written by a dull, sane, Christian gentleman, singly desirous of
+communicating knowledge. It had not only this merit, which endeared it
+to me, but was admittedly the best informed on business matters, which
+attracted Pinkerton.
+
+"Loudon," said he, looking up from the journal, "you sometimes think I
+have too many irons in the fire. My notion, on the other hand, is, when
+you see a dollar lying, pick it up! Well, here I've tumbled over a whole
+pile of 'em on a reef in the middle of the Pacific."
+
+"Why, Jim, you miserable fellow!" I exclaimed; "haven't we Depew City,
+one of God's green centres for this State? haven't we----"
+
+"Just listen to this," interrupted Jim. "It's miserable copy; these
+_Occidental_ reporter fellows have no fire; but the facts are right
+enough, I guess." And he began to read:--
+
+"WRECK OF THE BRITISH BRIG, 'FLYING SCUD.'
+
+"H.B.M.S. Tempest, which arrived yesterday at this port, brings Captain
+Trent and four men of the British brig Flying Scud, cast away February
+12th on Midway Island, and most providentially rescued the next day. The
+Flying Scud was of 200 tons burthen, owned in London, and has been out
+nearly two years tramping. Captain Trent left Hong Kong December 8th,
+bound for this port in rice and a small mixed cargo of silks, teas, and
+China notions, the whole valued at $10,000, fully covered by insurance.
+The log shows plenty of fine weather, with light airs, calms, and
+squalls. In lat. 28 N., long. 177 W., his water going rotten, and misled
+by Hoyt's _North Pacific Directory_, which informed him there was a
+coaling station on the island, Captain Trent put in to Midway Island.
+He found it a literal sandbank, surrounded by a coral reef mostly
+submerged. Birds were very plenty, there was good fish in the lagoon,
+but no firewood; and the water, which could be obtained by digging,
+brackish. He found good holding-ground off the north end of the larger
+bank in fifteen fathoms water; bottom sandy, with coral patches. Here he
+was detained seven days by a calm, the crew suffering severely from the
+water, which was gone quite bad; and it was only on the evening of the
+12th, that a little wind sprang up, coming puffy out of N.N.E. Late as
+it was, Captain Trent immediately weighed anchor and attempted to get
+out. While the vessel was beating up to the passage, the wind took a
+sudden lull, and then veered squally into N. and even N.N.W., driving
+the brig ashore on the sand at about twenty minutes before six o'clock.
+John Wallen, a native of Finland, and Charles Holdorsen, a native of
+Sweden, were drowned alongside, in attempting to lower a boat, neither
+being able to swim, the squall very dark, and the noise of the breakers
+drowning everything. At the same time John Brown, another of the crew,
+had his arm broken by the falls. Captain Trent further informed the
+OCCIDENTAL reporter, that the brig struck heavily at first bows on, he
+supposes upon coral; that she then drove over the obstacle, and now
+lies in sand, much down by the head and with a list to starboard. In the
+first collision she must have sustained some damage, as she was making
+water forward. The rice will probably be all destroyed: but the more
+valuable part of the cargo is fortunately in the afterhold. Captain
+Trent was preparing his long-boat for sea, when the providential arrival
+of the Tempest, pursuant to Admiralty orders to call at islands in her
+course for castaways, saved the gallant captain from all further danger.
+It is scarcely necessary to add that both the officers and men of the
+unfortunate vessel speak in high terms of the kindness they received
+on board the man-of-war. We print a list of the survivors: Jacob
+Trent, master, of Hull, England; Elias Goddedaal, mate, native of
+Christiansand, Sweden; Ah Wing, cook, native of Sana, China; John Brown,
+native of Glasgow, Scotland; John Hardy, native of London, England.
+The Flying Scud is ten years old, and this morning will be sold as she
+stands, by order of Lloyd's agent, at public auction for the benefit of
+the underwriters. The auction will take place in the Merchants' Exchange
+at ten o'clock.
+
+"Farther Particulars.--Later in the afternoon the OCCIDENTAL reporter
+found Lieutenant Sebright, first officer of H.B.M.S. Tempest, at the
+Palace Hotel. The gallant officer was somewhat pressed for time, but
+confirmed the account given by Captain Trent in all particulars. He
+added that the Flying Scud is in an excellent berth, and except in the
+highly improbable event of a heavy N.W. gale, might last until next
+winter."
+
+"You will never know anything of literature," said I, when Jim had
+finished. "That is a good, honest, plain piece of work, and tells the
+story clearly. I see only one mistake: the cook is not a Chinaman; he is
+a Kanaka, and I think a Hawaiian."
+
+"Why, how do you know that?" asked Jim.
+
+"I saw the whole gang yesterday in a saloon," said I. "I even heard the
+tale, or might have heard it, from Captain Trent himself, who struck me
+as thirsty and nervous."
+
+"Well, that's neither here nor there," cried Pinkerton. "The point is,
+how about these dollars lying on a reef?"
+
+"Will it pay?" I asked.
+
+"Pay like a sugar trust!" exclaimed Pinkerton. "Don't you see what this
+British officer says about the safety? Don't you see the cargo's valued
+at ten thousand? Schooners are begging just now; I can get my pick of
+them at two hundred and fifty a month; and how does that foot up? It
+looks like three hundred per cent. to me."
+
+"You forget," I objected, "the captain himself declares the rice is
+damaged."
+
+
+"That's a point, I know," admitted Jim. "But the rice is the sluggish
+article, anyway; it's little more account than ballast; it's the tea
+and silks that I look to: all we have to find is the proportion, and one
+look at the manifest will settle that. I've rung up Lloyd's on purpose;
+the captain is to meet me there in an hour, and then I'll be as posted
+on that brig as if I built her. Besides, you've no idea what pickings
+there are about a wreck--copper, lead, rigging, anchors, chains, even
+the crockery, Loudon!"
+
+"You seem to me to forget one trifle," said I. "Before you pick that
+wreck, you've got to buy her, and how much will she cost?"
+
+"One hundred dollars," replied Jim, with the promptitude of an
+automaton.
+
+"How on earth do you guess that?" I cried.
+
+"I don't guess; I know it," answered the Commercial Force. "My dear boy,
+I may be a galoot about literature, but you'll always be an outsider in
+business. How do you suppose I bought the James L. Moody for two hundred
+and fifty, her boats alone worth four times the money? Because my name
+stood first in the list. Well it stands there again; I have the naming
+of the figure, and I name a small one because of the distance: but it
+wouldn't matter what I named; that would be the price."
+
+"It sounds mysterious enough," said I. "Is this public auction
+conducted in a subterranean vault? Could a plain citizen--myself, for
+instance--come and see?"
+
+"O, everything's open and above board!" he cried indignantly. "Anybody
+can come, only nobody bids against us; and if he did, he would get
+frozen out. It's been tried before now, and once was enough. We hold
+the plant; we've got the connection; we can afford to go higher than
+any outsider; there's two million dollars in the ring; and we stick at
+nothing. Or suppose anybody did buy over our head--I tell you, Loudon,
+he would think this town gone crazy; he could no more get business
+through on the city front than I can dance; schooners, divers, men--all
+he wanted--the prices would fly right up and strike him."
+
+"But how did you get in?" I asked. "You were once an outsider like your
+neighbours, I suppose?"
+
+"I took hold of that thing, Loudon, and just studied it up," he replied.
+"It took my fancy; it was so romantic, and then I saw there was boodle
+in the thing; and I figured on the business till no man alive could give
+me points. Nobody knew I had an eye on wrecks till one fine morning I
+dropped in upon Douglas B. Longhurst in his den, gave him all the facts
+and figures, and put it to him straight: 'Do you want me in this ring?
+or shall I start another?' He took half an hour, and when I came back,
+'Pink,' says he, 'I've put your name on.' The first time I came to the
+top, it was that Moody racket; now it's the Flying Scud."
+
+Whereupon Pinkerton, looking at his watch, uttered an exclamation,
+made a hasty appointment with myself for the doors of the Merchants'
+Exchange, and fled to examine manifests and interview the skipper. I
+finished my cigarette with the deliberation of a man at the end of many
+picnics; reflecting to myself that of all forms of the dollar hunt, this
+wrecking had by far the most address to my imagination. Even as I went
+down town, in the brisk bustle and chill of the familiar San Francisco
+thoroughfares, I was haunted by a vision of the wreck, baking so far
+away in the strong sun, under a cloud of sea-birds; and even then, and
+for no better reason, my heart inclined towards the adventure. If not
+myself, something that was mine, some one at least in my employment,
+should voyage to that ocean-bounded pin-point and descend to that
+deserted cabin.
+
+Pinkerton met me at the appointed moment, pinched of lip and more than
+usually erect of bearing, like one conscious of great resolves.
+
+"Well?" I asked.
+
+"Well," said he, "it might be better, and it might be worse. This
+Captain Trent is a remarkably honest fellow--one out of a thousand. As
+soon as he knew I was in the market, he owned up about the rice in so
+many words. By his calculation, if there's thirty mats of it saved, it's
+an outside figure. However, the manifest was cheerier. There's about
+five thousand dollars of the whole value in silks and teas and nut-oils
+and that, all in the lazarette, and as safe as if it was in Kearney
+Street. The brig was new coppered a year ago. There's upwards of a
+hundred and fifty fathom away-up chain. It's not a bonanza, but there's
+boodle in it; and we'll try it on."
+
+
+It was by that time hard on ten o'clock, and we turned at once into
+the place of sale. The Flying Scud, although so important to ourselves,
+appeared to attract a very humble share of popular attention. The
+auctioneer was surrounded by perhaps a score of lookers-on, big fellows,
+for the most part, of the true Western build, long in the leg, broad in
+the shoulder, and adorned (to a plain man's taste) with needless finery.
+A jaunty, ostentatious comradeship prevailed. Bets were flying, and
+nicknames. "The boys" (as they would have called themselves) were very
+boyish; and it was plain they were here in mirth, and not on business.
+Behind, and certainly in strong contrast to these gentlemen, I could
+detect the figure of my friend Captain Trent, come (as I could very well
+imagine that a captain would) to hear the last of his old vessel. Since
+yesterday, he had rigged himself anew in ready-made black clothes, not
+very aptly fitted; the upper left-hand pocket showing a corner of
+silk handkerchief, the lower, on the other side, bulging with papers.
+Pinkerton had just given this man a high character. Certainly he
+seemed to have been very frank, and I looked at him again to trace (if
+possible) that virtue in his face. It was red and broad and flustered
+and (I thought) false. The whole man looked sick with some unknown
+anxiety; and as he stood there, unconscious of my observation, he tore
+at his nails, scowled on the floor, or glanced suddenly, sharply, and
+fearfully at passers-by. I was still gazing at the man in a kind of
+fascination, when the sale began.
+
+Some preliminaries were rattled through, to the irreverent,
+uninterrupted gambolling of the boys; and then, amid a trifle more
+attention, the auctioneer sounded for some two or three minutes the pipe
+of the charmer. Fine brig--new copper--valuable fittings--three fine
+boats--remarkably choice cargo--what the auctioneer would call a
+perfectly safe investment; nay, gentlemen, he would go further, he would
+put a figure on it: he had no hesitation (had that bold auctioneer) in
+putting it in figures; and in his view, what with this and that, and one
+thing and another, the purchaser might expect to clear a sum equal to
+the entire estimated value of the cargo; or, gentlemen, in other words,
+a sum of ten thousand dollars. At this modest computation the
+roof immediately above the speaker's head (I suppose, through the
+intervention of a spectator of ventriloquial tastes) uttered a clear
+"Cock-a-doodle-doo!"--whereat all laughed, the auctioneer himself
+obligingly joining.
+
+"Now, gentlemen, what shall we say?" resumed that gentleman, plainly
+ogling Pinkerton,--"what shall we say for this remarkable opportunity?"
+
+"One hundred dollars," said Pinkerton.
+
+"One hundred dollars from Mr. Pinkerton," went the auctioneer, "one
+hundred dollars. No other gentleman inclined to make any advance? One
+hundred dollars, only one hundred dollars----"
+
+The auctioneer was droning on to some such tune as this, and I, on my
+part, was watching with something between sympathy and amazement the
+undisguised emotion of Captain Trent, when we were all startled by the
+interjection of a bid.
+
+"And fifty," said a sharp voice.
+
+Pinkerton, the auctioneer, and the boys, who were all equally in the
+open secret of the ring, were now all equally and simultaneously taken
+aback.
+
+"I beg your pardon," said the auctioneer. "Anybody bid?"
+
+"And fifty," reiterated the voice, which I was now able to trace to
+its origin, on the lips of a small, unseemly rag of human-kind. The
+speaker's skin was gray and blotched; he spoke in a kind of broken song,
+with much variety of key; his gestures seemed (as in the disease called
+Saint Vitus's dance) to be imperfectly under control; he was badly
+dressed; he carried himself with an air of shrinking assumption, as
+though he were proud to be where he was and to do what he was doing,
+and yet half expected to be called in question and kicked out. I think I
+never saw a man more of a piece; and the type was new to me; I had never
+before set eyes upon his parallel, and I thought instinctively of Balzac
+and the lower regions of the _Comedie Humaine_.
+
+Pinkerton stared a moment on the intruder with no friendly eye, tore
+a leaf from his note-book, and scribbled a line in pencil, turned,
+beckoned a messenger boy, and whispered, "To Longhurst." Next moment
+the boy had sped upon his errand, and Pinkerton was again facing the
+auctioneer.
+
+"Two hundred dollars," said Jim.
+
+"And fifty," said the enemy.
+
+
+"This looks lively," whispered I to Pinkerton.
+
+"Yes; the little beast means cold drawn biz," returned my friend. "Well,
+he'll have to have a lesson. Wait till I see Longhurst. Three hundred,"
+he added aloud.
+
+"And fifty," came the echo.
+
+It was about this moment when my eye fell again on Captain Trent.
+A deeper shade had mounted to his crimson face: the new coat was
+unbuttoned and all flying open; the new silk handkerchief in busy
+requisition; and the man's eye, of a clear sailor blue, shone glassy
+with excitement. He was anxious still, but now (if I could read a face)
+there was hope in his anxiety.
+
+"Jim," I whispered, "look at Trent. Bet you what you please he was
+expecting this."
+
+"Yes," was the reply, "there's some blame' thing going on here." And he
+renewed his bid.
+
+The figure had run up into the neighbourhood of a thousand when I
+was aware of a sensation in the faces opposite, and looking over my
+shoulder, saw a very large, bland, handsome man come strolling forth and
+make a little signal to the auctioneer.
+
+"One word, Mr. Borden," said he; and then to Jim, "Well, Pink, where are
+we up to now?"
+
+Pinkerton gave him the figure. "I ran up to that on my own
+responsibility, Mr. Longhurst," he added, with a flush. "I thought it
+the square thing."
+
+"And so it was," said Mr. Longhurst, patting him kindly on the shoulder,
+like a gratified uncle. "Well, you can drop out now; we take hold
+ourselves. You can run it up to five thousand; and if he likes to go
+beyond that, he's welcome to the bargain."
+
+"By the by, who is he?" asked Pinkerton. "He looks away down."
+
+"I've sent Billy to find out." And at the very moment Mr. Longhurst
+received from the hands of one of the expensive young gentlemen a folded
+paper. It was passed round from one to another till it came to me, and I
+read: "Harry D. Bellairs, Attorney-at-Law; defended Clara Varden; twice
+nearly disbarred."
+
+"Well, that gets me!" observed Mr. Longhurst. "Who can have put up a
+shyster [1] like that? Nobody with money, that's a sure thing. Suppose
+you tried a big bluff? I think I would, Pink. Well, ta-ta! Your partner,
+Mr. Dodd? Happy to have the pleasure of your acquaintance, sir." And the
+great man withdrew.
+
+[1] A low lawyer.
+
+"Well, what do you think of Douglas B.?" whispered Pinkerton, looking
+reverently after him as he departed. "Six foot of perfect gentleman and
+culture to his boots."
+
+During this interview the auction had stood transparently arrested, the
+auctioneer, the spectators, and even Bellairs, all well aware that Mr.
+Longhurst was the principal, and Jim but a speaking-trumpet. But now
+that the Olympian Jupiter was gone, Mr. Borden thought proper to affect
+severity.
+
+"Come, come, Mr. Pinkerton. Any advance?" he snapped.
+
+And Pinkerton, resolved on the big bluff, replied, "Two thousand
+dollars."
+
+Bellairs preserved his composure. "And fifty," said he. But there was a
+stir among the onlookers, and what was of more importance, Captain Trent
+had turned pale and visibly gulped.
+
+"Pitch it in again, Jim," said I. "Trent is weakening."
+
+"Three thousand," said Jim.
+
+"And fifty," said Bellairs.
+
+And then the bidding returned to its original movement by hundreds and
+fifties; but I had been able in the meanwhile to draw two conclusions.
+In the first place, Bellairs had made his last advance with a smile of
+gratified vanity; and I could see the creature was glorying in the kudos
+of an unusual position and secure of ultimate success. In the second,
+Trent had once more changed colour at the thousand leap, and his relief,
+when he heard the answering fifty was manifest and unaffected. Here then
+was a problem: both were presumably in the same interest, yet the one
+was not in the confidence of the other. Nor was this all. A few bids
+later it chanced that my eye encountered that of Captain Trent, and his,
+which glittered with excitement, was instantly, and I thought guiltily,
+withdrawn. He wished, then, to conceal his interest? As Jim had said,
+there was some blamed thing going on. And for certain, here were these
+two men, so strangely united, so strangely divided, both sharp-set to
+keep the wreck from us, and that at an exorbitant figure.
+
+Was the wreck worth more than we supposed? A sudden heat was kindled
+in my brain; the bids were nearing Longhurst's limit of five thousand;
+another minute, and all would be too late. Tearing a leaf from my
+sketch-book, and inspired (I suppose) by vanity in my own powers of
+inference and observation, I took the one mad decision of my life. "If
+you care to go ahead," I wrote, "I'm in for all I'm worth."
+
+Jim read and looked round at me like one bewildered; then his eyes
+lightened, and turning again to the auctioneer, he bid, "Five thousand
+one hundred dollars."
+
+"And fifty," said monotonous Bellairs.
+
+Presently Pinkerton scribbled, "What can it be?" and I answered, still
+on paper: "I can't imagine; but there's something. Watch Bellairs; he'll
+go up to the ten thousand, see if he don't."
+
+And he did, and we followed. Long before this, word had gone abroad that
+there was battle royal: we were surrounded by a crowd that looked on
+wondering; and when Pinkerton had offered ten thousand dollars (the
+outside value of the cargo, even were it safe in San Francisco Bay)
+and Bellairs, smirking from ear to ear to be the centre of so much
+attention, had jerked out his answering, "And fifty," wonder deepened to
+excitement.
+
+"Ten thousand one hundred," said Jim; and even as he spoke he made a
+sudden gesture with his hand, his face changed, and I could see that he
+had guessed, or thought that he had guessed, the mystery. As he
+scrawled another memorandum in his note-book, his hand shook like a
+telegraph-operator's.
+
+"Chinese ship," ran the legend; and then, in big, tremulous half-text,
+and with a flourish that overran the margin, "Opium!"
+
+To be sure! thought I: this must be the secret. I knew that scarce a
+ship came in from any Chinese port, but she carried somewhere, behind a
+bulkhead, or in some cunning hollow of the beams, a nest of the valuable
+poison. Doubtless there was some such treasure on the Flying Scud. How
+much was it worth? We knew not, we were gambling in the dark; but Trent
+knew, and Bellairs; and we could only watch and judge.
+
+By this time neither Pinkerton nor I were of sound mind. Pinkerton was
+beside himself, his eyes like lamps. I shook in every member. To any
+stranger entering (say) in the course of the fifteenth thousand, we
+should probably have cut a poorer figure than Bellairs himself. But we
+did not pause; and the crowd watched us, now in silence, now with a buzz
+of whispers.
+
+Seventeen thousand had been reached, when Douglas B. Longhurst, forcing
+his way into the opposite row of faces, conspicuously and repeatedly
+shook his head at Jim. Jim's answer was a note of two words: "My
+racket!" which, when the great man had perused, he shook his finger
+warningly and departed, I thought, with a sorrowful countenance.
+
+Although Mr. Longhurst knew nothing of Bellairs, the shady lawyer knew
+all about the Wrecker Boss. He had seen him enter the ring with manifest
+expectation; he saw him depart, and the bids continue, with manifest
+surprise and disappointment. "Hullo," he plainly thought, "this is not
+the ring I'm fighting, then?" And he determined to put on a spurt.
+
+"Eighteen thousand," said he.
+
+"And fifty," said Jim, taking a leaf out of his adversary's book.
+
+"Twenty thousand," from Bellairs.
+
+"And fifty," from Jim, with a little nervous titter.
+
+And with one consent they returned to the old pace, only now it was
+Bellairs who took the hundreds, and Jim who did the fifty business. But
+by this time our idea had gone abroad. I could hear the word "opium"
+pass from mouth to mouth; and by the looks directed at us, I could see
+we were supposed to have some private information. And here an incident
+occurred highly typical of San Francisco. Close at my back there had
+stood for some time a stout, middle-aged gentleman, with pleasant eyes,
+hair pleasantly grizzled, and a ruddy, pleasing face. All of a sudden he
+appeared as a third competitor, skied the Flying Scud with four fat
+bids of a thousand dollars each, and then as suddenly fled the field,
+remaining thenceforth (as before) a silent, interested spectator.
+
+Ever since Mr. Longhurst's useless intervention, Bellairs had seemed
+uneasy; and at this new attack, he began (in his turn) to scribble a
+note between the bids. I imagined naturally enough that it would go to
+Captain Trent; but when it was done, and the writer turned and looked
+behind him in the crowd, to my unspeakable amazement, he did not seem to
+remark the captain's presence.
+
+"Messenger boy, messenger boy!" I heard him say. "Somebody call me a
+messenger boy."
+
+At last somebody did, but it was not the captain.
+
+"He's sending for instructions," I wrote to Pinkerton.
+
+"For money," he wrote back. "Shall I strike out? I think this is the
+time."
+
+I nodded.
+
+"Thirty thousand," said Pinkerton, making a leap of close upon three
+thousand dollars.
+
+I could see doubt in Bellairs's eye; then, sudden resolution.
+"Thirty-five thousand," said he.
+
+"Forty thousand," said Pinkerton.
+
+There was a long pause, during which Bellairs's countenance was as
+a book; and then, not much too soon for the impending hammer, "Forty
+thousand and five dollars," said he.
+
+Pinkerton and I exchanged eloquent glances. We were of one mind.
+Bellairs had tried a bluff; now he perceived his mistake, and was
+bidding against time; he was trying to spin out the sale until the
+messenger boy returned.
+
+"Forty-five thousand dollars," said Pinkerton: his voice was like a
+ghost's and tottered with emotion.
+
+"Forty-five thousand and five dollars," said Bellairs.
+
+"Fifty thousand," said Pinkerton.
+
+"I beg your pardon, Mr. Pinkerton. Did I hear you make an advance, sir?"
+asked the auctioneer.
+
+"I--I have a difficulty in speaking," gasped Jim. "It's fifty thousand,
+Mr. Borden."
+
+Bellairs was on his feet in a moment. "Auctioneer," he said, "I have to
+beg the favour of three moments at the telephone. In this matter, I am
+acting on behalf of a certain party to whom I have just written----"
+
+"I have nothing to do with any of this," said the auctioneer, brutally.
+"I am here to sell this wreck. Do you make any advance on fifty
+thousand?"
+
+"I have the honour to explain to you, sir," returned Bellairs, with a
+miserable assumption of dignity. "Fifty thousand was the figure named by
+my principal; but if you will give me the small favour of two moments at
+the telephone--"
+
+"O, nonsense!" said the auctioneer. "If you make no advance, I'll knock
+it down to Mr. Pinkerton."
+
+"I warn you," cried the attorney, with sudden shrillness. "Have a care
+what you're about. You are here to sell for the underwriters, let me
+tell you--not to act for Mr. Douglas Longhurst. This sale has been
+already disgracefully interrupted to allow that person to hold a
+consultation with his minions. It has been much commented on."
+
+"There was no complaint at the time," said the auctioneer, manifestly
+discountenanced. "You should have complained at the time."
+
+"I am not here to conduct this sale," replied Bellairs; "I am not paid
+for that."
+
+"Well, I am, you see," retorted the auctioneer, his impudence quite
+restored; and he resumed his sing-song. "Any advance on fifty thousand
+dollars? No advance on fifty thousand? No advance, gentlemen? Going at
+fifty thousand, the wreck of the brig Flying Scud--going--going--gone!"
+
+"My God, Jim, can we pay the money?" I cried, as the stroke of the
+hammer seemed to recall me from a dream.
+
+"It's got to be raised," said he, white as a sheet. "It'll be a hell of
+a strain, Loudon. The credit's good for it, I think; but I shall have to
+get around. Write me a cheque for your stuff. Meet me at the Occidental
+in an hour."
+
+I wrote my cheque at a desk, and I declare I could never have recognised
+my signature. Jim was gone in a moment; Trent had vanished even earlier;
+only Bellairs remained exchanging insults with the auctioneer; and,
+behold! as I pushed my way out of the exchange, who should run full tilt
+into my arms, but the messenger boy?
+
+It was by so near a margin that we became the owners of the Flying Scud.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. IN WHICH THE CREW VANISH.
+
+
+At the door of the exchange I found myself along-side of the short,
+middle-aged gentleman who had made an appearance, so vigorous and so
+brief, in the great battle.
+
+"Congratulate you, Mr. Dodd," he said. "You and your friend stuck to
+your guns nobly."
+
+"No thanks to you, sir," I replied, "running us up a thousand at a time,
+and tempting all the speculators in San Francisco to come and have a
+try."
+
+"O, that was temporary insanity," said he; "and I thank the higher
+powers I am still a free man. Walking this way, Mr. Dodd? I'll walk
+along with you. It's pleasant for an old fogy like myself to see the
+young bloods in the ring; I've done some pretty wild gambles in my time
+in this very city, when it was a smaller place and I was a younger man.
+Yes, I know you, Mr. Dodd. By sight, I may say I know you extremely
+well, you and your followers, the fellows in the kilts, eh? Pardon me.
+But I have the misfortune to own a little box on the Saucelito shore.
+I'll be glad to see you there any Sunday--without the fellows in kilts,
+you know; and I can give you a bottle of wine, and show you the best
+collection of Arctic voyages in the States. Morgan is my name--Judge
+Morgan--a Welshman and a forty-niner."
+
+"O, if you're a pioneer," cried I, "come to me and I'll provide you with
+an axe."
+
+"You'll want your axes for yourself, I fancy," he returned, with one
+of his quick looks. "Unless you have private knowledge, there will be a
+good deal of rather violent wrecking to do before you find that--opium,
+do you call it?"
+
+"Well, it's either opium, or we are stark, staring mad," I replied. "But
+I assure you we have no private information. We went in (as I suppose
+you did yourself) on observation."
+
+"An observer, sir?" inquired the judge.
+
+"I may say it is my trade--or, rather, was," said I.
+
+"Well now, and what did you think of Bellairs?" he asked.
+
+"Very little indeed," said I.
+
+"I may tell you," continued the judge, "that to me, the employment of a
+fellow like that appears inexplicable. I knew him; he knows me, too; he
+has often heard from me in court; and I assure you the man is utterly
+blown upon; it is not safe to trust him with a dollar; and here we find
+him dealing up to fifty thousand. I can't think who can have so trusted
+him, but I am very sure it was a stranger in San Francisco."
+
+"Some one for the owners, I suppose," said I.
+
+"Surely not!" exclaimed the judge. "Owners in London can have nothing
+to say to opium smuggled between Hong Kong and San Francisco. I should
+rather fancy they would be the last to hear of it--until the ship was
+seized. No; I was thinking of the captain. But where would he get the
+money? above all, after having laid out so much to buy the stuff in
+China? Unless, indeed, he were acting for some one in 'Frisco; and in
+that case--here we go round again in the vicious circle--Bellairs would
+not have been employed."
+
+"I think I can assure you it was not the captain," said I; "for he and
+Bellairs are not acquainted."
+
+"Wasn't that the captain with the red face and coloured handkerchief?
+He seemed to me to follow Bellairs's game with the most thrilling
+interest," objected Mr. Morgan.
+
+"Perfectly true," said I; "Trent is deeply interested; he very likely
+knew Bellairs, and he certainly knew what he was there for; but I can
+put my hand in the fire that Bellairs didn't know Trent."
+
+"Another singularity," observed the judge. "Well, we have had a capital
+forenoon. But you take an old lawyer's advice, and get to Midway Island
+as fast as you can. There's a pot of money on the table, and Bellairs
+and Co. are not the men to stick at trifles."
+
+With this parting counsel Judge Morgan shook hands and made off along
+Montgomery Street, while I entered the Occidental Hotel, on the steps of
+which we had finished our conversation. I was well known to the clerks,
+and as soon as it was understood that I was there to wait for Pinkerton
+and lunch, I was invited to a seat inside the counter. Here, then, in a
+retired corner, I was beginning to come a little to myself after these
+so violent experiences, when who should come hurrying in, and (after a
+moment with a clerk) fly to one of the telephone boxes but Mr. Henry
+D. Bellairs in person? Call it what you will, but the impulse was
+irresistible, and I rose and took a place immediately at the man's back.
+It may be some excuse that I had often practised this very innocent
+form of eavesdropping upon strangers, and for fun. Indeed, I scarce know
+anything that gives a lower view of man's intelligence than to overhear
+(as you thus do) one side of a communication.
+
+"Central," said the attorney, "2241 and 584 B" (or some such
+numbers)--"Who's that?--All right--Mr. Bellairs--Occidental; the wires
+are fouled in the other place--Yes, about three minutes--Yes--Yes--Your
+figure, I am sorry to say--No--I had no authority--Neither more
+nor less--I have every reason to suppose so--O, Pinkerton, Montana
+Block--Yes--Yes--Very good, sir--As you will, sir--Disconnect 584 B."
+
+Bellairs turned to leave; at sight of me behind him, up flew his hands,
+and he winced and cringed, as though in fear of bodily attack. "O, it's
+you!" he cried; and then, somewhat recovered, "Mr. Pinkerton's partner,
+I believe? I am pleased to see you, sir--to congratulate you on your
+late success." And with that he was gone, obsequiously bowing as he
+passed.
+
+And now a madcap humour came upon me. It was plain Bellairs had been
+communicating with his principal; I knew the number, if not the name;
+should I ring up at once, it was more than likely he would return
+in person to the telephone; why should not I dash (vocally) into the
+presence of this mysterious person, and have some fun for my money. I
+pressed the bell.
+
+"Central," said I, "connect again 2241 and 584 B."
+
+A phantom central repeated the numbers; there was a pause, and then
+"Two two four one," came in a tiny voice into my ear--a voice with the
+English sing-song--the voice plainly of a gentleman. "Is that you again,
+Mr. Bellairs?" it trilled. "I tell you it's no use. Is that you, Mr.
+Bellairs? Who is that?"
+
+"I only want to put a single question," said I, civilly. "Why do you
+want to buy the Flying Scud?"
+
+No answer came. The telephone vibrated and hummed in miniature with all
+the numerous talk of a great city; but the voice of 2241 was silent.
+Once and twice I put my question; but the tiny, sing-song English voice,
+I heard no more. The man, then, had fled? fled from an impertinent
+question? It scarce seemed natural to me; unless on the principle that
+the wicked fleeth when no man pursueth. I took the telephone list and
+turned the number up: "2241, Mrs. Keane, res. 942 Mission Street." And
+that, short of driving to the house and renewing my impertinence in
+person, was all that I could do.
+
+Yet, as I resumed my seat in the corner of the office, I was conscious
+of a new element of the uncertain, the underhand, perhaps even the
+dangerous, in our adventure; and there was now a new picture in my
+mental gallery, to hang beside that of the wreck under its canopy of
+sea-birds and of Captain Trent mopping his red brow--the picture of a
+man with a telephone dice-box to his ear, and at the small voice of a
+single question, struck suddenly as white as ashes.
+
+From these considerations I was awakened by the striking of the clock.
+An hour and nearly twenty minutes had elapsed since Pinkerton departed
+for the money: he was twenty minutes behind time; and to me who knew so
+well his gluttonous despatch of business and had so frequently admired
+his iron punctuality, the fact spoke volumes. The twenty minutes slowly
+stretched into an hour; the hour had nearly extended to a second; and
+I still sat in my corner of the office, or paced the marble pavement of
+the hall, a prey to the most wretched anxiety and penitence. The hour
+for lunch was nearly over before I remembered that I had not eaten.
+Heaven knows I had no appetite; but there might still be much to do--it
+was needful I should keep myself in proper trim, if it were only to
+digest the now too probable bad news; and leaving word at the office for
+Pinkerton, I sat down to table and called for soup, oysters, and a pint
+of champagne.
+
+I was not long set, before my friend returned. He looked pale and rather
+old, refused to hear of food, and called for tea.
+
+"I suppose all's up?" said I, with an incredible sinking.
+
+"No," he replied; "I've pulled it through, Loudon; just pulled it
+through. I couldn't have raised another cent in all 'Frisco. People
+don't like it; Longhurst even went back on me; said he wasn't a
+three-card-monte man."
+
+"Well, what's the odds?" said I. "That's all we wanted, isn't it?"
+
+"Loudon, I tell you I've had to pay blood for that money," cried my
+friend, with almost savage energy and gloom. "It's all on ninety days,
+too; I couldn't get another day--not another day. If we go ahead with
+this affair, Loudon, you'll have to go yourself and make the fur fly.
+I'll stay of course--I've got to stay and face the trouble in this city;
+though, I tell you, I just long to go. I would show these fat brutes of
+sailors what work was; I would be all through that wreck and out at the
+other end, before they had boosted themselves upon the deck! But you'll
+do your level best, Loudon; I depend on you for that. You must be all
+fire and grit and dash from the word 'go.' That schooner and the boodle
+on board of her are bound to be here before three months, or it's B. U.
+S. T.--bust."
+
+"I'll swear I'll do my best, Jim; I'll work double tides," said I. "It
+is my fault that you are in this thing, and I'll get you out again or
+kill myself. But what is that you say? 'If we go ahead?' Have we any
+choice, then?"
+
+"I'm coming to that," said Jim. "It isn't that I doubt the investment.
+Don't blame yourself for that; you showed a fine, sound business
+instinct: I always knew it was in you, but then it ripped right out. I
+guess that little beast of an attorney knew what he was doing; and he
+wanted nothing better than to go beyond. No, there's profit in the deal;
+it's not that; it's these ninety-day bills, and the strain I've given
+the credit, for I've been up and down, borrowing, and begging and
+bribing to borrow. I don't believe there's another man but me in
+'Frisco," he cried, with a sudden fervor of self admiration, "who could
+have raised that last ten thousand!--Then there's another thing. I had
+hoped you might have peddled that opium through the islands, which is
+safer and more profitable. But with this three-month limit, you must
+make tracks for Honolulu straight, and communicate by steamer. I'll
+try to put up something for you there; I'll have a man spoken to who's
+posted on that line of biz. Keep a bright lookout for him as soon's you
+make the islands; for it's on the cards he might pick you up at sea in a
+whaleboat or a steam-launch, and bring the dollars right on board."
+
+It shows how much I had suffered morally during my sojourn in San
+Francisco, that even now when our fortunes trembled in the balance,
+I should have consented to become a smuggler and (of all things) a
+smuggler of opium. Yet I did, and that in silence; without a protest,
+not without a twinge.
+
+"And suppose," said I, "suppose the opium is so securely hidden that I
+can't get hands on it?"
+
+"Then you will stay there till that brig is kindling-wood, and stay
+and split that kindling-wood with your penknife," cried Pinkerton. "The
+stuff is there; we know that; and it must be found. But all this is
+only the one string to our bow--though I tell you I've gone into it
+head-first, as if it was our bottom dollar. Why, the first thing I
+did before I'd raised a cent, and with this other notion in my head
+already--the first thing I did was to secure the schooner. The Nora
+Creina, she is, sixty-four tons, quite big enough for our purpose since
+the rice is spoiled, and the fastest thing of her tonnage out of San
+Francisco. For a bonus of two hundred, and a monthly charter of three, I
+have her for my own time; wages and provisions, say four hundred more: a
+drop in the bucket. They began firing the cargo out of her (she was part
+loaded) near two hours ago; and about the same time John Smith got the
+order for the stores. That's what I call business."
+
+"No doubt of that," said I. "But the other notion?"
+
+
+"Well, here it is," said Jim. "You agree with me that Bellairs was ready
+to go higher?"
+
+I saw where he was coming. "Yes--and why shouldn't he?" said I. "Is
+that the line?"
+
+"That's the line, Loudon Dodd," assented Jim. "If Bellairs and his
+principal have any desire to go me better, I'm their man."
+
+A sudden thought, a sudden fear, shot into my mind. What if I had been
+right? What if my childish pleasantry had frightened the principal
+away, and thus destroyed our chance? Shame closed my mouth; I began
+instinctively a long course of reticence; and it was without a word
+of my meeting with Bellairs, or my discovery of the address in Mission
+Street, that I continued the discussion.
+
+"Doubtless fifty thousand was originally mentioned as a round sum," said
+I, "or at least, so Bellairs supposed. But at the same time it may be an
+outside sum; and to cover the expenses we have already incurred for the
+money and the schooner--I am far from blaming you; I see how needful
+it was to be ready for either event--but to cover them we shall want a
+rather large advance."
+
+"Bellairs will go to sixty thousand; it's my belief, if he were properly
+handled, he would take the hundred," replied Pinkerton. "Look back on
+the way the sale ran at the end."
+
+"That is my own impression as regards Bellairs," I admitted. "The point I
+am trying to make is that Bellairs himself may be mistaken; that what he
+supposed to be a round sum was really an outside figure."
+
+"Well, Loudon, if that is so," said Jim, with extraordinary gravity of
+face and voice, "if that is so, let him take the Flying Scud at fifty
+thousand, and joy go with her! I prefer the loss."
+
+"Is that so, Jim? Are we dipped as bad as that?" I cried.
+
+"We've put our hand farther out than we can pull it in again, Loudon,"
+he replied. "Why, man, that fifty thousand dollars, before we get clear
+again, will cost us nearer seventy. Yes, it figures up overhead to more
+than ten per cent a month; and I could do no better, and there isn't
+the man breathing could have done as well. It was a miracle, Loudon. I
+couldn't but admire myself. O, if we had just the four months! And you
+know, Loudon, it may still be done. With your energy and charm, if the
+worst comes to the worst, you can run that schooner as you ran one
+of your picnics; and we may have luck. And, O, man! if we do pull it
+through, what a dashing operation it will be! What an advertisement!
+what a thing to talk of, and remember all our lives! However," he
+broke off suddenly, "we must try the safe thing first. Here's for the
+shyster!"
+
+There was another struggle in my mind, whether I should even now admit
+my knowledge of the Mission Street address. But I had let the favourable
+moment slip. I had now, which made it the more awkward, not merely the
+original discovery, but my late suppression to confess. I could not help
+reasoning, besides, that the more natural course was to approach the
+principal by the road of his agent's office; and there weighed upon my
+spirits a conviction that we were already too late, and that the man
+was gone two hours ago. Once more, then, I held my peace; and after an
+exchange of words at the telephone to assure ourselves he was at home,
+we set out for the attorney's office.
+
+The endless streets of any American city pass, from one end to another,
+through strange degrees and vicissitudes of splendour and distress,
+running under the same name between monumental warehouses, the dens
+and taverns of thieves, and the sward and shrubbery of villas. In San
+Francisco, the sharp inequalities of the ground, and the sea bordering
+on so many sides, greatly exaggerate these contrasts. The street for
+which we were now bound took its rise among blowing sands, somewhere in
+view of the Lone Mountain Cemetery; ran for a term across that rather
+windy Olympus of Nob Hill, or perhaps just skirted its frontier; passed
+almost immediately after through a stage of little houses, rather
+impudently painted, and offering to the eye of the observer this
+diagnostic peculiarity, that the huge brass plates upon the small and
+highly coloured doors bore only the first names of ladies--Norah or Lily
+or Florence; traversed China Town, where it was doubtless undermined
+with opium cellars, and its blocks pierced, after the similitude of
+rabbit-warrens, with a hundred doors and passages and galleries; enjoyed
+a glimpse of high publicity at the corner of Kearney; and proceeded,
+among dives and warehouses, towards the City Front and the region of the
+water-rats. In this last stage of its career, where it was both grimy
+and solitary, and alternately quiet and roaring to the wheels of drays,
+we found a certain house of some pretension to neatness, and furnished
+with a rustic outside stair. On the pillar of the stair a black
+plate bore in gilded lettering this device: "Harry D. Bellairs,
+Attorney-at-law. Consultations, 9 to 6." On ascending the stairs, a door
+was found to stand open on the balcony, with this further inscription,
+"Mr. Bellairs In."
+
+"I wonder what we do next," said I.
+
+"Guess we sail right in," returned Jim, and suited the action to the
+word.
+
+The room in which we found ourselves was clean, but extremely bare. A
+rather old-fashioned secretaire stood by the wall, with a chair drawn to
+the desk; in one corner was a shelf with half-a-dozen law books; and
+I can remember literally not another stick of furniture. One inference
+imposed itself: Mr. Bellairs was in the habit of sitting down himself
+and suffering his clients to stand. At the far end, and veiled by a
+curtain of red baize, a second door communicated with the interior of
+the house. Hence, after some coughing and stamping, we elicited the
+shyster, who came timorously forth, for all the world like a man in fear
+of bodily assault, and then, recognising his guests, suffered from what
+I can only call a nervous paroxysm of courtesy.
+
+"Mr. Pinkerton and partner!" said he. "I will go and fetch you seats."
+
+"Not the least," said Jim. "No time. Much rather stand. This is
+business, Mr. Bellairs. This morning, as you know, I bought the wreck,
+Flying Scud."
+
+The lawyer nodded.
+
+"And bought her," pursued my friend, "at a figure out of all proportion
+to the cargo and the circumstances, as they appeared?"
+
+"And now you think better of it, and would like to be off with your
+bargain? I have been figuring upon this," returned the lawyer. "My
+client, I will not hide from you, was displeased with me for putting her
+so high. I think we were both too heated, Mr. Pinkerton: rivalry--the
+spirit of competition. But I will be quite frank--I know when I am
+dealing with gentlemen--and I am almost certain, if you leave the matter
+in my hands, my client would relieve you of the bargain, so as you would
+lose"--he consulted our faces with gimlet-eyed calculation--"nothing,"
+he added shrilly.
+
+And here Pinkerton amazed me.
+
+"That's a little too thin," said he. "I have the wreck. I know there's
+boodle in her, and I mean to keep her. What I want is some points which
+may save me needless expense, and which I'm prepared to pay for, money
+down. The thing for you to consider is just this: am I to deal with you
+or direct with your principal? If you are prepared to give me the facts
+right off, why, name your figure. Only one thing!" added Jim, holding a
+finger up, "when I say 'money down,' I mean bills payable when the ship
+returns, and if the information proves reliable. I don't buy pigs in
+pokes."
+
+I had seen the lawyer's face light up for a moment, and then, at the
+sound of Jim's proviso, miserably fade. "I guess you know more about
+this wreck than I do, Mr. Pinkerton," said he. "I only know that I was
+told to buy the thing, and tried, and couldn't."
+
+"What I like about you, Mr. Bellairs, is that you waste no time," said
+Jim. "Now then, your client's name and address."
+
+"On consideration," replied the lawyer, with indescribable furtivity,
+"I cannot see that I am entitled to communicate my client's name. I
+will sound him for you with pleasure, if you care to instruct me; but I
+cannot see that I can give you his address."
+
+"Very well," said Jim, and put his hat on. "Rather a strong step, isn't
+it?" (Between every sentence was a clear pause.) "Not think better of
+it? Well, come--call it a dollar?"
+
+"Mr. Pinkerton, sir!" exclaimed the offended attorney; and, indeed, I
+myself was almost afraid that Jim had mistaken his man and gone too far.
+
+"No present use for a dollar?" says Jim. "Well, look here, Mr. Bellairs:
+we're both busy men, and I'll go to my outside figure with you right
+away--"
+
+"Stop this, Pinkerton," I broke in. "I know the address: 924 Mission
+Street."
+
+
+I do not know whether Pinkerton or Bellairs was the more taken aback.
+
+"Why in snakes didn't you say so, Loudon?" cried my friend.
+
+"You didn't ask for it before," said I, colouring to my temples under
+his troubled eyes.
+
+It was Bellairs who broke silence, kindly supplying me with all that
+I had yet to learn. "Since you know Mr. Dickson's address," said
+he, plainly burning to be rid of us, "I suppose I need detain you no
+longer."
+
+I do not know how Pinkerton felt, but I had death in my soul as we came
+down the outside stair, from the den of this blotched spider. My whole
+being was strung, waiting for Jim's first question, and prepared to
+blurt out, I believe, almost with tears, a full avowal. But my friend
+asked nothing.
+
+"We must hack it," said he, tearing off in the direction of the nearest
+stand. "No time to be lost. You saw how I changed ground. No use in
+paying the shyster's commission."
+
+Again I expected a reference to my suppression; again I was
+disappointed. It was plain Jim feared the subject, and I felt I almost
+hated him for that fear. At last, when we were already in the hack and
+driving towards Mission Street, I could bear my suspense no longer.
+
+"You do not ask me about that address," said I.
+
+"No," said he, quickly and timidly. "What was it? I would like to know."
+
+The note of timidity offended me like a buffet; my temper rose as hot as
+mustard. "I must request you do not ask me," said I. "It is a matter I
+cannot explain."
+
+The moment the foolish words were said, that moment I would have given
+worlds to recall them: how much more, when Pinkerton, patting my hand,
+replied: "All right, dear boy; not another word; that's all done. I'm
+convinced it's perfectly right." To return upon the subject was beyond
+my courage; but I vowed inwardly that I should do my utmost in the
+future for this mad speculation, and that I would cut myself in pieces
+before Jim should lose one dollar.
+
+We had no sooner arrived at the address than I had other things to think
+of.
+
+"Mr. Dickson? He's gone," said the landlady.
+
+Where had he gone?
+
+"I'm sure I can't tell you," she answered. "He was quite a stranger to
+me."
+
+"Did he express his baggage, ma'am?" asked Pinkerton.
+
+"Hadn't any," was the reply. "He came last night and left again to-day
+with a satchel."
+
+"When did he leave?" I inquired.
+
+"It was about noon," replied the landlady. "Some one rang up the
+telephone, and asked for him; and I reckon he got some news, for he
+left right away, although his rooms were taken by the week. He seemed
+considerable put out: I reckon it was a death."
+
+My heart sank; perhaps my idiotic jest had indeed driven him away;
+and again I asked myself, Why? and whirled for a moment in a vortex of
+untenable hypotheses.
+
+"What was he like, ma'am?" Pinkerton was asking, when I returned to
+consciousness of my surroundings.
+
+"A clean shaved man," said the woman, and could be led or driven into no
+more significant description.
+
+"Pull up at the nearest drug-store," said Pinkerton to the driver; and
+when there, the telephone was put in operation, and the message sped to
+the Pacific Mail Steamship Company's office--this was in the days
+before Spreckels had arisen--"When does the next China steamer touch at
+Honolulu?"
+
+"The City of Pekin; she cast off the dock to-day, at half-past one,"
+came the reply.
+
+"It's a clear case of bolt," said Jim. "He's skipped, or my name's not
+Pinkerton. He's gone to head us off at Midway Island."
+
+Somehow I was not so sure; there were elements in the case, not known
+to Pinkerton--the fears of the captain, for example--that inclined me
+otherwise; and the idea that I had terrified Mr. Dickson into flight,
+though resting on so slender a foundation, clung obstinately in my mind.
+"Shouldn't we see the list of passengers?" I asked.
+
+"Dickson is such a blamed common name," returned Jim; "and then, as like
+as not, he would change it."
+
+At this I had another intuition. A negative of a street scene, taken
+unconsciously when I was absorbed in other thought, rose in my memory
+with not a feature blurred: a view, from Bellairs's door as we were
+coming down, of muddy roadway, passing drays, matted telegraph wires,
+a Chinaboy with a basket on his head, and (almost opposite) a corner
+grocery with the name of Dickson in great gilt letters.
+
+"Yes," said I, "you are right; he would change it. And anyway, I don't
+believe it was his name at all; I believe he took it from a corner
+grocery beside Bellairs's."
+
+"As like as not," said Jim, still standing on the sidewalk with
+contracted brows.
+
+"Well, what shall we do next?" I asked.
+
+"The natural thing would be to rush the schooner," he replied. "But I
+don't know. I telephoned the captain to go at it head down and heels in
+air; he answered like a little man; and I guess he's getting around. I
+believe, Loudon, we'll give Trent a chance. Trent was in it; he was
+in it up to the neck; even if he couldn't buy, he could give us the
+straight tip."
+
+"I think so, too," said I. "Where shall we find him?"
+
+"British consulate, of course," said Jim. "And that's another reason for
+taking him first. We can hustle that schooner up all evening; but when
+the consulate's shut, it's shut."
+
+At the consulate, we learned that Captain Trent had alighted (such is I
+believe the classic phrase) at the What Cheer House. To that large and
+unaristocratic hostelry we drove, and addressed ourselves to a large
+clerk, who was chewing a toothpick and looking straight before him.
+
+"Captain Jacob Trent?"
+
+"Gone," said the clerk.
+
+"Where has he gone?" asked Pinkerton.
+
+"Cain't say," said the clerk.
+
+"When did he go?" I asked.
+
+"Don't know," said the clerk, and with the simplicity of a monarch
+offered us the spectacle of his broad back.
+
+What might have happened next I dread to picture, for Pinkerton's
+excitement had been growing steadily, and now burned dangerously high;
+but we were spared extremities by the intervention of a second clerk.
+
+"Why! Mr. Dodd!" he exclaimed, running forward to the counter. "Glad to
+see you, sir! Can I do anything in your way?"
+
+How virtuous actions blossom! Here was a young man to whose pleased ears
+I had rehearsed _Just before the battle, mother,_ at some weekly picnic;
+and now, in that tense moment of my life, he came (from the machine) to
+be my helper.
+
+"Captain Trent, of the wreck? O yes, Mr. Dodd; he left about twelve; he
+and another of the men. The Kanaka went earlier by the City of Pekin; I
+know that; I remember expressing his chest. Captain Trent? I'll inquire,
+Mr. Dodd. Yes, they were all here. Here are the names on the register;
+perhaps you would care to look at them while I go and see about the
+baggage?"
+
+I drew the book toward me, and stood looking at the four names all
+written in the same hand, rather a big and rather a bad one: Trent,
+Brown, Hardy, and (instead of Ah Sing) Jos. Amalu.
+
+"Pinkerton," said I, suddenly, "have you that _Occidental_ in your
+pocket?"
+
+"Never left me," said Pinkerton, producing the paper.
+
+
+I turned to the account of the wreck. "Here," said I; "here's the name.
+'Elias Goddedaal, mate.' Why do we never come across Elias Goddedaal?"
+
+"That's so," said Jim. "Was he with the rest in that saloon when you saw
+them?"
+
+"I don't believe it," said I. "They were only four, and there was none
+that behaved like a mate."
+
+At this moment the clerk returned with his report.
+
+"The captain," it appeared, "came with some kind of an express waggon,
+and he and the man took off three chests and a big satchel. Our porter
+helped to put them on, but they drove the cart themselves. The porter
+thinks they went down town. It was about one."
+
+"Still in time for the City of Pekin," observed Jim.
+
+"How many of them were here?" I inquired.
+
+"Three, sir, and the Kanaka," replied the clerk. "I can't somehow fin
+out about the third, but he's gone too."
+
+"Mr. Goddedaal, the mate, wasn't here then?" I asked.
+
+"No, Mr. Dodd, none but what you see," says the clerk.
+
+"Nor you never heard where he was?"
+
+"No. Any particular reason for finding these men, Mr. Dodd?" inquired
+the clerk.
+
+"This gentleman and I have bought the wreck," I explained; "we wished to
+get some information, and it is very annoying to find the men all gone."
+
+A certain group had gradually formed about us, for the wreck was still
+a matter of interest; and at this, one of the bystanders, a rough
+seafaring man, spoke suddenly.
+
+"I guess the mate won't be gone," said he. "He's main sick; never left
+the sick-bay aboard the Tempest; so they tell ME."
+
+Jim took me by the sleeve. "Back to the consulate," said he.
+
+But even at the consulate nothing was known of Mr. Goddedaal. The doctor
+of the Tempest had certified him very sick; he had sent his papers in,
+but never appeared in person before the authorities.
+
+"Have you a telephone laid on to the Tempest?" asked Pinkerton.
+
+"Laid on yesterday," said the clerk.
+
+"Do you mind asking, or letting me ask? We are very anxious to get hold
+of Mr. Goddedaal."
+
+"All right," said the clerk, and turned to the telephone. "I'm sorry,"
+he said presently, "Mr. Goddedaal has left the ship, and no one knows
+where he is."
+
+"Do you pay the men's passage home?" I inquired, a sudden thought
+striking me.
+
+"If they want it," said the clerk; "sometimes they don't. But we paid
+the Kanaka's passage to Honolulu this morning; and by what Captain Trent
+was saying, I understand the rest are going home together."
+
+"Then you haven't paid them?" said I.
+
+"Not yet," said the clerk.
+
+"And you would be a good deal surprised, if I were to tell you they were
+gone already?" I asked.
+
+"O, I should think you were mistaken," said he.
+
+"Such is the fact, however," said I.
+
+"I am sure you must be mistaken," he repeated.
+
+"May I use your telephone one moment?" asked Pinkerton; and as soon as
+permission had been granted, I heard him ring up the printing-office
+where our advertisements were usually handled. More I did not hear; for
+suddenly recalling the big, bad hand in the register of the What Cheer
+House, I asked the consulate clerk if he had a specimen of Captain
+Trent's writing. Whereupon I learned that the captain could not write,
+having cut his hand open a little before the loss of the brig; that the
+latter part of the log even had been written up by Mr. Goddedaal; and
+that Trent had always signed with his left hand. By the time I had
+gleaned this information, Pinkerton was ready.
+
+"That's all that we can do. Now for the schooner," said he; "and by
+to-morrow evening I lay hands on Goddedaal, or my name's not Pinkerton."
+
+"How have you managed?" I inquired.
+
+"You'll see before you get to bed," said Pinkerton. "And now, after
+all this backwarding and forwarding, and that hotel clerk, and that
+bug Bellairs, it'll be a change and a kind of consolation to see the
+schooner. I guess things are humming there."
+
+But on the wharf, when we reached it, there was no sign of bustle,
+and, but for the galley smoke, no mark of life on the Norah Creina.
+Pinkerton's face grew pale, and his mouth straightened, as he leaped on
+board.
+
+"Where's the captain of this----?" and he left the phrase unfinished,
+finding no epithet sufficiently energetic for his thoughts.
+
+It did not appear whom or what he was addressing; but a head, presumably
+the cook's, appeared in answer at the galley door.
+
+"In the cabin, at dinner," said the cook deliberately, chewing as he
+spoke.
+
+"Is that cargo out?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"None of it?"
+
+"O, there's some of it out. We'll get at the rest of it livelier
+to-morrow, I guess."
+
+"I guess there'll be something broken first," said Pinkerton, and strode
+to the cabin.
+
+Here we found a man, fat, dark, and quiet, seated gravely at what seemed
+a liberal meal. He looked up upon our entrance; and seeing Pinkerton
+continue to stand facing him in silence, hat on head, arms folded, and
+lips compressed, an expression of mingled wonder and annoyance began to
+dawn upon his placid face.
+
+"Well!" said Jim; "and so this is what you call rushing around?"
+
+"Who are you?" cries the captain.
+
+"Me! I'm Pinkerton!" retorted Jim, as though the name had been a
+talisman.
+
+"You're not very civil, whoever you are," was the reply. But still a
+certain effect had been produced, for he scrambled to his feet,
+and added hastily, "A man must have a bit of dinner, you know, Mr.
+Pinkerton."
+
+"Where's your mate?" snapped Jim.
+
+"He's up town," returned the other.
+
+"Up town!" sneered Pinkerton. "Now, I'll tell you what you are: you're a
+Fraud; and if I wasn't afraid of dirtying my boot, I would kick you and
+your dinner into that dock."
+
+"I'll tell you something, too," retorted the captain, duskily flushing.
+"I wouldn't sail this ship for the man you are, if you went upon your
+knees. I've dealt with gentlemen up to now."
+
+"I can tell you the names of a number of gentlemen you'll never deal
+with any more, and that's the whole of Longhurst's gang," said Jim.
+"I'll put your pipe out in that quarter, my friend. Here, rout out your
+traps as quick as look at it, and take your vermin along with you. I'll
+have a captain in, this very night, that's a sailor, and some sailors to
+work for him."
+
+"I'll go when I please, and that's to-morrow morning," cried the captain
+after us, as we departed for the shore.
+
+"There's something gone wrong with the world to-day; it must have come
+bottom up!" wailed Pinkerton. "Bellairs, and then the hotel clerk,
+and now This Fraud! And what am I to do for a captain, Loudon, with
+Longhurst gone home an hour ago, and the boys all scattered?"
+
+"I know," said I. "Jump in!" And then to the driver: "Do you know Black
+Tom's?"
+
+Thither then we rattled; passed through the bar, and found (as I had
+hoped) Johnson in the enjoyment of club life. The table had been
+thrust upon one side; a South Sea merchant was discoursing music from a
+mouth-organ in one corner; and in the middle of the floor Johnson and
+a fellow-seaman, their arms clasped about each other's bodies, somewhat
+heavily danced. The room was both cold and close; a jet of gas,
+which continually menaced the heads of the performers, shed a coarse
+illumination; the mouth-organ sounded shrill and dismal; and the faces
+of all concerned were church-like in their gravity. It were, of course,
+indelicate to interrupt these solemn frolics; so we edged ourselves to
+chairs, for all the world like belated comers in a concert-room, and
+patiently waited for the end. At length the organist, having exhausted
+his supply of breath, ceased abruptly in the middle of a bar. With
+the cessation of the strain, the dancers likewise came to a full stop,
+swayed a moment, still embracing, and then separated and looked about
+the circle for applause.
+
+"Very well danced!" said one; but it appears the compliment was not
+strong enough for the performers, who (forgetful of the proverb) took up
+the tale in person.
+
+"Well," said Johnson. "I mayn't be no sailor, but I can dance!"
+
+And his late partner, with an almost pathetic conviction, added, "My
+foot is as light as a feather."
+
+Seeing how the wind set, you may be sure I added a few words of
+praise before I carried Johnson alone into the passage: to whom, thus
+mollified, I told so much as I judged needful of our situation, and
+begged him, if he would not take the job himself, to find me a smart
+man.
+
+"Me!" he cried. "I couldn't no more do it than I could try to go to
+hell!"
+
+"I thought you were a mate?" said I.
+
+"So I am a mate," giggled Johnson, "and you don't catch me shipping
+noways else. But I'll tell you what, I believe I can get you Arty Nares:
+you seen Arty; first-rate navigator and a son of a gun for style." And
+he proceeded to explain to me that Mr. Nares, who had the promise of
+a fine barque in six months, after things had quieted down, was in the
+meantime living very private, and would be pleased to have a change of
+air.
+
+I called out Pinkerton and told him. "Nares!" he cried, as soon as I
+had come to the name. "I would jump at the chance of a man that had had
+Nares's trousers on! Why, Loudon, he's the smartest deep-water mate out
+of San Francisco, and draws his dividends regular in service and out."
+This hearty indorsation clinched the proposal; Johnson agreed to produce
+Nares before six the following morning; and Black Tom, being called into
+the consultation, promised us four smart hands for the same hour, and
+even (what appeared to all of us excessive) promised them sober.
+
+The streets were fully lighted when we left Black Tom's: street after
+street sparkling with gas or electricity, line after line of distant
+luminaries climbing the steep sides of hills towards the overvaulting
+darkness; and on the other hand, where the waters of the bay invisibly
+trembled, a hundred riding lanterns marked the position of a hundred
+ships. The sea-fog flew high in heaven; and at the level of man's life
+and business it was clear and chill. By silent consent, we paid the hack
+off, and proceeded arm in arm towards the Poodle Dog for dinner.
+
+At one of the first hoardings, I was aware of a bill-sticker at work: it
+was a late hour for this employment, and I checked Pinkerton until the
+sheet should be unfolded. This is what I read:--
+
+     TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS REWARD.
+
+     OFFICERS AND MEN OF THE
+
+     WRECKED BRIG FLYING SCUD
+
+     APPLYING,
+
+     PERSONALLY OR BY LETTER,
+
+     AT THE OFFICE OF JAMES PINKERTON, MONTANA
+     BLOCK,
+
+     BEFORE NOON TO-MORROW, TUESDAY, 12TH,
+
+     WILL RECEIVE
+
+     TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS REWARD.
+
+"This is your idea, Pinkerton!" I cried.
+
+"Yes. They've lost no time; I'll say that for them--not like the Fraud,"
+said he. "But mind you, Loudon, that's not half of it. The cream of
+the idea's here: we know our man's sick; well, a copy of that has been
+mailed to every hospital, every doctor, and every drug-store in San
+Francisco."
+
+Of course, from the nature of our business, Pinkerton could do a thing
+of the kind at a figure extremely reduced; for all that, I was appalled
+at the extravagance, and said so.
+
+"What matter a few dollars now?" he replied sadly. "It's in three months
+that the pull comes, Loudon."
+
+We walked on again in silence, not without a shiver. Even at the Poodle
+Dog, we took our food with small appetite and less speech; and it was
+not until he was warmed with a third glass of champagne that Pinkerton
+cleared his throat and looked upon me with a deprecating eye.
+
+"Loudon," said he, "there was a subject you didn't wish to be referred
+to. I only want to do so indirectly. It wasn't"--he faltered--"it wasn't
+because you were dissatisfied with me?" he concluded, with a quaver.
+
+"Pinkerton!" cried I.
+
+"No, no, not a word just now," he hastened to proceed. "Let me speak
+first. I appreciate, though I can't imitate, the delicacy of your
+nature; and I can well understand you would rather die than speak of it,
+and yet might feel disappointed. I did think I could have done better
+myself. But when I found how tight money was in this city, and a man
+like Douglas B. Longhurst--a forty-niner, the man that stood at bay in a
+corn patch for five hours against the San Diablo squatters--weakening on
+the operation, I tell you, Loudon, I began to despair; and--I may
+have made mistakes, no doubt there are thousands who could have done
+better--but I give you a loyal hand on it, I did my best."
+
+"My poor Jim," said I, "as if I ever doubted you! as if I didn't
+know you had done wonders! All day I've been admiring your energy and
+resource. And as for that affair----"
+
+"No, Loudon, no more, not a word more! I don't want to hear," cried Jim.
+
+"Well, to tell you the truth, I don't want to tell you," said I; "for
+it's a thing I'm ashamed of."
+
+"Ashamed, Loudon? O, don't say that; don't use such an expression even
+in jest!" protested Pinkerton.
+
+"Do you never do anything you're ashamed of?" I inquired.
+
+"No," says he, rolling his eyes. "Why? I'm sometimes sorry afterwards,
+when it pans out different from what I figured. But I can't see what I
+would want to be ashamed for."
+
+I sat a while considering with admiration the simplicity of my friend's
+character. Then I sighed. "Do you know, Jim, what I'm sorriest for?"
+said I. "At this rate, I can't be best man at your marriage."
+
+"My marriage!" he repeated, echoing the sigh. "No marriage for me now.
+I'm going right down to-night to break it to her. I think that's what's
+shaken me all day. I feel as if I had had no right (after I was engaged)
+to operate so widely."
+
+"Well, you know, Jim, it was my doing, and you must lay the blame on
+me," said I.
+
+"Not a cent of it!" he cried. "I was as eager as yourself, only not so
+bright at the beginning. No; I've myself to thank for it; but it's a
+wrench."
+
+While Jim departed on his dolorous mission, I returned alone to the
+office, lit the gas, and sat down to reflect on the events of that
+momentous day: on the strange features of the tale that had been so far
+unfolded, the disappearances, the terrors, the great sums of money; and
+on the dangerous and ungrateful task that awaited me in the immediate
+future.
+
+It is difficult, in the retrospect of such affairs, to avoid attributing
+to ourselves in the past a measure of the knowledge we possess to-day.
+But I may say, and yet be well within the mark, that I was consumed that
+night with a fever of suspicion and curiosity; exhausted my fancy in
+solutions, which I still dismissed as incommensurable with the facts;
+and in the mystery by which I saw myself surrounded, found a precious
+stimulus for my courage and a convenient soothing draught for
+conscience. Even had all been plain sailing, I do not hint that I should
+have drawn back. Smuggling is one of the meanest of crimes, for by that
+we rob a whole country pro rata, and are therefore certain to impoverish
+the poor: to smuggle opium is an offence particularly dark, since it
+stands related not so much to murder, as to massacre. Upon all these
+points I was quite clear; my sympathy was all in arms against my
+interest; and had not Jim been involved, I could have dwelt almost with
+satisfaction on the idea of my failure. But Jim, his whole fortune, and
+his marriage, depended upon my success; and I preferred the interests of
+my friend before those of all the islanders in the South Seas. This is
+a poor, private morality, if you like; but it is mine, and the best I
+have; and I am not half so much ashamed of having embarked at all on
+this adventure, as I am proud that (while I was in it, and for the
+sake of my friend) I was up early and down late, set my own hand to
+everything, took dangers as they came, and for once in my life played
+the man throughout. At the same time, I could have desired another field
+of energy; and I was the more grateful for the redeeming element of
+mystery. Without that, though I might have gone ahead and done as well,
+it would scarce have been with ardour; and what inspired me that night
+with an impatient greed of the sea, the island, and the wreck, was the
+hope that I might stumble there upon the answer to a hundred questions,
+and learn why Captain Trent fanned his red face in the exchange, and why
+Mr. Dickson fled from the telephone in the Mission Street lodging-house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. IN WHICH JIM AND I TAKE DIFFERENT WAYS.
+
+
+I was unhappy when I closed my eyes; and it was to unhappiness that I
+opened them again next morning, to a confused sense of some calamity
+still inarticulate, and to the consciousness of jaded limbs and of
+a swimming head. I must have lain for some time inert and stupidly
+miserable, before I became aware of a reiterated knocking at the
+door; with which discovery all my wits flowed back in their accustomed
+channels, and I remembered the sale, and the wreck, and Goddedaal, and
+Nares, and Johnson, and Black Tom, and the troubles of yesterday,
+and the manifold engagements of the day that was to come. The thought
+thrilled me like a trumpet in the hour of battle. In a moment, I had
+leaped from bed, crossed the office where Pinkerton lay in a deep trance
+of sleep on the convertible sofa, and stood in the doorway, in my night
+gear, to receive our visitors.
+
+Johnson was first, by way of usher, smiling. From a little behind, with
+his Sunday hat tilted forward over his brow, and a cigar glowing between
+his lips, Captain Nares acknowledged our previous acquaintance with a
+succinct nod. Behind him again, in the top of the stairway, a knot of
+sailors, the new crew of the Norah Creina, stood polishing the wall with
+back and elbow. These I left without to their reflections. But our two
+officers I carried at once into the office, where (taking Jim by the
+shoulder) I shook him slowly into consciousness. He sat up, all abroad
+for the moment, and stared on the new captain.
+
+"Jim," said I, "this is Captain Nares. Captain, Mr. Pinkerton."
+
+Nares repeated his curt nod, still without speech; and I thought he held
+us both under a watchful scrutiny.
+
+"O!" says Jim, "this is Captain Nares, is it? Good morning, Captain
+Nares. Happy to have the pleasure of your acquaintance, sir. I know you
+well by reputation."
+
+Perhaps, under the circumstances of the moment, this was scarce a
+welcome speech. At least, Nares received it with a grunt.
+
+"Well, Captain," Jim continued, "you know about the size of the
+business? You're to take the Nora Creina to Midway Island, break up
+a wreck, call at Honolulu, and back to this port? I suppose that's
+understood?"
+
+"Well," returned Nares, with the same unamiable reserve, "for a reason,
+which I guess you know, the cruise may suit me; but there's a point or
+two to settle. We shall have to talk, Mr. Pinkerton. But whether I go or
+not, somebody will; there's no sense in losing time; and you might give
+Mr. Johnson a note, let him take the hands right down, and set to to
+overhaul the rigging. The beasts look sober," he added, with an air of
+great disgust, "and need putting to work to keep them so."
+
+This being agreed upon, Nares watched his subordinate depart and drew a
+visible breath.
+
+"And now we're alone and can talk," said he. "What's this thing about?
+It's been advertised like Barnum's museum; that poster of yours has
+set the Front talking; that's an objection in itself, for I'm laying a
+little dark just now; and anyway, before I take the ship, I require to
+know what I'm going after."
+
+Thereupon Pinkerton gave him the whole tale, beginning with a
+businesslike precision, and working himself up, as he went on, to the
+boiling-point of narrative enthusiasm. Nares sat and smoked, hat
+still on head, and acknowledged each fresh feature of the story with a
+frowning nod. But his pale blue eyes betrayed him, and lighted visibly.
+
+"Now you see for yourself," Pinkerton concluded: "there's every last
+chance that Trent has skipped to Honolulu, and it won't take much of
+that fifty thousand dollars to charter a smart schooner down to Midway.
+Here's where I want a man!" cried Jim, with contagious energy. "That
+wreck's mine; I've paid for it, money down; and if it's got to be fought
+for, I want to see it fought for lively. If you're not back in ninety
+days, I tell you plainly, I'll make one of the biggest busts ever seen
+upon this coast; it's life or death for Mr. Dodd and me. As like as not,
+it'll come to grapples on the island; and when I heard your name last
+night--and a blame' sight more this morning when I saw the eye you've
+got in your head--I said, 'Nares is good enough for me!'"
+
+"I guess," observed Nares, studying the ash of his cigar, "the sooner I
+get that schooner outside the Farallones, the better you'll be pleased."
+
+"You're the man I dreamed of!" cried Jim, bouncing on the bed. "There's
+not five per cent of fraud in all your carcase."
+
+"Just hold on," said Nares. "There's another point. I heard some talk
+about a supercargo."
+
+"That's Mr. Dodd, here, my partner," said Jim.
+
+"I don't see it," returned the captain drily. "One captain's enough for
+any ship that ever I was aboard."
+
+"Now don't you start disappointing me," said Pinkerton; "for you're
+talking without thought. I'm not going to give you the run of the books
+of this firm, am I? I guess not. Well, this is not only a cruise; it's a
+business operation; and that's in the hands of my partner. You sail that
+ship, you see to breaking up that wreck and keeping the men upon the
+jump, and you'll find your hands about full. Only, no mistake about one
+thing: it has to be done to Mr. Dodd's satisfaction; for it's Mr. Dodd
+that's paying."
+
+"I'm accustomed to give satisfaction," said Mr. Nares, with a dark
+flush.
+
+"And so you will here!" cried Pinkerton. "I understand you. You're
+prickly to handle, but you're straight all through."
+
+"The position's got to be understood, though," returned Nares, perhaps
+a trifle mollified. "My position, I mean. I'm not going to ship
+sailing-master; it's enough out of my way already, to set a foot on this
+mosquito schooner."
+
+"Well, I'll tell you," retorted Jim, with an indescribable twinkle: "you
+just meet me on the ballast, and we'll make it a barquentine."
+
+Nares laughed a little; tactless Pinkerton had once more gained a
+victory in tact. "Then there's another point," resumed the captain,
+tacitly relinquishing the last. "How about the owners?"
+
+"O, you leave that to me; I'm one of Longhurst's crowd, you know," said
+Jim, with sudden bristling vanity. "Any man that's good enough for me,
+is good enough for them."
+
+"Who are they?" asked Nares.
+
+"M'Intyre and Spittal," said Jim.
+
+"O, well, give me a card of yours," said the captain: "you needn't
+bother to write; I keep M'Intyre and Spittal in my vest-pocket."
+
+Boast for boast; it was always thus with Nares and Pinkerton--the two
+vainest men of my acquaintance. And having thus reinstated himself in
+his own opinion, the captain rose, and, with a couple of his stiff nods,
+departed.
+
+"Jim," I cried, as the door closed behind him, "I don't like that man."
+
+"You've just got to, Loudon," returned Jim. "He's a typical American
+seaman--brave as a lion, full of resource, and stands high with his
+owners. He's a man with a record."
+
+"For brutality at sea," said I.
+
+"Say what you like," exclaimed Pinkerton, "it was a good hour we got him
+in: I'd trust Mamie's life to him to-morrow."
+
+"Well, and talking of Mamie?" says I.
+
+Jim paused with his trousers half on. "She's the gallantest little soul
+God ever made!" he cried. "Loudon, I'd meant to knock you up last night,
+and I hope you won't take it unfriendly that I didn't. I went in and
+looked at you asleep; and I saw you were all broken up, and let you be.
+The news would keep, anyway; and even you, Loudon, couldn't feel it the
+same way as I did."
+
+"What news?" I asked.
+
+"It's this way," says Jim. "I told her how we stood, and that I backed
+down from marrying. 'Are you tired of me?' says she: God bless her!
+Well, I explained the whole thing over again, the chance of smash, your
+absence unavoidable, the point I made of having you for the best man,
+and that. 'If you're not tired of me, I think I see one way to manage,'
+says she. 'Let's get married to-morrow, and Mr. Loudon can be best man
+before he goes to sea.' That's how she said it, crisp and bright, like
+one of Dickens's characters. It was no good for me to talk about the
+smash. 'You'll want me all the more,' she said. Loudon, I only pray I
+can make it up to her; I prayed for it last night beside your bed, while
+you lay sleeping--for you, and Mamie and myself; and--I don't know if
+you quite believe in prayer, I'm a bit Ingersollian myself--but a kind
+of sweetness came over me, and I couldn't help but think it was an
+answer. Never was a man so lucky! You and me and Mamie; it's a triple
+cord, Loudon. If either of you were to die! And she likes you so much,
+and thinks you so accomplished and distingue-looking, and was just as
+set as I was to have you for best man. 'Mr. Loudon,' she calls you;
+seems to me so friendly! And she sat up till three in the morning fixing
+up a costume for the marriage; it did me good to see her, Loudon, and to
+see that needle going, going, and to say 'All this hurry, Jim, is just
+to marry you!' I couldn't believe it; it was so like some blame' fairy
+story. To think of those old tin-type times about turned my head; I was
+so unrefined then, and so illiterate, and so lonesome; and here I am in
+clover, and I'm blamed if I can see what I've done to deserve it."
+
+So he poured forth with innocent volubility the fulness of his heart;
+and I, from these irregular communications, must pick out, here a little
+and there a little, the particulars of his new plan. They were to be
+married, sure enough, that day; the wedding breakfast was to be at
+Frank's; the evening to be passed in a visit of God-speed aboard the
+Norah Creina; and then we were to part, Jim and I, he to his married
+life, I on my sea-enterprise. If ever I cherished an ill-feeling
+for Miss Mamie, I forgave her now; so brave and kind, so pretty and
+venturesome, was her decision. The weather frowned overhead with a
+leaden sky, and San Francisco had never (in all my experience) looked so
+bleak and gaunt, and shoddy, and crazy, like a city prematurely old; but
+through all my wanderings and errands to and fro, by the dock side or in
+the jostling street, among rude sounds and ugly sights, there ran in my
+mind, like a tiny strain of music, the thought of my friend's happiness.
+
+For that was indeed a day of many and incongruous occupations. Breakfast
+was scarce swallowed before Jim must run to the City Hall and Frank's
+about the cares of marriage, and I hurry to John Smith's upon the
+account of stores, and thence, on a visit of certification, to the
+Norah Creina. Methought she looked smaller than ever, sundry great
+ships overspiring her from close without. She was already a nightmare of
+disorder; and the wharf alongside was piled with a world of casks, and
+cases, and tins, and tools, and coils of rope, and miniature barrels of
+giant powder, such as it seemed no human ingenuity could stuff on board
+of her. Johnson was in the waist, in a red shirt and dungaree trousers,
+his eye kindled with activity. With him I exchanged a word or two;
+thence stepped aft along the narrow alleyway between the house and the
+rail, and down the companion to the main cabin, where the captain sat
+with the commissioner at wine.
+
+I gazed with disaffection at the little box which for many a day I was
+to call home. On the starboard was a stateroom for the captain; on the
+port, a pair of frowsy berths, one over the other, and abutting astern
+upon the side of an unsavoury cupboard. The walls were yellow and damp,
+the floor black and greasy; there was a prodigious litter of straw, old
+newspapers, and broken packing-cases; and by way of ornament, only
+a glass-rack, a thermometer presented "with compliments" of some
+advertising whiskey-dealer, and a swinging lamp. It was hard to foresee
+that, before a week was up, I should regard that cabin as cheerful,
+lightsome, airy, and even spacious.
+
+I was presented to the commissioner, and to a young friend of his whom
+he had brought with him for the purpose (apparently) of smoking cigars;
+and after we had pledged one another in a glass of California port, a
+trifle sweet and sticky for a morning beverage, the functionary spread
+his papers on the table, and the hands were summoned. Down they trooped,
+accordingly, into the cabin; and stood eyeing the ceiling or the floor,
+the picture of sheepish embarrassment, and with a common air of wanting
+to expectorate and not quite daring. In admirable contrast, stood
+the Chinese cook, easy, dignified, set apart by spotless raiment, the
+hidalgo of the seas.
+
+I daresay you never had occasion to assist at the farce which followed.
+Our shipping laws in the United States (thanks to the inimitable Dana)
+are conceived in a spirit of paternal stringency, and proceed throughout
+on the hypothesis that poor Jack is an imbecile, and the other parties
+to the contract, rogues and ruffians. A long and wordy paper of
+precautions, a fo'c's'le bill of rights, must be read separately to each
+man. I had now the benefit of hearing it five times in brisk succession;
+and you would suppose I was acquainted with its contents. But the
+commissioner (worthy man) spends his days in doing little else; and when
+we bear in mind the parallel case of the irreverent curate, we need not
+be surprised that he took the passage tempo prestissimo, in one roulade
+of gabble--that I, with the trained attention of an educated man,
+could gather but a fraction of its import--and the sailors nothing.
+No profanity in giving orders, no sheath-knives, Midway Island and any
+other port the master may direct, not to exceed six calendar months,
+and to this port to be paid off: so it seemed to run, with surprising
+verbiage; so ended. And with the end, the commissioner, in each case,
+fetched a deep breath, resumed his natural voice, and proceeded to
+business. "Now, my man," he would say, "you ship A. B. at so many
+dollars, American gold coin. Sign your name here, if you have one, and
+can write." Whereupon, and the name (with infinite hard breathing) being
+signed, the commissioner would proceed to fill in the man's appearance,
+height, etc., on the official form. In this task of literary portraiture
+he seemed to rely wholly upon temperament; for I could not perceive him
+to cast one glance on any of his models. He was assisted, however, by a
+running commentary from the captain: "Hair blue and eyes red, nose
+five foot seven, and stature broken"--jests as old, presumably, as the
+American marine; and, like the similar pleasantries of the billiard
+board, perennially relished. The highest note of humour was reached in
+the case of the Chinese cook, who was shipped under the name of "One
+Lung," to the sound of his own protests and the self-approving chuckles
+of the functionary.
+
+"Now, captain," said the latter, when the men were gone, and he had
+bundled up his papers, "the law requires you to carry a slop-chest and a
+chest of medicines."
+
+"I guess I know that," said Nares.
+
+"I guess you do," returned the commissioner, and helped himself to port.
+
+But when he was gone, I appealed to Nares on the same subject, for I was
+well aware we carried none of these provisions.
+
+"Well," drawled Nares, "there's sixty pounds of niggerhead on the quay,
+isn't there? and twenty pounds of salts; and I never travel without some
+painkiller in my gripsack."
+
+As a matter of fact, we were richer. The captain had the usual sailor's
+provision of quack medicines, with which, in the usual sailor fashion,
+he would daily drug himself, displaying an extreme inconstancy, and
+flitting from Kennedy's Red Discovery to Kennedy's White, and from
+Hood's Sarsaparilla to Mother Seigel's Syrup. And there were, besides,
+some mildewed and half-empty bottles, the labels obliterated, over
+which Nares would sometimes sniff and speculate. "Seems to smell like
+diarrhoea stuff," he would remark. "I wish't I knew, and I would
+try it." But the slop-chest was indeed represented by the plugs of
+niggerhead, and nothing else. Thus paternal laws are made, thus they
+are evaded; and the schooner put to sea, like plenty of her neighbours,
+liable to a fine of six hundred dollars.
+
+This characteristic scene, which has delayed me overlong, was but a
+moment in that day of exercise and agitation. To fit out a schooner for
+sea, and improvise a marriage between dawn and dusk, involves heroic
+effort. All day Jim and I ran, and tramped, and laughed, and came near
+crying, and fell in sudden anxious consultations, and were sped (with
+a prepared sarcasm on our lips) to some fallacious milliner, and made
+dashes to the schooner and John Smith's, and at every second corner
+were reminded (by our own huge posters) of our desperate estate. Between
+whiles, I had found the time to hover at some half-a-dozen jewellers'
+windows; and my present, thus intemperately chosen, was graciously
+accepted. I believe, indeed, that was the last (though not the least) of
+my concerns, before the old minister, shabby and benign, was routed from
+his house and led to the office like a performing poodle; and there, in
+the growing dusk, under the cold glitter of Thirteen Star, two hundred
+strong, and beside the garish glories of the agricultural engine, Mamie
+and Jim were made one. The scene was incongruous, but the business
+pretty, whimsical, and affecting: the typewriters with such kindly faces
+and fine posies, Mamie so demure, and Jim--how shall I describe that
+poor, transfigured Jim? He began by taking the minister aside to the far
+end of the office. I knew not what he said, but I have reason to believe
+he was protesting his unfitness; for he wept as he said it: and the old
+minister, himself genuinely moved, was heard to console and encourage
+him, and at one time to use this expression: "I assure you, Mr.
+Pinkerton, there are not many who can say so much"--from which I
+gathered that my friend had tempered his self-accusations with at least
+one legitimate boast. From this ghostly counselling, Jim turned to me;
+and though he never got beyond the explosive utterance of my name and
+one fierce handgrip, communicated some of his own emotion, like a charge
+of electricity, to his best man. We stood up to the ceremony at last,
+in a general and kindly discomposure. Jim was all abroad; and the divine
+himself betrayed his sympathy in voice and demeanour, and concluded with
+a fatherly allocution, in which he congratulated Mamie (calling her "my
+dear") upon the fortune of an excellent husband, and protested he had
+rarely married a more interesting couple. At this stage, like a glory
+descending, there was handed in, ex machina, the card of Douglas B.
+Longhurst, with congratulations and four dozen Perrier-Jouet. A bottle
+was opened; and the minister pledged the bride, and the bridesmaids
+simpered and tasted, and I made a speech with airy bacchanalianism,
+glass in hand. But poor Jim must leave the wine untasted. "Don't touch
+it," I had found the opportunity to whisper; "in your state it will make
+you as drunk as a fiddler." And Jim had wrung my hand with a "God bless
+you, Loudon!--saved me again!"
+
+Hard following upon this, the supper passed off at Frank's with somewhat
+tremulous gaiety. And thence, with one half of the Perrier-Jouet--I
+would accept no more--we voyaged in a hack to the Norah Creina.
+
+"What a dear little ship!" cried Mamie, as our miniature craft was
+pointed out to her. And then, on second thought, she turned to the best
+man. "And how brave you must be, Mr. Dodd," she cried, "to go in that
+tiny thing so far upon the ocean!" And I perceived I had risen in the
+lady's estimation.
+
+The dear little ship presented a horrid picture of confusion, and its
+occupants of weariness and ill-humour. From the cabin the cook was
+storing tins into the lazarette, and the four hands, sweaty and sullen,
+were passing them from one to another from the waist. Johnson was three
+parts asleep over the table; and in his bunk, in his own cabin, the
+captain sourly chewed and puffed at a cigar.
+
+"See here," he said, rising; "you'll be sorry you came. We can't stop
+work if we're to get away to-morrow. A ship getting ready for sea is no
+place for people, anyway. You'll only interrupt my men."
+
+I was on the point of answering something tart; but Jim, who was
+acquainted with the breed, as he was with most things that had a bearing
+on affairs, made haste to pour in oil.
+
+"Captain," he said, "I know we're a nuisance here, and that you've had
+a rough time. But all we want is that you should drink one glass of wine
+with us, Perrier-Jouet, from Longhurst, on the occasion of my marriage,
+and Loudon's--Mr. Dodd's--departure."
+
+"Well, it's your lookout," said Nares. "I don't mind half an hour.
+Spell, O!" he added to the men; "go and kick your heels for half an
+hour, and then you can turn to again a trifle livelier. Johnson, see if
+you can't wipe off a chair for the lady."
+
+His tone was no more gracious than his language; but when Mamie had
+turned upon him the soft fire of her eyes, and informed him that he was
+the first sea-captain she had ever met, "except captains of steamers,
+of course"--she so qualified the statement--and had expressed a lively
+sense of his courage, and perhaps implied (for I suppose the arts of
+ladies are the same as those of men) a modest consciousness of his good
+looks, our bear began insensibly to soften; and it was already part
+as an apology, though still with unaffected heat of temper, that he
+volunteered some sketch of his annoyances.
+
+"A pretty mess we've had!" said he. "Half the stores were wrong; I'll
+wring John Smith's neck for him some of these days. Then two newspaper
+beasts came down, and tried to raise copy out of me, till I threatened
+them with the first thing handy; and then some kind of missionary bug,
+wanting to work his passage to Raiatea or somewhere. I told him I would
+take him off the wharf with the butt end of my boot, and he went away
+cursing. This vessel's been depreciated by the look of him."
+
+While the captain spoke, with his strange, humorous, arrogant
+abruptness, I observed Jim to be sizing him up, like a thing at once
+quaint and familiar, and with a scrutiny that was both curious and
+knowing.
+
+"One word, dear boy," he said, turning suddenly to me. And when he had
+drawn me on deck, "That man," says he, "will carry sail till your hair
+grows white; but never you let on, never breathe a word. I know his
+line: he'll die before he'll take advice; and if you get his back up,
+he'll run you right under. I don't often jam in my advice, Loudon; and
+when I do, it means I'm thoroughly posted."
+
+The little party in the cabin, so disastrously begun, finished, under
+the mellowing influence of wine and woman, in excellent feeling and
+with some hilarity. Mamie, in a plush Gainsborough hat and a gown of
+wine-coloured silk, sat, an apparent queen, among her rude surroundings
+and companions. The dusky litter of the cabin set off her radiant
+trimness: tarry Johnson was a foil to her fair beauty; she glowed in
+that poor place, fair as a star; until even I, who was not usually of
+her admirers, caught a spark of admiration; and even the captain, who
+was in no courtly humour, proposed that the scene should be commemorated
+by my pencil. It was the last act of the evening. Hurriedly as I went
+about my task, the half-hour had lengthened out to more than three
+before it was completed: Mamie in full value, the rest of the party
+figuring in outline only, and the artist himself introduced in a back
+view, which was pronounced a likeness. But it was to Mamie that I
+devoted the best of my attention; and it was with her I made my chief
+success.
+
+"O!" she cried, "am I really like that? No wonder Jim ..." She paused.
+"Why it's just as lovely as he's good!" she cried: an epigram which was
+appreciated, and repeated as we made our salutations, and called out
+after the retreating couple as they passed away under the lamplight on
+the wharf.
+
+Thus it was that our farewells were smuggled through under an ambuscade
+of laughter, and the parting over ere I knew it was begun. The figures
+vanished, the steps died away along the silent city front; on board, the
+men had returned to their labours, the captain to his solitary cigar;
+and after that long and complex day of business and emotion, I was at
+last alone and free. It was, perhaps, chiefly fatigue that made my heart
+so heavy. I leaned at least upon the house, and stared at the foggy
+heaven, or over the rail at the wavering reflection of the lamps, like a
+man that was quite done with hope and would have welcomed the asylum of
+the grave. And all at once, as I thus stood, the City of Pekin flashed
+into my mind, racing her thirteen knots for Honolulu, with the hated
+Trent--perhaps with the mysterious Goddedaal--on board; and with the
+thought, the blood leaped and careered through all my body. It seemed no
+chase at all; it seemed we had no chance, as we lay there bound to iron
+pillars, and fooling away the precious moments over tins of beans. "Let
+them get there first!" I thought. "Let them! We can't be long behind."
+And from that moment, I date myself a man of a rounded experience:
+nothing had lacked but this, that I should entertain and welcome the
+grim thought of bloodshed.
+
+It was long before the toil remitted in the cabin, and it was worth
+my while to get to bed; long after that, before sleep favoured me;
+and scarce a moment later (or so it seemed) when I was recalled to
+consciousness by bawling men and the jar of straining hawsers.
+
+The schooner was cast off before I got on deck. In the misty obscurity
+of the first dawn, I saw the tug heading us with glowing fires and
+blowing smoke, and heard her beat the roughened waters of the bay.
+Beside us, on her flock of hills, the lighted city towered up and
+stood swollen in the raw fog. It was strange to see her burn on thus
+wastefully, with half-quenched luminaries, when the dawn was already
+grown strong enough to show me, and to suffer me to recognise, a
+solitary figure standing by the piles.
+
+Or was it really the eye, and not rather the heart, that identified that
+shadow in the dusk, among the shoreside lamps? I know not. It was Jim,
+at least; Jim, come for a last look; and we had but time to wave a
+valedictory gesture and exchange a wordless cry. This was our second
+parting, and our capacities were now reversed. It was mine to play the
+Argonaut, to speed affairs, to plan and to accomplish--if need were, at
+the price of life; it was his to sit at home, to study the calendar, and
+to wait. I knew besides another thing that gave me joy. I knew that my
+friend had succeeded in my education; that the romance of business,
+if our fantastic purchase merited the name, had at last stirred my
+dilletante nature; and, as we swept under cloudy Tamalpais and through
+the roaring narrows of the bay, the Yankee blood sang in my veins with
+suspense and exultation.
+
+Outside the heads, as if to meet my desire, we found it blowing fresh
+from the northeast. No time had been lost. The sun was not yet up before
+the tug cast off the hawser, gave us a salute of three whistles, and
+turned homeward toward the coast, which now began to gleam along its
+margin with the earliest rays of day. There was no other ship in view
+when the Norah Creina, lying over under all plain sail, began her long
+and lonely voyage to the wreck.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. THE "NORAH CREINA."
+
+
+I love to recall the glad monotony of a Pacific voyage, when the trades
+are not stinted, and the ship, day after day, goes free. The mountain
+scenery of trade-wind clouds, watched (and in my case painted) under
+every vicissitude of light--blotting stars, withering in the moon's
+glory, barring the scarlet eve, lying across the dawn collapsed into the
+unfeatured morning bank, or at noon raising their snowy summits between
+the blue roof of heaven and the blue floor of sea; the small, busy,
+and deliberate world of the schooner, with its unfamiliar scenes, the
+spearing of dolphin from the bowsprit end, the holy war on sharks,
+the cook making bread on the main hatch; reefing down before a violent
+squall, with the men hanging out on the foot-ropes; the squall itself,
+the catch at the heart, the opened sluices of the sky; and the relief,
+the renewed loveliness of life, when all is over, the sun forth again,
+and our out-fought enemy only a blot upon the leeward sea. I love to
+recall, and would that I could reproduce that life, the unforgettable,
+the unrememberable. The memory, which shows so wise a backwardness
+in registering pain, is besides an imperfect recorder of extended
+pleasures; and a long-continued well-being escapes (as it were, by its
+mass) our petty methods of commemoration. On a part of our life's map
+there lies a roseate, undecipherable haze, and that is all.
+
+Of one thing, if I am at all to trust my own annals, I was delightedly
+conscious. Day after day, in the sun-gilded cabin, the whiskey-dealer's
+thermometer stood at 84. Day after day, the air had the same
+indescribable liveliness and sweetness, soft and nimble, and cool as
+the cheek of health. Day after day the sun flamed; night after night the
+moon beaconed, or the stars paraded their lustrous regiment. I was aware
+of a spiritual change, or, perhaps, rather a molecular reconstitution.
+My bones were sweeter to me. I had come home to my own climate, and
+looked back with pity on those damp and wintry zones, miscalled the
+temperate.
+
+"Two years of this, and comfortable quarters to live in, kind of shake
+the grit out of a man," the captain remarked; "can't make out to be
+happy anywhere else. A townie of mine was lost down this way, in a
+coalship that took fire at sea. He struck the beach somewhere in the
+Navigators; and he wrote to me that when he left the place, it would be
+feet first. He's well off, too, and his father owns some coasting
+craft Down East; but Billy prefers the beach, and hot rolls off the
+bread-fruit trees."
+
+A voice told me I was on the same track as Billy. But when was this? Our
+outward track in the Norah Creina lay well to the northward; and perhaps
+it is but the impression of a few pet days which I have unconsciously
+spread longer, or perhaps the feeling grew upon me later, in the run to
+Honolulu. One thing I am sure: it was before I had ever seen an island
+worthy of the name that I must date my loyalty to the South Seas. The
+blank sea itself grew desirable under such skies; and wherever the
+trade-wind blows, I know no better country than a schooner's deck.
+
+But for the tugging anxiety as to the journey's end, the journey itself
+must thus have counted for the best of holidays. My physical well-being
+was over-proof; effects of sea and sky kept me for ever busy with my
+pencil; and I had no lack of intellectual exercise of a different order
+in the study of my inconsistent friend, the captain. I call him friend,
+here on the threshold; but that is to look well ahead. At first, I
+was too much horrified by what I considered his barbarities, too much
+puzzled by his shifting humours, and too frequently annoyed by his small
+vanities, to regard him otherwise than as the cross of my existence. It
+was only by degrees, in his rare hours of pleasantness, when he forgot
+(and made me forget) the weaknesses to which he was so prone, that he
+won me to a kind of unconsenting fondness. Lastly, the faults were
+all embraced in a more generous view: I saw them in their place, like
+discords in a musical progression; and accepted them and found them
+picturesque, as we accept and admire, in the habitable face of nature,
+the smoky head of the volcano or the pernicious thicket of the swamp.
+
+He was come of good people Down East, and had the beginnings of a
+thorough education. His temper had been ungovernable from the first; and
+it is likely the defect was inherited, and the blame of the rupture
+not entirely his. He ran away at least to sea; suffered horrible
+maltreatment, which seemed to have rather hardened than enlightened him;
+ran away again to shore in a South American port; proved his capacity
+and made money, although still a child; fell among thieves and was
+robbed; worked back a passage to the States, and knocked one morning
+at the door of an old lady whose orchard he had often robbed. The
+introduction appears insufficient; but Nares knew what he was doing.
+The sight of her old neighbourly depredator shivering at the door in
+tatters, the very oddity of his appeal, touched a soft spot in the
+spinster's heart. "I always had a fancy for the old lady," Nares said,
+"even when she used to stampede me out of the orchard, and shake her
+thimble and her old curls at me out of the window as I was going by; I
+always thought she was a kind of pleasant old girl. Well, when she came
+to the door that morning, I told her so, and that I was stone-broke; and
+she took me right in, and fetched out the pie." She clothed him, taught
+him, and had him to sea again in better shape, welcomed him to her
+hearth on his return from every cruise, and when she died bequeathed him
+her possessions. "She was a good old girl," he would say. "I tell you,
+Mr. Dodd, it was a queer thing to see me and the old lady talking a
+pasear in the garden, and the old man scowling at us over the pickets.
+She lived right next door to the old man, and I guess that's just what
+took me there. I wanted him to know that I was badly beat, you see, and
+would rather go to the devil than to him. What made the dig harder, he
+had quarrelled with the old lady about me and the orchard: I guess that
+made him rage. Yes, I was a beast when I was young. But I was always
+pretty good to the old lady." Since then he had prospered, not
+uneventfully, in his profession; the old lady's money had fallen in
+during the voyage of the Gleaner, and he was now, as soon as the smoke
+of that engagement cleared away, secure of his ship. I suppose he was
+about thirty: a powerful, active man, with a blue eye, a thick head
+of hair, about the colour of oakum and growing low over the brow;
+clean-shaved and lean about the jaw; a good singer; a good performer on
+that sea-instrument, the accordion; a quick observer, a close reasoner;
+when he pleased, of a really elegant address; and when he chose, the
+greatest brute upon the seas.
+
+His usage of the men, his hazing, his bullying, his perpetual
+fault-finding for no cause, his perpetual and brutal sarcasm, might have
+raised a mutiny in a slave galley. Suppose the steersman's eye to have
+wandered: "You ----, ----, little, mutton-faced Dutchman," Nares would
+bawl; "you want a booting to keep you on your course! I know a little
+city-front slush when I see one. Just you glue your eye to that compass,
+or I'll show you round the vessel at the butt-end of my boot." Or
+suppose a hand to linger aft, whither he had perhaps been summoned not
+a minute before. "Mr. Daniells, will you oblige me by stepping clear
+of that main-sheet?" the captain might begin, with truculent courtesy.
+"Thank you. And perhaps you'll be so kind as to tell me what the hell
+you're doing on my quarter-deck? I want no dirt of your sort here. Is
+there nothing for you to do? Where's the mate? Don't you set ME to find
+work for you, or I'll find you some that will keep you on your back a
+fortnight." Such allocutions, conceived with a perfect knowledge of his
+audience, so that every insult carried home, were delivered with a mien
+so menacing, and an eye so fiercely cruel, that his unhappy subordinates
+shrank and quailed. Too often violence followed; too often I have heard
+and seen and boiled at the cowardly aggression; and the victim, his
+hands bound by law, has risen again from deck and crawled forward
+stupefied--I know not what passion of revenge in his wronged heart.
+
+It seems strange I should have grown to like this tyrant. It may even
+seem strange that I should have stood by and suffered his excesses to
+proceed. But I was not quite such a chicken as to interfere in public;
+for I would rather have a man or two mishandled than one half of
+us butchered in a mutiny and the rest suffer on the gallows. And in
+private, I was unceasing in my protests.
+
+"Captain," I once said to him, appealing to his patriotism, which was
+of a hardy quality, "this is no way to treat American seamen. You don't
+call it American to treat men like dogs?"
+
+"Americans?" he said grimly. "Do you call these Dutchmen and
+Scattermouches [1] Americans? I've been fourteen years to sea, all but
+one trip under American colours, and I've never laid eye on an American
+foremast hand. There used to be such things in the old days, when
+thirty-five dollars were the wages out of Boston; and then you could see
+ships handled and run the way they want to be. But that's all past and
+gone; and nowadays the only thing that flies in an American ship is a
+belaying-pin. You don't know; you haven't a guess. How would you like to
+go on deck for your middle watch, fourteen months on end, with all your
+duty to do and every one's life depending on you, and expect to get
+a knife ripped into you as you come out of your stateroom, or be
+sand-bagged as you pass the boat, or get tripped into the hold, if the
+hatches are off in fine weather? That kind of shakes the starch out of
+the brotherly love and New Jerusalem business. You go through the mill,
+and you'll have a bigger grudge against every old shellback that dirties
+his plate in the three oceans, than the Bank of California could settle
+up. No; it has an ugly look to it, but the only way to run a ship is to
+make yourself a terror."
+
+[1] In sea-lingo (Pacific) DUTCHMAN includes all Teutons and folk from
+the basin of the Baltic; SCATTERMOUCH, all Latins and Levantines.
+
+"Come, Captain," said I, "there are degrees in everything. You know
+American ships have a bad name; you know perfectly well if it wasn't for
+the high wage and the good food, there's not a man would ship in one if
+he could help; and even as it is, some prefer a British ship, beastly
+food and all."
+
+"O, the lime-juicers?" said he. "There's plenty booting in lime-juicers,
+I guess; though I don't deny but what some of them are soft." And with
+that he smiled like a man recalling something. "Look here, that brings
+a yarn in my head," he resumed; "and for the sake of the joke, I'll give
+myself away. It was in 1874, I shipped mate in the British ship Maria,
+from 'Frisco for Melbourne. She was the queerest craft in some ways that
+ever I was aboard of. The food was a caution; there was nothing fit
+to put your lips to--but the lime-juice, which was from the end bin no
+doubt: it used to make me sick to see the men's dinners, and sorry to
+see my own. The old man was good enough, I guess; Green was his name;
+a mild, fatherly old galoot. But the hands were the lowest gang I ever
+handled; and whenever I tried to knock a little spirit into them, the
+old man took their part! It was Gilbert and Sullivan on the high seas;
+but you bet I wouldn't let any man dictate to me. 'You give me your
+orders, Captain Green,' I said, 'and you'll find I'll carry them out;
+that's all you've got to say. You'll find I do my duty,' I said; 'how
+I do it is my lookout; and there's no man born that's going to give
+me lessons.' Well, there was plenty dirt on board that Maria first and
+last. Of course, the old man put my back up, and, of course, he put up
+the crew's; and I had to regular fight my way through every watch. The
+men got to hate me, so's I would hear them grit their teeth when I came
+up. At last, one day, I saw a big hulking beast of a Dutchman booting
+the ship's boy. I made one shoot of it off the house and laid that
+Dutchman out. Up he came, and I laid him out again. 'Now,' I said, 'if
+there's a kick left in you, just mention it, and I'll stamp your ribs
+in like a packing-case.' He thought better of it, and never let on;
+lay there as mild as a deacon at a funeral; and they took him below to
+reflect on his native Dutchland. One night we got caught in rather a
+dirty thing about 25 south. I guess we were all asleep; for the first
+thing I knew there was the fore-royal gone. I ran forward, bawling blue
+hell; and just as I came by the foremast, something struck me right
+through the forearm and stuck there. I put my other hand up, and by
+George! it was the grain; the beasts had speared me like a porpoise.
+'Cap'n!' I cried.--'What's wrong?' says he.--'They've grained me,' says
+I.--'Grained you?' says he. 'Well, I've been looking for that.'----'And
+by God,' I cried, 'I want to have some of these beasts murdered for
+it!'--'Now, Mr. Nares,' says he, 'you better go below. If I had been one
+of the men, you'd have got more than this. And I want no more of your
+language on deck. You've cost me my fore-royal already,' says he; 'and
+if you carry on, you'll have the three sticks out of her.' That was old
+man Green's idea of supporting officers. But you wait a bit; the cream's
+coming. We made Melbourne right enough, and the old man said: 'Mr.
+Nares, you and me don't draw together. You're a first-rate seaman, no
+mistake of that; but you're the most disagreeable man I ever sailed
+with; and your language and your conduct to the crew I cannot stomach.
+I guess we'll separate.' I didn't care about the berth, you may be sure;
+but I felt kind of mean; and if he made one kind of stink, I thought
+I could make another. So I said I would go ashore and see how things
+stood; went, found I was all right, and came aboard again on the top
+rail.--'Are you getting your traps together, Mr. Nares?' says the old
+man.--'No,' says I, 'I don't know as we'll separate much before 'Frisco;
+at least,' I said, 'it's a point for your consideration. I'm very
+willing to say good-by to the Maria, but I don't know whether you'll
+care to start me out with three months' wages.' He got his money-box
+right away. 'My son,' says he, 'I think it cheap at the money.' He had
+me there."
+
+
+It was a singular tale for a man to tell of himself; above all, in the
+midst of our discussion; but it was quite in character for Nares. I
+never made a good hit in our disputes, I never justly resented any act
+or speech of his, but what I found it long after carefully posted in his
+day-book and reckoned (here was the man's oddity) to my credit. It was
+the same with his father, whom he had hated; he would give a sketch of
+the old fellow, frank and credible, and yet so honestly touched that
+it was charming. I have never met a man so strangely constituted: to
+possess a reason of the most equal justice, to have his nerves at the
+same time quivering with petty spite, and to act upon the nerves and not
+the reason.
+
+A kindred wonder in my eyes was the nature of his courage. There was
+never a braver man: he went out to welcome danger; an emergency (came it
+never so sudden) strung him like a tonic. And yet, upon the other hand,
+I have known none so nervous, so oppressed with possibilities, looking
+upon the world at large, and the life of a sailor in particular, with
+so constant and haggard a consideration of the ugly chances. All
+his courage was in blood, not merely cold, but icy with reasoned
+apprehension. He would lay our little craft rail under, and "hang on" in
+a squall, until I gave myself up for lost, and the men were rushing
+to their stations of their own accord. "There," he would say, "I guess
+there's not a man on board would have hung on as long as I did that
+time; they'll have to give up thinking me no schooner sailor. I guess
+I can shave just as near capsizing as any other captain of this vessel,
+drunk or sober." And then he would fall to repining and wishing himself
+well out of the enterprise, and dilate on the peril of the seas, the
+particular dangers of the schooner rig, which he abhorred, the various
+ways in which we might go to the bottom, and the prodigious fleet of
+ships that have sailed out in the course of history, dwindled from the
+eyes of watchers, and returned no more. "Well," he would wind up, "I
+guess it don't much matter. I can't see what any one wants to live for,
+anyway. If I could get into some one else's apple-tree, and be about
+twelve years old, and just stick the way I was, eating stolen apples, I
+won't say. But there's no sense in this grown-up business--sailorising,
+politics, the piety mill, and all the rest of it. Good clean drowning is
+good enough for me." It is hard to imagine any more depressing talk for
+a poor landsman on a dirty night; it is hard to imagine anything less
+sailor-like (as sailors are supposed to be, and generally are) than this
+persistent harping on the minor.
+
+
+But I was to see more of the man's gloomy constancy ere the cruise was
+at an end.
+
+On the morning of the seventeenth day I came on deck, to find the
+schooner under double reefs, and flying rather wild before a heavy run
+of sea. Snoring trades and humming sails had been our portion hitherto.
+We were already nearing the island. My restrained excitement had begun
+again to overmaster me; and for some time my only book had been the
+patent log that trailed over the taffrail, and my chief interest the
+daily observation and our caterpillar progress across the chart. My
+first glance, which was at the compass, and my second, which was at the
+log, were all that I could wish. We lay our course; we had been doing
+over eight since nine the night before; and I drew a heavy breath of
+satisfaction. And then I know not what odd and wintry appearance of the
+sea and sky knocked suddenly at my heart. I observed the schooner
+to look more than usually small, the men silent and studious of the
+weather. Nares, in one of his rusty humours, afforded me no shadow of a
+morning salutation. He, too, seemed to observe the behaviour of the ship
+with an intent and anxious scrutiny. What I liked still less, Johnson
+himself was at the wheel, which he span busily, often with a visible
+effort; and as the seas ranged up behind us, black and imminent, he kept
+casting behind him eyes of animal swiftness, and drawing in his neck
+between his shoulders, like a man dodging a blow. From these signs, I
+gathered that all was not exactly for the best; and I would have given
+a good handful of dollars for a plain answer to the questions which
+I dared not put. Had I dared, with the present danger signal in the
+captain's face, I should only have been reminded of my position as
+supercargo--an office never touched upon in kindness--and advised, in
+a very indigestible manner, to go below. There was nothing for it,
+therefore, but to entertain my vague apprehensions as best I should be
+able, until it pleased the captain to enlighten me of his own accord.
+This he did sooner than I had expected; as soon, indeed, as the Chinaman
+had summoned us to breakfast, and we sat face to face across the narrow
+board.
+
+"See here, Mr. Dodd," he began, looking at me rather queerly, "here is a
+business point arisen. This sea's been running up for the last two days,
+and now it's too high for comfort. The glass is falling, the wind is
+breezing up, and I won't say but what there's dirt in it. If I lay her
+to, we may have to ride out a gale of wind and drift God knows where--on
+these French Frigate Shoals, for instance. If I keep her as she goes,
+we'll make that island to-morrow afternoon, and have the lee of it to
+lie under, if we can't make out to run in. The point you have to figure
+on, is whether you'll take the big chances of that Captain Trent making
+the place before you, or take the risk of something happening. I'm
+to run this ship to your satisfaction," he added, with an ugly sneer.
+"Well, here's a point for the supercargo."
+
+"Captain," I returned, with my heart in my mouth, "risk is better than
+certain failure."
+
+"Life is all risk, Mr. Dodd," he remarked. "But there's one thing: it's
+now or never; in half an hour, Archdeacon Gabriel couldn't lay her to,
+if he came down stairs on purpose."
+
+"All right," said I. "Let's run."
+
+"Run goes," said he; and with that he fell to breakfast, and passed half
+an hour in stowing away pie and devoutly wishing himself back in San
+Francisco.
+
+When we came on deck again, he took the wheel from Johnson--it appears
+they could trust none among the hands--and I stood close beside him,
+feeling safe in this proximity, and tasting a fearful joy from our
+surroundings and the consciousness of my decision. The breeze had
+already risen, and as it tore over our heads, it uttered at times a
+long hooting note that sent my heart into my boots. The sea pursued
+us without remission, leaping to the assault of the low rail. The
+quarter-deck was all awash, and we must close the companion doors.
+
+"And all this, if you please, for Mr. Pinkerton's dollars!" the captain
+suddenly exclaimed. "There's many a fine fellow gone under, Mr. Dodd,
+because of drivers like your friend. What do they care for a ship or
+two? Insured, I guess. What do they care for sailors' lives alongside
+of a few thousand dollars? What they want is speed between ports, and
+a damned fool of a captain that'll drive a ship under as I'm doing this
+one. You can put in the morning, asking why I do it."
+
+I sheered off to another part of the vessel as fast as civility
+permitted. This was not at all the talk that I desired, nor was the
+train of reflection which it started anyway welcome. Here I was, running
+some hazard of my life, and perilling the lives of seven others; exactly
+for what end, I was now at liberty to ask myself. For a very large
+amount of a very deadly poison, was the obvious answer; and I thought
+if all tales were true, and I were soon to be subjected to
+cross-examination at the bar of Eternal Justice, it was one which would
+not increase my popularity with the court. "Well, never mind, Jim,"
+thought I. "I'm doing it for you."
+
+Before eleven, a third reef was taken in the mainsail; and Johnson
+filled the cabin with a storm-sail of No. 1 duck and sat cross-legged
+on the streaming floor, vigorously putting it to rights with a couple of
+the hands. By dinner I had fled the deck, and sat in the bench corner,
+giddy, dumb, and stupefied with terror. The frightened leaps of the
+poor Norah Creina, spanking like a stag for bare existence, bruised me
+between the table and the berths. Overhead, the wild huntsman of the
+storm passed continuously in one blare of mingled noises; screaming
+wind, straining timber, lashing rope's end, pounding block and bursting
+sea contributed; and I could have thought there was at times another, a
+more piercing, a more human note, that dominated all, like the wailing
+of an angel; I could have thought I knew the angel's name, and that his
+wings were black. It seemed incredible that any creature of man's art
+could long endure the barbarous mishandling of the seas, kicked as the
+schooner was from mountain side to mountain side, beaten and blown upon
+and wrenched in every joint and sinew, like a child upon the rack. There
+was not a plank of her that did not cry aloud for mercy; and as she
+continued to hold together, I became conscious of a growing sympathy
+with her endeavours, a growing admiration for her gallant staunchness,
+that amused and at times obliterated my terrors for myself. God bless
+every man that swung a mallet on that tiny and strong hull! It was not
+for wages only that he laboured, but to save men's lives.
+
+All the rest of the day, and all the following night, I sat in the
+corner or lay wakeful in my bunk; and it was only with the return of
+morning that a new phase of my alarms drove me once more on deck. A
+gloomier interval I never passed. Johnson and Nares steadily relieved
+each other at the wheel and came below. The first glance of each was
+at the glass, which he repeatedly knuckled and frowned upon; for it was
+sagging lower all the time. Then, if Johnson were the visitor, he would
+pick a snack out of the cupboard, and stand, braced against the table,
+eating it, and perhaps obliging me with a word or two of his hee-haw
+conversation: how it was "a son of a gun of a cold night on deck, Mr.
+Dodd" (with a grin); how "it wasn't no night for panjammers, he could
+tell me": having transacted all which, he would throw himself down
+in his bunk and sleep his two hours with compunction. But the captain
+neither ate nor slept. "You there, Mr. Dodd?" he would say, after the
+obligatory visit to the glass. "Well, my son, we're one hundred and four
+miles" (or whatever it was) "off the island, and scudding for all we're
+worth. We'll make it to-morrow about four, or not, as the case may be.
+That's the news. And now, Mr. Dodd, I've stretched a point for you;
+you can see I'm dead tired; so just you stretch away back to your bunk
+again." And with this attempt at geniality, his teeth would settle
+hard down on his cigar, and he would pass his spell below staring and
+blinking at the cabin lamp through a cloud of tobacco smoke. He has
+told me since that he was happy, which I should never have divined. "You
+see," he said, "the wind we had was never anything out of the way; but
+the sea was really nasty, the schooner wanted a lot of humouring, and
+it was clear from the glass that we were close to some dirt. We might
+be running out of it, or we might be running right crack into it. Well,
+there's always something sublime about a big deal like that; and it kind
+of raises a man in his own liking. We're a queer kind of beasts, Mr.
+Dodd."
+
+The morning broke with sinister brightness; the air alarmingly
+transparent, the sky pure, the rim of the horizon clear and strong
+against the heavens. The wind and the wild seas, now vastly swollen,
+indefatigably hunted us. I stood on deck, choking with fear; I seemed
+to lose all power upon my limbs; my knees were as paper when she plunged
+into the murderous valleys; my heart collapsed when some black mountain
+fell in avalanche beside her counter, and the water, that was more than
+spray, swept round my ankles like a torrent. I was conscious of but
+one strong desire, to bear myself decently in my terrors, and whatever
+should happen to my life, preserve my character: as the captain said,
+we are a queer kind of beasts. Breakfast time came, and I made shift
+to swallow some hot tea. Then I must stagger below to take the time,
+reading the chronometer with dizzy eyes, and marvelling the while what
+value there could be in observations taken in a ship launched (as ours
+then was) like a missile among flying seas. The forenoon dragged on in
+a grinding monotony of peril; every spoke of the wheel a rash, but an
+obliged experiment--rash as a forlorn hope, needful as the leap that
+lands a fireman from a burning staircase. Noon was made; the captain
+dined on his day's work, and I on watching him; and our place was
+entered on the chart with a meticulous precision which seemed to me
+half pitiful and half absurd, since the next eye to behold that sheet of
+paper might be the eye of an exploring fish. One o'clock came, then two;
+the captain gloomed and chafed, as he held to the coaming of the house,
+and if ever I saw dormant murder in man's eye, it was in his. God help
+the hand that should have disobeyed him.
+
+Of a sudden, he turned towards the mate, who was doing his trick at the
+wheel.
+
+"Two points on the port bow," I heard him say. And he took the wheel
+himself.
+
+Johnson nodded, wiped his eyes with the back of his wet hand, watched a
+chance as the vessel lunged up hill, and got to the main rigging, where
+he swarmed aloft. Up and up, I watched him go, hanging on at every
+ugly plunge, gaining with every lull of the schooner's movement, until,
+clambering into the cross-trees and clinging with one arm around the
+masts, I could see him take one comprehensive sweep of the southwesterly
+horizon. The next moment, he had slid down the backstay and stood on
+deck, with a grin, a nod, and a gesture of the finger that said "yes";
+the next again, and he was back sweating and squirming at the wheel, his
+tired face streaming and smiling, and his hair and the rags and corners
+of his clothes lashing round him in the wind.
+
+Nares went below, fetched up his binocular, and fell into a silent
+perusal of the sea-line; I also, with my unaided eyesight. Little by
+little, in that white waste of water, I began to make out a quarter
+where the whiteness appeared more condensed: the sky above was whitish
+likewise, and misty like a squall; and little by little there thrilled
+upon my ears a note deeper and more terrible than the yelling of the
+gale--the long, thundering roll of breakers. Nares wiped his night glass
+on his sleeve and passed it to me, motioning, as he did so, with his
+hand. An endless wilderness of raging billows came and went and danced
+in the circle of the glass; now and then a pale corner of sky, or the
+strong line of the horizon rugged with the heads of waves; and then of
+a sudden--come and gone ere I could fix it, with a swallow's
+swiftness--one glimpse of what we had come so far and paid so dear to
+see: the masts and rigging of a brig pencilled on heaven, with an ensign
+streaming at the main, and the ragged ribbons of a topsail thrashing
+from the yard. Again and again, with toilful searching, I recalled that
+apparition. There was no sign of any land; the wreck stood between sea
+and sky, a thing the most isolated I had ever viewed; but as we drew
+nearer, I perceived her to be defended by a line of breakers which drew
+off on either hand, and marked, indeed, the nearest segment of the reef.
+Heavy spray hung over them like a smoke, some hundred feet into the air;
+and the sound of their consecutive explosions rolled like a cannonade.
+
+In half an hour we were close in; for perhaps as long again, we skirted
+that formidable barrier toward its farther side; and presently the sea
+began insensibly to moderate and the ship to go more sweetly. We had
+gained the lee of the island as (for form's sake) I may call that ring
+of foam and haze and thunder; and shaking out a reef, wore ship and
+headed for the passage.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. THE ISLAND AND THE WRECK.
+
+
+All hands were filled with joy. It was betrayed in their alacrity and
+easy faces: Johnson smiling broadly at the wheel, Nares studying the
+sketch chart of the island with an eye at peace, and the hands clustered
+forward, eagerly talking and pointing: so manifest was our escape, so
+wonderful the attraction of a single foot of earth after so many suns
+had set and risen on an empty sea. To add to the relief, besides, by one
+of those malicious coincidences which suggest for fate the image of an
+underbred and grinning schoolboy, we had no sooner worn ship than the
+wind began to abate.
+
+For myself, however, I did but exchange anxieties. I was no sooner out
+of one fear than I fell upon another; no sooner secure that I should
+myself make the intended haven, than I began to be convinced that Trent
+was there before me. I climbed into the rigging, stood on the board, and
+eagerly scanned that ring of coral reef and bursting breaker, and the
+blue lagoon which they enclosed. The two islets within began to show
+plainly--Middle Brooks and Lower Brooks Island, the Directory named
+them: two low, bush-covered, rolling strips of sand, each with
+glittering beaches, each perhaps a mile or a mile and a half in length,
+running east and west, and divided by a narrow channel. Over these,
+innumerable as maggots, there hovered, chattered, screamed and clanged,
+millions of twinkling sea-birds: white and black; the black by far the
+largest. With singular scintillations, this vortex of winged life swayed
+to and fro in the strong sunshine, whirled continually through itself,
+and would now and again burst asunder and scatter as wide as the lagoon:
+so that I was irresistibly reminded of what I had read of nebular
+convulsions. A thin cloud overspread the area of the reef and the
+adjacent sea--the dust, as I could not but fancy, of earlier explosions.
+And a little apart, there was yet another focus of centrifugal and
+centripetal flight, where, hard by the deafening line of breakers, her
+sails (all but the tattered topsail) snugly furled down, and the red rag
+that marks Old England on the seas beating, union down, at the main--the
+Flying Scud, the fruit of so many toilers, a recollection in so many
+lives of men, whose tall spars had been mirrored in the remotest corners
+of the sea--lay stationary at last and forever, in the first stage of
+naval dissolution. Towards her, the taut Norah Creina, vulture-wise,
+wriggled to windward: come from so far to pick her bones. And, look as
+I pleased, there was no other presence of man or of man's handiwork;
+no Honolulu schooner lay there crowded with armed rivals, no smoke rose
+from the fire at which I fancied Trent cooking a meal of sea-birds. It
+seemed, after all, we were in time, and I drew a mighty breath.
+
+I had not arrived at this reviving certainty before the breakers were
+already close aboard, the leadsman at his station, and the captain
+posted in the fore cross-trees to con us through the coral lumps of the
+lagoon. All circumstances were in our favour, the light behind, the sun
+low, the wind still fresh and steady, and the tide about the turn. A
+moment later we shot at racing speed betwixt two pier heads of broken
+water; the lead began to be cast, the captain to bawl down his anxious
+directions, the schooner to tack and dodge among the scattered dangers
+of the lagoon; and at one bell in the first dog watch, we had come
+to our anchor off the north-east end of Middle Brooks Island, in five
+fathoms water. The sails were gasketted and covered, the boats emptied
+of the miscellaneous stores and odds and ends of sea-furniture, that
+accumulate in the course of a voyage, the kedge sent ashore, and the
+decks tidied down: a good three-quarters of an hour's work, during
+which I raged about the deck like a man with a strong toothache. The
+transition from the wild sea to the comparative immobility of the lagoon
+had wrought strange distress among my nerves: I could not hold still
+whether in hand or foot; the slowness of the men, tired as dogs after
+our rough experience outside, irritated me like something personal; and
+the irrational screaming of the sea-birds saddened me like a dirge. It
+was a relief when, with Nares, and a couple of hands, I might drop into
+the boat and move off at last for the Flying Scud.
+
+"She looks kind of pitiful, don't she?" observed the captain, nodding
+towards the wreck, from which we were separated by some half a mile.
+"Looks as if she didn't like her berth, and Captain Trent had used her
+badly. Give her ginger, boys!" he added to the hands, "and you can all
+have shore liberty to-night to see the birds and paint the town red."
+
+We all laughed at the pleasantry, and the boat skimmed the faster over
+the rippling face of the lagoon. The Flying Scud would have seemed small
+enough beside the wharves of San Francisco, but she was some thrice the
+size of the Norah Creina, which had been so long our continent; and
+as we craned up at her wall-sides, she impressed us with a mountain
+magnitude. She lay head to the reef, where the huge blue wall of the
+rollers was for ever ranging up and crumbling down; and to gain her
+starboard side, we must pass below the stern. The rudder was hard aport,
+and we could read the legend:
+
+     FLYING SCUD
+
+     HULL
+
+On the other side, about the break of the poop, some half a fathom of
+rope ladder trailed over the rail, and by this we made our entrance.
+
+She was a roomy ship inside, with a raised poop standing some three feet
+higher than the deck, and a small forward house, for the men's bunks and
+the galley, just abaft the foremast. There was one boat on the house,
+and another and larger one, in beds on deck, on either hand of it. She
+had been painted white, with tropical economy, outside and in; and we
+found, later on, that the stanchions of the rail, hoops of the scuttle
+but, etc., were picked out with green. At that time, however, when we
+first stepped aboard, all was hidden under the droppings of innumerable
+sea-birds.
+
+The birds themselves gyrated and screamed meanwhile among the rigging;
+and when we looked into the galley, their outrush drove us back.
+Savage-looking fowl they were, savagely beaked, and some of the black
+ones great as eagles. Half-buried in the slush, we were aware of a
+litter of kegs in the waist; and these, on being somewhat cleaned,
+proved to be water beakers and quarter casks of mess beef with some
+colonial brand, doubtless collected there before the Tempest hove in
+sight, and while Trent and his men had no better expectation than to
+strike for Honolulu in the boats. Nothing else was notable on deck,
+save where the loose topsail had played some havoc with the rigging,
+and there hung, and swayed, and sang in the declining wind, a raffle of
+intorted cordage.
+
+With a shyness that was almost awe, Nares and I descended the companion.
+The stair turned upon itself and landed us just forward of a thwart-ship
+bulkhead that cut the poop in two. The fore part formed a kind of
+miscellaneous store-room, with a double-bunked division for the cook (as
+Nares supposed) and second mate. The after part contained, in the midst,
+the main cabin, running in a kind of bow into the curvature of the
+stern; on the port side, a pantry opening forward and a stateroom for
+the mate; and on the starboard, the captain's berth and water-closet.
+Into these we did but glance: the main cabin holding us. It was dark,
+for the sea-birds had obscured the skylight with their droppings; it
+smelt rank and fusty; and it was beset with a loud swarm of flies that
+beat continually in our faces. Supposing them close attendants upon man
+and his broken meat, I marvelled how they had found their way to Midway
+reef; it was sure at least some vessel must have brought them, and that
+long ago, for they had multiplied exceedingly. Part of the floor was
+strewn with a confusion of clothes, books, nautical instruments, odds
+and ends of finery, and such trash as might be expected from the turning
+out of several seamen's chests, upon a sudden emergency and after a
+long cruise. It was strange in that dim cabin, quivering with the near
+thunder of the breakers and pierced with the screaming of the fowls,
+to turn over so many things that other men had coveted, and prized, and
+worn on their warm bodies--frayed old underclothing, pyjamas of strange
+design, duck suits in every stage of rustiness, oil skins, pilot coats,
+bottles of scent, embroidered shirts, jackets of Ponjee silk--clothes
+for the night watch at sea or the day ashore in the hotel verandah; and
+mingled among these, books, cigars, fancy pipes, quantities of
+tobacco, many keys, a rusty pistol, and a sprinkling of cheap
+curiosities--Benares brass, Chinese jars and pictures, and bottles
+of odd shells in cotton, each designed no doubt for somebody at
+home--perhaps in Hull, of which Trent had been a native and his ship a
+citizen.
+
+Thence we turned our attention to the table, which stood spread, as if
+for a meal, with stout ship's crockery and the remains of food--a pot of
+marmalade, dregs of coffee in the mugs, unrecognisable remains of
+foods, bread, some toast, and a tin of condensed milk. The table-cloth,
+originally of a red colour, was stained a dark brown at the captain's
+end, apparently with coffee; at the other end, it had been folded back,
+and a pen and ink-pot stood on the bare table. Stools were here and
+there about the table, irregularly placed, as though the meal had been
+finished and the men smoking and chatting; and one of the stools lay on
+the floor, broken.
+
+"See! they were writing up the log," said Nares, pointing to the
+ink-bottle. "Caught napping, as usual. I wonder if there ever was a
+captain yet, that lost a ship with his log-book up to date? He generally
+has about a month to fill up on a clean break, like Charles Dickens
+and his serial novels.--What a regular, lime-juicer spread!" he added
+contemptuously. "Marmalade--and toast for the old man! Nasty, slovenly
+pigs!"
+
+There was something in this criticism of the absent that jarred upon my
+feelings. I had no love indeed for Captain Trent or any of his vanished
+gang; but the desertion and decay of this once habitable cabin struck me
+hard: the death of man's handiwork is melancholy like the death of man
+himself; and I was impressed with an involuntary and irrational sense of
+tragedy in my surroundings.
+
+"This sickens me," I said. "Let's go on deck and breathe."
+
+The captain nodded. "It IS kind of lonely, isn't it?" he said. "But I
+can't go up till I get the code signals. I want to run up 'Got Left' or
+something, just to brighten up this island home. Captain Trent hasn't
+been here yet, but he'll drop in before long; and it'll cheer him up to
+see a signal on the brig."
+
+"Isn't there some official expression we could use?" I asked, vastly
+taken by the fancy. "'Sold for the benefit of the underwriters: for
+further particulars, apply to J. Pinkerton, Montana Block, S.F.'"
+
+"Well," returned Nares, "I won't say but what an old navy quartermaster
+might telegraph all that, if you gave him a day to do it in and a pound
+of tobacco for himself. But it's above my register. I must try something
+short and sweet: KB, urgent signal, 'Heave all aback'; or LM, urgent,
+'The berth you're now in is not safe'; or what do you say to PQH?--'Tell
+my owners the ship answers remarkably well.'"
+
+"It's premature," I replied; "but it seems calculated to give pain to
+Trent. PQH for me."
+
+The flags were found in Trent's cabin, neatly stored behind a lettered
+grating; Nares chose what he required and (I following) returned on
+deck, where the sun had already dipped, and the dusk was coming.
+
+"Here! don't touch that, you fool!" shouted the captain to one of the
+hands, who was drinking from the scuttle but. "That water's rotten!"
+
+"Beg pardon, sir," replied the man. "Tastes quite sweet."
+
+"Let me see," returned Nares, and he took the dipper and held it to his
+lips. "Yes, it's all right," he said. "Must have rotted and come sweet
+again. Queer, isn't it, Mr. Dodd? Though I've known the same on a Cape
+Horner."
+
+There was something in his intonation that made me look him in the face;
+he stood a little on tiptoe to look right and left about the ship,
+like a man filled with curiosity, and his whole expression and bearing
+testified to some suppressed excitement.
+
+"You don't believe what you're saying!" I broke out.
+
+"O, I don't know but what I do!" he replied, laying a hand upon me
+soothingly. "The thing's very possible. Only, I'm bothered about
+something else."
+
+And with that he called a hand, gave him the code flags, and stepped
+himself to the main signal halliards, which vibrated under the weight of
+the ensign overhead. A minute later, the American colours, which we had
+brought in the boat, replaced the English red, and PQH was fluttering at
+the fore.
+
+"Now, then," said Nares, who had watched the breaking out of his signal
+with the old-maidish particularity of an American sailor, "out with
+those handspikes, and let's see what water there is in the lagoon."
+
+The bars were shoved home; the barbarous cacophony of the clanking pump
+rose in the waist; and streams of ill-smelling water gushed on deck and
+made valleys in the slab guano. Nares leaned on the rail, watching the
+steady stream of bilge as though he found some interest in it.
+
+
+"What is it that bothers you?" I asked.
+
+"Well, I'll tell you one thing shortly," he replied. "But here's
+another. Do you see those boats there, one on the house and two on the
+beds? Well, where is the boat Trent lowered when he lost the hands?"
+
+"Got it aboard again, I suppose," said I.
+
+"Well, if you'll tell me why!" returned the captain.
+
+"Then it must have been another," I suggested.
+
+"She might have carried another on the main hatch, I won't deny,"
+admitted Nares; "but I can't see what she wanted with it, unless it
+was for the old man to go out and play the accordion in, on moonlight
+nights."
+
+"It can't much matter, anyway," I reflected.
+
+"O, I don't suppose it does," said he, glancing over his shoulder at the
+spouting of the scuppers.
+
+"And how long are we to keep up this racket?" I asked. "We're simply
+pumping up the lagoon. Captain Trent himself said she had settled down
+and was full forward."
+
+"Did he?" said Nares, with a significant dryness. And almost as he spoke
+the pumps sucked, and sucked again, and the men threw down their bars.
+"There, what do you make of that?" he asked. "Now, I'll tell, Mr. Dodd,"
+he went on, lowering his voice, but not shifting from his easy attitude
+against the rail, "this ship is as sound as the Norah Creina. I had a
+guess of it before we came aboard, and now I know."
+
+"It's not possible!" I cried. "What do you make of Trent?"
+
+"I don't make anything of Trent; I don't know whether he's a liar or
+only an old wife; I simply tell you what's the fact," said Nares. "And
+I'll tell you something more," he added: "I've taken the ground myself
+in deep-water vessels; I know what I'm saying; and I say that, when
+she first struck and before she bedded down, seven or eight hours' work
+would have got this hooker off, and there's no man that ever went two
+years to sea but must have known it."
+
+
+I could only utter an exclamation.
+
+Nares raised his finger warningly. "Don't let THEM get hold of it," said
+he. "Think what you like, but say nothing."
+
+I glanced round; the dusk was melting into early night; the twinkle of
+a lantern marked the schooner's position in the distance; and our men,
+free from further labour, stood grouped together in the waist, their
+faces illuminated by their glowing pipes.
+
+"Why didn't Trent get her off?" inquired the captain. "Why did he want
+to buy her back in 'Frisco for these fabulous sums, when he might have
+sailed her into the bay himself?"
+
+"Perhaps he never knew her value until then," I suggested.
+
+"I wish we knew her value now," exclaimed Nares. "However, I don't want
+to depress you; I'm sorry for you, Mr. Dodd; I know how bothering it
+must be to you; and the best I can say's this: I haven't taken much
+time getting down, and now I'm here I mean to work this thing in proper
+style. I just want to put your mind at rest: you shall have no trouble
+with me."
+
+There was something trusty and friendly in his voice; and I found myself
+gripping hands with him, in that hard, short shake that means so much
+with English-speaking people.
+
+"We'll do, old fellow," said he. "We've shaken down into pretty good
+friends, you and me; and you won't find me working the business any the
+less hard for that. And now let's scoot for supper."
+
+After supper, with the idle curiosity of the seafarer, we pulled ashore
+in a fine moonlight, and landed on Middle Brook's Island. A flat beach
+surrounded it upon all sides; and the midst was occupied by a thicket
+of bushes, the highest of them scarcely five feet high, in which the
+sea-fowl lived. Through this we tried at first to strike; but it were
+easier to cross Trafalgar Square on a day of demonstration than to
+invade these haunts of sleeping sea-birds. The nests sank, and the eggs
+burst under footing; wings beat in our faces, beaks menaced our eyes,
+our minds were confounded with the screeching, and the coil spread over
+the island and mounted high into the air.
+
+
+"I guess we'll saunter round the beach," said Nares, when we had made
+good our retreat.
+
+The hands were all busy after sea-birds' eggs, so there were none to
+follow us. Our way lay on the crisp sand by the margin of the water: on
+one side, the thicket from which we had been dislodged; on the other,
+the face of the lagoon, barred with a broad path of moonlight, and
+beyond that, the line, alternately dark and shining, alternately hove
+high and fallen prone, of the external breakers. The beach was strewn
+with bits of wreck and drift: some redwood and spruce logs, no less than
+two lower masts of junks, and the stern-post of a European ship; all
+of which we looked on with a shade of serious concern, speaking of the
+dangers of the sea and the hard case of castaways. In this sober vein we
+made the greater part of the circuit of the island; had a near view
+of its neighbour from the southern end; walked the whole length of the
+westerly side in the shadow of the thicket; and came forth again into
+the moonlight at the opposite extremity.
+
+On our right, at the distance of about half a mile, the schooner lay
+faintly heaving at her anchors. About half a mile down the beach, at
+a spot still hidden from us by the thicket, an upboiling of the birds
+showed where the men were still (with sailor-like insatiability)
+collecting eggs. And right before us, in a small indentation of the
+sand, we were aware of a boat lying high and dry, and right side up.
+
+Nares crouched back into the shadow of the bushes.
+
+"What the devil's this?" he whispered.
+
+"Trent," I suggested, with a beating heart.
+
+"We were damned fools to come ashore unarmed," said he. "But I've got to
+know where I stand." In the shadow, his face looked conspicuously white,
+and his voice betrayed a strong excitement. He took his boat's whistle
+from his pocket. "In case I might want to play a tune," said he, grimly,
+and thrusting it between his teeth, advanced into the moonlit open;
+which we crossed with rapid steps, looking guiltily about us as we
+went. Not a leaf stirred; and the boat, when we came up to it, offered
+convincing proof of long desertion. She was an eighteen-foot whaleboat
+of the ordinary type, equipped with oars and thole-pins. Two or three
+quarter-casks lay on the bilge amidships, one of which must have been
+broached, and now stank horribly; and these, upon examination, proved to
+bear the same New Zealand brand as the beef on board the wreck.
+
+"Well, here's the boat," said I; "here's one of your difficulties
+cleared away."
+
+"H'm," said he. There was a little water in the bilge, and here he
+stooped and tasted it.
+
+"Fresh," he said. "Only rain-water."
+
+"You don't object to that?" I asked.
+
+"No," said he.
+
+"Well, then, what ails you?" I cried.
+
+"In plain United States, Mr. Dodd," he returned, "a whaleboat, five ash
+sweeps, and a barrel of stinking pork."
+
+"Or, in other words, the whole thing?" I commented.
+
+"Well, it's this way," he condescended to explain. "I've no use for a
+fourth boat at all; but a boat of this model tops the business. I don't
+say the type's not common in these waters; it's as common as dirt; the
+traders carry them for surf-boats. But the Flying Scud? a deep-water
+tramp, who was lime-juicing around between big ports, Calcutta and
+Rangoon and 'Frisco and the Canton River? No, I don't see it."
+
+We were leaning over the gunwale of the boat as we spoke. The captain
+stood nearest the bow, and he was idly playing with the trailing
+painter, when a thought arrested him. He hauled the line in hand over
+hand, and stared, and remained staring, at the end.
+
+"Anything wrong with it?" I asked.
+
+"Do you know, Mr. Dodd," said he, in a queer voice, "this painter's been
+cut? A sailor always seizes a rope's end, but this is sliced short off
+with the cold steel. This won't do at all for the men," he added. "Just
+stand by till I fix it up more natural."
+
+"Any guess what it all means?" I asked.
+
+"Well, it means one thing," said he. "It means Trent was a liar. I guess
+the story of the Flying Scud was a sight more picturesque than he gave
+out."
+
+Half an hour later, the whaleboat was lying astern of the Norah Creina;
+and Nares and I sought our bunks, silent and half-bewildered by our late
+discoveries.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV. THE CABIN OF THE "FLYING SCUD."
+
+
+The sun of the morrow had not cleared the morning bank: the lake of the
+lagoon, the islets, and the wall of breakers now beginning to subside,
+still lay clearly pictured in the flushed obscurity of early day, when
+we stepped again upon the deck of the Flying Scud: Nares, myself,
+the mate, two of the hands, and one dozen bright, virgin axes, in war
+against that massive structure. I think we all drew pleasurable breath;
+so profound in man is the instinct of destruction, so engaging is the
+interest of the chase. For we were now about to taste, in a supreme
+degree, the double joys of demolishing a toy and playing "Hide the
+handkerchief": sports from which we had all perhaps desisted since the
+days of infancy. And the toy we were to burst in pieces was a deep-sea
+ship; and the hidden good for which we were to hunt was a prodigious
+fortune.
+
+The decks were washed down, the main hatch removed, and a gun-tackle
+purchase rigged before the boat arrived with breakfast. I had grown so
+suspicious of the wreck, that it was a positive relief to me to look
+down into the hold, and see it full, or nearly full, of undeniable rice
+packed in the Chinese fashion in boluses of matting. Breakfast over,
+Johnson and the hands turned to upon the cargo; while Nares and I,
+having smashed open the skylight and rigged up a windsail on deck, began
+the work of rummaging the cabins.
+
+I must not be expected to describe our first day's work, or (for that
+matter) any of the rest, in order and detail as it occurred. Such
+particularity might have been possible for several officers and a draft
+of men from a ship of war, accompanied by an experienced secretary with
+a knowledge of shorthand. For two plain human beings, unaccustomed to
+the use of the broad-axe and consumed with an impatient greed of the
+result, the whole business melts, in the retrospect, into a nightmare
+of exertion, heat, hurry, and bewilderment; sweat pouring from the face
+like rain, the scurry of rats, the choking exhalations of the bilge, and
+the throbs and splinterings of the toiling axes. I shall content myself
+with giving the cream of our discoveries in a logical rather than a
+temporal order; though the two indeed practically coincided, and we had
+finished our exploration of the cabin, before we could be certain of the
+nature of the cargo.
+
+Nares and I began operations by tossing up pell-mell through the
+companion, and piling in a squalid heap about the wheel, all clothes,
+personal effects, the crockery, the carpet, stale victuals, tins of
+meat, and in a word, all movables from the main cabin. Thence, we
+transferred our attention to the captain's quarters on the starboard
+side. Using the blankets for a basket, we sent up the books,
+instruments, and clothes to swell our growing midden on the deck; and
+then Nares, going on hands and knees, began to forage underneath
+the bed. Box after box of Manilla cigars rewarded his search. I took
+occasion to smash some of these boxes open, and even to guillotine
+the bundles of cigars; but quite in vain--no secret cache of opium
+encouraged me to continue.
+
+"I guess I've got hold of the dicky now!" exclaimed Nares, and turning
+round from my perquisitions, I found he had drawn forth a heavy iron
+box, secured to the bulkhead by chain and padlock. On this he was now
+gazing, not with the triumph that instantly inflamed my own bosom, but
+with a somewhat foolish appearance of surprise.
+
+"By George, we have it now!" I cried, and would have shaken hands with
+my companion; but he did not see, or would not accept, the salutation.
+
+"Let's see what's in it first," he remarked dryly. And he adjusted the
+box upon its side, and with some blows of an axe burst the lock open.
+I threw myself beside him, as he replaced the box on its bottom and
+removed the lid. I cannot tell what I expected; a million's worth of
+diamonds might perhaps have pleased me; my cheeks burned, my heart
+throbbed to bursting; and lo! there was disclosed but a trayful of
+papers, neatly taped, and a cheque-book of the customary pattern. I made
+a snatch at the tray to see what was beneath; but the captain's hand
+fell on mine, heavy and hard.
+
+"Now, boss!" he cried, not unkindly, "is this to be run shipshape? or is
+it a Dutch grab-racket?"
+
+And he proceeded to untie and run over the contents of the papers,
+with a serious face and what seemed an ostentation of delay. Me and my
+impatience it would appear he had forgotten; for when he was quite done,
+he sat a while thinking, whistled a bar or two, refolded the papers,
+tied them up again; and then, and not before, deliberately raised the
+tray.
+
+I saw a cigar-box, tied with a piece of fishing-line, and four fat
+canvas-bags. Nares whipped out his knife, cut the line, and opened the
+box. It was about half full of sovereigns.
+
+"And the bags?" I whispered.
+
+The captain ripped them open one by one, and a flood of mixed silver
+coin burst forth and rattled in the rusty bottom of the box. Without a
+word, he set to work to count the gold.
+
+"What is this?" I asked.
+
+"It's the ship's money," he returned, doggedly continuing his work.
+
+"The ship's money?" I repeated. "That's the money Trent tramped and
+traded with? And there's his cheque-book to draw upon his owners? And he
+has left it?"
+
+"I guess he has," said Nares, austerely, jotting down a note of the
+gold; and I was abashed into silence till his task should be completed.
+
+It came, I think, to three hundred and seventy-eight pounds sterling;
+some nineteen pounds of it in silver: all of which we turned again into
+the chest.
+
+"And what do you think of that?" I asked.
+
+"Mr. Dodd," he replied, "you see something of the rumness of this job,
+but not the whole. The specie bothers you, but what gets me is the
+papers. Are you aware that the master of a ship has charge of all the
+cash in hand, pays the men advances, receives freight and passage
+money, and runs up bills in every port? All this he does as the owner's
+confidential agent, and his integrity is proved by his receipted bills.
+I tell you, the captain of a ship is more likely to forget his pants
+than these bills which guarantee his character. I've known men drown to
+save them: bad men, too; but this is the shipmaster's honour. And here
+this Captain Trent--not hurried, not threatened with anything but a free
+passage in a British man-of-war--has left them all behind! I don't want
+to express myself too strongly, because the facts appear against me, but
+the thing is impossible."
+
+Dinner came to us not long after, and we ate it on deck, in a grim
+silence, each privately racking his brain for some solution of the
+mysteries. I was indeed so swallowed up in these considerations, that
+the wreck, the lagoon, the islets, and the strident sea-fowl, the strong
+sun then beating on my head, and even the gloomy countenance of the
+captain at my elbow, all vanished from the field of consciousness. My
+mind was a blackboard, on which I scrawled and blotted out hypotheses;
+comparing each with the pictorial records in my memory: cyphering with
+pictures. In the course of this tense mental exercise I recalled and
+studied the faces of one memorial masterpiece, the scene of the saloon;
+and here I found myself, on a sudden, looking in the eyes of the Kanaka.
+
+"There's one thing I can put beyond doubt, at all events," I cried,
+relinquishing my dinner and getting briskly afoot. "There was that
+Kanaka I saw in the bar with Captain Trent, the fellow the newspapers
+and ship's articles made out to be a Chinaman. I mean to rout his
+quarters out and settle that."
+
+"All right," said Nares. "I'll lazy off a bit longer, Mr. Dodd; I feel
+pretty rocky and mean."
+
+We had thoroughly cleared out the three after-compartments of the ship:
+all the stuff from the main cabin and the mate's and captain's quarters
+lay piled about the wheel; but in the forward stateroom with the two
+bunks, where Nares had said the mate and cook most likely berthed,
+we had as yet done nothing. Thither I went. It was very bare; a few
+photographs were tacked on the bulkhead, one of them indecent; a single
+chest stood open, and, like all we had yet found, it had been partly
+rifled. An armful of two-shilling novels proved to me beyond a doubt
+it was a European's; no Chinaman would have possessed any, and the most
+literate Kanaka conceivable in a ship's galley was not likely to have
+gone beyond one. It was plain, then, that the cook had not berthed aft,
+and I must look elsewhere.
+
+The men had stamped down the nests and driven the birds from the galley,
+so that I could now enter without contest. One door had been already
+blocked with rice; the place was in part darkness, full of a foul stale
+smell, and a cloud of nasty flies; it had been left, besides, in some
+disorder, or else the birds, during their time of tenancy, had knocked
+the things about; and the floor, like the deck before we washed it, was
+spread with pasty filth. Against the wall, in the far corner, I found
+a handsome chest of camphor-wood bound with brass, such as Chinamen and
+sailors love, and indeed all of mankind that plies in the Pacific. From
+its outside view I could thus make no deduction; and, strange to
+say, the interior was concealed. All the other chests, as I have said
+already, we had found gaping open, and their contents scattered abroad;
+the same remark we found to apply afterwards in the quarters of the
+seamen; only this camphor-wood chest, a singular exception, was both
+closed and locked.
+
+I took an axe to it, readily forced the paltry Chinese fastening, and,
+like a Custom-House officer, plunged my hands among the contents. For
+some while I groped among linen and cotton. Then my teeth were set
+on edge with silk, of which I drew forth several strips covered with
+mysterious characters. And these settled the business, for I recognised
+them as a kind of bed-hanging popular with the commoner class of the
+Chinese. Nor were further evidences wanting, such as night-clothes of
+an extraordinary design, a three-stringed Chinese fiddle, a silk
+handkerchief full of roots and herbs, and a neat apparatus for smoking
+opium, with a liberal provision of the drug. Plainly, then, the cook had
+been a Chinaman; and, if so, who was Jos. Amalu? Or had Jos. stolen the
+chest before he proceeded to ship under a false name and domicile? It
+was possible, as anything was possible in such a welter; but, regarded
+as a solution, it only led and left me deeper in the bog. For why
+should this chest have been deserted and neglected, when the others were
+rummaged or removed? and where had Jos. come by that second chest, with
+which (according to the clerk at the What Cheer) he had started for
+Honolulu?
+
+
+"And how have YOU fared?" inquired the captain, whom I found luxuriously
+reclining in our mound of litter. And the accent on the pronoun, the
+heightened colour of the speaker's face, and the contained excitement
+in his tones, advertised me at once that I had not been alone to make
+discoveries.
+
+"I have found a Chinaman's chest in the galley," said I, "and John (if
+there was any John) was not so much as at the pains to take his opium."
+
+Nares seemed to take it mighty quietly. "That so?" said he. "Now, cast
+your eyes on that and own you're beaten!" And with a formidable clap
+of his open hand he flattened out before me, on the deck, a pair of
+newspapers.
+
+I gazed upon them dully, being in no mood for fresh discoveries.
+
+"Look at them, Mr. Dodd," cried the captain sharply. "Can't you look
+at them?" And he ran a dirty thumb along the title. "'_Sydney Morning
+Herald_, November 26th,' can't you make that out?" he cried, with rising
+energy. "And don't you know, sir, that not thirteen days after this
+paper appeared in New South Pole, this ship we're standing in heaved her
+blessed anchors out of China? How did the _Sydney Morning Herald_ get to
+Hong Kong in thirteen days? Trent made no land, he spoke no ship, till
+he got here. Then he either got it here or in Hong Kong. I give you your
+choice, my son!" he cried, and fell back among the clothes like a man
+weary of life.
+
+"Where did you find them?" I asked. "In that black bag?"
+
+"Guess so," he said. "You needn't fool with it. There's nothing else but
+a lead-pencil and a kind of worked-out knife."
+
+I looked in the bag, however, and was well rewarded.
+
+"Every man to his trade, captain," said I. "You're a sailor, and you've
+given me plenty of points; but I am an artist, and allow me to
+inform you this is quite as strange as all the rest. The knife is a
+palette-knife; the pencil a Winsor and Newton, and a B B B at that.
+A palette-knife and a B B B on a tramp brig! It's against the laws of
+nature."
+
+"It would sicken a dog, wouldn't it?" said Nares.
+
+"Yes," I continued, "it's been used by an artist, too: see how it's
+sharpened--not for writing--no man could write with that. An artist, and
+straight from Sydney? How can he come in?"
+
+"O, that's natural enough," sneered Nares. "They cabled him to come up
+and illustrate this dime novel."
+
+We fell a while silent.
+
+"Captain," I said at last, "there is something deuced underhand about
+this brig. You tell me you've been to sea a good part of your life. You
+must have seen shady things done on ships, and heard of more. Well, what
+is this? is it insurance? is it piracy? what is it ABOUT? what can it be
+for?"
+
+"Mr. Dodd," returned Nares, "you're right about me having been to sea
+the bigger part of my life. And you're right again when you think I know
+a good many ways in which a dishonest captain mayn't be on the square,
+nor do exactly the right thing by his owners, and altogether be just a
+little too smart by ninety-nine and three-quarters. There's a good many
+ways, but not so many as you'd think; and not one that has any mortal
+thing to do with Trent. Trent and his whole racket has got to do with
+nothing--that's the bed-rock fact; there's no sense to it, and no use
+in it, and no story to it: it's a beastly dream. And don't you run away
+with that notion that landsmen take about ships. A society actress don't
+go around more publicly than what a ship does, nor is more interviewed,
+nor more humbugged, nor more run after by all sorts of little
+fussinesses in brass buttons. And more than an actress, a ship has a
+deal to lose; she's capital, and the actress only character--if she's
+that. The ports of the world are thick with people ready to kick a
+captain into the penitentiary if he's not as bright as a dollar and as
+honest as the morning star; and what with Lloyd keeping watch and watch
+in every corner of the three oceans, and the insurance leeches, and the
+consuls, and the customs bugs, and the medicos, you can only get
+the idea by thinking of a landsman watched by a hundred and fifty
+detectives, or a stranger in a village Down East."
+
+"Well, but at sea?" I said.
+
+"You make me tired," retorted the captain. "What's the use--at sea?
+Everything's got to come to bearings at some port, hasn't it? You can't
+stop at sea for ever, can you?--No; the Flying Scud is rubbish; if it
+meant anything, it would have to mean something so almighty intricate
+that James G. Blaine hasn't got the brains to engineer it; and I vote
+for more axeing, pioneering, and opening up the resources of this
+phenomenal brig, and less general fuss," he added, arising. "The
+dime-museum symptoms will drop in of themselves, I guess, to keep us
+cheery."
+
+But it appeared we were at the end of discoveries for the day; and we
+left the brig about sundown, without being further puzzled or further
+enlightened. The best of the cabin spoils--books, instruments, papers,
+silks, and curiosities--we carried along with us in a blanket, however,
+to divert the evening hours; and when supper was over, and the table
+cleared, and Johnson set down to a dreary game of cribbage between his
+right hand and his left, the captain and I turned out our blanket on the
+floor, and sat side by side to examine and appraise the spoils.
+
+The books were the first to engage our notice. These were rather
+numerous (as Nares contemptuously put it) "for a lime-juicer." Scorn
+of the British mercantile marine glows in the breast of every Yankee
+merchant captain; as the scorn is not reciprocated, I can only suppose
+it justified in fact; and certainly the old country mariner appears of a
+less studious disposition. The more credit to the officers of the Flying
+Scud, who had quite a library, both literary and professional. There
+were Findlay's five directories of the world--all broken-backed, as is
+usual with Findlay, and all marked and scribbled over with corrections
+and additions--several books of navigation, a signal code, and an
+Admiralty book of a sort of orange hue, called _Islands of the Eastern
+Pacific Ocean, Vol. III._, which appeared from its imprint to be the
+latest authority, and showed marks of frequent consultation in the
+passages about the French Frigate Shoals, the Harman, Cure, Pearl, and
+Hermes reefs, Lisiansky Island, Ocean Island, and the place where
+we then lay--Brooks or Midway. A volume of Macaulay's _Essays_ and a
+shilling Shakespeare led the van of the belles lettres; the rest were
+novels: several Miss Braddons--of course, _Aurora Floyd_, which has
+penetrated to every isle of the Pacific, a good many cheap detective
+books, _Rob Roy_, Auerbach's _Auf der Hohe_ in the German, and a prize
+temperance story, pillaged (to judge by the stamp) from an Anglo-Indian
+circulating library.
+
+"The Admiralty man gives a fine picture of our island," remarked Nares,
+who had turned up Midway Island. "He draws the dreariness rather mild,
+but you can make out he knows the place."
+
+"Captain," I cried, "you've struck another point in this mad business.
+See here," I went on eagerly, drawing from my pocket a crumpled fragment
+of the _Daily Occidental_ which I had inherited from Jim: "'misled by
+Hoyt's Pacific Directory'? Where's Hoyt?"
+
+"Let's look into that," said Nares. "I got that book on purpose for this
+cruise." Therewith he fetched it from the shelf in his berth, turned to
+Midway Island, and read the account aloud. It stated with precision that
+the Pacific Mail Company were about to form a depot there, in preference
+to Honolulu, and that they had already a station on the island.
+
+"I wonder who gives these Directory men their information," Nares
+reflected. "Nobody can blame Trent after that. I never got in company
+with squarer lying; it reminds a man of a presidential campaign."
+
+"All very well," said I. "That's your Hoyt, and a fine, tall copy. But
+what I want to know is, where is Trent's Hoyt?"
+
+"Took it with him," chuckled Nares. "He had left everything else, bills
+and money and all the rest; he was bound to take something, or it would
+have aroused attention on the Tempest: 'Happy thought,' says he, 'let's
+take Hoyt.'"
+
+"And has it not occurred to you," I went on, "that all the Hoyts in
+creation couldn't have misled Trent, since he had in his hand that red
+admiralty book, an official publication, later in date, and particularly
+full on Midway Island?"
+
+"That's a fact!" cried Nares; "and I bet the first Hoyt he ever saw
+was out of the mercantile library of San Francisco. Looks as if he had
+brought her here on purpose, don't it? But then that's inconsistent with
+the steam-crusher of the sale. That's the trouble with this brig racket;
+any one can make half a dozen theories for sixty or seventy per cent
+of it; but when they're made, there's always a fathom or two of slack
+hanging out of the other end."
+
+I believe our attention fell next on the papers, of which we had
+altogether a considerable bulk. I had hoped to find among these matter
+for a full-length character of Captain Trent; but here I was doomed, on
+the whole, to disappointment. We could make out he was an orderly man,
+for all his bills were docketed and preserved. That he was convivial,
+and inclined to be frugal even in conviviality, several documents
+proclaimed. Such letters as we found were, with one exception, arid
+notes from tradesmen. The exception, signed Hannah Trent, was a somewhat
+fervid appeal for a loan. "You know what misfortunes I have had to
+bear," wrote Hannah, "and how much I am disappointed in George. The
+landlady appeared a true friend when I first came here, and I thought
+her a perfect lady. But she has come out since then in her true colours;
+and if you will not be softened by this last appeal, I can't think what
+is to become of your affectionate----" and then the signature. This
+document was without place or date, and a voice told me that it had gone
+likewise without answer. On the whole, there were few letters anywhere
+in the ship; but we found one before we were finished, in a seaman's
+chest, of which I must transcribe some sentences. It was dated from some
+place on the Clyde. "My dearist son," it ran, "this is to tell you your
+dearist father passed away, Jan twelft, in the peace of the Lord. He had
+your photo and dear David's lade upon his bed, made me sit by him.
+Let's be a' thegither, he said, and gave you all his blessing. O my dear
+laddie, why were nae you and Davie here? He would have had a happier
+passage. He spok of both of ye all night most beautiful, and how ye used
+to stravaig on the Saturday afternoons, and of auld Kelvinside. Sooth
+the tune to me, he said, though it was the Sabbath, and I had to sooth
+him Kelvin Grove, and he looked at his fiddle, the dear man. I cannae
+bear the sight of it, he'll never play it mair. O my lamb, come home to
+me, I'm all by my lane now." The rest was in a religious vein and quite
+conventional. I have never seen any one more put out than Nares, when I
+handed him this letter; he had read but a few words, before he cast
+it down; it was perhaps a minute ere he picked it up again, and the
+performance was repeated the third time before he reached the end.
+
+"It's touching, isn't it?" said I.
+
+For all answer, Nares exploded in a brutal oath; and it was some half an
+hour later that he vouchsafed an explanation. "I'll tell you what broke
+me up about that letter," said he. "My old man played the fiddle, played
+it all out of tune: one of the things he played was _Martyrdom,_ I
+remember--it was all martyrdom to me. He was a pig of a father, and I
+was a pig of a son; but it sort of came over me I would like to hear
+that fiddle squeak again. Natural," he added; "I guess we're all
+beasts."
+
+"All sons are, I guess," said I. "I have the same trouble on my
+conscience: we can shake hands on that." Which (oddly enough, perhaps)
+we did.
+
+Amongst the papers we found a considerable sprinkling of photographs;
+for the most part either of very debonair-looking young ladies or old
+women of the lodging-house persuasion. But one among them was the means
+of our crowning discovery.
+
+"They're not pretty, are they, Mr. Dodd?" said Nares, as he passed it
+over.
+
+"Who?" I asked, mechanically taking the card (it was a quarter-plate)
+in hand, and smothering a yawn; for the hour was late, the day had been
+laborious, and I was wearying for bed.
+
+"Trent and Company," said he. "That's a historic picture of the gang."
+
+I held it to the light, my curiosity at a low ebb: I had seen Captain
+Trent once, and had no delight in viewing him again. It was a photograph
+of the deck of the brig, taken from forward: all in apple-pie order; the
+hands gathered in the waist, the officers on the poop. At the foot of
+the card was written "Brig Flying Scud, Rangoon," and a date; and above
+or below each individual figure the name had been carefully noted.
+
+As I continued to gaze, a shock went through me; the dimness of sleep
+and fatigue lifted from my eyes, as fog lifts in the channel; and I
+beheld with startled clearness the photographic presentment of a crowd
+of strangers. "J. Trent, Master" at the top of the card directed me to
+a smallish, weazened man, with bushy eyebrows and full white beard,
+dressed in a frock coat and white trousers; a flower stuck in his
+button-hole, his bearded chin set forward, his mouth clenched with
+habitual determination. There was not much of the sailor in his looks,
+but plenty of the martinet: a dry, precise man, who might pass for a
+preacher in some rigid sect; and whatever he was, not the Captain
+Trent of San Francisco. The men, too, were all new to me: the cook, an
+unmistakable Chinaman, in his characteristic dress, standing apart on
+the poop steps. But perhaps I turned on the whole with the greatest
+curiosity to the figure labelled "E. Goddedaal, 1st off." He whom I had
+never seen, he might be the identical; he might be the clue and spring
+of all this mystery; and I scanned his features with the eye of a
+detective. He was of great stature, seemingly blonde as a viking,
+his hair clustering round his head in frowsy curls, and two enormous
+whiskers, like the tusks of some strange animal, jutting from his
+cheeks. With these virile appendages and the defiant attitude in which
+he stood, the expression of his face only imperfectly harmonised. It was
+wild, heroic, and womanish looking; and I felt I was prepared to hear he
+was a sentimentalist, and to see him weep.
+
+For some while I digested my discovery in private, reflecting how best,
+and how with most of drama, I might share it with the captain. Then my
+sketch-book came in my head; and I fished it out from where it lay, with
+other miscellaneous possessions, at the foot of my bunk and turned to
+my sketch of Captain Trent and the survivors of the British brig Flying
+Scud in the San Francisco bar-room.
+
+"Nares," said I, "I've told you how I first saw Captain Trent in that
+saloon in 'Frisco? how he came with his men, one of them a Kanaka with
+a canary-bird in a cage? and how I saw him afterwards at the auction,
+frightened to death, and as much surprised at how the figures skipped up
+as anybody there? Well," said I, "there's the man I saw"--and I laid
+the sketch before him--"there's Trent of 'Frisco and there are his three
+hands. Find one of them in the photograph, and I'll be obliged."
+
+Nares compared the two in silence. "Well," he said at last, "I call this
+rather a relief: seems to clear the horizon. We might have guessed at
+something of the kind from the double ration of chests that figured."
+
+"Does it explain anything?" I asked.
+
+"It would explain everything," Nares replied, "but for the
+steam-crusher. It'll all tally as neat as a patent puzzle, if you leave
+out the way these people bid the wreck up. And there we come to a stone
+wall. But whatever it is, Mr. Dodd, it's on the crook."
+
+"And looks like piracy," I added.
+
+"Looks like blind hookey!" cried the captain. "No, don't you deceive
+yourself; neither your head nor mine is big enough to put a name on this
+business."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV. THE CARGO OF THE "FLYING SCUD."
+
+
+In my early days I was a man, the most wedded to his idols of my
+generation. I was a dweller under roofs: the gull of that which we call
+civilisation; a superstitious votary of the plastic arts; a cit; and
+a prop of restaurants. I had a comrade in those days, somewhat of an
+outsider, though he moved in the company of artists, and a man famous
+in our small world for gallantry, knee breeches, and dry and pregnant
+sayings. He, looking on the long meals and waxing bellies of the French,
+whom I confess I somewhat imitated, branded me as "a cultivator of
+restaurant fat." And I believe he had his finger on the dangerous spot;
+I believe, if things had gone smooth with me, I should be now swollen
+like a prize-ox in body, and fallen in mind to a thing perhaps as low
+as many types of bourgeois--the implicit or exclusive artist. That was a
+home word of Pinkerton's, deserving to be writ in letters of gold on the
+portico of every school of art: "What I can't see is why you should want
+to do nothing else." The dull man is made, not by the nature, but by the
+degree of his immersion in a single business. And all the more if that
+be sedentary, uneventful, and ingloriously safe. More than one half
+of him will then remain unexercised and undeveloped; the rest will be
+distended and deformed by over-nutrition, over-cerebration, and the heat
+of rooms. And I have often marvelled at the impudence of gentlemen,
+who describe and pass judgment on the life of man, in almost perfect
+ignorance of all its necessary elements and natural careers. Those
+who dwell in clubs and studios may paint excellent pictures or write
+enchanting novels. There is one thing that they should not do: they
+should pass no judgment on man's destiny, for it is a thing with which
+they are unacquainted. Their own life is an excrescence of the moment,
+doomed, in the vicissitude of history, to pass and disappear: the
+eternal life of man, spent under sun and rain and in rude physical
+effort, lies upon one side, scarce changed since the beginning.
+
+I would I could have carried along with me to Midway Island all the
+writers and the prating artists of my time. Day after day of hope
+deferred, of heat, of unremitting toil; night after night of aching
+limbs, bruised hands, and a mind obscured with the grateful vacancy of
+physical fatigue: the scene, the nature of my employment; the rugged
+speech and faces of my fellow-toilers, the glare of the day on deck, the
+stinking twilight in the bilge, the shrill myriads of the ocean-fowl:
+above all, the sense of our immitigable isolation from the world and
+from the current epoch;--keeping another time, some eras old; the new
+day heralded by no daily paper, only by the rising sun; and the State,
+the churches, the peopled empires, war, and the rumours of war, and the
+voices of the arts, all gone silent as in the days ere they were yet
+invented. Such were the conditions of my new experience in life,
+of which (if I had been able) I would have had all my confreres and
+contemporaries to partake: forgetting, for that while, the orthodoxies
+of the moment, and devoted to a single and material purpose under the
+eye of heaven.
+
+Of the nature of our task, I must continue to give some summary idea.
+The forecastle was lumbered with ship's chandlery, the hold nigh full of
+rice, the lazarette crowded with the teas and silks. These must all be
+dug out; and that made but a fraction of our task. The hold was ceiled
+throughout; a part, where perhaps some delicate cargo was once stored,
+had been lined, in addition, with inch boards; and between every beam
+there was a movable panel into the bilge. Any of these, the bulkheads of
+the cabins, the very timbers of the hull itself, might be the place of
+hiding. It was therefore necessary to demolish, as we proceeded, a
+great part of the ship's inner skin and fittings, and to auscultate what
+remained, like a doctor sounding for a lung disease. Upon the return,
+from any beam or bulkhead, of a flat or doubtful sound, we must up axe
+and hew into the timber: a violent and--from the amount of dry rot in
+the wreck--a mortifying exercise. Every night saw a deeper inroad into
+the bones of the Flying Scud--more beams tapped and hewn in splinters,
+more planking peeled away and tossed aside--and every night saw us as
+far as ever from the end and object of our arduous devastation. In this
+perpetual disappointment, my courage did not fail me, but my spirits
+dwindled; and Nares himself grew silent and morose. At night, when
+supper was done, we passed an hour in the cabin, mostly without speech:
+I, sometimes dozing over a book; Nares, sullenly but busily drilling
+sea-shells with the instrument called a Yankee Fiddle. A stranger might
+have supposed we were estranged; as a matter of fact, in this silent
+comradeship of labour, our intimacy grew.
+
+I had been struck, at the first beginning of our enterprise upon the
+wreck, to find the men so ready at the captain's lightest word. I
+dare not say they liked, but I can never deny that they admired him
+thoroughly. A mild word from his mouth was more valued than flattery
+and half a dollar from myself; if he relaxed at all from his habitual
+attitude of censure, smiling alacrity surrounded him; and I was led to
+think his theory of captainship, even if pushed to excess, reposed upon
+some ground of reason. But even terror and admiration of the
+captain failed us before the end. The men wearied of the hopeless,
+unremunerative quest and the long strain of labour. They began to
+shirk and grumble. Retribution fell on them at once, and retribution
+multiplied the grumblings. With every day it took harder driving to keep
+them to the daily drudge; and we, in our narrow boundaries, were kept
+conscious every moment of the ill-will of our assistants.
+
+In spite of the best care, the object of our search was perfectly well
+known to all on board; and there had leaked out besides some knowledge
+of those inconsistencies that had so greatly amazed the captain and
+myself. I could overhear the men debate the character of Captain Trent,
+and set forth competing theories of where the opium was stowed; and as
+they seemed to have been eavesdropping on ourselves, I thought little
+shame to prick up my ears when I had the return chance of spying upon
+them, in this way. I could diagnose their temper and judge how far they
+were informed upon the mystery of the Flying Scud. It was after having
+thus overheard some almost mutinous speeches that a fortunate idea
+crossed my mind. At night, I matured it in my bed, and the first thing
+the next morning, broached it to the captain.
+
+"Suppose I spirit up the hands a bit," I asked, "by the offer of a
+reward?"
+
+"If you think you're getting your month's wages out of them the way it
+is, I don't," was his reply. "However, they are all the men you've got,
+and you're the supercargo."
+
+This, from a person of the captain's character, might be regarded as
+complete adhesion; and the crew were accordingly called aft. Never had
+the captain worn a front more menacing. It was supposed by all that some
+misdeed had been discovered, and some surprising punishment was to be
+announced.
+
+"See here, you!" he threw at them over his shoulder as he walked the
+deck, "Mr. Dodd here is going to offer a reward to the first man who
+strikes the opium in that wreck. There's two ways of making a donkey go;
+both good, I guess: the one's kicks and the other's carrots. Mr. Dodd's
+going to try the carrots. Well, my sons,"--and here he faced the men for
+the first time with his hands behind him--"if that opium's not found in
+five days, you can come to me for the kicks."
+
+He nodded to the present narrator, who took up the tale. "Here is what
+I propose, men," said I: "I put up one hundred and fifty dollars. If
+any man can lay hands on the stuff right away, and off his own club,
+he shall have the hundred and fifty down. If any one can put us on the
+scent of where to look, he shall have a hundred and twenty-five, and the
+balance shall be for the lucky one who actually picks it up. We'll call
+it the Pinkerton Stakes, captain," I added, with a smile.
+
+"Call it the Grand Combination Sweep, then," cries he. "For I go you
+better.--Look here, men, I make up this jack-pot to two hundred and
+fifty dollars, American gold coin."
+
+"Thank you, Captain Nares," said I; "that was handsomely done."
+
+"It was kindly meant," he returned.
+
+The offer was not made in vain; the hands had scarce yet realised the
+magnitude of the reward, they had scarce begun to buzz aloud in the
+extremity of hope and wonder, ere the Chinese cook stepped forward with
+gracious gestures and explanatory smiles.
+
+"Captain," he began, "I serv-um two year Melican navy; serv-um six year
+mail-boat steward. Savvy plenty."
+
+"Oho!" cried Nares, "you savvy plenty, do you? (Beggar's seen this trick
+in the mail-boats, I guess.) Well, why you no savvy a little sooner,
+sonny?"
+
+"I think bimeby make-um reward," replied the cook, with smiling dignity.
+
+"Well, you can't say fairer than that," the captain admitted, "and now
+the reward's offered, you'll talk? Speak up, then. Suppose you speak
+true, you get reward. See?"
+
+"I think long time," replied the Chinaman. "See plenty litty mat lice;
+too-muchy plenty litty mat lice; sixty ton, litty mat lice. I think
+all-e-time: perhaps plenty opium plenty litty mat lice."
+
+"Well, Mr. Dodd, how does that strike you?" asked the captain. "He may
+be right, he may be wrong. He's likely to be right: for if he isn't,
+where can the stuff be? On the other hand, if he's wrong, we destroy
+a hundred and fifty tons of good rice for nothing. It's a point to be
+considered."
+
+"I don't hesitate," said I. "Let's get to the bottom of the thing. The
+rice is nothing; the rice will neither make nor break us."
+
+"That's how I expected you to see it," returned Nares.
+
+And we called the boat away and set forth on our new quest.
+
+The hold was now almost entirely emptied; the mats (of which there went
+forty to the short ton) had been stacked on deck, and now crowded the
+ship's waist and forecastle. It was our task to disembowel and explore
+six thousand individual mats, and incidentally to destroy a hundred and
+fifty tons of valuable food. Nor were the circumstances of the day's
+business less strange than its essential nature. Each man of us, armed
+with a great knife, attacked the pile from his own quarter, slashed into
+the nearest mat, burrowed in it with his hands, and shed forth the rice
+upon the deck, where it heaped up, overflowed, and was trodden down,
+poured at last into the scuppers, and occasionally spouted from the
+vents. About the wreck, thus transformed into an overflowing granary,
+the sea-fowl swarmed in myriads and with surprising insolence. The sight
+of so much food confounded them; they deafened us with their shrill
+tongues, swooped in our midst, dashed in our faces, and snatched the
+grain from between our fingers. The men--their hands bleeding from these
+assaults--turned savagely on the offensive, drove their knives into the
+birds, drew them out crimsoned, and turned again to dig among the rice,
+unmindful of the gawking creatures that struggled and died among their
+feet. We made a singular picture: the hovering and diving birds; the
+bodies of the dead discolouring the rice with blood; the scuppers
+vomiting breadstuff; the men, frenzied by the gold hunt, toiling,
+slaying, and shouting aloud: over all, the lofty intricacy of rigging
+and the radiant heaven of the Pacific. Every man there toiled in the
+immediate hope of fifty dollars; and I, of fifty thousand. Small wonder
+if we waded callously in blood and food.
+
+It was perhaps about ten in the forenoon when the scene was interrupted.
+Nares, who had just ripped open a fresh mat, drew forth, and slung at
+his feet, among the rice, a papered tin box.
+
+"How's that?" he shouted.
+
+A cry broke from all hands: the next moment, forgetting their own
+disappointment, in that contagious sentiment of success, they gave three
+cheers that scared the sea-birds; and the next, they had crowded round
+the captain, and were jostling together and groping with emulous hands
+in the new-opened mat. Box after box rewarded them, six in all; wrapped,
+as I have said, in a paper envelope, and the paper printed on, in
+Chinese characters.
+
+Nares turned to me and shook my hand. "I began to think we should never
+see this day," said he. "I congratulate you, Mr. Dodd, on having pulled
+it through."
+
+The captain's tones affected me profoundly; and when Johnson and the
+men pressed round me in turn with congratulations, the tears came in my
+eyes.
+
+"These are five-tael boxes, more than two pounds," said Nares, weighing
+one in his hand. "Say two hundred and fifty dollars to the mat. Lay into
+it, boys! We'll make Mr. Dodd a millionnaire before dark."
+
+It was strange to see with what a fury we fell to. The men had now
+nothing to expect; the mere idea of great sums inspired them with
+disinterested ardour. Mats were slashed and disembowelled, the rice
+flowed to our knees in the ship's waist, the sweat ran in our eyes and
+blinded us, our arms ached to agony; and yet our fire abated not. Dinner
+came; we were too weary to eat, too hoarse for conversation; and yet
+dinner was scarce done, before we were afoot again and delving in the
+rice. Before nightfall not a mat was unexplored, and we were face to
+face with the astonishing result.
+
+For of all the inexplicable things in the story of the Flying Scud, here
+was the most inexplicable. Out of the six thousand mats, only twenty
+were found to have been sugared; in each we found the same amount, about
+twelve pounds of drug; making a grand total of two hundred and forty
+pounds. By the last San Francisco quotation, opium was selling for a
+fraction over twenty dollars a pound; but it had been known not long
+before to bring as much as forty in Honolulu, where it was contraband.
+
+Taking, then, this high Honolulu figure, the value of the opium on board
+the Flying Scud fell considerably short of ten thousand dollars, while
+at the San Francisco rate it lacked a trifle of five thousand. And fifty
+thousand was the price that Jim and I had paid for it. And Bellairs had
+been eager to go higher! There is no language to express the stupor with
+which I contemplated this result.
+
+It may be argued we were not yet sure; there might be yet another cache;
+and you may be certain in that hour of my distress the argument was not
+forgotten. There was never a ship more ardently perquested; no stone
+was left unturned, and no expedient untried; day after day of growing
+despair, we punched and dug in the brig's vitals, exciting the men with
+promises and presents; evening after evening Nares and I sat face
+to face in the narrow cabin, racking our minds for some neglected
+possibility of search. I could stake my salvation on the certainty of
+the result: in all that ship there was nothing left of value but the
+timber and the copper nails. So that our case was lamentably plain; we
+had paid fifty thousand dollars, borne the charges of the schooner, and
+paid fancy interest on money; and if things went well with us, we
+might realise fifteen per cent of the first outlay. We were not merely
+bankrupt, we were comic bankrupts: a fair butt for jeering in the
+streets. I hope I bore the blow with a good countenance; indeed, my mind
+had long been quite made up, and since the day we found the opium I had
+known the result. But the thought of Jim and Mamie ached in me like a
+physical pain, and I shrank from speech and companionship.
+
+I was in this frame of mind when the captain proposed that we should
+land upon the island. I saw he had something to say, and only feared
+it might be consolation; for I could just bear my grief, not bungling
+sympathy; and yet I had no choice but to accede to his proposal.
+
+We walked awhile along the beach in silence. The sun overhead
+reverberated rays of heat; the staring sand, the glaring lagoon,
+tortured our eyes; and the birds and the boom of the far-away breakers
+made a savage symphony.
+
+"I don't require to tell you the game's up?" Nares asked.
+
+"No," said I.
+
+"I was thinking of getting to sea to-morrow," he pursued.
+
+"The best thing you can do," said I.
+
+"Shall we say Honolulu?" he inquired.
+
+
+"O, yes; let's stick to the programme," I cried. "Honolulu be it!"
+
+There was another silence, and then Nares cleared his throat.
+
+"We've been pretty good friends, you and me, Mr. Dodd," he resumed.
+"We've been going through the kind of thing that tries a man. We've had
+the hardest kind of work, we've been badly backed, and now we're badly
+beaten. And we've fetched through without a word of disagreement. I
+don't say this to praise myself: it's my trade; it's what I'm paid for,
+and trained for, and brought up to. But it was another thing for you; it
+was all new to you; and it did me good to see you stand right up to it
+and swing right into it, day in, day out. And then see how you've taken
+this disappointment, when everybody knows you must have been tautened
+up to shying-point! I wish you'd let me tell you, Mr. Dodd, that you've
+stood out mighty manly and handsomely in all this business, and made
+every one like you and admire you. And I wish you'd let me tell you,
+besides, that I've taken this wreck business as much to heart as you
+have; something kind of rises in my throat when I think we're beaten;
+and if I thought waiting would do it, I would stick on this reef until
+we starved."
+
+I tried in vain to thank him for these generous words, but he was
+beforehand with me in a moment.
+
+"I didn't bring you ashore to sound my praises," he interrupted. "We
+understand one another now, that's all; and I guess you can trust me.
+What I wished to speak about is more important, and it's got to be
+faced. What are we to do about the Flying Scud and the dime novel?"
+
+"I really have thought nothing about that," I replied. "But I expect I
+mean to get at the bottom of it; and if the bogus Captain Trent is to be
+found on the earth's surface, I guess I mean to find him."
+
+"All you've got to do is talk," said Nares; "you can make the biggest
+kind of boom; it isn't often the reporters have a chance at such a yarn
+as this; and I can tell you how it will go. It will go by telegraph, Mr.
+Dodd; it'll be telegraphed by the column, and head-lined, and frothed
+up, and denied by authority, and it'll hit bogus Captain Trent in a
+Mexican bar-room, and knock over bogus Goddedaal in a slum somewhere up
+the Baltic, and bowl down Hardy and Brown in sailors' music halls round
+Greenock. O, there's no doubt you can have a regular domestic Judgment
+Day. The only point is whether you deliberately want to."
+
+"Well," said I, "I deliberately don't want one thing: I deliberately
+don't want to make a public exhibition of myself and Pinkerton: so
+moral--smuggling opium; such damned fools--paying fifty thousand for a
+'dead horse'!"
+
+"No doubt it might damage you in a business sense," the captain agreed.
+"And I'm pleased you take that view; for I've turned kind of soft upon
+the job. There's been some crookedness about, no doubt of it; but, Law
+bless you! if we dropped upon the troupe, all the premier artists would
+slip right out with the boodle in their grip-sacks, and you'd only
+collar a lot of old mutton-headed shell-backs that didn't know the back
+of the business from the front. I don't take much stock in Mercantile
+Jack, you know that; but, poor devil, he's got to go where he's told;
+and if you make trouble, ten to one it'll make you sick to see the
+innocents who have to stand the racket. It would be different if we
+understood the operation; but we don't, you see: there's a lot of queer
+corners in life; and my vote is to let the blame' thing lie."
+
+"You speak as if we had that in our power," I objected.
+
+"And so we have," said he.
+
+"What about the men?" I asked. "They know too much by half; and you
+can't keep them from talking."
+
+"Can't I?" returned Nares. "I bet a boarding-master can! They can be all
+half-seas-over, when they get ashore, blind drunk by dark, and cruising
+out of the Golden Gate in different deep-sea ships by the next morning.
+Can't keep them from talking, can't I? Well, I can make 'em talk
+separate, leastways. If a whole crew came talking, parties would listen;
+but if it's only one lone old shell-back, it's the usual yarn. And at
+least, they needn't talk before six months, or--if we have luck, and
+there's a whaler handy--three years. And by that time, Mr. Dodd, it's
+ancient history."
+
+"That's what they call Shanghaiing, isn't it?" I asked. "I thought it
+belonged to the dime novel."
+
+"O, dime novels are right enough," returned the captain. "Nothing wrong
+with the dime novel, only that things happen thicker than they do in
+life, and the practical seamanship is off-colour."
+
+"So we can keep the business to ourselves," I mused.
+
+"There's one other person that might blab," said the captain. "Though I
+don't believe she has anything left to tell."
+
+"And who is SHE?" I asked.
+
+"The old girl there," he answered, pointing to the wreck. "I know
+there's nothing in her; but somehow I'm afraid of some one else--it's
+the last thing you'd expect, so it's just the first that'll happen--some
+one dropping into this God-forgotten island where nobody drops in,
+waltzing into that wreck that we've grown old with searching, stooping
+straight down, and picking right up the very thing that tells the story.
+What's that to me? you may ask, and why am I gone Soft Tommy on this
+Museum of Crooks? They've smashed up you and Mr. Pinkerton; they've
+turned my hair grey with conundrums; they've been up to larks, no doubt;
+and that's all I know of them--you say. Well, and that's just where it
+is. I don't know enough; I don't know what's uppermost; it's just such
+a lot of miscellaneous eventualities as I don't care to go stirring
+up; and I ask you to let me deal with the old girl after a patent of my
+own."
+
+"Certainly--what you please," said I, scarce with attention, for a new
+thought now occupied my brain. "Captain," I broke out, "you are wrong:
+we cannot hush this up. There is one thing you have forgotten."
+
+"What is that?" he asked.
+
+"A bogus Captain Trent, a bogus Goddedaal, a whole bogus crew, have all
+started home," said I. "If we are right, not one of them will reach his
+journey's end. And do you mean to say that such a circumstance as that
+can pass without remark?"
+
+"Sailors," said the captain, "only sailors! If they were all bound for
+one place, in a body, I don't say so; but they're all going separate--to
+Hull, to Sweden, to the Clyde, to the Thames. Well, at each place,
+what is it? Nothing new. Only one sailor man missing: got drunk, or got
+drowned, or got left: the proper sailor's end."
+
+
+Something bitter in the thought and in the speaker's tones struck me
+hard. "Here is one that has got left!" I cried, getting sharply to my
+feet; for we had been some time seated. "I wish it were the other. I
+don't--don't relish going home to Jim with this!"
+
+"See here," said Nares, with ready tact, "I must be getting aboard.
+Johnson's in the brig annexing chandlery and canvas, and there's some
+things in the Norah that want fixing against we go to sea. Would you
+like to be left here in the chicken-ranch? I'll send for you to supper."
+
+I embraced the proposal with delight. Solitude, in my frame of mind, was
+not too dearly purchased at the risk of sunstroke or sand-blindness; and
+soon I was alone on the ill-omened islet. I should find it hard to tell
+of what I thought--of Jim, of Mamie, of our lost fortune, of my lost
+hopes, of the doom before me: to turn to at some mechanical occupation
+in some subaltern rank, and to toil there, unremarked and unamused,
+until the hour of the last deliverance. I was, at least, so sunk in
+sadness that I scarce remarked where I was going; and chance (or some
+finer sense that lives in us, and only guides us when the mind is in
+abeyance) conducted my steps into a quarter of the island where the
+birds were few. By some devious route, which I was unable to retrace
+for my return, I was thus able to mount, without interruption, to the
+highest point of land. And here I was recalled to consciousness by a
+last discovery.
+
+The spot on which I stood was level, and commanded a wide view of the
+lagoon, the bounding reef, the round horizon. Nearer hand I saw the
+sister islet, the wreck, the Norah Creina, and the Norah's boat already
+moving shoreward. For the sun was now low, flaming on the sea's verge;
+and the galley chimney smoked on board the schooner.
+
+It thus befell that though my discovery was both affecting and
+suggestive, I had no leisure to examine further. What I saw was the
+blackened embers of fire of wreck. By all the signs, it must have blazed
+to a good height and burned for days; from the scantling of a spar that
+lay upon the margin only half consumed, it must have been the work of
+more than one; and I received at once the image of a forlorn troop of
+castaways, houseless in that lost corner of the earth, and feeding there
+their fire of signal. The next moment a hail reached me from the boat;
+and bursting through the bushes and the rising sea-fowl, I said farewell
+(I trust for ever) to that desert isle.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI. IN WHICH I TURN SMUGGLER, AND THE CAPTAIN CASUIST
+
+
+The last night at Midway, I had little sleep; the next morning, after
+the sun was risen, and the clatter of departure had begun to reign on
+deck, I lay a long while dozing; and when at last I stepped from the
+companion, the schooner was already leaping through the pass into the
+open sea. Close on her board, the huge scroll of a breaker unfurled
+itself along the reef with a prodigious clamour; and behind I saw the
+wreck vomiting into the morning air a coil of smoke. The wreaths already
+blew out far to leeward, flames already glittered in the cabin skylight;
+and the sea-fowl were scattered in surprise as wide as the lagoon. As
+we drew farther off, the conflagration of the Flying Scud flamed higher;
+and long after we had dropped all signs of Midway Island, the smoke
+still hung in the horizon like that of a distant steamer. With the
+fading out of that last vestige, the Norah Creina, passed again into the
+empty world of cloud and water by which she had approached; and the next
+features that appeared, eleven days later, to break the line of sky,
+were the arid mountains of Oahu.
+
+It has often since been a comfortable thought to me that we had thus
+destroyed the tell-tale remnants of the Flying Scud; and often a strange
+one that my last sight and reminiscence of that fatal ship should be
+a pillar of smoke on the horizon. To so many others besides myself
+the same appearance had played a part in the various stages of that
+business: luring some to what they little imagined, filling some with
+unimaginable terrors. But ours was the last smoke raised in the story;
+and with its dying away the secret of the Flying Scud became a private
+property.
+
+It was by the first light of dawn that we saw, close on board, the
+metropolitan island of Hawaii. We held along the coast, as near as
+we could venture, with a fresh breeze and under an unclouded heaven;
+beholding, as we went, the arid mountain sides and scrubby cocoa-palms
+of that somewhat melancholy archipelago. About four of the afternoon
+we turned Waimanolo Point, the westerly headland of the great bight of
+Honolulu; showed ourselves for twenty minutes in full view; and then
+fell again to leeward, and put in the rest of daylight, plying under
+shortened sail under the lee of Waimanolo.
+
+A little after dark we beat once more about the point, and crept
+cautiously toward the mouth of the Pearl Lochs, where Jim and I had
+arranged I was to meet the smugglers. The night was happily obscure, the
+water smooth. We showed, according to instructions, no light on deck:
+only a red lantern dropped from either cathead to within a couple of
+feet of the water. A lookout was stationed on the bowsprit end, another
+in the crosstrees; and the whole ship's company crowded forward,
+scouting for enemies or friends. It was now the crucial moment of our
+enterprise; we were now risking liberty and credit; and that for a sum
+so small to a man in my bankrupt situation, that I could have laughed
+aloud in bitterness. But the piece had been arranged, and we must play
+it to the finish.
+
+For some while, we saw nothing but the dark mountain outline of the
+island, the torches of native fishermen glittering here and there along
+the foreshore, and right in the midst that cluster of brave lights with
+which the town of Honolulu advertises itself to the seaward. Presently
+a ruddy star appeared inshore of us, and seemed to draw near unsteadily.
+This was the anticipated signal; and we made haste to show the
+countersign, lowering a white light from the quarter, extinguishing
+the two others, and laying the schooner incontinently to. The star
+approached slowly; the sounds of oars and of men's speech came to us
+across the water; and then a voice hailed us.
+
+"Is that Mr. Dodd?"
+
+"Yes," I returned. "Is Jim Pinkerton there?"
+
+"No, sir," replied the voice. "But there's one of his crowd here; name
+of Speedy."
+
+"I'm here, Mr. Dodd," added Speedy himself. "I have letters for you."
+
+"All right," I replied. "Come aboard, gentlemen, and let me see my
+mail."
+
+A whaleboat accordingly ranged alongside, and three men boarded us: my
+old San Francisco friend, the stock-gambler Speedy, a little wizened
+person of the name of Sharpe, and a big, flourishing, dissipated-looking
+man called Fowler. The two last (I learned afterward) were frequent
+partners; Sharpe supplied the capital, and Fowler, who was quite a
+character in the islands and occupied a considerable station, brought
+activity, daring, and a private influence, highly necessary in the case.
+Both seemed to approach the business with a keen sense of romance; and I
+believe this was the chief attraction, at least with Fowler--for whom
+I early conceived a sentiment of liking. But in that first moment I
+had something else to think of than to judge my new acquaintances;
+and before Speedy had fished out the letters, the full extent of our
+misfortune was revealed.
+
+"We've rather bad news for you, Mr. Dodd," said Fowler. "Your firm's
+gone up."
+
+"Already!" I exclaimed.
+
+"Well, it was thought rather a wonder Pinkerton held on as long as he
+did," was the reply. "The wreck deal was too big for your credit; you
+were doing a big business, no doubt, but you were doing it on precious
+little capital; and when the strain came, you were bound to go.
+Pinkerton's through all right: seven cents dividend; some remarks
+made, but nothing to hurt; the press let you down easy--I guess Jim had
+relations there. The only trouble is, that all this Flying Scud affair
+got in the papers with the rest; everybody's wide awake in Honolulu, and
+the sooner we get the stuff in and the dollars out, the better for all
+concerned."
+
+"Gentlemen," said I, "you must excuse me. My friend, the captain here,
+will drink a glass of champagne with you to give you patience; but as
+for myself, I am unfit even for ordinary conversation till I have read
+these letters."
+
+They demurred a little: and indeed the danger of delay seemed obvious;
+but the sight of my distress, which I was unable entirely to control,
+appealed strongly to their good-nature; and I was suffered at last to
+get by myself on deck, where, by the light of a lantern smuggled under
+shelter of the low rail, I read the following wretched correspondence.
+
+"My dear Loudon," ran the first, "this will be handed you by your friend
+Speedy of the Catamount. His sterling character and loyal devotion
+to yourself pointed him out as the best man for our purposes in
+Honolulu--the parties on the spot being difficult to manipulate. A man
+called Billy Fowler (you must have heard of Billy) is the boss; he is in
+politics some, and squares the officers. I have hard times before me
+in the city, but I feel as bright as a dollar and as strong as John L.
+Sullivan. What with Mamie here, and my partner speeding over the seas,
+and the bonanza in the wreck, I feel like I could juggle with the
+Pyramids of Egypt, same as conjurers do with aluminium balls. My
+earnest prayers follow you, Loudon, that you may feel the way I do--just
+inspired! My feet don't touch the ground; I kind of swim. Mamie is like
+Moses and Aaron that held up the other individual's arms. She carries me
+along like a horse and buggy. I am beating the record.
+
+"Your true partner,
+
+"J. PINKERTON."
+
+Number two was in a different style:--
+
+"My dearest Loudon, how am I to prepare you for this dire intelligence?
+O dear me, it will strike you to the earth. The Fiat has gone forth; our
+firm went bust at a quarter before twelve. It was a bill of Bradley's
+(for $200) that brought these vast operations to a close, and evolved
+liabilities of upwards of two hundred and fifty thousand. O, the shame
+and pity of it! and you but three weeks gone! Loudon, don't blame your
+partner: if human hands and brains could have sufficed, I would have
+held the thing together. But it just slowly crumbled; Bradley was the
+last kick, but the blamed business just MELTED. I give the liabilities;
+it's supposed they're all in; for the cowards were waiting, and the
+claims were filed like taking tickets to hear Patti. I don't quite have
+the hang of the assets yet, our interests were so extended; but I am at
+it day and night, and I guess will make a creditable dividend. If the
+wreck pans out only half the way it ought, we'll turn the laugh still. I
+am as full of grit and work as ever, and just tower above our troubles.
+Mamie is a host in herself. Somehow I feel like it was only me that had
+gone bust, and you and she soared clear of it. Hurry up. That's all you
+have to do.
+
+"Yours ever,
+
+"J. PINKERTON."
+
+The third was yet more altered:--
+
+"My poor Loudon," it began, "I labour far into the night getting our
+affairs in order; you could not believe their vastness and complexity.
+Douglas B. Longhurst said humorously that the receiver's work would
+be cut out for him. I cannot deny that some of them have a speculative
+look. God forbid a sensitive, refined spirit like yours should ever come
+face to face with a Commissioner in Bankruptcy; these men get all the
+sweetness knocked right out of them. But I could bear up better if it
+weren't for press comments. Often and often, Loudon, I recall to mind
+your most legitimate critiques of the press system. They published an
+interview with me, not the least like what I said, and with JEERING
+comments; it would make your blood boil, it was literally INHUMANE; I
+wouldn't have written it about a yellow dog that was in trouble like
+what I am. Mamie just winced, the first time she has turned a hair right
+through the whole catastrophe. How wonderfully true was what you said
+long ago in Paris, about touching on people's personal appearance! The
+fellow said--" And then these words had been scored through; and my
+distressed friend turned to another subject. "I cannot bear to dwell
+upon our assets. They simply don't show up. Even Thirteen Star, as sound
+a line as can be produced upon this coast, goes begging. The wreck has
+thrown a blight on all we ever touched. And where's the use? God never
+made a wreck big enough to fill our deficit. I am haunted by the thought
+that you may blame me; I know how I despised your remonstrances. O,
+Loudon, don't be hard on your miserable partner. The funny-dog business
+is what kills. I fear your stern rectitude of mind like the eye of God.
+I cannot think but what some of my books seem mixed up; otherwise, I
+don't seem to see my way as plain as I could wish to. Or else my brain
+is gone soft. Loudon, if there should be any unpleasantness, you can
+trust me to do the right thing and keep you clear. I've been telling
+them already, how you had no business grip and never saw the books. O, I
+trust I have done right in this! I knew it was a liberty; I know you may
+justly complain; but it was some things that were said. And mind you,
+all legitimate business! Not even your shrinking sensitiveness could
+find fault with the first look of one of them, if they had panned out
+right. And you know, the Flying Scud was the biggest gamble of the
+crowd, and that was your own idea. Mamie says she never could bear
+to look you in the face, if that idea had been mine, she is SO
+conscientious!
+
+"Your broken-hearted
+
+"JIM."
+
+The last began without formality:--
+
+"This is the end of me commercially. I give up; my nerve is gone. I
+suppose I ought to be glad; for we're through the court. I don't know
+as ever I knew how, and I'm sure I don't remember. If it pans out--the
+wreck, I mean--we'll go to Europe, and live on the interest of our
+money. No more work for me. I shake when people speak to me. I have gone
+on, hoping and hoping, and working and working, and the lead has pinched
+right out. I want to lie on my back in a garden and read Shakespeare and
+E. P. Roe. Don't suppose it's cowardice, Loudon. I'm a sick man. Rest is
+what I must have. I've worked hard all my life; I never spared myself;
+every dollar I ever made, I've coined my brains for it. I've never done
+a mean thing; I've lived respectable, and given to the poor. Who has a
+better right to a holiday than I have? And I mean to have a year of it
+straight out; and if I don't, I shall lie right down here in my tracks,
+and die of worry and brain trouble. Don't mistake. That's so. If there
+are any pickings at all, TRUST SPEEDY; don't let the creditors get wind
+of what there is. I helped you when you were down; help me now. Don't
+deceive yourself; you've got to help me right now, or never. I am
+clerking, and NOT FIT TO CYPHER. Mamie's typewriting at the Phoenix
+Guano Exchange, down town. The light is right out of my life. I know
+you'll not like to do what I propose. Think only of this; that it's life
+or death for
+
+"JIM PINKERTON.
+
+"P.S. Our figure was seven per cent. O, what a fall was there! Well,
+well, it's past mending; I don't want to whine. But, Loudon, I do want
+to live. No more ambition; all I ask is life. I have so much to make
+it sweet to me! I am clerking, and USELESS AT THAT. I know I would have
+fired such a clerk inside of forty minutes, in MY time. But my time's
+over. I can only cling on to you. Don't fail
+
+"JIM PINKERTON."
+
+There was yet one more postscript, yet one more outburst of self-pity
+and pathetic adjuration; and a doctor's opinion, unpromising enough,
+was besides enclosed. I pass them both in silence. I think shame to
+have shown, at so great length, the half-baked virtues of my friend
+dissolving in the crucible of sickness and distress; and the effect upon
+my spirits can be judged already. I got to my feet when I had done, drew
+a deep breath, and stared hard at Honolulu. One moment the world seemed
+at an end; the next, I was conscious of a rush of independent energy. On
+Jim I could rely no longer; I must now take hold myself. I must decide
+and act on my own better thoughts.
+
+The word was easy to say; the thing, at the first blush, was
+undiscoverable. I was overwhelmed with miserable, womanish pity for
+my broken friend; his outcries grieved my spirit; I saw him then and
+now--then, so invincible; now, brought so low--and knew neither how
+to refuse, nor how to consent to his proposal. The remembrance of my
+father, who had fallen in the same field unstained, the image of his
+monument incongruously rising, a fear of the law, a chill air that
+seemed to blow upon my fancy from the doors of prisons, and the
+imaginary clank of fetters, recalled me to a different resolve. And then
+again, the wails of my sick partner intervened. So I stood hesitating,
+and yet with a strong sense of capacity behind: sure, if I could but
+choose my path, that I should walk in it with resolution.
+
+Then I remembered that I had a friend on board, and stepped to the
+companion.
+
+"Gentlemen," said I, "only a few moments more: but these, I regret to
+say, I must make more tedious still by removing your companion. It is
+indispensable that I should have a word or two with Captain Nares."
+
+Both the smugglers were afoot at once, protesting. The business, they
+declared, must be despatched at once; they had run risk enough, with a
+conscience; and they must either finish now, or go.
+
+"The choice is yours, gentlemen," said I, "and, I believe, the
+eagerness. I am not yet sure that I have anything in your way; even if
+I have, there are a hundred things to be considered; and I assure you it
+is not at all my habit to do business with a pistol to my head."
+
+"That is all very proper, Mr. Dodd; there is no wish to coerce you,
+believe me," said Fowler; "only, please consider our position. It is
+really dangerous; we were not the only people to see your schooner off
+Waimanolo."
+
+"Mr. Fowler," I replied, "I was not born yesterday. Will you allow me
+to express an opinion, in which I may be quite wrong, but to which I
+am entirely wedded? If the custom-house officers had been coming,
+they would have been here now. In other words, somebody is working the
+oracle, and (for a good guess) his name is Fowler."
+
+Both men laughed loud and long; and being supplied with another bottle
+of Longhurst's champagne, suffered the captain and myself to leave them
+without further word.
+
+I gave Nares the correspondence, and he skimmed it through.
+
+"Now, captain," said I, "I want a fresh mind on this. What does it
+mean?"
+
+"It's large enough text," replied the captain. "It means you're to stake
+your pile on Speedy, hand him over all you can, and hold your tongue.
+I almost wish you hadn't shown it me," he added wearily. "What with the
+specie from the wreck and the opium money, it comes to a biggish deal."
+
+"That's supposing that I do it?" said I.
+
+"Exactly," said he, "supposing you do it."
+
+"And there are pros and cons to that," I observed.
+
+"There's San Quentin, to start in with," said the captain; "and suppose
+you clear the penitentiary, there's the nasty taste in the mouth. The
+figure's big enough to make bad trouble, but it's not big enough to be
+picturesque; and I should guess a man always feels kind of small who has
+sold himself under six cyphers. That would be my way, at least; there's
+an excitement about a million that might carry me on; but the other way,
+I should feel kind of lonely when I woke in bed. Then there's Speedy. Do
+you know him well?"
+
+"No, I do not," said I.
+
+"Well, of course he can vamoose with the entire speculation, if he
+chooses," pursued the captain, "and if he don't I can't see but what
+you've got to support and bed and board with him to the end of time.
+I guess it would weary me. Then there's Mr. Pinkerton, of course. He's
+been a good friend to you, hasn't he? Stood by you, and all that? and
+pulled you through for all he was worth?"
+
+
+"That he has," I cried; "I could never begin telling you my debt to
+him!"
+
+"Well, and that's a consideration," said the captain. "As a matter of
+principle, I wouldn't look at this business at the money. 'Not good
+enough,' would be my word. But even principle goes under when it comes
+to friends--the right sort, I mean. This Pinkerton is frightened, and
+he seems sick; the medico don't seem to care a cent about his state of
+health; and you've got to figure how you would like it if he came to
+die. Remember, the risk of this little swindle is all yours; it's no
+sort of risk to Mr. Pinkerton. Well, you've got to put it that way
+plainly, and see how you like the sound of it: my friend Pinkerton is in
+danger of the New Jerusalem, I am in danger of San Quentin; which risk
+do I propose to run?"
+
+"That's an ugly way to put it," I objected, "and perhaps hardly fair.
+There's right and wrong to be considered."
+
+"Don't know the parties," replied Nares; "and I'm coming to them,
+anyway. For it strikes me, when it came to smuggling opium, you walked
+right up?"
+
+"So I did," I said; "sick I am to have to say it!"
+
+"All the same," continued Nares, "you went into the opium-smuggling with
+your head down; and a good deal of fussing I've listened to, that you
+hadn't more of it to smuggle. Now, maybe your partner's not quite fixed
+the same as you are; maybe he sees precious little difference between
+the one thing and the other."
+
+"You could not say truer: he sees none, I do believe," cried I; "and
+though I see one, I could never tell you how."
+
+"We never can," said the oracular Nares; "taste is all a matter of
+opinion. But the point is, how will your friend take it? You refuse a
+favour, and you take the high horse at the same time; you disappoint
+him, and you rap him over the knuckles. It won't do, Mr. Dodd; no
+friendship can stand that. You must be as good as your friend, or as bad
+as your friend, or start on a fresh deal without him."
+
+"I don't see it!" said I. "You don't know Jim!"
+
+"Well, you WILL see," said Nares. "And now, here's another point. This
+bit of money looks mighty big to Mr. Pinkerton; it may spell life or
+health to him; but among all your creditors, I don't see that it amounts
+to a hill of beans--I don't believe it'll pay their car-fares all round.
+And don't you think you'll ever get thanked. You were known to pay a
+long price for the chance of rummaging that wreck; you do the rummaging,
+you come home, and you hand over ten thousand--or twenty, if you like--a
+part of which you'll have to own up you made by smuggling; and, mind!
+you'll never get Billy Fowler to stick his name to a receipt. Now just
+glance at the transaction from the outside, and see what a clear case it
+makes. Your ten thousand is a sop; and people will only wonder you were
+so damned impudent as to offer such a small one! Whichever way you take
+it, Mr. Dodd, the bottom's out of your character; so there's one thing
+less to be considered."
+
+"I daresay you'll scarce believe me," said I, "but I feel that a
+positive relief."
+
+"You must be made some way different from me, then," returned Nares.
+"And, talking about me, I might just mention how I stand. You'll have
+no trouble from me--you've trouble enough of your own; and I'm friend
+enough, when a friend's in need, to shut my eyes and go right where he
+tells me. All the same, I'm rather queerly fixed. My owners'll have
+to rank with the rest on their charter-party. Here am I, their
+representative! and I have to look over the ship's side while the
+bankrupt walks his assets ashore in Mr. Speedy's hat-box. It's a thing
+I wouldn't do for James G. Blaine; but I'll do it for you, Mr. Dodd, and
+only sorry I can't do more."
+
+"Thank you, captain; my mind is made up," said I. "I'll go straight,
+RUAT COELUM! I never understood that old tag before to-night."
+
+"I hope it isn't my business that decides you?" asked the captain.
+
+"I'll never deny it was an element," said I. "I hope, I hope I'm not
+cowardly; I hope I could steal for Jim myself; but when it comes to
+dragging in you and Speedy, and this one and the other, why, Jim has
+got to die, and there's an end. I'll try and work for him when I get to
+'Frisco, I suppose; and I suppose I'll fail, and look on at his death,
+and kick myself: it can't be helped--I'll fight it on this line."
+
+
+"I don't say as you're wrong," replied Nares, "and I'll be hanged if
+I know if you're right. It suits me anyway. And look here--hadn't you
+better just show our friends over the side?" he added; "no good of being
+at the risk and worry of smuggling for the benefit of creditors."
+
+"I don't think of the creditors," said I. "But I've kept this pair so
+long, I haven't got the brass to fire them now."
+
+Indeed, I believe that was my only reason for entering upon a
+transaction which was now outside my interest, but which (as it chanced)
+repaid me fifty-fold in entertainment. Fowler and Sharpe were both
+preternaturally sharp; they did me the honour in the beginning to
+attribute to myself their proper vices; and before we were done had
+grown to regard me with an esteem akin to worship. This proud position
+I attained by no more recondite arts, than telling the mere truth and
+unaffectedly displaying my indifference to the result. I have doubtless
+stated the essentials of all good diplomacy, which may be rather
+regarded, therefore, as a grace of state, than the effect of management.
+For to tell the truth is not in itself diplomatic, and to have no care
+for the result a thing involuntary. When I mentioned, for instance, that
+I had but two hundred and forty pounds of drug, my smugglers exchanged
+meaning glances, as who should say, "Here is a foeman worthy of our
+steel!" But when I carelessly proposed thirty-five dollars a pound, as
+an amendment to their offered twenty, and wound up with the remark: "The
+whole thing is a matter of moonshine to me, gentlemen. Take it or want
+it, and fill your glasses"--I had the indescribable gratification to
+see Sharpe nudge Fowler warningly, and Fowler choke down the jovial
+acceptance that stood ready on his lips, and lamely substitute a "No--no
+more wine, please, Mr. Dodd!" Nor was this all: for when the affair was
+settled at fifty dollars a pound--a shrewd stroke of business for my
+creditors--and our friends had got on board their whaleboat and shoved
+off, it appeared they were imperfectly acquainted with the conveyance
+of sound upon still water, and I had the joy to overhear the following
+testimonial.
+
+"Deep man, that Dodd," said Sharpe.
+
+And the bass-toned Fowler echoed, "Damned if I understand his game."
+
+Thus we were left once more alone upon the Norah Creina; and the news of
+the night, and the lamentations of Pinkerton, and the thought of my own
+harsh decision, returned and besieged me in the dark. According to
+all the rubbish I had read, I should have been sustained by the warm
+consciousness of virtue. Alas, I had but the one feeling: that I
+had sacrificed my sick friend to the fear of prison-cells and stupid
+starers. And no moralist has yet advanced so far as to number cowardice
+amongst the things that are their own reward.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII. LIGHT FROM THE MAN OF WAR.
+
+
+In the early sunlight of the next day, we tossed close off the buoy and
+saw the city sparkle in its groves about the foot of the Punch-bowl, and
+the masts clustering thick in the small harbour. A good breeze, which
+had risen with the sea, carried us triumphantly through the
+intricacies of the passage; and we had soon brought up not far from the
+landing-stairs. I remember to have remarked an ugly horned reptile of a
+modern warship in the usual moorings across the port, but my mind was so
+profoundly plunged in melancholy that I paid no heed.
+
+Indeed, I had little time at my disposal. Messieurs Sharpe and Fowler
+had left the night before in the persuasion that I was a liar of the
+first magnitude; the genial belief brought them aboard again with the
+earliest opportunity, proffering help to one who had proved how little
+he required it, and hospitality to so respectable a character. I had
+business to mind, I had some need both of assistance and diversion; I
+liked Fowler--I don't know why; and in short, I let them do with me as
+they desired. No creditor intervening, I spent the first half of the
+day inquiring into the conditions of the tea and silk market under
+the auspices of Sharpe; lunched with him in a private apartment at the
+Hawaiian Hotel--for Sharpe was a teetotaler in public; and about four
+in the afternoon was delivered into the hands of Fowler. This gentleman
+owned a bungalow on the Waikiki beach; and there in company with
+certain young bloods of Honolulu, I was entertained to a sea-bathe,
+indiscriminate cocktails, a dinner, a hula-hula, and (to round off the
+night), poker and assorted liquors. To lose money in the small hours to
+pale, intoxicated youth, has always appeared to me a pleasure overrated.
+In my then frame of mind, I confess I found it even delightful; put up
+my money (or rather my creditors'), and put down Fowler's champagne with
+equal avidity and success; and awoke the next morning to a mild headache
+and the rather agreeable lees of the last night's excitement. The young
+bloods, many of whom were still far from sober, had taken the kitchen
+into their own hands, vice the Chinaman deposed; and since each was
+engaged upon a dish of his own, and none had the least scruple in
+demolishing his neighbour's handiwork, I became early convinced that
+many eggs would be broken and few omelets made. The discovery of a jug
+of milk and a crust of bread enabled me to stay my appetite; and since
+it was Sunday, when no business could be done, and the festivities were
+to be renewed that night in the abode of Fowler, it occurred to me to
+slip silently away and enjoy some air and solitude.
+
+I turned seaward under the dead crater known as Diamond Head. My way
+was for some time under the shade of certain thickets of green, thorny
+trees, dotted with houses. Here I enjoyed some pictures of the native
+life: wide-eyed, naked children, mingled with pigs; a youth asleep under
+a tree; an old gentleman spelling through glasses his Hawaiian Bible;
+the somewhat embarrassing spectacle of a lady at her bath in a spring;
+and the glimpse of gaudy-coloured gowns in the deep shade of the houses.
+Thence I found a road along the beach itself, wading in sand, opposed
+and buffeted by the whole weight of the Trade: on one hand, the
+glittering and sounding surf, and the bay lively with many sails; on the
+other, precipitous, arid gullies and sheer cliffs, mounting towards the
+crater and the blue sky. For all the companionship of skimming vessels,
+the place struck me with a sense of solitude. There came in my head
+what I had been told the day before at dinner, of a cavern above in
+the bowels of the volcano, a place only to be visited with the light
+of torches, a treasure-house of the bones of priests and warriors, and
+clamorous with the voice of an unseen river pouring seaward through
+the crannies of the mountain. At the thought, it was revealed to me
+suddenly, how the bungalows, and the Fowlers, and the bright busy town
+and crowding ships, were all children of yesterday; and for centuries
+before, the obscure life of the natives, with its glories and ambitions,
+its joys and crimes and agonies, had rolled unseen, like the mountain
+river, in that sea-girt place. Not Chaldea appeared more ancient, nor
+the Pyramids of Egypt more abstruse; and I heard time measured by
+"the drums and tramplings" of immemorial conquests, and saw myself
+the creature of an hour. Over the bankruptcy of Pinkerton and Dodd,
+of Montana Block, S. F., and the conscientious troubles of the junior
+partner, the spirit of eternity was seen to smile.
+
+To this mood of philosophic sadness, my excesses of the night before no
+doubt contributed; for more things than virtue are at times their own
+reward: but I was greatly healed at least of my distresses. And while I
+was yet enjoying my abstracted humour, a turn of the beach brought me in
+view of the signal-station, with its watch-house and flag-staff, perched
+on the immediate margin of a cliff. The house was new and clean and
+bald, and stood naked to the Trades. The wind beat about it in loud
+squalls; the seaward windows rattled without mercy; the breach of the
+surf below contributed its increment of noise; and the fall of my foot
+in the narrow verandah passed unheard by those within.
+
+There were two on whom I thus entered unexpectedly: the look-out
+man, with grizzled beard, keen seaman's eyes, and that brand on his
+countenance that comes of solitary living; and a visitor, an oldish,
+oratorical fellow, in the smart tropical array of the British
+man-o'-war's man, perched on a table, and smoking a cigar. I was
+made pleasantly welcome, and was soon listening with amusement to the
+sea-lawyer.
+
+"No, if I hadn't have been born an Englishman," was one of his
+sentiments, "damn me! I'd rather 'a been born a Frenchy! I'd like to see
+another nation fit to black their boots." Presently after, he developed
+his views on home politics with similar trenchancy. "I'd rather be a
+brute beast than what I'd be a liberal," he said. "Carrying banners and
+that! a pig's got more sense. Why, look at our chief engineer--they do
+say he carried a banner with his own 'ands: 'Hooroar for Gladstone!' I
+suppose, or 'Down with the Aristocracy!' What 'arm does the aristocracy
+do? Show me a country any good without one! Not the States; why, it's
+the 'ome of corruption! I knew a man--he was a good man, 'ome born--who
+was signal quartermaster in the Wyandotte. He told me he could never
+have got there if he hadn't have 'run with the boys'--told it me as I'm
+telling you. Now, we're all British subjects here----" he was going on.
+
+"I am afraid I am an American," I said apologetically.
+
+He seemed the least bit taken aback, but recovered himself; and with the
+ready tact of his betters, paid me the usual British compliment on the
+riposte. "You don't say so!" he exclaimed. "Well, I give you my word of
+honour, I'd never have guessed it. Nobody could tell it on you," said
+he, as though it were some form of liquor.
+
+I thanked him, as I always do, at this particular stage, with his
+compatriots: not so much perhaps for the compliment to myself and my
+poor country, as for the revelation (which is ever fresh to me) of
+Britannic self-sufficiency and taste. And he was so far softened by my
+gratitude as to add a word of praise on the American method of lacing
+sails. "You're ahead of us in lacing sails," he said. "You can say that
+with a clear conscience."
+
+"Thank you," I replied. "I shall certainly do so."
+
+At this rate, we got along swimmingly; and when I rose to retrace my
+steps to the Fowlery, he at once started to his feet and offered me the
+welcome solace of his company for the return. I believe I discovered
+much alacrity at the idea, for the creature (who seemed to be unique,
+or to represent a type like that of the dodo) entertained me hugely.
+But when he had produced his hat, I found I was in the way of more
+than entertainment; for on the ribbon I could read the legend: "H.M.S.
+Tempest."
+
+"I say," I began, when our adieus were paid, and we were scrambling down
+the path from the look-out, "it was your ship that picked up the men on
+board the Flying Scud, wasn't it?"
+
+"You may say so," said he. "And a blessed good job for the Flying-Scuds.
+It's a God-forsaken spot, that Midway Island."
+
+"I've just come from there," said I. "It was I who bought the wreck."
+
+"Beg your pardon, sir," cried the sailor: "gen'lem'n in the white
+schooner?"
+
+"The same," said I.
+
+My friend saluted, as though we were now, for the first time, formally
+introduced.
+
+"Of course," I continued, "I am rather taken up with the whole story;
+and I wish you would tell me what you can of how the men were saved."
+
+"It was like this," said he. "We had orders to call at Midway after
+castaways, and had our distance pretty nigh run down the day before.
+We steamed half-speed all night, looking to make it about noon; for old
+Tootles--beg your pardon, sir--the captain--was precious scared of the
+place at night. Well, there's nasty, filthy currents round that Midway;
+YOU know, as has been there; and one on 'em must have set us down.
+Leastways, about six bells, when we had ought to been miles away, some
+one sees a sail, and lo and be'old, there was the spars of a full-rigged
+brig! We raised her pretty fast, and the island after her; and made out
+she was hard aground, canted on her bilge, and had her ens'n flying,
+union down. It was breaking 'igh on the reef, and we laid well out, and
+sent a couple of boats. I didn't go in neither; only stood and looked
+on; but it seems they was all badly scared and muddled, and didn't know
+which end was uppermost. One on 'em kep' snivelling and wringing of his
+'ands; he come on board all of a sop like a monthly nurse. That Trent,
+he come first, with his 'and in a bloody rag. I was near 'em as I am to
+you; and I could make out he was all to bits--'eard his breath rattle
+in his blooming lungs as he come down the ladder. Yes, they was a scared
+lot, small blame to 'em, I say! The next after Trent, come him as was
+mate."
+
+"Goddedaal!" I exclaimed.
+
+"And a good name for him too," chuckled the man-o'-war's man, who
+probably confounded the word with a familiar oath. "A good name
+too; only it weren't his. He was a gen'lem'n born, sir, as had gone
+maskewerading. One of our officers knowed him at 'ome, reckonises him,
+steps up, 'olds out his 'and right off, and says he: ''Ullo, Norrie,
+old chappie!' he says. The other was coming up, as bold as look at it;
+didn't seem put out--that's where blood tells, sir! Well, no sooner does
+he 'ear his born name given him, than he turns as white as the Day of
+Judgment, stares at Mr. Sebright like he was looking at a ghost, and
+then (I give you my word of honour) turned to, and doubled up in a dead
+faint. 'Take him down to my berth,' says Mr. Sebright. ''Tis poor old
+Norrie Carthew,' he says."
+
+"And what--what sort of a gentleman was this Mr. Carthew?" I gasped.
+
+"The ward-room steward told me he was come of the best blood in
+England," was my friend's reply: "Eton and 'Arrow bred;--and might have
+been a bar'net!"
+
+"No, but to look at?" I corrected him.
+
+
+"The same as you or me," was the uncompromising answer: "not much to
+look at. I didn't know he was a gen'lem'n; but then, I never see him
+cleaned up."
+
+"How was that?" I cried. "O yes, I remember: he was sick all the way to
+'Frisco, was he not?"
+
+"Sick, or sorry, or something," returned my informant. "My belief, he
+didn't hanker after showing up. He kep' close; the ward-room steward,
+what took his meals in, told me he ate nex' to nothing; and he was
+fetched ashore at 'Frisco on the quiet. Here was how it was. It seems
+his brother had took and died, him as had the estate. This one had gone
+in for his beer, by what I could make out; the old folks at 'ome had
+turned rusty; no one knew where he had gone to. Here he was, slaving in
+a merchant brig, shipwrecked on Midway, and packing up his duds for a
+long voyage in a open boat. He comes on board our ship, and by God, here
+he is a landed proprietor, and may be in Parliament to-morrow! It's no
+less than natural he should keep dark: so would you and me in the same
+box."
+
+"I daresay," said I. "But you saw more of the others?"
+
+"To be sure," says he: "no 'arm in them from what I see. There was
+one 'Ardy there: colonial born he was, and had been through a power of
+money. There was no nonsense about 'Ardy; he had been up, and he had
+come down, and took it so. His 'eart was in the right place; and he was
+well-informed, and knew French; and Latin, I believe, like a native! I
+liked that 'Ardy; he was a good-looking boy, too."
+
+"Did they say much about the wreck?" I asked.
+
+"There wasn't much to say, I reckon," replied the man-o'-war's man. "It
+was all in the papers. 'Ardy used to yarn most about the coins he had
+gone through; he had lived with book-makers, and jockeys, and pugs, and
+actors, and all that: a precious low lot!" added this judicious person.
+"But it's about here my 'orse is moored, and by your leave I'll be
+getting ahead."
+
+"One moment," said I. "Is Mr. Sebright on board?"
+
+"No, sir, he's ashore to-day," said the sailor. "I took up a bag for him
+to the 'otel."
+
+With that we parted. Presently after my friend overtook and passed me on
+a hired steed which seemed to scorn its cavalier; and I was left in the
+dust of his passage, a prey to whirling thoughts. For I now stood, or
+seemed to stand, on the immediate threshold of these mysteries. I knew
+the name of the man Dickson--his name was Carthew; I knew where the
+money came from that opposed us at the sale--it was part of Carthew's
+inheritance; and in my gallery of illustrations to the history of the
+wreck, one more picture hung; perhaps the most dramatic of the series.
+It showed me the deck of a warship in that distant part of the great
+ocean, the officers and seamen looking curiously on; and a man of birth
+and education, who had been sailing under an alias on a trading brig,
+and was now rescued from desperate peril, felled like an ox by the
+bare sound of his own name. I could not fail to be reminded of my
+own experience at the Occidental telephone. The hero of three styles,
+Dickson, Goddedaal, or Carthew, must be the owner of a lively--or a
+loaded--conscience, and the reflection recalled to me the photograph
+found on board the Flying Scud; just such a man, I reasoned, would be
+capable of just such starts and crises, and I inclined to think that
+Goddedaal (or Carthew) was the mainspring of the mystery.
+
+One thing was plain: as long as the Tempest was in reach, I must make
+the acquaintance of both Sebright and the doctor. To this end, I excused
+myself with Mr. Fowler, returned to Honolulu, and passed the remainder
+of the day hanging vainly round the cool verandahs of the hotel. It was
+near nine o'clock at night before I was rewarded.
+
+"That is the gentleman you were asking for," said the clerk.
+
+I beheld a man in tweeds, of an incomparable languor of demeanour, and
+carrying a cane with genteel effort. From the name, I had looked to find
+a sort of Viking and young ruler of the battle and the tempest; and I
+was the more disappointed, and not a little alarmed, to come face to
+face with this impracticable type.
+
+"I believe I have the pleasure of addressing Lieutenant Sebright," said
+I, stepping forward.
+
+"Aw, yes," replied the hero; "but, aw! I dawn't knaw you, do I?" (He
+spoke for all the world like Lord Foppington in the old play--a proof of
+the perennial nature of man's affectations. But his limping dialect, I
+scorn to continue to reproduce.)
+
+
+"It was with the intention of making myself known, that I have taken
+this step," said I, entirely unabashed (for impudence begets in me its
+like--perhaps my only martial attribute). "We have a common subject of
+interest, to me very lively; and I believe I may be in a position to be
+of some service to a friend of yours--to give him, at least, some very
+welcome information."
+
+The last clause was a sop to my conscience: I could not pretend, even
+to myself, either the power or the will to serve Mr. Carthew; but I felt
+sure he would like to hear the Flying Scud was burned.
+
+"I don't know--I--I don't understand you," stammered my victim. "I don't
+have any friends in Honolulu, don't you know?"
+
+"The friend to whom I refer is English," I replied. "It is Mr. Carthew,
+whom you picked up at Midway. My firm has bought the wreck; I am just
+returned from breaking her up; and--to make my business quite clear to
+you--I have a communication it is necessary I should make; and have to
+trouble you for Mr. Carthew's address."
+
+It will be seen how rapidly I had dropped all hope of interesting
+the frigid British bear. He, on his side, was plainly on thorns at my
+insistence; I judged he was suffering torments of alarm lest I should
+prove an undesirable acquaintance; diagnosed him for a shy, dull, vain,
+unamiable animal, without adequate defence--a sort of dishoused snail;
+and concluded, rightly enough, that he would consent to anything to
+bring our interview to a conclusion. A moment later, he had fled,
+leaving me with a sheet of paper, thus inscribed:--
+
+Norris Carthew,
+
+Stallbridge-le-Carthew,
+
+Dorset.
+
+I might have cried victory, the field of battle and some of the enemy's
+baggage remaining in my occupation. As a matter of fact, my moral
+sufferings during the engagement had rivalled those of Mr. Sebright; I
+was left incapable of fresh hostilities; I owned that the navy of old
+England was (for me) invincible as of yore; and giving up all thought of
+the doctor, inclined to salute her veteran flag, in the future, from a
+prudent distance. Such was my inclination, when I retired to rest; and
+my first experience the next morning strengthened it to certainty. For I
+had the pleasure of encountering my fair antagonist on his way on board;
+and he honoured me with a recognition so disgustingly dry, that my
+impatience overflowed, and (recalling the tactics of Nelson) I neglected
+to perceive or to return it.
+
+Judge of my astonishment, some half-hour later, to receive a note of
+invitation from the Tempest.
+
+"Dear Sir," it began, "we are all naturally very much interested in
+the wreck of the Flying Scud, and as soon as I mentioned that I had the
+pleasure of making your acquaintance, a very general wish was expressed
+that you would come and dine on board. It will give us all the greatest
+pleasure to see you to-night, or in case you should be otherwise
+engaged, to luncheon either to-morrow or to-day." A note of the hours
+followed, and the document wound up with the name of "J. Lascelles
+Sebright," under an undeniable statement that he was sincerely mine.
+
+"No, Mr. Lascelles Sebright," I reflected, "you are not, but I begin
+to suspect that (like the lady in the song) you are another's. You have
+mentioned your adventure, my friend; you have been blown up; you have
+got your orders; this note has been dictated; and I am asked on board
+(in spite of your melancholy protests) not to meet the men, and not
+to talk about the Flying Scud, but to undergo the scrutiny of some one
+interested in Carthew: the doctor, for a wager. And for a second wager,
+all this springs from your facility in giving the address." I lost no
+time in answering the billet, electing for the earliest occasion; and at
+the appointed hour, a somewhat blackguard-looking boat's crew from the
+Norah Creina conveyed me under the guns of the Tempest.
+
+The ward-room appeared pleased to see me; Sebright's brother officers,
+in contrast to himself, took a boyish interest in my cruise; and much
+was talked of the Flying Scud; of how she had been lost, of how I had
+found her, and of the weather, the anchorage, and the currents
+about Midway Island. Carthew was referred to more than once without
+embarrassment; the parallel case of a late Earl of Aberdeen, who died
+mate on board a Yankee schooner, was adduced. If they told me little
+of the man, it was because they had not much to tell, and only felt an
+interest in his recognition and pity for his prolonged ill-health. I
+could never think the subject was avoided; and it was clear that the
+officers, far from practising concealment, had nothing to conceal.
+
+So far, then, all seemed natural, and yet the doctor troubled me. This
+was a tall, rugged, plain man, on the wrong side of fifty, already gray,
+and with a restless mouth and bushy eyebrows: he spoke seldom, but then
+with gaiety; and his great, quaking, silent laughter was infectious.
+I could make out that he was at once the quiz of the ward-room and
+perfectly respected; and I made sure that he observed me covertly. It is
+certain I returned the compliment. If Carthew had feigned sickness--and
+all seemed to point in that direction--here was the man who knew
+all--or certainly knew much. His strong, sterling face progressively and
+silently persuaded of his full knowledge. That was not the mouth, these
+were not the eyes, of one who would act in ignorance, or could be led
+at random. Nor again was it the face of a man squeamish in the case of
+malefactors; there was even a touch of Brutus there, and something of
+the hanging judge. In short, he seemed the last character for the part
+assigned him in my theories; and wonder and curiosity contended in my
+mind.
+
+Luncheon was over, and an adjournment to the smoking-room proposed, when
+(upon a sudden impulse) I burned my ships, and pleading indisposition,
+requested to consult the doctor.
+
+"There is nothing the matter with my body, Dr. Urquart," said I, as soon
+as we were alone.
+
+He hummed, his mouth worked, he regarded me steadily with his gray eyes,
+but resolutely held his peace.
+
+
+"I want to talk to you about the Flying Scud and Mr. Carthew," I
+resumed. "Come: you must have expected this. I am sure you know all; you
+are shrewd, and must have a guess that I know much. How are we to stand
+to one another? and how am I to stand to Mr. Carthew?"
+
+"I do not fully understand you," he replied, after a pause; and then,
+after another: "It is the spirit I refer to, Mr. Dodd."
+
+"The spirit of my inquiries?" I asked.
+
+He nodded.
+
+
+"I think we are at cross-purposes," said I. "The spirit is precisely
+what I came in quest of. I bought the Flying Scud at a ruinous figure,
+run up by Mr. Carthew through an agent; and I am, in consequence, a
+bankrupt. But if I have found no fortune in the wreck, I have found
+unmistakable evidences of foul play. Conceive my position: I am ruined
+through this man, whom I never saw; I might very well desire revenge
+or compensation; and I think you will admit I have the means to extort
+either."
+
+He made no sign in answer to this challenge.
+
+"Can you not understand, then," I resumed, "the spirit in which I come
+to one who is surely in the secret, and ask him, honestly and plainly:
+How do I stand to Mr. Carthew?"
+
+"I must ask you to be more explicit," said he.
+
+"You do not help me much," I retorted. "But see if you can understand:
+my conscience is not very fine-spun; still, I have one. Now, there are
+degrees of foul play, to some of which I have no particular objection.
+I am sure with Mr. Carthew, I am not at all the person to forgo an
+advantage; and I have much curiosity. But on the other hand, I have no
+taste for persecution; and I ask you to believe that I am not the man to
+make bad worse, or heap trouble on the unfortunate."
+
+"Yes; I think I understand," said he. "Suppose I pass you my word that,
+whatever may have occurred, there were excuses--great excuses--I may
+say, very great?"
+
+"It would have weight with me, doctor," I replied.
+
+"I may go further," he pursued. "Suppose I had been there, or you had
+been there: after a certain event had taken place, it's a grave question
+what we might have done--it's even a question what we could have
+done--ourselves. Or take me. I will be plain with you, and own that I am
+in possession of the facts. You have a shrewd guess how I have acted in
+that knowledge. May I ask you to judge from the character of my action,
+something of the nature of that knowledge, which I have no call, nor yet
+no title, to share with you?"
+
+I cannot convey a sense of the rugged conviction and judicial emphasis
+of Dr. Urquart's speech. To those who did not hear him, it may appear as
+if he fed me on enigmas; to myself, who heard, I seemed to have received
+a lesson and a compliment.
+
+"I thank you," I said. "I feel you have said as much as possible, and
+more than I had any right to ask. I take that as a mark of confidence,
+which I will try to deserve. I hope, sir, you will let me regard you as
+a friend."
+
+He evaded my proffered friendship with a blunt proposal to rejoin the
+mess; and yet a moment later, contrived to alleviate the snub. For, as
+we entered the smoking-room, he laid his hand on my shoulder with a kind
+familiarity.
+
+"I have just prescribed for Mr. Dodd," says he, "a glass of our
+Madeira."
+
+I have never again met Dr. Urquart: but he wrote himself so clear
+upon my memory that I think I see him still. And indeed I had cause to
+remember the man for the sake of his communication. It was hard enough
+to make a theory fit the circumstances of the Flying Scud; but one in
+which the chief actor should stand the least excused, and might retain
+the esteem or at least the pity of a man like Dr. Urquart, failed me
+utterly. Here at least was the end of my discoveries; I learned no more,
+till I learned all; and my reader has the evidence complete. Is he more
+astute than I was? or, like me, does he give it up?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII. CROSS-QUESTIONS AND CROOKED ANSWERS.
+
+
+I have said hard words of San Francisco; they must scarce be literally
+understood (one cannot suppose the Israelites did justice to the land of
+Pharaoh); and the city took a fine revenge of me on my return. She had
+never worn a more becoming guise; the sun shone, the air was lively, the
+people had flowers in their button-holes and smiles upon their faces;
+and as I made my way towards Jim's place of employment, with some very
+black anxieties at heart, I seemed to myself a blot on the surrounding
+gaiety.
+
+My destination was in a by-street in a mean, rickety building; "The
+Franklin H. Dodge Steam Printing Company" appeared upon its front, and
+in characters of greater freshness, so as to suggest recent conversion,
+the watch-cry, "White Labour Only." In the office, in a dusty pen,
+Jim sat alone before a table. A wretched change had overtaken him in
+clothes, body, and bearing; he looked sick and shabby; he who had once
+rejoiced in his day's employment, like a horse among pastures, now sat
+staring on a column of accounts, idly chewing a pen, at times heavily
+sighing, the picture of inefficiency and inattention. He was sunk deep
+in a painful reverie; he neither saw nor heard me; and I stood and
+watched him unobserved. I had a sudden vain relenting. Repentance
+bludgeoned me. As I had predicted to Nares, I stood and kicked myself.
+Here was I come home again, my honour saved; there was my friend in want
+of rest, nursing, and a generous diet; and I asked myself with Falstaff,
+"What is in that word honour? what is that honour?" and, like Falstaff,
+I told myself that it was air.
+
+"Jim!" said I.
+
+"Loudon!" he gasped, and jumped from his chair and stood shaking.
+
+The next moment I was over the barrier, and we were hand in hand.
+
+"My poor old man!" I cried.
+
+"Thank God, you're home at last!" he gulped, and kept patting my
+shoulder with his hand.
+
+"I've no good news for you, Jim!" said I.
+
+"You've come--that's the good news that I want," he replied. "O, how
+I've longed for you, Loudon!"
+
+"I couldn't do what you wrote me," I said, lowering my voice. "The
+creditors have it all. I couldn't do it."
+
+"Ssh!" returned Jim. "I was crazy when wrote. I could never have looked
+Mamie in the face if we had done it. O, Loudon, what a gift that woman
+is! You think you know something of life: you just don't know anything.
+It's the GOODNESS of the woman, it's a revelation!"
+
+"That's all right," said I. "That's how I hoped to hear you, Jim."
+
+"And so the Flying Scud was a fraud," he resumed. "I didn't quite
+understand your letter, but I made out that."
+
+"Fraud is a mild term for it," said I. "The creditors will never believe
+what fools we were. And that reminds me," I continued, rejoicing in the
+transition, "how about the bankruptcy?"
+
+"You were lucky to be out of that," answered Jim, shaking his head;
+"you were lucky not to see the papers. The _Occidental_ called me a
+fifth-rate Kerbstone broker with water on the brain; another said I was
+a tree-frog that had got into the same meadow with Longhurst, and
+had blown myself out till I went pop. It was rough on a man in his
+honeymoon; so was what they said about my looks, and what I had on, and
+the way I perspired. But I braced myself up with the Flying Scud. How
+did it exactly figure out anyway? I don't seem to catch on to that
+story, Loudon."
+
+"The devil you don't!" thinks I to myself; and then aloud: "You see
+we had neither one of us good luck. I didn't do much more than cover
+current expenses; and you got floored immediately. How did we come to go
+so soon?"
+
+"Well, we'll have to have a talk over all this," said Jim with a sudden
+start. "I should be getting to my books; and I guess you had better
+go up right away to Mamie. She's at Speedy's. She expects you with
+impatience. She regards you in the light of a favourite brother,
+Loudon."
+
+Any scheme was welcome which allowed me to postpone the hour of
+explanation, and avoid (were it only for a breathing space) the topic
+of the Flying Scud. I hastened accordingly to Bush Street. Mrs. Speedy,
+already rejoicing in the return of a spouse, hailed me with acclamation.
+"And it's beautiful you're looking, Mr. Dodd, my dear," she was kind
+enough to say. "And a miracle they naygur waheenies let ye lave the
+oilands. I have my suspicions of Shpeedy," she added, roguishly. "Did ye
+see him after the naygresses now?"
+
+I gave Speedy an unblemished character.
+
+"The one of ye will niver bethray the other," said the playful dame, and
+ushered me into a bare room, where Mamie sat working a type-writer.
+
+I was touched by the cordiality of her greeting. With the prettiest
+gesture in the world she gave me both her hands; wheeled forth a chair;
+and produced, from a cupboard, a tin of my favourite tobacco, and a book
+of my exclusive cigarette papers.
+
+"There!" she cried; "you see, Mr. Loudon, we were all prepared for you;
+the things were bought the very day you sailed."
+
+I imagined she had always intended me a pleasant welcome; but the
+certain fervour of sincerity, which I could not help remarking, flowed
+from an unexpected source. Captain Nares, with a kindness for which
+I can never be sufficiently grateful, had stolen a moment from his
+occupations, driven to call on Mamie, and drawn her a generous picture
+of my prowess at the wreck. She was careful not to breathe a word of
+this interview, till she had led me on to tell my adventures for myself.
+
+"Ah! Captain Nares was better," she cried, when I had done. "From your
+account, I have only learned one new thing, that you are modest as well
+as brave."
+
+I cannot tell with what sort of disclamation I sought to reply.
+
+"It is of no use," said Mamie. "I know a hero. And when I heard of you
+working all day like a common labourer, with your hands bleeding and
+your nails broken--and how you told the captain to 'crack on' (I think
+he said) in the storm, when he was terrified himself--and the danger
+of that horrid mutiny"--(Nares had been obligingly dipping his brush in
+earthquake and eclipse)--"and how it was all done, in part at least, for
+Jim and me--I felt we could never say how we admired and thanked you."
+
+"Mamie," I cried, "don't talk of thanks; it is not a word to be used
+between friends. Jim and I have been prosperous together; now we shall
+be poor together. We've done our best, and that's all that need be said.
+The next thing is for me to find a situation, and send you and Jim up
+country for a long holiday in the redwoods--for a holiday Jim has got to
+have."
+
+"Jim can't take your money, Mr. Loudon," said Mamie.
+
+"Jim?" cried I. "He's got to. Didn't I take his?"
+
+Presently after, Jim himself arrived, and before he had yet done mopping
+his brow, he was at me with the accursed subject. "Now, Loudon," said
+he, "here we are all together, the day's work done and the evening
+before us; just start in with the whole story."
+
+"One word on business first," said I, speaking from the lips outward,
+and meanwhile (in the private apartments of my brain) trying for the
+thousandth time to find some plausible arrangement of my story. "I want
+to have a notion how we stand about the bankruptcy."
+
+"O, that's ancient history," cried Jim. "We paid seven cents, and a
+wonder we did as well. The receiver----" (methought a spasm seized him
+at the name of this official, and he broke off). "But it's all past
+and done with anyway; and what I want to get at is the facts about the
+wreck. I don't seem to understand it; appears to me like as there was
+something underneath."
+
+"There was nothing IN it, anyway," I said, with a forced laugh.
+
+"That's what I want to judge of," returned Jim.
+
+"How the mischief is it I can never keep you to that bankruptcy? It
+looks as if you avoided it," said I--for a man in my situation, with
+unpardonable folly.
+
+"Don't it look a little as if you were trying to avoid the wreck?" asked
+Jim.
+
+It was my own doing; there was no retreat. "My dear fellow, if you make
+a point of it, here goes!" said I, and launched with spurious gaiety
+into the current of my tale. I told it with point and spirit; described
+the island and the wreck, mimicked Anderson and the Chinese, maintained
+the suspense.... My pen has stumbled on the fatal word. I maintained the
+suspense so well that it was never relieved; and when I stopped--I dare
+not say concluded, where there was no conclusion--I found Jim and Mamie
+regarding me with surprise.
+
+"Well?" said Jim.
+
+"Well, that's all," said I.
+
+"But how do you explain it?" he asked.
+
+"I can't explain it," said I.
+
+
+Mamie wagged her head ominously.
+
+"But, great Caesar's ghost! the money was offered!" cried Jim. "It won't
+do, Loudon; it's nonsense, on the face of it! I don't say but what you
+and Nares did your best; I'm sure, of course, you did; but I do say, you
+got fooled. I say the stuff is in that ship to-day, and I say I mean to
+get it."
+
+"There is nothing in the ship, I tell you, but old wood and iron!" said
+I.
+
+"You'll see," said Jim. "Next time I go myself. I'll take Mamie for the
+trip; Longhurst won't refuse me the expense of a schooner. You wait till
+I get the searching of her."
+
+"But you can't search her!" cried I. "She's burned."
+
+"Burned!" cried Mamie, starting a little from the attitude of quiescent
+capacity in which she had hitherto sat to hear me, her hands folded in
+her lap.
+
+There was an appreciable pause.
+
+"I beg your pardon, Loudon," began Jim at last, "but why in snakes did
+you burn her?"
+
+"It was an idea of Nares's," said I.
+
+"This is certainly the strangest circumstance of all," observed Mamie.
+
+"I must say, Loudon, it does seem kind of unexpected," added Jim. "It
+seems kind of crazy even. What did you--what did Nares expect to gain by
+burning her?"
+
+"I don't know; it didn't seem to matter; we had got all there was to
+get," said I.
+
+"That's the very point," cried Jim. "It was quite plain you hadn't."
+
+"What made you so sure?" asked Mamie.
+
+"How can I tell you?" I cried. "We had been all through her. We WERE
+sure; that's all that I can say."
+
+
+"I begin to think you were," she returned, with a significant emphasis.
+
+Jim hurriedly intervened. "What I don't quite make out, Loudon, is that
+you don't seem to appreciate the peculiarities of the thing," said he.
+"It doesn't seem to have struck you same as it does me."
+
+"Pshaw! why go on with this?" cried Mamie, suddenly rising. "Mr. Dodd is
+not telling us either what he thinks or what he knows."
+
+"Mamie!" cried Jim.
+
+"You need not be concerned for his feelings, James; he is not concerned
+for yours," returned the lady. "He dare not deny it, besides. And this
+is not the first time he has practised reticence. Have you forgotten
+that he knew the address, and did not tell it you until that man had
+escaped?"
+
+Jim turned to me pleadingly--we were all on our feet. "Loudon," he said,
+"you see Mamie has some fancy; and I must say there's just a sort of a
+shadow of an excuse; for it IS bewildering--even to me, Loudon, with my
+trained business intelligence. For God's sake, clear it up."
+
+"This serves me right," said I. "I should not have tried to keep you in
+the dark; I should have told you at first that I was pledged to secrecy;
+I should have asked you to trust me in the beginning. It is all I can
+do now. There is more of the story, but it concerns none of us, and my
+tongue is tied. I have given my word of honour. You must trust me and
+try to forgive me."
+
+"I daresay I am very stupid, Mr. Dodd," began Mamie, with an alarming
+sweetness, "but I thought you went upon this trip as my husband's
+representative and with my husband's money? You tell us now that you
+are pledged, but I should have thought you were pledged first of all
+to James. You say it does not concern us; we are poor people, and my
+husband is sick, and it concerns us a great deal to understand how we
+come to have lost our money, and why our representative comes back to
+us with nothing. You ask that we should trust you; you do not seem to
+understand; the question we are asking ourselves is whether we have not
+trusted you too much."
+
+"I do not ask you to trust me," I replied. "I ask Jim. He knows me."
+
+"You think you can do what you please with James; you trust to his
+affection, do you not? And me, I suppose, you do not consider," said
+Mamie. "But it was perhaps an unfortunate day for you when we were
+married, for I at least am not blind. The crew run away, the ship is
+sold for a great deal of money, you know that man's address and you
+conceal it, you do not find what you were sent to look for, and yet you
+burn the ship; and now, when we ask explanations, you are pledged to
+secrecy! But I am pledged to no such thing; I will not stand by in
+silence and see my sick and ruined husband betrayed by his condescending
+friend. I will give you the truth for once. Mr. Dodd, you have been
+bought and sold."
+
+"Mamie," cried Jim, "no more of this! It's me you're striking; it's only
+me you hurt. You don't know, you cannot understand these things. Why,
+to-day, if it hadn't been for Loudon, I couldn't have looked you in the
+face. He saved my honesty."
+
+"I have heard plenty of this talk before," she replied. "You are a
+sweet-hearted fool, and I love you for it. But I am a clear-headed
+woman; my eyes are open, and I understand this man's hypocrisy. Did he
+not come here to-day and pretend he would take a situation--pretend he
+would share his hard-earned wages with us until you were well? Pretend!
+It makes me furious! His wages! a share of his wages! That would have
+been your pittance, that would have been your share of the Flying
+Scud--you who worked and toiled for him when he was a beggar in the
+streets of Paris. But we do not want your charity; thank God, I can work
+for my own husband! See what it is to have obliged a gentleman. He would
+let you pick him up when he was begging; he would stand and look on, and
+let you black his shoes, and sneer at you. For you were always sneering
+at my James; you always looked down upon him in your heart, you know
+it!" She turned back to Jim. "And now when he is rich," she began, and
+then swooped again on me. "For you are rich, I dare you to deny it; I
+defy you to look me in the face and try to deny that you are rich--rich
+with our money--my husband's money----"
+
+Heaven knows to what a height she might have risen, being, by this time,
+bodily whirled away in her own hurricane of words. Heart-sickness,
+a black depression, a treacherous sympathy with my assailant, pity
+unutterable for poor Jim, already filled, divided, and abashed my
+spirit. Flight seemed the only remedy; and making a private sign to Jim,
+as if to ask permission, I slunk from the unequal field.
+
+I was but a little way down the street, when I was arrested by the sound
+of some one running, and Jim's voice calling me by name. He had followed
+me with a letter which had been long awaiting my return.
+
+I took it in a dream. "This has been a devil of a business," said I.
+
+"Don't think hard of Mamie," he pleaded. "It's the way she's made; it's
+her high-toned loyalty. And of course I know it's all right. I know your
+sterling character; but you didn't, somehow, make out to give us the
+thing straight, Loudon. Anybody might have--I mean it--I mean----"
+
+"Never mind what you mean, my poor Jim," said I. "She's a gallant little
+woman and a loyal wife: and I thought her splendid. My story was as
+fishy as the devil. I'll never think the less of either her or you."
+
+"It'll blow over; it must blow over," said he.
+
+"It never can," I returned, sighing: "and don't you try to make it!
+Don't name me, unless it's with an oath. And get home to her right away.
+Good by, my best of friends. Good by, and God bless you. We shall never
+meet again."
+
+"O Loudon, that we should live to say such words!" he cried.
+
+I had no views on life, beyond an occasional impulse to commit suicide,
+or to get drunk, and drifted down the street, semi-conscious, walking
+apparently on air, in the light-headedness of grief. I had money in my
+pocket, whether mine or my creditors' I had no means of guessing; and,
+the Poodle Dog lying in my path, I went mechanically in and took
+a table. A waiter attended me, and I suppose I gave my orders; for
+presently I found myself, with a sudden return of consciousness,
+beginning dinner. On the white cloth at my elbow lay the letter,
+addressed in a clerk's hand, and bearing an English stamp and the
+Edinburgh postmark. A bowl of bouillon and a glass of wine awakened in
+one corner of my brain (where all the rest was in mourning, the blinds
+down as for a funeral) a faint stir of curiosity; and while I waited the
+next course, wondering the while what I had ordered, I opened and began
+to read the epoch-making document.
+
+"DEAR SIR: I am charged with the melancholy duty of announcing to you
+the death of your excellent grandfather, Mr. Alexander Loudon, on
+the 17th ult. On Sunday the 13th, he went to church as usual in the
+forenoon, and stopped on his way home, at the corner of Princes Street,
+in one of our seasonable east winds, to talk with an old friend. The
+same evening acute bronchitis declared itself; from the first, Dr.
+M'Combie anticipated a fatal result, and the old gentleman appeared to
+have no illusion as to his own state. He repeatedly assured me it
+was 'by' with him now; 'and high time, too,' he once added with
+characteristic asperity. He was not in the least changed on the approach
+of death: only (what I am sure must be very grateful to your feelings)
+he seemed to think and speak even more kindly than usual of yourself:
+referring to you as 'Jeannie's yin,' with strong expressions of regard.
+'He was the only one I ever liket of the hale jing-bang,' was one of his
+expressions; and you will be glad to know that he dwelt particularly
+on the dutiful respect you had always displayed in your relations.
+The small codicil, by which he bequeaths you his Molesworth and other
+professional works, was added (you will observe) on the day before his
+death; so that you were in his thoughts until the end. I should say
+that, though rather a trying patient, he was most tenderly nursed by
+your uncle, and your cousin, Miss Euphemia. I enclose a copy of the
+testament, by which you will see that you share equally with Mr. Adam,
+and that I hold at your disposal a sum nearly approaching seventeen
+thousand pounds. I beg to congratulate you on this considerable
+acquisition, and expect your orders, to which I shall hasten to give my
+best attention. Thinking that you might desire to return at once to this
+country, and not knowing how you may be placed, I enclose a credit for
+six hundred pounds. Please sign the accompanying slip, and let me have
+it at your earliest convenience.
+
+"I am, dear sir, yours truly,
+
+"W. RUTHERFORD GREGG."
+
+"God bless the old gentleman!" I thought; "and for that matter God bless
+Uncle Adam! and my cousin Euphemia! and Mr. Gregg!" I had a vision of
+that grey old life now brought to an end--"and high time too"--a vision
+of those Sabbath streets alternately vacant and filled with silent
+people; of the babel of the bells, the long-drawn psalmody, the shrewd
+sting of the east wind, the hollow, echoing, dreary house to which
+"Ecky" had returned with the hand of death already on his shoulder; a
+vision, too, of the long, rough country lad, perhaps a serious courtier
+of the lasses in the hawthorn den, perhaps a rustic dancer on the green,
+who had first earned and answered to that harsh diminutive. And I asked
+myself if, on the whole, poor Ecky had succeeded in life; if the last
+state of that man were not on the whole worse than the first; and the
+house in Randolph Crescent a less admirable dwelling than the hamlet
+where he saw the day and grew to manhood. Here was a consolatory thought
+for one who was himself a failure.
+
+Yes, I declare the word came in my mind; and all the while, in another
+partition of the brain, I was glowing and singing for my new-found
+opulence. The pile of gold--four thousand two hundred and fifty double
+eagles, seventeen thousand ugly sovereigns, twenty-one thousand two
+hundred and fifty Napoleons--danced, and rang and ran molten, and lit
+up life with their effulgence, in the eye of fancy. Here were all things
+made plain to me: Paradise--Paris, I mean--Regained, Carthew protected,
+Jim restored, the creditors...
+
+"The creditors!" I repeated, and sank back benumbed. It was all theirs
+to the last farthing: my grandfather had died too soon to save me.
+
+I must have somewhere a rare vein of decision. In that revolutionary
+moment, I found myself prepared for all extremes except the one: ready
+to do anything, or to go anywhere, so long as I might save my money.
+At the worst, there was flight, flight to some of those blest countries
+where the serpent, extradition, has not yet entered in.
+
+     On no condition is extradition
+     Allowed in Callao!
+
+--the old lawless words haunted me; and I saw myself hugging my gold in
+the company of such men as had once made and sung them, in the rude
+and bloody wharfside drinking-shops of Chili and Peru. The run of my
+ill-luck, the breach of my old friendship, this bubble fortune flaunted
+for a moment in my eyes and snatched again, had made me desperate and
+(in the expressive vulgarism) ugly. To drink vile spirits among vile
+companions by the flare of a pine-torch; to go burthened with my furtive
+treasure in a belt; to fight for it knife in hand, rolling on a clay
+floor; to flee perpetually in fresh ships and to be chased through
+the sea from isle to isle, seemed, in my then frame of mind, a welcome
+series of events.
+
+That was for the worst; but it began to dawn slowly on my mind that
+there was yet a possible better. Once escaped, once safe in Callao, I
+might approach my creditors with a good grace; and properly handled by
+a cunning agent, it was just possible they might accept some easy
+composition. The hope recalled me to the bankruptcy. It was strange, I
+reflected: often as I had questioned Jim, he had never obliged me
+with an answer. In his haste for news about the wreck, my own no less
+legitimate curiosity had gone disappointed. Hateful as the thought was
+to me, I must return at once and find out where I stood.
+
+I left my dinner still unfinished, paying for the whole, of course, and
+tossing the waiter a gold piece. I was reckless; I knew not what was
+mine and cared not: I must take what I could get and give as I was able;
+to rob and to squander seemed the complementary parts of my new destiny.
+I walked up Bush Street, whistling, brazening myself to confront Mamie
+in the first place, and the world at large and a certain visionary judge
+upon a bench in the second. Just outside, I stopped and lighted a cigar
+to give me greater countenance; and puffing this and wearing what (I
+am sure) was a wretched assumption of braggadocio, I reappeared on the
+scene of my disgrace.
+
+My friend and his wife were finishing a poor meal--rags of old mutton,
+the remainder cakes from breakfast eaten cold, and a starveling pot of
+coffee.
+
+"I beg your pardon, Mrs. Pinkerton," said I. "Sorry to inflict my
+presence where it cannot be desired; but there is a piece of business
+necessary to be discussed."
+
+"Pray do not consider me," said Mamie, rising, and she sailed into the
+adjoining bedroom.
+
+Jim watched her go and shook his head; he looked miserably old and ill.
+
+"What is it, now?" he asked.
+
+"Perhaps you remember you answered none of my questions," said I.
+
+
+"Your questions?" faltered Jim.
+
+"Even so, Jim. My questions," I repeated. "I put questions as well as
+yourself; and however little I may have satisfied Mamie with my answers,
+I beg to remind you that you gave me none at all."
+
+"You mean about the bankruptcy?" asked Jim.
+
+I nodded.
+
+He writhed in his chair. "The straight truth is, I was ashamed," he
+said. "I was trying to dodge you. I've been playing fast and loose with
+you, Loudon; I've deceived you from the first, I blush to own it. And
+here you came home and put the very question I was fearing. Why did we
+bust so soon? Your keen business eye had not deceived you. That's the
+point, that's my shame; that's what killed me this afternoon when Mamie
+was treating you so, and my conscience was telling me all the time, Thou
+art the man."
+
+"What was it, Jim?" I asked.
+
+"What I had been at all the time, Loudon," he wailed; "and I don't know
+how I'm to look you in the face and say it, after my duplicity. It was
+stocks," he added in a whisper.
+
+"And you were afraid to tell me that!" I cried. "You poor, old,
+cheerless dreamer! what would it matter what you did or didn't? Can't
+you see we're doomed? And anyway, that's not my point. It's how I stand
+that I want to know. There is a particular reason. Am I clear? Have I a
+certificate, or what have I to do to get one? And when will it be dated?
+You can't think what hangs by it!"
+
+"That's the worst of all," said Jim, like a man in a dream, "I can't see
+how to tell him!"
+
+"What do you mean?" I cried, a small pang of terror at my heart.
+
+"I'm afraid I sacrificed you, Loudon," he said, looking at me pitifully.
+
+"Sacrificed me?" I repeated. "How? What do you mean by sacrifice?"
+
+"I know it'll shock your delicate self-respect," he said; "but what was
+I to do? Things looked so bad. The receiver----" (as usual, the name
+stuck in his throat, and he began afresh). "There was a lot of talk; the
+reporters were after me already; there was the trouble and all about
+the Mexican business; and I got scared right out, and I guess I lost my
+head. You weren't there, you see, and that was my temptation."
+
+I did not know how long he might thus beat about the bush with dreadful
+hintings, and I was already beside myself with terror. What had he done?
+I saw he had been tempted; I knew from his letters that he was in no
+condition to resist. How had he sacrificed the absent?
+
+"Jim," I said, "you must speak right out. I've got all that I can
+carry."
+
+"Well," he said--"I know it was a liberty--I made it out you were no
+business man, only a stone-broke painter; that half the time you didn't
+know anything anyway, particularly money and accounts. I said you never
+could be got to understand whose was whose. I had to say that because of
+some entries in the books----"
+
+"For God's sake," I cried, "put me out of this agony! What did you
+accuse me of?"
+
+"Accuse you of?" repeated Jim. "Of what I'm telling you. And there being
+no deed of partnership, I made out you were only a kind of clerk that
+I called a partner just to give you taffy; and so I got you ranked
+a creditor on the estate for your wages and the money you had lent.
+And----"
+
+I believe I reeled. "A creditor!" I roared; "a creditor! I'm not in the
+bankruptcy at all?"
+
+"No," said Jim. "I know it was a liberty----"
+
+"O, damn your liberty! read that," I cried, dashing the letter before
+him on the table, "and call in your wife, and be done with eating this
+truck "--as I spoke, I slung the cold mutton in the empty grate--"and
+let's all go and have a champagne supper. I've dined--I'm sure I don't
+remember what I had; I'd dine again ten scores of times upon a night
+like this. Read it, you blaying ass! I'm not insane. Here, Mamie," I
+continued, opening the bedroom door, "come out and make it up with me,
+and go and kiss your husband; and I'll tell you what, after the supper,
+let's go to some place where there's a band, and I'll waltz with you
+till sunrise."
+
+"What does it all mean?" cried Jim.
+
+"It means we have a champagne supper to-night, and all go to Napa Valley
+or to Monterey to-morrow," said I. "Mamie, go and get your things on;
+and you, Jim, sit down right where you are, take a sheet of paper, and
+tell Franklin Dodge to go to Texas. Mamie, you were right, my dear; I
+was rich all the time, and didn't know it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX. TRAVELS WITH A SHYSTER.
+
+
+The absorbing and disastrous adventure of the Flying Scud was now quite
+ended; we had dashed into these deep waters and we had escaped again to
+starve, we had been ruined and were saved, had quarrelled and made up;
+there remained nothing but to sing Te Deum, draw a line, and begin on a
+fresh page of my unwritten diary. I do not pretend that I recovered all
+I had lost with Mamie; it would have been more than I had merited; and
+I had certainly been more uncommunicative than became either the partner
+or the friend. But she accepted the position handsomely; and during
+the week that I now passed with them, both she and Jim had the grace
+to spare me questions. It was to Calistoga that we went; there was
+some rumour of a Napa land-boom at the moment, the possibility of stir
+attracted Jim, and he informed me he would find a certain joy in looking
+on, much as Napoleon on St. Helena took a pleasure to read military
+works. The field of his ambition was quite closed; he was done with
+action; and looked forward to a ranch in a mountain dingle, a patch of
+corn, a pair of kine, a leisurely and contemplative age in the green
+shade of forests. "Just let me get down on my back in a hayfield," said
+he, "and you'll find there's no more snap to me than that much putty."
+
+And for two days the perfervid being actually rested. The third, he was
+observed in consultation with the local editor, and owned he was in two
+minds about purchasing the press and paper. "It's a kind of a hold for
+an idle man," he said, pleadingly; "and if the section was to open up
+the way it ought to, there might be dollars in the thing." On the fourth
+day he was gone till dinner-time alone; on the fifth we made a long
+picnic drive to the fresh field of enterprise; and the sixth was passed
+entirely in the preparation of prospectuses. The pioneer of McBride City
+was already upright and self-reliant as of yore; the fire rekindled in
+his eye, the ring restored to his voice; a charger sniffing battle and
+saying ha-ha, among the spears. On the seventh morning we signed a deed
+of partnership, for Jim would not accept a dollar of my money otherwise;
+and having once more engaged myself--or that mortal part of me, my
+purse--among the wheels of his machinery, I returned alone to San
+Francisco and took quarters in the Palace Hotel.
+
+The same night I had Nares to dinner. His sunburnt face, his queer and
+personal strain of talk, recalled days that were scarce over and that
+seemed already distant. Through the music of the band outside, and the
+chink and clatter of the dining-room, it seemed to me as if I heard the
+foaming of the surf and the voices of the sea-birds about Midway Island.
+The bruises on our hands were not yet healed; and there we sat, waited
+on by elaborate darkies, eating pompano and drinking iced champagne.
+
+"Think of our dinners on the Norah, captain, and then oblige me by
+looking round the room for contrast."
+
+He took the scene in slowly. "Yes, it is like a dream," he said: "like
+as if the darkies were really about as big as dimes; and a great big
+scuttle might open up there, and Johnson stick in a great big head and
+shoulders, and cry, 'Eight bells!'--and the whole thing vanish."
+
+"Well, it's the other thing that has done that," I replied. "It's all
+bygone now, all dead and buried. Amen! say I."
+
+"I don't know that, Mr. Dodd; and to tell you the fact, I don't believe
+it," said Nares. "There's more Flying Scud in the oven; and the baker's
+name, I take it, is Bellairs. He tackled me the day we came in: sort of
+a razee of poor old humanity--jury clothes--full new suit of pimples:
+knew him at once from your description. I let him pump me till I saw his
+game. He knows a good deal that we don't know, a good deal that we do,
+and suspects the balance. There's trouble brewing for somebody."
+
+I was surprised I had not thought of this before. Bellairs had been
+behind the scenes; he had known Dickson; he knew the flight of the crew;
+it was hardly possible but what he should suspect; it was certain if
+he suspected, that he would seek to trade on the suspicion. And sure
+enough, I was not yet dressed the next morning ere the lawyer was
+knocking at my door. I let him in, for I was curious; and he, after some
+ambiguous prolegomena, roundly proposed I should go shares with him.
+
+"Shares in what?" I inquired.
+
+"If you will allow me to clothe my idea in a somewhat vulgar form," said
+he, "I might ask you, did you go to Midway for your health?"
+
+"I don't know that I did," I replied.
+
+"Similarly, Mr. Dodd, you may be sure I would never have taken
+the present step without influential grounds," pursued the lawyer.
+"Intrusion is foreign to my character. But you and I, sir, are engaged
+on the same ends. If we can continue to work the thing in company,
+I place at your disposal my knowledge of the law and a considerable
+practice in delicate negotiations similar to this. Should you refuse to
+consent, you might find in me a formidable and"--he hesitated--"and to
+my own regret, perhaps a dangerous competitor."
+
+"Did you get this by heart?" I asked, genially.
+
+"I advise YOU to!" he said, with a sudden sparkle of temper and menace,
+instantly gone, instantly succeeded by fresh cringing. "I assure
+you, sir, I arrive in the character of a friend; and I believe you
+underestimate my information. If I may instance an example, I am
+acquainted to the last dime with what you made (or rather lost), and I
+know you have since cashed a considerable draft on London."
+
+"What do you infer?" I asked.
+
+"I know where that draft came from," he cried, wincing back like one who
+has greatly dared, and instantly regrets the venture.
+
+"So?" said I.
+
+"You forget I was Mr. Dickson's confidential agent," he explained. "You
+had his address, Mr. Dodd. We were the only two that he communicated
+with in San Francisco. You see my deductions are quite obvious: you
+see how open and frank I deal with you, as I should wish to do with
+any gentleman with whom I was conjoined in business. You see how much
+I know; and it can scarcely escape your strong common-sense, how much
+better it would be if I knew all. You cannot hope to get rid of me at
+this time of day, I have my place in the affair, I cannot be shaken off;
+I am, if you will excuse a rather technical pleasantry, an encumbrance
+on the estate. The actual harm I can do, I leave you to valuate for
+yourself. But without going so far, Mr. Dodd, and without in any way
+inconveniencing myself, I could make things very uncomfortable. For
+instance, Mr. Pinkerton's liquidation. You and I know, sir--and you
+better than I--on what a large fund you draw. Is Mr. Pinkerton in
+the thing at all? It was you only who knew the address, and you were
+concealing it. Suppose I should communicate with Mr. Pinkerton----"
+
+"Look here!" I interrupted, "communicate with him (if you will permit
+me to clothe my idea in a vulgar shape) till you are blue in the face.
+There is only one person with whom I refuse to allow you to communicate
+further, and that is myself. Good morning."
+
+He could not conceal his rage, disappointment, and surprise; and in the
+passage (I have no doubt) was shaken by St. Vitus.
+
+I was disgusted by this interview; it struck me hard to be suspected
+on all hands, and to hear again from this trafficker what I had heard
+already from Jim's wife; and yet my strongest impression was different
+and might rather be described as an impersonal fear. There was something
+against nature in the man's craven impudence; it was as though a lamb
+had butted me; such daring at the hands of such a dastard, implied
+unchangeable resolve, a great pressure of necessity, and powerful means.
+I thought of the unknown Carthew, and it sickened me to see this ferret
+on his trail.
+
+Upon inquiry I found the lawyer was but just disbarred for some
+malpractice; and the discovery added excessively to my disquiet. Here
+was a rascal without money or the means of making it, thrust out of the
+doors of his own trade, publicly shamed, and doubtless in a deuce of a
+bad temper with the universe. Here, on the other hand, was a man with a
+secret; rich, terrified, practically in hiding; who had been willing
+to pay ten thousand pounds for the bones of the Flying Scud. I slipped
+insensibly into a mental alliance with the victim; the business weighed
+on me; all day long, I was wondering how much the lawyer knew, how much
+he guessed, and when he would open his attack.
+
+Some of these problems are unsolved to this day; others were soon made
+clear. Where he got Carthew's name is still a mystery; perhaps some
+sailor on the Tempest, perhaps my own sea-lawyer served him for a tool;
+but I was actually at his elbow when he learned the address. It fell
+so. One evening, when I had an engagement and was killing time until the
+hour, I chanced to walk in the court of the hotel while the band played.
+The place was bright as day with the electric light; and I recognised,
+at some distance among the loiterers, the person of Bellairs in talk
+with a gentleman whose face appeared familiar. It was certainly some one
+I had seen, and seen recently; but who or where, I knew not. A porter
+standing hard by, gave me the necessary hint. The stranger was an
+English navy man, invalided home from Honolulu, where he had left his
+ship; indeed, it was only from the change of clothes and the effects
+of sickness, that I had not immediately recognised my friend and
+correspondent, Lieutenant Sebright.
+
+The conjunction of these planets seeming ominous, I drew near; but it
+seemed Bellairs had done his business; he vanished in the crowd, and I
+found my officer alone.
+
+"Do you know whom you have been talking to, Mr. Sebright?" I began.
+
+"No," said he; "I don't know him from Adam. Anything wrong?"
+
+"He is a disreputable lawyer, recently disbarred," said I. "I wish I had
+seen you in time. I trust you told him nothing about Carthew?"
+
+He flushed to his ears. "I'm awfully sorry," he said. "He seemed civil,
+and I wanted to get rid of him. It was only the address he asked."
+
+"And you gave it?" I cried.
+
+"I'm really awfully sorry," said Sebright. "I'm afraid I did."
+
+"God forgive you!" was my only comment, and I turned my back upon the
+blunderer.
+
+The fat was in the fire now: Bellairs had the address, and I was the
+more deceived or Carthew would have news of him. So strong was this
+impression, and so painful, that the next morning I had the curiosity to
+pay the lawyer's den a visit. An old woman was scrubbing the stair, and
+the board was down.
+
+"Lawyer Bellairs?" said the old woman. "Gone East this morning. There's
+Lawyer Dean next block up."
+
+I did not trouble Lawyer Dean, but walked slowly back to my hotel,
+ruminating as I went. The image of the old woman washing that desecrated
+stair had struck my fancy; it seemed that all the water-supply of the
+city and all the soap in the State would scarce suffice to cleanse it,
+it had been so long a clearing-house of dingy secrets and a factory
+of sordid fraud. And now the corner was untenanted; some judge, like a
+careful housewife, had knocked down the web, and the bloated spider was
+scuttling elsewhere after new victims. I had of late (as I have said)
+insensibly taken sides with Carthew; now when his enemy was at his
+heels, my interest grew more warm; and I began to wonder if I could not
+help. The drama of the Flying Scud was entering on a new phase. It had
+been singular from the first: it promised an extraordinary conclusion;
+and I, who had paid so much to learn the beginning, might pay a little
+more and see the end. I lingered in San Francisco, indemnifying myself
+after the hardships of the cruise, spending money, regretting it,
+continually promising departure for the morrow. Why not go indeed, and
+keep a watch upon Bellairs? If I missed him, there was no harm done, I
+was the nearer Paris. If I found and kept his trail, it was hard if
+I could not put some stick in his machinery, and at the worst I could
+promise myself interesting scenes and revelations.
+
+In such a mixed humour, I made up what it pleases me to call my mind,
+and once more involved myself in the story of Carthew and the Flying
+Scud. The same night I wrote a letter of farewell to Jim, and one of
+anxious warning to Dr. Urquart begging him to set Carthew on his guard;
+the morrow saw me in the ferry-boat; and ten days later, I was walking
+the hurricane deck on the City of Denver. By that time my mind was
+pretty much made down again, its natural condition: I told myself that
+I was bound for Paris or Fontainebleau to resume the study of the arts;
+and I thought no more of Carthew or Bellairs, or only to smile at my own
+fondness. The one I could not serve, even if I wanted; the other I had
+no means of finding, even if I could have at all influenced him after he
+was found.
+
+And for all that, I was close on the heels of an absurd adventure. My
+neighbour at table that evening was a 'Frisco man whom I knew slightly.
+I found he had crossed the plains two days in front of me, and this was
+the first steamer that had left New York for Europe since his arrival.
+Two days before me meant a day before Bellairs; and dinner was scarce
+done before I was closeted with the purser.
+
+"Bellairs?" he repeated. "Not in the saloon, I am sure. He may be in
+the second class. The lists are not made out, but--Hullo! 'Harry D.
+Bellairs?' That the name? He's there right enough."
+
+And the next morning I saw him on the forward deck, sitting in a chair,
+a book in his hand, a shabby puma skin rug about his knees: the picture
+of respectable decay. Off and on, I kept him in my eye. He read a good
+deal, he stood and looked upon the sea, he talked occasionally with his
+neighbours, and once when a child fell he picked it up and soothed it. I
+damned him in my heart; the book, which I was sure he did not read--the
+sea, to which I was ready to take oath he was indifferent--the child,
+whom I was certain he would as lieve have tossed overboard--all seemed
+to me elements in a theatrical performance; and I made no doubt he was
+already nosing after the secrets of his fellow-passengers. I took no
+pains to conceal myself, my scorn for the creature being as strong as my
+disgust. But he never looked my way, and it was night before I learned
+he had observed me.
+
+I was smoking by the engine-room door, for the air was a little sharp,
+when a voice rose close beside me in the darkness.
+
+"I beg your pardon, Mr. Dodd," it said.
+
+"That you, Bellairs?" I replied.
+
+"A single word, sir. Your presence on this ship has no connection with
+our interview?" he asked. "You have no idea, Mr. Dodd, of returning upon
+your determination?"
+
+"None," said I; and then, seeing he still lingered, I was polite enough
+to add "Good evening;" at which he sighed and went away.
+
+
+The next day, he was there again with the chair and the puma skin; read
+his book and looked at the sea with the same constancy; and though there
+was no child to be picked up, I observed him to attend repeatedly on a
+sick woman. Nothing fosters suspicion like the act of watching; a man
+spied upon can hardly blow his nose but we accuse him of designs; and
+I took an early opportunity to go forward and see the woman for myself.
+She was poor, elderly, and painfully plain; I stood abashed at the
+sight, felt I owed Bellairs amends for the injustice of my thoughts, and
+seeing him standing by the rail in his usual attitude of contemplation,
+walked up and addressed him by name.
+
+"You seem very fond of the sea," said I.
+
+"I may really call it a passion, Mr. Dodd," he replied. "And the tall
+cataract haunted me like a passion," he quoted. "I never weary of
+the sea, sir. This is my first ocean voyage. I find it a glorious
+experience." And once more my disbarred lawyer dropped into poetry:
+"Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll!"
+
+Though I had learned the piece in my reading-book at school, I came into
+the world a little too late on the one hand--and I daresay a little
+too early on the other--to think much of Byron; and the sonorous verse,
+prodigiously well delivered, struck me with surprise.
+
+"You are fond of poetry, too?" I asked.
+
+"I am a great reader," he replied. "At one time I had begun to amass
+quite a small but well selected library; and when that was scattered, I
+still managed to preserve a few volumes--chiefly of pieces designed for
+recitation--which have been my travelling companions."
+
+"Is that one of them?" I asked, pointing to the volume in his hand.
+
+"No, sir," he replied, showing me a translation of the _Sorrows of
+Werther_, "that is a novel I picked up some time ago. It has afforded me
+great pleasure, though immoral."
+
+"O, immoral!" cried I, indignant as usual at any complication of art and
+ethics.
+
+
+"Surely you cannot deny that, sir--if you know the book," he said. "The
+passion is illicit, although certainly drawn with a good deal of pathos.
+It is not a work one could possibly put into the hands of a lady; which
+is to be regretted on all accounts, for I do not know how it may strike
+you; but it seems to me--as a depiction, if I make myself clear--to rise
+high above its compeers--even famous compeers. Even in Scott, Dickens,
+Thackeray, or Hawthorne, the sentiment of love appears to me to be
+frequently done less justice to."
+
+"You are expressing a very general opinion," said I.
+
+"Is that so, indeed, sir?" he exclaimed, with unmistakable excitement.
+"Is the book well known? and who was GO-EATH? I am interested in that,
+because upon the title-page the usual initials are omitted, and it runs
+simply 'by GO-EATH.' Was he an author of distinction? Has he written
+other works?"
+
+Such was our first interview, the first of many; and in all he showed
+the same attractive qualities and defects. His taste for literature
+was native and unaffected; his sentimentality, although extreme and a
+thought ridiculous, was plainly genuine. I wondered at my own innocent
+wonder. I knew that Homer nodded, that Caesar had compiled a jest-book,
+that Turner lived by preference the life of Puggy Booth, that Shelley
+made paper boats, and Wordsworth wore green spectacles! and with all
+this mass of evidence before me, I had expected Bellairs to be entirely
+of one piece, subdued to what he worked in, a spy all through. As I
+abominated the man's trade, so I had expected to detest the man himself;
+and behold, I liked him. Poor devil! he was essentially a man on wires,
+all sensibility and tremor, brimful of a cheap poetry, not without
+parts, quite without courage. His boldness was despair; the gulf behind
+him thrust him on; he was one of those who might commit a murder rather
+than confess the theft of a postage-stamp. I was sure that his coming
+interview with Carthew rode his imagination like a nightmare; when the
+thought crossed his mind, I used to think I knew of it, and that the
+qualm appeared in his face visibly. Yet he would never flinch: necessity
+stalking at his back, famine (his old pursuer) talking in his ear; and I
+used to wonder whether I most admired, or most despised, this quivering
+heroism for evil. The image that occurred to me after his visit was
+just; I had been butted by a lamb; and the phase of life that I was now
+studying might be called the Revolt of a Sheep.
+
+It could be said of him that he had learned in sorrow what he taught in
+song--or wrong; and his life was that of one of his victims. He was born
+in the back parts of the State of New York; his father a farmer, who
+became subsequently bankrupt and went West. The lawyer and money-lender
+who had ruined this poor family seems to have conceived in the end a
+feeling of remorse; he turned the father out indeed, but he offered,
+in compensation, to charge himself with one of the sons: and Harry, the
+fifth child and already sickly, was chosen to be left behind. He made
+himself useful in the office; picked up the scattered rudiments of an
+education; read right and left; attended and debated at the Young Men's
+Christian Association; and in all his early years, was the model for a
+good story-book. His landlady's daughter was his bane. He showed me
+her photograph; she was a big, handsome, dashing, dressy, vulgar hussy,
+without character, without tenderness, without mind, and (as the result
+proved) without virtue. The sickly and timid boy was in the house; he
+was handy; when she was otherwise unoccupied, she used and played with
+him: Romeo and Cressida; till in that dreary life of a poor boy in a
+country town, she grew to be the light of his days and the subject of
+his dreams. He worked hard, like Jacob, for a wife; he surpassed his
+patron in sharp practice; he was made head clerk; and the same night,
+encouraged by a hundred freedoms, depressed by the sense of his youth
+and his infirmities, he offered marriage and was received with
+laughter. Not a year had passed, before his master, conscious of growing
+infirmities, took him for a partner; he proposed again; he was accepted;
+led two years of troubled married life; and awoke one morning to find
+his wife had run away with a dashing drummer, and had left him heavily
+in debt. The debt, and not the drummer, was supposed to be the cause of
+the hegira; she had concealed her liabilities, they were on the point of
+bursting forth, she was weary of Bellairs; and she took the drummer as
+she might have taken a cab. The blow disabled her husband, his partner
+was dead; he was now alone in the business, for which he was no longer
+fit; the debts hampered him; bankruptcy followed; and he fled from city
+to city, falling daily into lower practice. It is to be considered that
+he had been taught, and had learned as a delightful duty, a kind of
+business whose highest merit is to escape the commentaries of the bench:
+that of the usurious lawyer in a county town. With this training, he was
+now shot, a penniless stranger, into the deeper gulfs of cities; and the
+result is scarce a thing to be surprised at.
+
+
+"Have you heard of your wife again?" I asked.
+
+He displayed a pitiful agitation. "I am afraid you will think ill of
+me," he said.
+
+"Have you taken her back?" I asked.
+
+"No, sir. I trust I have too much self-respect," he answered, "and, at
+least, I was never tempted. She won't come, she dislikes, she seems to
+have conceived a positive distaste for me, and yet I was considered an
+indulgent husband."
+
+"You are still in relations, then?" I asked.
+
+"I place myself in your hands, Mr. Dodd," he replied. "The world is very
+hard; I have found it bitter hard myself--bitter hard to live. How
+much worse for a woman, and one who has placed herself (by her own
+misconduct, I am far from denying that) in so unfortunate a position!"
+
+"In short, you support her?" I suggested.
+
+"I cannot deny it. I practically do," he admitted. "It has been a
+mill-stone round my neck. But I think she is grateful. You can see for
+yourself."
+
+He handed me a letter in a sprawling, ignorant hand, but written with
+violet ink on fine, pink paper with a monogram. It was very foolishly
+expressed, and I thought (except for a few obvious cajoleries) very
+heartless and greedy in meaning. The writer said she had been sick,
+which I disbelieved; declared the last remittance was all gone in
+doctor's bills, for which I took the liberty of substituting dress,
+drink, and monograms; and prayed for an increase, which I could only
+hope had been denied her.
+
+"I think she is really grateful?" he asked, with some eagerness, as I
+returned it.
+
+"I daresay," said I. "Has she any claim on you?"
+
+"O no, sir. I divorced her," he replied. "I have a very strong sense of
+self-respect in such matters, and I divorced her immediately."
+
+"What sort of life is she leading now?" I asked.
+
+"I will not deceive you, Mr. Dodd. I do not know, I make a point of
+not knowing; it appears more dignified. I have been very harshly
+criticised," he added, sighing.
+
+It will be seen that I had fallen into an ignominious intimacy with the
+man I had gone out to thwart. My pity for the creature, his admiration
+for myself, his pleasure in my society, which was clearly unassumed,
+were the bonds with which I was fettered; perhaps I should add, in
+honesty, my own ill-regulated interest in the phases of life and human
+character. The fact is (at least) that we spent hours together daily,
+and that I was nearly as much on the forward deck as in the saloon. Yet
+all the while I could never forget he was a shabby trickster, embarked
+that very moment in a dirty enterprise. I used to tell myself at first
+that our acquaintance was a stroke of art, and that I was somehow
+fortifying Carthew. I told myself, I say; but I was no such fool as to
+believe it, even then. In these circumstances I displayed the two chief
+qualities of my character on the largest scale--my helplessness and my
+instinctive love of procrastination--and fell upon a course of action so
+ridiculous that I blush when I recall it.
+
+We reached Liverpool one forenoon, the rain falling thickly and
+insidiously on the filthy town. I had no plans, beyond a sensible
+unwillingness to let my rascal escape; and I ended by going to the same
+inn with him, dining with him, walking with him in the wet streets,
+and hearing with him in a penny gaff that venerable piece, _The
+Ticket-of-Leave Man_. It was one of his first visits to a theatre,
+against which places of entertainment he had a strong prejudice; and his
+innocent, pompous talk, innocent old quotations, and innocent reverence
+for the character of Hawkshaw delighted me beyond relief. In charity to
+myself, I dwell upon and perhaps exaggerate my pleasures. I have need of
+all conceivable excuses, when I confess that I went to bed without one
+word upon the matter of Carthew, but not without having covenanted with
+my rascal for a visit to Chester the next day. At Chester we did the
+Cathedral, walked on the walls, discussed Shakespeare and the musical
+glasses--and made a fresh engagement for the morrow. I do not know, and
+I am glad to have forgotten, how long these travels were continued. We
+visited at least, by singular zigzags, Stratford, Warwick, Coventry,
+Gloucester, Bristol, Bath, and Wells. At each stage we spoke dutifully
+of the scene and its associations; I sketched, the Shyster spouted
+poetry and copied epitaphs. Who could doubt we were the usual Americans,
+travelling with a design of self-improvement? Who was to guess that one
+was a blackmailer, trembling to approach the scene of action--the other
+a helpless, amateur detective, waiting on events?
+
+It is unnecessary to remark that none occurred, or none the least
+suitable with my design of protecting Carthew. Two trifles, indeed,
+completed though they scarcely changed my conception of the Shyster. The
+first was observed in Gloucester, where we spent Sunday, and I proposed
+we should hear service in the cathedral. To my surprise, the creature
+had an ISM of his own, to which he was loyal; and he left me to go alone
+to the cathedral--or perhaps not to go at all--and stole off down a
+deserted alley to some Bethel or Ebenezer of the proper shade. When we
+met again at lunch, I rallied him, and he grew restive.
+
+"You need employ no circumlocutions with me, Mr. Dodd," he said
+suddenly. "You regard my behaviour from an unfavourable point of view:
+you regard me, I much fear, as hypocritical."
+
+I was somewhat confused by the attack. "You know what I think of your
+trade," I replied, lamely and coarsely.
+
+"Excuse me, if I seem to press the subject," he continued, "but if you
+think my life erroneous, would you have me neglect the means of grace?
+Because you consider me in the wrong on one point, would you have me
+place myself on the wrong in all? Surely, sir, the church is for the
+sinner."
+
+"Did you ask a blessing on your present enterprise?" I sneered.
+
+He had a bad attack of St. Vitus, his face was changed, and his eyes
+flashed. "I will tell you what I did!" he cried. "I prayed for an
+unfortunate man and a wretched woman whom he tries to support."
+
+I cannot pretend that I found any repartee.
+
+The second incident was at Bristol, where I lost sight of my gentleman
+some hours. From this eclipse, he returned to me with thick speech,
+wandering footsteps, and a back all whitened with plaster. I had half
+expected, yet I could have wept to see it. All disabilities were piled
+on that weak back--domestic misfortune, nervous disease, a displeasing
+exterior, empty pockets, and the slavery of vice.
+
+I will never deny that our prolonged conjunction was the result of
+double cowardice. Each was afraid to leave the other, each was afraid
+to speak, or knew not what to say. Save for my ill-judged allusion at
+Gloucester, the subject uppermost in both our minds was buried. Carthew,
+Stallbridge-le-Carthew, Stallbridge-Minster--which we had long since
+(and severally) identified to be the nearest station--even the name of
+Dorsetshire was studiously avoided. And yet we were making progress all
+the time, tacking across broad England like an unweatherly vessel on a
+wind; approaching our destination, not openly, but by a sort of flying
+sap. And at length, I can scarce tell how, we were set down by
+a dilatory butt-end of local train on the untenanted platform of
+Stallbridge-Minster.
+
+The town was ancient and compact: a domino of tiled houses and walled
+gardens, dwarfed by the disproportionate bigness of the church. From
+the midst of the thoroughfare which divided it in half, fields and trees
+were visible at either end; and through the sally-port of every street,
+there flowed in from the country a silent invasion of green grass. Bees
+and birds appeared to make the majority of the inhabitants; every garden
+had its row of hives, the eaves of every house were plastered with the
+nests of swallows, and the pinnacles of the church were flickered about
+all day long by a multitude of wings. The town was of Roman foundation;
+and as I looked out that afternoon from the low windows of the inn,
+I should scarce have been surprised to see a centurion coming up
+the street with a fatigue draft of legionaries. In short,
+Stallbridge-Minster was one of those towns which appear to be maintained
+by England for the instruction and delight of the American rambler;
+to which he seems guided by an instinct not less surprising than the
+setter's; and which he visits and quits with equal enthusiasm.
+
+I was not at all in the humour of the tourist. I had wasted weeks of
+time and accomplished nothing; we were on the eve of the engagement, and
+I had neither plans nor allies. I had thrust myself into the trade of
+private providence and amateur detective; I was spending money and I
+was reaping disgrace. All the time, I kept telling myself that I must at
+least speak; that this ignominious silence should have been broken
+long ago, and must be broken now. I should have broken it when he first
+proposed to come to Stallbridge-Minster; I should have broken it in the
+train; I should break it there and then, on the inn doorstep, as the
+omnibus rolled off. I turned toward him at the thought; he seemed to
+wince, the words died on my lips, and I proposed instead that we should
+visit the Minster.
+
+While we were engaged upon this duty, it came on to rain in a manner
+worthy of the tropics. The vault reverberated; every gargoyle instantly
+poured its full discharge; we waded back to the inn, ankle-deep in
+impromptu brooks; and the rest of the afternoon sat weatherbound,
+hearkening to the sonorous deluge. For two hours I talked of indifferent
+matters, laboriously feeding the conversation; for two hours my mind was
+quite made up to do my duty instantly--and at each particular instant I
+postponed it till the next. To screw up my faltering courage, I
+called at dinner for some sparkling wine. It proved when it came to be
+detestable; I could not put it to my lips; and Bellairs, who had as much
+palate as a weevil, was left to finish it himself. Doubtless the wine
+flushed him; doubtless he may have observed my embarrassment of the
+afternoon; doubtless he was conscious that we were approaching a crisis,
+and that that evening, if I did not join with him, I must declare myself
+an open enemy. At least he fled. Dinner was done; this was the time
+when I had bound myself to break my silence; no more delays were to be
+allowed, no more excuses received. I went upstairs after some tobacco;
+which I felt to be a mere necessity in the circumstances; and when I
+returned, the man was gone. The waiter told me he had left the house.
+
+The rain still plumped, like a vast shower-bath, over the deserted town.
+The night was dark and windless: the street lit glimmeringly from end
+to end, lamps, house windows, and the reflections in the rain-pools all
+contributing. From a public-house on the other side of the way, I heard
+a harp twang and a doleful voice upraised in the "Larboard Watch,"
+"The Anchor's Weighed," and other naval ditties. Where had my Shyster
+wandered? In all likelihood to that lyrical tavern; there was no choice
+of diversion; in comparison with Stallbridge-Minster on a rainy night, a
+sheepfold would seem gay.
+
+Again I passed in review the points of my interview, on which I was
+always constantly resolved so long as my adversary was absent from the
+scene: and again they struck me as inadequate. From this dispiriting
+exercise I turned to the native amusements of the inn coffee-room, and
+studied for some time the mezzotints that frowned upon the wall. The
+railway guide, after showing me how soon I could leave Stallbridge
+and how quickly I could reach Paris, failed to hold my attention. An
+illustrated advertisement book of hotels brought me very low indeed;
+and when it came to the local paper, I could have wept. At this point, I
+found a passing solace in a copy of Whittaker's Almanac, and obtained in
+fifty minutes more information than I have yet been able to use.
+
+Then a fresh apprehension assailed me. Suppose Bellairs had given me the
+slip? suppose he was now rolling on the road to Stallbridge-le-Carthew?
+or perhaps there already and laying before a very white-faced auditor
+his threats and propositions? A hasty person might have instantly
+pursued. Whatever I am, I am not hasty, and I was aware of three grave
+objections. In the first place, I could not be certain that Bellairs was
+gone. In the second, I had no taste whatever for a long drive at that
+hour of the night and in so merciless a rain. In the third, I had no
+idea how I was to get admitted if I went, and no idea what I should say
+if I got admitted. "In short," I concluded, "the whole situation is the
+merest farce. You have thrust yourself in where you had no business
+and have no power. You would be quite as useful in San Francisco;
+far happier in Paris; and being (by the wrath of God) at
+Stallbridge-Minster, the wisest thing is to go quietly to bed." On the
+way to my room, I saw (in a flash) that which I ought to have done long
+ago, and which it was now too late to think of--written to Carthew, I
+mean, detailing the facts and describing Bellairs, letting him defend
+himself if he were able, and giving him time to flee if he were not.
+It was the last blow to my self-respect; and I flung myself into my bed
+with contumely.
+
+I have no guess what hour it was, when I was wakened by the entrance of
+Bellairs carrying a candle. He had been drunk, for he was bedaubed with
+mire from head to foot; but he was now sober and under the empire of
+some violent emotion which he controlled with difficulty. He trembled
+visibly; and more than once, during the interview which followed, tears
+suddenly and silently overflowed his cheeks.
+
+"I have to ask your pardon, sir, for this untimely visit," he said.
+"I make no defence, I have no excuse, I have disgraced myself, I am
+properly punished; I appear before you to appeal to you in mercy for the
+most trifling aid or, God help me! I fear I may go mad."
+
+"What on earth is wrong?" I asked.
+
+"I have been robbed," he said. "I have no defence to offer; it was of my
+own fault, I am properly punished."
+
+"But, gracious goodness me!" I cried, "who is there to rob you in a
+place like this?"
+
+"I can form no opinion," he replied. "I have no idea. I was lying in a
+ditch inanimate. This is a degrading confession, sir; I can only say in
+self-defence that perhaps (in your good nature) you have made yourself
+partly responsible for my shame. I am not used to these rich wines."
+
+"In what form was your money? Perhaps it may be traced," I suggested.
+
+"It was in English sovereigns. I changed it in New York; I got very good
+exchange," he said, and then, with a momentary outbreak, "God in heaven,
+how I toiled for it!" he cried.
+
+"That doesn't sound encouraging," said I. "It may be worth while to
+apply to the police, but it doesn't sound a hopeful case."
+
+"And I have no hope in that direction," said Bellairs. "My hopes, Mr.
+Dodd, are all fixed upon yourself. I could easily convince you that
+a small, a very small advance, would be in the nature of an excellent
+investment; but I prefer to rely on your humanity. Our acquaintance
+began on an unusual footing; but you have now known me for some time,
+we have been some time--I was going to say we had been almost intimate.
+Under the impulse of instinctive sympathy, I have bared my heart to you,
+Mr. Dodd, as I have done to few; and I believe--I trust--I may say that
+I feel sure--you heard me with a kindly sentiment. This is what brings
+me to your side at this most inexcusable hour. But put yourself in
+my place--how could I sleep--how could I dream of sleeping, in this
+blackness of remorse and despair? There was a friend at hand--so I
+ventured to think of you; it was instinctive; I fled to your side,
+as the drowning man clutches at a straw. These expressions are not
+exaggerated, they scarcely serve to express the agitation of my mind.
+And think, sir, how easily you can restore me to hope and, I may say,
+to reason. A small loan, which shall be faithfully repaid. Five hundred
+dollars would be ample." He watched me with burning eyes. "Four hundred
+would do. I believe, Mr. Dodd, that I could manage with economy on two."
+
+"And then you will repay me out of Carthew's pocket?" I said. "I am much
+obliged. But I will tell you what I will do: I will see you on board a
+steamer, pay your fare through to San Francisco, and place fifty dollars
+in the purser's hands, to be given you in New York."
+
+He drank in my words; his face represented an ecstasy of cunning
+thought. I could read there, plain as print, that he but thought to
+overreach me.
+
+"And what am I to do in 'Frisco?" he asked. "I am disbarred, I have no
+trade, I cannot dig, to beg----" he paused in the citation. "And you
+know that I am not alone," he added, "others depend upon me."
+
+"I will write to Pinkerton," I returned. "I feel sure he can help you
+to some employment, and in the meantime, and for three months after
+your arrival, he shall pay to yourself personally, on the first and the
+fifteenth, twenty-five dollars."
+
+"Mr. Dodd, I scarce believe you can be serious in this offer," he
+replied. "Have you forgotten the circumstances of the case? Do you
+know these people are the magnates of the section? They were spoken of
+to-night in the saloon; their wealth must amount to many millions of
+dollars in real estate alone; their house is one of the sights of the
+locality, and you offer me a bribe of a few hundred!"
+
+"I offer you no bribe, Mr. Bellairs, I give you alms," I returned. "I
+will do nothing to forward you in your hateful business; yet I would not
+willingly have you starve."
+
+"Give me a hundred dollars then, and be done with it," he cried.
+
+"I will do what I have said, and neither more nor less," said I.
+
+"Take care," he cried. "You are playing a fool's game; you are making an
+enemy for nothing; you will gain nothing by this, I warn you of it!" And
+then with one of his changes, "Seventy dollars--only seventy--in mercy,
+Mr. Dodd, in common charity. Don't dash the bowl from my lips! You have
+a kindly heart. Think of my position, remember my unhappy wife."
+
+"You should have thought of her before," said I. "I have made my offer,
+and I wish to sleep."
+
+"Is that your last word, sir? Pray consider; pray weigh both sides:
+my misery, your own danger. I warn you--I beseech you; measure it well
+before you answer," so he half pleaded, half threatened me, with clasped
+hands.
+
+"My first word, and my last," said I.
+
+The change upon the man was shocking. In the storm of anger that now
+shook him, the lees of his intoxication rose again to the surface; his
+face was deformed, his words insane with fury; his pantomime excessive
+in itself, was distorted by an access of St. Vitus.
+
+"You will perhaps allow me to inform you of my cold opinion," he began,
+apparently self-possessed, truly bursting with rage: "when I am a
+glorified saint, I shall see you howling for a drop of water and exult
+to see you. That your last word! Take it in your face, you spy, you
+false friend, you fat hypocrite! I defy, I defy and despise and spit
+upon you! I'm on the trail, his trail or yours, I smell blood, I'll
+follow it on my hands and knees, I'll starve to follow it! I'll hunt you
+down, hunt you, hunt you down! If I were strong, I'd tear your vitals
+out, here in this room--tear them out--I'd tear them out! Damn, damn,
+damn! You think me weak! I can bite, bite to the blood, bite you, hurt
+you, disgrace you ..."
+
+He was thus incoherently raging, when the scene was interrupted by
+the arrival of the landlord and inn servants in various degrees of
+deshabille, and to them I gave my temporary lunatic in charge.
+
+"Take him to his room," I said, "he's only drunk."
+
+These were my words; but I knew better. After all my study of Mr.
+Bellairs, one discovery had been reserved for the last moment: that of
+his latent and essential madness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX. STALLBRIDGE-LE-CARTHEW.
+
+
+Long before I was awake, the shyster had disappeared, leaving his bill
+unpaid. I did not need to inquire where he was gone, I knew too well,
+I knew there was nothing left me but to follow; and about ten in the
+morning, set forth in a gig for Stallbridge-le-Carthew.
+
+The road, for the first quarter of the way, deserts the valley of the
+river, and crosses the summit of a chalk-down, grazed over by flocks of
+sheep and haunted by innumerable larks. It was a pleasant but a vacant
+scene, arousing but not holding the attention; and my mind returned to
+the violent passage of the night before. My thought of the man I was
+pursuing had been greatly changed. I conceived of him, somewhere in
+front of me, upon his dangerous errand, not to be turned aside, not
+to be stopped, by either fear or reason. I had called him a ferret;
+I conceived him now as a mad dog. Methought he would run, not walk;
+methought, as he ran, that he would bark and froth at the lips;
+methought, if the great wall of China were to rise across his path, he
+would attack it with his nails.
+
+Presently the road left the down, returned by a precipitous descent into
+the valley of the Stall, and ran thenceforward among enclosed fields and
+under the continuous shade of trees. I was told we had now entered on
+the Carthew property. By and by, a battlemented wall appeared on the
+left hand, and a little after I had my first glimpse of the mansion. It
+stood in a hollow of a bosky park, crowded to a degree that surprised
+and even displeased me, with huge timber and dense shrubberies of
+laurel and rhododendron. Even from this low station and the thronging
+neighbourhood of the trees, the pile rose conspicuous like a cathedral.
+Behind, as we continued to skirt the park wall, I began to make out a
+straggling town of offices which became conjoined to the rear with those
+of the home farm. On the left was an ornamental water sailed in by many
+swans. On the right extended a flower garden, laid in the old manner,
+and at this season of the year, as brilliant as stained glass. The front
+of the house presented a facade of more than sixty windows, surmounted
+by a formal pediment and raised upon a terrace. A wide avenue, part in
+gravel, part in turf, and bordered by triple alleys, ran to the great
+double gateways. It was impossible to look without surprise on a place
+that had been prepared through so many generations, had cost so many
+tons of minted gold, and was maintained in order by so great a company
+of emulous servants. And yet of these there was no sign but the
+perfection of their work. The whole domain was drawn to the line and
+weeded like the front plot of some suburban amateur; and I looked in
+vain for any belated gardener, and listened in vain for any sounds of
+labour. Some lowing of cattle and much calling of birds alone disturbed
+the stillness, and even the little hamlet, which clustered at the gates,
+appeared to hold its breath in awe of its great neighbour, like a troop
+of children who should have strayed into a king's anteroom.
+
+The Carthew Arms, the small but very comfortable inn, was a mere
+appendage and outpost of the family whose name it bore. Engraved
+portraits of by-gone Carthews adorned the walls; Fielding Carthew,
+Recorder of the city of London; Major-General John Carthew in uniform,
+commanding some military operations; the Right Honourable Bailley
+Carthew, Member of Parliament for Stallbridge, standing by a table and
+brandishing a document; Singleton Carthew, Esquire, represented in the
+foreground of a herd of cattle--doubtless at the desire of his tenantry,
+who had made him a compliment of this work of art; and the Venerable
+Archdeacon Carthew, D.D., LL.D., A.M., laying his hand on the head of
+a little child in a manner highly frigid and ridiculous. So far as
+my memory serves me, there were no other pictures in this exclusive
+hostelry; and I was not surprised to learn that the landlord was an
+ex-butler, the landlady an ex-lady's-maid, from the great house; and
+that the bar-parlour was a sort of perquisite of former servants.
+
+To an American, the sense of the domination of this family over so
+considerable a tract of earth was even oppressive; and as I considered
+their simple annals, gathered from the legends of the engravings,
+surprise began to mingle with my disgust. "Mr. Recorder" doubtless
+occupies an honourable post; but I thought that, in the course of so
+many generations, one Carthew might have clambered higher. The soldier
+had stuck at Major-General; the churchman bloomed unremarked in an
+archidiaconate; and though the Right Honourable Bailley seemed to have
+sneaked into the privy council, I have still to learn what he did when
+he had got there. Such vast means, so long a start, and such a modest
+standard of achievement, struck in me a strong sense of the dulness of
+that race.
+
+I found that to come to the hamlet and not visit the Hall, would be
+regarded as a slight. To feed the swans, to see the peacocks and
+the Raphaels--for these commonplace people actually possessed two
+Raphaels--to risk life and limb among a famous breed of cattle called
+the Carthew Chillinghams, and to do homage to the sire (still living) of
+Donibristle, a renowned winner of the oaks: these, it seemed, were
+the inevitable stations of the pilgrimage. I was not so foolish as to
+resist, for I might have need before I was done of general good-will;
+and two pieces of news fell in which changed my resignation to
+alacrity. It appeared in the first place, that Mr. Norris was from home
+"travelling "; in the second, that a visitor had been before me and
+already made the tour of the Carthew curiosities. I thought I knew who
+this must be; I was anxious to learn what he had done and seen; and
+fortune so far favoured me that the under-gardener singled out to be my
+guide had already performed the same function for my predecessor.
+
+"Yes, sir," he said, "an American gentleman right enough. At least, I
+don't think he was quite a gentleman, but a very civil person."
+
+The person, it seems, had been civil enough to be delighted with the
+Carthew Chillinghams, to perform the whole pilgrimage with rising
+admiration, and to have almost prostrated himself before the shrine of
+Donibristle's sire.
+
+"He told me, sir," continued the gratified under-gardener, "that he had
+often read of the 'stately 'omes of England,' but ours was the first he
+had the chance to see. When he came to the 'ead of the long alley, he
+fetched his breath. 'This is indeed a lordly domain!' he cries. And
+it was natural he should be interested in the place, for it seems
+Mr. Carthew had been kind to him in the States. In fact, he seemed a
+grateful kind of person, and wonderful taken up with flowers."
+
+I heard this story with amazement. The phrases quoted told their own
+tale; they were plainly from the shyster's mint. A few hours back I
+had seen him a mere bedlamite and fit for a strait-waistcoat; he was
+penniless in a strange country; it was highly probable he had gone
+without breakfast; the absence of Norris must have been a crushing blow;
+the man (by all reason) should have been despairing. And now I heard of
+him, clothed and in his right mind, deliberate, insinuating, admiring
+vistas, smelling flowers, and talking like a book. The strength of
+character implied amazed and daunted me.
+
+"This is curious," I said to the under-gardener. "I have had the
+pleasure of some acquaintance with Mr. Carthew myself; and I believe
+none of our western friends ever were in England. Who can this person
+be? He couldn't--no, that's impossible, he could never have had the
+impudence. His name was not Bellairs?"
+
+"I didn't 'ear the name, sir. Do you know anything against him?" cried
+my guide.
+
+"Well," said I, "he is certainly not the person Carthew would like to
+have here in his absence."
+
+"Good gracious me!" exclaimed the gardener. "He was so pleasant spoken,
+too; I thought he was some form of a schoolmaster. Perhaps, sir, you
+wouldn't mind going right up to Mr. Denman? I recommended him to Mr.
+Denman, when he had done the grounds. Mr. Denman is our butler, sir," he
+added.
+
+The proposal was welcome, particularly as affording me a graceful
+retreat from the neighbourhood of the Carthew Chillinghams; and, giving
+up our projected circuit, we took a short cut through the shrubbery and
+across the bowling green to the back quarters of the Hall.
+
+The bowling green was surrounded by a great hedge of yew, and entered
+by an archway in the quick. As we were issuing from this passage, my
+conductor arrested me.
+
+"The Honourable Lady Ann Carthew," he said, in an august whisper. And
+looking over his shoulder, I was aware of an old lady with a stick,
+hobbling somewhat briskly along the garden path. She must have been
+extremely handsome in her youth; and even the limp with which she walked
+could not deprive her of an unusual and almost menacing dignity of
+bearing. Melancholy was impressed besides on every feature, and
+her eyes, as she looked straight before her, seemed to contemplate
+misfortune.
+
+"She seems sad," said I, when she had hobbled past and we had resumed
+our walk.
+
+"She enjoy rather poor spirits, sir," responded the under-gardener.
+"Mr. Carthew--the old gentleman, I mean--died less than a year ago; Lord
+Tillibody, her ladyship's brother, two months after; and then there was
+the sad business about the young gentleman. Killed in the 'unting-field,
+sir; and her ladyship's favourite. The present Mr. Norris has never been
+so equally."
+
+"So I have understood," said I, persistently, and (I think) gracefully
+pursuing my inquiries and fortifying my position as a family friend.
+"Dear, dear, how sad! And has this change--poor Carthew's return, and
+all--has this not mended matters?"
+
+"Well, no, sir, not a sign of it," was the reply. "Worse, we think, than
+ever."
+
+"Dear, dear!" said I again.
+
+"When Mr. Norris arrived, she DID seem glad to see him," he pursued;
+"and we were all pleased, I'm sure; for no one knows the young gentleman
+but what likes him. Ah, sir, it didn't last long! That very night
+they had a talk, and fell out or something; her ladyship took on most
+painful; it was like old days, but worse. And the next morning Mr.
+Norris was off again upon his travels. 'Denman,' he said to Mr. Denman,
+'Denman, I'll never come back,' he said, and shook him by the 'and. I
+wouldn't be saying all this to a stranger, sir," added my informant,
+overcome with a sudden fear lest he had gone too far.
+
+He had indeed told me much, and much that was unsuspected by himself.
+On that stormy night of his return, Carthew had told his story; the old
+lady had more upon her mind than mere bereavements; and among the mental
+pictures on which she looked, as she walked staring down the path, was
+one of Midway Island and the Flying Scud.
+
+Mr. Denman heard my inquiries with discomposure, but informed me the
+shyster was already gone.
+
+"Gone?" cried I. "Then what can he have come for? One thing I can tell
+you, it was not to see the house."
+
+"I don't see it could have been anything else," replied the butler.
+
+"You may depend upon it it was," said I. "And whatever it was, he has
+got it. By the way, where is Mr. Carthew at present? I was sorry to find
+he was from home."
+
+"He is engaged in travelling, sir," replied the butler, dryly.
+
+"Ah, bravo!" cried I. "I laid a trap for you there, Mr. Denman. Now I
+need not ask you; I am sure you did not tell this prying stranger."
+
+"To be sure not, sir," said the butler.
+
+I went through the form of "shaking him by the 'and"--like Mr.
+Norris--not, however, with genuine enthusiasm. For I had failed
+ingloriously to get the address for myself; and I felt a sure conviction
+that Bellairs had done better, or he had still been here and still
+cultivating Mr. Denman.
+
+I had escaped the grounds and the cattle; I could not escape the
+house. A lady with silver hair, a slender silver voice, and a stream of
+insignificant information not to be diverted, led me through the picture
+gallery, the music-room, the great dining-room, the long drawing-room,
+the Indian room, the theatre, and every corner (as I thought) of that
+interminable mansion. There was but one place reserved; the garden-room,
+whither Lady Ann had now retired. I paused a moment on the outside of
+the door, and smiled to myself. The situation was indeed strange, and
+these thin boards divided the secret of the Flying Scud.
+
+All the while, as I went to and fro, I was considering the visit and
+departure of Bellairs. That he had got the address, I was quite certain:
+that he had not got it by direct questioning, I was convinced; some
+ingenuity, some lucky accident, had served him. A similar chance, an
+equal ingenuity, was required; or I was left helpless, the ferret must
+run down his prey, the great oaks fall, the Raphaels be scattered, the
+house let to some stockbroker suddenly made rich, and the name which now
+filled the mouths of five or six parishes dwindle to a memory. Strange
+that such great matters, so old a mansion, a family so ancient and so
+dull, should come to depend for perpetuity upon the intelligence, the
+discretion, and the cunning of a Latin-Quarter student! What Bellairs
+had done, I must do likewise. Chance or ingenuity, ingenuity or
+chance--so I continued to ring the changes as I walked down the
+avenue, casting back occasional glances at the red brick facade and the
+twinkling windows of the house. How was I to command chance? where was I
+to find the ingenuity?
+
+These reflections brought me to the door of the inn. And here, pursuant
+to my policy of keeping well with all men, I immediately smoothed my
+brow, and accepted (being the only guest in the house) an invitation to
+dine with the family in the bar-parlour. I sat down accordingly with Mr.
+Higgs the ex-butler, Mrs. Higgs the ex-lady's-maid, and Miss Agnes Higgs
+their frowsy-headed little girl, the least promising and (as the event
+showed) the most useful of the lot. The talk ran endlessly on the great
+house and the great family; the roast beef, the Yorkshire pudding, the
+jam-roll, and the cheddar cheese came and went, and still the stream
+flowed on; near four generations of Carthews were touched upon without
+eliciting one point of interest; and we had killed Mr. Henry in "the
+'unting-field," with a vast elaboration of painful circumstance, and
+buried him in the midst of a whole sorrowing county, before I could so
+much as manage to bring upon the stage my intimate friend, Mr. Norris.
+At the name, the ex-butler grew diplomatic, and the ex-lady's-maid
+tender. He was the only person of the whole featureless series
+who seemed to have accomplished anything worth mention; and his
+achievements, poor dog, seemed to have been confined to going to the
+devil and leaving some regrets. He had been the image of the Right
+Honourable Bailley, one of the lights of that dim house, and a career
+of distinction had been predicted of him in consequence almost from the
+cradle. But before he was out of long clothes, the cloven foot began to
+show; he proved to be no Carthew, developed a taste for low pleasures
+and bad company, went birdnesting with a stable-boy before he was
+eleven, and when he was near twenty, and might have been expected to
+display at least some rudiments of the family gravity, rambled the
+country over with a knapsack, making sketches and keeping company in
+wayside inns. He had no pride about him, I was told; he would sit down
+with any man; and it was somewhat woundingly implied that I was indebted
+to this peculiarity for my own acquaintance with the hero. Unhappily,
+Mr. Norris was not only eccentric, he was fast. His debts were still
+remembered at the University; still more, it appeared, the highly
+humorous circumstances attending his expulsion. "He was always fond of
+his jest," commented Mrs. Higgs.
+
+"That he were!" observed her lord.
+
+But it was after he went into the diplomatic service that the real
+trouble began.
+
+"It seems, sir, that he went the pace extraordinary," said the
+ex-butler, with a solemn gusto.
+
+"His debts were somethink awful," said the lady's-maid. "And as nice a
+young gentleman all the time as you would wish to see!"
+
+"When word came to Mr. Carthew's ears, the turn up was 'orrible,"
+continued Mr. Higgs. "I remember it as if it was yesterday. The bell was
+rung after her la'ship was gone, which I answered it myself, supposing
+it were the coffee. There was Mr. Carthew on his feet. ''Iggs,' he
+says, pointing with his stick, for he had a turn of the gout, 'order the
+dog-cart instantly for this son of mine which has disgraced hisself.'
+Mr. Norris say nothink: he sit there with his 'ead down, making belief
+to be looking at a walnut. You might have bowled me over with a straw,"
+said Mr. Higgs.
+
+"Had he done anything very bad?" I asked.
+
+"Not he, Mr. Dodsley!" cried the lady--it was so she had conceived my
+name. "He never did anythink to all really wrong in his poor life. The
+'ole affair was a disgrace. It was all rank favouritising."
+
+"Mrs. 'Iggs! Mrs. 'Iggs!" cried the butler warningly.
+
+"Well, what do I care?" retorted the lady, shaking her ringlets. "You
+know it was yourself, Mr. 'Iggs, and so did every member of the staff."
+
+While I was getting these facts and opinions, I by no means neglected
+the child. She was not attractive; but fortunately she had reached the
+corrupt age of seven, when half a crown appears about as large as a
+saucer and is fully as rare as the dodo. For a shilling down, sixpence
+in her money-box, and an American gold dollar which I happened to find
+in my pocket, I bought the creature soul and body. She declared her
+intention to accompany me to the ends of the earth; and had to be
+chidden by her sire for drawing comparisons between myself and her uncle
+William, highly damaging to the latter.
+
+Dinner was scarce done, the cloth was not yet removed, when Miss Agnes
+must needs climb into my lap with her stamp album, a relic of the
+generosity of Uncle William. There are few things I despise more than
+old stamps, unless perhaps it be crests; for cattle (from the Carthew
+Chillinghams down to the old gate-keeper's milk-cow in the lane)
+contempt is far from being my first sentiment. But it seemed I was
+doomed to pass that day in viewing curiosities, and smothering a yawn,
+I devoted myself once more to tread the well-known round. I fancy Uncle
+William must have begun the collection himself and tired of it, for
+the book (to my surprise) was quite respectably filled. There were the
+varying shades of the English penny, Russians with the coloured heart,
+old undecipherable Thurn-und-Taxis, obsolete triangular Cape of Good
+Hopes, Swan Rivers with the Swan, and Guianas with the sailing ship.
+Upon all these I looked with the eyes of a fish and the spirit of a
+sheep; I think indeed I was at times asleep; and it was probably in one
+of these moments that I capsized the album, and there fell from the end
+of it, upon the floor, a considerable number of what I believe to be
+called "exchanges."
+
+Here, against all probability, my chance had come to me; for as I
+gallantly picked them up, I was struck with the disproportionate amount
+of five-sous French stamps. Some one, I reasoned, must write very
+regularly from France to the neighbourhood of Stallbridge-le-Carthew.
+Could it be Norris? On one stamp I made out an initial C; upon a second
+I got as far as CH; beyond which point, the postmark used was in every
+instance undecipherable. CH, when you consider that about a quarter of
+the towns in France begin with "chateau," was an insufficient clue; and
+I promptly annexed the plainest of the collection in order to consult
+the post-office.
+
+The wretched infant took me in the fact. "Naughty man, to 'teal my
+'tamp!" she cried; and when I would have brazened it off with a denial,
+recovered and displayed the stolen article.
+
+My position was now highly false; and I believe it was in mere pity
+that Mrs. Higgs came to my rescue with a welcome proposition. If the
+gentleman was really interested in stamps, she said, probably supposing
+me a monomaniac on the point, he should see Mr. Denman's album. Mr.
+Denman had been collecting forty years, and his collection was said
+to be worth a mint of money. "Agnes," she went on, "if you were a kind
+little girl, you would run over to the 'All, tell Mr. Denman there's
+a connaisseer in the 'ouse, and ask him if one of the young gentlemen
+might bring the album down."
+
+"I should like to see his exchanges too," I cried, rising to the
+occasion. "I may have some of mine in my pocket-book and we might
+trade."
+
+Half an hour later Mr. Denman arrived himself with a most unconscionable
+volume under his arm. "Ah, sir," he cried, "when I 'eard you was a
+collector, I dropped all. It's a saying of mine, Mr. Dodsley, that
+collecting stamps makes all collectors kin. It's a bond, sir; it creates
+a bond."
+
+Upon the truth of this, I cannot say; but there is no doubt that
+the attempt to pass yourself off for a collector falsely creates a
+precarious situation.
+
+"Ah, here's the second issue!" I would say, after consulting the legend
+at the side. "The pink--no, I mean the mauve--yes, that's the beauty of
+this lot. Though of course, as you say," I would hasten to add, "this
+yellow on the thin paper is more rare."
+
+Indeed I must certainly have been detected, had I not plied Mr. Denman
+in self-defence with his favourite liquor--a port so excellent that it
+could never have ripened in the cellar of the Carthew Arms, but must
+have been transported, under cloud of night, from the neighbouring
+vaults of the great house. At each threat of exposure, and in particular
+whenever I was directly challenged for an opinion, I made haste to fill
+the butler's glass, and by the time we had got to the exchanges, he was
+in a condition in which no stamp collector need be seriously feared.
+God forbid I should hint that he was drunk; he seemed incapable of the
+necessary liveliness; but the man's eyes were set, and so long as he was
+suffered to talk without interruption, he seemed careless of my heeding
+him.
+
+In Mr. Denman's exchanges, as in those of little Agnes, the same
+peculiarity was to be remarked, an undue preponderance of that
+despicably common stamp, the French twenty-five centimes. And here
+joining them in stealthy review, I found the C and the CH; then
+something of an A just following; and then a terminal Y. Here was also
+the whole name spelt out to me; it seemed familiar, too; and yet for
+some time I could not bridge the imperfection. Then I came upon another
+stamp, in which an L was legible before the Y, and in a moment the word
+leaped up complete. Chailly, that was the name; Chailly-en-Biere, the
+post town of Barbizon--ah, there was the very place for any man to hide
+himself--there was the very place for Mr. Norris, who had rambled over
+England making sketches--the very place for Goddedaal, who had left a
+palette-knife on board the Flying Scud. Singular, indeed, that while I
+was drifting over England with the shyster, the man we were in quest of
+awaited me at my own ultimate destination.
+
+Whether Mr. Denman had shown his album to Bellairs, whether, indeed,
+Bellairs could have caught (as I did) this hint from an obliterated
+postmark, I shall never know, and it mattered not. We were equal now;
+my task at Stallbridge-le-Carthew was accomplished; my interest in
+postage-stamps died shamelessly away; the astonished Denman was bowed
+out; and ordering the horse to be put in, I plunged into the study of
+the time-table.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI. FACE TO FACE.
+
+
+I fell from the skies on Barbizon about two o'clock of a September
+afternoon. It is the dead hour of the day; all the workers have gone
+painting, all the idlers strolling, in the forest or the plain; the
+winding causewayed street is solitary, and the inn deserted. I was the
+more pleased to find one of my old companions in the dining-room; his
+town clothes marked him for a man in the act of departure; and indeed
+his portmanteau lay beside him on the floor.
+
+"Why, Stennis," I cried, "you're the last man I expected to find here."
+
+"You won't find me here long," he replied. "King Pandion he is dead; all
+his friends are lapped in lead. For men of our antiquity, the poor old
+shop is played out."
+
+"I have had playmates, I have had companions," I quoted in return.
+We were both moved, I think, to meet again in this scene of our old
+pleasure parties so unexpectedly, after so long an interval, and both
+already so much altered.
+
+"That is the sentiment," he replied. "All, all are gone, the old
+familiar faces. I have been here a week, and the only living creature
+who seemed to recollect me was the Pharaon. Bar the Sirons, of course,
+and the perennial Bodmer."
+
+"Is there no survivor?" I inquired.
+
+"Of our geological epoch? not one," he replied. "This is the city of
+Petra in Edom."
+
+"And what sort of Bedouins encamp among the ruins?" I asked.
+
+"Youth, Dodd, youth; blooming, conscious youth," he returned. "Such a
+gang, such reptiles! to think we were like that! I wonder Siron didn't
+sweep us from his premises."
+
+"Perhaps we weren't so bad," I suggested.
+
+"Don't let me depress you," said he. "We were both Anglo-Saxons, anyway,
+and the only redeeming feature to-day is another."
+
+The thought of my quest, a moment driven out by this rencounter, revived
+in my mind. "Who is he?" I cried. "Tell me about him."
+
+"What, the Redeeming Feature?" said he. "Well, he's a very pleasing
+creature, rather dim, and dull, and genteel, but really pleasing. He is
+very British, though, the artless Briton! Perhaps you'll find him too
+much so for the transatlantic nerves. Come to think of it, on the other
+hand, you ought to get on famously. He is an admirer of your great
+republic in one of its (excuse me) shoddiest features; he takes in and
+sedulously reads a lot of American papers. I warned you he was artless."
+
+"What papers are they?" cried I.
+
+"San Francisco papers," said he. "He gets a bale of them about twice
+a week, and studies them like the Bible. That's one of his weaknesses;
+another is to be incalculably rich. He has taken Masson's old
+studio--you remember?--at the corner of the road; he has furnished it
+regardless of expense, and lives there surrounded with vins fins and
+works of art. When the youth of to-day goes up to the Caverne des
+Brigands to make punch--they do all that we did, like some nauseous form
+of ape (I never appreciated before what a creature of tradition mankind
+is)--this Madden follows with a basket of champagne. I told him he was
+wrong, and the punch tasted better; but he thought the boys liked the
+style of the thing, and I suppose they do. He is a very good-natured
+soul, and a very melancholy, and rather a helpless. O, and he has a
+third weakness which I came near forgetting. He paints. He has never
+been taught, and he's past thirty, and he paints."
+
+"How?" I asked.
+
+"Rather well, I think," was the reply. "That's the annoying part of it.
+See for yourself. That panel is his."
+
+I stepped toward the window. It was the old familiar room, with the
+tables set like a Greek P, and the sideboard, and the aphasiac piano,
+and the panels on the wall. There were Romeo and Juliet, Antwerp from
+the river, Enfield's ships among the ice, and the huge huntsman winding
+a huge horn; mingled with them a few new ones, the thin crop of a
+succeeding generation, not better and not worse. It was to one of these
+I was directed; a thing coarsely and wittily handled, mostly with the
+palette-knife, the colour in some parts excellent, the canvas in others
+loaded with mere clay. But it was the scene, and not the art or want
+of it, that riveted my notice. The foreground was of sand and scrub and
+wreckwood; in the middle distance the many-hued and smooth expanse of a
+lagoon, enclosed by a wall of breakers; beyond, a blue strip of ocean.
+The sky was cloudless, and I could hear the surf break. For the place
+was Midway Island; the point of view the very spot at which I had landed
+with the captain for the first time, and from which I had re-embarked
+the day before we sailed. I had already been gazing for some seconds,
+before my attention was arrested by a blur on the sea-line; and stooping
+to look, I recognised the smoke of a steamer.
+
+"Yes," said I, turning toward Stennis, "it has merit. What is it?"
+
+"A fancy piece," he returned. "That's what pleased me. So few of the
+fellows in our time had the imagination of a garden snail."
+
+"Madden, you say his name is?" I pursued.
+
+"Madden," he repeated.
+
+"Has he travelled much?" I inquired.
+
+"I haven't an idea. He is one of the least autobiographical of men. He
+sits, and smokes, and giggles, and sometimes he makes small jests;
+but his contributions to the art of pleasing are generally confined to
+looking like a gentleman and being one. No," added Stennis, "he'll never
+suit you, Dodd; you like more head on your liquor. You'll find him as
+dull as ditch water."
+
+"Has he big blonde side-whiskers like tusks?" I asked, mindful of the
+photograph of Goddedaal.
+
+"Certainly not: why should he?" was the reply.
+
+"Does he write many letters?" I continued.
+
+"God knows," said Stennis. "What is wrong with you? I never saw you
+taken this way before."
+
+
+"The fact is, I think I know the man," said I. "I think I'm looking for
+him. I rather think he is my long-lost brother."
+
+"Not twins, anyway," returned Stennis.
+
+And about the same time, a carriage driving up to the inn, he took his
+departure.
+
+I walked till dinner-time in the plain, keeping to the fields; for I
+instinctively shunned observation, and was racked by many incongruous
+and impatient feelings. Here was a man whose voice I had once heard,
+whose doings had filled so many days of my life with interest and
+distress, whom I had lain awake to dream of like a lover; and now his
+hand was on the door; now we were to meet; now I was to learn at last
+the mystery of the substituted crew. The sun went down over the plain of
+the Angelus, and as the hour approached, my courage lessened. I let the
+laggard peasants pass me on the homeward way. The lamps were lit, the
+soup was served, the company were all at table, and the room sounded
+already with multitudinous talk before I entered. I took my place and
+found I was opposite to Madden. Over six feet high and well set up, the
+hair dark and streaked with silver, the eyes dark and kindly, the mouth
+very good-natured, the teeth admirable; linen and hands exquisite;
+English clothes, an English voice, an English bearing: the man stood
+out conspicuous from the company. Yet he had made himself at home, and
+seemed to enjoy a certain quiet popularity among the noisy boys of the
+table d'hote. He had an odd, silver giggle of a laugh, that sounded
+nervous even when he was really amused, and accorded ill with his big
+stature and manly, melancholy face. This laugh fell in continually all
+through dinner like the note of the triangle in a piece of modern French
+music; and he had at times a kind of pleasantry, rather of manner than
+of words, with which he started or maintained the merriment. He took his
+share in these diversions, not so much like a man in high spirits,
+but like one of an approved good nature, habitually self-forgetful,
+accustomed to please and to follow others. I have remarked in old
+soldiers much the same smiling sadness and sociable self-effacement.
+
+I feared to look at him, lest my glances should betray my deep
+excitement, and chance served me so well that the soup was scarce
+removed before we were naturally introduced. My first sip of Chateau
+Siron, a vintage from which I had been long estranged, startled me into
+speech.
+
+
+"O, this'll never do!" I cried, in English.
+
+"Dreadful stuff, isn't it?" said Madden, in the same language. "Do let
+me ask you to share my bottle. They call it Chambertin, which it isn't;
+but it's fairly palatable, and there's nothing in this house that a man
+can drink at all."
+
+I accepted; anything would do that paved the way to better knowledge.
+
+"Your name is Madden, I think," said I. "My old friend Stennis told me
+about you when I came."
+
+"Yes, I am sorry he went; I feel such a Grandfather William, alone among
+all these lads," he replied.
+
+"My name is Dodd," I resumed.
+
+"Yes," said he, "so Madame Siron told me."
+
+"Dodd, of San Francisco," I continued. "Late of Pinkerton and Dodd."
+
+"Montana Block, I think?" said he.
+
+"The same," said I.
+
+Neither of us looked at each other; but I could see his hand
+deliberately making bread pills.
+
+"That's a nice thing of yours," I pursued, "that panel. The foreground
+is a little clayey, perhaps, but the lagoon is excellent."
+
+"You ought to know," said he.
+
+"Yes," returned I, "I'm rather a good judge of--that panel."
+
+There was a considerable pause.
+
+"You know a man by the name of Bellairs, don't you?" he resumed.
+
+"Ah!" cried I, "you have heard from Doctor Urquart?"
+
+"This very morning," he replied.
+
+"Well, there is no hurry about Bellairs," said I. "It's rather a long
+story and rather a silly one. But I think we have a good deal to tell
+each other, and perhaps we had better wait till we are more alone."
+
+"I think so," said he. "Not that any of these fellows know English, but
+we'll be more comfortable over at my place. Your health, Dodd."
+
+And we took wine together across the table.
+
+Thus had this singular introduction passed unperceived in the midst of
+more than thirty persons, art students, ladies in dressing-gowns and
+covered with rice powder, six foot of Siron whisking dishes over our
+head, and his noisy sons clattering in and out with fresh relays.
+
+"One question more," said I: "Did you recognise my voice?"
+
+"Your voice?" he repeated. "How should I? I had never heard it--we have
+never met."
+
+"And yet, we have been in conversation before now," said I, "and I asked
+you a question which you never answered, and which I have since had many
+thousand better reasons for putting to myself."
+
+He turned suddenly white. "Good God!" he cried, "are you the man in the
+telephone?"
+
+I nodded.
+
+"Well, well!" said he. "It would take a good deal of magnanimity to
+forgive you that. What nights I have passed! That little whisper has
+whistled in my ear ever since, like the wind in a keyhole. Who could it
+be? What could it mean? I suppose I have had more real, solid misery
+out of that ..." He paused, and looked troubled. "Though I had more to
+bother me, or ought to have," he added, and slowly emptied his glass.
+
+"It seems we were born to drive each other crazy with conundrums," said
+I. "I have often thought my head would split."
+
+Carthew burst into his foolish laugh. "And yet neither you nor I had the
+worst of the puzzle," he cried. "There were others deeper in."
+
+"And who were they?" I asked.
+
+"The underwriters," said he.
+
+"Why, to be sure!" cried I, "I never thought of that. What could they
+make of it?"
+
+"Nothing," replied Carthew. "It couldn't be explained. They were a crowd
+of small dealers at Lloyd's who took it up in syndicate; one of them has
+a carriage now; and people say he is a deuce of a deep fellow, and has
+the makings of a great financier. Another furnished a small villa on
+the profits. But they're all hopelessly muddled; and when they meet each
+other, they don't know where to look, like the Augurs."
+
+Dinner was no sooner at an end than he carried me across the road
+to Masson's old studio. It was strangely changed. On the walls were
+tapestry, a few good etchings, and some amazing pictures--a Rousseau, a
+Corot, a really superb old Crome, a Whistler, and a piece which my host
+claimed (and I believe) to be a Titian. The room was furnished with
+comfortable English smoking-room chairs, some American rockers, and
+an elaborate business table; spirits and soda-water (with the mark of
+Schweppe, no less) stood ready on a butler's tray, and in one corner,
+behind a half-drawn curtain, I spied a camp-bed and a capacious tub.
+Such a room in Barbizon astonished the beholder, like the glories of the
+cave of Monte Cristo.
+
+"Now," said he, "we are quiet. Sit down, if you don't mind, and tell me
+your story all through."
+
+I did as he asked, beginning with the day when Jim showed me the passage
+in the _Daily Occidental_, and winding up with the stamp album and the
+Chailly postmark. It was a long business; and Carthew made it longer,
+for he was insatiable of details; and it had struck midnight on the old
+eight-day clock in the corner, before I had made an end.
+
+"And now," said he, "turn about: I must tell you my side, much as I hate
+it. Mine is a beastly story. You'll wonder how I can sleep. I've told it
+once before, Mr. Dodd."
+
+"To Lady Ann?" I asked.
+
+"As you suppose," he answered; "and to say the truth, I had sworn never
+to tell it again. Only, you seem somehow entitled to the thing; you have
+paid dear enough, God knows; and God knows I hope you may like it, now
+you've got it!"
+
+With that he began his yarn. A new day had dawned, the cocks crew in the
+village and the early woodmen were afoot, when he concluded.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII. THE REMITTANCE MAN.
+
+
+Singleton Carthew, the father of Norris, was heavily built and feebly
+vitalised, sensitive as a musician, dull as a sheep, and conscientious
+as a dog. He took his position with seriousness, even with pomp; the
+long rooms, the silent servants, seemed in his eyes like the observances
+of some religion of which he was the mortal god. He had the stupid man's
+intolerance of stupidity in others; the vain man's exquisite alarm lest
+it should be detected in himself. And on both sides Norris irritated and
+offended him. He thought his son a fool, and he suspected that his son
+returned the compliment with interest. The history of their relation was
+simple; they met seldom, they quarrelled often. To his mother, a fiery,
+pungent, practical woman, already disappointed in her husband and her
+elder son, Norris was only a fresh disappointment.
+
+Yet the lad's faults were no great matter; he was diffident, placable,
+passive, unambitious, unenterprising; life did not much attract him; he
+watched it like a curious and dull exhibition, not much amused, and not
+tempted in the least to take a part. He beheld his father ponderously
+grinding sand, his mother fierily breaking butterflies, his brother
+labouring at the pleasures of the Hawbuck with the ardour of a soldier
+in a doubtful battle; and the vital sceptic looked on wondering. They
+were careful and troubled about many things; for him there seemed not
+even one thing needful. He was born disenchanted, the world's promises
+awoke no echo in his bosom, the world's activities and the world's
+distinctions seemed to him equally without a base in fact. He liked the
+open air; he liked comradeship, it mattered not with whom, his comrades
+were only a remedy for solitude. And he had a taste for painted art. An
+array of fine pictures looked upon his childhood, and from these roods
+of jewelled canvas he received an indelible impression. The gallery at
+Stallbridge betokened generations of picture lovers; Norris was perhaps
+the first of his race to hold the pencil. The taste was genuine, it
+grew and strengthened with his growth; and yet he suffered it to be
+suppressed with scarce a struggle. Time came for him to go to Oxford,
+and he resisted faintly. He was stupid, he said; it was no good to put
+him through the mill; he wished to be a painter. The words fell on his
+father like a thunderbolt, and Norris made haste to give way. "It didn't
+really matter, don't you know?" said he. "And it seemed an awful shame
+to vex the old boy."
+
+To Oxford he went obediently, hopelessly; and at Oxford became the
+hero of a certain circle. He was active and adroit; when he was in
+the humour, he excelled in many sports; and his singular melancholy
+detachment gave him a place apart. He set a fashion in his clique.
+Envious undergraduates sought to parody his unaffected lack of zeal
+and fear; it was a kind of new Byronism more composed and dignified.
+"Nothing really mattered"; among other things, this formula embraced the
+dons; and though he always meant to be civil, the effect on the college
+authorities was one of startling rudeness. His indifference cut like
+insolence; and in some outbreak of his constitutional levity (the
+complement of his melancholy) he was "sent down" in the middle of the
+second year.
+
+The event was new in the annals of the Carthews, and Singleton was
+prepared to make the most of it. It had been long his practice to
+prophesy for his second son a career of ruin and disgrace. There is
+an advantage in this artless parental habit. Doubtless the father
+is interested in his son; but doubtless also the prophet grows to be
+interested in his prophecies. If the one goes wrong, the others come
+true. Old Carthew drew from this source esoteric consolations; he dwelt
+at length on his own foresight; he produced variations hitherto unheard
+from the old theme "I told you so," coupled his son's name with the
+gallows and the hulks, and spoke of his small handful of college debts
+as though he must raise money on a mortgage to discharge them.
+
+"I don't think that is fair, sir," said Norris. "I lived at college
+exactly as you told me. I am sorry I was sent down, and you have a
+perfect right to blame me for that; but you have no right to pitch into
+me about these debts."
+
+The effect upon a stupid man not unjustly incensed need scarcely be
+described. For a while Singleton raved.
+
+"I'll tell you what, father," said Norris at last, "I don't think this
+is going to do. I think you had better let me take to painting. It's
+the only thing I take a spark of interest in. I shall never be steady as
+long as I'm at anything else."
+
+"When you stand here, sir, to the neck in disgrace," said the father, "I
+should have hoped you would have had more good taste than to repeat this
+levity."
+
+The hint was taken; the levity was never more obtruded on the father's
+notice, and Norris was inexorably launched upon a backward voyage. He
+went abroad to study foreign languages, which he learned, at a very
+expensive rate; and a fresh crop of debts fell soon to be paid, with
+similar lamentations, which were in this case perfectly justified, and
+to which Norris paid no regard. He had been unfairly treated over the
+Oxford affair; and with a spice of malice very surprising in one so
+placable, and an obstinacy remarkable in one so weak, refused from that
+day forward to exercise the least captaincy on his expenses. He wasted
+what he would; he allowed his servants to despoil him at their pleasure;
+he sowed insolvency; and when the crop was ripe, notified his father
+with exasperating calm. His own capital was put in his hands, he was
+planted in the diplomatic service and told he must depend upon himself.
+
+He did so till he was twenty-five; by which time he had spent his money,
+laid in a handsome choice of debts, and acquired (like so many other
+melancholic and uninterested persons) a habit of gambling. An Austrian
+colonel--the same who afterwards hanged himself at Monte Carlo--gave
+him a lesson which lasted two-and-twenty hours, and left him wrecked and
+helpless. Old Singleton once more repurchased the honour of his name,
+this time at a fancy figure; and Norris was set afloat again on stern
+conditions. An allowance of three hundred pounds in the year was to be
+paid to him quarterly by a lawyer in Sydney, New South Wales. He was not
+to write. Should he fail on any quarter-day to be in Sydney, he was to
+be held for dead, and the allowance tacitly withdrawn. Should he return
+to Europe, an advertisement publicly disowning him was to appear in
+every paper of repute.
+
+It was one of his most annoying features as a son, that he was always
+polite, always just, and in whatever whirlwind of domestic anger, always
+calm. He expected trouble; when trouble came, he was unmoved: he might
+have said with Singleton, "I told you so"; he was content with thinking,
+"just as I expected." On the fall of these last thunderbolts, he bore
+himself like a person only distantly interested in the event; pocketed
+the money and the reproaches, obeyed orders punctually; took ship and
+came to Sydney. Some men are still lads at twenty-five; and so it was
+with Norris. Eighteen days after he landed, his quarter's allowance was
+all gone, and with the light-hearted hopefulness of strangers in what
+is called a new country, he began to besiege offices and apply for all
+manner of incongruous situations. Everywhere, and last of all from his
+lodgings, he was bowed out; and found himself reduced, in a very elegant
+suit of summer tweeds, to herd and camp with the degraded outcasts of
+the city.
+
+In this strait, he had recourse to the lawyer who paid him his
+allowance.
+
+"Try to remember that my time is valuable, Mr. Carthew," said the
+lawyer. "It is quite unnecessary you should enlarge on the peculiar
+position in which you stand. Remittance men, as we call them here, are
+not so rare in my experience; and in such cases I act upon a system. I
+make you a present of a sovereign; here it is. Every day you choose to
+call, my clerk will advance you a shilling; on Saturday, since my office
+is closed on Sunday, he will advance you half a crown. My conditions are
+these: that you do not come to me, but to my clerk; that you do not come
+here the worse of liquor; and you go away the moment you are paid and
+have signed a receipt. I wish you a good-morning."
+
+"I have to thank you, I suppose," said Carthew. "My position is so
+wretched that I cannot even refuse this starvation allowance."
+
+"Starvation!" said the lawyer, smiling. "No man will starve here on a
+shilling a day. I had on my hands another young gentleman, who remained
+continuously intoxicated for six years on the same allowance." And he
+once more busied himself with his papers.
+
+In the time that followed, the image of the smiling lawyer haunted
+Carthew's memory. "That three minutes' talk was all the education I
+ever had worth talking of," says he. "It was all life in a nut-shell.
+Confound it! I thought, have I got to the point of envying that ancient
+fossil?"
+
+Every morning for the next two or three weeks, the stroke of ten found
+Norris, unkempt and haggard, at the lawyer's door. The long day and
+longer night he spent in the Domain, now on a bench, now on the grass
+under a Norfolk Island pine, the companion of perhaps the lowest class
+on earth, the Larrikins of Sydney. Morning after morning, the dawn
+behind the lighthouse recalled him from slumber; and he would stand and
+gaze upon the changing east, the fading lenses, the smokeless city, and
+the many-armed and many-masted harbour growing slowly clear under his
+eyes. His bed-fellows (so to call them) were less active; they lay
+sprawled upon the grass and benches, the dingy men, the frowsy women,
+prolonging their late repose; and Carthew wandered among the sleeping
+bodies alone, and cursed the incurable stupidity of his behaviour. Day
+brought a new society of nursery-maids and children, and fresh-dressed
+and (I am sorry to say) tight-laced maidens, and gay people in rich
+traps; upon the skirts of which Carthew and "the other blackguards"--his
+own bitter phrase--skulked, and chewed grass, and looked on. Day passed,
+the light died, the green and leafy precinct sparkled with lamps or lay
+in shadow, and the round of the night began again, the loitering women,
+the lurking men, the sudden outburst of screams, the sound of flying
+feet. "You mayn't believe it," says Carthew, "but I got to that pitch
+that I didn't care a hang. I have been wakened out of my sleep to hear a
+woman screaming, and I have only turned upon my other side. Yes, it's a
+queer place, where the dowagers and the kids walk all day, and at night
+you can hear people bawling for help as if it was the Forest of Bondy,
+with the lights of a great town all round, and parties spinning through
+in cabs from Government House and dinner with my lord!"
+
+It was Norris's diversion, having none other, to scrape acquaintance,
+where, how, and with whom he could. Many a long dull talk he held upon
+the benches or the grass; many a strange waif he came to know; many
+strange things he heard, and saw some that were abominable. It was to
+one of these last that he owed his deliverance from the Domain. For some
+time the rain had been merciless; one night after another he had been
+obliged to squander fourpence on a bed and reduce his board to the
+remaining eightpence: and he sat one morning near the Macquarrie Street
+entrance, hungry, for he had gone without breakfast, and wet, as he had
+already been for several days, when the cries of an animal in distress
+attracted his attention. Some fifty yards away, in the extreme angle of
+the grass, a party of the chronically unemployed had got hold of a dog,
+whom they were torturing in a manner not to be described. The heart
+of Norris, which had grown indifferent to the cries of human anger or
+distress, woke at the appeal of the dumb creature. He ran amongst the
+Larrikins, scattered them, rescued the dog, and stood at bay. They were
+six in number, shambling gallowsbirds; but for once the proverb was
+right, cruelty was coupled with cowardice, and the wretches cursed
+him and made off. It chanced that this act of prowess had not passed
+unwitnessed. On a bench near by there was seated a shopkeeper's
+assistant out of employ, a diminutive, cheerful, red-headed creature by
+the name of Hemstead. He was the last man to have interfered himself,
+for his discretion more than equalled his valour; but he made haste
+to congratulate Carthew, and to warn him he might not always be so
+fortunate.
+
+"They're a dyngerous lot of people about this park. My word! it doesn't
+do to ply with them!" he observed, in that RYCY AUSTRYLIAN English,
+which (as it has received the imprimatur of Mr. Froude) we should all
+make haste to imitate.
+
+"Why, I'm one of that lot myself," returned Carthew.
+
+Hemstead laughed and remarked that he knew a gentleman when he saw one.
+
+"For all that, I am simply one of the unemployed," said Carthew,
+seating himself beside his new acquaintance, as he had sat (since this
+experience began) beside so many dozen others.
+
+"I'm out of a plyce myself," said Hemstead.
+
+"You beat me all the way and back," says Carthew. "My trouble is that I
+have never been in one."
+
+"I suppose you've no tryde?" asked Hemstead.
+
+"I know how to spend money," replied Carthew, "and I really do know
+something of horses and something of the sea. But the unions head me
+off; if it weren't for them, I might have had a dozen berths."
+
+"My word!" cried the sympathetic listener. "Ever try the mounted
+police?" he inquired.
+
+"I did, and was bowled out," was the reply; "couldn't pass the doctors."
+
+"Well, what do you think of the ryleways, then?" asked Hemstead.
+
+"What do YOU think of them, if you come to that?" asked Carthew.
+
+"O, _I_ don't think of them; I don't go in for manual labour," said the
+little man proudly. "But if a man don't mind that, he's pretty sure of a
+job there."
+
+"By George, you tell me where to go!" cried Carthew, rising.
+
+The heavy rains continued, the country was already overrun with floods;
+the railway system daily required more hands, daily the superintendent
+advertised; but "the unemployed" preferred the resources of charity
+and rapine, and a navvy, even an amateur navvy, commanded money in the
+market. The same night, after a tedious journey, and a change of trains
+to pass a landslip, Norris found himself in a muddy cutting behind South
+Clifton, attacking his first shift of manual labour.
+
+For weeks the rain scarce relented. The whole front of the mountain
+slipped seaward from above, avalanches of clay, rock, and uprooted
+forest spewed over the cliffs and fell upon the beach or in the
+breakers. Houses were carried bodily away and smashed like nuts; others
+were menaced and deserted, the door locked, the chimney cold, the
+dwellers fled elsewhere for safety. Night and day the fire blazed in
+the encampment; night and day hot coffee was served to the overdriven
+toilers in the shift; night and day the engineer of the section made his
+rounds with words of encouragement, hearty and rough and well suited to
+his men. Night and day, too, the telegraph clicked with disastrous news
+and anxious inquiry. Along the terraced line of rail, rare trains came
+creeping and signalling; and paused at the threatened corner, like
+living things conscious of peril. The commandant of the post would
+hastily review his labours, make (with a dry throat) the signal to
+advance; and the whole squad line the way and look on in a choking
+silence, or burst into a brief cheer as the train cleared the point of
+danger and shot on, perhaps through the thin sunshine between squalls,
+perhaps with blinking lamps into the gathering, rainy twilight.
+
+One such scene Carthew will remember till he dies. It blew great guns
+from the seaward; a huge surf bombarded, five hundred feet below him,
+the steep mountain's foot; close in was a vessel in distress, firing
+shots from a fowling-piece, if any help might come. So he saw and heard
+her the moment before the train appeared and paused, throwing up a
+Babylonian tower of smoke into the rain, and oppressing men's hearts
+with the scream of her whistle. The engineer was there himself; he paled
+as he made the signal: the engine came at a foot's pace; but the whole
+bulk of mountain shook and seemed to nod seaward, and the watching
+navvies instinctively clutched at shrubs and trees: vain precautions,
+vain as the shots from the poor sailors. Once again fear was
+disappointed; the train passed unscathed; and Norris, drawing a long
+breath, remembered the labouring ship and glanced below. She was gone.
+
+So the days and the nights passed: Homeric labour in Homeric
+circumstance. Carthew was sick with sleeplessness and coffee; his hands,
+softened by the wet, were cut to ribbons; yet he enjoyed a peace of
+mind and health of body hitherto unknown. Plenty of open air, plenty of
+physical exertion, a continual instancy of toil; here was what had been
+hitherto lacking in that misdirected life, and the true cure of vital
+scepticism. To get the train through: there was the recurrent problem;
+no time remained to ask if it were necessary. Carthew, the idler, the
+spendthrift, the drifting dilettant, was soon remarked, praised, and
+advanced. The engineer swore by him and pointed him out for an example.
+"I've a new chum, up here," Norris overheard him saying, "a young swell.
+He's worth any two in the squad." The words fell on the ears of the
+discarded son like music; and from that moment, he not only found an
+interest, he took a pride, in his plebeian tasks.
+
+The press of work was still at its highest when quarter-day approached.
+Norris was now raised to a position of some trust; at his discretion,
+trains were stopped or forwarded at the dangerous cornice near North
+Clifton; and he found in this responsibility both terror and delight.
+The thought of the seventy-five pounds that would soon await him at the
+lawyer's, and of his own obligation to be present every quarter-day in
+Sydney, filled him for a little with divided councils. Then he made
+up his mind, walked in a slack moment to the inn at Clifton, ordered a
+sheet of paper and a bottle of beer, and wrote, explaining that he held
+a good appointment which he would lose if he came to Sydney, and asking
+the lawyer to accept this letter as an evidence of his presence in the
+colony, and retain the money till next quarter-day. The answer came in
+course of post, and was not merely favourable but cordial. "Although
+what you propose is contrary to the terms of my instructions," it ran,
+"I willingly accept the responsibility of granting your request. I
+should say I am agreeably disappointed in your behaviour. My experience
+has not led me to found much expectations on gentlemen in your
+position."
+
+The rains abated, and the temporary labour was discharged; not Norris,
+to whom the engineer clung as to found money; not Norris, who found
+himself a ganger on the line in the regular staff of navvies. His camp
+was pitched in a grey wilderness of rock and forest, far from any house;
+as he sat with his mates about the evening fire, the trains passing on
+the track were their next and indeed their only neighbours, except
+the wild things of the wood. Lovely weather, light and monotonous
+employment, long hours of somnolent camp-fire talk, long sleepless
+nights, when he reviewed his foolish and fruitless career as he rose and
+walked in the moonlit forest, an occasional paper of which he would read
+all, the advertisements with as much relish as the text: such was the
+tenor of an existence which soon began to weary and harass him. He
+lacked and regretted the fatigue, the furious hurry, the suspense, the
+fires, the midnight coffee, the rude and mud-bespattered poetry of the
+first toilful weeks. In the quietness of his new surroundings, a voice
+summoned him from this exorbital part of life, and about the middle of
+October he threw up his situation and bade farewell to the camp of tents
+and the shoulder of Bald Mountain.
+
+Clad in his rough clothes, with a bundle on his shoulder and his
+accumulated wages in his pocket, he entered Sydney for the second time,
+and walked with pleasure and some bewilderment in the cheerful streets,
+like a man landed from a voyage. The sight of the people led him on. He
+forgot his necessary errands, he forgot to eat. He wandered in moving
+multitudes like a stick upon a river. Last he came to the Domain and
+strolled there, and remembered his shame and sufferings, and looked with
+poignant curiosity at his successors. Hemstead, not much shabbier and
+no less cheerful than before, he recognised and addressed like an old
+family friend.
+
+"That was a good turn you did me," said he. "That railway was the making
+of me. I hope you've had luck yourself."
+
+
+"My word, no!" replied the little man. "I just sit here and read the
+_Dead Bird_. It's the depression in tryde, you see. There's no positions
+goin' that a man like me would care to look at." And he showed
+Norris his certificates and written characters, one from a grocer
+in Wooloomooloo, one from an ironmonger, and a third from a billiard
+saloon. "Yes," he said, "I tried bein' a billiard marker. It's no
+account; these lyte hours are no use for a man's health. I won't be no
+man's slyve," he added firmly.
+
+On the principle that he who is too proud to be a slave is usually not
+too modest to become a pensioner, Carthew gave him half a sovereign,
+and departed, being suddenly struck with hunger, in the direction of the
+Paris House. When he came to that quarter of the city, the barristers
+were trotting in the streets in wig and gown, and he stood to observe
+them with his bundle on his shoulder, and his mind full of curious
+recollections of the past.
+
+"By George!" cried a voice, "it's Mr. Carthew!"
+
+And turning about he found himself face to face with a handsome sunburnt
+youth, somewhat fatted, arrayed in the finest of fine raiment, and
+sporting about a sovereign's worth of flowers in his buttonhole. Norris
+had met him during his first days in Sydney at a farewell supper; had
+even escorted him on board a schooner full of cockroaches and black-boy
+sailors, in which he was bound for six months among the islands; and had
+kept him ever since in entertained remembrance. Tom Hadden (known to the
+bulk of Sydney folk as Tommy) was heir to a considerable property, which
+a prophetic father had placed in the hands of rigorous trustees. The
+income supported Mr. Hadden in splendour for about three months out of
+twelve; the rest of the year he passed in retreat among the islands.
+He was now about a week returned from his eclipse, pervading Sydney in
+hansom cabs and airing the first bloom of six new suits of clothes; and
+yet the unaffected creature hailed Carthew in his working jeans and
+with the damning bundle on his shoulder, as he might have claimed
+acquaintance with a duke.
+
+"Come and have a drink!" was his cheerful cry.
+
+"I'm just going to have lunch at the Paris House," returned Carthew.
+"It's a long time since I have had a decent meal."
+
+"Splendid scheme!" said Hadden. "I've only had breakfast half an hour
+ago; but we'll have a private room, and I'll manage to pick something.
+It'll brace me up. I was on an awful tear last night, and I've met no
+end of fellows this morning." To meet a fellow, and to stand and share a
+drink, were with Tom synonymous terms.
+
+They were soon at table in the corner room up-stairs, and paying due
+attention to the best fare in Sydney. The odd similarity of their
+positions drew them together, and they began soon to exchange
+confidences. Carthew related his privations in the Domain and his toils
+as a navvy; Hadden gave his experience as an amateur copra merchant in
+the South Seas, and drew a humorous picture of life in a coral island.
+Of the two plans of retirement, Carthew gathered that his own had been
+vastly the more lucrative; but Hadden's trading outfit had consisted
+largely of bottled stout and brown sherry for his own consumption.
+
+"I had champagne too," said Hadden, "but I kept that in case of
+sickness, until I didn't seem to be going to be sick, and then I opened
+a pint every Sunday. Used to sleep all morning, then breakfast with my
+pint of fizz, and lie in a hammock and read Hallam's _Middle Ages_. Have
+you read that? I always take something solid to the islands. There's no
+doubt I did the thing in rather a fine style; but if it was gone about a
+little cheaper, or there were two of us to bear the expense, it ought
+to pay hand over fist. I've got the influence, you see. I'm a chief now,
+and sit in the speak-house under my own strip of roof. I'd like to see
+them taboo ME! They daren't try it; I've a strong party, I can tell you.
+Why, I've had upwards of thirty cowtops sitting in my front verandah
+eating tins of salmon."
+
+"Cowtops?" asked Carthew, "what are they?"
+
+"That's what Hallam would call feudal retainers," explained Hadden, not
+without vainglory. "They're My Followers. They belong to My Family.
+I tell you, they come expensive, though; you can't fill up all these
+retainers on tinned salmon for nothing; but whenever I could get it, I
+would give 'em squid. Squid's good for natives, but I don't care for it,
+do you?--or shark either. It's like the working classes at home. With
+copra at the price it is, they ought to be willing to bear their share
+of the loss; and so I've told them again and again. I think it's a man's
+duty to open their minds, and I try to, but you can't get political
+economy into them; it doesn't seem to reach their intelligence."
+
+
+There was an expression still sticking in Carthew's memory, and he
+returned upon it with a smile. "Talking of political economy," said he,
+"you said if there were two of us to bear the expense, the profits would
+increase. How do you make out that?"
+
+"I'll show you! I'll figure it out for you!" cried Hadden, and with a
+pencil on the back of the bill of fare proceeded to perform miracles. He
+was a man, or let us rather say a lad, of unusual projective power. Give
+him the faintest hint of any speculation, and the figures flowed from
+him by the page. A lively imagination and a ready though inaccurate
+memory supplied his data; he delivered himself with an inimitable heat
+that made him seem the picture of pugnacity; lavished contradiction;
+had a form of words, with or without significance, for every form of
+criticism; and the looker-on alternately smiled at his simplicity and
+fervour, or was amazed by his unexpected shrewdness. He was a kind of
+Pinkerton in play. I have called Jim's the romance of business; this was
+its Arabian tale.
+
+"Have you any idea what this would cost?" he asked, pausing at an item.
+
+"Not I," said Carthew.
+
+"Ten pounds ought to be ample," concluded the projector.
+
+"O, nonsense!" cried Carthew. "Fifty at the very least."
+
+"You told me yourself this moment you knew nothing about it!" cried
+Tommy. "How can I make a calculation, if you blow hot and cold? You
+don't seem able to be serious!"
+
+But he consented to raise his estimate to twenty; and a little after,
+the calculation coming out with a deficit, cut it down again to five
+pounds ten, with the remark, "I told you it was nonsense. This sort of
+thing has to be done strictly, or where's the use?"
+
+Some of these processes struck Carthew as unsound; and he was at times
+altogether thrown out by the capricious startings of the prophet's mind.
+These plunges seemed to be gone into for exercise and by the way, like
+the curvets of a willing horse. Gradually the thing took shape; the
+glittering if baseless edifice arose; and the hare still ran on the
+mountains, but the soup was already served in silver plate. Carthew in a
+few days could command a hundred and fifty pounds; Hadden was ready with
+five hundred; why should they not recruit a fellow or two more, charter
+an old ship, and go cruising on their own account? Carthew was an
+experienced yachtsman; Hadden professed himself able to "work an
+approximate sight." Money was undoubtedly to be made, or why should so
+many vessels cruise about the islands? they, who worked their own ship,
+were sure of a still higher profit.
+
+"And whatever else comes of it, you see," cried Hadden, "we get our keep
+for nothing. Come, buy some togs, that's the first thing you have to do
+of course; and then we'll take a hansom and go to the Currency Lass."
+
+"I'm going to stick to the togs I have," said Norris.
+
+"Are you?" cried Hadden. "Well, I must say I admire you. You're a
+regular sage. It's what you call Pythagoreanism, isn't it? if I haven't
+forgotten my philosophy."
+
+"Well, I call it economy," returned Carthew. "If we are going to try
+this thing on, I shall want every sixpence."
+
+"You'll see if we're going to try it!" cried Tommy, rising radiant from
+table. "Only, mark you, Carthew, it must be all in your name. I have
+capital, you see; but you're all right. You can play vacuus viator, if
+the thing goes wrong."
+
+"I thought we had just proved it was quite safe," said Carthew.
+
+"There's nothing safe in business, my boy," replied the sage; "not even
+bookmaking."
+
+The public house and tea garden called the Currency Lass represented
+a moderate fortune gained by its proprietor, Captain Bostock, during
+a long, active, and occasionally historic career among the islands.
+Anywhere from Tonga to the Admiralty Isles, he knew the ropes and could
+lie in the native dialect. He had seen the end of sandal wood, the end
+of oil, and the beginning of copra; and he was himself a commercial
+pioneer, the first that ever carried human teeth into the Gilberts. He
+was tried for his life in Fiji in Sir Arthur Gordon's time; and if ever
+he prayed at all, the name of Sir Arthur was certainly not forgotten. He
+was speared in seven places in New Ireland--the same time his mate
+was killed--the famous "outrage on the brig Jolly Roger"; but the
+treacherous savages made little by their wickedness, and Bostock, in
+spite of their teeth, got seventy-five head of volunteer labour on
+board, of whom not more than a dozen died of injuries. He had a hand,
+besides, in the amiable pleasantry which cost the life of Patteson; and
+when the sham bishop landed, prayed, and gave his benediction to the
+natives, Bostock, arrayed in a female chemise out of the traderoom, had
+stood at his right hand and boomed amens. This, when he was sure he was
+among good fellows, was his favourite yarn. "Two hundred head of labour
+for a hatful of amens," he used to name the tale; and its sequel, the
+death of the real bishop, struck him as a circumstance of extraordinary
+humour.
+
+Many of these details were communicated in the hansom, to the surprise
+of Carthew.
+
+"Why do we want to visit this old ruffian?" he asked.
+
+"You wait till you hear him," replied Tommy. "That man knows
+everything."
+
+On descending from the hansom at the Currency Lass, Hadden was struck
+with the appearance of the cabman, a gross, salt-looking man, red-faced,
+blue-eyed, short-handed and short-winded, perhaps nearing forty.
+
+"Surely I know you?" said he. "Have you driven me before?"
+
+"Many's the time, Mr. Hadden," returned the driver. "The last time you
+was back from the islands, it was me that drove you to the races, sir."
+
+"All right: jump down and have a drink then," said Tom, and he turned
+and led the way into the garden.
+
+Captain Bostock met the party: he was a slow, sour old man, with
+fishy eyes; greeted Tommy offhand, and (as was afterwards remembered)
+exchanged winks with the driver.
+
+"A bottle of beer for the cabman there at that table," said Tom.
+"Whatever you please from shandygaff to champagne at this one here; and
+you sit down with us. Let me make you acquainted with my friend, Mr.
+Carthew. I've come on business, Billy; I want to consult you as a
+friend; I'm going into the island trade upon my own account."
+
+
+Doubtless the captain was a mine of counsel, but opportunity was denied
+him. He could not venture on a statement, he was scarce allowed to
+finish a phrase, before Hadden swept him from the field with a volley
+of protest and correction. That projector, his face blazing with
+inspiration, first laid before him at inordinate length a question, and
+as soon as he attempted to reply, leaped at his throat, called his facts
+in question, derided his policy, and at times thundered on him from the
+heights of moral indignation.
+
+"I beg your pardon," he said once. "I am a gentleman, Mr. Carthew here
+is a gentleman, and we don't mean to do that class of business. Can't
+you see who you are talking to? Can't you talk sense? Can't you give us
+'a dead bird' for a good traderoom?"
+
+"No, I don't suppose I can," returned old Bostock; "not when I can't
+hear my own voice for two seconds together. It was gin and guns I did it
+with."
+
+"Take your gin and guns to Putney!" cried Hadden. "It was the thing in
+your times, that's right enough; but you're old now, and the game's up.
+I'll tell you what's wanted now-a-days, Bill Bostock," said he; and did,
+and took ten minutes to it.
+
+Carthew could not refrain from smiling. He began to think less seriously
+of the scheme, Hadden appearing too irresponsible a guide; but on the
+other hand, he enjoyed himself amazingly. It was far from being the same
+with Captain Bostock.
+
+"You know a sight, don't you?" remarked that gentleman, bitterly, when
+Tommy paused.
+
+"I know a sight more than you, if that's what you mean," retorted Tom.
+"It stands to reason I do. You're not a man of any education; you've
+been all your life at sea or in the islands; you don't suppose you can
+give points to a man like me?"
+
+"Here's your health, Tommy," returned Bostock. "You'll make an A-one
+bake in the New Hebrides."
+
+"That's what I call talking," cried Tom, not perhaps grasping the spirit
+of this doubtful compliment. "Now you give me your attention. We have
+the money and the enterprise, and I have the experience: what we want is
+a cheap, smart boat, a good captain, and an introduction to some house
+that will give us credit for the trade."
+
+"Well, I'll tell you," said Captain Bostock. "I have seen men like you
+baked and eaten, and complained of afterwards. Some was tough, and some
+hadn't no flaviour," he added grimly.
+
+"What do you mean by that?" cried Tom.
+
+"I mean I don't care," cried Bostock. "It ain't any of my interests. I
+haven't underwrote your life. Only I'm blest if I'm not sorry for the
+cannibal as tries to eat your head. And what I recommend is a cheap,
+smart coffin and a good undertaker. See if you can find a house to give
+you credit for a coffin! Look at your friend there; HE'S got some sense;
+he's laughing at you so as he can't stand."
+
+The exact degree of ill-feeling in Mr. Bostock's mind was difficult to
+gauge; perhaps there was not much, perhaps he regarded his remarks as a
+form of courtly badinage. But there is little doubt that Hadden resented
+them. He had even risen from his place, and the conference was on
+the point of breaking up, when a new voice joined suddenly in the
+conversation.
+
+The cabman sat with his back turned upon the party, smoking a meerschaum
+pipe. Not a word of Tommy's eloquence had missed him, and he now faced
+suddenly about with these amazing words:--
+
+"Excuse me, gentlemen; if you'll buy me the ship I want, I'll get you
+the trade on credit."
+
+There was a pause.
+
+"Well, what do YOU, mean?" gasped Tommy.
+
+"Better tell 'em who I am, Billy," said the cabman.
+
+"Think it safe, Joe?" inquired Mr. Bostock.
+
+"I'll take my risk of it," returned the cabman.
+
+"Gentlemen," said Bostock, rising solemnly, "let me make you acquainted
+with Captain Wicks of the Grace Darling."
+
+"Yes, gentlemen, that is what I am," said the cabman. "You know I've
+been in trouble; and I don't deny but what I struck the blow, and where
+was I to get evidence of my provocation? So I turned to and took a cab,
+and I've driven one for three year now and nobody the wiser."
+
+"I beg your pardon," said Carthew, joining almost for the first time;
+"I'm a new chum. What was the charge?"
+
+"Murder," said Captain Wicks, "and I don't deny but what I struck the
+blow. And there's no sense in my trying to deny I was afraid to go to
+trial, or why would I be here? But it's a fact it was flat mutiny. Ask
+Billy here. He knows how it was."
+
+Carthew breathed long; he had a strange, half-pleasurable sense of
+wading deeper in the tide of life. "Well," said he, "you were going on
+to say?"
+
+"I was going on to say this," said the captain sturdily. "I've overheard
+what Mr. Hadden has been saying, and I think he talks good sense. I like
+some of his ideas first chop. He's sound on traderooms; he's all there
+on the traderoom, and I see that he and I would pull together. Then
+you're both gentlemen, and I like that," observed Captain Wicks. "And
+then I'll tell you I'm tired of this cabbing cruise, and I want to get
+to work again. Now, here's my offer. I've a little money I can stake
+up,--all of a hundred anyway. Then my old firm will give me trade, and
+jump at the chance; they never lost by me; they know what I'm worth as
+supercargo. And, last of all, you want a good captain to sail your ship
+for you. Well, here I am. I've sailed schooners for ten years. Ask Billy
+if I can handle a schooner."
+
+"No man better," said Billy.
+
+"And as for my character as a shipmate," concluded Wicks, "go and ask my
+old firm."
+
+"But look here!" cried Hadden, "how do you mean to manage? You can whisk
+round in a hansom, and no questions asked. But if you try to come on a
+quarter-deck, my boy, you'll get nabbed."
+
+"I'll have to keep back till the last," replied Wicks, "and take another
+name."
+
+"But how about clearing? what other name?" asked Tommy, a little
+bewildered.
+
+"I don't know yet," returned the captain, with a grin. "I'll see what
+the name is on my new certificate, and that'll be good enough for me.
+If I can't get one to buy, though I never heard of such a thing, there's
+old Kirkup, he's turned some sort of farmer down Bondi way; he'll hire
+me his."
+
+"You seemed to speak as if you had a ship in view," said Carthew.
+
+"So I have, too," said Captain Wicks, "and a beauty. Schooner yacht
+Dream; got lines you never saw the beat of; and a witch to go. She
+passed me once off Thursday Island, doing two knots to my one and laying
+a point and a half better; and the Grace Darling was a ship that I was
+proud of. I took and tore my hair. The Dream's been MY dream ever since.
+That was in her old days, when she carried a blue ens'n. Grant Sanderson
+was the party as owned her; he was rich and mad, and got a fever at last
+somewhere about the Fly River, and took and died. The captain brought
+the body back to Sydney, and paid off. Well, it turned out Grant
+Sanderson had left any quantity of wills and any quantity of widows, and
+no fellow could make out which was the genuine article. All the widows
+brought lawsuits against all the rest, and every will had a firm of
+lawyers on the quarterdeck as long as your arm. They tell me it was
+one of the biggest turns-to that ever was seen, bar Tichborne; the Lord
+Chamberlain himself was floored, and so was the Lord Chancellor; and all
+that time the Dream lay rotting up by Glebe Point. Well, it's done now;
+they've picked out a widow and a will; tossed up for it, as like as not;
+and the Dream's for sale. She'll go cheap; she's had a long turn-to at
+rotting."
+
+"What size is she?"
+
+"Well, big enough. We don't want her bigger. A hundred and ninety, going
+two hundred," replied the captain. "She's fully big for us three; it
+would be all the better if we had another hand, though it's a pity too,
+when you can pick up natives for half nothing. Then we must have a cook.
+I can fix raw sailor-men, but there's no going to sea with a new-chum
+cook. I can lay hands on the man we want for that: a Highway boy, an
+old shipmate of mine, of the name of Amalu. Cooks first rate, and it's
+always better to have a native; he aint fly, you can turn him to as you
+please, and he don't know enough to stand out for his rights."
+
+From the moment that Captain Wicks joined in the conversation, Carthew
+recovered interest and confidence; the man (whatever he might have done)
+was plainly good-natured, and plainly capable; if he thought well of the
+enterprise, offered to contribute money, brought experience, and could
+thus solve at a word the problem of the trade, Carthew was content to
+go ahead. As for Hadden, his cup was full; he and Bostock forgave each
+other in champagne; toast followed toast; it was proposed and carried
+amid acclamation to change the name of the schooner (when she should
+be bought) to the Currency Lass; and the Currency Lass Island Trading
+Company was practically founded before dusk.
+
+Three days later, Carthew stood before the lawyer, still in his jean
+suit, received his hundred and fifty pounds, and proceeded rather
+timidly to ask for more indulgence.
+
+"I have a chance to get on in the world," he said. "By to-morrow evening
+I expect to be part owner of a ship."
+
+"Dangerous property, Mr. Carthew," said the lawyer.
+
+"Not if the partners work her themselves and stand to go down along with
+her," was the reply.
+
+"I conceive it possible you might make something of it in that way,"
+returned the other. "But are you a seaman? I thought you had been in the
+diplomatic service."
+
+"I am an old yachtsman," said Norris. "And I must do the best I can.
+A fellow can't live in New South Wales upon diplomacy. But the point I
+wish to prepare you for is this. It will be impossible I should present
+myself here next quarter-day; we expect to make a six months' cruise of
+it among the islands."
+
+"Sorry, Mr. Carthew: I can't hear of that," replied the lawyer.
+
+"I mean upon the same conditions as the last," said Carthew.
+
+"The conditions are exactly opposite," said the lawyer. "Last time I
+had reason to know you were in the colony; and even then I stretched a
+point. This time, by your own confession, you are contemplating a breach
+of the agreement; and I give you warning if you carry it out and I
+receive proof of it (for I will agree to regard this conversation as
+confidential) I shall have no choice but to do my duty. Be here on
+quarter-day, or your allowance ceases."
+
+"This is very hard and, I think, rather silly," returned Carthew.
+
+"It is not of my doing. I have my instructions," said the lawyer.
+
+"And you so read these instructions, that I am to be prohibited from
+making an honest livelihood?" asked Carthew.
+
+"Let us be frank," said the lawyer. "I find nothing in these
+instructions about an honest livelihood. I have no reason to suppose
+my clients care anything about that. I have reason to suppose only
+one thing,--that they mean you shall stay in this colony, and to guess
+another, Mr. Carthew. And to guess another."
+
+"What do you mean by that?" asked Norris.
+
+"I mean that I imagine, on very strong grounds, that your family desire
+to see no more of you," said the lawyer. "O, they may be very wrong;
+but that is the impression conveyed, that is what I suppose I am paid to
+bring about, and I have no choice but to try and earn my hire."
+
+"I would scorn to deceive you," said Norris, with a strong flush, "you
+have guessed rightly. My family refuse to see me; but I am not going to
+England, I am going to the islands. How does that affect the islands?"
+
+"Ah, but I don't know that you are going to the islands," said the
+lawyer, looking down, and spearing the blotting-paper with a pencil.
+
+"I beg your pardon. I have the pleasure of informing you," said Norris.
+
+"I am afraid, Mr. Carthew, that I cannot regard that communication as
+official," was the slow reply.
+
+"I am not accustomed to have my word doubted!" cried Norris.
+
+"Hush! I allow no one to raise his voice in my office," said the
+lawyer. "And for that matter--you seem to be a young gentleman of
+sense--consider what I know of you. You are a discarded son; your family
+pays money to be shut of you. What have you done? I don't know. But do
+you not see how foolish I should be, if I exposed my business reputation
+on the safeguard of the honour of a gentleman of whom I know just so
+much and no more? This interview is very disagreeable. Why prolong it?
+Write home, get my instructions changed, and I will change my behaviour.
+Not otherwise."
+
+"I am very fond of three hundred a year," said Norris, "but I cannot pay
+the price required. I shall not have the pleasure of seeing you again."
+
+"You must please yourself," said the lawyer. "Fail to be here next
+quarter-day, and the thing stops. But I warn you, and I mean the warning
+in a friendly spirit. Three months later you will be here begging, and I
+shall have no choice but to show you in the street."
+
+"I wish you a good-evening," said Norris.
+
+"The same to you, Mr. Carthew," retorted the lawyer, and rang for his
+clerk.
+
+So it befell that Norris during what remained to him of arduous days in
+Sydney, saw not again the face of his legal adviser; and he was already
+at sea, and land was out of sight, when Hadden brought him a Sydney
+paper, over which he had been dozing in the shadow of the galley, and
+showed him an advertisement.
+
+"Mr. Norris Carthew is earnestly entreated to call without delay at the
+office of Mr. ----, where important intelligence awaits him."
+
+"It must manage to wait for me six months," said Norris, lightly enough,
+but yet conscious of a pang of curiosity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII. THE BUDGET OF THE "CURRENCY LASS."
+
+
+Before noon on the 26th November, there cleared from the port of Sydney
+the schooner, Currency Lass. The owner, Norris Carthew, was on board in
+the somewhat unusual position of mate; the master's name purported to
+be William Kirkup; the cook was a Hawaiian boy, Joseph Amalu; and there
+were two hands before the mast, Thomas Hadden and Richard Hemstead, the
+latter chosen partly because of his humble character, partly because he
+had an odd-job-man's handiness with tools. The Currency Lass was bound
+for the South Sea Islands, and first of all for Butaritari in the
+Gilberts, on a register; but it was understood about the harbour that
+her cruise was more than half a pleasure trip. A friend of the late
+Grant Sanderson (of Auchentroon and Kilclarty) might have recognised in
+that tall-masted ship, the transformed and rechristened Dream; and
+the Lloyd's surveyor, had the services of such a one been called in
+requisition, must have found abundant subject of remark.
+
+For time, during her three years' inaction, had eaten deep into the
+Dream and her fittings; she had sold in consequence a shade above her
+value as old junk; and the three adventurers had scarce been able to
+afford even the most vital repairs. The rigging, indeed, had been partly
+renewed, and the rest set up; all Grant Sanderson's old canvas had been
+patched together into one decently serviceable suit of sails; Grant
+Sanderson's masts still stood, and might have wondered at themselves.
+"I haven't the heart to tap them," Captain Wicks used to observe, as he
+squinted up their height or patted their rotundity; and "as rotten as
+our foremast" was an accepted metaphor in the ship's company. The sequel
+rather suggests it may have been sounder than was thought; but no one
+knew for certain, just as no one except the captain appreciated the
+dangers of the cruise. The captain, indeed, saw with clear eyes and
+spoke his mind aloud; and though a man of an astonishing hot-blooded
+courage, following life and taking its dangers in the spirit of a
+hound upon the slot, he had made a point of a big whaleboat. "Take your
+choice," he had said; "either new masts and rigging or that boat. I
+simply ain't going to sea without the one or the other. Chicken coops
+are good enough, no doubt, and so is a dinghy; but they ain't for Joe."
+And his partners had been forced to consent, and saw six and thirty
+pounds of their small capital vanish in the turn of a hand.
+
+All four had toiled the best part of six weeks getting ready; and though
+Captain Wicks was of course not seen or heard of, a fifth was there to
+help them, a fellow in a bushy red beard, which he would sometimes lay
+aside when he was below, and who strikingly resembled Captain Wicks in
+voice and character. As for Captain Kirkup, he did not appear till the
+last moment, when he proved to be a burly mariner, bearded like Abou
+Ben Adhem. All the way down the harbour and through the Heads, his
+milk-white whiskers blew in the wind and were conspicuous from shore;
+but the Currency Lass had no sooner turned her back upon the lighthouse,
+than he went below for the inside of five seconds and reappeared clean
+shaven. So many doublings and devices were required to get to sea with
+an unseaworthy ship and a captain that was "wanted." Nor might
+even these have sufficed, but for the fact that Hadden was a public
+character, and the whole cruise regarded with an eye of indulgence as
+one of Tom's engaging eccentricities. The ship, besides, had been a
+yacht before; and it came the more natural to allow her still some of
+the dangerous liberties of her old employment.
+
+A strange ship they had made of it, her lofty spars disfigured with
+patched canvas, her panelled cabin fitted for a traderoom with rude
+shelves. And the life they led in that anomalous schooner was no less
+curious than herself. Amalu alone berthed forward; the rest occupied
+staterooms, camped upon the satin divans, and sat down in Grant
+Sanderson's parquetry smoking-room to meals of junk and potatoes, bad
+of their kind and often scant in quantity. Hemstead grumbled; Tommy
+had occasional moments of revolt and increased the ordinary by a
+few haphazard tins or a bottle of his own brown sherry. But Hemstead
+grumbled from habit, Tommy revolted only for the moment, and there
+was underneath a real and general acquiescence in these hardships. For
+besides onions and potatoes, the Currency Lass may be said to have
+gone to sea without stores. She carried two thousand pounds' worth of
+assorted trade, advanced on credit, their whole hope and fortune. It
+was upon this that they subsisted--mice in their own granary. They dined
+upon their future profits; and every scanty meal was so much in the
+savings bank.
+
+Republican as were their manners, there was no practical, at least no
+dangerous, lack of discipline. Wicks was the only sailor on board,
+there was none to criticise; and besides, he was so easy-going, and so
+merry-minded, that none could bear to disappoint him. Carthew did his
+best, partly for the love of doing it, partly for love of the captain;
+Amalu was a willing drudge, and even Hemstead and Hadden turned to upon
+occasion with a will. Tommy's department was the trade and traderoom; he
+would work down in the hold or over the shelves of the cabin, till
+the Sydney dandy was unrecognizable; come up at last, draw a bucket
+of sea-water, bathe, change, and lie down on deck over a big sheaf of
+Sydney _Heralds_ and _Dead Birds_, or perhaps with a volume of Buckle's
+_History of Civilisation_, the standard work selected for that cruise.
+In the latter case, a smile went round the ship, for Buckle almost
+invariably laid his student out, and when Tom awoke again he was almost
+always in the humour for brown sherry. The connection was so well
+established that "a glass of Buckle" or "a bottle of civilisation"
+became current pleasantries on board the Currency Lass.
+
+Hemstead's province was that of the repairs, and he had his hands full.
+Nothing on board but was decayed in a proportion; the lamps leaked; so
+did the decks; door-knobs came off in the hand, mouldings parted company
+with the panels, the pump declined to suck, and the defective bathroom
+came near to swamp the ship. Wicks insisted that all the nails were long
+ago consumed, and that she was only glued together by the rust. "You
+shouldn't make me laugh so much, Tommy," he would say. "I'm afraid I'll
+shake the sternpost out of her." And, as Hemstead went to and fro
+with his tool basket on an endless round of tinkering, Wicks lost
+no opportunity of chaffing him upon his duties. "If you'd turn to at
+sailoring or washing paint or something useful, now," he would say,
+"I could see the fun of it. But to be mending things that haven't no
+insides to them appears to me the height of foolishness." And doubtless
+these continual pleasantries helped to reassure the landsmen, who went
+to and fro unmoved, under circumstances that might have daunted Nelson.
+
+The weather was from the outset splendid, and the wind fair and steady.
+The ship sailed like a witch. "This Currency Lass is a powerful old
+girl, and has more complaints than I would care to put a name on," the
+captain would say, as he pricked the chart; "but she could show her
+blooming heels to anything of her size in the Western Pacific." To
+wash decks, relieve the wheel, do the day's work after dinner on the
+smoking-room table, and take in kites at night,--such was the easy
+routine of their life. In the evening--above all, if Tommy had produced
+some of his civilisation--yarns and music were the rule. Amalu had
+a sweet Hawaiian voice; and Hemstead, a great hand upon the banjo,
+accompanied his own quavering tenor with effect. There was a sense in
+which the little man could sing. It was great to hear him deliver _My
+Boy Tammie_ in Austrylian; and the words (some of the worst of the
+ruffian Macneil's) were hailed in his version with inextinguishable
+mirth.
+
+     Where hye ye been a' dye?
+
+
+     he would ask, and answer himself:--
+
+     I've been by burn and flowery brye,
+     Meadow green an' mountain grye,
+     Courtin' o' this young thing,
+     Just come frye her mammie.
+
+It was the accepted jest for all hands to greet the conclusion of this
+song with the simultaneous cry: "My word!" thus winging the arrow of
+ridicule with a feather from the singer's wing. But he had his
+revenge with _Home, Sweet Home,_ and _Where is my Wandering Boy
+To-night?_--ditties into which he threw the most intolerable pathos. It
+appeared he had no home, nor had ever had one, nor yet any vestige of
+a family, except a truculent uncle, a baker in Newcastle, N.S.W. His
+domestic sentiment was therefore wholly in the air, and expressed
+an unrealised ideal. Or perhaps, of all his experiences, this of
+the Currency Lass, with its kindly, playful, and tolerant society,
+approached it the most nearly.
+
+It is perhaps because I know the sequel, but I can never think upon this
+voyage without a profound sense of pity and mystery; of the ship (once
+the whim of a rich blackguard) faring with her battered fineries
+and upon her homely errand, across the plains of ocean, and past
+the gorgeous scenery of dawn and sunset; and the ship's company, so
+strangely assembled, so Britishly chuckle-headed, filling their days
+with chaff in place of conversation; no human book on board with them
+except Hadden's Buckle, and not a creature fit either to read or to
+understand it; and the one mark of any civilised interest, being when
+Carthew filled in his spare hours with the pencil and the brush: the
+whole unconscious crew of them posting in the meanwhile towards so
+tragic a disaster.
+
+Twenty-eight days out of Sydney, on Christmas eve, they fetched up to
+the entrance of the lagoon, and plied all that night outside, keeping
+their position by the lights of fishers on the reef and the outlines of
+the palms against the cloudy sky. With the break of day, the schooner
+was hove to, and the signal for a pilot shown. But it was plain her
+lights must have been observed in the darkness by the native fishermen,
+and word carried to the settlement, for a boat was already under weigh.
+She came towards them across the lagoon under a great press of sail,
+lying dangerously down, so that at times, in the heavier puffs, they
+thought she would turn turtle; covered the distance in fine style,
+luffed up smartly alongside, and emitted a haggard looking white man in
+pyjamas.
+
+"Good-mornin', Cap'n," said he, when he had made good his entrance. "I
+was taking you for a Fiji man-of-war, what with your flush decks and
+them spars. Well, gen'lemen all, here's wishing you a Merry Christmas
+and a Happy New Year," he added, and lurched against a stay.
+
+"Why, you're never the pilot?" exclaimed Wicks, studying him with a
+profound disfavour. "You've never taken a ship in--don't tell me!"
+
+"Well, I should guess I have," returned the pilot. "I'm Captain Dobbs,
+I am; and when I take charge, the captain of that ship can go below and
+shave."
+
+"But, man alive! you're drunk, man!" cried the captain.
+
+"Drunk!" repeated Dobbs. "You can't have seen much life if you call me
+drunk. I'm only just beginning. Come night, I won't say; I guess I'll be
+properly full by then. But now I'm the soberest man in all Big Muggin."
+
+"It won't do," retorted Wicks. "Not for Joseph, sir. I can't have you
+piling up my schooner."
+
+"All right," said Dobbs, "lay and rot where you are, or take and go
+in and pile her up for yourself like the captain of the Leslie. That's
+business, I guess; grudged me twenty dollars' pilotage, and lost twenty
+thousand in trade and a brand new schooner; ripped the keel right off of
+her, and she went down in the inside of four minutes, and lies in twenty
+fathom, trade and all."
+
+"What's all this?" cried Wicks. "Trade? What vessel was this Leslie,
+anyhow?"
+
+"Consigned to Cohen and Co., from 'Frisco," returned the pilot, "and
+badly wanted. There's a barque inside filling up for Hamburg--you see
+her spars over there; and there's two more ships due, all the way from
+Germany, one in two months, they say, and one in three; Cohen and Co.'s
+agent (that's Mr. Topelius) has taken and lain down with the jaundice on
+the strength of it. I guess most people would, in his shoes; no trade,
+no copra, and twenty hundred ton of shipping due. If you've any copra on
+board, cap'n, here's your chance. Topelius will buy, gold down, and give
+three cents. It's all found money to him, the way it is, whatever he
+pays for it. And that's what come of going back on the pilot."
+
+"Excuse me one moment, Captain Dobbs. I wish to speak with my mate,"
+said the captain, whose face had begun to shine and his eyes to sparkle.
+
+"Please yourself," replied the pilot. "You couldn't think of offering
+a man a nip, could you? just to brace him up. This kind of thing looks
+damned inhospitable, and gives a schooner a bad name."
+
+"I'll talk about that after the anchor's down," returned Wicks, and he
+drew Carthew forward. "I say," he whispered, "here's a fortune."
+
+"How much do you call that?" asked Carthew.
+
+"I can't put a figure on it yet--I daren't!" said the captain. "We might
+cruise twenty years and not find the match of it. And suppose another
+ship came in to-night? Everything's possible! And the difficulty is
+this Dobbs. He's as drunk as a marine. How can we trust him? We ain't
+insured--worse luck!"
+
+"Suppose you took him aloft and got him to point out the channel?"
+suggested Carthew. "If he tallied at all with the chart, and didn't fall
+out of the rigging, perhaps we might risk it."
+
+"Well, all's risk here," returned the captain. "Take the wheel yourself,
+and stand by. Mind, if there's two orders, follow mine, not his. Set the
+cook for'ard with the heads'ls, and the two others at the main sheet,
+and see they don't sit on it." With that he called the pilot; they
+swarmed aloft in the fore rigging, and presently after there was bawled
+down the welcome order to ease sheets and fill away.
+
+At a quarter before nine o'clock on Christmas morning the anchor was let
+go.
+
+The first cruise of the Currency Lass had thus ended in a stroke of
+fortune almost beyond hope. She had brought two thousand pounds' worth
+of trade, straight as a homing pigeon, to the place where it was most
+required. And Captain Wicks (or, rather, Captain Kirkup) showed himself
+the man to make the best of his advantage. For hard upon two days he
+walked a verandah with Topelius, for hard upon two days his partners
+watched from the neighbouring public house the field of battle; and the
+lamps were not yet lighted on the evening of the second before the enemy
+surrendered. Wicks came across to the Sans Souci, as the saloon was
+called, his face nigh black, his eyes almost closed and all bloodshot,
+and yet bright as lighted matches.
+
+"Come out here, boys," he said; and when they were some way off
+among the palms, "I hold twenty-four," he added in a voice scarcely
+recognizable, and doubtless referring to the venerable game of cribbage.
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Tommy.
+
+"I've sold the trade," answered Wicks; "or, rather, I've sold only
+some of it, for I've kept back all the mess beef and half the flour and
+biscuit; and, by God, we're still provisioned for four months! By God,
+it's as good as stolen!"
+
+"My word!" cried Hemstead.
+
+"But what have you sold it for?" gasped Carthew, the captain's almost
+insane excitement shaking his nerve.
+
+"Let me tell it my own way," cried Wicks, loosening his neck. "Let me
+get at it gradual, or I'll explode. I've not only sold it, boys, I've
+wrung out a charter on my own terms to 'Frisco and back; on my own
+terms. I made a point of it. I fooled him first by making believe I
+wanted copra, which of course I knew he wouldn't hear of--couldn't, in
+fact; and whenever he showed fight, I trotted out the copra, and that
+man dived! I would take nothing but copra, you see; and so I've got the
+blooming lot in specie--all but two short bills on 'Frisco. And the sum?
+Well, this whole adventure, including two thousand pounds of credit,
+cost us two thousand seven hundred and some odd. That's all paid back;
+in thirty days' cruise we've paid for the schooner and the trade. Heard
+ever any man the match of that? And it's not all! For besides that,"
+said the captain, hammering his words, "we've got Thirteen Blooming
+Hundred Pounds of profit to divide. I bled him in four Thou.!" he cried,
+in a voice that broke like a schoolboy's.
+
+For a moment the partners looked upon their chief with stupefaction,
+incredulous surprise their only feeling. Tommy was the first to grasp
+the consequences.
+
+"Here," he said, in a hard, business tone. "Come back to that saloon.
+I've got to get drunk."
+
+"You must please excuse me, boys," said the captain, earnestly. "I
+daren't taste nothing. If I was to drink one glass of beer, it's my
+belief I'd have the apoplexy. The last scrimmage, and the blooming
+triumph, pretty nigh hand done me."
+
+"Well, then, three cheers for the captain," proposed Tommy.
+
+But Wicks held up a shaking hand. "Not that either, boys," he pleaded.
+"Think of the other buffer, and let him down easy. If I'm like this,
+just fancy what Topelius is! If he heard us singing out, he'd have the
+staggers."
+
+As a matter of fact, Topelius accepted his defeat with a good grace;
+but the crew of the wrecked Leslie, who were in the same employment and
+loyal to their firm, took the thing more bitterly. Rough words and ugly
+looks were common. Once even they hooted Captain Wicks from the saloon
+verandah; the Currency Lasses drew out on the other side; for some
+minutes there had like to have been a battle in Butaritari; and though
+the occasion passed off without blows, it left on either side an
+increase of ill-feeling.
+
+No such small matter could affect the happiness of the successful
+traders. Five days more the ship lay in the lagoon, with little
+employment for any one but Tommy and the captain, for Topelius's natives
+discharged cargo and brought ballast; the time passed like a pleasant
+dream; the adventurers sat up half the night debating and praising their
+good fortune, or strayed by day in the narrow isle, gaping like Cockney
+tourists; and on the first of the new year, the Currency Lass weighed
+anchor for the second time and set sail for 'Frisco, attended by the
+same fine weather and good luck. She crossed the doldrums with but
+small delay; on a wind and in ballast of broken coral, she outdid
+expectations; and, what added to the happiness of the ship's company,
+the small amount of work that fell on them to do, was now lessened by
+the presence of another hand. This was the boatswain of the Leslie; he
+had been on bad terms with his own captain, had already spent his wages
+in the saloons of Butaritari, had wearied of the place, and while all
+his shipmates coldly refused to set foot on board the Currency Lass, he
+had offered to work his passage to the coast. He was a north of Ireland
+man, between Scotch and Irish, rough, loud, humorous, and emotional, not
+without sterling qualities, and an expert and careful sailor. His frame
+of mind was different indeed from that of his new shipmates; instead of
+making an unexpected fortune, he had lost a berth; and he was besides
+disgusted with the rations, and really appalled at the condition of the
+schooner. A stateroom door had stuck, the first day at sea, and Mac (as
+they called him) laid his strength to it and plucked it from the hinges.
+
+"Glory!" said he, "this ship's rotten."
+
+"I believe you, my boy," said Captain Wicks.
+
+The next day the sailor was observed with his nose aloft.
+
+"Don't you get looking at these sticks," the captain said, "or you'll
+have a fit and fall overboard."
+
+Mac turned towards the speaker with rather a wild eye. "Why, I see what
+looks like a patch of dry rot up yonder, that I bet I could stick my
+fist into," said he.
+
+"Looks as if a fellow could stick his head into it, don't it?" returned
+Wicks. "But there's no good prying into things that can't be mended."
+
+"I think I was a Currency Ass to come on board of her!" reflected Mac.
+
+"Well, I never said she was seaworthy," replied the captain: "I only
+said she could show her blooming heels to anything afloat. And besides,
+I don't know that it's dry rot; I kind of sometimes hope it isn't. Here;
+turn to and heave the log; that'll cheer you up."
+
+"Well, there's no denying it, you're a holy captain," said Mac.
+
+And from that day on, he made but the one reference to the ship's
+condition; and that was whenever Tommy drew upon his cellar. "Here's to
+the junk trade!" he would say, as he held out his can of sherry.
+
+"Why do you always say that?" asked Tommy.
+
+"I had an uncle in the business," replied Mac, and launched at once into
+a yarn, in which an incredible number of the characters were "laid
+out as nice as you would want to see," and the oaths made up about
+two-fifths of every conversation.
+
+Only once he gave them a taste of his violence; he talked of it, indeed,
+often; "I'm rather a voilent man," he would say, not without pride; but
+this was the only specimen. Of a sudden, he turned on Hemstead in the
+ship's waist, knocked him against the foresail boom, then knocked him
+under it, and had set him up and knocked him down once more, before any
+one had drawn a breath.
+
+"Here! Belay that!" roared Wicks, leaping to his feet. "I won't have
+none of this."
+
+Mac turned to the captain with ready civility. "I only want to learn him
+manners," said he. "He took and called me Irishman."
+
+"Did he?" said Wicks. "O, that's a different story! What made you do it,
+you tomfool? You ain't big enough to call any man that."
+
+"I didn't call him it," spluttered Hemstead, through his blood and
+tears. "I only mentioned-like he was."
+
+"Well, let's have no more of it," said Wicks.
+
+"But you ARE Irish, ain't you?" Carthew asked of his new shipmate
+shortly after.
+
+"I may be," replied Mac, "but I'll allow no Sydney duck to call me so.
+No," he added, with a sudden heated countenance, "nor any Britisher that
+walks! Why, look here," he went on, "you're a young swell, aren't you?
+Suppose I called you that! 'I'll show you,' you would say, and turn to
+and take it out of me straight."
+
+On the 28th of January, when in lat. 27 degrees 20' N., long. 177
+degrees W., the wind chopped suddenly into the west, not very strong,
+but puffy and with flaws of rain. The captain, eager for easting, made
+a fair wind of it and guyed the booms out wing and wing. It was Tommy's
+trick at the wheel, and as it was within half an hour of the relief
+(seven thirty in the morning), the captain judged it not worth while to
+change him.
+
+The puffs were heavy but short; there was nothing to be called a squall,
+no danger to the ship, and scarce more than usual to the doubtful spars.
+All hands were on deck in their oilskins, expecting breakfast; the
+galley smoked, the ship smelt of coffee, all were in good humour to be
+speeding eastward a full nine; when the rotten foresail tore suddenly
+between two cloths and then split to either hand. It was for all the
+world as though some archangel with a huge sword had slashed it with the
+figure of a cross; all hands ran to secure the slatting canvas; and in
+the sudden uproar and alert, Tommy Hadden lost his head. Many of his
+days have been passed since then in explaining how the thing happened;
+of these explanations it will be sufficient to say that they were all
+different and none satisfactory; and the gross fact remains that the
+main boom gybed, carried away the tackle, broke the mainmast some three
+feet above the deck and whipped it overboard. For near a minute the
+suspected foremast gallantly resisted; then followed its companion; and
+by the time the wreck was cleared, of the whole beautiful fabric that
+enabled them to skim the seas, two ragged stumps remained.
+
+In these vast and solitary waters, to be dismasted is perhaps the worst
+calamity. Let the ship turn turtle and go down, and at least the pang is
+over. But men chained on a hulk may pass months scanning the empty sea
+line and counting the steps of death's invisible approach. There is
+no help but in the boats, and what a help is that! There heaved the
+Currency Lass, for instance, a wingless lump, and the nearest human
+coast (that of Kauai in the Sandwiches) lay about a thousand miles to
+south and east of her. Over the way there, to men contemplating that
+passage in an open boat, all kinds of misery, and the fear of death and
+of madness, brooded.
+
+A serious company sat down to breakfast; but the captain helped his
+neighbours with a smile.
+
+"Now, boys," he said, after a pull at the hot coffee, "we're done with
+this Currency Lass, and no mistake. One good job: we made her pay while
+she lasted, and she paid first rate; and if we were to try our hand
+again, we can try in style. Another good job: we have a fine, stiff,
+roomy boat, and you know who you have to thank for that. We've got six
+lives to save, and a pot of money; and the point is, where are we to
+take 'em?"
+
+"It's all two thousand miles to the nearest of the Sandwiches, I fancy,"
+observed Mac.
+
+"No, not so bad as that," returned the captain. "But it's bad enough:
+rather better'n a thousand."
+
+"I know a man who once did twelve hundred in a boat," said Mac, "and he
+had all he wanted. He fetched ashore in the Marquesas, and never set a
+foot on anything floating from that day to this. He said he would rather
+put a pistol to his head and knock his brains out."
+
+"Ay, ay!" said Wicks. "Well I remember a boat's crew that made this very
+island of Kauai, and from just about where we lie, or a bit further.
+When they got up with the land, they were clean crazy. There was an
+iron-bound coast and an Old Bob Ridley of a surf on. The natives hailed
+'em from fishing-boats, and sung out it couldn't be done at the money.
+Much they cared! there was the land, that was all they knew; and they
+turned to and drove the boat slap ashore in the thick of it, and was
+all drowned but one. No; boat trips are my eye," concluded the captain,
+gloomily.
+
+The tone was surprising in a man of his indomitable temper. "Come,
+Captain," said Carthew, "you have something else up your sleeve; out
+with it!"
+
+"It's a fact," admitted Wicks. "You see there's a raft of little bally
+reefs about here, kind of chicken-pox on the chart. Well, I looked 'em
+all up, and there's one--Midway or Brooks they call it, not forty mile
+from our assigned position--that I got news of. It turns out it's a
+coaling station of the Pacific Mail," he said, simply.
+
+"Well, and I know it ain't no such a thing," said Mac. "I been
+quartermaster in that line myself."
+
+"All right," returned Wicks. "There's the book. Read what Hoyt
+says--read it aloud and let the others hear."
+
+Hoyt's falsehood (as readers know) was explicit; incredulity was
+impossible, and the news itself delightful beyond hope. Each saw in his
+mind's eye the boat draw in to a trim island with a wharf, coal-sheds,
+gardens, the Stars and Stripes and the white cottage of the keeper;
+saw themselves idle a few weeks in tolerable quarters, and then step on
+board the China mail, romantic waifs, and yet with pocketsful of money,
+calling for champagne, and waited on by troops of stewards. Breakfast,
+that had begun so dully, ended amid sober jubilation, and all hands
+turned immediately to prepare the boat.
+
+Now that all spars were gone, it was no easy job to get her launched.
+Some of the necessary cargo was first stowed on board; the specie, in
+particular, being packed in a strong chest and secured with lashings to
+the afterthwart in case of a capsize. Then a piece of the bulwark was
+razed to the level of the deck, and the boat swung thwart-ship, made
+fast with a slack line to either stump, and successfully run out. For a
+voyage of forty miles to hospitable quarters, not much food or water
+was required; but they took both in superfluity. Amalu and Mac, both
+ingrained sailor-men, had chests which were the headquarters of their
+lives; two more chests with handbags, oilskins, and blankets supplied
+the others; Hadden, amid general applause, added the last case of the
+brown sherry; the captain brought the log, instruments, and chronometer;
+nor did Hemstead forget the banjo or a pinned handkerchief of Butaritari
+shells.
+
+It was about three P.M. when they pushed off, and (the wind being still
+westerly) fell to the oars. "Well, we've got the guts out of YOU!" was
+the captain's nodded farewell to the hulk of the Currency Lass, which
+presently shrank and faded in the sea. A little after a calm succeeded,
+with much rain; and the first meal was eaten, and the watch below lay
+down to their uneasy slumber on the bilge under a roaring shower-bath.
+The twenty-ninth dawned overhead from out of ragged clouds; there is
+no moment when a boat at sea appears so trenchantly black and so
+conspicuously little; and the crew looked about them at the sky and
+water with a thrill of loneliness and fear. With sunrise the trade set
+in, lusty and true to the point; sail was made; the boat flew; and by
+about four in the afternoon, they were well up with the closed part of
+the reef, and the captain standing on the thwart, and holding by the
+mast, was studying the island through the binoculars.
+
+"Well, and where's your station?" cried Mac.
+
+"I don't someway pick it up," replied the captain.
+
+"No, nor never will!" retorted Mac, with a clang of despair and triumph
+in his tones.
+
+The truth was soon plain to all. No buoys, no beacons, no lights, no
+coal, no station; the castaways pulled through a lagoon and landed on
+an isle, where was no mark of man but wreckwood, and no sound but of the
+sea. For the seafowl that harboured and lived there at the epoch of my
+visit were then scattered into the uttermost parts of the ocean, and
+had left no traces of their sojourn besides dropped feathers and addled
+eggs. It was to this they had been sent, for this they had stooped all
+night over the dripping oars, hourly moving further from relief. The
+boat, for as small as it was, was yet eloquent of the hands of men, a
+thing alone indeed upon the sea but yet in itself all human; and the
+isle, for which they had exchanged it, was ingloriously savage, a place
+of distress, solitude, and hunger unrelieved. There was a strong glare
+and shadow of the evening over all; in which they sat or lay, not
+speaking, careless even to eat, men swindled out of life and riches by
+a lying book. In the great good nature of the whole party, no word of
+reproach had been addressed to Hadden, the author of these disasters.
+But the new blow was less magnanimously borne, and many angry glances
+rested on the captain.
+
+Yet it was himself who roused them from their lethargy. Grudgingly they
+obeyed, drew the boat beyond tidemark, and followed him to the top of
+the miserable islet, whence a view was commanded of the whole wheel of
+the horizon, then part darkened under the coming night, part dyed with
+the hues of the sunset and populous with the sunset clouds. Here the
+camp was pitched and a tent run up with the oars, sails, and mast. And
+here Amalu, at no man's bidding, from the mere instinct of habitual
+service, built a fire and cooked a meal. Night was come, and the stars
+and the silver sickle of new moon beamed overhead, before the meal
+was ready. The cold sea shone about them, and the fire glowed in their
+faces, as they ate. Tommy had opened his case, and the brown sherry went
+the round; but it was long before they came to conversation.
+
+"Well, is it to be Kauai after all?" asked Mac suddenly.
+
+"This is bad enough for me," said Tommy. "Let's stick it out where we
+are."
+
+"Well, I can tell ye one thing," said Mac, "if ye care to hear it. When
+I was in the China mail, we once made this island. It's in the course
+from Honolulu."
+
+"Deuce it is!" cried Carthew. "That settles it, then. Let's stay. We
+must keep good fires going; and there's plenty wreck."
+
+"Lashings of wreck!" said the Irishman. "There's nothing here but wreck
+and coffin boards."
+
+"But we'll have to make a proper blyze," objected Hemstead. "You can't
+see a fire like this, not any wye awye, I mean."
+
+"Can't you?" said Carthew. "Look round."
+
+They did, and saw the hollow of the night, the bare, bright face of the
+sea, and the stars regarding them; and the voices died in their bosoms
+at the spectacle. In that huge isolation, it seemed they must be visible
+from China on the one hand and California on the other.
+
+"My God, it's dreary!" whispered Hemstead.
+
+"Dreary?" cried Mac, and fell suddenly silent.
+
+"It's better than a boat, anyway," said Hadden. "I've had my bellyful of
+boat."
+
+"What kills me is that specie!" the captain broke out. "Think of all
+that riches,--four thousand in gold, bad silver, and short bills--all
+found money, too!--and no more use than that much dung!"
+
+"I'll tell you one thing," said Tommy. "I don't like it being in the
+boat--I don't care to have it so far away."
+
+"Why, who's to take it?" cried Mac, with a guffaw of evil laughter.
+
+But this was not at all the feeling of the partners, who rose, clambered
+down the isle, brought back the inestimable treasure-chest slung upon
+two oars, and set it conspicuous in the shining of the fire.
+
+"There's my beauty!" cried Wicks, viewing it with a cocked head. "That's
+better than a bonfire. What! we have a chest here, and bills for close
+upon two thousand pounds; there's no show to that,--it would go in
+your vest-pocket,--but the rest! upwards of forty pounds avoirdupois of
+coined gold, and close on two hundredweight of Chile silver! What! ain't
+that good enough to fetch a fleet? Do you mean to say that won't affect
+a ship's compass? Do you mean to tell me that the lookout won't turn to
+and SMELL it?" he cried.
+
+Mac, who had no part nor lot in the bills, the forty pounds of gold, or
+the two hundredweight of silver, heard this with impatience, and fell
+into a bitter, choking laughter. "You'll see!" he said harshly. "You'll
+be glad to feed them bills into the fire before you're through with ut!"
+And he turned, passed by himself out of the ring of the firelight, and
+stood gazing seaward.
+
+His speech and his departure extinguished instantly those sparks of
+better humour kindled by the dinner and the chest. The group fell again
+to an ill-favoured silence, and Hemstead began to touch the banjo, as
+was his habit of an evening. His repertory was small: the chords of
+_Home, Sweet Home_ fell under his fingers; and when he had played the
+symphony, he instinctively raised up his voice. "Be it never so 'umble,
+there's no plyce like 'ome," he sang. The last word was still upon his
+lips, when the instrument was snatched from him and dashed into the
+fire; and he turned with a cry to look into the furious countenance of
+Mac.
+
+"I'll be damned if I stand this!" cried the captain, leaping up
+belligerent.
+
+"I told ye I was a voilent man," said Mac, with a movement of
+deprecation very surprising in one of his character. "Why don't he give
+me a chance then? Haven't we enough to bear the way we are?" And to the
+wonder and dismay of all, the man choked upon a sob. "It's ashamed of
+meself I am," he said presently, his Irish accent twenty-fold increased.
+"I ask all your pardons for me voilence; and especially the little
+man's, who is a harmless crayture, and here's me hand to'm, if he'll
+condescind to take me by 't."
+
+So this scene of barbarity and sentimentalism passed off, leaving behind
+strange and incongruous impressions. True, every one was perhaps glad
+when silence succeeded that all too appropriate music; true, Mac's
+apology and subsequent behaviour rather raised him in the opinion of
+his fellow-castaways. But the discordant note had been struck, and its
+harmonics tingled in the brain. In that savage, houseless isle, the
+passions of man had sounded, if only for the moment, and all men
+trembled at the possibilities of horror.
+
+It was determined to stand watch and watch in case of passing vessels;
+and Tommy, on fire with an idea, volunteered to stand the first. The
+rest crawled under the tent, and were soon enjoying that comfortable
+gift of sleep, which comes everywhere and to all men, quenching
+anxieties and speeding time. And no sooner were all settled, no sooner
+had the drone of many snorers begun to mingle with and overcome the
+surf, than Tommy stole from his post with the case of sherry, and
+dropped it in a quiet cove in a fathom of water. But the stormy
+inconstancy of Mac's behaviour had no connection with a gill or two of
+wine; his passions, angry and otherwise, were on a different sail plan
+from his neighbours'; and there were possibilities of good and evil in
+that hybrid Celt beyond their prophecy.
+
+About two in the morning, the starry sky--or so it seemed, for the
+drowsy watchman had not observed the approach of any cloud--brimmed over
+in a deluge; and for three days it rained without remission. The islet
+was a sponge, the castaways sops; the view all gone, even the reef
+concealed behind the curtain of the falling water. The fire was soon
+drowned out; after a couple of boxes of matches had been scratched in
+vain, it was decided to wait for better weather; and the party lived in
+wretchedness on raw tins and a ration of hard bread.
+
+By the 2nd February, in the dark hours of the morning watch, the clouds
+were all blown by; the sun rose glorious; and once more the castaways
+sat by a quick fire, and drank hot coffee with the greed of brutes and
+sufferers. Thenceforward their affairs moved in a routine. A fire was
+constantly maintained; and this occupied one hand continuously, and the
+others for an hour or so in the day. Twice a day, all hands bathed in
+the lagoon, their chief, almost their only pleasure. Often they fished
+in the lagoon with good success. And the rest was passed in lolling,
+strolling, yarns, and disputation. The time of the China steamers
+was calculated to a nicety; which done, the thought was rejected and
+ignored. It was one that would not bear consideration. The boat voyage
+having been tacitly set aside, the desperate part chosen to wait there
+for the coming of help or of starvation, no man had courage left to look
+his bargain in the face, far less to discuss it with his neighbours. But
+the unuttered terror haunted them; in every hour of idleness, at every
+moment of silence, it returned, and breathed a chill about the circle,
+and carried men's eyes to the horizon. Then, in a panic of self-defence,
+they would rally to some other subject. And, in that lone spot, what
+else was to be found to speak of but the treasure?
+
+That was indeed the chief singularity, the one thing conspicuous in
+their island life; the presence of that chest of bills and specie
+dominated the mind like a cathedral; and there were besides connected
+with it, certain irking problems well fitted to occupy the idle. Two
+thousand pounds were due to the Sydney firm: two thousand pounds were
+clear profit, and fell to be divided in varying proportions among
+six. It had been agreed how the partners were to range; every pound of
+capital subscribed, every pound that fell due in wages, was to count for
+one "lay." Of these, Tommy could claim five hundred and ten, Carthew one
+hundred and seventy, Wicks one hundred and forty, and Hemstead and Amalu
+ten apiece: eight hundred and forty "lays" in all. What was the value of
+a lay? This was at first debated in the air and chiefly by the strength
+of Tommy's lungs. Then followed a series of incorrect calculations; from
+which they issued, arithmetically foiled, but agreed from weariness upon
+an approximate value of 2 pounds, 7 shillings 7 1/4 pence. The figures
+were admittedly incorrect; the sum of the shares came not to 2000
+pounds, but to 1996 pounds, 6 shillings: 3 pounds, 14 shillings being
+thus left unclaimed. But it was the nearest they had yet found, and the
+highest as well, so that the partners were made the less critical by the
+contemplation of their splendid dividends. Wicks put in 100 pounds and
+stood to draw captain's wages for two months; his taking was 333 pounds
+3 shillings 6 1/2 pence. Carthew had put in 150 pounds: he was to take
+out 401 pounds, 18 shillings 6 1/2 pence. Tommy's 500 pounds had grown
+to be 1213 pounds 12 shillings 9 3/4 pence; and Amalu and Hemstead,
+ranking for wages only, had 22 pounds, 16 shillings 1/2 pence, each.
+
+From talking and brooding on these figures, it was but a step to
+opening the chest; and once the chest open, the glamour of the cash was
+irresistible. Each felt that he must see his treasure separate with the
+eye of flesh, handle it in the hard coin, mark it for his own, and
+stand forth to himself the approved owner. And here an insurmountable
+difficulty barred the way. There were some seventeen shillings in
+English silver: the rest was Chile; and the Chile dollar, which had been
+taken at the rate of six to the pound sterling, was practically their
+smallest coin. It was decided, therefore, to divide the pounds only,
+and to throw the shillings, pence, and fractions in a common fund. This,
+with the three pound fourteen already in the heel, made a total of seven
+pounds one shilling.
+
+"I'll tell you," said Wicks. "Let Carthew and Tommy and me take one
+pound apiece, and Hemstead and Amalu split the other four, and toss up
+for the odd bob."
+
+"O, rot!" said Carthew. "Tommy and I are bursting already. We can take
+half a sov' each, and let the other three have forty shillings."
+
+"I'll tell you now--it's not worth splitting," broke in Mac. "I've cards
+in my chest. Why don't you play for the slump sum?"
+
+In that idle place, the proposal was accepted with delight. Mac, as the
+owner of the cards, was given a stake; the sum was played for in five
+games of cribbage; and when Amalu, the last survivor in the tournament,
+was beaten by Mac, it was found the dinner hour was past. After a hasty
+meal, they fell again immediately to cards, this time (on Carthew's
+proposal) to Van John. It was then probably two P.M. of the 9th
+February; and they played with varying chances for twelve hours, slept
+heavily, and rose late on the morrow to resume the game. All day of the
+10th, with grudging intervals for food, and with one long absence on the
+part of Tommy from which he returned dripping with the case of sherry,
+they continued to deal and stake. Night fell: they drew the closer to
+the fire. It was maybe two in the morning, and Tommy was selling his
+deal by auction, as usual with that timid player; when Carthew, who
+didn't intend to bid, had a moment of leisure and looked round him. He
+beheld the moonlight on the sea, the money piled and scattered in that
+incongruous place, the perturbed faces of the players; he felt in his
+own breast the familiar tumult; and it seemed as if there rose in his
+ears a sound of music, and the moon seemed still to shine upon a sea,
+but the sea was changed, and the Casino towered from among lamplit
+gardens, and the money clinked on the green board. "Good God!" he
+thought, "am I gambling again?" He looked the more curiously about the
+sandy table. He and Mac had played and won like gamblers; the mingled
+gold and silver lay by their places in the heap. Amalu and Hemstead had
+each more than held their own, but Tommy was cruel far to leeward, and
+the captain was reduced to perhaps fifty pounds.
+
+"I say, let's knock off," said Carthew.
+
+"Give that man a glass of Buckle," said some one, and a fresh bottle was
+opened, and the game went inexorably on.
+
+Carthew was himself too heavy a winner to withdraw or to say more; and
+all the rest of the night he must look on at the progress of this folly,
+and make gallant attempts to lose with the not uncommon consequence of
+winning more. The first dawn of the 11th February found him well-nigh
+desperate. It chanced he was then dealer, and still winning. He had just
+dealt a round of many tens; every one had staked heavily; the captain
+had put up all that remained to him, twelve pounds in gold and a few
+dollars; and Carthew, looking privately at his cards before he showed
+them, found he held a natural.
+
+"See here, you fellows," he broke out, "this is a sickening business,
+and I'm done with it for one." So saying, he showed his cards, tore them
+across, and rose from the ground.
+
+The company stared and murmured in mere amazement; but Mac stepped
+gallantly to his support.
+
+"We've had enough of it, I do believe," said he. "But of course it was
+all fun, and here's my counters back. All counters in, boys!" and he
+began to pour his winnings into the chest, which stood fortunately near
+him.
+
+Carthew stepped across and wrung him by the hand. "I'll never forget
+this," he said.
+
+"And what are ye going to do with the Highway boy and the plumber?"
+inquired Mac, in a low tone of voice. "They've both wan, ye see."
+
+"That's true!" said Carthew aloud. "Amalu and Hemstead, count your
+winnings; Tommy and I pay that."
+
+It was carried without speech: the pair glad enough to receive their
+winnings, it mattered not from whence; and Tommy, who had lost about
+five hundred pounds, delighted with the compromise.
+
+"And how about Mac?" asked Hemstead. "Is he to lose all?"
+
+"I beg your pardon, plumber. I'm sure ye mean well," returned the
+Irishman, "but you'd better shut your face, for I'm not that kind of a
+man. If I t'ought I had wan that money fair, there's never a soul here
+could get it from me. But I t'ought it was in fun; that was my mistake,
+ye see; and there's no man big enough upon this island to give a present
+to my mother's son. So there's my opinion to ye, plumber, and you can
+put it in your pockut till required."
+
+
+"Well, I will say, Mac, you're a gentleman," said Carthew, as he helped
+him to shovel back his winnings into the treasure chest.
+
+"Divil a fear of it, sir! a drunken sailor-man," said Mac.
+
+The captain had sat somewhile with his face in his hands: now he rose
+mechanically, shaking and stumbling like a drunkard after a debauch. But
+as he rose, his face was altered, and his voice rang out over the isle,
+"Sail, ho!"
+
+All turned at the cry, and there, in the wild light of the morning,
+heading straight for Midway Reef, was the brig Flying Scud of Hull.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV. A HARD BARGAIN.
+
+
+The ship which thus appeared before the castaways had long "tramped" the
+ocean, wandering from one port to another as freights offered. She was
+two years out from London, by the Cape of Good Hope, India, and the
+Archipelago; and was now bound for San Francisco in the hope of working
+homeward round the Horn. Her captain was one Jacob Trent. He had retired
+some five years before to a suburban cottage, a patch of cabbages, a
+gig, and the conduct of what he called a Bank. The name appears to have
+been misleading. Borrowers were accustomed to choose works of art and
+utility in the front shop; loaves of sugar and bolts of broadcloth were
+deposited in pledge; and it was a part of the manager's duty to dash in
+his gig on Saturday evenings from one small retailer's to another, and
+to annex in each the bulk of the week's takings. His was thus an active
+life, and to a man of the type of a rat, filled with recondite joys.
+An unexpected loss, a law suit, and the unintelligent commentary of the
+judge upon the bench, combined to disgust him of the business. I was so
+extraordinarily fortunate as to find, in an old newspaper, a report of
+the proceedings in Lyall v. The Cardiff Mutual Accommodation Banking Co.
+"I confess I fail entirely to understand the nature of the business,"
+the judge had remarked, while Trent was being examined in chief; a
+little after, on fuller information--"They call it a bank," he had
+opined, "but it seems to me to be an unlicensed pawnshop"; and he wound
+up with this appalling allocution: "Mr. Trent, I must put you on your
+guard; you must be very careful, or we shall see you here again." In the
+inside of a week the captain disposed of the bank, the cottage, and the
+gig and horse; and to sea again in the Flying Scud, where he did well
+and gave high satisfaction to his owners. But the glory clung to him; he
+was a plain sailor-man, he said, but he could never long allow you to
+forget that he had been a banker.
+
+His mate, Elias Goddedaal, was a huge viking of a man, six feet three
+and of proportionate mass, strong, sober, industrious, musical, and
+sentimental. He ran continually over into Swedish melodies, chiefly in
+the minor. He had paid nine dollars to hear Patti; to hear Nilsson, he
+had deserted a ship and two months' wages; and he was ready at any time
+to walk ten miles for a good concert, or seven to a reasonable play.
+On board he had three treasures: a canary bird, a concertina, and a
+blinding copy of the works of Shakespeare. He had a gift, peculiarly
+Scandinavian, of making friends at sight: an elemental innocence
+commended him; he was without fear, without reproach, and without money
+or the hope of making it.
+
+Holdorsen was second mate, and berthed aft, but messed usually with the
+hands.
+
+Of one more of the crew, some image lives. This was a foremast hand out
+of the Clyde, of the name of Brown. A small, dark, thickset creature,
+with dog's eyes, of a disposition incomparably mild and harmless, he
+knocked about seas and cities, the uncomplaining whiptop of one vice.
+"The drink is my trouble, ye see," he said to Carthew shyly; "and it's
+the more shame to me because I'm come of very good people at Bowling,
+down the wa'er." The letter that so much affected Nares, in case the
+reader should remember it, was addressed to this man Brown.
+
+Such was the ship that now carried joy into the bosoms of the castaways.
+After the fatigue and the bestial emotions of their night of play, the
+approach of salvation shook them from all self-control. Their hands
+trembled, their eyes shone, they laughed and shouted like children as
+they cleared their camp: and some one beginning to whistle _Marching
+Through Georgia,_ the remainder of the packing was conducted, amidst a
+thousand interruptions, to these martial strains. But the strong head of
+Wicks was only partly turned.
+
+
+"Boys," he said, "easy all! We're going aboard of a ship of which we
+don't know nothing; we've got a chest of specie, and seeing the weight,
+we can't turn to and deny it. Now, suppose she was fishy; suppose it was
+some kind of a Bully Hayes business! It's my opinion we'd better be on
+hand with the pistols."
+
+Every man of the party but Hemstead had some kind of a revolver; these
+were accordingly loaded and disposed about the persons of the castaways,
+and the packing was resumed and finished in the same rapturous spirit as
+it was begun. The sun was not yet ten degrees above the eastern sea, but
+the brig was already close in and hove to, before they had launched the
+boat and sped, shouting at the oars, towards the passage.
+
+It was blowing fresh outside, with a strong send of sea. The spray flew
+in the oarsmen's faces. They saw the Union Jack blow abroad from the
+Flying Scud, the men clustered at the rail, the cook in the galley door,
+the captain on the quarter-deck with a pith helmet and binoculars. And
+the whole familiar business, the comfort, company, and safety of a ship,
+heaving nearer at each stroke, maddened them with joy.
+
+Wicks was the first to catch the line, and swarm on board, helping hands
+grabbing him as he came and hauling him across the rail.
+
+"Captain, sir, I suppose?" he said, turning to the hard old man in the
+pith helmet.
+
+"Captain Trent, sir," returned the old gentleman.
+
+"Well, I'm Captain Kirkup, and this is the crew of the Sydney schooner
+Currency Lass, dismasted at sea January 28th."
+
+"Ay, ay," said Trent. "Well, you're all right now. Lucky for you I saw
+your signal. I didn't know I was so near this beastly island, there must
+be a drift to the south'ard here; and when I came on deck this morning
+at eight bells, I thought it was a ship afire."
+
+It had been agreed that, while Wicks was to board the ship and do the
+civil, the rest were to remain in the whaleboat and see the treasure
+safe. A tackle was passed down to them; to this they made fast the
+invaluable chest, and gave the word to heave. But the unexpected weight
+brought the hand at the tackle to a stand; two others ran to tail on and
+help him, and the thing caught the eye of Trent.
+
+"'Vast heaving!" he cried sharply; and then to Wicks: "What's that? I
+don't ever remember to have seen a chest weigh like that."
+
+"It's money," said Wicks.
+
+"It's what?" cried Trent.
+
+"Specie," said Wicks; "saved from the wreck."
+
+Trent looked at him sharply. "Here, let go that chest again, Mr.
+Goddedaal," he commanded, "shove the boat off, and stream her with a
+line astern."
+
+"Ay, ay, sir!" from Goddedaal.
+
+"What the devil's wrong?" asked Wicks.
+
+"Nothing, I daresay," returned Trent. "But you'll allow it's a queer
+thing when a boat turns up in mid-ocean with half a ton of specie,--and
+everybody armed," he added, pointing to Wicks's pocket. "Your boat
+will lay comfortably astern, while you come below and make yourself
+satisfactory."
+
+"O, if that's all!" said Wicks. "My log and papers are as right as the
+mail; nothing fishy about us." And he hailed his friends in the boat,
+bidding them have patience, and turned to follow Captain Trent.
+
+"This way, Captain Kirkup," said the latter. "And don't blame a man for
+too much caution; no offence intended; and these China rivers shake a
+fellow's nerve. All I want is just to see you're what you say you
+are; it's only my duty, sir, and what you would do yourself in the
+circumstances. I've not always been a ship-captain: I was a banker once,
+and I tell you that's the trade to learn caution in. You have to keep
+your weather-eye lifting Saturday nights." And with a dry, business-like
+cordiality, he produced a bottle of gin.
+
+The captains pledged each other; the papers were overhauled; the tale of
+Topelius and the trade was told in appreciative ears and cemented
+their acquaintance. Trent's suspicions, thus finally disposed of, were
+succeeded by a fit of profound thought, during which he sat lethargic
+and stern, looking at and drumming on the table.
+
+"Anything more?" asked Wicks.
+
+"What sort of a place is it inside?" inquired Trent, sudden as though
+Wicks had touched a spring.
+
+"It's a good enough lagoon--a few horses' heads, but nothing to
+mention," answered Wicks.
+
+"I've a good mind to go in," said Trent. "I was new rigged in China;
+it's given very bad, and I'm getting frightened for my sticks. We could
+set it up as good as new in a day. For I daresay your lot would turn to
+and give us a hand?"
+
+"You see if we don't!" said Wicks.
+
+"So be it, then," concluded Trent. "A stitch in time saves nine."
+
+They returned on deck; Wicks cried the news to the Currency Lasses; the
+foretopsail was filled again, and the brig ran into the lagoon lively,
+the whaleboat dancing in her wake, and came to single anchor off Middle
+Brooks Island before eight. She was boarded by the castaways, breakfast
+was served, the baggage slung on board and piled in the waist, and all
+hands turned to upon the rigging. All day the work continued, the two
+crews rivalling each other in expense of strength. Dinner was served on
+deck, the officers messing aft under the slack of the spanker, the men
+fraternising forward. Trent appeared in excellent spirits, served out
+grog to all hands, opened a bottle of Cape wine for the after-table,
+and obliged his guests with many details of the life of a financier
+in Cardiff. He had been forty years at sea, had five times suffered
+shipwreck, was once nine months the prisoner of a pepper rajah, and had
+seen service under fire in Chinese rivers; but the only thing he cared
+to talk of, the only thing of which he was vain, or with which he
+thought it possible to interest a stranger, was his career as a
+money-lender in the slums of a seaport town.
+
+The afternoon spell told cruelly on the Currency Lasses. Already
+exhausted as they were with sleeplessness and excitement, they did the
+last hours of this violent employment on bare nerves; and when Trent was
+at last satisfied with the condition of his rigging, expected eagerly
+the word to put to sea. But the captain seemed in no hurry. He went and
+walked by himself softly, like a man in thought. Presently he hailed
+Wicks.
+
+"You're a kind of company, ain't you, Captain Kirkup?" he inquired.
+
+"Yes, we're all on board on lays," was the reply.
+
+"Well, then, you won't mind if I ask the lot of you down to tea in the
+cabin?" asked Trent.
+
+Wicks was amazed, but he naturally ventured no remark; and a little
+after, the six Currency Lasses sat down with Trent and Goddedaal to
+a spread of marmalade, butter, toast, sardines, tinned tongue, and
+steaming tea. The food was not very good, and I have no doubt Nares
+would have reviled it, but it was manna to the castaways. Goddedaal
+waited on them with a kindness far before courtesy, a kindness like
+that of some old, honest countrywoman in her farm. It was remembered
+afterwards that Trent took little share in these attentions, but sat
+much absorbed in thought, and seemed to remember and forget the presence
+of his guests alternately.
+
+Presently he addressed the Chinaman.
+
+"Clear out!" said he, and watched him till he had disappeared in the
+stair. "Now, gentlemen," he went on, "I understand you're a joint-stock
+sort of crew, and that's why I've had you all down; for there's a point
+I want made clear. You see what sort of a ship this is--a good ship,
+though I say it, and you see what the rations are--good enough for
+sailor-men."
+
+There was a hurried murmur of approval, but curiosity for what was
+coming next prevented an articulate reply.
+
+"Well," continued Trent, making bread pills and looking hard at the
+middle of the table, "I'm glad of course to be able to give you a
+passage to 'Frisco; one sailor-man should help another, that's my motto.
+But when you want a thing in this world, you generally always have
+to pay for it." He laughed a brief, joyless laugh. "I have no idea of
+losing by my kindness."
+
+"We have no idea you should, captain," said Wicks.
+
+"We are ready to pay anything in reason," added Carthew.
+
+
+At the words, Goddedaal, who sat next to him, touched him with his
+elbow, and the two mates exchanged a significant look. The character of
+Captain Trent was given and taken in that silent second.
+
+"In reason?" repeated the captain of the brig. "I was waiting for that.
+Reason's between two people, and there's only one here. I'm the judge;
+I'm reason. If you want an advance you have to pay for it"--he hastily
+corrected himself--"If you want a passage in my ship, you have to pay my
+price," he substituted. "That's business, I believe. I don't want you;
+you want me."
+
+"Well, sir," said Carthew, "and what IS your price?"
+
+The captain made bread pills. "If I were like you," he said, "when you
+got hold of that merchant in the Gilberts, I might surprise you. You
+had your chance then; seems to me it's mine now. Turn about's fair play.
+What kind of mercy did you have on that Gilbert merchant?" he cried,
+with a sudden stridency. "Not that I blame you. All's fair in love and
+business," and he laughed again, a little frosty giggle.
+
+"Well, sir?" said Carthew, gravely.
+
+"Well, this ship's mine, I think?" he asked sharply.
+
+"Well, I'm of that way of thinking meself," observed Mac.
+
+"I say it's mine, sir!" reiterated Trent, like a man trying to be angry.
+"And I tell you all, if I was a driver like what you are, I would take
+the lot. But there's two thousand pounds there that don't belong to you,
+and I'm an honest man. Give me the two thousand that's yours, and I'll
+give you a passage to the coast, and land every man-jack of you in
+'Frisco with fifteen pounds in his pocket, and the captain here with
+twenty-five."
+
+Goddedaal laid down his head on the table like a man ashamed.
+
+"You're joking," said Wicks, purple in the face.
+
+"Am I?" said Trent. "Please yourselves. You're under no compulsion. This
+ship's mine, but there's that Brooks Island don't belong to me, and you
+can lay there till you die for what I care."
+
+
+"It's more than your blooming brig's worth!" cried Wicks.
+
+"It's my price anyway," returned Trent.
+
+"And do you mean to say you would land us there to starve?" cried Tommy.
+
+Captain Trent laughed the third time. "Starve? I defy you to," said he.
+"I'll sell you all the provisions you want at a fair profit."
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir," said Mac, "but my case is by itself I'm
+working me passage; I got no share in that two thousand pounds nor
+nothing in my pockut; and I'll be glad to know what you have to say to
+me?"
+
+"I ain't a hard man," said Trent. "That shall make no difference. I'll
+take you with the rest, only of course you get no fifteen pound."
+
+The impudence was so extreme and startling, that all breathed deep, and
+Goddedaal raised up his face and looked his superior sternly in the eye.
+
+But Mac was more articulate. "And you're what ye call a British sayman,
+I suppose? the sorrow in your guts!" he cried.
+
+"One more such word, and I clap you in irons!" said Trent, rising
+gleefully at the face of opposition.
+
+"And where would I be the while you were doin' ut?" asked Mac. "After
+you and your rigging, too! Ye ould puggy, ye haven't the civility of a
+bug, and I'll learn ye some."
+
+His voice did not even rise as he uttered the threat; no man present,
+Trent least of all, expected that which followed. The Irishman's hand
+rose suddenly from below the table, an open clasp-knife balanced on the
+palm; there was a movement swift as conjuring; Trent started half to
+his feet, turning a little as he rose so as to escape the table, and the
+movement was his bane. The missile struck him in the jugular; he fell
+forward, and his blood flowed among the dishes on the cloth.
+
+The suddenness of the attack and the catastrophe, the instant change
+from peace to war and from life to death, held all men spellbound. Yet a
+moment they sat about the table staring open-mouthed upon the prostrate
+captain and the flowing blood. The next, Goddedaal had leaped to his
+feet, caught up the stool on which he had been sitting, and swung it
+high in air, a man transfigured, roaring (as he stood) so that men's
+ears were stunned with it. There was no thought of battle in the
+Currency Lasses; none drew his weapon; all huddled helplessly from
+before the face of the baresark Scandinavian. His first blow sent Mac to
+ground with a broken arm. His second bashed out the brains of Hemstead.
+He turned from one to another, menacing and trumpeting like a wounded
+elephant, exulting in his rage. But there was no counsel, no light of
+reason, in that ecstasy of battle; and he shied from the pursuit of
+victory to hail fresh blows upon the supine Hemstead, so that the stool
+was shattered and the cabin rang with their violence. The sight of that
+post-mortem cruelty recalled Carthew to the life of instinct, and his
+revolver was in hand and he had aimed and fired before he knew. The
+ear-bursting sound of the report was accompanied by a yell of pain; the
+colossus paused, swayed, tottered, and fell headlong on the body of his
+victim.
+
+In the instant silence that succeeded, the sound of feet pounding on the
+deck and in the companion leaped into hearing; and a face, that of the
+sailor Holdorsen, appeared below the bulkheads in the cabin doorway.
+Carthew shattered it with a second shot, for he was a marksman.
+
+"Pistols!" he cried, and charged at the companion, Wicks at his heels,
+Tommy and Amalu following. They trod the body of Holdorsen underfoot,
+and flew up-stairs and forth into the dusky blaze of a sunset red as
+blood. The numbers were still equal, but the Flying Scuds dreamed not of
+defence, and fled with one accord for the forecastle scuttle. Brown was
+first in flight; he disappeared below unscathed; the Chinaman followed
+head-foremost with a ball in his side; and the others shinned into the
+rigging.
+
+A fierce composure settled upon Wicks and Carthew, their fighting second
+wind. They posted Tommy at the fore and Amalu at the main to guard the
+masts and shrouds, and going themselves into the waist, poured out a
+box of cartridges on deck and filled the chambers. The poor devils aloft
+bleated aloud for mercy. But the hour of any mercy was gone by; the cup
+was brewed and must be drunken to the dregs; since so many had fallen
+all must fall. The light was bad, the cheap revolvers fouled and carried
+wild, the screaming wretches were swift to flatten themselves against
+the masts and yards or find a momentary refuge in the hanging sails. The
+fell business took long, but it was done at last. Hardy the Londoner was
+shot on the foreroyal yard, and hung horribly suspended in the brails.
+Wallen, the other, had his jaw broken on the maintop-gallant crosstrees,
+and exposed himself, shrieking, till a second shot dropped him on the
+deck.
+
+This had been bad enough, but worse remained behind. There was still
+Brown in the forepeak. Tommy, with a sudden clamour of weeping, begged
+for his life. "One man can't hurt us," he sobbed. "We can't go on with
+this. I spoke to him at dinner. He's an awful decent little cad. It
+can't be done. Nobody can go into that place and murder him. It's too
+damned wicked."
+
+The sound of his supplications was perhaps audible to the unfortunate
+below.
+
+"One left, and we all hang," said Wicks. "Brown must go the same road."
+The big man was deadly white and trembled like an aspen; and he had no
+sooner finished speaking, than he went to the ship's side and vomited.
+
+"We can never do it if we wait," said Carthew. "Now or never," and he
+marched towards the scuttle.
+
+"No, no, no!" wailed Tommy, clutching at his jacket.
+
+But Carthew flung him off, and stepped down the ladder, his heart rising
+with disgust and shame. The Chinaman lay on the floor, still groaning;
+the place was pitch dark.
+
+"Brown!" cried Carthew, "Brown, where are you?"
+
+His heart smote him for the treacherous apostrophe, but no answer came.
+
+He groped in the bunks: they were all empty. Then he moved towards the
+forepeak, which was hampered with coils of rope and spare chandlery in
+general.
+
+"Brown!" he said again.
+
+"Here, sir," answered a shaking voice; and the poor invisible caitiff
+called on him by name, and poured forth out of the darkness an endless,
+garrulous appeal for mercy. A sense of danger, of daring, had alone
+nerved Carthew to enter the forecastle; and here was the enemy crying
+and pleading like a frightened child. His obsequious "Here, sir," his
+horrid fluency of obtestation, made the murder tenfold more revolting.
+Twice Carthew raised the pistol, once he pressed the trigger (or thought
+he did) with all his might, but no explosion followed; and with that the
+lees of his courage ran quite out, and he turned and fled from before
+his victim.
+
+Wicks sat on the fore hatch, raised the face of a man of seventy, and
+looked a wordless question. Carthew shook his head. With such composure
+as a man displays marching towards the gallows, Wicks arose, walked to
+the scuttle, and went down. Brown thought it was Carthew returning,
+and discovered himself, half crawling from his shelter, with another
+incoherent burst of pleading. Wicks emptied his revolver at the voice,
+which broke into mouse-like whimperings and groans. Silence succeeded,
+and the murderer ran on deck like one possessed.
+
+The other three were now all gathered on the fore hatch, and Wicks
+took his place beside them without question asked or answered. They
+sat close, like children in the dark, and shook each other with their
+shaking. The dusk continued to fall; and there was no sound but the
+beating of the surf and the occasional hiccup of a sob from Tommy
+Hadden.
+
+"God, if there was another ship!" cried Carthew of a sudden.
+
+Wicks started and looked aloft with the trick of all seamen, and
+shuddered as he saw the hanging figure on the royal yard.
+
+"If I went aloft, I'd fall," he said simply. "I'm done up."
+
+It was Amalu who volunteered, climbed to the very truck, swept the
+fading horizon, and announced nothing within sight.
+
+"No odds," said Wicks. "We can't sleep ..."
+
+"Sleep!" echoed Carthew; and it seemed as if the whole of Shakespeare's
+_Macbeth_ thundered at the gallop through his mind.
+
+"Well, then, we can't sit and chitter here," said Wicks, "till we've
+cleaned ship; and I can't turn to till I've had gin, and the gin's in
+the cabin, and who's to fetch it?"
+
+
+"I will," said Carthew, "if any one has matches."
+
+Amalu passed him a box, and he went aft and down the companion and into
+the cabin, stumbling upon bodies. Then he struck a match, and his looks
+fell upon two living eyes.
+
+"Well?" asked Mac, for it was he who still survived in that shambles of
+a cabin.
+
+"It's done; they're all dead," answered Carthew.
+
+"Christ!" said the Irishman, and fainted.
+
+The gin was found in the dead captain's cabin; it was brought on deck,
+and all hands had a dram, and attacked their farther task. The night
+was come, the moon would not be up for hours; a lamp was set on the main
+hatch to light Amalu as he washed down decks; and the galley lantern
+was taken to guide the others in their graveyard business. Holdorsen,
+Hemstead, Trent, and Goddedaal were first disposed of, the last still
+breathing as he went over the side; Wallen followed; and then Wicks,
+steadied by the gin, went aloft with a boathook and succeeded in
+dislodging Hardy. The Chinaman was their last task; he seemed to be
+light-headed, talked aloud in his unknown language as they brought
+him up, and it was only with the splash of his sinking body that the
+gibberish ceased. Brown, by common consent, was left alone. Flesh and
+blood could go no further.
+
+All this time they had been drinking undiluted gin like water; three
+bottles stood broached in different quarters; and none passed without
+a gulp. Tommy collapsed against the mainmast; Wicks fell on his face
+on the poop ladder and moved no more; Amalu had vanished unobserved.
+Carthew was the last afoot: he stood swaying at the break of the poop,
+and the lantern, which he still carried, swung with his movement. His
+head hummed; it swarmed with broken thoughts; memory of that day's
+abominations flared up and died down within him like the light of a lamp
+in a strong draught. And then he had a drunkard's inspiration.
+
+"There must be no more of this," he thought, and stumbled once more
+below.
+
+The absence of Holdorsen's body brought him to a stand. He stood and
+stared at the empty floor, and then remembered and smiled. From the
+captain's room he took the open case with one dozen and three bottles of
+gin, put the lantern inside, and walked precariously forth. Mac was once
+more conscious, his eyes haggard, his face drawn with pain and flushed
+with fever; and Carthew remembered he had never been seen to, had lain
+there helpless, and was so to lie all night, injured, perhaps dying.
+But it was now too late; reason had now fled from that silent ship. If
+Carthew could get on deck again, it was as much as he could hope;
+and casting on the unfortunate a glance of pity, the tragic drunkard
+shouldered his way up the companion, dropped the case overboard, and
+fell in the scuppers helpless.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV. A BAD BARGAIN.
+
+
+With the first colour in the east, Carthew awoke and sat up. A while he
+gazed at the scroll of the morning bank and the spars and hanging canvas
+of the brig, like a man who wakes in a strange bed, with a child's
+simplicity of wonder. He wondered above all what ailed him, what he had
+lost, what disfavour had been done him, which he knew he should resent,
+yet had forgotten. And then, like a river bursting through a dam, the
+truth rolled on him its instantaneous volume: his memory teemed with
+speech and pictures that he should never again forget; and he sprang to
+his feet, stood a moment hand to brow, and began to walk violently
+to and fro by the companion. As he walked, he wrung his hands.
+"God--God--God," he kept saying, with no thought of prayer, uttering a
+mere voice of agony.
+
+The time may have been long or short, it was perhaps minutes, perhaps
+only seconds, ere he awoke to find himself observed, and saw the captain
+sitting up and watching him over the break of the poop, a strange
+blindness as of fever in his eyes, a haggard knot of corrugations on his
+brow. Cain saw himself in a mirror. For a flash they looked upon each
+other, and then glanced guiltily aside; and Carthew fled from the eye of
+his accomplice, and stood leaning on the taffrail.
+
+An hour went by, while the day came brighter, and the sun rose and drank
+up the clouds: an hour of silence in the ship, an hour of agony beyond
+narration for the sufferers. Brown's gabbling prayers, the cries of the
+sailors in the rigging, strains of the dead Hemstead's minstrelsy,
+ran together in Carthew's mind, with sickening iteration. He neither
+acquitted nor condemned himself: he did not think, he suffered. In
+the bright water into which he stared, the pictures changed and were
+repeated: the baresark rage of Goddedaal; the blood-red light of the
+sunset into which they had run forth; the face of the babbling Chinaman
+as they cast him over; the face of the captain, seen a moment since,
+as he awoke from drunkenness into remorse. And time passed, and the sun
+swam higher, and his torment was not abated.
+
+Then were fulfilled many sayings, and the weakest of these condemned
+brought relief and healing to the others. Amalu the drudge awoke (like
+the rest) to sickness of body and distress of mind; but the habit of
+obedience ruled in that simple spirit, and appalled to be so late,
+he went direct into the galley, kindled the fire, and began to get
+breakfast. At the rattle of dishes, the snapping of the fire, and the
+thin smoke that went up straight into the air, the spell was lifted.
+The condemned felt once more the good dry land of habit under foot; they
+touched again the familiar guide-ropes of sanity; they were restored to
+a sense of the blessed revolution and return of all things earthly. The
+captain drew a bucket of water and began to bathe. Tommy sat up, watched
+him awhile, and slowly followed his example; and Carthew, remembering
+his last thoughts of the night before, hastened to the cabin.
+
+Mac was awake; perhaps had not slept. Over his head Goddedaal's canary
+twittered shrilly from its cage.
+
+"How are you?" asked Carthew.
+
+"Me arrum's broke," returned Mac; "but I can stand that. It's this place
+I can't abide. I was coming on deck anyway."
+
+"Stay where you are, though," said Carthew. "It's deadly hot above, and
+there's no wind. I'll wash out this----" and he paused, seeking a word
+and not finding one for the grisly foulness of the cabin.
+
+"Faith, I'll be obliged to ye, then," replied the Irishman. He spoke
+mild and meek, like a sick child with its mother. There was now no
+violence in the violent man; and as Carthew fetched a bucket and swab
+and the steward's sponge, and began to cleanse the field of battle,
+he alternately watched him or shut his eyes and sighed like a man near
+fainting. "I have to ask all your pardons," he began again presently,
+"and the more shame to me as I got ye into trouble and couldn't do
+nothing when it came. Ye saved me life, sir; ye're a clane shot."
+
+"For God's sake, don't talk of it!" cried Carthew. "It can't be talked
+of; you don't know what it was. It was nothing down here; they fought.
+On deck--O, my God!" And Carthew, with the bloody sponge pressed to his
+face, struggled a moment with hysteria.
+
+"Kape cool, Mr. Cart'ew. It's done now," said Mac; "and ye may bless God
+ye're not in pain and helpless in the bargain."
+
+There was no more said by one or other, and the cabin was pretty well
+cleansed when a stroke on the ship's bell summoned Carthew to breakfast.
+Tommy had been busy in the meanwhile; he had hauled the whaleboat close
+aboard, and already lowered into it a small keg of beef that he found
+ready broached beside the galley door; it was plain he had but the one
+idea--to escape.
+
+"We have a shipful of stores to draw upon," he said. "Well, what are
+we staying for? Let's get off at once for Hawaii. I've begun preparing
+already."
+
+"Mac has his arm broken," observed Carthew; "how would he stand the
+voyage?"
+
+"A broken arm?" repeated the captain. "That all? I'll set it after
+breakfast. I thought he was dead like the rest. That madman hit out
+like----" and there, at the evocation of the battle, his voice ceased
+and the talk died with it.
+
+After breakfast, the three white men went down into the cabin.
+
+"I've come to set your arm," said the captain.
+
+"I beg your pardon, captain," replied Mac; "but the firrst thing ye got
+to do is to get this ship to sea. We'll talk of me arrum after that."
+
+"O, there's no such blooming hurry," returned Wicks.
+
+"When the next ship sails in, ye'll tell me stories!" retorted Mac.
+
+"But there's nothing so unlikely in the world," objected Carthew.
+
+"Don't be deceivin' yourself," said Mac. "If ye want a ship, divil a
+one'll look near ye in six year; but if ye don't, ye may take my word
+for ut, we'll have a squadron layin' here."
+
+"That's what I say," cried Tommy; "that's what I call sense! Let's stock
+that whaleboat and be off."
+
+"And what will Captain Wicks be thinking of the whaleboat?" asked the
+Irishman.
+
+"I don't think of it at all," said Wicks. "We've a smart-looking brig
+under foot; that's all the whaleboat I want."
+
+"Excuse me!" cried Tommy. "That's childish talk. You've got a brig, to
+be sure, and what use is she? You daren't go anywhere in her. What port
+are you to sail for?"
+
+"For the port of Davy Jones's Locker, my son," replied the captain.
+"This brig's going to be lost at sea. I'll tell you where, too, and
+that's about forty miles to windward of Kauai. We're going to stay by
+her till she's down; and once the masts are under, she's the Flying Scud
+no more, and we never heard of such a brig; and it's the crew of the
+schooner Currency Lass that comes ashore in the boat, and takes the
+first chance to Sydney."
+
+"Captain dear, that's the first Christian word I've heard of ut!" cried
+Mac. "And now, just let me arrum be, jewel, and get the brig outside."
+
+"I'm as anxious as yourself, Mac," returned Wicks; "but there's not wind
+enough to swear by. So let's see your arm, and no more talk."
+
+The arm was set and splinted; the body of Brown fetched from the
+forepeak, where it lay still and cold, and committed to the waters of
+the lagoon; and the washing of the cabin rudely finished. All these were
+done ere midday; and it was past three when the first cat's-paw ruffled
+the lagoon, and the wind came in a dry squall, which presently sobered
+to a steady breeze.
+
+The interval was passed by all in feverish impatience, and by one of
+the party in secret and extreme concern of mind. Captain Wicks was a
+fore-and-aft sailor; he could take a schooner through a Scotch reel,
+felt her mouth and divined her temper like a rider with a horse; she,
+on her side, recognising her master and following his wishes like a dog.
+But by a not very unusual train of circumstance, the man's dexterity was
+partial and circumscribed. On a schooner's deck he was Rembrandt or (at
+the least) Mr. Whistler; on board a brig he was Pierre Grassou. Again
+and again in the course of the morning, he had reasoned out his
+policy and rehearsed his orders; and ever with the same depression and
+weariness. It was guess-work; it was chance; the ship might behave as
+he expected, and might not; suppose she failed him, he stood there
+helpless, beggared of all the proved resources of experience. Had
+not all hands been so weary, had he not feared to communicate his own
+misgivings, he could have towed her out. But these reasons sufficed, and
+the most he could do was to take all possible precautions. Accordingly
+he had Carthew aft, explained what was to be done with anxious patience,
+and visited along with him the various sheets and braces.
+
+"I hope I'll remember," said Carthew. "It seems awfully muddled."
+
+"It's the rottenest kind of rig," the captain admitted: "all blooming
+pocket handkerchiefs! And not one sailor-man on deck! Ah, if she'd only
+been a brigantine, now! But it's lucky the passage is so plain; there's
+no manoeuvring to mention. We get under way before the wind, and run
+right so till we begin to get foul of the island; then we haul our wind
+and lie as near south-east as may be till we're on that line; 'bout ship
+there and stand straight out on the port tack. Catch the idea?"
+
+"Yes, I see the idea," replied Carthew, rather dismally, and the two
+incompetents studied for a long time in silence the complicated gear
+above their heads.
+
+But the time came when these rehearsals must be put in practice. The
+sails were lowered, and all hands heaved the anchor short. The whaleboat
+was then cut adrift, the upper topsails and the spanker set, the yards
+braced up, and the spanker sheet hauled out to starboard.
+
+"Heave away on your anchor, Mr. Carthew."
+
+"Anchor's gone, sir."
+
+"Set jibs."
+
+It was done, and the brig still hung enchanted. Wicks, his head full of
+a schooner's mainsail, turned his mind to the spanker. First he hauled
+in the sheet, and then he hauled it out, with no result.
+
+"Brail the damned thing up!" he bawled at last, with a red face. "There
+ain't no sense in it."
+
+It was the last stroke of bewilderment for the poor captain, that he had
+no sooner brailed up the spanker than the vessel came before the wind.
+The laws of nature seemed to him to be suspended; he was like a man in
+a world of pantomime tricks; the cause of any result, and the probable
+result of any action, equally concealed from him. He was the more
+careful not to shake the nerve of his amateur assistants. He stood
+there with a face like a torch; but he gave his orders with aplomb; and
+indeed, now the ship was under weigh, supposed his difficulties over.
+
+The lower topsails and courses were then set, and the brig began to
+walk the water like a thing of life, her forefoot discoursing music, the
+birds flying and crying over her spars. Bit by bit the passage began to
+open and the blue sea to show between the flanking breakers on the reef;
+bit by bit, on the starboard bow, the low land of the islet began to
+heave closer aboard. The yards were braced up, the spanker sheet hauled
+aft again; the brig was close hauled, lay down to her work like a thing
+in earnest, and had soon drawn near to the point of advantage, where she
+might stay and lie out of the lagoon in a single tack.
+
+Wicks took the wheel himself, swelling with success. He kept the brig
+full to give her heels, and began to bark his orders: "Ready about.
+Helm's a-lee. Tacks and sheets. Mainsail haul." And then the fatal
+words: "That'll do your mainsail; jump forrard and haul round your
+foreyards."
+
+To stay a square-rigged ship is an affair of knowledge and swift sight;
+and a man used to the succinct evolutions of a schooner will always tend
+to be too hasty with a brig. It was so now. The order came too soon; the
+topsails set flat aback; the ship was in irons. Even yet, had the helm
+been reversed, they might have saved her. But to think of a stern-board
+at all, far more to think of profiting by one, were foreign to the
+schooner-sailor's mind. Wicks made haste instead to wear ship, a
+manoeuvre for which room was wanting, and the Flying Scud took ground on
+a bank of sand and coral about twenty minutes before five.
+
+Wicks was no hand with a square-rigger, and he had shown it. But he
+was a sailor and a born captain of men for all homely purposes, where
+intellect is not required and an eye in a man's head and a heart under
+his jacket will suffice. Before the others had time to understand the
+misfortune, he was bawling fresh orders, and had the sails clewed up,
+and took soundings round the ship.
+
+"She lies lovely," he remarked, and ordered out a boat with the
+starboard anchor.
+
+"Here! steady!" cried Tommy. "You ain't going to turn us to, to warp her
+off?"
+
+"I am though," replied Wicks.
+
+"I won't set a hand to such tomfoolery for one," replied Tommy. "I'm
+dead beat." He went and sat down doggedly on the main hatch. "You got us
+on; get us off again," he added.
+
+Carthew and Wicks turned to each other.
+
+"Perhaps you don't know how tired we are," said Carthew.
+
+"The tide's flowing!" cried the captain. "You wouldn't have me miss a
+rising tide?"
+
+"O, gammon! there's tides to-morrow!" retorted Tommy.
+
+"And I'll tell you what," added Carthew, "the breeze is failing fast,
+and the sun will soon be down. We may get into all kinds of fresh mess
+in the dark and with nothing but light airs."
+
+"I don't deny it," answered Wicks, and stood awhile as if in thought.
+"But what I can't make out," he began again, with agitation, "what I
+can't make out is what you're made of! To stay in this place is beyond
+me. There's the bloody sun going down--and to stay here is beyond me!"
+
+The others looked upon him with horrified surprise. This fall of their
+chief pillar--this irrational passion in the practical man, suddenly
+barred out of his true sphere, the sphere of action--shocked and daunted
+them. But it gave to another and unseen hearer the chance for which he
+had been waiting. Mac, on the striking of the brig, had crawled up the
+companion, and he now showed himself and spoke up.
+
+"Captain Wicks," said he, "it's me that brought this trouble on the lot
+of ye. I'm sorry for ut, I ask all your pardons, and if there's any one
+can say 'I forgive ye,' it'll make my soul the lighter."
+
+Wicks stared upon the man in amaze; then his self-control returned to
+him. "We're all in glass houses here," he said; "we ain't going to turn
+to and throw stones. I forgive you, sure enough; and much good may it do
+you!"
+
+The others spoke to the same purpose.
+
+"I thank ye for ut, and 'tis done like gentlemen," said Mac. "But
+there's another thing I have upon my mind. I hope we're all Prodestan's
+here?"
+
+It appeared they were; it seemed a small thing for the Protestant
+religion to rejoice in!
+
+"Well, that's as it should be," continued Mac. "And why shouldn't we say
+the Lord's Prayer? There can't be no hurt in ut."
+
+He had the same quiet, pleading, childlike way with him as in the
+morning; and the others accepted his proposal, and knelt down without a
+word.
+
+"Knale if ye like!" said he. "I'll stand." And he covered his eyes.
+
+So the prayer was said to the accompaniment of the surf and seabirds,
+and all rose refreshed and felt lightened of a load. Up to then, they
+had cherished their guilty memories in private, or only referred to
+them in the heat of a moment and fallen immediately silent. Now they had
+faced their remorse in company, and the worst seemed over. Nor was it
+only that. But the petition "Forgive us our trespasses," falling in
+so apposite after they had themselves forgiven the immediate author of
+their miseries, sounded like an absolution.
+
+Tea was taken on deck in the time of the sunset, and not long after the
+five castaways--castaways once more--lay down to sleep.
+
+Day dawned windless and hot. Their slumbers had been too profound to be
+refreshing, and they woke listless, and sat up, and stared about them
+with dull eyes. Only Wicks, smelling a hard day's work ahead, was more
+alert. He went first to the well, sounded it once and then a second
+time, and stood awhile with a grim look, so that all could see he was
+dissatisfied. Then he shook himself, stripped to the buff, clambered on
+the rail, drew himself up and raised his arms to plunge. The dive was
+never taken. He stood instead transfixed, his eyes on the horizon.
+
+"Hand up that glass," he said.
+
+In a trice they were all swarming aloft, the nude captain leading with
+the glass.
+
+On the northern horizon was a finger of grey smoke, straight in the
+windless air like a point of admiration.
+
+"What do you make it?" they asked of Wicks.
+
+"She's truck down," he replied; "no telling yet. By the way the smoke
+builds, she must be heading right here."
+
+"What can she be?"
+
+"She might be a China mail," returned Wicks, "and she might be a
+blooming man-of-war, come to look for castaways. Here! This ain't the
+time to stand staring. On deck, boys!"
+
+He was the first on deck, as he had been the first aloft, handed down
+the ensign, bent it again to the signal halliards, and ran it up union
+down.
+
+"Now hear me," he said, jumping into his trousers, "and everything I say
+you grip on to. If that's a man-of-war, she'll be in a tearing hurry;
+all these ships are what don't do nothing and have their expenses paid.
+That's our chance; for we'll go with them, and they won't take the time
+to look twice or to ask a question. I'm Captain Trent; Carthew, you're
+Goddedaal; Tommy, you're Hardy; Mac's Brown; Amalu--Hold hard! we can't
+make a Chinaman of him! Ah Wing must have deserted; Amalu stowed away;
+and I turned him to as cook, and was never at the bother to sign him.
+Catch the idea? Say your names."
+
+And that pale company recited their lesson earnestly.
+
+"What were the names of the other two?" he asked. "Him Carthew shot in
+the companion, and the one I caught in the jaw on the main top-gallant?"
+
+"Holdorsen and Wallen," said some one.
+
+"Well, they're drowned," continued Wicks; "drowned alongside trying to
+lower a boat. We had a bit of a squall last night: that's how we
+got ashore." He ran and squinted at the compass. "Squall out of
+nor'-nor'-west-half-west; blew hard; every one in a mess, falls jammed,
+and Holdorsen and Wallen spilt overboard. See? Clear your blooming
+heads!" He was in his jacket now, and spoke with a feverish impatience
+and contention that rang like anger.
+
+"But is it safe?" asked Tommy.
+
+"Safe?" bellowed the captain. "We're standing on the drop, you
+moon-calf! If that ship's bound for China (which she don't look to be),
+we're lost as soon as we arrive; if she's bound the other way, she comes
+from China, don't she? Well, if there's a man on board of her that ever
+clapped eyes on Trent or any blooming hand out of this brig, we'll all
+be in irons in two hours. Safe! no, it ain't safe; it's a beggarly last
+chance to shave the gallows, and that's what it is."
+
+At this convincing picture, fear took hold on all.
+
+"Hadn't we a hundred times better stay by the brig?" cried Carthew.
+"They would give us a hand to float her off."
+
+"You'll make me waste this holy day in chattering!" cried Wicks. "Look
+here, when I sounded the well this morning, there was two foot of water
+there against eight inches last night. What's wrong? I don't know; might
+be nothing; might be the worst kind of smash. And then, there we are in
+for a thousand miles in an open boat, if that's your taste!"
+
+"But it may be nothing, and anyway their carpenters are bound to help us
+repair her," argued Carthew.
+
+"Moses Murphy!" cried the captain. "How did she strike? Bows on,
+I believe. And she's down by the head now. If any carpenter comes
+tinkering here, where'll he go first? Down in the forepeak, I suppose!
+And then, how about all that blood among the chandlery? You would think
+you were a lot of members of Parliament discussing Plimsoll; and you're
+just a pack of murderers with the halter round your neck. Any other ass
+got any time to waste? No? Thank God for that! Now, all hands! I'm going
+below, and I leave you here on deck. You get the boat cover off that
+boat; then you turn to and open the specie chest. There are five of us;
+get five chests, and divide the specie equal among the five--put it
+at the bottom--and go at it like tigers. Get blankets, or canvas, or
+clothes, so it won't rattle. It'll make five pretty heavy chests, but we
+can't help that. You, Carthew--dash me!--You, Mr. Goddedaal, come below.
+We've our share before us."
+
+And he cast another glance at the smoke, and hurried below with Carthew
+at his heels.
+
+The logs were found in the main cabin behind the canary's cage; two of
+them, one kept by Trent, one by Goddedaal. Wicks looked first at one,
+then at the other, and his lip stuck out.
+
+"Can you forge hand of write?" he asked.
+
+"No," said Carthew.
+
+"There's luck for you--no more can I!" cried the captain. "Hullo! here's
+worse yet, here's this Goddedaal up to date; he must have filled it in
+before supper. See for yourself: 'Smoke observed.--Captain Kirkup and
+five hands of the schooner Currency Lass.' Ah! this is better," he
+added, turning to the other log. "The old man ain't written anything for
+a clear fortnight. We'll dispose of your log altogether, Mr. Goddedaal,
+and stick to the old man's--to mine, I mean; only I ain't going to write
+it up, for reasons of my own. You are. You're going to sit down right
+here and fill it in the way I tell you."
+
+"How to explain the loss of mine?" asked Carthew.
+
+"You never kept one," replied the captain. "Gross neglect of duty.
+You'll catch it."
+
+"And the change of writing?" resumed Carthew. "You began; why do you
+stop and why do I come in? And you'll have to sign anyway."
+
+"O! I've met with an accident and can't write," replied Wicks.
+
+"An accident?" repeated Carthew. "It don't sound natural. What kind of
+an accident?"
+
+Wicks spread his hand face-up on the table, and drove a knife through
+his palm.
+
+"That kind of an accident," said he. "There's a way to draw to windward
+of most difficulties, if you've a head on your shoulders." He began
+to bind up his hand with a handkerchief, glancing the while over
+Goddedaal's log. "Hullo!" he said, "this'll never do for us--this is an
+impossible kind of a yarn. Here, to begin with, is this Captain Trent
+trying some fancy course, leastways he's a thousand miles to south'ard
+of the great circle. And here, it seems, he was close up with this
+island on the sixth, sails all these days, and is close up with it again
+by daylight on the eleventh."
+
+"Goddedaal said they had the deuce's luck," said Carthew.
+
+"Well, it don't look like real life--that's all I can say," returned
+Wicks.
+
+"It's the way it was, though," argued Carthew.
+
+"So it is; and what the better are we for that, if it don't look so?"
+cried the captain, sounding unwonted depths of art criticism. "Here! try
+and see if you can't tie this bandage; I'm bleeding like a pig."
+
+As Carthew sought to adjust the handkerchief, his patient seemed sunk
+in a deep muse, his eye veiled, his mouth partly open. The job was yet
+scarce done, when he sprang to his feet.
+
+"I have it," he broke out, and ran on deck. "Here, boys!" he cried, "we
+didn't come here on the eleventh; we came in here on the evening of the
+sixth, and lay here ever since becalmed. As soon as you've done with
+these chests," he added, "you can turn to and roll out beef and water
+breakers; it'll look more shipshape--like as if we were getting ready
+for the boat voyage."
+
+And he was back again in a moment, cooking the new log. Goddedaal's was
+then carefully destroyed, and a hunt began for the ship's papers. Of
+all the agonies of that breathless morning, this was perhaps the most
+poignant. Here and there the two men searched, cursing, cannoning
+together, streaming with heat, freezing with terror. News was bawled
+down to them that the ship was indeed a man-of-war, that she was close
+up, that she was lowering a boat; and still they sought in vain. By what
+accident they missed the iron box with the money and accounts, is hard
+to fancy; but they did. And the vital documents were found at last in
+the pocket of Trent's shore-going coat, where he had left them when last
+he came on board.
+
+Wicks smiled for the first time that morning. "None too soon," said
+he. "And now for it! Take these others for me; I'm afraid I'll get them
+mixed if I keep both."
+
+"What are they?" Carthew asked.
+
+"They're the Kirkup and Currency Lass papers," he replied. "Pray God we
+need 'em again!"
+
+
+"Boat's inside the lagoon, sir," hailed down Mac, who sat by the
+skylight doing sentry while the others worked.
+
+"Time we were on deck, then, Mr. Goddedaal," said Wicks.
+
+As they turned to leave the cabin, the canary burst into piercing song.
+
+"My God!" cried Carthew, with a gulp, "we can't leave that wretched bird
+to starve. It was poor Goddedaal's."
+
+"Bring the bally thing along!" cried the captain.
+
+And they went on deck.
+
+An ugly brute of a modern man-of-war lay just without the reef, now
+quite inert, now giving a flap or two with her propeller. Nearer hand,
+and just within, a big white boat came skimming to the stroke of many
+oars, her ensign blowing at the stern.
+
+"One word more," said Wicks, after he had taken in the scene. "Mac,
+you've been in China ports? All right; then you can speak for yourself.
+The rest of you I kept on board all the time we were in Hongkong, hoping
+you would desert; but you fooled me and stuck to the brig. That'll make
+your lying come easier."
+
+The boat was now close at hand; a boy in the stern sheets was the
+only officer, and a poor one plainly, for the men were talking as they
+pulled.
+
+"Thank God, they've only sent a kind of a middy!" ejaculated Wicks.
+"Here you, Hardy, stand for'ard! I'll have no deck hands on my
+quarter-deck," he cried, and the reproof braced the whole crew like a
+cold douche.
+
+The boat came alongside with perfect neatness, and the boy officer
+stepped on board, where he was respectfully greeted by Wicks.
+
+"You the master of this ship?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, sir," said Wicks. "Trent is my name, and this is the Flying Scud
+of Hull."
+
+"You seem to have got into a mess," said the officer.
+
+"If you'll step aft with me here, I'll tell you all there is of it,"
+said Wicks.
+
+"Why, man, you're shaking!" cried the officer.
+
+"So would you, perhaps, if you had been in the same berth," returned
+Wicks; and he told the whole story of the rotten water, the long calm,
+the squall, the seamen drowned; glibly and hotly; talking, with his head
+in the lion's mouth, like one pleading in the dock. I heard the same
+tale from the same narrator in the saloon in San Francisco; and even
+then his bearing filled me with suspicion. But the officer was no
+observer.
+
+"Well, the captain is in no end of a hurry," said he; "but I was
+instructed to give you all the assistance in my power, and signal back
+for another boat if more hands were necessary. What can I do for you?"
+
+"O, we won't keep you no time," replied Wicks cheerily. "We're all
+ready, bless you--men's chests, chronometer, papers and all."
+
+"Do you mean to leave her?" cried the officer. "She seems to me to lie
+nicely; can't we get your ship off?"
+
+"So we could, and no mistake; but how we're to keep her afloat's another
+question. Her bows is stove in," replied Wicks.
+
+The officer coloured to the eyes. He was incompetent and knew he was;
+thought he was already detected, and feared to expose himself again.
+There was nothing further from his mind than that the captain should
+deceive him; if the captain was pleased, why, so was he. "All right," he
+said. "Tell your men to get their chests aboard."
+
+"Mr. Goddedaal, turn the hands to to get the chests aboard," said Wicks.
+
+The four Currency Lasses had waited the while on tenter-hooks. This
+welcome news broke upon them like the sun at midnight; and Hadden burst
+into a storm of tears, sobbing aloud as he heaved upon the tackle. But
+the work went none the less briskly forward; chests, men, and bundles
+were got over the side with alacrity; the boat was shoved off; it moved
+out of the long shadow of the Flying Scud, and its bows were pointed at
+the passage.
+
+So much, then, was accomplished. The sham wreck had passed muster; they
+were clear of her, they were safe away; and the water widened between
+them and her damning evidences. On the other hand, they were drawing
+nearer to the ship of war, which might very well prove to be their
+prison and a hangman's cart to bear them to the gallows--of which they
+had not yet learned either whence she came or whither she was bound; and
+the doubt weighed upon their heart like mountains.
+
+It was Wicks who did the talking. The sound was small in Carthew's ears,
+like the voices of men miles away, but the meaning of each word struck
+home to him like a bullet. "What did you say your ship was?" inquired
+Wicks.
+
+"Tempest, don't you know?" returned the officer.
+
+Don't you know? What could that mean? Perhaps nothing: perhaps that the
+ships had met already. Wicks took his courage in both hands. "Where is
+she bound?" he asked.
+
+"O, we're just looking in at all these miserable islands here," said the
+officer. "Then we bear up for San Francisco."
+
+"O, yes, you're from China ways, like us?" pursued Wicks.
+
+"Hong Kong," said the officer, and spat over the side.
+
+Hong Kong. Then the game was up; as soon as they set foot on board,
+they would be seized; the wreck would be examined, the blood found, the
+lagoon perhaps dredged, and the bodies of the dead would reappear to
+testify. An impulse almost incontrollable bade Carthew rise from the
+thwart, shriek out aloud, and leap overboard; it seemed so vain a thing
+to dissemble longer, to dally with the inevitable, to spin out some
+hundred seconds more of agonised suspense, with shame and death thus
+visibly approaching. But the indomitable Wicks persevered. His face
+was like a skull, his voice scarce recognisable; the dullest of men and
+officers (it seemed) must have remarked that telltale countenance and
+broken utterance. And still he persevered, bent upon certitude.
+
+"Nice place, Hong Kong?" he said.
+
+"I'm sure I don't know," said the officer. "Only a day and a half there;
+called for orders and came straight on here. Never heard of such a
+beastly cruise." And he went on describing and lamenting the untoward
+fortunes of the Tempest.
+
+But Wicks and Carthew heeded him no longer. They lay back on the gunnel,
+breathing deep, sunk in a stupor of the body: the mind within still
+nimbly and agreeably at work, measuring the past danger, exulting in the
+present relief, numbering with ecstasy their ultimate chances of escape.
+For the voyage in the man-of-war they were now safe; yet a few more days
+of peril, activity, and presence of mind in San Francisco, and the
+whole horrid tale was blotted out; and Wicks again became Kirkup, and
+Goddedaal became Carthew--men beyond all shot of possible suspicion, men
+who had never heard of the Flying Scud, who had never been in sight of
+Midway Reef.
+
+So they came alongside, under many craning heads of seamen and
+projecting mouths of guns; so they climbed on board somnambulous, and
+looked blindly about them at the tall spars, the white decks, and the
+crowding ship's company, and heard men as from far away, and answered
+them at random.
+
+And then a hand fell softly on Carthew's shoulder.
+
+
+"Why, Norrie, old chappie, where have you dropped from? All the world's
+been looking for you. Don't you know you've come into your kingdom?"
+
+He turned, beheld the face of his old schoolmate Sebright, and fell
+unconscious at his feet.
+
+The doctor was attending him, a while later, in Lieutenant Sebright's
+cabin, when he came to himself. He opened his eyes, looked hard in the
+strange face, and spoke with a kind of solemn vigour.
+
+"Brown must go the same road," he said; "now or never." And then paused,
+and his reason coming to him with more clearness, spoke again: "What was
+I saying? Where am I? Who are you?"
+
+"I am the doctor of the Tempest," was the reply. "You are in Lieutenant
+Sebright's berth, and you may dismiss all concern from your mind. Your
+troubles are over, Mr. Carthew."
+
+"Why do you call me that?" he asked. "Ah, I remember--Sebright knew me!
+O!" and he groaned and shook. "Send down Wicks to me; I must see Wicks
+at once!" he cried, and seized the doctor's wrist with unconscious
+violence.
+
+"All right," said the doctor. "Let's make a bargain. You swallow down
+this draught, and I'll go and fetch Wicks."
+
+And he gave the wretched man an opiate that laid him out within ten
+minutes and in all likelihood preserved his reason.
+
+It was the doctor's next business to attend to Mac; and he found
+occasion, while engaged upon his arm, to make the man repeat the names
+of the rescued crew. It was now the turn of the captain, and there is
+no doubt he was no longer the man that we have seen; sudden relief, the
+sense of perfect safety, a square meal and a good glass of grog, had all
+combined to relax his vigilance and depress his energy.
+
+"When was this done?" asked the doctor, looking at the wound.
+
+"More than a week ago," replied Wicks, thinking singly of his log.
+
+"Hey?" cried the doctor, and he raised his hand and looked the captain
+in the eyes.
+
+"I don't remember exactly," faltered Wicks.
+
+And at this remarkable falsehood, the suspicions of the doctor were at
+once quadrupled.
+
+"By the way, which of you is called Wicks?" he asked easily.
+
+"What's that?" snapped the captain, falling white as paper.
+
+"Wicks," repeated the doctor; "which of you is he? that's surely a plain
+question."
+
+Wicks stared upon his questioner in silence.
+
+"Which is Brown, then?" pursued the doctor.
+
+"What are you talking of? what do you mean by this?" cried Wicks,
+snatching his half-bandaged hand away, so that the blood sprinkled in
+the surgeon's face.
+
+He did not trouble to remove it. Looking straight at his victim, he
+pursued his questions. "Why must Brown go the same way?" he asked.
+
+Wicks fell trembling on a locker. "Carthew's told you," he cried.
+
+"No," replied the doctor, "he has not. But he and you between you have
+set me thinking, and I think there's something wrong."
+
+"Give me some grog," said Wicks. "I'd rather tell than have you find
+out. I'm damned if it's half as bad as what any one would think."
+
+And with the help of a couple of strong grogs, the tragedy of the Flying
+Scud was told for the first time.
+
+It was a fortunate series of accidents that brought the story to the
+doctor. He understood and pitied the position of these wretched men, and
+came whole-heartedly to their assistance. He and Wicks and Carthew (so
+soon as he was recovered) held a hundred councils and prepared a policy
+for San Francisco. It was he who certified "Goddedaal" unfit to be moved
+and smuggled Carthew ashore under cloud of night; it was he who kept
+Wicks's wound open that he might sign with his left hand; he who took
+all their Chile silver and (in the course of the first day) got it
+converted for them into portable gold. He used his influence in the
+wardroom to keep the tongues of the young officers in order, so that
+Carthew's identification was kept out of the papers. And he rendered
+another service yet more important. He had a friend in San Francisco,
+a millionaire; to this man he privately presented Carthew as a young
+gentleman come newly into a huge estate, but troubled with Jew debts
+which he was trying to settle on the quiet. The millionaire came readily
+to help; and it was with his money that the wrecker gang was to be
+fought. What was his name, out of a thousand guesses? It was Douglas
+Longhurst.
+
+As long as the Currency Lasses could all disappear under fresh names,
+it did not greatly matter if the brig were bought, or any small
+discrepancies should be discovered in the wrecking. The identification
+of one of their number had changed all that. The smallest scandal must
+now direct attention to the movements of Norris. It would be asked how
+he who had sailed in a schooner from Sydney, had turned up so shortly
+after in a brig out of Hong Kong; and from one question to another all
+his original shipmates were pretty sure to be involved. Hence arose
+naturally the idea of preventing danger, profiting by Carthew's
+new-found wealth, and buying the brig under an alias; and it was put in
+hand with equal energy and caution. Carthew took lodgings alone under
+a false name, picked up Bellairs at random, and commissioned him to buy
+the wreck.
+
+"What figure, if you please?" the lawyer asked.
+
+"I want it bought," replied Carthew. "I don't mind about the price."
+
+"Any price is no price," said Bellairs. "Put a name upon it."
+
+"Call it ten thousand pounds then, if you like!" said Carthew.
+
+In the meanwhile, the captain had to walk the streets, appear in the
+consulate, be cross-examined by Lloyd's agent, be badgered about his
+lost accounts, sign papers with his left hand, and repeat his lies to
+every skipper in San Francisco: not knowing at what moment he might
+run into the arms of some old friend who should hail him by the name of
+Wicks, or some new enemy who should be in a position to deny him that
+of Trent. And the latter incident did actually befall him, but was
+transformed by his stout countenance into an element of strength. It was
+in the consulate (of all untoward places) that he suddenly heard a big
+voice inquiring for Captain Trent. He turned with the customary sinking
+at his heart.
+
+"YOU ain't Captain Trent!" said the stranger, falling back. "Why, what's
+all this? They tell me you're passing off as Captain Trent--Captain
+Jacob Trent--a man I knew since I was that high."
+
+"O, you're thinking of my uncle as had the bank in Cardiff," replied
+Wicks, with desperate aplomb.
+
+"I declare I never knew he had a nevvy!" said the stranger.
+
+"Well, you see he has!" says Wicks.
+
+"And how is the old man?" asked the other.
+
+"Fit as a fiddle," answered Wicks, and was opportunely summoned by the
+clerk.
+
+This alert was the only one until the morning of the sale, when he
+was once more alarmed by his interview with Jim; and it was with some
+anxiety that he attended the sale, knowing only that Carthew was to
+be represented, but neither who was to represent him nor what were the
+instructions given. I suppose Captain Wicks is a good life. In spite of
+his personal appearance and his own known uneasiness, I suppose he is
+secure from apoplexy, or it must have struck him there and then, as he
+looked on at the stages of that insane sale and saw the old brig and her
+not very valuable cargo knocked down at last to a total stranger for ten
+thousand pounds.
+
+It had been agreed that he was to avoid Carthew, and above all Carthew's
+lodging, so that no connexion might be traced between the crew and the
+pseudonymous purchaser. But the hour for caution was gone by, and he
+caught a tram and made all speed to Mission Street.
+
+Carthew met him in the door.
+
+"Come away, come away from here," said Carthew; and when they were clear
+of the house, "All's up!" he added.
+
+
+"O, you've heard of the sale, then?" said Wicks.
+
+"The sale!" cried Carthew. "I declare I had forgotten it." And he told
+of the voice in the telephone, and the maddening question: "Why did you
+want to buy the Flying Scud?"
+
+This circumstance, coming on the back of the monstrous improbabilities
+of the sale, was enough to have shaken the reason of Immanuel Kant. The
+earth seemed banded together to defeat them; the stones and the boys on
+the street appeared to be in possession of their guilty secret. Flight
+was their one thought. The treasure of the Currency Lass they packed in
+waist-belts, expressed their chests to an imaginary address in British
+Columbia, and left San Francisco the same afternoon, booked for Los
+Angeles.
+
+The next day they pursued their retreat by the Southern Pacific route,
+which Carthew followed on his way to England; but the other three
+branched off for Mexico.
+
+
+
+EPILOGUE:
+
+TO WILL H. LOW.
+
+DEAR LOW: The other day (at Manihiki of all places) I had the pleasure
+to meet Dodd. We sat some two hours in the neat, little, toy-like
+church, set with pews after the manner of Europe, and inlaid with
+mother-of-pearl in the style (I suppose) of the New Jerusalem. The
+natives, who are decidedly the most attractive inhabitants of this
+planet, crowded round us in the pew, and fawned upon and patted us; and
+here it was I put my questions, and Dodd answered me.
+
+I first carried him back to the night in Barbizon when Carthew told his
+story, and asked him what was done about Bellairs. It seemed he had
+put the matter to his friend at once, and that Carthew took it with an
+inimitable lightness. "He's poor, and I'm rich," he had said. "I can
+afford to smile at him. I go somewhere else, that's all--somewhere
+that's far away and dear to get to. Persia would be found to answer, I
+fancy. No end of a place, Persia. Why not come with me?" And they had
+left the next afternoon for Constantinople, on their way to Teheran.
+Of the shyster, it is only known (by a newspaper paragraph) that he
+returned somehow to San Francisco and died in the hospital.
+
+"Now there's another point," said I. "There you are off to Persia with
+a millionaire, and rich yourself. How come you here in the South Seas,
+running a trader?"
+
+He said, with a smile, that I had not yet heard of Jim's last
+bankruptcy. "I was about cleaned out once more," he said; "and then it
+was that Carthew had this schooner built, and put me in as supercargo.
+It's his yacht and it's my trader; and as nearly all the expenses go to
+the yacht, I do pretty well. As for Jim, he's right again: one of the
+best businesses, they say, in the West, fruit, cereals, and real estate;
+and he has a Tartar of a partner now--Nares, no less. Nares will keep
+him straight, Nares has a big head. They have their country-places next
+door at Saucelito, and I stayed with them time about, the last time I
+was on the coast. Jim had a paper of his own--I think he has a notion
+of being senator one of these days--and he wanted me to throw up the
+schooner and come and write his editorials. He holds strong views on the
+State Constitution, and so does Mamie."
+
+"And what became of the other three Currency Lasses after they left
+Carthew?" I inquired.
+
+"Well, it seems they had a huge spree in the city of Mexico," said Dodd;
+"and then Hadden and the Irishman took a turn at the gold fields in
+Venezuela, and Wicks went on alone to Valparaiso. There's a Kirkup in
+the Chilean navy to this day, I saw the name in the papers about the
+Balmaceda war. Hadden soon wearied of the mines, and I met him the other
+day in Sydney. The last news he had from Venezuela, Mac had been knocked
+over in an attack on the gold train. So there's only the three of them
+left, for Amalu scarcely counts. He lives on his own land in Maui, at
+the side of Hale-a-ka-la, where he keeps Goddedaal's canary; and they
+say he sticks to his dollars, which is a wonder in a Kanaka. He had
+a considerable pile to start with, for not only Hemstead's share but
+Carthew's was divided equally among the other four--Mac being counted."
+
+"What did that make for him altogether?" I could not help asking, for I
+had been diverted by the number of calculations in his narrative.
+
+"One hundred and twenty-eight pounds nineteen shillings and eleven pence
+halfpenny," he replied with composure. "That's leaving out what little
+he won at Van John. It's something for a Kanaka, you know."
+
+And about that time we were at last obliged to yield to the
+solicitations of our native admirers, and go to the pastor's house to
+drink green cocoanuts. The ship I was in was sailing the same night, for
+Dodd had been beforehand and got all the shell in the island; and though
+he pressed me to desert and return with him to Auckland (whither he was
+now bound to pick up Carthew) I was firm in my refusal.
+
+The truth is, since I have been mixed up with Havens and Dodd in the
+design to publish the latter's narrative, I seem to feel no want for
+Carthew's society. Of course I am wholly modern in sentiment, and think
+nothing more noble than to publish people's private affairs at so much a
+line. They like it, and if they don't, they ought to. But a still small
+voice keeps telling me they will not like it always, and perhaps not
+always stand it. Memory besides supplies me with the face of a pressman
+(in the sacred phrase) who proved altogether too modern for one of his
+neighbours, and
+
+
+     Qui nunc it per iter tenebricosum
+
+as it were, marshalling us our way. I am in no haste to
+
+     --nos proecedens--
+
+be that man's successor. Carthew has a record as "a clane shot," and for
+some years Samoa will be good enough for me.
+
+We agreed to separate, accordingly; but he took me on board in his own
+boat with the hard-wood fittings, and entertained me on the way with
+an account of his late visit to Butaritari, whither he had gone on
+an errand for Carthew, to see how Topelius was getting along, and, if
+necessary, to give him a helping hand. But Topelius was in great force,
+and had patronised and--well--out-manoeuvred him.
+
+"Carthew will be pleased," said Dodd; "for there's no doubt they
+oppressed the man abominably when they were in the Currency Lass. It's
+diamond cut diamond now."
+
+
+This, I think, was the most of the news I got from my friend Loudon; and
+I hope I was well inspired, and have put all the questions to which you
+would be curious to hear an answer.
+
+But there is one more that I daresay you are burning to put to myself;
+and that is, what your own name is doing in this place, cropping up (as
+it were uncalled-for) on the stern of our poor ship? If you were not
+born in Arcadia, you linger in fancy on its margin; your thoughts are
+busied with the flutes of antiquity, with daffodils, and the classic
+poplar, and the footsteps of the nymphs, and the elegant and moving
+aridity of ancient art. Why dedicate to you a tale of a caste
+so modern;--full of details of our barbaric manners and unstable
+morals;--full of the need and the lust of money, so that there is scarce
+a page in which the dollars do not jingle;--full of the unrest and
+movement of our century, so that the reader is hurried from place to
+place and sea to sea, and the book is less a romance than a panorama--in
+the end, as blood-bespattered as an epic?
+
+Well, you are a man interested in all problems of art, even the most
+vulgar; and it may amuse you to hear the genesis and growth of _The
+Wrecker_. On board the schooner Equator, almost within sight of the
+Johnstone Islands (if anybody knows where these are) and on a moonlit
+night when it was a joy to be alive, the authors were amused with
+several stories of the sale of wrecks. The subject tempted them; and
+they sat apart in the alley-way to discuss its possibilities. "What a
+tangle it would make," suggested one, "if the wrong crew were aboard.
+But how to get the wrong crew there?"--"I have it!" cried the other;
+"the so-and-so affair!" For not so many months before, and not so many
+hundred miles from where we were then sailing, a proposition almost
+tantamount to that of Captain Trent had been made by a British skipper
+to some British castaways.
+
+Before we turned in, the scaffolding of the tale had been put together.
+But the question of treatment was as usual more obscure. We had long
+been at once attracted and repelled by that very modern form of the
+police novel or mystery story, which consists in beginning your yarn
+anywhere but at the beginning, and finishing it anywhere but at the
+end; attracted by its peculiar interest when done, and the peculiar
+difficulties that attend its execution; repelled by that appearance
+of insincerity and shallowness of tone, which seems its inevitable
+drawback. For the mind of the reader, always bent to pick up clews,
+receives no impression of reality or life, rather of an airless,
+elaborate mechanism; and the book remains enthralling, but
+insignificant, like a game of chess, not a work of human art. It seemed
+the cause might lie partly in the abrupt attack; and that if the tale
+were gradually approached, some of the characters introduced (as it
+were) beforehand, and the book started in the tone of a novel of manners
+and experience briefly treated, this defect might be lessened and our
+mystery seem to inhere in life. The tone of the age, its movement, the
+mingling of races and classes in the dollar hunt, the fiery and not
+quite unromantic struggle for existence with its changing trades and
+scenery, and two types in particular, that of the American handy-man of
+business and that of the Yankee merchant sailor--we agreed to dwell upon
+at some length, and make the woof to our not very precious warp. Hence
+Dodd's father, and Pinkerton, and Nares, and the Dromedary picnics, and
+the railway work in New South Wales--the last an unsolicited testimonial
+from the powers that be, for the tale was half written before I saw
+Carthew's squad toil in the rainy cutting at South Clifton, or heard
+from the engineer of his "young swell." After we had invented at some
+expense of time this method of approaching and fortifying our police
+novel, it occurred to us it had been invented previously by some one
+else, and was in fact--however painfully different the results may
+seem--the method of Charles Dickens in his later work.
+
+I see you staring. Here, you will say, is a prodigious quantity of
+theory to our halfpenny worth of police novel; and withal not a shadow
+of an answer to your question.
+
+Well, some of us like theory. After so long a piece of practice, these
+may be indulged for a few pages. And the answer is at hand. It was
+plainly desirable, from every point of view of convenience and contrast,
+that our hero and narrator should partly stand aside from those with
+whom he mingles, and be but a pressed-man in the dollar hunt. Thus it
+was that Loudon Dodd became a student of the plastic arts, and that our
+globe-trotting story came to visit Paris and look in at Barbizon. And
+thus it is, dear Low, that your name appears in the address of this
+epilogue.
+
+For sure, if any person can here appreciate and read between the lines,
+it must be you--and one other, our friend. All the dominos will be
+transparent to your better knowledge; the statuary contract will be to
+you a piece of ancient history; and you will not have now heard for the
+first time of the dangers of Roussillon. Dead leaves from the Bas Breau,
+echoes from Lavenue's and the Rue Racine, memories of a common past, let
+these be your bookmarkers as you read. And if you care for naught else
+in the story, be a little pleased to breathe once more for a moment the
+airs of our youth.
+
+The End.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Wrecker, by
+Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
+
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Wrecker, Stevenson & Osbourne
+#38 in our series by Robert Louis Stevenson
+
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+The Wrecker
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+by Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
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+August, 1997 [Etext #1024]
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Wrecker, Stevenson & Osbourne
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+
+ PROLOGUE.
+
+
+IN THE MARQUESAS.
+
+It was about three o'clock of a winter's afternoon in
+Tai-o-hae, the French capital and port of entry of the
+Marquesas Islands.  The trades blew strong and squally;
+the surf roared loud on the shingle beach; and the fifty-ton 
+schooner of war, that carries the flag and influence of 
+France about the islands of the cannibal group, rolled at 
+her moorings under Prison Hill.  The clouds hung low and 
+black on the surrounding amphitheatre of mountains; rain 
+had fallen earlier in the day, real tropic rain, a waterspout 
+for violence; and the green and gloomy brow of the mountain
+was still seamed with many silver threads of torrent.
+
+In these hot and healthy islands winter is but a name.  The 
+rain had not refreshed, nor could the wind invigorate, the 
+dwellers of Tai-o-hae: away at one end, indeed, the
+commandant was directing some changes in the residency
+garden beyond Prison Hill; and the gardeners, being all
+convicts, had no choice but to continue to obey.  All other folks
+slumbered and took their rest: Vaekehu, the native queen, in
+her trim house under the rustling palms; the Tahitian
+commissary, in his beflagged official residence; the merchants,
+in their deserted stores; and even the club-servant in the club,
+his head fallen forward on the bottle-counter, under the map of
+the world and the cards of navy officers.  In the whole length of
+the single shoreside street, with its scattered board houses
+looking to the sea, its grateful shade of palms and green jungle
+of puraos, no moving figure could be seen.  Only, at the end of
+the rickety pier, that once (in the prosperous days of the
+American rebellion) was used to groan under the cotton of John
+Hart, there might have been spied upon a pile of lumber the
+famous tattooed white man, the living curiosity of Tai-o-hae.
+
+
+His eyes were open, staring down the bay.  He saw the
+mountains droop, as they approached the entrance, and break
+down in cliffs; the surf boil white round the two sentinel islets;
+and between, on the narrow bight of blue horizon, Ua-pu
+upraise the ghost of her pinnacled mountain tops.  But his mind
+would take no account of these familiar features; as he dodged
+in and out along the frontier line of sleep and waking, memory
+would serve him with broken fragments of the past: brown
+faces and white, of skipper and shipmate, king and chief,
+would arise before his mind and vanish; he would recall old
+voyages, old landfalls in the hour of dawn; he would hear again
+the drums beat for a man-eating festival; perhaps he would
+summon up the form of that island princess for the love of
+whom he had submitted his body to the cruel hands of the
+tattooer, and now sat on the lumber, at the pier-end of
+Tai-o-hae, so strange a figure of a European.  Or perhaps from
+yet further back, sounds and scents of England and his
+childhood might assail him: the merry clamour of cathedral
+bells, the broom upon the foreland, the song of the river on the
+weir.
+
+It is bold water at the mouth of the bay; you can steer a ship
+about either sentinel, close enough to toss a biscuit on the
+rocks.  Thus it chanced that, as the tattooed man sat dozing and
+dreaming, he was startled into wakefulness and animation by
+the appearance of a flying jib beyond the western islet.  Two
+more headsails followed; and before the tattooed man had
+scrambled to his feet, a topsail schooner, of some hundred tons,
+had luffed about the sentinel and was standing up the bay,
+close-hauled.
+
+The sleeping city awakened by enchantment.  Natives appeared
+upon all sides, hailing each other with the magic cry "Ehippy"
+--ship; the Queen stepped forth on her verandah, shading her
+eyes under a hand that was a miracle of the fine art of tattooing;
+the commandant broke from his domestic convicts and ran into
+the residency for his glass; the harbour master, who was also
+the gaoler, came speeding down the Prison Hill; the seventeen
+brown Kanakas and the French boatswain's mate, that make up
+the complement of the war-schooner, crowded on the forward
+deck; and the various English, Americans, Germans, Poles,
+Corsicans, and Scots--the merchants and the clerks of
+Tai-o-hae--deserted their places of business, and gathered,
+according to invariable custom, on the road before the club.
+
+So quickly did these dozen whites collect, so short are the
+distances in Tai-o-hae, that they were already exchanging
+guesses as to the nationality and business of the strange vessel,
+before she had gone about upon her second board towards the
+anchorage.  A moment after, English colours were broken out
+at the main truck.
+
+"I told you she was a Johnny Bull--knew it by her headsails,"
+said an evergreen old salt, still qualified (if he could anywhere
+have found an owner unacquainted with his story) to adorn
+another quarter-deck and lose another ship.
+
+"She has American lines, anyway," said the astute Scots
+engineer of the gin-mill; "it's my belief she's a yacht."
+
+"That's it," said the old salt, "a yacht! look at her davits, and the
+boat over the stern."
+
+"A yacht in your eye!" said a Glasgow voice.  "Look at her red
+ensign!  A yacht! not much she isn't!"
+
+"You can close the store, anyway, Tom," observed a
+gentlemanly German.  "Bon jour, mon Prince!" he added, as a
+dark, intelligent native cantered by on a neat chestnut.  "Vous
+allez boire un verre de biere?"
+
+But Prince Stanilas Moanatini, the only reasonably busy human
+creature on the island, was riding hot-spur to view this
+morning's landslip on the mountain road: the sun already
+visibly declined; night was imminent; and if he would avoid
+the perils of darkness and precipice, and the fear of the dead,
+the haunters of the jungle, he must for once decline a hospitable
+invitation.  Even had he been minded to alight, it presently
+appeared there would be difficulty as to the refreshment
+offered.
+
+"Beer!" cried the Glasgow voice.  "No such a thing; I tell you
+there's only eight bottles in the club! Here's the first time I've
+seen British colours in this port! and the man that sails under
+them has got to drink that beer."
+
+The proposal struck the public mind as fair, though far from
+cheering; for some time back, indeed, the very name of beer
+had been a sound of sorrow in the club, and the evenings had
+passed in dolorous computation.
+
+"Here is Havens," said one, as if welcoming a fresh topic.  
+"What do you think of her, Havens?"
+
+"I don't think," replied Havens, a tall, bland, cool-looking,
+leisurely Englishman, attired in spotless duck, and deliberately
+dealing with a cigarette.  "I may say I know.  She's consigned
+to me from Auckland by Donald & Edenborough.  I am on my
+way aboard."
+
+"What ship is she?" asked the ancient mariner.
+
+"Haven't an idea," returned Havens.  "Some tramp they have
+chartered."
+
+With that he placidly resumed his walk, and was soon seated in
+the stern-sheets of a whaleboat manned by uproarious Kanakas,
+himself daintily perched out of the way of the least maculation,
+giving his commands in an unobtrusive, dinner-table tone of
+voice, and sweeping neatly enough alongside the schooner.
+
+A weather-beaten captain received him at the gangway.
+
+"You are consigned to us, I think," said he.  "I am Mr. Havens."
+
+"That is right, sir," replied the captain, shaking hands.  "You
+will find the owner, Mr. Dodd, below.  Mind the fresh paint on
+the house."
+
+Havens stepped along the alley-way, and descended the ladder
+into the main cabin.
+
+"Mr. Dodd, I believe," said he, addressing a smallish, bearded
+gentleman, who sat writing at the table.  "Why," he cried, "it
+isn't Loudon Dodd?"
+
+"Myself, my dear fellow," replied Mr. Dodd, springing to his
+feet with companionable alacrity.  "I had a half-hope it might
+be you, when I found your name on the papers.  Well, there's no
+change in you; still the same placid, fresh-looking Britisher."
+
+"I can't return the compliment; for you seem to have become a
+Britisher yourself," said Havens.
+
+"I promise you, I am quite unchanged," returned Dodd.  "The
+red tablecloth at the top of the stick is not my flag; it's my
+partner's.  He is not dead, but sleepeth.  There he is," he added,
+pointing to a bust which formed one of the numerous
+unexpected ornaments of that unusual cabin.
+
+Havens politely studied it.  "A fine bust," said he; "and a very
+nice-looking fellow."
+
+"Yes; he's a good fellow," said Dodd.  "He runs me now.  It's
+all his money."
+
+"He doesn't seem to be particularly short of it," added the other,
+peering with growing wonder round the cabin.
+
+"His money, my taste," said Dodd.  "The black-walnut
+bookshelves are Old English; the books all mine,--mostly
+Renaissance French.  You should see how the beach-combers
+wilt away when they go round them looking for a change of
+Seaside Library novels.  The mirrors are genuine Venice; that's
+a good piece in the corner.  The daubs are mine--and his; the
+mudding mine."
+
+"Mudding? What is that?" asked Havens.
+
+"These bronzes," replied Dodd.  "I began life as a sculptor."
+
+"Yes; I remember something about that," said the other.  "I
+think, too, you said you were interested in Californian real
+estate."
+
+"Surely, I never went so far as that," said Dodd.  "Interested? I
+guess not.  Involved, perhaps.  I was born an artist; I never took
+an interest in anything but art.  If I were to pile up this old
+schooner to-morrow," he added, "I declare I believe I would try
+the thing again!"
+
+"Insured?" inquired Havens.
+
+"Yes," responded Dodd.  "There's some fool in 'Frisco who
+insures us, and comes down like a wolf on the fold on the
+profits; but we'll get even with him some day."
+
+"Well, I suppose it's all right about the cargo," said Havens.
+
+"O, I suppose so!" replied Dodd.  "Shall we go into the
+papers?"
+
+"We'll have all to-morrow, you know," said Havens; "and
+they'll be rather expecting you at the club.  C'est l'heure de
+l'absinthe.  Of course, Loudon, you'll dine with me later on?"
+
+Mr. Dodd signified his acquiescence; drew on his white coat,
+not without a trifling difficulty, for he was a man of middle age,
+and well-to-do; arranged his beard and moustaches at one of
+the Venetian mirrors; and, taking a broad felt hat, led the way
+through the trade-room into the ship's waist.
+
+The stern boat was waiting alongside,--a boat of an elegant
+model, with cushions and polished hard-wood fittings.
+
+"You steer," observed Loudon.  "You know the best place to
+land."
+
+"I never like to steer another man's boat," replied Havens.
+
+"Call it my partner's, and cry quits," returned Loudon, getting
+nonchalantly down the side.
+
+Havens followed and took the yoke lines without further
+protest.  "I am sure I don't know how you make this pay," he
+said.  "To begin with, she is too big for the trade, to my taste;
+and then you carry so much style."
+
+"I don't know that she does pay," returned Loudon.  "I never
+pretend to be a business man.  My partner appears happy; and
+the money is all his, as I told you--I only bring the want of
+business habits."
+
+"You rather like the berth, I suppose?" suggested Havens.
+
+"Yes," said Loudon; "it seems odd, but I rather do."
+
+While they were yet on board, the sun had dipped; the sunset
+gun (a rifle) cracked from the war-schooner, and the colours
+had been handed down.  Dusk was deepening as they came
+ashore; and the Cercle Internationale (as the club is officially
+and significantly named) began to shine, from under its low
+verandas, with the light of many lamps.  The good hours of the
+twenty-four drew on; the hateful, poisonous day-fly of
+Nukahiva, was beginning to desist from its activity; the
+land-breeze came in refreshing draughts; and the club men
+gathered together for the hour of absinthe.  To the commandant
+himself, to the man whom he was then contending with at
+billiards--a trader from the next island, honorary member of the
+club, and once carpenter's mate on board a Yankee war-ship--
+to the doctor of the port, to the Brigadier of Gendarmerie, to the
+opium farmer, and to all the white men whom the tide of
+commerce, or the chances of shipwreck and desertion, had
+stranded on the beach of Tai-o-hae, Mr. Loudon Dodd was
+formally presented; by all (since he was a man of pleasing
+exterior, smooth ways, and an unexceptionable flow of talk,
+whether in French or English) he was excellently well received;
+and presently, with one of the last eight bottles of beer on a
+table at his elbow, found himself the rather silent centre-piece
+of a voluble group on the verandah.
+
+Talk in the South Seas is all upon one pattern; it is a wide
+ocean, indeed, but a narrow world: you shall never talk long
+and not hear the name of Bully Hayes, a naval hero whose
+exploits and deserved extinction left Europe cold; commerce
+will be touched on, copra, shell, perhaps cotton or fungus; but
+in a far-away, dilettante fashion, as by men not deeply
+interested; through all, the names of schooners and their
+captains, will keep coming and going, thick as may-flies; and
+news of the last shipwreck will be placidly exchanged and
+debated.  To a stranger, this conversation will at first seem
+scarcely brilliant; but he will soon catch the tone; and by the
+time he shall have moved a year or so in the island world, and
+come across a good number of the schooners so that every
+captain's name calls up a figure in pyjamas or white duck, and
+becomes used to a certain laxity of moral tone which prevails
+(as in memory of Mr. Hayes) on smuggling, ship-scuttling,
+barratry, piracy, the labour trade, and other kindred fields of
+human activity, he will find Polynesia no less amusing and no
+less instructive than Pall Mall or Paris.
+
+Mr. Loudon Dodd, though he was new to the group of the
+Marquesas, was already an old, salted trader; he knew the
+ships and the captains; he had assisted, in other islands, at the
+first steps of some career of which he now heard the
+culmination, or (vice versa) he had brought with him from
+further south the end of some story which had begun in
+Tai-o-hae.  Among other matter of interest, like other arrivals in
+the South Seas, he had a wreck to announce.  The John T.
+Richards, it appeared, had met the fate of other island
+schooners.
+
+"Dickinson piled her up on Palmerston Island," Dodd
+announced.
+
+"Who were the owners?" inquired one of the club men.
+
+"O, the usual parties!" returned Loudon,--"Capsicum & Co."
+
+A smile and a glance of intelligence went round the group; and
+perhaps Loudon gave voice to the general sentiment by
+remarking, "Talk of good business! I know nothing better than
+a schooner, a competent captain, and a sound, reliable reef."
+
+"Good business! There's no such a thing!" said the Glasgow
+man.  "Nobody makes anything but the missionaries--dash it!"
+
+"I don't know," said another.  "There's a good deal in opium."
+
+"It's a good job to strike a tabooed pearl-island, say, about the
+fourth year," remarked a third; "skim the whole lagoon on the
+sly, and up stick and away before the French get wind of you."
+
+"A pig nokket of cold is good," observed a German.
+
+"There's something in wrecks, too," said Havens.  "Look at that
+man in Honolulu, and the ship that went ashore on Waikiki
+Reef; it was blowing a kona, hard; and she began to break up
+as soon as she touched.  Lloyd's agent had her sold inside an
+hour; and before dark, when she went to pieces in earnest, the
+man that bought her had feathered his nest.  Three more hours
+of daylight, and he might have retired from business.  As it
+was, he built a house on Beretania Street, and called it for the
+ship."
+
+"Yes, there's something in wrecks sometimes," said the
+Glasgow voice; "but not often."
+
+"As a general rule, there's deuced little in anything," said
+Havens.
+
+"Well, I believe that's a Christian fact," cried the other.  "What
+I want is a secret; get hold of a rich man by the right place, and
+make him squeal."
+
+"I suppose you know it's not thought to be the ticket," returned
+Havens.
+
+"I don't care for that; it's good enough for me," cried the man
+from Glasgow, stoutly.  "The only devil of it is, a fellow can
+never find a secret in a place like the South Seas: only in
+London and Paris."
+
+"M'Gibbon's been reading some dime-novel, I suppose," said
+one club man.
+
+"He's been reading _Aurora Floyd_," remarked another.
+
+"And what if I have?" cried M'Gibbon.  "It's all true.  Look at
+the newspapers! It's just your confounded ignorance that sets
+you snickering.  I tell you, it's as much a trade as underwriting,
+and a dashed sight more honest."
+
+The sudden acrimony of these remarks called Loudon (who
+was a man of peace) from his reserve.  "It's rather singular,"
+said he, "but I seem to have practised about all these means of
+livelihood."
+
+"Tit you effer vind a nokket?" inquired the inarticulate German,
+eagerly.
+
+"No.  I have been most kinds of fool in my time," returned
+Loudon, "but not the gold-digging variety.  Every man has a
+sane spot somewhere."
+
+"Well, then," suggested some one, "did you ever smuggle
+opium?"
+
+"Yes, I did," said Loudon.
+
+"Was there money in that?"
+
+"All the way," responded Loudon.
+
+"And perhaps you bought a wreck?" asked another.
+
+"Yes, sir," said Loudon.
+
+"How did that pan out?" pursued the questioner.
+
+"Well, mine was a peculiar kind of wreck," replied Loudon.  "I
+don't know, on the whole, that I can recommend that branch of
+industry."
+
+"Did she break up?" asked some one.
+
+"I guess it was rather I that broke down," says Loudon.  "Head
+not big enough."
+
+"Ever try the blackmail?" inquired Havens.
+
+"Simple as you see me sitting here!" responded Dodd.
+
+"Good business?"
+
+"Well, I'm not a lucky man, you see," returned the stranger.  "It
+ought to have been good."
+
+"You had a secret?" asked the Glasgow man.
+
+"As big as the State of Texas."
+
+"And the other man was rich?"
+
+"He wasn't exactly Jay Gould, but I guess he could buy these
+islands if he wanted."
+
+"Why, what was wrong, then? Couldn't you get hands on him?"
+
+"It took time, but I had him cornered at last; and then----"
+
+"What then?"
+
+"The speculation turned bottom up.  I became the man's bosom
+friend."
+
+"The deuce you did!"
+
+"He couldn't have been particular, you mean?" asked Dodd
+pleasantly.  "Well, no; he's a man of rather large sympathies."
+
+"If you're done talking nonsense, Loudon," said Havens, "let's
+be getting to my place for dinner."
+
+Outside, the night was full of the roaring of the surf.  Scattered
+lights glowed in the green thicket.  Native women came by
+twos and threes out of the darkness, smiled and ogled the two
+whites, perhaps wooed them with a strain of laughter, and went
+by again, bequeathing to the air a heady perfume of palm-oil
+and frangipani blossom.  From the club to Mr. Havens's
+residence was but a step or two, and to any dweller in Europe
+they must have seemed steps in fairyland.  If such an one could
+but have followed our two friends into the wide-verandahed
+house, sat down with them in the cool trellised room, where the
+wine shone on the lamp-lighted tablecloth; tasted of their exotic
+food--the raw fish, the breadfruit, the cooked bananas, the roast
+pig served with the inimitable miti, and that king of delicacies,
+palm-tree salad; seen and heard by fits and starts, now peering
+round the corner of the door, now railing within against
+invisible assistants, a certain comely young native lady in a
+sacque, who seemed too modest to be a member of the family,
+and too imperious to be less; and then if such an one were
+whisked again through space to Upper Tooting, or wherever
+else he honored the domestic gods, "I have had a dream," I
+think he would say, as he sat up, rubbing his eyes, in the
+familiar chimney-corner chair, "I have had a dream of a place,
+and I declare I believe it must be heaven." But to Dodd and his
+entertainer, all this amenity of the tropic night and all these
+dainties of the island table, were grown things of custom; and
+they fell to meat like men who were hungry, and drifted into
+idle talk like men who were a trifle bored.
+
+The scene in the club was referred to.
+
+"I never heard you talk so much nonsense, Loudon," said the
+host.
+
+"Well, it seemed to me there was sulphur in the air, so I talked
+for talking," returned the other.  "But it was none of it
+nonsense."
+
+"Do you mean to say it was true?" cried Havens,--"that about
+the opium and the wreck, and the blackmailing and the man
+who became your friend?"
+
+"Every last word of it," said Loudon.
+
+"You seem to have been seeing life," returned the other.
+
+"Yes, it's a queer yarn," said his friend; "if you think you would
+like, I'll tell it you."
+
+Here follows the yarn of Loudon Dodd, not as he told it to his
+friend, but as he subsequently wrote it.
+
+
+
+THE YARN.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+A SOUND COMMERCIAL EDUCATION.
+
+
+The beginning of this yarn is my poor father's character.  There
+never was a better man, nor a handsomer, nor (in my view) a
+more unhappy--unhappy in his business, in his pleasures, in his
+place of residence, and (I am sorry to say it) in his son.  He had
+begun life as a land-surveyor, soon became interested in real
+estate, branched off into many other speculations, and had the
+name of one of the smartest men in the State of Muskegon. 
+"Dodd has a big head," people used to say; but I was never so
+sure of his capacity.  His luck, at least, was beyond doubt for
+long; his assiduity, always.  He fought in that daily battle of
+money-grubbing, with a kind of sad-eyed loyalty like a
+martyr's; rose early, ate fast, came home dispirited and over-
+eary, even from success; grudged himself all pleasure, if his
+nature was capable of taking any, which I sometimes
+wondered; and laid out, upon some deal in wheat or corner in
+aluminium, the essence of which was little better than highway
+robbery, treasures of conscientiousness and self-denial.
+
+Unluckily, I never cared a cent for anything but art, and never
+shall.  My idea of man's chief end was to enrich the world with
+things of beauty, and have a fairly good time myself while
+doing so.  I do not think I mentioned that second part, which is
+the only one I have managed to carry out; but my father must
+have suspected the suppression, for he branded the whole affair
+as self-indulgence.
+
+"Well," I remember crying once, "and what is your life?  You
+are only trying to get money, and to get it from other people at
+that."
+
+He sighed bitterly (which was very much his habit), and shook
+his poor head at me.  "Ah, Loudon, Loudon!" said he, "you
+boys think yourselves very smart.  But, struggle as you please,
+a man has to work in this world.  He must be an honest man or
+a thief, Loudon."
+
+You can see for yourself how vain it was to argue with my
+father.  The despair that seized upon me after such an interview
+was, besides, embittered by remorse; for I was at times
+petulant, but he invariably gentle; and I was fighting, after all,
+for my own liberty and pleasure, he singly for what he thought
+to be my good.  And all the time he never despaired.  "There is
+good stuff in you, Loudon," he would say; "there is the right
+stuff in you.  Blood will tell, and you will come right in time.  I
+am not afraid my boy will ever disgrace me; I am only vexed he
+should sometimes talk nonsense." And then he would pat my
+shoulder or my hand with a kind of motherly way he had, very
+affecting in a man so strong and beautiful.
+
+As soon as I had graduated from the high school, he packed me
+off to the Muskegon Commercial Academy.  You are a
+foreigner, and you will have a difficulty in accepting the reality
+of this seat of education.  I assure you before I begin that I am
+wholly serious.  The place really existed, possibly exists to-day:
+we were proud of it in the State, as something exceptionally
+nineteenth century and civilized; and my father, when he saw
+me to the cars, no doubt considered he was putting me in a
+straight line for the Presidency and the New Jerusalem.
+
+"Loudon," said he, "I am now giving you a chance that Julius
+Caesar could not have given to his son--a chance to see life as
+it is, before your own turn comes to start in earnest.  Avoid rash
+speculation, try to behave like a gentleman; and if you will take
+my advice, confine yourself to a safe, conservative business in
+railroads.  Breadstuffs are tempting, but very dangerous; I
+would not try breadstuffs at your time of life; but you may feel
+your way a little in other commodities.  Take a pride to keep
+your books posted, and never throw good money after bad. 
+There, my dear boy, kiss me good-by; and never forget that
+you are an only chick, and that your dad watches your career
+with fond suspense."
+
+The commercial college was a fine, roomy establishment,
+pleasantly situate among woods.  The air was healthy, the food
+excellent, the premium high.  Electric wires connected it (to use
+the words of the prospectus) with "the various world centres."
+The reading-room was well supplied with "commercial
+organs." The talk was that of Wall Street; and the pupils (from
+fifty to a hundred lads) were principally engaged in rooking or
+trying to rook one another for nominal sums in what was called
+"college paper." We had class hours, indeed, in the morning,
+when we studied German, French, book-keeping, and the like
+goodly matters; but the bulk of our day and the gist of the
+education centred in the exchange, where we were taught to
+gamble in produce and securities.  Since not one of the
+participants possessed a bushel of wheat or a dollar's worth of
+stock, legitimate business was of course impossible from the
+beginning.  It was cold-drawn gambling, without colour or
+disguise.  Just that which is the impediment and destruction of
+all genuine commercial enterprise, just that we were taught
+with every luxury of stage effect.  Our simulacrum of a market
+was ruled by the real markets outside, so that we might
+experience the course and vicissitude of prices.  We must keep
+books, and our ledgers were overhauled at the month's end by
+the principal or his assistants.  To add a spice of verisimilitude,
+"college paper" (like poker chips) had an actual marketable
+value.  It was bought for each pupil by anxious parents and
+guardians at the rate of one cent for the dollar.  The same pupil,
+when his education was complete, resold, at the same figure,
+so much as was left him to the college; and even in the midst of
+his curriculum, a successful operator would sometimes realize
+a proportion of his holding, and stand a supper on the sly in the
+neighbouring hamlet.  In short, if there was ever a worse
+education, it must have been in that academy where Oliver met
+Charlie Bates.
+
+When I was first guided into the exchange to have my desk
+pointed out by one of the assistant teachers, I was overwhelmed
+by the clamour and confusion.  Certain blackboards at the other
+end of the building were covered with figures continually
+replaced.  As each new set appeared, the pupils swayed to and
+fro, and roared out aloud with a formidable and to me quite
+meaningless vociferation; leaping at the same time upon the
+desks and benches, signalling with arms and heads, and
+scribbling briskly in note-books.  I thought I had never beheld a
+scene more disagreeable; and when I considered that the whole
+traffic was illusory, and all the money then upon the market
+would scarce have sufficed to buy a pair of skates, I was at first
+astonished, although not for long.  Indeed, I had no sooner
+called to mind how grown-up men and women of considerable
+estate will lose their temper about half-penny points, than
+(making an immediate allowance for my fellow-students) I
+transferred the whole of my astonishment to the assistant
+teacher, who--poor gentleman--had quite forgot to show me to
+my desk, and stood in the midst of this hurly-burly, absorbed
+and seemingly transported.
+
+"Look, look," he shouted in my ear; "a falling market!  The
+bears have had it all their own way since yesterday."
+
+"It can't matter," I replied, making him hear with difficulty, for
+I was unused to speak in such a babel, "since it is all fun."
+
+"True," said he; "and you must always bear in mind that the
+real profit is in the book-keeping.  I trust, Dodd, to be able to
+congratulate you upon your books.  You are to start in with ten
+thousand dollars of college paper, a very liberal figure, which
+should see you through the whole curriculum, if you keep to a
+safe, conservative business....  Why, what's that?" he broke off,
+once more attracted by the changing figures on the board.
+"Seven, four, three! Dodd, you are in luck: this is the most
+spirited rally we have had this term.  And to think that the
+same scene is now transpiring in New York, Chicago, St.
+Louis, and rival business centres!  For two cents, I would try a
+flutter with the boys myself," he cried, rubbing his hands; "only
+it's against the regulations."
+
+"What would you do, sir?" I asked.
+
+"Do?" he cried, with glittering eyes.  "Buy for all I was worth!"
+
+"Would that be a safe, conservative business?" I inquired, as
+innocent as a lamb.
+
+He looked daggers at me.  "See that sandy-haired man in
+glasses?" he asked, as if to change the subject.  "That's Billson,
+our most prominent undergraduate.  We build confidently on
+Billson's future.  You could not do better, Dodd, than follow
+Billson."
+
+Presently after, in the midst of a still growing tumult, the
+figures coming and going more busily than ever on the board,
+and the hall resounding like Pandemonium with the howls of
+operators, the assistant teacher left me to my own resources at
+my desk.  The next boy was posting up his ledger, figuring his
+morning's loss, as I discovered later on; and from this ungenial
+task he was readily diverted by the sight of a new face.
+
+"Say, Freshman," he said, "what's your name? What?  Son of
+Big Head Dodd?  What's your figure?  Ten thousand?  O,
+you're away up!  What a soft-headed clam you must be to touch
+your books!"
+
+I asked him what else I could do, since the books were to be
+examined once a month.
+
+"Why, you galoot, you get a clerk!" cries he.  "One of our dead
+beats--that's all they're here for.  If you're a successful operator,
+you need never do a stroke of work in this old college."
+
+The noise had now become deafening; and my new friend,
+telling me that some one had certainly "gone down," that he
+must know the news, and that he would bring me a clerk when
+he returned, buttoned his coat and plunged into the tossing
+throng.  It proved that he was right: some one had gone down;
+a prince had fallen in Israel; the corner in lard had proved fatal
+to the mighty; and the clerk who was brought back to keep my
+books, spare me all work, and get all my share of the education,
+at a thousand dollars a month, college paper (ten dollars,
+United States currency) was no other than the prominent
+Billson whom I could do no better than follow.  The poor lad
+was very unhappy.  It's the only good thing I have to say for
+Muskegon Commercial College, that we were all, even the
+small fry, deeply mortified to be posted as defaulters; and the
+collapse of a merchant prince like Billson, who had ridden
+pretty high in his days of prosperity, was, of course, particularly
+hard to bear.  But the spirit of make-believe conquered even the
+bitterness of recent shame; and my clerk took his orders, and
+fell to his new duties, with decorum and civility.
+
+Such were my first impressions in this absurd place of
+education; and, to be frank, they were far from disagreeable. 
+As long as I was rich, my evenings and afternoons would be
+my own; the clerk must keep my books, the clerk could do the
+jostling and bawling in the exchange; and I could turn my mind
+to landscape-painting and Balzac's novels, which were then my
+two preoccupations.  To remain rich, then, became my
+problem; or, in other words, to do a safe, conservative line of
+business.  I am looking for that line still; and I believe the
+nearest thing to it in this imperfect world is the sort of
+speculation sometimes insidiously proposed to childhood, in
+the formula, "Heads, I win; tails, you lose." Mindful of my
+father's parting words, I turned my attention timidly to
+railroads; and for a month or so maintained a position of
+inglorious security, dealing for small amounts in the most inert
+stocks, and bearing (as best I could) the scorn of my hired
+clerk.  One day I had ventured a little further by way of
+experiment; and, in the sure expectation they would continue to
+go down, sold several thousand dollars of Pan-Handle
+Preference (I think it was).  I had no sooner made this venture
+than some fools in New York began to bull the market;
+Pan-Handles rose like a balloon; and in the inside of half an
+hour I saw my position compromised.  Blood will tell, as my
+father said; and I stuck to it gallantly: all afternoon I continued
+selling that infernal stock, all afternoon it continued skying.  I
+suppose I had come (a frail cockle-shell) athwart the hawse of
+Jay Gould; and, indeed, I think I remember that this vagary in
+the market proved subsequently to be the first move in a
+considerable deal.  That evening, at least, the name of H.
+Loudon Dodd held the first rank in our collegiate gazette, and I
+and Billson (once more thrown upon the world) were
+competing for the same clerkship.  The present object takes the
+present eye.  My disaster, for the moment, was the more
+conspicuous; and it was I that got the situation.  So you see,
+even in Muskegon Commercial College, there were lessons to
+be learned.
+
+For my own part, I cared very little whether I lost or won at a
+game so random, so complex, and so dull; but it was sorry
+news to write to my poor father, and I employed all the
+resources of my eloquence.  I told him (what was the truth) that
+the successful boys had none of the education; so that if he
+wished me to learn, he should rejoice at my misfortune.  I went
+on (not very consistently) to beg him to set me up again, when I
+would solemnly promise to do a safe business in reliable
+railroads.  Lastly (becoming somewhat carried away), I assured
+him I was totally unfit for business, and implored him to take
+me away from this abominable place, and let me go to Paris to
+study art.  He answered briefly, gently, and sadly, telling me
+the vacation was near at hand, when we could talk things over.
+
+When the time came, he met me at the depot, and I was
+shocked to see him looking older.  He seemed to have no
+thought but to console me and restore (what he supposed I had
+lost) my courage.  I must not be down-hearted; many of the
+best men had made a failure in the beginning.  I told him I had
+no head for business, and his kind face darkened.  "You must
+not say that, Loudon," he replied; "I will never believe my son
+to be a coward."
+
+"But I don't like it," I pleaded.  "It hasn't got any interest for
+me, and art has.  I know I could do more in art," and I
+reminded him that a successful painter gains large sums; that a
+picture of Meissonier's would sell for many thousand dollars.
+
+"And do you think, Loudon," he replied, "that a man who can
+paint a thousand dollar picture has not grit enough to keep his
+end up in the stock market? No, sir; this Mason (of whom you
+speak) or our own American Bierstadt--if you were to put them
+down in a wheat pit to-morrow, they would show their mettle. 
+Come, Loudon, my dear; heaven knows I have no thought but
+your own good, and I will offer you a bargain.  I start you again
+next term with ten thousand dollars; show yourself a man, and
+double it, and then (if you still wish to go to Paris, which I
+know you won't) I'll let you go.  But to let you run away as if
+you were whipped, is what I am too proud to do."
+
+My heart leaped at this proposal, and then sank again.  It
+seemed easier to paint a Meissonier on the spot than to win ten
+thousand dollars on that mimic stock exchange.  Nor could I
+help reflecting on the singularity of such a test for a man's
+capacity to be a painter.  I ventured even to comment on this.
+
+He sighed deeply.  "You forget, my dear," said he, "I am a
+judge of the one, and not of the other.  You might have the
+genius of Bierstadt himself, and I would be none the wiser."
+
+"And then," I continued, "it's scarcely fair.  The other boys are
+helped by their people, who telegraph and give them pointers. 
+There's Jim Costello, who never budges without a word from
+his father in New York.  And then, don't you see, if anybody is
+to win, somebody must lose?"
+
+"I'll keep you posted," cried my father, with unusual animation;
+"I did not know it was allowed.  I'll wire you in the office
+cipher, and we'll make it a kind of partnership business,
+Loudon:--Dodd & Son, eh?" and he patted my shoulder and
+repeated, "Dodd & Son, Dodd & Son," with the kindliest
+amusement.
+
+If my father was to give me pointers, and the commercial
+college was to be a stepping-stone to Paris, I could look my
+future in the face.  The old boy, too, was so pleased at the idea
+of our association in this foolery that he immediately plucked
+up spirit.  Thus it befell that those who had met at the depot
+like a pair of mutes, sat down to table with holiday faces.
+
+And now I have to introduce a new character that never said a
+word nor wagged a finger, and yet shaped my whole
+subsequent career.  You have crossed the States, so that in all
+likelihood you have seen the head of it, parcel-gilt and
+curiously fluted, rising among trees from a wide plain; for this
+new character was no other than the State capitol of Muskegon,
+then first projected.  My father had embraced the idea with a
+mixture of patriotism and commercial greed both perfectly
+genuine.  He was of all the committees, he had subscribed a
+great deal of money, and he was making arrangements to have
+a finger in most of the contracts.  Competitive plans had been
+sent in; at the time of my return from college my father was
+deep in their consideration; and as the idea entirely occupied
+his mind, the first evening did not pass away before he had
+called me into council.  Here was a subject at last into which I
+could throw myself with pleasurable zeal.  Architecture was
+new to me, indeed; but it was at least an art; and for all the arts
+I had a taste naturally classical and that capacity to take
+delighted pains which some famous idiot has supposed to be
+synonymous with genius.  I threw myself headlong into my
+father's work, acquainted myself with all the plans, their merits
+and defects, read besides in special books, made myself a
+master of the theory of strains, studied the current prices of
+materials, and (in one word) "devilled" the whole business so
+thoroughly, that when the plans came up for consideration, Big
+Head Dodd was supposed to have earned fresh laurels.  His
+arguments carried the day, his choice was approved by the
+committee, and I had the anonymous satisfaction to know that
+arguments and choice were wholly mine.  In the recasting of
+the plan which followed, my part was even larger; for I
+designed and cast with my own hand a hot-air grating for the
+offices, which had the luck or merit to be accepted.  The energy
+and aptitude which I displayed throughout delighted and
+surprised my father, and I believe, although I say it whose
+tongue should be tied, that they alone prevented Muskegon
+capitol from being the eyesore of my native State.
+
+Altogether, I was in a cheery frame of mind when I returned to
+the commercial college; and my earlier operations were
+crowned with a full measure of success.  My father wrote and
+wired to me continually.  "You are to exercise your own
+judgment, Loudon," he would say.  "All that I do is to give you
+the figures; but whatever operation you take up must be upon
+your own responsibility, and whatever you earn will be entirely
+due to your own dash and forethought." For all that, it was
+always clear what he intended me to do, and I was always
+careful to do it.  Inside of a month I was at the head of
+seventeen or eighteen thousand dollars, college paper.  And
+here I fell a victim to one of the vices of the system.  The paper
+(I have already explained) had a real value of one per cent; and
+cost, and could be sold for, currency.  Unsuccessful speculators
+were thus always selling clothes, books, banjos, and sleeve-
+links, in order to pay their differences; the successful, on the
+other hand, were often tempted to realise, and enjoy some
+return upon their profits.  Now I wanted thirty dollars' worth of
+artist-truck, for I was always sketching in the woods; my
+allowance was for the time exhausted; I had begun to regard
+the exchange (with my father's help) as a place where money
+was to be got for stooping; and in an evil hour I realised three
+thousand dollars of the college paper and bought my easel.
+
+It was a Wednesday morning when the things arrived, and set
+me in the seventh heaven of satisfaction.  My father (for I can
+scarcely say myself) was trying at this time a "straddle" in
+wheat between Chicago and New York; the operation so called
+is, as you know, one of the most tempting and least safe upon
+the chess-board of finance.  On the Thursday, luck began to
+turn against my father's calculations; and by the Friday
+evening, I was posted on the boards as a defaulter for the
+second time.  Here was a rude blow: my father would have
+taken it ill enough in any case; for however much a man may
+resent the incapacity of an only son, he will feel his own more
+sensibly.  But it chanced that, in our bitter cup of failure, there
+was one ingredient that might truly be called poisonous.  He
+had been keeping the run of my position; he missed the three
+thousand dollars, paper; and in his view, I had stolen thirty
+dollars, currency.  It was an extreme view perhaps; but in some
+senses, it was just: and my father, although (to my judgment)
+quite reckless of honesty in the essence of his operations, was
+the soul of honour as to their details.  I had one grieved letter
+from him, dignified and tender; and during the rest of that
+wretched term, working as a clerk, selling my clothes and
+sketches to make futile speculations, my dream of Paris quite
+vanished.  I was cheered by no word of kindness and helped by
+no hint of counsel from my father.
+
+All the time he was no doubt thinking of little else but his son,
+and what to do with him.  I believe he had been really appalled
+by what he regarded as my laxity of principle, and began to
+think it might be well to preserve me from temptation; the
+architect of the capitol had, besides, spoken obligingly of my
+design; and while he was thus hanging between two minds,
+Fortune suddenly stepped in, and Muskegon State capitol
+reversed my destiny.
+
+"Loudon," said my father, as he met me at the depot, with a
+smiling countenance, "if you were to go to Paris, how long
+would it take you to become an experienced sculptor?"
+
+"How do you mean, father?" I cried.  "Experienced?"
+
+"A man that could be entrusted with the highest styles," he
+answered; "the nude, for instance; and the patriotic and
+emblematical styles."
+
+"It might take three years," I replied.
+
+"You think Paris necessary?" he asked.  "There are great
+advantages in our own country; and that man Prodgers appears
+to be a very clever sculptor, though I suppose he stands too
+high to go around giving lessons."
+
+"Paris is the only place," I assured him.
+
+"Well, I think myself it will sound better," he admitted.  "A
+Young Man, a Native of this State, Son of a Leading Citizen,
+Studies Prosecuted under the Most Experienced Masters in
+Paris," he added, relishingly.
+
+"But, my dear dad, what is it all about?" I interrupted.  "I never
+even dreamed of being a sculptor."
+
+"Well, here it is," said he.  "I took up the statuary contract on
+our new capitol; I took it up at first as a deal; and then it
+occurred to me it would be better to keep it in the family.  It
+meets your idea; there's considerable money in the thing; and
+it's patriotic.  So, if you say the word, you shall go to Paris, and 
+come back in three years to decorate the capitol of your native
+State.  It's a big chance for you, Loudon; and I'll tell you what--
+every dollar you earn, I'll put another alongside of it.  But the
+sooner you go, and the harder you work, the better; for if the
+first half-dozen statues aren't in a line with public taste in
+Muskegon, there will be trouble."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+ROUSSILLON WINE.
+
+
+My mother's family was Scotch, and it was judged fitting I
+should pay a visit on my way Paris-ward, to my Uncle Adam
+Loudon, a wealthy retired grocer of Edinburgh.  He was very
+stiff and very ironical; he fed me well, lodged me sumptuously,
+and seemed to take it out of me all the time, cent per cent, in
+secret entertainment which caused his spectacles to glitter and
+his mouth to twitch.  The ground of this ill-suppressed mirth
+(as well as I could make out) was simply the fact that I was an
+American.  "Well," he would say, drawing out the word to
+infinity, "and I suppose now in your country, things will be so
+and so."  And the whole group of my cousins would titter
+joyously.  Repeated receptions of this sort must be at the root, I
+suppose, of what they call the Great American Jest; and I know
+I was myself goaded into saying that my friends went naked in
+the summer months, and that the Second Methodist Episcopal
+Church in Muskegon was decorated with scalps.  I cannot say
+that these flights had any great success; they seemed to awaken
+little more surprise than the fact that my father was a
+Republican or that I had been taught in school to spell
+COLOUR without the U.  If I had told them (what was after all
+the truth) that my father had paid a considerable annual sum to
+have me brought up in a gambling hell, the tittering and
+grinning of this dreadful family might perhaps have been
+excused.
+
+I cannot deny but I was sometimes tempted to knock my Uncle
+Adam down; and indeed I believe it must have come to a
+rupture at last, if they had not given a dinner party at which I
+was the lion.  On this occasion, I learned (to my surprise and
+relief) that the incivility to which I had been subjected was a
+matter for the family circle and might be regarded almost in the
+light of an endearment.  To strangers I was presented with
+consideration; and the account given of "my American brother-
+in-law, poor Janie's man, James K. Dodd, the well-known
+millionnaire of Muskegon," was calculated to enlarge the heart
+of a proud son.
+
+An aged assistant of my grandfather's, a pleasant, humble
+creature with a taste for whiskey, was at first deputed to be my
+guide about the city.  With this harmless but hardly aristocratic
+companion, I went to Arthur's Seat and the Calton Hill, heard
+the band play in the Princes Street Gardens, inspected the
+regalia and the blood of Rizzio, and fell in love with the great
+castle on its cliff, the innumerable spires of churches, the
+stately buildings, the broad prospects, and those narrow and
+crowded lanes of the old town where my ancestors had lived
+and died in the days before Columbus.
+
+But there was another curiosity that interested me more deeply
+--my grandfather, Alexander Loudon.  In his time, the old
+gentleman had been a working mason, and had risen from the
+ranks more, I think, by shrewdness than by merit.  In his
+appearance, speech, and manners, he bore broad marks of his
+origin, which were gall and wormwood to my Uncle Adam.
+His nails, in spite of anxious supervision, were often in
+conspicuous mourning; his clothes hung about him in bags and 
+wrinkles like a ploughman's Sunday coat; his accent was rude,
+broad, and dragging:  take him at his best, and even when he
+could be induced to hold his tongue, his mere presence in a
+corner of the drawing-room, with his open-air wrinkles, his
+scanty hair, his battered hands, and the cheerful craftiness of
+his expression, advertised the whole gang of us for a self-made
+family.  My aunt might mince and my cousins bridle; but there 
+was no getting over the solid, physical fact of the stonemason
+in the chimney-corner.
+
+That is one advantage of being an American:  it never occurred
+to me to be ashamed of my grandfather, and the old gentleman
+was quick to mark the difference.  He held my mother in tender
+memory, perhaps because he was in the habit of daily
+contrasting her with Uncle Adam, whom he detested to the
+point of frenzy; and he set down to inheritance from his
+favourite my own becoming treatment of himself.  On our
+walks abroad, which soon became daily, he would sometimes
+(after duly warning me to keep the matter dark from "Aadam")
+skulk into some old familiar pot-house; and there (if he had the
+luck to encounter any of his veteran cronies) he would present
+me to the company with manifest pride, casting at the same
+time a covert slur on the rest of his descendants.  "This is my
+Jeannie's yin," he would say.  "He's a fine fallow, him." The
+purpose of our excursions was not to seek antiquities or to
+enjoy famous prospects, but to visit one after another a series of
+doleful suburbs, for which it was the old gentleman's chief
+claim to renown that he had been the sole contractor, and too
+often the architect besides.  I have rarely seen a more shocking
+exhibition:  the bricks seemed to be blushing in the walls, and
+the slates on the roof to have turned pale with shame; but I was
+careful not to communicate these impressions to the aged
+artificer at my side; and when he would direct my attention to
+some fresh monstrosity--perhaps with the comment, "There's an
+idee of mine's:  it's cheap and tasty, and had a graand run; the
+idee was soon stole, and there's whole deestricts near Glesgie
+with the goathic adeetion and that plunth,"--I would civilly
+make haste to admire and (what I found particularly delighted
+him) to inquire into the cost of each adornment.  It will be
+conceived that Muskegon capitol was a frequent and a
+welcome ground of talk; I drew him all the plans from memory;
+and he, with the aid of a narrow volume full of figures and
+tables, which answered (I believe) to the name of Molesworth,
+and was his constant pocket companion, would draw up rough
+estimates and make imaginary offers on the various contracts. 
+Our Muskegon builders he pronounced a pack of cormorants;
+and the congenial subject, together with my knowledge of
+architectural terms, the theory of strains, and the prices of
+materials in the States, formed a strong bond of union between
+what might have been otherwise an ill-assorted pair, and led
+my grandfather to pronounce me, with emphasis, "a real
+intalligent kind of a cheild." Thus a second time, as you will
+presently see, the capitol of my native State had influentially
+affected the current of my life.
+
+I left Edinburgh, however, with not the least idea that I had
+done a stroke of excellent business for myself, and singly
+delighted to escape out of a somewhat dreary house and plunge
+instead into the rainbow city of Paris.  Every man has his own
+romance; mine clustered exclusively about the practice of the
+arts, the life of Latin Quarter students, and the world of Paris as 
+depicted by that grimy wizard, the author of the _Comedie
+Humaine_.  I was not disappointed--I could not have been; for I
+did not see the facts, I brought them with me ready-made.  Z.
+Marcas lived next door to me in my ungainly, ill-smelling hotel
+of the Rue Racine; I dined at my villainous restaurant with
+Lousteau and with Rastignac:  if a curricle nearly ran me down
+at a street-crossing, Maxime de Trailles would be the driver.  I
+dined, I say, at a poor restaurant and lived in a poor hotel; and
+this was not from need, but sentiment.  My father gave me a
+profuse allowance, and I might have lived (had I chosen) in the
+Quartier de l'Etoile and driven to my studies daily.  Had I done
+so, the glamour must have fled:  I should still have been but
+Loudon Dodd; whereas now I was a Latin Quarter student,
+Murger's successor, living in flesh and blood the life of one of
+those romances I had loved to read, to re-read, and to dream
+over, among the woods of Muskegon.
+
+At this time we were all a little Murger-mad in the Latin
+Quarter.  The play of the _Vie de Boheme_ (a dreary, snivelling
+piece) had been produced at the Odeon, had run an
+unconscionable time--for Paris, and revived the freshness of the
+legend.  The same business, you may say, or there and
+thereabout, was being privately enacted in consequence in
+every garret of the neighbourhood, and a good third of the
+students were consciously impersonating Rodolphe or
+Schaunard to their own incommunicable satisfaction.  Some of
+us went far, and some farther.  I always looked with awful envy
+(for instance) on a certain countryman of my own who had a
+studio in the Rue Monsieur le Prince, wore boots, and long hair
+in a net, and could be seen tramping off, in this guise, to the
+worst eating-house of the quarter, followed by a Corsican
+model, his mistress, in the conspicuous costume of her race and
+calling.  It takes some greatness of soul to carry even folly to
+such heights as these; and for my own part, I had to content
+myself by pretending very arduously to be poor, by wearing a
+smoking-cap on the streets, and by pursuing, through a series
+of misadventures, that extinct mammal, the grisette.  The most
+grievous part was the eating and the drinking.  I was born with
+a dainty tooth and a palate for wine; and only a genuine
+devotion to romance could have supported me under the cat-
+civets that I had to swallow, and the red ink of Bercy I must
+wash them down withal.  Every now and again, after a hard
+day at the studio, where I was steadily and far from
+unsuccessfully industrious, a wave of distaste would overbear
+me; I would slink away from my haunts and companions,
+indemnify myself for weeks of self-denial with fine wines and
+dainty dishes; seated perhaps on a terrace, perhaps in an arbour
+in a garden, with a volume of one of my favourite authors
+propped open in front of me, and now consulted awhile, and
+now forgotten:--so remain, relishing my situation, till night fell
+and the lights of the city kindled; and thence stroll homeward
+by the riverside, under the moon or stars, in a heaven of poetry
+and digestion.
+
+One such indulgence led me in the course of my second year
+into an adventure which I must relate: indeed, it is the very
+point I have been aiming for, since that was what brought me
+in acquaintance with Jim Pinkerton.  I sat down alone to dinner
+one October day when the rusty leaves were falling and
+scuttling on the boulevard, and the minds of impressionable
+men inclined in about an equal degree towards sadness and
+conviviality.  The restaurant was no great place, but boasted a
+considerable cellar and a long printed list of vintages.  This I
+was perusing with the double zest of a man who is fond of
+wine and a lover of beautiful names, when my eye fell (near the
+end of the card) on that not very famous or familiar brand,
+Roussillon.  I remembered it was a wine I had never tasted,
+ordered a bottle, found it excellent, and when I had discussed
+the contents, called (according to my habit) for a final pint.  It
+appears they did not keep Roussillon in half-bottles.  "All
+right," said I.  "Another bottle."  The tables at this eating-house
+are close together; and the next thing I can remember, I was in
+somewhat loud conversation with my nearest neighbours.  
+From these I must have gradually extended my attentions; for I
+have a clear recollection of gazing about a room in which every
+chair was half turned round and every face turned smilingly to
+mine.  I can even remember what I was saying at the moment;
+but after twenty years, the embers of shame are still alive; and I
+prefer to give your imagination the cue, by simply mentioning
+that my muse was the patriotic.  It had been my design to
+adjourn for coffee in the company of some of these new friends;
+but I was no sooner on the sidewalk than I found myself
+unaccountably alone.  The circumstance scarce surprised me at
+the time, much less now; but I was somewhat chagrined a little
+after to find I had walked into a kiosque.  I began to wonder if I
+were any the worse for my last bottle, and decided to steady
+myself with coffee and brandy.  In the Cafe de la Source, where
+I went for this restorative, the fountain was playing, and (what
+greatly surprised me) the mill and the various mechanical
+figures on the rockery appeared to have been freshly repaired
+and performed the most enchanting antics.  The cafe was
+extraordinarily hot and bright, with every detail of a
+conspicuous clearness, from the faces of the guests to the type
+of the newspapers on the tables, and the whole apartment
+swang to and fro like a hammock, with an exhilarating motion. 
+For some while I was so extremely pleased with these
+particulars that I thought I could never be weary of beholding
+them:  then dropped of a sudden into a causeless sadness; and
+then, with the same swiftness and spontaneity, arrived at the
+conclusion that I was drunk and had better get to bed.
+
+It was but a step or two to my hotel, where I got my lighted
+candle from the porter and mounted the four flights to my own
+room.  Although I could not deny that I was drunk, I was at the
+same time lucidly rational and practical.  I had but one
+preoccupation--to be up in time on the morrow for my work;
+and when I observed the clock on my chimney-piece to have
+stopped, I decided to go down stairs again and give directions
+to the porter.  Leaving the candle burning and my door open, to
+be a guide to me on my return, I set forth accordingly.  The
+house was quite dark; but as there were only the three doors on
+each landing, it was impossible to wander, and I had nothing to
+do but descend the stairs until I saw the glimmer of the porter's
+night light.  I counted four flights: no porter.  It was possible, of
+course, that I had reckoned incorrectly; so I went down another
+and another, and another, still counting as I went, until I had
+reached the preposterous figure of nine flights.  It was now
+quite clear that I had somehow passed the porter's lodge
+without remarking it; indeed, I was, at the lowest figure, five
+pairs of stairs below the street, and plunged in the very bowels
+of the earth.  That my hotel should thus be founded upon
+catacombs was a discovery of considerable interest; and if I had
+not been in a frame of mind entirely businesslike, I might have
+continued to explore all night this subterranean empire.  But I
+was bound I must be up betimes on the next morning, and for
+that end it was imperative that I should find the porter.  I faced
+about accordingly, and counting with painful care, remounted
+towards the level of the street.  Five, six, and seven flights I
+climbed, and still there was no porter.  I began to be weary of
+the job, and reflecting that I was now close to my own room,
+decided I should go to bed.  Eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve,
+thirteen flights I mounted; and my open door seemed to be as
+wholly lost to me as the porter and his floating dip.  I
+remembered that the house stood but six stories at its highest
+point, from which it appeared (on the most moderate
+computation) I was now three stories higher than the roof.  My
+original sense of amusement was succeeded by a not unnatural
+irritation.  "My room has just GOT to be here," said I, and I
+stepped towards the door with outspread arms.  There was no
+door and no wall; in place of either there yawned before me a
+dark corridor, in which I continued to advance for some time
+without encountering the smallest opposition.  And this in a
+house whose extreme area scantily contained three small
+rooms, a narrow landing, and the stair!  The thing was
+manifestly nonsense; and you will scarcely be surprised to learn
+that I now began to lose my temper.  At this juncture I
+perceived a filtering of light along the floor, stretched forth my
+hand which encountered the knob of a door-handle, and
+without further ceremony entered a room.  A young lady was
+within; she was going to bed, and her toilet was far advanced,
+or the other way about, if you prefer.
+
+"I hope you will pardon this intrusion," said I; "but my room is
+No. 12, and something has gone wrong with this blamed
+house."
+
+She looked at me a moment; and then, "If you will step outside
+for a moment, I will take you there," says she.
+
+Thus, with perfect composure on both sides, the matter was
+arranged.  I waited a while outside her door.  Presently she
+rejoined me, in a dressing-gown, took my hand, led me up
+another flight, which made the fourth above the level of the
+roof, and shut me into my own room, where (being quite weary
+after these contraordinary explorations) I turned in, and
+slumbered like a child.
+
+I tell you the thing calmly, as it appeared to me to pass; but the
+next day, when I awoke and put memory in the witness-box, I
+could not conceal from myself that the tale presented a good
+many improbable features.  I had no mind for the studio, after
+all, and went instead to the Luxembourg gardens, there, among
+the sparrows and the statues and the falling leaves, to cool and
+clear my head.  It is a garden I have always loved.  You sit
+there in a public place of history and fiction.  Barras and
+Fouche have looked from these windows.  Lousteau and de
+Banville (one as real as the other) have rhymed upon these
+benches.  The city tramples by without the railings to a lively
+measure; and within and about you, trees rustle, children and
+sparrows utter their small cries, and the statues look on forever. 
+Here, then, in a seat opposite the gallery entrance, I set to work
+on the events of the last night, to disengage (if it were possible)
+truth from fiction.
+
+The house, by daylight, had proved to be six stories high, the
+same as ever.  I could find, with all my architectural
+experience, no room in its altitude for those interminable
+stairways, no width between its walls for that long corridor,
+where I had tramped at night.  And there was yet a greater
+difficulty.  I had read somewhere an aphorism that everything
+may be false to itself save human nature.  A house might
+elongate or enlarge itself--or seem to do so to a gentleman who
+had been dining.  The ocean might dry up, the rocks melt in the
+sun, the stars fall from heaven like autumn apples; and there
+was nothing in these incidents to boggle the philosopher.  But
+the case of the young lady stood upon a different foundation. 
+Girls were not good enough, or not good that way, or else they
+were too good.  I was ready to accept any of these views: all
+pointed to the same conclusion, which I was thus already on
+the point of reaching, when a fresh argument occurred, and
+instantly confirmed it.  I could remember the exact words we
+had each said; and I had spoken, and she had replied, in
+English.  Plainly, then, the whole affair was an illusion:
+catacombs, and stairs, and charitable lady, all were equally the
+stuff of dreams.
+
+I had just come to this determination, when there blew a flaw
+of wind through the autumnal gardens; the dead leaves
+showered down, and a flight of sparrows, thick as a snowfall,
+wheeled above my head with sudden pipings.  This agreeable
+bustle was the affair of a moment, but it startled me from the
+abstraction into which I had fallen like a summons.  I sat
+briskly up, and as I did so, my eyes rested on the figure of a
+lady in a brown jacket and carrying a paint-box.  By her side
+walked a fellow some years older than myself, with an easel
+under his arm; and alike by their course and cargo I might
+judge they were bound for the gallery, where the lady was,
+doubtless, engaged upon some copying.  You can imagine my
+surprise when I recognized in her the heroine of my adventure. 
+To put the matter beyond question, our eyes met, and she,
+seeing herself remembered and recalling the trim in which I
+had last beheld her, looked swiftly on the ground with just a
+shadow of confusion.
+
+I could not tell you to-day if she were plain or pretty; but she
+had behaved with so much good sense, and I had cut so poor a
+figure in her presence, that I became instantly fired with the
+desire to display myself in a more favorable light.  The young
+man besides was possibly her brother; brothers are apt to be
+hasty, theirs being a part in which it is possible, at a
+comparatively early age, to assume the dignity of manhood;
+and it occurred to me it might be wise to forestall all possible
+complications by an apology.
+
+On this reasoning I drew near to the gallery door, and had
+hardly got in position before the young man came out.  Thus it
+was that I came face to face with my third destiny; for my
+career has been entirely shaped by these three elements,--my
+father, the capitol of Muskegon, and my friend, Jim Pinkerton. 
+As for the young lady with whom my mind was at the moment
+chiefly occupied, I was never to hear more of her from that day
+forward:  an excellent example of the Blind Man's Buff that we
+call life.
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER III.
+
+ TO INTRODUCE MR. PINKERTON.
+
+
+The stranger, I have said, was some years older than myself: a
+man of a good stature, a very lively face, cordial, agitated
+manners, and a gray eye as active as a fowl's.
+
+"May I have a word with you?" said I.
+
+"My dear sir," he replied, "I don't know what it can be about,
+but you may have a hundred if you like."
+
+"You have just left the side of a young lady," I continued,
+"towards whom I was led (very unintentionally) into the
+appearance of an offence.  To speak to herself would be only to
+renew her embarrassment, and I seize the occasion of making
+my apology, and declaring my respect, to one of my own sex
+who is her friend, and perhaps," I added, with a bow, "her
+natural protector."
+
+"You are a countryman of mine; I know it!" he cried:  "I am
+sure of it by your delicacy to a lady.  You do her no more than
+justice.  I was introduced to her the other night at tea, in the
+apartment of some people, friends of mine; and meeting her
+again this morning, I could not do less than carry her easel for
+her.  My dear sir, what is your name?"
+
+I was disappointed to find he had so little bond with my young
+lady; and but that it was I who had sought the acquaintance,
+might have been tempted to retreat.  At the same time,
+something in the stranger's eye engaged me.
+
+"My name," said I, "is Loudon Dodd; I am a student of
+sculpture here from Muskegon."
+
+"Of sculpture?" he cried, as though that would have been his
+last conjecture.  "Mine is James Pinkerton; I am delighted to
+have the pleasure of your acquaintance."
+
+"Pinkerton!" it was now my turn to exclaim.  "Are you Broken-
+Stool Pinkerton?"
+
+He admitted his identity with a laugh of boyish delight; and
+indeed any young man in the quarter might have been proud to
+own a sobriquet thus gallantly acquired.
+
+In order to explain the name, I must here digress into a chapter
+of the history of manners in the nineteenth century, very well
+worth commemoration for its own sake.  In some of the studios
+at that date, the hazing of new pupils was both barbarous and
+obscene.  Two incidents, following one on the heels of the other
+tended to produce an advance in civilization by the means (as
+so commonly happens) of a passing appeal to savage
+standards.  The first was the arrival of a little gentleman from
+Armenia.  He had a fez upon his head and (what nobody
+counted on) a dagger in his pocket.  The hazing was set about
+in the customary style, and, perhaps in virtue of the victim's
+head-gear, even more boisterously than usual.  He bore it at
+first with an inviting patience; but upon one of the students
+proceeding to an unpardonable freedom, plucked out his knife
+and suddenly plunged it in the belly of the jester.  This
+gentleman, I am pleased to say, passed months upon a bed of
+sickness, before he was in a position to resume his studies. 
+The second incident was that which had earned Pinkerton his
+reputation.  In a crowded studio, while some very filthy
+brutalities were being practised on a trembling debutant, a tall,
+pale fellow sprang from his stool and (without the smallest
+preface or explanation) sang out, "All English and Americans
+to clear the shop!" Our race is brutal, but not filthy; and the
+summons was nobly responded to.  Every Anglo-Saxon student
+seized his stool; in a moment the studio was full of bloody
+coxcombs, the French fleeing in disorder for the door, the
+victim liberated and amazed.  In this feat of arms, both English
+-speaking nations covered themselves with glory; but I am
+proud to claim the author of the whole for an American, and a
+patriotic American at that, being the same gentleman who had
+subsequently to be held down in the bottom of a box during a
+performance of _L'Oncle Sam_, sobbing at intervals, "My
+country! O my country!"  While yet another (my new
+acquaintance, Pinkerton) was supposed to have made the most
+conspicuous figure in the actual battle.  At one blow, he had
+broken his own stool, and sent the largest of his opponents
+back foremost through what we used to call a "conscientious
+nude." It appears that, in the continuation of his flight, this
+fallen warrior issued on the boulevard still framed in the burst
+canvas.
+
+It will be understood how much talk the incident aroused in the
+students' quarter, and that I was highly gratified to make the
+acquaintance of my famous countryman.  It chanced I was to
+see more of the quixotic side of his character before the
+morning was done; for as we continued to stroll together, I
+found myself near the studio of a young Frenchman whose
+work I had promised to examine, and in the fashion of the
+quarter carried up Pinkerton along with me.  Some of my
+comrades of this date were pretty obnoxious fellows.  I could
+almost always admire and respect the grown-up practitioners of
+art in Paris; but many of those who were still in a state of
+pupilage were sorry specimens, so much so that I used often to
+wonder where the painters came from, and where the brutes of
+students went to.  A similar mystery hangs over the
+intermediate stages of the medical profession, and must have
+perplexed the least observant.  The ruffian, at least, whom I
+now carried Pinkerton to visit, was one of the most crapulous in
+the quarter.  He turned out for our delectation a huge "crust" (as
+we used to call it) of St. Stephen, wallowing in red upon his
+belly in an exhausted receiver, and a crowd of Hebrews in blue,
+green, and yellow, pelting him--apparently with buns; and
+while we gazed upon this contrivance, regaled us with a piece
+of his own recent biography, of which his mind was still very
+full, and which he seemed to fancy, represented him in a heroic
+posture.  I was one of those cosmopolitan Americans, who
+accept the world (whether at home or abroad) as they find it,
+and whose favourite part is that of the spectator; yet even I was
+listening with ill-suppressed disgust, when I was aware of a
+violent plucking at my sleeve.
+
+"Is he saying he kicked her down stairs?" asked Pinkerton,
+white as St. Stephen.
+
+"Yes," said I:  "his discarded mistress; and then he pelted her
+with stones.  I suppose that's what gave him the idea for his
+picture.  He has just been alleging the pathetic excuse that she
+was old enough to be his mother."
+
+Something like a sob broke from Pinkerton.  "Tell him," he
+gasped--"I can't speak this language, though I understand a
+little; I never had any proper education--tell him I'm going to
+punch his head."
+
+"For God's sake, do nothing of the sort!" I cried.  "They don't
+understand that sort of thing here."  And I tried to bundle him
+out.
+
+"Tell him first what we think of him," he objected.  "Let me tell
+him what he looks in the eyes of a pure-minded American"
+
+"Leave that to me," said I, thrusting Pinkerton clear through the
+door.
+
+"Qu'est-ce qu'il a?"[1] inquired the student.
+
+[1] "What's the matter with him?"
+
+"Monsieur se sent mal au coeur d'avoir trop regarde votre
+croute,"[2] said I, and made my escape, scarce with dignity, at
+Pinkerton's heels.
+
+[2] "The gentleman is sick at his stomach from having looked
+too long at your daub."
+
+"What did you say to him?" he asked.
+
+"The only thing that he could feel," was my reply.
+
+After this scene, the freedom with which I had ejected my new
+acquaintance, and the precipitation with which I had followed
+him, the least I could do was to propose luncheon.  I have
+forgot the name of the place to which I led him, nothing loath;
+it was on the far side of the Luxembourg at least, with a garden
+behind, where we were speedily set face to face at table, and
+began to dig into each other's history and character, like terriers
+after rabbits, according to the approved fashion of youth.  
+
+Pinkerton's parents were from the old country; there too, I
+incidentally gathered, he had himself been born, though it was
+a circumstance he seemed prone to forget.  Whether he had run
+away, or his father had turned him out, I never fathomed; but
+about the age of twelve, he was thrown upon his own
+resources.  A travelling tin-type photographer picked him up,
+like a haw out of a hedgerow, on a wayside in New Jersey; took
+a fancy to the urchin; carried him on with him in his wandering
+life; taught him all he knew himself--to take tin-types (as well
+as I can make out) and doubt the Scriptures; and died at last in
+Ohio at the corner of a road.  "He was a grand specimen," cried
+Pinkerton; "I wish you could have seen him, Mr. Dodd.  He had
+an appearance of magnanimity that used to remind me of the
+patriarchs."  On the death of this random protector, the boy
+inherited the plant and continued the business.  "It was a life I
+could have chosen, Mr. Dodd!" he cried.  "I have been in all the
+finest scenes of that magnificent continent that we were born to
+be the heirs of.  I wish you could see my collection of tin-types;
+I wish I had them here.  They were taken for my own pleasure 
+and to be a memento; and they show Nature in her grandest as
+well as her gentlest moments." As he tramped the Western
+States and Territories, taking tin-types, the boy was continually
+getting hold of books, good, bad, and indifferent, popular and
+abstruse, from the novels of Sylvanus Cobb to Euclid's
+Elements, both of which I found (to my almost equal wonder)
+he had managed to peruse:  he was taking stock by the way, of
+the people, the products, and the country, with an eye unusually
+observant and a memory unusually retentive; and he was
+collecting for himself a body of magnanimous and semi-
+intellectual nonsense, which he supposed to be the natural
+thoughts and to contain the whole duty of the born American. 
+To be pure-minded, to be patriotic, to get culture and money
+with both hands and with the same irrational fervour--these
+appeared to be the chief articles of his creed.  In later days (not
+of course upon this first occasion) I would sometimes ask him
+why; and he had his answer pat.  "To build up the type!" he
+would cry.  "We're all committed to that; we're all under bond
+to fulfil the American Type!  Loudon, the hope of the world is
+there.  If we fail, like these old feudal monarchies, what is
+left?"
+
+The trade of a tin-typer proved too narrow for the lad's
+ambition; it was insusceptible of expansion, he explained, it
+was not truly modern; and by a sudden conversion of front, he
+became a railroad-scalper.  The principles of this trade I never
+clearly understood; but its essence appears to be to cheat the
+railroads out of their due fare.  "I threw my whole soul into it; I
+grudged myself food and sleep while I was at it; the most
+practised hands admitted I had caught on to the idea in a month
+and revolutionised the practice inside of a year," he said.  "And
+there's interest in it, too.  It's amusing to pick out some one
+going by, make up your mind about his character and tastes,
+dash out of the office and hit him flying with an offer of the
+very place he wants to go to.  I don't think there was a scalper
+on the continent made fewer blunders.  But I took it only as a
+stage.  I was saving every dollar; I was looking ahead.  I knew
+what I wanted--wealth, education, a refined home, and a
+conscientious, cultured lady for a wife; for, Mr. Dodd"--this
+with a formidable outcry--"every man is bound to marry above
+him:  if the woman's not the man's superior, I brand it as mere
+sensuality.  There was my idea, at least.  That was what I was
+saving for; and enough, too!  But it isn't every man, I know that
+--it's far from every man--could do what I did:  close up the
+livest agency in Saint Jo, where he was coining dollars by the
+pot, set out alone, without a friend or a word of French, and
+settle down here to spend his capital learning art."
+
+"Was it an old taste?" I asked him, "or a sudden fancy?"
+
+"Neither, Mr. Dodd," he admitted.  "Of course I had learned in
+my tin-typing excursions to glory and exult in the works of
+God.  But it wasn't that.  I just said to myself, What is most
+wanted in my age and country?  More culture and more art, I
+said; and I chose the best place, saved my money, and came
+here to get them."
+
+The whole attitude of this young man warmed and shamed me. 
+He had more fire in his little toe than I had in my whole
+carcase; he was stuffed to bursting with the manly virtues;
+thrift and courage glowed in him; and even if his artistic
+vocation seemed (to one of my exclusive tenets) not quite clear,
+who could predict what might be accomplished by a creature so
+full-blooded and so inspired with animal and intellectual
+energy?  So, when he proposed that I should come and see his
+work (one of the regular stages of a Latin Quarter friendship), I
+followed him with interest and hope.
+
+He lodged parsimoniously at the top of a tall house near the
+Observatory, in a bare room, principally furnished with his own
+trunks and papered with his own despicable studies.  No man
+has less taste for disagreeable duties than myself; perhaps there
+is only one subject on which I cannot flatter a man without a
+blush; but upon that, upon all that touches art, my sincerity is
+Roman.  Once and twice I made the circuit of his walls in
+silence, spying in every corner for some spark of merit; he,
+meanwhile, following close at my heels, reading the verdict in
+my face with furtive glances, presenting some fresh study for
+my inspection with undisguised anxiety, and (after it had been
+silently weighed in the balances and found wanting) whisking
+it away with an open gesture of despair.  By the time the
+second round was completed, we were both extremely
+depressed.
+
+"O!" he groaned, breaking the long silence, "it's quite
+unnecessary you should speak!"
+
+"Do you want me to be frank with you?  I think you are wasting
+time," said I.
+
+"You don't see any promise?" he inquired, beguiled by some
+return of hope, and turning upon me the embarrassing
+brightness of his eye.  "Not in this still-life here, of the melon?
+One fellow thought it good."
+
+It was the least I could do to give the melon a more particular
+examination; which, when I had done, I could but shake my
+head.  "I am truly sorry, Pinkerton," said I, "but I can't advise
+you to persevere."
+
+He seemed to recover his fortitude at the moment, rebounding
+from disappointment like a man of india-rubber.  "Well," said
+he stoutly, "I don't know that I'm surprised.  But I'll go on with
+the course; and throw my whole soul into it, too.  You mustn't
+think the time is lost.  It's all culture; it will help me to extend
+my relations when I get back home; it may fit me for a position
+on one of the illustrateds; and then I can always turn dealer," he
+said, uttering the monstrous proposition, which was enough to
+shake the Latin Quarter to the dust, with entire simplicity.  "It's
+all experience, besides;" he continued, "and it seems to me
+there's a tendency to underrate experience, both as net profit
+and investment.  Never mind.  That's done with.  But it took
+courage for you to say what you did, and I'll never forget it. 
+Here's my hand, Mr. Dodd.  I'm not your equal in culture or
+talent--"
+
+"You know nothing about that," I interrupted.  "I have seen
+your work, but you haven't seen mine.
+
+"No more I have," he cried; "and let's go see it at once!  But I
+know you are away up. I can feel it here."
+
+To say truth, I was almost ashamed to introduce him to my
+studio--my work, whether absolutely good or bad, being so
+vastly superior to his.  But his spirits were now quite restored;
+and he amazed me, on the way, with his light-hearted talk and
+new projects.  So that I began at last to understand how matters
+lay: that this was not an artist who had been deprived of the
+practice of his single art; but only a business man of very
+extended interests, informed (perhaps something of the most
+suddenly) that one investment out of twenty had gone wrong.
+
+As a matter of fact besides (although I never suspected it) he
+was already seeking consolation with another of the muses, and
+pleasing himself with the notion that he would repay me for my
+sincerity, cement our friendship, and (at one and the same
+blow) restore my estimation of his talents.  Several times
+already, when I had been speaking of myself, he had pulled out
+a writing-pad and scribbled a brief note; and now, when we
+entered the studio, I saw it in his hand again, and the pencil go
+to his mouth, as he cast a comprehensive glance round the
+uncomfortable building.
+
+"Are you going to make a sketch of it?" I could not help asking,
+as I unveiled the Genius of Muskegon.
+
+"Ah, that's my secret," said he.  "Never you mind.  A mouse
+can help a lion."
+
+He walked round my statue and had the design explained to
+him.  I had represented Muskegon as a young, almost a
+stripling, mother, with something of an Indian type; the babe
+upon her knees was winged, to indicate our soaring future; and
+her seat was a medley of sculptured fragments, Greek, Roman,
+and Gothic, to remind us of the older worlds from which we
+trace our generation.
+
+"Now, does this satisfy you, Mr. Dodd?" he inquired, as soon
+as I had explained to him the main features of the design.
+
+"Well," I said, "the fellows seem to think it's not a bad bonne
+femme for a beginner.  I don't think it's entirely bad myself.  
+Here is the best point; it builds up best from here.  No, it seems
+to me it has a kind of merit," I admitted; "but I mean to do
+better."
+
+"Ah, that's the word!" cried Pinkerton.  "There's the word I
+love!" and he scribbled in his pad.
+
+"What in creation ails you?" I inquired.  "It's the most
+commonplace expression in the English language."
+
+"Better and better!" chuckled Pinkerton.  "The unconsciousness
+of genius.  Lord, but this is coming in beautiful!" and he
+scribbled again.
+
+"If you're going to be fulsome," said I, "I'll close the place of
+entertainment."  And I threatened to replace the veil upon the
+Genius.
+
+"No, no," said he.  "Don't be in a hurry.  Give me a point or
+two.  Show me what's particularly good."
+
+"I would rather you found that out for yourself," said I.
+
+"The trouble is," said he, "that I've never turned my attention to
+sculpture, beyond, of course, admiring it, as everybody must
+who has a soul.  So do just be a good fellow, and explain to me
+what you like in it, and what you tried for, and where the merit
+comes in.  It'll be all education for me."
+
+"Well, in sculpture, you see, the first thing you have to consider
+is the masses.  It's, after all, a kind of architecture," I began,
+and delivered a lecture on that branch of art, with illustrations
+from my own masterpiece there present, all of which, if you
+don't mind, or whether you mind or not, I mean to
+conscientiously omit.  Pinkerton listened with a fiery interest,
+questioned me with a certain uncultivated shrewdness, and
+continued to scratch down notes, and tear fresh sheets from his
+pad.  I found it inspiring to have my words thus taken down
+like a professor's lecture; and having had no previous
+experience of the press, I was unaware that they were all being
+taken down wrong.  For the same reason (incredible as it must
+appear in an American) I never entertained the least suspicion
+that they were destined to be dished up with a sauce of penny-
+a-lining gossip; and myself, my person, and my works of art
+butchered to make a holiday for the readers of a Sunday paper. 
+Night had fallen over the Genius of Muskegon before the issue
+of my theoretic eloquence was stayed, nor did I separate from
+my new friend without an appointment for the morrow.
+
+I was indeed greatly taken with this first view of my
+countryman, and continued, on further acquaintance, to be
+interested, amused, and attracted by him in about equal
+proportions.  I must not say he had a fault, not only because my
+mouth is sealed by gratitude, but because those he had sprang
+merely from his education, and you could see he had cultivated
+and improved them like virtues.  For all that, I can never deny
+he was a troublous friend to me, and the trouble began early.
+
+It may have been a fortnight later that I divined the secret of the
+writing-pad.  My wretch (it leaked out) wrote letters for a paper
+in the West, and had filled a part of one of them with
+descriptions of myself.   I pointed out to him that he had no
+right to do so without asking my permission.
+
+"Why, this is just what I hoped!" he exclaimed.  "I thought you
+didn't seem to catch on; only it seemed too good to be true."
+
+"But, my good fellow, you were bound to warn me," I objected.
+
+"I know it's generally considered etiquette," he admitted; "but
+between friends, and when it was only with a view of serving
+you, I thought it wouldn't matter.  I wanted it (if possible) to
+come on you as a surprise; I wanted you just to waken, like
+Lord Byron, and find the papers full of you.  You must admit it
+was a natural thought.  And no man likes to boast of a favour
+beforehand."
+
+"But, heavens and earth! how do you know I think it a favour?"
+I cried.
+
+He became immediately plunged in despair.  "You think it a
+liberty," said he; "I see that.  I would rather have cut off my
+hand.  I would stop it now, only it's too late; it's published by
+now.  And I wrote it with so much pride and pleasure!"
+
+I could think of nothing but how to console him.  "O, I daresay
+it's all right," said I.  "I know you meant it kindly, and you
+would be sure to do it in good taste."
+
+"That you may swear to," he cried.  "It's a pure, bright, A
+number 1 paper; the St. Jo _Sunday Herald_. The idea of the
+series was quite my own; I interviewed the editor, put it to him
+straight; the freshness of the idea took him, and I walked out of
+that office with the contract in my pocket, and did my first Paris
+letter that evening in Saint Jo.  The editor did no more than
+glance his eye down the headlines.  'You're the man for us,'
+said he."
+
+I was certainly far from reassured by this sketch of the class of
+literature in which I was to make my first appearance; but I
+said no more, and possessed my soul in patience, until the day
+came when I received a copy of a newspaper marked in the
+corner, "Compliments of J.P."  I opened it with sensible
+shrinkings; and there, wedged between an account of a prize-
+fight and a skittish article upon chiropody--think of chiropody
+treated with a leer!--I came upon a column and a half in which
+myself and my poor statue were embalmed.  Like the editor
+with the first of the series, I did but glance my eye down the
+head-lines and was more than satisfied.
+
+          ANOTHER OF PINKERTON'S SPICY CHATS.
+                         
+              ART PRACTITIONERS IN PARIS.
+                      
+             MUSKEGON'S COLUMNED CAPITOL.
+                          
+               SON OF MILLIONAIRE DODD,
+                          
+                  PATRIOT AND ARTIST.
+                        
+               "HE MEANS TO DO BETTER."
+
+In the body of the text, besides, my eye caught, as it passed,
+some deadly expressions:  "Figure somewhat fleshy," "bright,
+intellectual smile," "the unconsciousness of genius," "'Now,
+Mr. Dodd,' resumed the reporter, 'what would be your idea of a
+distinctively American quality in sculpture?'"  It was true the
+question had been asked; it was true, alas! that I had answered;
+and now here was my reply, or some strange hash of it,
+gibbeted in the cold publicity of type.  I thanked God that my
+French fellow-students were ignorant of English; but when I
+thought of the British--of Myner (for instance) or the Stennises
+--I think I could have fallen on Pinkerton and beat him.
+
+To divert my thoughts (if it were possible) from this calamity, I
+turned to a letter from my father which had arrived by the same
+post.  The envelope contained a strip of newspaper-cutting; and
+my eye caught again, "Son of Millionaire Dodd--Figure
+somewhat fleshy," and the rest of the degrading nonsense. 
+What would my father think of it? I wondered, and opened his
+manuscript.  "My dearest boy," it began, "I send you a cutting
+which has pleased me very much, from a St. Joseph paper of
+high standing.  At last you seem to be coming fairly to the
+front; and I cannot but reflect with delight and gratitude how
+very few youths of your age occupy nearly two columns of
+press-matter all to themselves.  I only wish your dear mother
+had been here to read it over my shoulder; but we will hope she
+shares my grateful emotion in a better place.  Of course I have
+sent a copy to your grandfather and uncle in Edinburgh; so you
+can keep the one I enclose.  This Jim Pinkerton seems a
+valuable acquaintance; he has certainly great talent; and it is a
+good general rule to keep in with pressmen."
+
+I hope it will be set down to the right side of my account, but I
+had no sooner read these words, so touchingly silly, than my
+anger against Pinkerton was swallowed up in gratitude.  Of all
+the circumstances of my career, my birth, perhaps, excepted,
+not one had given my poor father so profound a pleasure as this
+article in the _Sunday Herald_.  What a fool, then, was I, to be
+lamenting! when I had at last, and for once, and at the cost of
+only a few blushes, paid back a fraction of my debt of gratitude. 
+So that, when I next met Pinkerton, I took things very lightly;
+my father was pleased, and thought the letter very clever, I told
+him; for my own part, I had no taste for publicity:  thought the
+public had no concern with the artist, only with his art; and
+though I owned he had handled it with great consideration, I
+should take it as a favour if he never did it again.
+
+"There it is," he said despondingly.  "I've hurt you.  You can't
+deceive me, Loudon.  It's the want of tact, and it's incurable."
+He sat down, and leaned his head upon his hand.  "I had no
+advantages when I was young, you see," he added.
+
+"Not in the least, my dear fellow," said I.  "Only the next time
+you wish to do me a service, just speak about my work; leave
+my wretched person out, and my still more wretched
+conversation; and above all," I added, with an irrepressible
+shudder, "don't tell them how I said it!  There's that phrase,
+now:  'With a proud, glad smile.'  Who cares whether I smiled
+or not?"
+
+"Oh, there now, Loudon, you're entirely wrong," he broke in. 
+"That's what the public likes; that's the merit of the thing, the
+literary value.  It's to call up the scene before them; it's to
+enable the humblest citizen to enjoy that afternoon the same as
+I did.  Think what it would have been to me when I was
+tramping around with my tin-types to find a column and a half
+of real, cultured conversation--an artist, in his studio abroad,
+talking of his art--and to know how he looked as he did it, and
+what the room was like, and what he had for breakfast; and to
+tell myself, eating tinned beans beside a creek, that if all went
+well, the same sort of thing would, sooner or later, happen to
+myself:  why, Loudon, it would have been like a peephole into
+heaven!"
+
+"Well, if it gives so much pleasure," I admitted, "the sufferers
+shouldn't complain.  Only give the other fellows a turn."
+
+The end of the matter was to bring myself and the journalist in
+a more close relation.  If I know anything at all of human
+nature--and the IF is no mere figure of speech, but stands for
+honest doubt--no series of benefits conferred, or even dangers
+shared, would have so rapidly confirmed our friendship as this
+quarrel avoided, this fundamental difference of taste and
+training accepted and condoned.
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER IV.
+
+ IN WHICH I EXPERIENCE EXTREMES OF FORTUNE.
+
+
+Whether it came from my training and repeated bankruptcy at
+the commercial college, or by direct inheritance from old
+Loudon, the Edinburgh mason, there can be no doubt about the
+fact that I was thrifty.  Looking myself impartially over, I
+believe that is my only manly virtue.  During my first two years
+in Paris I not only made it a point to keep well inside of my
+allowance, but accumulated considerable savings in the bank. 
+You will say, with my masquerade of living as a penniless
+student, it must have been easy to do so:  I should have had no
+difficulty, however, in doing the reverse.  Indeed, it is
+wonderful I did not; and early in the third year, or soon after I
+had known Pinkerton, a singular incident proved it to have
+been equally wise.  Quarter-day came, and brought no
+allowance.  A letter of remonstrance was despatched, and for
+the first time in my experience, remained unanswered.  A
+cablegram was more effectual; for it brought me at least a
+promise of attention.  "Will write at once," my father
+telegraphed; but I waited long for his letter.  I was puzzled,
+angry, and alarmed; but thanks to my previous thrift, I cannot
+say that I was ever practically embarrassed.  The
+embarrassment, the distress, the agony, were all for my
+unhappy father at home in Muskegon, struggling for life and
+fortune against untoward chances, returning at night from a day
+of ill-starred shifts and ventures, to read and perhaps to weep
+over that last harsh letter from his only child, to which he
+lacked the courage to reply.
+
+Nearly three months after time, and when my economies were
+beginning to run low, I received at last a letter with the
+customary bills of exchange.
+
+"My dearest boy," it ran, "I believe, in the press of anxious
+business, your letters and even your allowance have been
+somewhile neglected.  You must try to forgive your poor old
+dad, for he has had a trying time; and now when it is over, the
+doctor wants me to take my shotgun and go to the Adirondacks
+for a change.  You must not fancy I am sick, only over-driven 
+and under the weather.  Many of our foremost operators have
+gone down:  John T. M'Brady skipped to Canada with a
+trunkful of boodle; Billy Sandwith, Charlie Downs, Joe Kaiser,
+and many others of our leading men in this city bit the dust. 
+But Big-Head Dodd has again weathered the blizzard, and I
+think I have fixed things so that we may be richer than ever
+before autumn.
+
+"Now I will tell you, my dear, what I propose.  You say you are
+well advanced with your first statue; start in manfully and
+finish it, and if your teacher--I can never remember how to spell
+his name--will send me a certificate that it is up to market
+standard, you shall have ten thousand dollars to do what you
+like with, either at home or in Paris.  I suggest, since you say
+the facilities for work are so much greater in that city, you
+would do well to buy or build a little home; and the first thing
+you know, your dad will be dropping in for a luncheon. 
+Indeed, I would come now, for I am beginning to grow old, and
+I long to see my dear boy; but there are still some operations
+that want watching and nursing.  Tell your friend, Mr.
+Pinkerton, that I read his letters every week; and though I have
+looked in vain lately for my Loudon's name, still I learn
+something of the life he is leading in that strange, old world,
+depicted by an able pen."
+
+Here was a letter that no young man could possibly digest in
+solitude.  It marked one of those junctures when the confidant
+is necessary; and the confidant selected was none other than
+Jim Pinkerton.  My father's message may have had an influence
+in this decision; but I scarce suppose so, for the intimacy was 
+already far advanced.  I had a genuine and lively taste for my
+compatriot; I laughed at, I scolded, and I loved him.  He, upon
+his side, paid me a kind of doglike service of admiration,
+gazing at me from afar off as at one who had liberally enjoyed
+those "advantages" which he envied for himself.  He followed
+at heel; his laugh was ready chorus; our friends gave him the
+nickname of "The Henchman."  It was in this insidious form
+that servitude approached me.
+
+Pinkerton and I read and re-read the famous news:  he, I can
+swear, with an enjoyment as unalloyed and far more vocal than
+my own.  The statue was nearly done: a few days' work sufficed
+to prepare it for exhibition; the master was approached; he gave
+his consent; and one cloudless morning of May beheld us
+gathered in my studio for the hour of trial.  The master wore his
+many-hued rosette; he came attended by two of my French
+fellow-pupils--friends of mine and both considerable sculptors
+in Paris at this hour.  "Corporal John" (as we used to call him)
+breaking for once those habits of study and reserve which have
+since carried him so high in the opinion of the world, had left
+his easel of a morning to countenance a fellow-countryman in
+some suspense.  My dear old Romney was there by particular
+request; for who that knew him would think a pleasure quite
+complete unless he shared it, or not support a mortification
+more easily if he were present to console?  The party was
+completed by John Myner, the Englishman; by the brothers
+Stennis,--Stennis-aine and Stennis-frere, as they used to figure
+on their accounts at Barbizon--a pair of hare-brained Scots; and
+by the inevitable Jim, as white as a sheet and bedewed with the
+sweat of anxiety.
+
+I suppose I was little better myself when I unveiled the Genius
+of Muskegon.  The master walked about it seriously; then he
+smiled.
+
+"It is already not so bad," said he, in that funny English of
+which he was so proud.  "No, already not so bad."
+
+We all drew a deep breath of relief; and Corporal John (as the
+most considerable junior present) explained to him it was
+intended for a public building, a kind of prefecture--
+
+"He!  Quoi?" cried he, relapsing into French.  "Qu'est-ce que
+vous me chantez la?  O, in America," he added, on further
+information being hastily furnished.  "That is anozer sing.  O,
+very good, very good."
+
+The idea of the required certificate had to be introduced to his
+mind in the light of a pleasantry--the fancy of a nabob little
+more advanced than the red Indians of "Fennimore Cooperr";
+and it took all our talents combined to conceive a form of words
+that would be acceptable on both sides.  One was found,
+however:  Corporal John engrossed it in his undecipherable
+hand, the master lent it the sanction of his name and flourish, I
+slipped it into an envelope along with one of the two letters I
+had ready prepared in my pocket, and as the rest of us moved
+off along the boulevard to breakfast, Pinkerton was detached in
+a cab and duly committed it to the post.
+
+The breakfast was ordered at Lavenue's, where no one need be
+ashamed to entertain even the master; the table was laid in the
+garden; I had chosen the bill of fare myself; on the wine
+question we held a council of war with the most fortunate
+results; and the talk, as soon as the master laid aside his painful
+English, became fast and furious.  There were a few
+interruptions, indeed, in the way of toasts.  The master's health
+had to be drunk, and he responded in a little well-turned
+speech, full of neat allusions to my future and to the United
+States; my health followed; and then my father's must not only
+be proposed and drunk, but a full report must be despatched to
+him at once by cablegram--an extravagance which was almost
+the means of the master's dissolution.  Choosing Corporal John
+to be his confidant (on the ground, I presume, that he was
+already too good an artist to be any longer an American except
+in name) he summed up his amazement in one oft-repeated
+formula--"C'est barbare!"  Apart from these genial formalities,
+we talked, talked of art, and talked of it as only artists can. 
+Here in the South Seas we talk schooners most of the time; in
+the Quarter we talked art with the like unflagging interest, and
+perhaps as much result.
+
+Before very long, the master went away; Corporal John (who
+was already a sort of young master) followed on his heels; and
+the rank and file were naturally relieved by their departure.  We
+were now among equals; the bottle passed, the conversation
+sped.  I think I can still hear the Stennis brothers pour forth
+their copious tirades; Dijon, my portly French fellow-student,
+drop witticisms well-conditioned like himself; and another
+(who was weak in foreign languages) dash hotly into the
+current of talk with some "Je trove que pore oon sontimong de 
+delicacy, Corot ...," or some "Pour moi Corot est le plou ...,"
+and then, his little raft of French foundering at once, scramble
+silently to shore again.  He at least could understand; but to
+Pinkerton, I think the noise, the wine, the sun, the shadows of
+the leaves, and the esoteric glory of being seated at a foreign
+festival, made up the whole available means of entertainment.
+
+We sat down about half past eleven; I suppose it was two
+when, some point arising and some particular picture being
+instanced, an adjournment to the Louvre was proposed.  I paid
+the score, and in a moment we were trooping down the Rue de
+Renne.  It was smoking hot; Paris glittered with that superficial
+brilliancy which is so agreeable to the man in high spirits, and
+in moods of dejection so depressing; the wine sang in my ears,
+it danced and brightened in my eyes.  The pictures that we saw
+that afternoon, as we sped briskly and loquaciously through the
+immortal galleries, appear to me, upon a retrospect, the
+loveliest of all; the comments we exchanged to have touched
+the highest mark of criticism, grave or gay.
+
+It was only when we issued again from the museum that a
+difference of race broke up the party.  Dijon proposed an
+adjournment to a cafe, there to finish the afternoon on beer; the
+elder Stennis, revolted at the thought, moved for the country, a
+forest if possible, and a long walk.  At once the English
+speakers rallied to the name of any exercise:  even to me, who
+have been often twitted with my sedentary habits, the thought
+of country air and stillness proved invincibly attractive.  It
+appeared, upon investigation, we had just time to hail a cab
+and catch one of the fast trains for Fontainebleau.  Beyond the
+clothes we stood in, all were destitute of what is called (with
+dainty vagueness) personal effects; and it was earnestly
+mooted, on the other side, whether we had not time to call upon
+the way and pack a satchel?  But the Stennis boys exclaimed
+upon our effeminacy.  They had come from London, it
+appeared, a week before with nothing but greatcoats and tooth
+-brushes.  No baggage--there was the secret of existence.  It
+was expensive, to be sure; for every time you had to comb your
+hair, a barber must be paid, and every time you changed your
+linen, one shirt must be bought and another thrown away; but
+anything was better (argued these young gentlemen) than to be
+the slaves of haversacks.  "A fellow has to get rid gradually of
+all material attachments; that was manhood" (said they); "and
+as long as you were bound down to anything,--house, umbrella,
+or portmanteau,--you were still tethered by the umbilical cord." 
+Something engaging in this theory carried the most of us away. 
+The two Frenchmen, indeed, retired, scoffing, to their bock; and
+Romney, being too poor to join the excursion on his own
+resources and too proud to borrow, melted unobtrusively away. 
+Meanwhile the remainder of the company crowded the benches
+of a cab; the horse was urged (as horses have to be) by an
+appeal to the pocket of the driver; the train caught by the inside
+of a minute; and in less than an hour and a half we were
+breathing deep of the sweet air of the forest and stretching our
+legs up the hill from Fontainebleau octroi, bound for Barbizon. 
+That the leading members of our party covered the distance in
+fifty-one minutes and a half is (I believe) one of the historic
+landmarks of the colony; but you will scarce be surprised to
+learn that I was somewhat in the rear.  Myner, a comparatively
+philosophic Briton, kept me company in my deliberate advance; 
+the glory of the sun's going down, the fall of the long shadows,
+the inimitable scent and the inspiration of the woods, attuned
+me more and more to walk in a silence which progressively
+infected my companion; and I remember that, when at last he
+spoke, I was startled from a deep abstraction.
+
+"Your father seems to be a pretty good kind of a father," said
+he.  "Why don't he come to see you?"  I was ready with some
+dozen of reasons, and had more in stock; but Myner, with that
+shrewdness which made him feared and admired, suddenly
+fixed me with his eye-glass and asked, "Ever press him?"
+
+The blood came in my face.  No; I had never pressed him; I had
+never even encouraged him to come.  I was proud of him;
+proud of his handsome looks, of his kind, gentle ways, of that
+bright face he could show when others were happy; proud, too
+(meanly proud, if you like) of his great wealth and startling
+liberalities.  And yet he would have been in the way of my
+Paris life, of much of which he would have disapproved.  I had
+feared to expose to criticism his innocent remarks on art; I had
+told myself, I had even partly believed, he did not want to
+come; I had been (and still am) convinced that he was sure to
+be unhappy out of Muskegon; in short, I had a thousand
+reasons, good and bad, not all of which could alter one iota of
+the fact that I knew he only waited for my invitation.
+
+"Thank you, Myner," said I; "you're a much better fellow than
+ever I supposed.  I'll write to-night."
+
+"O, you're a pretty decent sort yourself," returned Myner, with
+more than his usual flippancy of manner, but (as I was
+gratefully aware) not a trace of his occasional irony of meaning.
+
+Well, these were brave days, on which I could dwell forever. 
+Brave, too, were those that followed, when Pinkerton and I
+walked Paris and the suburbs, viewing and pricing houses for
+my new establishment, or covered ourselves with dust and
+returned laden with Chinese gods and brass warming-pans
+from the dealers in antiquities.  I found Pinkerton well up in the
+situation of these establishments as well as in the current
+prices, and with quite a smattering of critical judgment; it
+turned out he was investing capital in pictures and curiosities
+for the States, and the superficial thoroughness of the creature
+appeared in the fact, that although he would never be a
+connoisseur, he was already something of an expert.  The
+things themselves left him as near as may be cold; but he had a
+joy of his own in understanding how to buy and sell them.
+
+In such engagements the time passed until I might very well
+expect an answer from my father.  Two mails followed each
+other, and brought nothing.  By the third I received a long and
+almost incoherent letter of remorse, encouragement,
+consolation, and despair.  From this pitiful document, which
+(with a movement of piety) I burned as soon as I had read it, I
+gathered that the bubble of my father's wealth was burst, that
+he was now both penniless and sick; and that I, so far from
+expecting ten thousand dollars to throw away in juvenile
+extravagance, must look no longer for the quarterly remittances
+on which I lived.  My case was hard enough; but I had sense
+enough to perceive, and decency enough to do my duty.  I sold
+my curiosities, or rather I sent Pinkerton to sell them; and he
+had previously bought and now disposed of them so wisely that
+the loss was trifling.  This, with what remained of my last
+allowance, left me at the head of no less than five thousand
+francs.  Five hundred I reserved for my own immediate
+necessities; the rest I mailed inside of the week to my father at
+Muskegon, where they came in time to pay his funeral
+expenses.
+
+The news of his death was scarcely a surprise and scarce a grief
+to me.  I could not conceive my father a poor man.  He had led
+too long a life of thoughtless and generous profusion to endure
+the change; and though I grieved for myself, I was able to
+rejoice that my father had been taken from the battle.  I grieved,
+I say, for myself; and it is probable there were at the same date
+many thousands of persons grieving with less cause.  I had lost
+my father; I had lost the allowance; my whole fortune
+(including what had been returned from Muskegon) scarce
+amounted to a thousand francs; and to crown my sorrows, the
+statuary contract had changed hands.  The new contractor had a
+son of his own, or else a nephew; and it was signified to me,
+with business-like plainness, that I must find another market
+for my pigs.  In the meanwhile I had given up my room, and
+slept on a truckle-bed in the corner of the studio, where as I
+read myself to sleep at night, and when I awoke in the morning,
+that now useless bulk, the Genius of Muskegon, was ever
+present to my eyes.  Poor stone lady! born to be enthroned
+under the gilded, echoing dome of the new capitol, whither was
+she now to drift? for what base purposes be ultimately broken
+up, like an unseaworthy ship? and what should befall her ill-
+starred artificer, standing, with his thousand francs, on the
+threshold of a life so hard as that of the unbefriended sculptor?  
+
+It was a subject often and earnestly debated by myself and
+Pinkerton.  In his opinion, I should instantly discard my
+profession.  "Just drop it, here and now," he would say.  "Come
+back home with me, and let's throw our whole soul into
+business.  I have the capital; you bring the culture.  Dodd & 
+Pinkerton--I never saw a better name for an advertisement; and
+you can't think, Loudon, how much depends upon a name."  On
+my side, I would admit that a sculptor should possess one of
+three things--capital, influence, or an energy only to be
+qualified as hellish.  The first two I had now lost; to the third I
+never had the smallest claim; and yet I wanted the cowardice
+(or perhaps it was the courage) to turn my back on my career
+without a fight.  I told him, besides, that however poor my
+chances were in sculpture, I was convinced they were yet worse
+in business, for which I equally lacked taste and aptitude.  But
+upon this head, he was my father over again; assured me that I
+spoke in ignorance; that any intelligent and cultured person
+was Bound to succeed; that I must, besides, have inherited
+some of my father's fitness; and, at any rate, that I had been
+regularly trained for that career in the commercial college.
+
+
+"Pinkerton," I said, "can't you understand that, as long as I was
+there, I never took the smallest interest in any stricken thing?
+The whole affair was poison to me."
+
+"It's not possible," he would cry; "it can't be; you couldn't live
+in the midst of it and not feel the charm; with all your poetry of
+soul, you couldn't help!  Loudon," he would go on, "you drive
+me crazy.  You expect a man to be all broken up about the
+sunset, and not to care a dime for a place where fortunes are
+fought for and made and lost all day; or for a career that
+consists in studying up life till you have it at your finger-ends,
+spying out every cranny where you can get your hand in and a
+dollar out, and standing there in the midst--one foot on
+bankruptcy, the other on a borrowed dollar, and the whole thing
+spinning round you like a mill--raking in the stamps, in spite of
+fate and fortune."
+
+To this romance of dickering I would reply with the romance
+(which is also the virtue) of art:  reminding him of those
+examples of constancy through many tribulations, with which
+the role of Apollo is illustrated; from the case of Millet, to those
+of many of our friends and comrades, who had chosen this
+agreeable mountain path through life, and were now bravely
+clambering among rocks and brambles, penniless and hopeful.
+
+"You will never understand it, Pinkerton," I would say.  "You
+look to the result, you want to see some profit of your
+endeavours:  that is why you could never learn to paint, if you
+lived to be Methusalem.  The result is always a fizzle:  the eyes
+of the artist are turned in; he lives for a frame of mind.  Look at
+Romney, now.  There is the nature of the artist.  He hasn't a
+cent; and if you offered him to-morrow the command of an
+army, or the presidentship of the United States, he wouldn't
+take it, and you know he wouldn't."
+
+"I suppose not," Pinkerton would cry, scouring his hair with
+both his hands; "and I can't see why; I can't see what in fits he
+would be after, not to; I don't seem to rise to these views.  Of
+course, it's the fault of not having had advantages in early life;
+but, Loudon, I'm so miserably low that it seems to me silly. 
+The fact is," he might add with a smile, "I don't seem to have
+the least use for a frame of mind without square meals; and you
+can't get it out of my head that it's a man's duty to die rich, if he
+can."
+
+"What for?" I asked him once.
+
+"O, I don't know," he replied.  "Why in snakes should anybody
+want to be a sculptor, if you come to that?  I would love to
+sculp myself.  But what I can't see is why you should want to
+do nothing else.  It seems to argue a poverty of nature."
+
+Whether or not he ever came to understand me--and I have
+been so tossed about since then that I am not very sure I
+understand myself--he soon perceived that I was perfectly in
+earnest; and after about ten days of argument, suddenly
+dropped the subject, and announced that he was wasting
+capital, and must go home at once.  No doubt he should have
+gone long before, and had already lingered over his intended
+time for the sake of our companionship and my misfortune; but
+man is so unjustly minded that the very fact, which ought to
+have disarmed, only embittered my vexation.  I resented his
+departure in the light of a desertion; I would not say, but
+doubtless I betrayed it; and something hang-dog in the man's
+face and bearing led me to believe he was himself remorseful. 
+It is certain at least that, during the time of his preparations, we
+drew sensibly apart--a circumstance that I recall with shame. 
+On the last day, he had me to dinner at a restaurant which he
+knew I had formerly frequented, and had only forsworn of late
+from considerations of economy.  He seemed ill at ease; I was
+myself both sorry and sulky; and the meal passed with little
+conversation.
+
+"Now, Loudon," said he, with a visible effort, after the coffee
+was come and our pipes lighted, "you can never understand the
+gratitude and loyalty I bear you.  You don't know what a boon
+it is to be taken up by a man that stands on the pinnacle of
+civilization; you can't think how it's refined and purified me,
+how it's appealed to my spiritual nature; and I want to tell you
+that I would die at your door like a dog."
+
+I don't know what answer I tried to make, but he cut me short.
+
+"Let me say it out!" he cried.  "I revere you for your whole-
+souled devotion to art; I can't rise to it, but there's a strain of
+poetry in my nature, Loudon, that responds to it.  I want you to
+carry it out, and I mean to help you."
+
+"Pinkerton, what nonsense is this?" I interrupted.
+
+"Now don't get mad, Loudon; this is a plain piece of business,"
+said he; "it's done every day; it's even typical.  How are all
+those fellows over here in Paris, Henderson, Sumner, Long?
+--it's all the same story:  a young man just plum full of artistic
+genius on the one side, a man of business on the other who
+doesn't know what to do with his dollars--"
+
+"But, you fool, you're as poor as a rat," I cried.
+
+"You wait till I get my irons in the fire!" returned Pinkerton.
+"I'm bound to be rich; and I tell you I mean to have some of the
+fun as I go along.  Here's your first allowance; take it at the
+hand of a friend; I'm one that holds friendship sacred as you do
+yourself.  It's only a hundred francs; you'll get the same every
+month, and as soon as my business begins to expand we'll
+increase it to something fitting.  And so far from it's being a
+favour, just let me handle your statuary for the American
+market, and I'll call it one of the smartest strokes of business in
+my life."
+
+It took me a long time, and it had cost us both much grateful
+and painful emotion, before I had finally managed to refuse his
+offer and compounded for a bottle of particular wine.  He
+dropped the subject at last suddenly with a "Never mind; that's
+all done with," nor did he again refer to the subject, though we
+passed together the rest of the afternoon, and I accompanied
+him, on his departure; to the doors of the waiting-room at St.
+Lazare.  I felt myself strangely alone; a voice told me that I had
+rejected both the counsels of wisdom and the helping hand of
+friendship; and as I passed through the great bright city on my
+homeward way, I measured it for the first time with the eye of
+an adversary.
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER V.
+
+IN WHICH I AM DOWN ON MY LUCK IN PARIS.
+
+
+In no part of the world is starvation an agreeable business; but I
+believe it is admitted there is no worse place to starve in than
+this city of Paris.  The appearances of life are there so
+especially gay, it is so much a magnified beer-garden, the
+houses are so ornate, the theatres so numerous, the very pace of
+the vehicles is so brisk, that a man in any deep concern of mind
+or pain of body is constantly driven in upon himself.  In his
+own eyes, he seems the one serious creature moving in a world
+of horrible unreality; voluble people issuing from a cafe, the
+queue at theatre doors, Sunday cabfuls of second-rate pleasure-
+seekers, the bedizened ladies of the pavement, the show in the
+jewellers' windows--all the familiar sights contributing to flout
+his own unhappiness, want, and isolation.  At the same time, if
+he be at all after my pattern, he is perhaps supported by a
+childish satisfaction:  this is life at last, he may tell himself, this
+is the real thing; the bladders on which I was set swimming are
+now empty, my own weight depends upon the ocean; by my
+own exertions I must perish or succeed; and I am now enduring
+in the vivid fact, what I so much delighted to read of in the case
+of Lonsteau or Lucien, Rodolphe or Schaunard.
+
+Of the steps of my misery, I cannot tell at length.  In ordinary
+times what were politically called "loans" (although they were
+never meant to be repaid) were matters of constant course
+among the students, and many a man has partly lived on them
+for years.  But my misfortune befell me at an awkward
+juncture.  Many of my friends were gone; others were
+themselves in a precarious situation.  Romney (for instance)
+was reduced to tramping Paris in a pair of country sabots, his
+only suit of clothes so imperfect (in spite of cunningly adjusted
+pins) that the authorities at the Luxembourg suggested his
+withdrawal from the gallery.  Dijon, too, was on a leeshore,
+designing clocks and gas-brackets for a dealer; and the most he
+could do was to offer me a corner of his studio where I might
+work.  My own studio (it will be gathered) I had by that time
+lost; and in the course of my expulsion the Genius of
+Muskegon was finally separated from her author.  To continue
+to possess a full-sized statue, a man must have a studio, a
+gallery, or at least the freedom of a back garden.  He cannot
+carry it about with him, like a satchel, in the bottom of a cab,
+nor can he cohabit in a garret, ten by fifteen, with so
+momentous a companion. It was my first idea to leave her
+behind at my departure.  There, in her birthplace, she might
+lend an inspiration, methought, to my successor.  But the
+proprietor, with whom I had unhappily quarrelled, seized the
+occasion to be disagreeable, and called upon me to remove my
+property.  For a man in such straits as I now found myself, the
+hire of a lorry was a consideration; and yet even that I could
+have faced, if I had had anywhere to drive to after it was hired. 
+Hysterical laughter seized upon me as I beheld (in imagination)
+myself, the waggoner, and the Genius of Muskegon, standing
+in the public view of Paris, without the shadow of a
+destination; perhaps driving at last to the nearest rubbish heap,
+and dumping there, among the ordures of a city, the beloved
+child of my invention.  From these extremities I was relieved by
+a seasonable offer, and I parted from the Genius of Muskegon
+for thirty francs.  Where she now stands, under what name she
+is admired or criticised, history does not inform us; but I like to
+think she may adorn the shrubbery of some suburban tea-
+garden, where holiday shop-girls hang their hats upon the
+mother, and their swains (by way of an approach of gallantry)
+identify the winged infant with the god of love.
+
+In a certain cabman's eating-house on the outer boulevard I got
+credit for my midday meal.  Supper I was supposed not to
+require, sitting down nightly to the delicate table of some rich
+acquaintances.  This arrangement was extremely ill-considered. 
+My fable, credible enough at first, and so long as my clothes
+were in good order, must have seemed worse than doubtful
+after my coat became frayed about the edges, and my boots
+began to squelch and pipe along the restaurant floors.  The
+allowance of one meal a day besides, though suitable enough to
+the state of my finances, agreed poorly with my stomach.  The
+restaurant was a place I had often visited experimentally, to
+taste the life of students then more unfortunate than myself; and
+I had never in those days entered it without disgust, or left it
+without nausea. It was strange to find myself sitting down with
+avidity, rising up with satisfaction, and counting the hours that
+divided me from my return to such a table.  But hunger is a
+great magician; and so soon as I had spent my ready cash, and
+could no longer fill up on bowls of chocolate or hunks of bread,
+I must depend entirely on that cabman's eating-house, and upon
+certain rare, long-expected, long-remembered windfalls.  Dijon
+(for instance) might get paid for some of his pot-boiling work,
+or else an old friend would pass through Paris; and then I
+would be entertained to a meal after my own soul, and contract
+a Latin Quarter loan, which would keep me in tobacco and my
+morning coffee for a fortnight.  It might be thought the latter
+would appear the more important.  It might be supposed that a
+life, led so near the confines of actual famine, should have
+dulled the nicety of my palate.  On the contrary, the poorer a
+man's diet, the more sharply is he set on dainties.  The last of
+my ready cash, about thirty francs, was deliberately squandered
+on a single dinner; and a great part of my time when I was
+alone was passed upon the details of imaginary feasts.
+
+One gleam of hope visited me--an order for a bust from a rich
+Southerner.  He was free-handed, jolly of speech, merry of
+countenance; kept me in good humour through the sittings, and
+when they were over, carried me off with him to dinner and the
+sights of Paris.  I ate well; I laid on flesh; by all accounts, I
+made a favourable likeness of the being, and I confess I thought
+my future was assured.  But when the bust was done, and I had
+despatched it across the Atlantic, I could never so much as
+learn of its arrival.  The blow felled me; I should have lain
+down and tried no stroke to right myself, had not the honour of
+my country been involved.  For Dijon improved the opportunity
+in the European style; informing me (for the first time) of the
+manners of America:  how it was a den of banditti without the
+smallest rudiment of law or order, and debts could be there
+only collected with a shotgun.  "The whole world knows it," he
+would say; "you are alone, mon petit Loudon, you are alone to
+be in ignorance of these facts.  The judges of the Supreme
+Court fought but the other day with stilettos on the bench at
+Cincinnati.  You should read the little book of one of my
+friends:  _Le Touriste dans le Far-West_; you will see it all
+there in good French."  At last, incensed by days of such
+discussion, I undertook to prove to him the contrary, and put
+the affair in the hands of my late father's lawyer.  From him I
+had the gratification of hearing, after a due interval, that my
+debtor was dead of the yellow fever in Key West, and had left
+his affairs in some confusion.  I suppress his name; for though
+he treated me with cruel nonchalance, it is probable he meant
+to deal fairly in the end.
+
+Soon after this a shade of change in my reception at the
+cabman's eating-house marked the beginning of a new phase in
+my distress.  The first day, I told myself it was but fancy; the
+next, I made quite sure it was a fact; the third, in mere panic I
+stayed away, and went for forty-eight hours fasting.  This was
+an act of great unreason; for the debtor who stays away is but
+the more remarked, and the boarder who misses a meal is sure
+to be accused of infidelity.  On the fourth day, therefore, I
+returned, inwardly quaking.  The proprietor looked askance
+upon my entrance; the waitresses (who were his daughters)
+neglected my wants and sniffed at the affected joviality of my
+salutations; last and most plain, when I called for a suisse
+(such as was being served to all the other diners) I was bluntly
+told there were no more.  It was obvious I was near the end of
+my tether; one plank divided me from want, and now I felt it
+tremble.  I passed a sleepless night, and the first thing in the 
+morning took my way to Myner's studio.  It was a step I had
+long meditated and long refrained from; for I was scarce
+intimate with the Englishman; and though I knew him to
+possess plenty of money, neither his manner nor his reputation
+were the least encouraging to beggars.
+
+
+I found him at work on a picture, which I was able
+conscientiously to praise, dressed in his usual tweeds, plain,
+but pretty fresh, and standing out in disagreeable contrast to my
+own withered and degraded outfit.  As we talked, he continued
+to shift his eyes watchfully between his handiwork and the fat
+model, who sat at the far end of the studio in a state of nature,
+with one arm gallantly arched above her head.  My errand
+would have been difficult enough under the best of
+circumstances:  placed between Myner, immersed in his art,
+and the white, fat, naked female in a ridiculous attitude, I found
+it quite impossible.  Again and again I attempted to approach
+the point, again and again fell back on commendations of the
+picture; and it was not until the model had enjoyed an interval
+of repose, during which she took the conversation in her own
+hands and regaled us (in a soft, weak voice) with details as to
+her husband's prosperity, her sister's lamented decline from the
+paths of virtue, and the consequent wrath of her father, a
+peasant of stern principles, in the vicinity of Chalons on the
+Marne;--it was not, I say, until after this was over, and I had
+once more cleared my throat for the attack, and once more
+dropped aside into some commonplace about the picture, that
+Myner himself brought me suddenly and vigorously to the
+point.
+
+"You didn't come here to talk this rot," said he.
+
+"No," I replied sullenly; "I came to borrow money."
+
+He painted awhile in silence.
+
+"I don't think we were ever very intimate?" he asked.
+
+"Thank you," said I.  "I can take my answer," and I made as if
+to go, rage boiling in my heart.
+
+"Of course you can go if you like," said Myner; "but I advise
+you to stay and have it out."
+
+"What more is there to say?" I cried.  "You don't want to keep
+me here for a needless humiliation?"
+
+"Look here, Dodd, you must try and command your temper,"
+said he.  "This interview is of your own seeking, and not mine;
+if you suppose it's not disagreeable to me, you're wrong; and if
+you think I will give you money without knowing thoroughly
+about your prospects, you take me for a fool.  Besides," he 
+added, "if you come to look at it, you've got over the worst of it
+by now:  you have done the asking, and you have every reason
+to know I mean to refuse.  I hold out no false hopes, but it may
+be worth your while to let me judge."
+
+Thus--I was going to say--encouraged, I stumbled through my
+story; told him I had credit at the cabman's eating-house, but
+began to think it was drawing to a close; how Dijon lent me a
+corner of his studio, where I tried to model ornaments, figures
+for clocks, Time with the scythe, Leda and the swan,
+musketeers for candlesticks, and other kickshaws, which had
+never (up to that day) been honoured with the least approval.
+
+"And your room?" asked Myner.
+
+"O, my room is all right, I think," said I.  "She is a very good
+old lady, and has never even mentioned her bill."
+
+"Because she is a very good old lady, I don't see why she
+should be fined," observed Myner.
+
+"What do you mean by that?" I cried.
+
+"I mean this," said he.  "The French give a great deal of credit
+amongst themselves; they find it pays on the whole, or the
+system would hardly be continued; but I can't see where WE
+come in; I can't see that it's honest of us Anglo-Saxons to profit
+by their easy ways, and then skip over the Channel or (as you
+Yankees do) across the Atlantic."
+
+"But I'm not proposing to skip," I objected.
+
+"Exactly," he replied.  "And shouldn't you? There's the problem. 
+You seem to me to have a lack of sympathy for the proprietors
+of cabmen's eating-houses.  By your own account you're not
+getting on:  the longer you stay, it'll only be the more out of the
+pocket of the dear old lady at your lodgings.  Now, I'll tell you
+what I'll do:  if you consent to go, I'll pay your passage to New
+York, and your railway fare and expenses to Muskegon (if I
+have the name right) where your father lived, where he must
+have left friends, and where, no doubt, you'll find an opening.  I
+don't seek any gratitude, for of course you'll think me a beast;
+but I do ask you to pay it back when you are able.  At any rate,
+that's all I can do.  It might be different if I thought you a
+genius, Dodd; but I don't, and I advise you not to."
+
+
+"I think that was uncalled for, at least," said I.
+
+"I daresay it was," he returned, with the same steadiness.  "It
+seemed to me pertinent; and, besides, when you ask me for
+money upon no security, you treat me with the liberty of a
+friend, and it's to be presumed that I can do the like.  But the
+point is, do you accept?"
+
+"No, thank you," said I; "I have another string to my bow."
+
+"All right," says Myner.  "Be sure it's honest."
+
+"Honest? honest?" I cried.  "What do you mean by calling my
+honesty in question?"
+
+"I won't, if you don't like it," he replied.  "You seem to think
+honesty as easy as Blind Man's Buff: I don't.  It's some
+difference of definition."
+
+I went straight from this irritating interview, during which
+Myner had never discontinued painting, to the studio of my old
+master.  Only one card remained for me to play, and I was now
+resolved to play it: I must drop the gentleman and the frock
+-coat, and approach art in the workman's tunic.
+
+"Tiens, this little Dodd!" cried the master; and then, as his eye
+fell on my dilapidated clothing, I thought I could perceive his
+countenance to darken.
+
+I made my plea in English; for I knew, if he were vain of
+anything, it was of his achievement of the island tongue. 
+"Master," said I, "will you take me in your studio again? but
+this time as a workman."
+
+"I sought your fazer was immensely reech," said he.
+
+I explained to him that I was now an orphan and penniless.
+
+He shook his head.  "I have betterr workmen waiting at my
+door," said he, "far betterr workmen.
+
+"You used to think something of my work, sir," I pleaded.
+
+"Somesing, somesing--yes!" he cried; "enough for a son of a
+reech man--not enough for an orphan.  Besides, I sought you
+might learn to be an artist; I did not sink you might learn to be
+a workman."
+
+On a certain bench on the outer boulevard, not far from the
+tomb of Napoleon, a bench shaded at that date by a shabby
+tree, and commanding a view of muddy roadway and blank
+wall, I sat down to wrestle with my misery.  The weather was
+cheerless and dark; in three days I had eaten but once; I had no
+tobacco; my shoes were soaked, my trousers horrid with mire;
+my humour and all the circumstances of the time and place
+lugubriously attuned.  Here were two men who had both
+spoken fairly of my work while I was rich and wanted nothing;
+now that I was poor and lacked all:  "no genius," said the one;
+"not enough for an orphan," the other; and the first offered me
+my passage like a pauper immigrant, and the second refused
+me a day's wage as a hewer of stone--plain dealing for an
+empty belly.  They had not been insincere in the past; they were
+not insincere to-day:  change of circumstance had introduced a
+new criterion:  that was all.
+
+But if I acquitted my two Job's comforters of insincerity, I was
+yet far from admitting them infallible.  Artists had been
+contemned before, and had lived to turn the laugh on their
+contemners.  How old was Corot before he struck the vein of
+his own precious metal?  When had a young man been more
+derided (or more justly so) than the god of my admiration,
+Balzac?  Or if I required a bolder inspiration, what had I to do
+but turn my head to where the gold dome of the Invalides
+glittered against inky squalls, and recall the tale of him
+sleeping there:  from the day when a young artillery-sub could
+be giggled at and nicknamed Puss-in-Boots by frisky misses;
+on to the days of so many crowns and so many victories, and so
+many hundred mouths of cannon, and so many thousand war-
+hoofs trampling the roadways of astonished Europe eighty
+miles in front of the grand army?  To go back, to give up, to
+proclaim myself a failure, an ambitious failure, first a rocket,
+then a stick!  I, Loudon Dodd, who had refused all other
+livelihoods with scorn, and been advertised in the Saint Joseph
+_Sunday Herald_ as a patriot and an artist, to be returned upon
+my native Muskegon like damaged goods, and go the circuit of
+my father's acquaintance, cap in hand, and begging to sweep
+offices!  No, by Napoleon!  I would die at my chosen trade; and
+the two who had that day flouted me should live to envy my
+success, or to weep tears of unavailing penitence behind my
+pauper coffin.
+
+Meantime, if my courage was still undiminished, I was none
+the nearer to a meal.  At no great distance my cabman's eating-
+house stood, at the tail of a muddy cab-rank, on the shores of a
+wide thoroughfare of mud, offering (to fancy) a face of
+ambiguous invitation.  I might be received, I might once more
+fill my belly there; on the other hand, it was perhaps this day
+the bolt was destined to fall, and I might be expelled instead,
+with vulgar hubbub.  It was policy to make the attempt, and I
+knew it was policy; but I had already, in the course of that one
+morning, endured too many affronts, and I felt I could rather
+starve than face another.  I had courage and to spare for the
+future, none left for that day; courage for the main campaign,
+but not a spark of it for that preliminary skirmish of the
+cabman's restaurant.  I continued accordingly to sit upon my
+bench, not far from the ashes of Napoleon, now drowsy, now
+light-headed, now in complete mental obstruction, or only
+conscious of an animal pleasure in quiescence; and now
+thinking, planning, and remembering with unexampled
+clearness, telling myself tales of sudden wealth, and gustfully
+ordering and greedily consuming imaginary meals:  in the
+course of which I must have dropped asleep.
+
+It was towards dark that I was suddenly recalled to famine by a
+cold souse of rain, and sprang shivering to my feet.  For a
+moment I stood bewildered:  the whole train of my reasoning
+and dreaming passed afresh through my mind; I was again
+tempted, drawn as if with cords, by the image of the cabman's
+eating-house, and again recoiled from the possibility of insult. 
+"Qui dort dine," thought I to myself; and took my  homeward
+way with wavering footsteps, through rainy streets in which the
+lamps and the shop-windows now began to gleam; still
+marshalling imaginary dinners as I went. 
+
+"Ah, Monsieur Dodd," said the porter, "there has been a
+registered letter for you.  The facteur will bring it again
+to-morrow."
+
+A registered letter for me, who had been so long without one?
+Of what it could possibly contain, I had no vestige of a guess;
+nor did I delay myself guessing; far less form any conscious
+plan of dishonesty:  the lies flowed from me like a natural
+secretion.
+
+"O," said I, "my remittance at last!  What a bother I should
+have missed it!  Can you lend me a hundred francs until
+to-morrow?"
+
+
+I had never attempted to borrow from the porter till that
+moment:  the registered letter was, besides, my warranty; and
+he gave me what he had--three napoleons and some francs in
+silver.  I pocketed the money carelessly, lingered a while
+chaffing, strolled leisurely to the door; and then (fast as my
+trembling legs could carry me) round the corner to the Cafe de
+Cluny.  French waiters are deft and speedy; they were not deft
+enough for me; and I had scarce decency to let the man set the
+wine upon the table or put the butter alongside the bread,
+before my glass and my mouth were filled.  Exquisite bread of
+the Cafe Cluny, exquisite first glass of old Pomard tingling to
+my wet feet, indescribable first olive culled from the hors
+d'oeuvre--I suppose, when I come to lie dying, and the lamp
+begins to grow dim, I shall still recall your savour.  Over the
+rest of that meal, and the rest of the evening, clouds lie thick;
+clouds perhaps of Burgundy; perhaps, more properly, of famine
+and repletion.
+
+I remember clearly, at least, the shame, the despair, of the next
+morning, when I reviewed what I had done, and how I had
+swindled the poor honest porter; and, as if that were not
+enough, fairly burnt my ships, and brought bankruptcy home to
+that last refuge, my garret.  The porter would expect his money;
+I could not pay him; here was scandal in the house; and I knew
+right well the cause of scandal would have to pack.  "What do
+you mean by calling my honesty in question?" I had cried the
+day before, turning upon Myner.  Ah, that day before! the day
+before Waterloo, the day before the Flood; the day before I had 
+sold the roof over my head, my future, and my self-respect, for
+a dinner at the Cafe Cluny!
+
+In the midst of these lamentations the famous registered letter
+came to my door, with healing under its seals.  It bore the
+postmark of San Francisco, where Pinkerton was already
+struggling to the neck in multifarious affairs:  it renewed the
+offer of an allowance, which his improved estate permitted him
+to announce at the figure of two hundred francs a month; and in
+case I was in some immediate pinch, it enclosed an
+introductory draft for forty dollars.  There are a thousand
+excellent reasons why a man, in this self-helpful epoch, should
+decline to be dependent on another; but the most numerous and
+cogent considerations all bow to a necessity as stern as mine;
+and the banks were scarce open ere the draft was cashed.
+
+It was early in December that I thus sold myself into slavery;
+and for six months I dragged a slowly lengthening chain of
+gratitude and uneasiness.  At the cost of some debt I managed
+to excel myself and eclipse the Genius of Muskegon, in a small
+but highly patriotic Standard Bearer for the Salon; whither it
+was duly admitted, where it stood the proper length of days
+entirely unremarked, and whence it came back to me as
+patriotic as before.  I threw my whole soul (as Pinkerton would
+have phrased it) into clocks and candlesticks; the devil a
+candlestick-maker would have anything to say to my designs. 
+Even when Dijon, with his infinite good humour and infinite
+scorn for all such journey-work, consented to peddle them in 
+indiscriminately with his own, the dealers still detected and
+rejected mine.  Home they returned to me, true as the Standard
+Bearer; who now, at the head of quite a regiment of lesser
+idols, began to grow an eyesore in the scanty studio of my
+friend.  Dijon and I have sat by the hour, and gazed upon that
+company of images.  The severe, the frisky, the classical, the
+Louis Quinze, were there--from Joan of Arc in her soldierly
+cuirass to Leda with the swan; nay, and God forgive me for a
+man that knew better! the humorous was represented also.  We
+sat and gazed, I say; we criticised, we turned them hither and
+thither; even upon the closest inspection they looked quite like
+statuettes; and yet nobody would have a gift of them!  
+
+Vanity dies hard; in some obstinate cases it outlives the man:
+but about the sixth month, when I already owed near two
+hundred dollars to Pinkerton, and half as much again in debts
+scattered about Paris, I awoke one morning with a horrid
+sentiment of oppression, and found I was alone:  my vanity had
+breathed her last during the night.  I dared not plunge deeper in
+the bog; I saw no hope in my poor statuary; I owned myself
+beaten at last; and sitting down in my nightshirt beside the
+window, whence I had a glimpse of the tree-tops at the corner
+of the boulevard, and where the music of its early traffic fell
+agreeably upon my ear, I penned my farewell to Paris, to art, to
+my whole past life, and my whole former self.  "I give in," I
+wrote.  "When the next allowance arrives, I shall go straight
+out West, where you can do what you like with me."
+
+It is to be understood that Pinkerton had been, in a sense,
+pressing me to come from the beginning; depicting his isolation
+among new acquaintances, "who have none of them your
+culture," he wrote; expressing his friendship in terms so warm
+that it sometimes embarrassed me to think how poorly I could
+echo them; dwelling upon his need for assistance; and the next
+moment turning about to commend my resolution and press me
+to remain in Paris.  "Only remember, Loudon," he would write,
+"if you ever DO tire of it, there's plenty of work here for you
+--honest, hard, well-paid work, developing the resources of this
+practically virgin State.  And of course I needn't say what a
+pleasure it would be to me if we were going at it SHOULDER
+TO SHOULDER."  I marvel (looking back) that I could so long
+have resisted these appeals, and continue to sink my friend's
+money in a manner that I knew him to dislike.  At least, when I
+did awake to any sense of my position, I awoke to it entirely;
+and determined not only to follow his counsel for the future, but
+even as regards the past, to rectify his losses.  For in this
+juncture of affairs I called to mind that I was not without a
+possible resource, and resolved, at whatever cost of
+mortification, to beard the Loudon family in their historic city.
+
+In the excellent Scots' phrase, I made a moonlight flitting, a
+thing never dignified, but in my case unusually easy.  As I had
+scarce a pair of boots worth portage, I deserted the whole of my
+effects without a pang.  Dijon fell heir to Joan of Arc, the
+Standard Bearer, and the Musketeers.  He was present when I
+bought and frugally stocked my new portmanteau; and it was at
+the door of the trunk shop that I took my leave of him, for my
+last few hours in Paris must be spent alone.  It was alone (and
+at a far higher figure than my finances warranted) that I
+discussed my dinner; alone that I took my ticket at Saint
+Lazare; all alone, though in a carriage full of people, that I
+watched the moon shine on the Seine flood with its tufted
+islets, on Rouen with her spires, and on the shipping in the
+harbour of Dieppe.  When the first light of the morning called
+me from troubled slumbers on the deck, I beheld the dawn at
+first with pleasure; I watched with pleasure the green shores of
+England rising out of rosy haze; I took the salt air with delight
+into my nostrils; and then all came back to me; that I was no
+longer an artist, no longer myself; that I was leaving all I cared
+for, and returning to all that I detested, the slave of debt and
+gratitude, a public and a branded failure.
+
+From this picture of my own disgrace and wretchedness, it is
+not wonderful if my mind turned with relief to the thought of
+Pinkerton, waiting for me, as I knew, with unwearied affection,
+and regarding me with a respect that I had never deserved, and
+might therefore fairly hope that I should never forfeit.  The
+inequality of our relation struck me rudely.  I must have been
+stupid, indeed, if I could have considered the history of that
+friendship without shame--I, who had given so little, who had
+accepted and profited by so much.  I had the whole day before
+me in London, and I determined (at least in words) to set the
+balance somewhat straighter.  Seated in the corner of a public
+place, and calling for sheet after sheet of paper, I poured forth
+the expression of my gratitude, my penitence for the past, my
+resolutions for the future.  Till now, I told him, my course had
+been mere selfishness.  I had been selfish to my father and to
+my friend, taking their help, and denying them (which was all
+they asked) the poor gratification of my company and
+countenance.
+
+Wonderful are the consolations of literature! As soon as that
+letter was written and posted, the consciousness of virtue
+glowed in my veins like some rare vintage. 
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER VI.
+
+ IN WHICH I GO WEST.
+
+
+I reached my uncle's door next morning in time to sit down
+with the family to breakfast.  More than three years had
+intervened almost without mutation in that stationary
+household, since I had sat there first, a young American
+freshman, bewildered among unfamiliar dainties, Finnan
+haddock, kippered salmon, baps and mutton ham, and had
+wearied my mind in vain to guess what should be under the
+tea-cosey.  If there were any change at all, it seemed that I had
+risen in the family esteem.  My father's death once fittingly
+referred to, with a ceremonial lengthening of Scotch upper lips
+and wagging of the female head, the party launched at once
+(God help me) into the more cheerful topic of my own
+successes.  They had been so pleased to hear such good
+accounts of me; I was quite a great man now; where was that
+beautiful statue of the Genius of Something or other?  "You
+haven't it here? not here?  Really?" asks the sprightliest of my
+cousins, shaking curls at me; as though it were likely I had
+brought it in a cab, or kept it concealed about my person like a
+birthday surprise.  In the bosom of this family, unaccustomed
+to the tropical nonsense of the West, it became plain the
+_Sunday Herald_ and poor, blethering Pinkerton had been
+accepted for their face.  It is not possible to invent a
+circumstance that could have more depressed me; and I am
+conscious that I behaved all through that breakfast like a whipt
+schoolboy.
+
+At length, the meal and family prayers being both happily over,
+I requested the favour of an interview with Uncle Adam on "the
+state of my affairs."  At sound of this ominous expression, the
+good man's face conspicuously lengthened; and when my
+grandfather, having had the proposition repeated to him (for he
+was hard of hearing) announced his intention of being present
+at the interview, I could not but think that Uncle Adam's
+sorrow kindled into momentary irritation.  Nothing, however,
+but the usual grim cordiality appeared upon the surface; and we
+all three passed ceremoniously to the adjoining library, a
+gloomy theatre for a depressing piece of business.  My
+grandfather charged a clay pipe, and sat tremulously smoking
+in a corner of the fireless chimney; behind him, although the
+morning was both chill and dark, the window was partly open
+and the blind partly down:  I cannot depict what an air he had
+of being out of place, like a man shipwrecked there.  Uncle
+Adam had his station at the business table in the midst. 
+Valuable rows of books looked down upon the place of torture;
+and I could hear sparrows chirping in the garden, and my
+sprightly cousin already banging the piano and pouring forth an
+acid stream of song from the drawing-room overhead.
+
+It was in these circumstances that, with all brevity of speech
+and a certain boyish sullenness of manner, looking the while
+upon the floor, I informed my relatives of my financial
+situation:  the amount I owed Pinkerton; the hopelessness of
+any maintenance from sculpture; the career offered me in the
+States; and how, before becoming more beholden to a stranger,
+I had judged it right to lay the case before my family.
+
+"I am only sorry you did not come to me at first," said Uncle
+Adam.  "I take the liberty to say it would have been more
+decent."
+
+"I think so too, Uncle Adam," I replied; "but you must bear in
+mind I was ignorant in what light you might regard my
+application."
+
+"I hope I would never turn my back on my own flesh and
+blood," he returned with emphasis; but to my anxious ear, with
+more of temper than affection.  "I could never forget you were
+my sister's son.  I regard this as a manifest duty.  I have no
+choice but to accept the entire responsibility of the position you
+have made."
+
+I did not know what else to do but murmur "thank you."
+
+
+"Yes," he pursued, "and there is something providential in the
+circumstance that you come at the right time.  In my old firm
+there is a vacancy; they call themselves Italian Warehousemen
+now," he continued, regarding me with a twinkle of humour;
+"so you may think yourself in luck: we were only grocers in my
+day.  I shall place you there to-morrow."
+
+"Stop a moment, Uncle Adam," I broke in.  "This is not at all
+what I am asking.  I ask you to pay Pinkerton, who is a poor
+man.  I ask you to clear my feet of debt, not to arrange my life
+or any part of it."
+
+"If I wished to be harsh, I might remind you that beggars
+cannot be choosers," said my uncle; "and as to managing your
+life, you have tried your own way already, and you see what
+you have made of it.  You must now accept the guidance of
+those older and (whatever you may think of it) wiser than
+yourself.  All these schemes of your friend (of whom I know
+nothing, by the by) and talk of openings in the West, I simply
+disregard.  I have no idea whatever of your going troking across
+a continent on a wild-goose chase.  In this situation, which I
+am fortunately able to place at your disposal, and which many a
+well-conducted young man would be glad to jump at, you will
+receive, to begin with, eighteen shillings a week."
+
+"Eighteen shillings a week!" I cried.  "Why, my poor friend
+gave me more than that for nothing!"
+
+"And I think it is this very friend you are now trying to repay?"
+observed my uncle, with an air of one advancing a strong
+argument.
+
+"Aadam!" said my grandfather.
+
+"I'm vexed you should be present at this business," quoth Uncle
+Adam, swinging rather obsequiously towards the stonemason;
+"but I must remind you it is of your own seeking."
+
+"Aadam!" repeated the old man.
+
+"Well, sir, I am listening," says my uncle.
+
+My grandfather took a puff or two in silence; and then, "Ye're
+makin' an awfu' poor appearance, Aadam," said he.
+
+My uncle visibly reared at the affront.  "I'm sorry you should
+think so," said he, "and still more sorry you should say so
+before present company."
+
+"A believe that; A ken that, Aadam," returned old Loudon,
+dryly; "and the curiis thing is, I'm no very carin'.  See here, ma
+man," he continued, addressing himself to me.  "A'm your
+grandfaither, amn't I not?  Never you mind what Aadam says. 
+A'll see justice din ye.  A'm rich."
+
+"Father," said Uncle Adam, "I would like one word with you in
+private."
+
+I rose to go.
+
+"Set down upon your hinderlands," cried my grandfather,
+almost savagely.  "If Aadam has anything to say, let him say it. 
+It's me that has the money here; and by Gravy! I'm goin' to be
+obeyed."
+
+Upon this scurvy encouragement, it appeared that my uncle had
+no remark to offer:  twice challenged to "speak out and be done
+with it," he twice sullenly declined; and I may mention that
+about this period of the engagement, I began to be sorry for
+him.
+
+"See here, then, Jeannie's yin!" resumed my grandfather.  "A'm
+goin' to give ye a set-off.  Your mither was always my fav'rite,
+for A never could agree with Aadam.  A like ye fine yoursel';
+there's nae noansense aboot ye; ye've a fine nayteral idee of
+builder's work; ye've been to France, where they tell me they're
+grand at the stuccy.  A splendid thing for ceilin's, the stuccy!
+and it's a vailyable disguise, too; A don't believe there's a
+builder in Scotland has used more stuccy than me.  But as A
+was sayin', if ye'll follie that trade, with the capital that A'm
+goin' to give ye, ye may live yet to be as rich as mysel'.  Ye see,
+ye would have always had a share of it when A was gone; it
+appears ye're needin' it now; well, ye'll get the less, as is only
+just and proper."
+
+Uncle Adam cleared his throat.  "This is very handsome,
+father," said he; "and I am sure Loudon feels it so.  Very
+handsome, and as you say, very just; but will you allow me to
+say that it had better, perhaps, be put in black and white?"
+
+The enmity always smouldering between the two men at this
+ill-judged interruption almost burst in flame.  The stonemason
+turned upon his offspring, his long upper lip pulled down, for
+all the world, like a monkey's.  He stared a while in virulent
+silence; and then "Get Gregg!" said he.
+
+The effect of these words was very visible.  "He will be gone to
+his office," stammered my uncle. 
+
+"Get Gregg!" repeated my grandfather.
+
+"I tell you, he will be gone to his office," reiterated Adam.
+
+"And I tell ye, he's takin' his smoke," retorted the old man.
+
+"Very well, then," cried my uncle, getting to his feet with some
+alacrity, as upon a sudden change of thought, "I will get him
+myself."
+
+"Ye will not!" cried my grandfather.  "Ye will sit there upon
+your hinderland."
+
+"Then how the devil am I to get him?" my uncle broke forth,
+with not unnatural petulance.
+
+My grandfather (having no possible answer) grinned at his son
+with the malice of a schoolboy; then he rang the bell.
+
+"Take the garden key," said Uncle Adam to the servant; "go
+over to the garden, and if Mr. Gregg the lawyer is there (he
+generally sits under the red hawthorn), give him old Mr.
+Loudon's compliments, and will he step in here for a moment?"
+
+"Mr. Gregg the lawyer!"  At once I understood (what had been
+puzzling me) the significance of my grandfather and the alarm
+of my poor uncle: the stonemason's will, it was supposed, hung
+trembling in the balance.
+
+"Look here, grandfather," I said, "I didn't want any of this.  All
+I wanted was a loan of (say) two hundred pounds.  I can take
+care of myself; I have prospects and opportunities, good friends
+in the States----"
+
+The old man waved me down.  "It's me that speaks here," he
+said curtly; and we waited the coming of the lawyer in a triple
+silence.  He appeared at last, the maid ushering him in--a
+spectacled, dry, but not ungenial looking man.
+
+
+"Here, Gregg," cried my grandfather.  "Just a question: What
+has Aadam got to do with my will?"
+
+"I'm afraid I don't quite understand," said the lawyer, staring.
+
+"What has he got to do with it?" repeated the old man, smiting
+with his fist upon the arm of his chair.  "Is my money mine's, or
+is it Aadam's?  Can Aadam interfere?"
+
+"O, I see," said Mr. Gregg.  "Certainly not.  On the marriage of
+both of your children a certain sum was paid down and
+accepted in full of legitim.  You have surely not forgotten the
+circumstance, Mr. Loudon?"
+
+"So that, if I like," concluded my grandfather, hammering out
+his words, "I can leave every doit I die possessed of to the Great
+Magunn?"--meaning probably the Great Mogul.
+
+"No doubt of it," replied Gregg, with a shadow of a smile.
+
+"Ye hear that, Aadam?" asked my grandfather.
+
+"I may be allowed to say I had no need to hear it," said my
+uncle.
+
+"Very well," says my grandfather.  "You and Jeannie's yin can
+go for a bit walk.  Me and Gregg has business."
+
+When once I was in the hall alone with Uncle Adam, I turned
+to him, sick at heart.  "Uncle Adam," I said, "you can
+understand, better than I can say, how very painful all this is to
+me."
+
+"Yes, I am sorry you have seen your grandfather in so
+unamiable a light," replied this extraordinary man.  "You
+shouldn't allow it to affect your mind though.  He has sterling
+qualities, quite an extraordinary character; and I have no fear
+but he means to behave handsomely to you."
+
+His composure was beyond my imitation:  the house could not
+contain me, nor could I even promise to return to it:  in
+concession to which weakness, it was agreed that I should call
+in about an hour at the office of the lawyer, whom (as he left
+the library) Uncle Adam should waylay and inform of the
+arrangement.  I suppose there was never a more topsy-turvy
+situation:  you would have thought it was I who had suffered
+some rebuff, and that iron-sided Adam was a generous
+conqueror who scorned to take advantage. 
+
+It was plain enough that I was to be endowed:  to what extent
+and upon what conditions I was now left for an hour to
+meditate in the wide and solitary thoroughfares of the new
+town, taking counsel with street-corner statues of George IV.
+and William Pitt, improving my mind with the pictures in the
+window of a music-shop, and renewing my acquaintance with
+Edinburgh east wind.  By the end of the hour I made my way to
+Mr. Gregg's office, where I was placed, with a few appropriate
+words, in possession of a cheque for two thousand pounds and
+a small parcel of architectural works.
+
+"Mr. Loudon bids me add," continued the lawyer, consulting a
+little sheet of notes, "that although these volumes are very
+valuable to the practical builder, you must be careful not to lose
+originality.  He tells you also not to be 'hadden doun'--his own
+expression--by the theory of strains, and that Portland cement,
+properly sanded, will go a long way."
+
+I smiled, and remarked that I supposed it would.
+
+"I once lived in one of my excellent client's houses," observed
+the lawyer; "and I was tempted, in that case, to think it had
+gone far enough."
+
+"Under these circumstances, sir," said I, "you will be rather
+relieved to hear that I have no intention of becoming a builder."
+
+At this, he fairly laughed; and, the ice being broken, I was able
+to consult him as to my conduct.  He insisted I must return to
+the house, at least, for luncheon, and one of my walks with Mr.
+Loudon.  "For the evening, I will furnish you with an excuse, if
+you please," said he, "by asking you to a bachelor dinner with
+myself.  But the luncheon and the walk are unavoidable.  He is
+an old man, and, I believe, really fond of you; he would
+naturally feel aggrieved if there were any appearance of
+avoiding him; and as for Mr. Adam, do you know, I think your
+delicacy out of place.... And now, Mr. Dodd, what are you to
+do with this money?"
+
+Ay, there was the question.  With two thousand pounds--fifty
+thousand francs--I might return to Paris and the arts, and be a
+prince and millionaire in that thrifty Latin Quarter.  I think I
+had the grace, with one corner of my mind, to be glad that I had
+sent the London letter:  I know very well that with the rest and
+worst of me, I repented bitterly of that precipitate act.  On one
+point, however, my whole multiplex estate of man was
+unanimous:  the letter being gone, there was no help but I must
+follow.  The money was accordingly divided in two unequal
+shares:  for the first, Mr. Gregg got me a bill in the name of
+Dijon to meet my liabilities in Paris; for the second, as I had
+already cash in hand for the expenses of my journey, he
+supplied me with drafts on San Francisco.
+
+The rest of my business in Edinburgh, not to dwell on a very
+agreeable dinner with the lawyer or the horrors of the family
+luncheon, took the form of an excursion with the stonemason,
+who led me this time to no suburb or work of his old hands, but
+with an impulse both natural and pretty, to that more enduring
+home which he had chosen for his clay.  It was in a cemetery,
+by some strange chance, immured within the bulwarks of a
+prison; standing, besides, on the margin of a cliff, crowded
+with elderly stone memorials, and green with turf and ivy.  The
+east wind (which I thought too harsh for the old man)
+continually shook the boughs, and the thin sun of a Scottish
+summer drew their dancing shadows.
+
+"I wanted ye to see the place," said he.  "Yon's the stane. 
+Euphemia Ross: that was my goodwife, your grandmither
+--hoots! I'm wrong; that was my first yin; I had no bairns by
+her;--yours is the second, Mary Murray, Born 1819, Died 1850:
+that's her--a fine, plain, decent sort of a creature, tak' her
+athegether.  Alexander Loudon, Born Seventeen Ninety-Twa,
+Died--and then a hole in the ballant:  that's me.  Alexander's
+my name.  They ca'd me Ecky when I was a boy.  Eh, Ecky!
+ye're an awfu' auld man!"
+
+I had a second and sadder experience of graveyards at my next
+alighting-place, the city of Muskegon, now rendered
+conspicuous by the dome of the new capitol encaged in
+scaffolding.  It was late in the afternoon when I arrived, and
+raining; and as I walked in great streets, of the very name of
+which I was quite ignorant--double, treble, and quadruple lines
+of horse-cars jingling by--hundred-fold wires of telegraph and
+telephone matting heaven above my head--huge, staring
+houses, garish and gloomy, flanking me from either hand--the
+thought of the Rue Racine, ay, and of the cabman's eating
+-house, brought tears to my eyes.  The whole monotonous
+Babel had grown, or I should rather say swelled, with such a
+leap since my departure, that I must continually inquire my
+way; and the very cemetery was brand new.  Death, however,
+had been active; the graves were already numerous, and I must
+pick my way in the rain, among the tawdry sepulchres of
+millionnaires, and past the plain black crosses of Hungarian
+labourers, till chance or instinct led me to the place that was my
+father's.  The stone had been erected (I knew already) "by
+admiring friends"; I could now judge their taste in monuments;
+their taste in literature, methought, I could imagine, and I
+refrained from drawing near enough to read the terms of the
+inscription.  But the name was in larger letters and stared at
+me--JAMES K. DODD.  What a singular thing is a name, I
+thought; how it clings to a man, and continually misrepresents,
+and then survives him; and it flashed across my mind, with a
+mixture of regret and bitter mirth, that I had never known, and
+now probably never should know, what the K had represented. 
+King, Kilter, Kay, Kaiser, I went, running over names at
+random, and then stumbled with ludicrous misspelling on
+Kornelius, and had nearly laughed aloud.  I have never been
+more childish; I suppose (although the deeper voices of my
+nature seemed all dumb) because I have never been more
+moved.  And at this last incongruous antic of my nerves, I was
+seized with a panic of remorse and fled the cemetery.
+
+Scarce less funereal was the rest of my experience in
+Muskegon, where, nevertheless, I lingered, visiting my father's
+circle, for some days.  It was in piety to him I lingered; and I
+might have spared myself the pain. His memory was already
+quite gone out.  For his sake, indeed, I was made welcome; and
+for mine the conversation rolled awhile with laborious effort on
+the virtues of the deceased.  His former comrades dwelt, in my
+company, upon his business talents or his generosity for public
+purposes; when my back was turned, they remembered him no
+more.  My father had loved me; I had left him alone to live and
+die among the indifferent; now I returned to find him dead and
+buried and forgotten.  Unavailing penitence translated itself in
+my thoughts to fresh resolve.  There was another poor soul who
+loved me:  Pinkerton.  I must not be guilty twice of the same
+error.
+
+A week perhaps had been thus wasted, nor had I prepared my
+friend for the delay.  Accordingly, when I had changed trains at
+Council Bluffs, I was aware of a man appearing at the end of
+the car with a telegram in his hand and inquiring whether there
+were any one aboard "of the name of LONDON Dodd?"  I
+thought the name near enough, claimed the despatch, and
+found it was from Pinkerton:  "What day do you arrive?
+Awfully important."  I sent him an answer giving day and hour,
+and at Ogden found a fresh despatch awaiting me:  "That will
+do.  Unspeakable relief.  Meet you at Sacramento."  In Paris
+days I had a private name for Pinkerton:  "The Irrepressible"
+was what I had called him in hours of bitterness, and the name
+rose once more on my lips.  What mischief was he up to now?
+What new bowl was my benignant monster brewing for his
+Frankenstein?  In what new imbroglio should I alight on the
+Pacific coast?  My trust in the man was entire, and my distrust
+perfect.  I knew he would never mean amiss; but I was
+convinced he would almost never (in my sense) do aright.
+
+I suppose these vague anticipations added a shade of gloom to
+that already gloomy place of travel:  Nebraska, Wyoming,
+Utah, Nevada, scowled in my face at least, and seemed to point
+me back again to that other native land of mine, the Latin
+Quarter.  But when the Sierras had been climbed, and the train,
+after so long beating and panting, stretched itself upon the
+downward track--when I beheld that vast extent of prosperous
+country rolling seaward from the woods and the blue
+mountains, that illimitable spread of rippling corn, the trees
+growing and blowing in the merry weather, the country boys
+thronging aboard the train with figs and peaches, and the
+conductors, and the very darky stewards, visibly exulting in the
+change--up went my soul like a balloon; Care fell from his
+perch upon my shoulders; and when I spied my Pinkerton
+among the crowd at Sacramento, I thought of nothing but to
+shout and wave for him, and grasp him by the hand, like what
+he was--my dearest friend.
+
+"O Loudon!" he cried.  "Man, how I've pined for you!  And you
+haven't come an hour too soon.  You're known here and waited
+for; I've been booming you already; you're billed for a lecture
+to-morrow night:  _Student Life in Paris, Grave and Gay_:
+twelve hundred places booked at the last stock!  Tut, man,
+you're looking thin!  Here, try a drop of this."  And he produced
+a case bottle, staringly labelled PINKERTON'S THIRTEEN
+STAR GOLDEN STATE BRANDY, WARRANTED
+ENTIRE.
+
+"God bless me!" said I, gasping and winking after my first
+plunge into this fiery fluid.  "And what does 'Warranted Entire'
+mean?"
+
+"Why, Loudon! you ought to know that!" cried Pinkerton.  "It's
+real, copper-bottomed English; you see it on all the old-time
+wayside hostelries over there."
+
+"But if I'm not mistaken, it means something Warranted
+Entirely different," said I, "and applies to the public house, and
+not the beverages sold."
+
+"It's very possible," said Jim, quite unabashed.  "It's effective,
+anyway; and I can tell you, sir, it has boomed that spirit:  it
+goes now by the gross of cases.  By the way, I hope you won't
+mind; I've got your portrait all over San Francisco for the
+lecture,  enlarged from that carte de visite: H. Loudon Dodd,
+the Americo-Parisienne Sculptor.  Here's a proof of the small
+handbills; the posters are the same, only in red and blue, and
+the letters fourteen by one."
+
+I looked at the handbill, and my head turned.  What was the
+use of words? why seek to explain to Pinkerton the knotted
+horrors of "Americo-Parisienne"?  He took an early occasion to
+point it out as "rather a good phrase; gives the two sides at a
+glance:  I wanted the lecture written up to that."  Even after we
+had reached San Francisco, and at the actual physical shock of
+my own effigy placarded on the streets I had broken forth in
+petulant words, he never comprehended in the least the ground
+of my aversion.
+
+"If I had only known you disliked red lettering!" was as high as
+he could rise.  "You are perfectly right: a clear-cut black is
+preferable, and shows a great deal further.  The only thing that
+pains me is the portrait:  I own I thought that a success.  I'm
+dreadfully and truly sorry, my dear fellow:  I see now it's not
+what you had a right to expect; but I did it, Loudon, for the
+best; and the press is all delighted."
+
+At the moment, sweeping through green tule swamps, I fell
+direct on the essential.  "But, Pinkerton," I cried, "this lecture is
+the maddest of your madnesses.  How can I prepare a lecture in
+thirty hours?"
+
+"All done, Loudon!" he exclaimed in triumph.  "All ready. 
+Trust me to pull a piece of business through.  You'll find it all
+type-written in my desk at home.  I put the best talent of San
+Francisco on the job:  Harry Miller, the brightest pressman in
+the city."
+
+And so he rattled on, beyond reach of my modest protestations,
+blurting out his complicated interests, crying up his new
+acquaintances, and ever and again hungering to introduce me
+to some "whole-souled, grand fellow, as sharp as a needle,"
+from whom, and the very thought of whom, my spirit shrank
+instinctively.
+
+Well, I was in for it:  in for Pinkerton, in for the portrait, in for
+the type-written lecture.  One promise I extorted--that I was
+never again to be committed in ignorance; even for that, when I
+saw how its extortion puzzled and depressed the Irrepressible,
+my soul repented me; and in all else I suffered myself to be led
+uncomplaining at his chariot wheels.  The Irrepressible, did I
+say?  The Irresistible were nigher truth.
+
+But the time to have seen me was when I sat down to Harry
+Miller's lecture.  He was a facetious dog, this Harry Miller; he
+had a gallant way of skirting the indecent which (in my case)
+produced physical nausea; and he could be sentimental and
+even melodramatic about grisettes and starving genius.  I found
+he had enjoyed the benefit of my correspondence with
+Pinkerton:  adventures of my own were here and there horridly
+misrepresented, sentiments of my own echoed and exaggerated
+till I blushed to recognise them.  I will do Harry Miller justice:
+he must have had a kind of talent, almost of genius; all
+attempts to lower his tone proving fruitless, and the Harry-
+Millerism ineradicable.  Nay, the monster had a certain key of
+style, or want of style, so that certain milder passages, which I
+sought to introduce, discorded horribly, and impoverished (if
+that were possible) the general effect.
+
+By an early hour of the numbered evening I might have been
+observed at the sign of the Poodle Dog, dining with my agent:
+so Pinkerton delighted to describe himself.  Thence, like an ox
+to the slaughter, he led me to the hall, where I stood presently
+alone, confronting assembled San Francisco, with no better
+allies than a table, a glass of water, and a mass of manuscript
+and typework, representing Harry Miller and myself.   I read
+the lecture; for I had lacked both time and will to get the trash
+by heart--read it hurriedly, humbly, and with visible shame. 
+Now and then I would catch in the auditorium an eye of some
+intelligence, now and then, in the manuscript, would stumble
+on a richer vein of Harry Miller, and my heart would fail me,
+and I gabbled.  The audience yawned, it stirred uneasily, it
+muttered, grumbled, and broke forth at last in articulate cries of
+"Speak up!" and "Nobody can hear!"  I took to skipping, and
+being extremely ill-acquainted with the country, almost
+invariably cut in again in the unintelligible midst of some new
+topic.  What struck me as extremely ominous, these
+misfortunes were allowed to pass without a laugh.  Indeed, I
+was beginning to fear the worst, and even personal indignity,
+when all at once the humour of the thing broke upon me
+strongly.  I could have laughed aloud; and being again
+summoned to speak up, I faced my patrons for the first time
+with a smile.  "Very well," I said, "I will try, though I don't
+suppose anybody wants to hear, and I can't see why anybody
+should."  Audience and lecturer laughed together till the tears
+ran down; vociferous and repeated applause hailed my
+impromptu sally.  Another hit which I made but a little after, as
+I turned three pages of the copy:  "You see, I am leaving out as
+much as I possibly can," increased the esteem with which my
+patrons had begun to regard me; and when I left the stage at
+last, my departing form was cheered with laughter, stamping,
+shouting, and the waving of hats.
+
+Pinkerton was in the waiting-room, feverishly jotting in his
+pocket-book.  As he saw me enter, he sprang up, and I declare
+the tears were trickling on his cheeks.
+
+"My dear boy," he cried, "I can never forgive myself, and you
+can never forgive me.  Never mind:  I did it for the best.  And
+how nobly you clung on!  I dreaded we should have had to
+return the money at the doors."
+
+"It would have been more honest if we had," said I.
+
+The pressmen followed me, Harry Miller in the front ranks; and
+I was amazed to find them, on the whole, a pleasant set of lads,
+probably more sinned against than sinning, and even Harry
+Miller apparently a gentleman.  I had in oysters and
+champagne--for the receipts were excellent--and being in a
+high state of nervous tension, kept the table in a roar.  Indeed, I
+was never in my life so well inspired as when I described my
+vigil over Harry Miller's literature or the series of my emotions
+as I faced the audience.  The lads vowed I was the soul of good
+company and the prince of lecturers; and--so wonderful an
+institution is the popular press--if you had seen the notices next
+day in all the papers, you must have supposed my evening's
+entertainment an unqualified success.
+
+I was in excellent spirits when I returned home that night, but
+the miserable Pinkerton sorrowed for us both.
+
+"O, Loudon," he said, "I shall never forgive myself.  When I
+saw you didn't catch on to the idea of the lecture, I should have
+given it myself!"
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER VII.
+
+ IRONS IN THE FIRE.
+
+
+   Opes Strepitumque.
+
+The food of the body differs not so greatly for the fool or the
+sage, the elephant or the cock-sparrow; and similar chemical
+elements, variously disguised, support all mortals.  A brief
+study of Pinkerton in his new setting convinced me of a kindred
+truth about that other and mental digestion, by which we
+extract what is called "fun for our money" out of life.  In the
+same spirit as a schoolboy, deep in Mayne Reid, handles a
+dummy gun and crawls among imaginary forests, Pinkerton
+sped through Kearney Street upon his daily business,
+representing to himself a highly coloured part in life's
+performance, and happy for hours if he should have chanced to
+brush against a millionnaire.  Reality was his romance; he
+gloried to be thus engaged; he wallowed in his business. 
+Suppose a man to dig up a galleon on the Coromandel coast,
+his rakish schooner keeping the while an offing under easy sail,
+and he, by the blaze of a great fire of wreckwood, to measure
+ingots by the bucketful on the uproarious beach:  such an one
+might realise a greater material spoil; he should have no more
+profit of romance than Pinkerton when he cast up his weekly
+balance-sheet in a bald office.  Every dollar gained was like
+something brought ashore from a mysterious deep; every
+venture made was like a diver's plunge; and as he thrust his
+bold hand into the plexus of the money-market, he was
+delightedly aware of how he shook the pillars of existence,
+turned out men (as at a battle-cry) to labour in far countries,
+and set the gold twitching in the drawers of millionnaires.
+
+I could never fathom the full extent of his speculations; but
+there were five separate businesses which he avowed and
+carried like a banner.  The Thirteen Star Golden State Brandy,
+Warranted Entire (a very flagrant distillation) filled a great part
+of his thoughts, and was kept before the public in an eloquent
+but misleading treatise:  _Why Drink French Brandy?  A Word
+to the Wise._  He kept an office for advertisers, counselling,
+designing, acting as middleman with printers and bill-stickers,
+for the inexperienced or the uninspired:  the dull haberdasher
+came to him for ideas, the smart theatrical agent for his local
+knowledge; and one and all departed with a copy of his
+pamphlet:  _How, When, and Where; or, the Advertiser's
+Vade-Mecum._  He had a tug chartered every Saturday
+afternoon and night, carried people outside the Heads, and
+provided them with lines and bait for six hours' fishing, at the
+rate of five dollars a person.  I am told that some of them
+(doubtless adroit anglers) made a profit on the transaction. 
+Occasionally he bought wrecks and condemned vessels; these
+latter (I cannot tell you how) found their way to sea again under
+aliases, and continued to stem the waves triumphantly enough
+under the colours of Bolivia or Nicaragua.  Lastly, there was a
+certain agricultural engine, glorying in a great deal of vermilion
+and blue paint, and filling (it appeared) a "long-felt want," in
+which his interest was something like a tenth.
+
+This for the face or front of his concerns.  "On the outside," as
+he phrased it, he was variously and mysteriously engaged.  No
+dollar slept in his possession; rather he kept all simultaneously
+flying like a conjurer with oranges.  My own earnings, when I
+began to have a share, he would but show me for a moment,
+and disperse again, like those illusive money gifts which are
+flashed in the eyes of childhood only to be entombed in the
+missionary box.  And he would come down radiant from a
+weekly balance-sheet, clap me on the shoulder, declare himself
+a winner by Gargantuan figures, and prove destitute of a
+quarter for a drink.
+
+"What on earth have you done with it?" I would ask.
+
+"Into the mill again; all re-invested!" he would cry, with infinite
+delight.  Investment was ever his word.  He could not bear
+what he called gambling.  "Never touch stocks, Loudon," he
+would say; "nothing but legitimate business."  And yet, Heaven
+knows, many an indurated gambler might have drawn back
+appalled at the first hint of some of Pinkerton's investments!
+One, which I succeeded in tracking home, and instance for a
+specimen, was a seventh share in the charter of a certain ill-
+starred schooner bound for Mexico, to smuggle weapons on the
+one trip, and cigars upon the other.  The latter end of this
+enterprise, involving (as it did) shipwreck, confiscation, and a
+lawsuit with the underwriters, was too painful to be dwelt upon
+at length.  "It's proved a disappointment," was as far as my
+friend would go with me in words; but I knew, from
+observation, that the fabric of his fortunes tottered.  For the rest,
+it was only by accident I got wind of the transaction; for
+Pinkerton, after a time, was shy of introducing me to his
+arcana:  the reason you are to hear presently.
+
+The office which was (or should have been) the point of rest for
+so many evolving dollars stood in the heart of the city:  a high
+and spacious room, with many plate-glass windows.  A glazed
+cabinet of polished redwood offered to the eye a regiment of
+some two hundred bottles, conspicuously labelled.  These were
+all charged with Pinkerton's Thirteen Star, although from
+across the room it would have required an expert to distinguish
+them from the same number of bottles of Courvoisier.  I used to
+twit my friend with this resemblance, and propose a new
+edition of the pamphlet, with the title thus improved:  _Why
+Drink French Brandy, when we give you the same labels?_ 
+The doors of the cabinet revolved all day upon their hinges; and
+if there entered any one who was a stranger to the merits of the
+brand, he departed laden with a bottle.  When I used to protest
+at this extravagance, "My dear Loudon," Pinkerton would cry,
+"you don't seem to catch on to business principles!  The prime
+cost of the spirit is literally nothing.  I couldn't find a cheaper
+advertisement if I tried."  Against the side post of the cabinet
+there leaned a gaudy umbrella, preserved there as a relic.  It
+appears that when Pinkerton was about to place Thirteen Star
+upon the market, the rainy season was at hand.  He lay dark,
+almost in penury, awaiting the first shower, at which, as upon a
+signal, the main thoroughfares became dotted with his agents,
+vendors of advertisements; and the whole world of San
+Francisco, from the businessman fleeing for the ferry-boat, to
+the lady waiting at the corner for her car, sheltered itself under
+umbrellas with this strange device:  Are you wet? Try Thirteen
+Star.  "It was a mammoth boom," said Pinkerton, with a sigh of
+delighted recollection.  "There wasn't another umbrella to be
+seen.  I stood at this window, Loudon, feasting my eyes; and I
+declare, I felt like Vanderbilt."  And it was to this neat
+application of the local climate that he owed, not only much of
+the sale of Thirteen Star, but the whole business of his
+advertising agency.
+
+The large desk (to resume our survey of the office) stood about
+the middle, knee-deep in stacks of handbills and posters, of
+_Why Drink French Brandy?_ and _The Advertiser's Vade-
+Mecum._  It was flanked upon the one hand by two female
+type-writers, who rested not between the hours of nine and
+four, and upon the other by a model of the agricultural
+machine.  The walls, where they were not broken by telephone
+boxes and a couple of photographs--one representing the wreck
+of the James L. Moody on a bold and broken coast, the other
+the Saturday tug alive with amateur fishers--almost
+disappeared under oil-paintings gaudily framed.  Many of these
+were relics of the Latin Quarter, and I must do Pinkerton the
+justice to say that none of them were bad, and some had
+remarkable merit.  They went off slowly but for handsome
+figures; and their places were progressively supplied with the
+work of local artists.  These last it was one of my first duties to
+review and criticise.  Some of them were villainous, yet all
+were saleable.  I said so; and the next moment saw myself, the
+figure of a miserable renegade, bearing arms in the wrong
+camp.  I was to look at pictures thenceforward, not with the eye
+of the artist, but the dealer; and I saw the stream widen that
+divided me from all I loved.
+
+"Now, Loudon," Pinkerton had said, the morning after the
+lecture, "now Loudon, we can go at it shoulder to shoulder. 
+This is what I have longed for:  I wanted two heads and four
+arms; and now I have 'em.  You'll find it's just the same as
+art--all observation and imagination; only more movement. 
+Just wait till you begin to feel the charm!"
+
+I might have waited long.  Perhaps I lack a sense; for our whole
+existence seemed to me one dreary bustle, and the place we
+bustled in fitly to be called the Place of Yawning.  I slept in a
+little den behind the office; Pinkerton, in the office itself,
+stretched on a patent sofa which sometimes collapsed, his
+slumbers still further menaced by an imminent clock with an
+alarm.  Roused by this diabolical contrivance, we rose early,
+went forth early to breakfast, and returned by nine to what
+Pinkerton called work, and I distraction.  Masses of letters
+must be opened, read, and answered; some by me at a
+subsidiary desk which had been introduced on the morning of
+my arrival; others by my bright-eyed friend, pacing the room
+like a caged lion as he dictated to the tinkling type-writers. 
+Masses of wet proof had to be overhauled and scrawled upon
+with a blue pencil--"rustic"--"six-inch caps"--"bold spacing
+here"--or sometimes terms more fervid, as for instance this,
+which I remember Pinkerton to have spirted on the margin of
+an advertisement of Soothing Syrup:  "Throw this all down. 
+Have you never printed an advertisement?  I'll be round in half
+an hour."  The ledger and sale-book, besides, we had always
+with us.  Such was the backbone of our occupation, and
+tolerable enough; but the far greater proportion of our time was
+consumed by visitors, whole-souled, grand fellows no doubt,
+and as sharp as a needle, but to me unfortunately not diverting. 
+Some were apparently half-witted, and must be talked over by
+the hour before they could reach the humblest decision, which
+they only left the office to return again (ten minutes later) and
+rescind.  Others came with a vast show of hurry and despatch,
+but I observed it to be principally show.  The agricultural
+model for instance, which was practicable, proved a kind of
+flypaper for these busybodies.  I have seen them blankly turn
+the crank of it for five minutes at a time, simulating (to
+nobody's deception) business interest:  "Good thing this,
+Pinkerton?  Sell much of it?  Ha!  Couldn't use it, I suppose, as
+a medium of advertisement for my article?"--which was
+perhaps toilet soap.  Others (a still worse variety) carried us to
+neighbouring saloons to dice for cocktails and (after the
+cocktails were paid) for dollars on a corner of the counter.  The
+attraction of dice for all these people was indeed extraordinary: 
+at a certain club, where I once dined in the character of "my
+partner, Mr. Dodd," the dice-box came on the table with the
+wine, an artless substitute for after-dinner wit.
+
+Of all our visitors, I believe I preferred Emperor Norton; the
+very mention of whose name reminds me I am doing scanty
+justice to the folks of San Francisco.  In what other city would a
+harmless madman who supposed himself emperor of the two
+Americas have been so fostered and encouraged?  Where else
+would even the people of the streets have respected the poor
+soul's illusion?  Where else would bankers and merchants have
+received his visits, cashed his cheques, and submitted to his
+small assessments?  Where else would he have been suffered to
+attend and address the exhibition days of schools and colleges?
+where else, in God's green earth, have taken his pick of
+restaurants, ransacked the bill of fare, and departed scathless?
+They tell me he was even an exacting patron, threatening to
+withdraw his custom when dissatisfied; and I can believe it, for
+his face wore an expression distinctly gastronomical.  Pinkerton
+had received from this monarch a cabinet appointment; I have
+seen the brevet, wondering mainly at the good nature of the
+printer who had executed the forms, and I think my friend was
+at the head either of foreign affairs or education:  it mattered,
+indeed, nothing, the prestation being in all offices identical.  It
+was at a comparatively early date that I saw Jim in the exercise
+of his public functions.  His Majesty entered the office--a
+portly, rather flabby man, with the face of a gentleman,
+rendered unspeakably pathetic and absurd by the great sabre at
+his side and the peacock's feather in his hat.
+
+
+"I have called to remind you, Mr. Pinkerton, that you are
+somewhat in arrear of taxes," he said, with old-fashioned,
+stately courtesy.
+
+"Well, your Majesty, what is the amount?" asked Jim; and
+when the figure was named (it was generally two or three
+dollars), paid upon the nail and offered a bonus in the shape of
+Thirteen Star.
+
+"I am always delighted to patronise native industries," said
+Norton the First.  "San Francisco is public-spirited in what
+concerns its Emperor; and indeed, sir, of all my domains, it is
+my favourite city."
+
+"Come," said I, when he was gone, "I prefer that customer to
+the lot."
+
+"It's really rather a distinction," Jim admitted.  "I think it must
+have been the umbrella racket that attracted him."
+
+We were distinguished under the rose by the notice of other and
+greater men.  There were days when Jim wore an air of unusual
+capacity and resolve, spoke with more brevity like one pressed
+for time, and took often on his tongue such phrases as
+"Longhurst told me so this morning," or "I had it straight from
+Longhurst himself."  It was no wonder, I used to think, that
+Pinkerton was called to council with such Titans; for the
+creature's quickness and resource were beyond praise.  In the
+early days when he consulted me without reserve, pacing the
+room, projecting, ciphering, extending hypothetical interests,
+trebling imaginary capital, his "engine" (to renew an excellent
+old word) labouring full steam ahead, I could never decide
+whether my sense of respect or entertainment were the stronger. 
+But these good hours were destined to curtailment.
+
+"Yes, it's smart enough," I once observed.  "But, Pinkerton, do
+you think it's honest?"
+
+"You don't think it's honest!" he wailed.  "O dear me, that ever I
+should have heard such an expression on your lips!"
+
+At sight of his distress, I plagiarised unblushingly from Myner. 
+"You seem to think honesty as simple as Blind Man's Buff,"
+said I.  "It's a more delicate affair than that: delicate as any art."
+
+"O well! at that rate!" he exclaimed, with complete relief. 
+"That's casuistry."
+
+"I am perfectly certain of one thing:  that what you propose is
+dishonest," I returned.
+
+"Well, say no more about it.  That's settled," he replied.
+
+Thus, almost at a word, my point was carried.  But the trouble
+was that such differences continued to recur, until we began to
+regard each other with alarm.  If there were one thing Pinkerton
+valued himself upon, it was his honesty; if there were one thing
+he clung to, it was my good opinion; and when both were
+involved, as was the case in these commercial cruces, the man
+was on the rack.  My own position, if you consider how much I 
+owed him, how hateful is the trade of fault-finder, and that yet I
+lived and fattened on these questionable operations, was
+perhaps equally distressing.  If I had been more sterling or
+more combative things might have gone extremely far.  But, in
+truth, I was just base enough to profit by what was not forced
+on my attention, rather than seek scenes:  Pinkerton quite
+cunning enough to avail himself of my weakness; and it was a
+relief to both when he began to involve his proceedings in a
+decent mystery.
+
+Our last dispute, which had a most unlooked-for consequence,
+turned on the refitting of condemned ships.  He had bought a
+miserable hulk, and came, rubbing his hands, to inform me she
+was already on the slip, under a new name, to be repaired. 
+When first I had heard of this industry I suppose I scarcely
+comprehended; but much discussion had sharpened my
+faculties, and now my brow became heavy.
+
+"I can be no party to that, Pinkerton," said I.
+
+He leaped like a man shot.  "What next?" he cried.  "What ails
+you, anyway?  You seem to me to dislike everything that's
+profitable."
+
+"This ship has been condemned by Lloyd's agent," said I.
+
+"But I tell you it's a deal.  The ship's in splendid condition;
+there's next to nothing wrong with her but the garboard streak
+and the sternpost.  I tell you Lloyd's is a ring like everybody
+else; only it's an English ring, and that's what deceives you.  If
+it was American, you would be crying it down all day.  It's 
+Anglomania, common Anglomania," he cried, with growing 
+irritation.
+
+"I will not make money by risking men's lives," was my
+ultimatum.
+
+"Great Caesar! isn't all speculation a risk?  Isn't the fairest kind
+of shipowning to risk men's lives?  And mining--how's that for
+risk?  And look at the elevator business--there's danger, if you
+like!  Didn't I take my risk when I bought her?  She might have
+been too far gone; and where would I have been?  Loudon," he
+cried, "I tell you the truth:  you're too full of refinement for this
+world!"
+
+"I condemn you out of your own lips," I replied.  "'The fairest
+kind of shipowning,' says you.  If you please, let us only do the
+fairest kind of business."
+
+The shot told; the Irrepressible was silenced; and I profited by
+the chance to pour in a broadside of another sort.  He was all
+sunk in money-getting, I pointed out; he never dreamed of
+anything but dollars.   Where were all his generous, progressive
+sentiments?  Where was his culture? I asked.  And where was
+the American Type?
+
+"It's true, Loudon," he cried, striding up and down the room,
+and wildly scouring at his hair.  "You're perfectly right.  I'm
+becoming materialised.  O, what a thing to have to say, what a
+confession to make!  Materialised!  Me!  Loudon, this must go
+on no longer.  You've been a loyal friend to me once more; give
+me your hand!--you've saved me again.  I must do something to
+rouse the spiritual side; something desperate; study something,
+something dry and tough.  What shall it be?  Theology?
+Algebra?  What's Algebra?"
+
+"It's dry and tough enough," said I; "a squared + 2ab + b
+squared."
+
+"It's stimulating, though?" he inquired.
+
+I told him I believed so, and that it was considered fortifying to
+Types.
+
+"Then that's the thing for me.  I'll study Algebra," he concluded.
+
+The next day, by application to one of his type-writing women,
+he got word of a young lady, one Miss Mamie McBride, who
+was willing and able to conduct him in these bloomless
+meadows; and, her circumstances being lean, and terms
+consequently moderate, he and Mamie were soon in agreement
+for two lessons in the week.  He took fire with unexampled
+rapidity; he seemed unable to tear himself away from the
+symbolic art; an hour's lesson occupied the whole evening; and
+the original two was soon increased to four, and then to five.  I
+bade him beware of female blandishments.  "The first thing you
+know, you'll be falling in love with the algebraist," said I. 
+
+"Don't say it even in jest," he cried.  "She's a lady I revere.  I
+could no more lay a hand upon her than I could upon a spirit.
+Loudon, I don't believe God ever made a purer-minded
+woman."
+
+Which appeared to me too fervent to be reassuring.
+
+Meanwhile I had been long expostulating with my friend upon
+a different matter.  "I'm the fifth wheel," I kept telling him. 
+"For any use I am, I might as well be in Senegambia.  The
+letters you give me to attend to might be answered by a sucking
+child.  And I tell you what it is, Pinkerton:  either you've got to
+find me some employment, or I'll have to start in and find it for
+myself."
+
+This I said with a corner of my eye in the usual quarter, toward
+the arts, little dreaming what destiny was to provide.
+
+"I've got it, Loudon," Pinkerton at last replied.  "Got the idea on
+the Potrero cars.  Found I hadn't a pencil, borrowed one from
+the conductor, and figured on it roughly all the way in town.  I
+saw it was the thing at last; gives you a real show.  All your
+talents and accomplishments come in.  Here's a sketch
+advertisement.  Just run your eye over it.  "Sun, Ozone, and
+Music!  PINKERTON'S HEBDOMADARY PICNICS!" 
+(That's a good, catching phrase, "hebdomadary," though it's
+hard to say.  I made a note of it when I was looking in the
+dictionary how to spell hectagonal.  'Well, you're a boss word,'
+I said.  'Before you're very much older, I'll have you in type as
+long as yourself.'  And here it is, you see.)  'Five dollars a head,
+and ladies free.  MONSTER OLIO OF ATTRACTIONS.' 
+(How does that strike you?)  'Free luncheon under the
+greenwood tree.  Dance on the elastic sward.  Home again in
+the Bright Evening Hours.  Manager and Honorary Steward, H.
+Loudon Dodd, Esq., the well-known connoisseur.'"
+
+
+Singular how a man runs from Scylla to Charybdis!  I was so
+intent on securing the disappearance of a single epithet that I
+accepted the rest of the advertisement and all that it involved
+without discussion.  So it befell that the words "well-known
+connoisseur" were deleted; but that H. Loudon Dodd became
+manager and honorary steward of Pinkerton's Hebdomadary
+Picnics, soon shortened, by popular consent, to the Dromedary.
+
+By eight o'clock, any Sunday morning, I was to be observed by
+an admiring public on the wharf.  The garb and attributes of
+sacrifice consisted of a black frock coat, rosetted, its pockets
+bulging with sweetmeats and inferior cigars, trousers of light
+blue, a silk hat like a reflector, and a varnished wand.  A
+goodly steamer guarded my one flank, panting and throbbing,
+flags fluttering fore and aft of her, illustrative of the Dromedary
+and patriotism.  My other flank was covered by the ticket-
+office, strongly held by a trusty character of the Scots
+persuasion, rosetted like his superior and smoking a cigar to
+mark the occasion festive.  At half-past, having assured myself
+that all was well with the free luncheons, I lit a cigar myself,
+and awaited the strains of the "Pioneer Band."  I had never to
+wait long--they were German and punctual--and by a few
+minutes after the half-hour, I would hear them booming down
+street with a long military roll of drums, some score of
+gratuitous asses prancing at the head in bearskin hats and
+buckskin aprons, and conspicuous with resplendent axes.  The
+band, of course, we paid for; but so strong is the San
+Franciscan passion for public masquerade, that the asses (as I
+say) were all gratuitous, pranced for the love of it, and cost us
+nothing but their luncheon.
+
+The musicians formed up in the bows of my steamer, and
+struck into a skittish polka; the asses mounted guard upon the
+gangway and the ticket-office; and presently after, in family
+parties of father, mother, and children, in the form of duplicate
+lovers or in that of solitary youth, the public began to descend
+upon us by the carful at a time; four to six hundred perhaps,
+with a strong German flavour, and all merry as children.  When
+these had been shepherded on board, and the inevitable belated
+two or three had gained the deck amidst the cheering of the
+public, the hawser was cast off, and we plunged into the bay.
+
+And now behold the honorary steward in hour of duty and
+glory; see me circulate amid crowd, radiating affability and
+laughter, liberal with my sweetmeats and cigars.  I say
+unblushing things to hobbledehoy girls, tell shy young persons
+this is the married people's boat, roguishly ask the abstracted if
+they are thinking of their sweethearts, offer Paterfamilias a
+cigar, am struck with the beauty and grow curious about the
+age of mamma's youngest who (I assure her gaily) will be a
+man before his mother; or perhaps it may occur to me, from the 
+sensible expression of her face, that she is a person of good
+counsel, and I ask her earnestly if she knows any particularly
+pleasant place on the Saucelito or San Rafael coast, for the
+scene of our picnic is always supposed to be uncertain.  The
+next moment I am back at my giddy badinage with the young
+ladies, wakening laughter as I go, and leaving in my wake
+applausive comments of "Isn't Mr. Dodd a funny gentleman?" 
+and "O, I think he's just too nice!"
+
+An hour having passed in this airy manner, I start upon my
+rounds afresh, with a bag full of coloured tickets, all with pins
+attached, and all with legible inscriptions: "Old Germany,"
+"California," "True Love," "Old Fogies," "La Belle France,"
+"Green Erin," "The Land of Cakes," "Washington," "Blue Jay,"
+"Robin Red-Breast,"--twenty of each denomination; for when it
+comes  to the luncheon, we sit down by twenties.  These are
+distributed with anxious tact--for, indeed, this is the most
+delicate part of my functions--but outwardly with reckless
+unconcern, amidst the gayest flutter and confusion; and are
+immediately after sported upon hats and bonnets, to the
+extreme diffusion of cordiality, total strangers hailing each
+other by "the number of their mess"--so we humorously name
+it--and the deck ringing with cries of, "Here, all Blue Jays to
+the rescue!" or, "I say, am I alone in this blame' ship?  Ain't
+there no more Californians?"
+
+By this time we are drawing near to the appointed spot.  I
+mount upon the bridge, the observed of all observers.
+
+"Captain," I say, in clear, emphatic tones, heard far and wide,
+"the majority of the company appear to be in favour of the little
+cove beyond One Tree Point."
+
+"All right, Mr. Dodd," responds the captain, heartily; "all one to
+me.  I am not exactly sure of the place you mean; but just you
+stay here and pilot me."
+
+I do, pointing with my wand.  I do pilot him, to the
+inexpressible entertainment of the picnic; for I am (why should
+I deny it?) the popular man.  We slow down off the mouth of a
+grassy valley, watered by a brook, and set in pines and
+redwoods.  The anchor is let go; the boats are lowered, two of
+them already packed with the materials of an impromptu bar;
+and the Pioneer Band, accompanied by the resplendent asses,
+fill the other, and move shoreward to the inviting strains of
+Buffalo Gals, won't you come out to-night?  It is a part of our
+programme that one of the asses shall, from sheer clumsiness,
+in the course of this embarkation, drop a dummy axe into the
+water, whereupon the mirth of the picnic can hardly be
+assuaged.  Upon one occasion, the dummy axe floated, and the
+laugh turned rather the wrong way.
+
+In from ten to twenty minutes the boats are along-side again,
+the messes are marshalled separately on the deck, and the
+picnic goes ashore, to find the band and the impromptu bar
+awaiting them.  Then come the hampers, which are piled upon
+the beach, and surrounded by a stern guard of stalwart asses,
+axe on shoulder.  It is here I take my place, note-book in hand,
+under a banner bearing the legend, "Come here for hampers."
+Each hamper contains a complete outfit for a separate twenty, 
+cold provender, plates, glasses, knives, forks, and spoons:  an
+agonized printed appeal from the fevered pen of Pinkerton,
+pasted on the inside of the lid, beseeches that care be taken of
+the glass and silver.  Beer, wine, and lemonade are flowing
+already from the bar, and the various clans of twenty file away
+into the woods, with bottles under their arms, and the hampers
+strung upon a stick.  Till one they feast there, in a very
+moderate seclusion, all being within earshot of the band.  From
+one till four, dancing takes place upon the grass; the bar does a
+roaring business; and the honorary steward, who has already
+exhausted himself to bring life into the dullest of the messes,
+must now indefatigably dance with the plainest of the women. 
+At four a bugle-call is sounded; and by half-past behold us on
+board again, pioneers, corrugated iron bar, empty bottles, and
+all; while the honorary steward, free at last, subsides into the
+captain's cabin over a brandy and soda and a book.  Free at last,
+I say; yet there remains before him the frantic leavetakings at
+the pier, and a sober journey up to Pinkerton's office with two
+policemen and the day's takings in a bag.
+
+What I have here sketched was the routine.  But we appealed to
+the taste of San Francisco more distinctly in particular fetes. 
+"Ye Olde Time Pycke-Nycke," largely advertised in hand-bills
+beginning "Oyez, Oyez!" and largely frequented by knights,
+monks, and cavaliers, was drowned out by unseasonable rain,
+and returned to the city one of the saddest spectacles I ever
+remember to have witnessed.  In pleasing contrast, and
+certainly our chief success, was "The Gathering of the Clans,"
+or Scottish picnic.  So many milk-white knees were never
+before simultaneously exhibited in public, and to judge by the
+prevalence of "Royal Stewart" and the number of eagle's
+feathers, we were a high-born company.  I threw forward the
+Scottish flank of my own ancestry, and passed muster as a
+clansman with applause.  There was, indeed, but one small
+cloud on this red-letter day.  I had laid in a large supply of the
+national beverage, in the shape of The "Rob Roy MacGregor
+O" Blend, Warranted Old and Vatted; and this must certainly
+have been a generous spirit, for I had some anxious work
+between four and half-past, conveying on board the inanimate
+forms of chieftains.
+
+To one of our ordinary festivities, where he was the life and
+soul of his own mess, Pinkerton himself came incognito,
+bringing the algebraist on his arm.  Miss Mamie proved to be a
+well-enough-looking mouse, with a large, limpid eye, very
+good manners, and a flow of the most correct expressions I
+have ever heard upon the human lip.  As Pinkerton's incognito
+was strict, I had little opportunity to cultivate the lady's
+acquaintance; but I was informed afterwards that she
+considered me "the wittiest gentleman she had ever met."  "The
+Lord mend your taste in wit!" thought I; but I cannot conceal
+that such was the general impression.  One of my pleasantries
+even went the round of San Francisco, and I have heard it
+(myself all unknown) bandied in saloons.  To be unknown
+began at last to be a rare experience; a bustle woke upon my
+passage; above all, in humble neighbourhoods.  "Who's that?"
+one would ask, and the other would cry, "That! Why,
+Dromedary Dodd!" or, with withering scorn, "Not know Mr.
+Dodd of the Picnics?  Well!" and indeed I think it marked a
+rather barren destiny; for our picnics, if a trifle vulgar, were as
+gay and innocent as the age of gold; I am sure no people divert
+themselves so easily and so well:  and even with the cares of
+my stewardship, I was often happy to be there.
+
+Indeed, there were but two drawbacks in the least considerable. 
+The first was my terror of the hobbledehoy girls, to whom
+(from the demands of my situation) I was obliged to lay myself
+so open.  The other, if less momentous, was more mortifying. 
+In early days, at my mother's knee, as a man may say, I had
+acquired the unenviable accomplishment (which I have never
+since been able to lose) of singing _Just before the Battle._  I
+have what the French call a fillet of voice, my best notes scarce
+audible about a dinner-table, and the upper register rather to be
+regarded as a higher power of silence:  experts tell me besides
+that I sing flat; nor, if I were the best singer in the world, does
+_Just before the Battle_ occur to my mature taste as the song
+that I would choose to sing.  In spite of all which
+considerations, at one picnic, memorably dull, and after I had
+exhausted every other art of pleasing, I gave, in desperation, my
+one song.  From that hour my doom was gone forth.  Either we
+had a chronic passenger (though I could never detect him), or
+the very wood and iron of the steamer must have retained the
+tradition.  At every successive picnic word went round that Mr.
+Dodd was a singer; that Mr. Dodd sang _Just before the
+Battle_, and finally that now was the time when Mr. Dodd
+sang _Just before the Battle;_  so that the thing became a
+fixture like the dropping of the dummy axe, and you are to
+conceive me, Sunday after Sunday, piping up my lamentable
+ditty and covered, when it was done, with gratuitous applause. 
+It is a beautiful trait in human nature that I was invariably
+offered an encore.
+
+I was well paid, however, even to sing.  Pinkerton and I, after
+an average Sunday, had five hundred dollars to divide.  Nay,
+and the picnics were the means, although indirectly, of bringing
+me a singular windfall.  This was at the end of the season, after
+the "Grand Farewell Fancy Dress Gala."  Many of the hampers
+had suffered severely; and it was judged wiser to save storage, 
+dispose of them, and lay in a fresh stock when the campaign re-
+opened.  Among my purchasers was a workingman of the name
+of Speedy, to whose house, after several unavailing letters, I
+must proceed in person, wondering to find myself once again
+on the wrong side, and playing the creditor to some one else's
+debtor.  Speedy was in the belligerent stage of fear.  He could
+not pay.  It appeared he had already resold the hampers, and he
+defied me to do my worst.  I did not like to lose my own
+money; I hated to lose Pinkerton's; and the bearing of my
+creditor incensed me.
+
+"Do you know, Mr. Speedy, that I can send you to the
+penitentiary?" said I, willing to read him a lesson.
+
+The dire expression was overheard in the next room.  A large,
+fresh, motherly Irishwoman ran forth upon the instant, and fell
+to besiege me with caresses and appeals.  "Sure now, and ye
+couldn't have the heart to ut, Mr. Dodd, you, that's so well
+known to be a pleasant gentleman; and it's a pleasant face ye
+have, and the picture of me own brother that's dead and gone. 
+It's a truth that he's been drinking.  Ye can smell it off of him,
+more blame to him.  But, indade, and there's nothing in the
+house beyont the furnicher, and Thim Stock.  It's the stock that
+ye'll be taking, dear.  A sore penny it has cost me, first and last,
+and by all tales, not worth an owld tobacco pipe." Thus
+adjured, and somewhat embarrassed by the stern attitude I had
+adopted, I suffered myself to be invested with a considerable
+quantity of what is called wild-cat stock, in which this excellent
+if illogical female had been squandering her hard-earned gold. 
+It could scarce be said to better my position, but the step
+quieted the woman; and, on the other hand, I could not think I
+was taking much risk, for the shares in question (they were
+those of what I will call the Catamount Silver Mine) had fallen
+some time before to the bed-rock quotation, and now lay
+perfectly inert, or were only kicked (like other waste paper)
+about the kennel of the exchange by bankrupt speculators.
+
+A month or two after, I perceived by the stock-list that
+Catamount had taken a bound; before afternoon, "thim stock"
+were worth a quite considerable pot of money; and I learned,
+upon inquiry, that a bonanza had been found in a condemned
+lead, and the mine was now expected to do wonders. 
+Remarkable to philosophers how bonanzas are found in
+condemned leads, and how the stock is always at freezing-point
+immediately before!  By some stroke of chance the, Speedys
+had held on to the right thing; they had escaped the syndicate;
+yet a little more, if I had not come to dun them, and Mrs.
+Speedy would have been buying a silk dress.  I could not bear,
+of course, to profit by the accident, and returned to offer
+restitution.  The house was in a bustle; the neighbours (all
+stock-gamblers themselves) had crowded to condole; and Mrs.
+Speedy sat with streaming tears, the centre of a sympathetic
+group.  "For fifteen year I've been at ut," she was lamenting, as
+I entered, "and grudging the babes the very milk, more shame
+to me! to pay their dhirty assessments.  And now, my dears, I
+should be a lady, and driving in my coach, if all had their
+rights; and a sorrow on that man Dodd!  As soon as I set eyes
+on him, I seen the divil was in the house."
+
+It was upon these words that I made my entrance, which was
+therefore dramatic enough, though nothing to what followed. 
+For when it appeared that I was come to restore the lost fortune,
+and when Mrs. Speedy (after copiously weeping on my bosom)
+had refused the restitution, and when Mr. Speedy (summoned
+to that end from a camp of the Grand Army of the Republic)
+had added his refusal, and when I had insisted, and they had
+insisted, and the neighbours had applauded and supported each
+of us in turn; and when at last it was agreed we were to hold
+the stock together, and share the proceeds in three parts--one
+for me, one for Mr. Speedy, and one for his spouse--I will leave
+you to conceive the enthusiasm that reigned in that small, bare
+apartment, with the sewing-machine in the one corner, and the
+babes asleep in the other, and pictures of Garfield and the
+Battle of Gettysburg on the yellow walls.  Port wine was had in
+by a sympathiser, and we drank it mingled with tears.
+
+"And I dhrink to your health, my dear," sobbed Mrs. Speedy,
+especially affected by my gallantry in the matter of the third
+share; "and I'm sure we all dhrink to his health--Mr. Dodd of
+the picnics, no gentleman better known than him; and it's my
+prayer, dear, the good God may be long spared to see ye in
+health and happiness!"
+
+In the end I was the chief gainer; for I sold my third while it
+was worth five thousand dollars, but the Speedys more
+adventurously held on until the syndicate reversed the process,
+when they were happy to escape with perhaps a quarter of that
+sum.  It was just as well; for the bulk of the money was (in
+Pinkerton's phrase) reinvested; and when next I saw Mrs.
+Speedy, she was still gorgeously dressed from the proceeds of
+the late success, but was already moist with tears over the new
+catastrophe.  "We're froze out, me darlin'!  All the money we
+had, dear, and the sewing-machine, and Jim's uniform, was in
+the Golden West; and the vipers has put on a new assessment."
+
+By the end of the year, therefore, this is how I stood.  I had
+made
+
+     By Catamount Silver Mine.......... $5,000
+     By the picnics..............................   3,000
+     By the lecture...............................      600
+     By profit and loss on capital 
+         in Pinkerton's business.............   1,350
+                                                              ------
+                                                            $9,950
+
+to which must be added
+
+     What remained of my grandfather's
+          donation..................................    8,500
+                                                               ------
+                                                          $18,450
+
+It appears, on the other hand, that
+
+     I had spent....................................  4,000
+                                                              ------
+Which thus left me to the good....... $14,450
+
+A result on which I am not ashamed to say I looked with
+gratitude and pride.  Some eight thousand (being late conquest)
+was liquid and actually tractile in the bank; the rest whirled
+beyond reach and even sight (save in the mirror of a balance-
+sheet) under the compelling spell of wizard Pinkerton.  Dollars
+of mine were tacking off the shores of Mexico, in peril of the
+deep and the guarda-costas; they rang on saloon-counters in the
+city of Tombstone, Arizona; they shone in faro-tents among the
+mountain diggings; the imagination flagged in following them,
+so wide were they diffused, so briskly they span to the turning
+of the wizard's crank.  But here, there, or everywhere I could
+still tell myself it was all mine, and what was more convincing,
+draw substantial dividends.  My fortune, I called it; and it
+represented, when expressed in dollars, or even British pounds,
+an honest pot of money; when extended into francs, a veritable
+fortune.  Perhaps I have let the cat out of the bag; perhaps you
+see already where my hopes were pointing, and begin to blame
+my inconsistency.  But I must first tell you my excuse, and the
+change that had befallen Pinkerton.
+
+About a week after the picnic to which he escorted Mamie,
+Pinkerton avowed the state of his affections. From what I had
+observed on board the steamer, where methought Mamie
+waited on him with her limpid eyes, I encouraged the bashful
+lover to proceed; and the very next evening he was carrying me
+to call on his affianced.
+
+"You must befriend her, Loudon, as you have always
+befriended me," he said, pathetically.
+
+"By saying disagreeable things?  I doubt if that be the way to a
+young lady's favour," I replied; "and since this picnicking I
+begin to be a man of some experience."
+
+"Yes, you do nobly there; I can't describe how I admire you," he
+cried.  "Not that she will ever need it; she has had every
+advantage.  God knows what I have done to deserve her.  O
+man, what a responsibility this is for a rough fellow and not
+always truthful!"
+
+"Brace up, old man, brace up!" said I.
+
+But when we reached Mamie's boarding-house, it was almost
+with tears that he presented me.  "Here is Loudon, Mamie,"
+were his words.  "I want you to love him; he has a grand
+nature."
+
+"You are certainly no stranger to me, Mr. Dodd," was her
+gracious expression.  "James is never weary of descanting on
+your goodness."
+
+"My dear lady," said I, "when you know our friend a little
+better, you will make a large allowance for his warm heart.  My
+goodness has consisted in allowing him to feed and clothe and
+toil for me when he could ill afford it.  If I am now alive, it is to
+him I owe it; no man had a kinder friend.  You must take good
+care of him," I added, laying my hand on his shoulder, "and
+keep him in good order, for he needs it."
+
+Pinkerton was much affected by this speech, and so, I fear, was
+Mamie.  I admit it was a tactless performance.  "When you
+know our friend a little better," was not happily said; and even
+"keep him in good order, for he needs it" might be construed
+into matter of offence; but I lay it before you in all confidence of
+your acquittal: was the general tone of it "patronising"?  Even if
+such was the verdict of the lady, I cannot but suppose the
+blame was neither wholly hers nor wholly mine; I cannot but
+suppose that Pinkerton had already sickened the poor woman
+of my very name; so that if I had come with the songs of
+Apollo, she must still have been disgusted.
+
+Here, however, were two finger-posts to Paris.  Jim was going
+to be married, and so had the less need of my society.  I had not
+pleased his bride, and so was, perhaps, better absent.  Late one
+evening I broached the idea to my friend.  It had been a great
+day for me; I had just banked my five thousand catamountain
+dollars; and as Jim had refused to lay a finger on the stock, risk
+and profit were both wholly mine, and I was celebrating the
+event with stout and crackers.  I began by telling him that if it
+caused him any pain or any anxiety about his affairs, he had but
+to say the word, and he should hear no more of my proposal. 
+He was the truest and best friend I ever had or was ever like to
+have; and it would be a strange thing if I refused him any
+favour he was sure he wanted.  At the same time I wished him
+to be sure; for my life was wasting in my hands.  I was like one
+from home; all my true interests summoned me away.  I must
+remind him, besides, that he was now about to marry and
+assume new interests, and that our extreme familiarity might be
+even painful to his wife.--"O no, Loudon; I feel you are wrong
+there," he interjected warmly; "she DOES appreciate your
+nature."--So much the better, then, I continued; and went on to
+point out that our separation need not be for long; that, in the
+way affairs were going, he might join me in two years with a
+fortune, small, indeed, for the States, but in France almost
+conspicuous; that we might unite our resources, and have one
+house in Paris for the winter and a second near Fontainebleau
+for summer, where we could be as happy as the day was long,
+and bring up little Pinkertons as practical artistic workmen, far
+from the money-hunger of the West.  "Let me go then," I
+concluded; "not as a deserter, but as the vanguard, to lead the
+march of the Pinkerton men."
+
+So I argued and pleaded, not without emotion; my friend sitting
+opposite, resting his chin upon his hand and (but for that single
+interjection) silent.  "I have been looking for this, Loudon," said
+he, when I had done.  "It does pain me, and that's the fact--I'm
+so miserably selfish.  And I believe it's a death blow to the
+picnics; for it's idle to deny that you were the heart and soul of
+them with your wand and your gallant bearing, and wit and
+humour and chivalry, and throwing that kind of society
+atmosphere about the thing.  But for all that, you're right, and
+you ought to go.  You may count on forty dollars a week; and if
+Depew City--one of nature's centres for this State--pan out the
+least as I expect, it may be double.  But it's forty dollars
+anyway; and to think that two years ago you were almost
+reduced to beggary!"
+
+"I WAS reduced to it," said I.
+
+"Well, the brutes gave you nothing, and I'm glad of it now!"
+cried Jim.  "It's the triumphant return I glory in!  Think of the
+master, and that cold-blooded Myner too! Yes, just let the
+Depew City boom get on its legs, and you shall go; and two
+years later, day for day, I'll shake hands with you in Paris, with
+Mamie on my arm, God bless her!"
+
+We talked in this vein far into the night.  I was myself so
+exultant in my new-found liberty, and Pinkerton so proud of my
+triumph, so happy in my happiness, in so warm a glow about
+the gallant little woman of his choice, and the very room so
+filled with castles in the air and cottages at Fontainebleau, that
+it was little wonder if sleep fled our eyelids, and three had
+followed two upon the office clock before Pinkerton unfolded
+the mechanism of his patent sofa.
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER VIII.
+
+ FACES ON THE CITY FRONT.
+
+
+It is very much the custom to view life as if it were exactly
+ruled in two, like sleep and waking; the provinces of play and
+business standing separate.  The business side of my career in
+San Francisco has been now disposed of; I approach the
+chapter of diversion; and it will be found they had about an
+equal share in building up the story of the Wrecker--a
+gentleman whose appearance may be presently expected. 
+
+With all my occupations, some six afternoons and two or three
+odd evenings remained at my disposal every week: a
+circumstance the more agreeable as I was a stranger in a city
+singularly picturesque.  From what I had once called myself,
+The Amateur Parisian, I grew (or declined) into a waterside
+prowler, a lingerer on wharves, a frequenter of shy
+neighbourhoods, a scraper of acquaintance with eccentric
+characters.  I visited Chinese and Mexican gambling-hells,
+German secret societies, sailors' boarding-houses, and "dives"
+of every complexion of the disreputable and dangerous.  I have
+seen greasy Mexican hands pinned to the table with a knife for
+cheating, seamen (when blood-money ran high) knocked down
+upon the public street and carried insensible on board short-
+handed ships, shots exchanged, and the smoke (and the
+company) dispersing from the doors of the saloon.  I have heard
+cold-minded Polacks debate upon the readiest method of
+burning San Francisco to the ground, hot-headed working men
+and women bawl and swear in the tribune at the Sandlot, and
+Kearney himself open his subscription for a gallows, name the
+manufacturers who were to grace it with their dangling bodies,
+and read aloud to the delighted multitude a telegram of
+adhesion from a member of the State legislature: all which
+preparations of proletarian war were (in a moment) breathed
+upon and abolished by the mere name and fame of Mr.
+Coleman.  That lion of the Vigilantes had but to rouse himself
+and shake his ears, and the whole brawling mob was silenced. 
+I could not but reflect what a strange manner of man this was,
+to be living unremarked there as a private merchant, and to be
+so feared by a whole city; and if I was disappointed, in my
+character of looker-on, to have the matter end ingloriously
+without the firing of a shot or the hanging of a single
+millionnaire, philosophy tried to tell me that this sight was
+truly the more picturesque.  In a thousand towns and different
+epochs I might have had occasion to behold the cowardice and
+carnage of street fighting; where else, but only there and then,
+could I have enjoyed a view of Coleman (the intermittent
+despot) walking meditatively up hill in a quiet part of town,
+with a very rolling gait, and slapping gently his great thigh? 
+
+Minora Canamus.  This historic figure stalks silently through a
+corner of the San Francisco of my memory:  the rest is bric-a-
+brac, the reminiscences of a vagrant sketcher.  My delight was
+much in slums.  Little Italy was a haunt of mine; there I would
+look in at the windows of small eating-shops, transported
+bodily from Genoa or Naples, with their macaroni, and chianti
+flasks, and portraits of Garibaldi, and coloured political
+caricatures; or (entering in) hold high debate with some
+ear-ringed fisher of the bay as to the designs of "Mr. Owstria"
+and "Mr. Rooshia."  I was often to be observed (had there been
+any to observe me) in that dis-peopled, hill-side solitude of
+Little Mexico, with its crazy wooden houses, endless crazy
+wooden stairs, and perilous mountain goat-paths in the sand. 
+Chinatown by a thousand eccentricities drew and held me; I
+could never have enough of its ambiguous, interracial
+atmosphere, as of a vitalised museum; never wonder enough at
+its outlandish, necromantic-looking vegetables set forth to sell
+in commonplace American shop-windows, its temple doors
+open and the scent of the joss-stick streaming forth on the
+American air, its kites of Oriental fashion hanging fouled in
+Western telegraph-wires, its flights of paper prayers which the
+trade-wind hunts and dissipates along Western gutters.  I was a
+frequent wanderer on North Beach, gazing at the straits, and
+the huge Cape-Horners creeping out to sea, and imminent
+Tamalpais.  Thence, on my homeward way, I might visit that
+strange and filthy shed, earth-paved and walled with the cages
+of wild animals and birds, where at a ramshackle counter, amid
+the yells of monkeys, and a poignant atmosphere of menagerie,
+forty-rod whiskey was administered by a proprietor as dirty as
+his beasts.  Nor did I even neglect Nob Hill, which is itself a
+kind of slum, being the habitat of the mere millionnaire.  There
+they dwell upon the hill-top, high raised above man's clamour,
+and the trade-wind blows between their palaces about deserted
+streets.
+
+But San Francisco is not herself only.  She is not only the most
+interesting city in the Union, and the hugest smelting-pot of
+races and the precious metals.  She keeps, besides, the doors of
+the Pacific, and is the port of entry to another world and an
+earlier epoch in man's history.  Nowhere else shall you observe
+(in the ancient phrase) so many tall ships as here convene from
+round the Horn, from China, from Sydney, and the Indies; but 
+scarce remarked amid that crowd of deep-sea giants, another
+class of craft, the Island schooner, circulates:  low in the water,
+with lofty spars and dainty lines, rigged and fashioned like a
+yacht, manned with brown-skinned, soft-spoken, sweet-eyed
+native sailors, and equipped with their great double-ender boats
+that tell a tale of boisterous sea-beaches.  These steal out and in
+again, unnoted by the world or even the newspaper press, save
+for the line in the clearing column, "Schooner So-and-so for
+Yap and South Sea Islands"--steal out with nondescript cargoes
+of tinned salmon, gin, bolts of gaudy cotton stuff, women's
+hats, and Waterbury watches, to return, after a year, piled as
+high as to the eaves of the house with copra, or wallowing deep
+with the shells of the tortoise or the pearl oyster.  To me, in my
+character of the Amateur Parisian, this island traffic, and even
+the island world, were beyond the bounds of curiosity, and how
+much more of knowledge.  I stood there on the extreme shore of
+the West and of to-day.  Seventeen hundred years ago, and
+seven thousand miles to the east, a legionary stood, perhaps,
+upon the wall of Antoninus, and looked northward toward the
+mountains of the Picts.  For all the interval of time and space, I,
+when I looked from the cliff-house on the broad Pacific, was
+that man's heir and analogue:  each of us standing on the verge
+of the Roman Empire (or, as we now call it, Western
+civilization), each of us gazing onward into zones unromanised. 
+But I was dull.  I looked rather backward, keeping a kind eye
+on Paris; and it required a series of converging incidents to
+change my attitude of nonchalance for one of interest, and even
+longing, which I little dreamed that I should live to gratify.
+
+The first of these incidents brought me in acquaintance with a
+certain San Francisco character, who had something of a name
+beyond the limits of the city, and was known to many lovers of
+good English.  I had discovered a new slum, a place of
+precarious, sandy cliffs, deep, sandy cuttings, solitary, ancient
+houses, and the butt-ends of streets.  It was already environed. 
+The ranks of the street-lamps threaded it unbroken.  The city,
+upon all sides of it, was tightly packed, and growled with
+traffic.  To-day, I do not doubt the very landmarks are all swept
+away; but it offered then, within narrow limits, a delightful
+peace, and (in the morning, when I chiefly went there) a
+seclusion almost rural.  On a steep sand-hill, in this
+neighbourhood, toppled, on the most insecure foundation, a
+certain row of houses, each with a bit of garden, and all (I have
+to presume) inhabited.  Thither I used to mount by a crumbling
+footpath, and in front of the last of the houses, would sit down
+to sketch.  The very first day I saw I was observed, out of the
+ground-floor window by a youngish, good-looking fellow,
+prematurely bald, and with an expression both lively and
+engaging.  The second, as we were still the only figures in the
+landscape, it was no more than natural that we should nod. 
+The third, he came out fairly from his intrenchments, praised
+my sketch, and with the impromptu cordiality of artists carried
+me into his apartment; where I sat presently in the midst of a
+museum of strange objects,--paddles and battle-clubs and
+baskets, rough-hewn stone images, ornaments of threaded
+shell, cocoanut bowls, snowy cocoanut plumes--evidences and
+examples of another earth, another climate, another race, and
+another (if a ruder) culture.  Nor did these objects lack a fitting
+commentary in the conversation of my new acquaintance. 
+Doubtless you have read his book.  You know already how he
+tramped and starved, and had so fine a profit of living, in his
+days among the islands; and meeting him, as I did, one artist
+with another, after months of offices and picnics, you can
+imagine with what charm he would speak, and with what
+pleasure I would hear.  It was in such talks, which we were
+both eager to repeat, that I first heard the names--first fell under
+the spell--of the islands; and it was from one of the first of them
+that I returned (a happy man) with _Omoo_ under one arm, and
+my friend's own adventures under the other.
+
+The second incident was more dramatic, and had, besides, a
+bearing on my future.  I was standing, one day, near a boat-
+landing under Telegraph Hill.  A large barque, perhaps of
+eighteen hundred tons, was coming more than usually close
+about the point to reach her moorings; and I was observing her
+with languid inattention, when I observed two men to stride
+across the bulwarks, drop into a shore boat, and, violently
+dispossessing the boatman of his oars, pull toward the landing
+where I stood.  In a surprisingly short time they came tearing
+up the steps; and I could see that both were too well dressed to
+be foremast hands--the first even with research, and both, and
+specially the first, appeared under the empire of some strong
+emotion.
+
+"Nearest police office!" cried the leader.
+
+"This way," said I, immediately falling in with their precipitate
+pace.  "What's wrong?  What ship is that?"
+
+"That's the Gleaner," he replied.  "I am chief officer, this
+gentleman's third; and we've to get in our depositions before the
+crew.  You see they might corral us with the captain; and that's
+no kind of berth for me.  I've sailed with some hard cases in my
+time, and seen pins flying like sand on a squally day--but never
+a match to our old man.  It never let up from the Hook to the
+Farallones; and the last man was dropped not sixteen hours
+ago.  Packet rats our men were, and as tough a crowd as ever
+sand-bagged a man's head in; but they looked sick enough
+when the captain started in with his fancy shooting."
+
+"O, he's done up," observed the other.  "He won't go to sea no
+more."
+
+"You make me tired," retorted his superior.  "If he gets ashore
+in one piece and isn't lynched in the next ten minutes, he'll do
+yet.  The owners have a longer memory than the public; they'll
+stand by him; they don't find as smart a captain every day in the
+year."
+
+"O, he's a son of a gun of a fine captain; there ain't no doubt of
+that," concurred the other, heartily.  "Why, I don't suppose
+there's been no wages paid aboard that Gleaner for three trips."
+
+"No wages?" I exclaimed, for I was still a novice in maritime
+affairs.
+
+"Not to sailor-men before the mast," agreed the mate.  "Men
+cleared out; wasn't the soft job they maybe took it for.  She isn'
+the first ship that never paid wages."
+
+I could not but observe that our pace was progressively
+relaxing; and indeed I have often wondered since whether the
+hurry of the start were not intended for the gallery alone. 
+Certain it is at least, that when we had reached the police
+office, and the mates had made their deposition, and told their
+horrid tale of five men murdered, some with savage passion,
+some with cold brutality, between Sandy Hook and San
+Francisco, the police were despatched in time to be too late. 
+Before we arrived, the ruffian had slipped out upon the dock,
+had mingled with the crowd, and found a refuge in the house of
+an acquaintance; and the ship was only tenanted by his late
+victims.  Well for him that he had been thus speedy.  For when
+word began to go abroad among the shore-side characters,
+when the last victim was carried by to the hospital, when those
+who had escaped (as by miracle) from that floating shambles,
+began to circulate and show their wounds in the crowd, it was
+strange to witness the agitation that seized and shook that
+portion of the city.  Men shed tears in public; bosses of
+lodging-houses, long inured to brutality, and above all,
+brutality to sailors, shook their fists at heaven:  if hands could
+have been laid on the captain of the Gleaner, his shrift would
+have been short.  That night (so gossip reports) he was headed
+up in a barrel and smuggled across the bay:  in two ships
+already he had braved the penitentiary and the gallows; and yet,
+by last accounts, he now commands another on the Western
+Ocean.
+
+As I have said, I was never quite certain whether Mr. Nares
+(the mate) did not intend that his superior should escape.  It
+would have been like his preference of loyalty to law; it would
+have been like his prejudice, which was all in favour of the
+after-guard.  But it must remain a matter of conjecture only. 
+Well as I came to know him in the sequel, he was never
+communicative on that point, nor indeed on any that concerned
+the voyage of the Gleaner.  Doubtless he had some reason for
+his reticence.  Even during our walk to the police office, he
+debated several times with Johnson, the third officer, whether
+he ought not to give up himself, as well as to denounce the
+captain.  He had decided in the negative, arguing that "it would
+probably come to nothing; and even if there was a stink, he had
+plenty good friends in San Francisco."  And to nothing it came;
+though it must have very nearly come to something, for Mr.
+Nares disappeared immediately from view and was scarce less
+closely hidden than his captain.
+
+Johnson, on the other hand, I often met.  I could never learn
+this man's country; and though he himself claimed to be
+American, neither his English nor his education warranted the
+claim.  In all likelihood he was of Scandinavian birth and
+blood, long pickled in the forecastles of English and American
+ships.  It is possible that, like so many of his race in similar
+positions, he had already lost his native tongue.  In mind, at
+least, he was quite denationalised; thought only in English--to
+call it so; and though by nature one of the mildest, kindest, and
+most feebly playful of mankind, he had been so long
+accustomed to the cruelty of sea discipline, that his stories (told
+perhaps with a giggle) would sometimes turn me chill.  In
+appearance, he was tall, light of weight, bold and high-bred of
+feature, dusky-haired, and with a face of a clean even brown:
+the ornament of outdoor men.  Seated in a chair, you might
+have passed him off for a baronet or a military officer; but let
+him rise, and it was Fo'c's'le Jack that came rolling toward you,
+crab-like; let him but open his lips, and it was Fo'c's'le Jack
+that piped and drawled his ungrammatical gibberish.  He had
+sailed (among other places) much among the islands; and after
+a Cape Horn passage with its snow-squalls and its frozen
+sheets, he announced his intention of "taking a turn among
+them Kanakas."  I thought I should have lost him soon; but
+according to the unwritten usage of mariners, he had first to
+dissipate his wages.  "Guess I'll have to paint this town red,"
+was his hyperbolical expression; for sure no man ever
+embarked upon a milder course of dissipation, most of his days
+being passed in the little parlour behind Black Tom's public
+house, with a select corps of old particular acquaintances, all
+from the South Seas, and all patrons of a long yarn, a short
+pipe, and glasses round. 
+
+Black Tom's, to the front, presented the appearance of a fourth-
+rate saloon, devoted to Kanaka seamen, dirt, negrohead
+tobacco, bad cigars, worse gin, and guitars and banjos in a
+state of decline.  The proprietor, a powerful coloured man, was
+at once a publican, a ward politician, leader of some brigade of
+"lambs" or "smashers," at the wind of whose clubs the party
+bosses and the mayor were supposed to tremble, and (what hurt
+nothing) an active and reliable crimp.  His front quarters, then,
+were noisy, disreputable, and not even safe.  I have seen worse
+frequented saloons where there were fewer scandals; for Tom
+was often drunk himself; and there is no doubt the Lambs must
+have been a useful body, or the place would have been closed. 
+I remember one day, not long before an election, seeing a blind
+man, very well dressed, led up to the counter and remain a long
+while in consultation with the negro.  The pair looked so ill-
+assorted, and the awe with which the drinkers fell back and left
+them in the midst of an impromptu privacy was so unusual in
+such a place, that I turned to my next neighbour with a
+question.  He told me the blind man was a distinguished party
+boss, called by some the King of San Francisco, but perhaps
+better known by his picturesque Chinese nickname of the Blind
+White Devil.  "The Lambs must be wanted pretty bad, I guess,"
+my informant added.  I have here a sketch of the Blind White
+Devil leaning on the counter; on the next page, and taken the
+same hour, a jotting of Black Tom threatening a whole crowd
+of customers with a long Smith and Wesson:  to such heights
+and depths we rose and fell in the front parts of the saloon. 
+
+
+Meanwhile, away in the back quarters, sat the small informal
+South Sea club, talking of another world and surely of a
+different century.  Old schooner captains they were, old South
+Sea traders, cooks, and mates:  fine creatures, softened by
+residence among a softer race:  full men besides, though not by
+reading, but by strange experience; and for days together I
+could hear their yarns with an unfading pleasure.  All had
+indeed some touch of the poetic; for the beach-comber, when
+not a mere ruffian, is the poor relation of the artist.  Even
+through Johnson's inarticulate speech, his "O yes, there ain't no
+harm in them Kanakas," or "O yes, that's a son of a gun of a
+fine island, mountainious right down; I didn't never ought to
+have left that island," there pierced a certain gusto of
+appreciation:  and some of the rest were master-talkers.  From
+their long tales, their traits of character and unpremeditated
+landscape, there began to piece itself together in my head some
+image of the islands and the island life:  precipitous shores,
+spired mountain tops, the deep shade of hanging forests, the
+unresting surf upon the reef, and the unending peace of the
+lagoon; sun, moon, and stars of an imperial brightness; man
+moving in these scenes scarce fallen, and woman lovelier than
+Eve; the primal curse abrogated, the bed made ready for the
+stranger, life set to perpetual music, and the guest welcomed,
+the boat urged, and the long night beguiled, with poetry and
+choral song.  A man must have been an unsuccessful artist; he
+must have starved on the streets of Paris; he must have been
+yoked to a commercial force like Pinkerton, before he can
+conceive the longings that at times assailed me.  The draughty,
+rowdy city of San Francisco, the bustling office where my
+friend Jim paced like a caged lion daily between ten and four,
+even (at times) the retrospect of Paris, faded in comparison. 
+Many a man less tempted would have thrown up all to realise
+his visions; but I was by nature unadventurous and uninitiative:
+to divert me from all former paths and send me cruising
+through the isles of paradise, some force external to myself
+must be exerted; Destiny herself must use the fitting wedge;
+and little as I deemed it, that tool was already in her hand of
+brass.
+
+I sat, one afternoon, in the corner of a great, glassy, silvered
+saloon, a free lunch at my one elbow, at the other a
+"conscientious nude" from the brush of local talent; when, with
+the tramp of feet and a sudden buzz of voices, the swing-doors
+were flung broadly open and the place carried as by storm.  The
+crowd which thus entered (mostly seafaring men, and all
+prodigiously excited) contained a sort of kernel or general
+centre of interest, which the rest merely surrounded and
+advertised, as children in the Old World surround and escort
+the Punch-and-Judy man; the word went round the bar like
+wildfire that these were Captain Trent and the survivors of the
+British brig Flying Scud, picked up by a British war-ship on
+Midway Island, arrived that morning in San Francisco Bay,
+and now fresh from making the necessary declarations. 
+Presently I had a good sight of them:  four brown, seamanlike
+fellows, standing by the counter, glass in hand, the centre of a
+score of questioners.  One was a Kanaka--the cook, I was
+informed; one carried a cage with a canary, which occasionally
+trilled into thin song; one had his left arm in a sling and looked
+gentlemanlike, and somewhat sickly, as though the injury had
+been severe and he was scarce recovered; and the captain
+himself--a red-faced, blue-eyed, thickset man of five and forty
+--wore a bandage on his right hand.  The incident struck me; I
+was struck particularly to see captain, cook, and foremost
+hands walking the street and visiting saloons in company; and,
+as when anything impressed me, I got my sketch-book out, and
+began to steal a sketch of the four castaways.  The crowd,
+sympathising with my design, made a clear lane across the
+room; and I was thus enabled, all unobserved myself, to
+observe with a still-growing closeness the face and the
+demeanour of Captain Trent.
+
+Warmed by whiskey and encouraged by the eagerness of the
+bystanders, that gentleman was now rehearsing the history of
+his misfortune.  It was but scraps that reached me:  how he
+"filled her on the starboard tack," and how "it came up sudden
+out of the nor'nor'west," and "there she was, high and dry."
+Sometimes he would appeal to one of the men--"That was how
+it was, Jack?"--and the man would reply, "That was the way of
+it, Captain Trent."  Lastly, he started a fresh tide of popular
+sympathy by enunciating the sentiment, "Damn all these
+Admirality Charts, and that's what I say!"  From the nodding of
+heads and the murmurs of assent that followed, I could see that
+Captain Trent had established himself in the public mind as a
+gentleman and a thorough navigator:  about which period, my
+sketch of the four men and the canary-bird being finished, and
+all (especially the canary-bird) excellent likenesses, I buckled
+up my book, and slipped from the saloon.
+
+Little did I suppose that I was leaving Act I, Scene I, of the
+drama of my life; and yet the scene, or rather the captain's face,
+lingered for some time in my memory.  I was no prophet, as I
+say; but I was something else:  I was an observer; and one
+thing I knew, I knew when a man was terrified.  Captain Trent,
+of the British brig Flying Scud, had been glib; he had been
+ready; he had been loud; but in his blue eyes I could detect the
+chill, and in the lines of his countenance spy the agitation of
+perpetual terror.  Was he trembling for his certificate?  In my
+judgment, it was some livelier kind of fear that thrilled in the
+man's marrow as he turned to drink.  Was it the result of recent
+shock, and had he not yet recovered the disaster to his brig?  I
+remembered how a friend of mine had been in a railway
+accident, and shook and started for a month; and although
+Captain Trent of the Flying Scud had none of the appearance of
+a nervous man, I told myself, with incomplete conviction, that
+his must be a similar case.
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER IX.
+
+ THE WRECK OF THE "FLYING SCUD."
+
+
+The next morning I found Pinkerton, who had risen before me,
+seated at our usual table, and deep in the perusal of what I will
+call the _Daily Occidental_.  This was a paper (I know not if it
+be so still) that stood out alone among its brethren in the West; 
+the others, down to their smallest item, were defaced with
+capitals, head-lines, alliterations, swaggering misquotations,
+and the shoddy picturesque and unpathetic pathos of the Harry
+Millers:  the _Occidental_ alone appeared to be written by a
+dull, sane, Christian gentleman, singly desirous of
+communicating knowledge.  It had not only this merit, which
+endeared it to me, but was admittedly the best informed on
+business matters, which attracted Pinkerton.
+
+"Loudon," said he, looking up from the journal, "you
+sometimes think I have too many irons in the fire.  My notion,
+on the other hand, is, when you see a dollar lying, pick it up!
+Well, here I've tumbled over a whole pile of 'em on a reef in the
+middle of the Pacific."
+
+"Why, Jim, you miserable fellow!" I exclaimed; "haven't we
+Depew City, one of God's green centres for this State? haven't
+we----"
+
+"Just listen to this," interrupted Jim.  "It's miserable copy; these
+_Occidental_ reporter fellows have no fire; but the facts are
+right enough, I guess."  And he began to read:--
+
+"WRECK OF THE BRITISH BRIG, 'FLYING SCUD.'
+
+"H.B.M.S. Tempest, which arrived yesterday at this port, brings
+Captain Trent and four men of the British brig Flying Scud,
+cast away February 12th on Midway Island, and most
+providentially rescued the next day.  The Flying Scud was of
+200 tons burthen, owned in London, and has been out nearly
+two years tramping.  Captain Trent left Hong Kong December
+8th, bound for this port in rice and a small mixed cargo of silks,
+teas, and China notions, the whole valued at $10,000, fully
+covered by insurance.  The log shows plenty of fine weather,
+with light airs, calms, and squalls.  In lat. 28 N., long. 177 W.,
+his water going rotten, and misled by Hoyt's _North Pacific
+Directory_, which informed him there was a coaling station on
+the island, Captain Trent put in to Midway Island.  He found it
+a literal sandbank, surrounded by a coral reef mostly
+submerged.  Birds were very plenty, there was good fish in the
+lagoon, but no firewood; and the water, which could be
+obtained by digging, brackish.  He found good holding-ground
+off the north end of the larger bank in fifteen fathoms water;
+bottom sandy, with coral patches.  Here he was detained seven
+days by a calm, the crew suffering severely from the water,
+which was gone quite bad; and it was only on the evening of
+the 12th, that a little wind sprang up, coming puffy out of
+N.N.E.  Late as it was, Captain Trent immediately weighed
+anchor and attempted to get out.  While the vessel was beating
+up to the passage, the wind took a sudden lull, and then veered
+squally into N. and even N.N.W., driving the brig ashore on the
+sand at about twenty minutes before six o'clock.  John Wallen,
+a native of Finland, and Charles Holdorsen, a native of
+Sweden, were drowned alongside, in attempting to lower a
+boat, neither being able to swim, the squall very dark, and the
+noise of the breakers drowning everything.  At the same time
+John Brown, another of the crew, had his arm broken by the
+falls.  Captain Trent further informed the OCCIDENTAL
+reporter, that the brig struck heavily at first bows on, he
+supposes upon coral; that she then drove over the obstacle, and
+now lies in sand, much down by the head and with a list to
+starboard.  In the first collision she must have sustained some
+damage, as she was making water forward.  The rice will
+probably be all destroyed:  but the more valuable part of the
+cargo is fortunately in the afterhold.  Captain Trent was
+preparing his long-boat for sea, when the providential arrival of
+the Tempest, pursuant to Admiralty orders to call at islands in
+her course for castaways, saved the gallant captain from all
+further danger.  It is scarcely necessary to add that both the
+officers and men of the unfortunate vessel speak in high terms
+of the kindness they received on board the man-of-war.  We
+print a list of the survivors: Jacob Trent, master, of Hull, 
+England; Elias Goddedaal, mate, native of Christiansand,
+Sweden; Ah Wing, cook, native of Sana, China; John Brown,
+native of Glasgow, Scotland; John Hardy, native of London,
+England.  The Flying Scud is ten years old, and this morning
+will be sold as she stands, by order of Lloyd's agent, at public
+auction for the benefit of the underwriters.  The auction will
+take place in the Merchants' Exchange at ten o'clock.
+
+"Farther Particulars.--Later in the afternoon the OCCIDENTAL
+reporter found Lieutenant Sebright, first officer of H.B.M.S.
+Tempest, at the Palace Hotel.  The gallant officer was
+somewhat pressed for time, but confirmed the account given by
+Captain Trent in all particulars.  He added that the Flying Scud
+is in an excellent berth, and except in the highly improbable
+event of a heavy N.W. gale, might last until next winter." 
+
+"You will never know anything of literature," said I, when Jim
+had finished.  "That is a good, honest, plain piece of work, and
+tells the story clearly.  I see only one mistake:  the cook is not a
+Chinaman; he is a Kanaka, and I think a Hawaiian."
+
+"Why, how do you know that?" asked Jim.
+
+"I saw the whole gang yesterday in a saloon," said I.  "I even
+heard the tale, or might have heard it, from Captain Trent
+himself, who struck me as thirsty and nervous."
+
+"Well, that's neither here nor there," cried Pinkerton.  "The
+point is, how about these dollars lying on a reef?"
+
+"Will it pay?" I asked.
+
+"Pay like a sugar trust!" exclaimed Pinkerton.  "Don't you see
+what this British officer says about the safety?  Don't you see
+the cargo's valued at ten thousand?  Schooners are begging just
+now; I can get my pick of them at two hundred and fifty a
+month; and how does that foot up?  It looks like three hundred
+per cent. to me."
+
+"You forget," I objected, "the captain himself declares the rice
+is damaged."
+
+
+"That's a point, I know," admitted Jim.  "But the rice is the
+sluggish article, anyway; it's little more account than ballast;
+it's the tea and silks that I look to: all we have to find is the
+proportion, and one look at the manifest will settle that.  I've
+rung up Lloyd's on purpose; the captain is to meet me there in
+an hour, and then I'll be as posted on that brig as if I built her. 
+Besides, you've no idea what pickings there are about a wreck
+--copper, lead, rigging, anchors, chains, even the crockery,
+Loudon!"
+
+"You seem to me to forget one trifle," said I.  "Before you pick
+that wreck, you've got to buy her, and how much will she cost?"
+
+"One hundred dollars," replied Jim, with the promptitude of an
+automaton.
+
+"How on earth do you guess that?" I cried.
+
+"I don't guess; I know it," answered the Commercial Force. 
+"My dear boy, I may be a galoot about literature, but you'll
+always be an outsider in business.  How do you suppose I
+bought the James L. Moody for two hundred and fifty, her
+boats alone worth four times the money?  Because my name
+stood first in the list.  Well it stands there again; I have the
+naming of the figure, and I name a small one because of the
+distance:  but it wouldn't matter what I named; that would be
+the price."
+
+"It sounds mysterious enough," said I.  "Is this public auction
+conducted in a subterranean vault?  Could a plain citizen--
+myself, for instance--come and see?"
+
+"O, everything's open and above board!" he cried indignantly. 
+"Anybody can come, only nobody bids against us; and if he
+did, he would get frozen out.  It's been tried before now, and
+once was enough.  We hold the plant; we've got the connection;
+we can afford to go higher than any outsider; there's two
+million dollars in the ring; and we stick at nothing.  Or suppose
+anybody did buy over our head--I tell you, Loudon, he would
+think this town gone crazy; he could no more get business
+through on the city front than I can dance; schooners, divers,
+men--all he wanted--the prices would fly right up and strike
+him."
+
+"But how did you get in?" I asked.  "You were once an outsider
+like your neighbours, I suppose?"
+
+"I took hold of that thing, Loudon, and just studied it up," he
+replied.  "It took my fancy; it was so romantic, and then I saw
+there was boodle in the thing; and I figured on the business till
+no man alive could give me points.  Nobody knew I had an eye
+on wrecks till one fine morning I dropped in upon Douglas B.
+Longhurst in his den, gave him all the facts and figures, and
+put it to him straight:  "Do you want me in this ring? or shall I
+start another?"  He took half an hour, and when I came back,
+"Pink," says he, "I've put your name on."  The first time I came
+to the top, it was that Moody racket; now it's the Flying Scud."
+ 
+Whereupon Pinkerton, looking at his watch, uttered an
+exclamation, made a hasty appointment with myself for the
+doors of the Merchants' Exchange, and fled to examine
+manifests and interview the skipper.  I finished my cigarette
+with the deliberation of a man at the end of many picnics;
+reflecting to myself that of all forms of the dollar hunt, this
+wrecking had by far the most address to my imagination.  Even
+as I went down town, in the brisk bustle and chill of the
+familiar San Francisco thoroughfares, I was haunted by a
+vision of the wreck, baking so far away in the strong sun, under
+a cloud of sea-birds; and even then, and for no better reason,
+my heart inclined towards the adventure.  If not myself,
+something that was mine, some one at least in my employment,
+should voyage to that ocean-bounded pin-point and descend to
+that deserted cabin.
+
+Pinkerton met me at the appointed moment, pinched of lip and
+more than usually erect of bearing, like one conscious of great
+resolves.
+
+"Well?" I asked.
+
+"Well," said he, "it might be better, and it might be worse. 
+This Captain Trent is a remarkably honest fellow--one out of a
+thousand.  As soon as he knew I was in the market, he owned
+up about the rice in so many words.  By his calculation, if
+there's thirty mats of it saved, it's an outside figure.  However,
+the manifest was cheerier.  There's about five thousand dollars
+of the whole value in silks and teas and nut-oils and that, all in
+the lazarette, and as safe as if it was in Kearney Street.  The
+brig was new coppered a year ago.  There's upwards of a
+hundred and fifty fathom away-up chain.  It's not a bonanza,
+but there's boodle in it; and we'll try it on."
+
+
+It was by that time hard on ten o'clock, and we turned at once
+into the place of sale.  The Flying Scud, although so important
+to ourselves, appeared to attract a very humble share of popular
+attention.  The auctioneer was surrounded by perhaps a score of
+lookers-on, big fellows, for the most part, of the true Western
+build, long in the leg, broad in the shoulder, and adorned (to a
+plain man's taste) with needless finery.  A jaunty, ostentatious
+comradeship prevailed.  Bets were flying, and nicknames. 
+"The boys" (as they would have called themselves) were very
+boyish; and it was plain they were here in mirth, and not on
+business.  Behind, and certainly in strong contrast to these
+gentlemen, I could detect the figure of my friend Captain Trent,
+come (as I could very well imagine that a captain would) to
+hear the last of his old vessel.  Since yesterday, he had rigged
+himself anew in ready-made black clothes, not very aptly fitted;
+the upper left-hand pocket showing a corner of silk
+handkerchief, the lower, on the other side, bulging with papers. 
+Pinkerton had just given this man a high character.  Certainly
+he seemed to have been very frank, and I looked at him again to
+trace (if possible) that virtue in his face.  It was red and broad
+and flustered and (I thought) false.  The whole man looked sick
+with some unknown anxiety; and as he stood there,
+unconscious of my observation, he tore at his nails, scowled on
+the floor, or glanced suddenly, sharply, and fearfully at
+passers-by.  I was still gazing at the man in a kind of
+fascination, when the sale began.
+
+Some preliminaries were rattled through, to the irreverent,
+uninterrupted gambolling of the boys; and then, amid a trifle
+more attention, the auctioneer sounded for some two or three
+minutes the pipe of the charmer.  Fine brig--new copper--
+valuable fittings--three fine boats--remarkably choice cargo--
+what the auctioneer would call a perfectly safe investment; nay,
+gentlemen, he would go further, he would put a figure on it: he
+had no hesitation (had that bold auctioneer) in putting it in
+figures; and in his view, what with this and that, and one thing
+and another, the purchaser might expect to clear a sum equal to
+the entire estimated value of the cargo; or, gentlemen, in other
+words, a sum of ten thousand dollars.  At this modest
+computation the roof immediately above the speaker's head (I
+suppose, through the intervention of a spectator of ventriloquial
+tastes) uttered a clear "Cock-a-doodle-doo!"--whereat all
+laughed, the auctioneer himself obligingly joining.
+
+"Now, gentlemen, what shall we say?" resumed that
+gentleman, plainly ogling Pinkerton,--"what shall we say for
+this remarkable opportunity?"
+
+"One hundred dollars," said Pinkerton.
+
+"One hundred dollars from Mr. Pinkerton," went the
+auctioneer, "one hundred dollars.  No other gentleman inclined
+to make any advance? One hundred dollars, only one hundred
+dollars----"
+
+The auctioneer was droning on to some such tune as this, and I,
+on my part, was watching with something between sympathy
+and amazement the undisguised emotion of Captain Trent,
+when we were all startled by the interjection of a bid.
+
+"And fifty," said a sharp voice.
+
+Pinkerton, the auctioneer, and the boys, who were all equally in
+the open secret of the ring, were now all equally and
+simultaneously taken aback.
+
+"I beg your pardon," said the auctioneer.  "Anybody bid?"
+
+"And fifty," reiterated the voice, which I was now able to trace
+to its origin, on the lips of a small, unseemly rag of human-
+kind.  The speaker's skin was gray and blotched; he spoke in a
+kind of broken song, with much variety of key; his gestures
+seemed (as in the disease called Saint Vitus's dance) to be
+imperfectly under control; he was badly dressed; he carried
+himself with an air of shrinking assumption, as though he were
+proud to be where he was and to do what he was doing, and yet
+half expected to be called in question and kicked out.  I think I
+never saw a man more of a piece; and the type was new to me;
+I had never before set eyes upon his parallel, and I thought
+instinctively of Balzac and the lower regions of the _Comedie
+Humaine_.
+
+Pinkerton stared a moment on the intruder with no friendly eye,
+tore a leaf from his note-book, and scribbled a line in pencil,
+turned, beckoned a messenger boy, and whispered, "To
+Longhurst."  Next moment the boy had sped upon his errand,
+and Pinkerton was again facing the auctioneer.
+
+"Two hundred dollars," said Jim.
+
+"And fifty," said the enemy.
+
+
+"This looks lively," whispered I to Pinkerton.
+
+"Yes; the little beast means cold drawn biz," returned my
+friend.  "Well, he'll have to have a lesson.  Wait till I see
+Longhurst.  Three hundred," he added aloud.
+
+"And fifty," came the echo.
+
+It was about this moment when my eye fell again on Captain
+Trent.  A deeper shade had mounted to his crimson face:  the
+new coat was unbuttoned and all flying open; the new silk
+handkerchief in busy requisition; and the man's eye, of a clear
+sailor blue, shone glassy with excitement.  He was anxious
+still, but now (if I could read a face) there was hope in his
+anxiety.
+
+"Jim," I whispered, "look at Trent.  Bet you what you please he
+was expecting this."
+
+"Yes," was the reply, "there's some blame' thing going on here."
+And he renewed his bid.
+
+The figure had run up into the neighbourhood of a thousand
+when I was aware of a sensation in the faces opposite, and
+looking over my shoulder, saw a very large, bland, handsome
+man come strolling forth and make a little signal to the
+auctioneer.
+
+"One word, Mr. Borden," said he; and then to Jim, "Well, Pink,
+where are we up to now?"
+
+Pinkerton gave him the figure.  "I ran up to that on my own
+responsibility, Mr. Longhurst," he added, with a flush.  "I
+thought it the square thing."
+
+"And so it was," said Mr. Longhurst, patting him kindly on the
+shoulder, like a gratified uncle.  "Well, you can drop out now;
+we take hold ourselves.  You can run it up to five thousand;
+and if he likes to go beyond that, he's welcome to the bargain."
+
+"By the by, who is he?" asked Pinkerton.  "He looks away
+down."
+
+"I've sent Billy to find out."  And at the very moment Mr.
+Longhurst received from the hands of one of the expensive
+young gentlemen a folded paper.  It was passed round from one
+to another till it came to me, and I read:  "Harry D. Bellairs,
+Attorney-at-Law; defended Clara Varden; twice nearly
+disbarred."
+
+"Well, that gets me!" observed Mr. Longhurst.  "Who can have
+put up a shyster [1] like that?  Nobody with money, that's a
+sure thing.  Suppose you tried a big bluff?  I think I would,
+Pink.  Well, ta-ta!  Your partner, Mr. Dodd?  Happy to have the
+pleasure of your acquaintance, sir."  And the great man
+withdrew.
+
+[1] A low lawyer.
+
+"Well, what do you think of Douglas B.?" whispered Pinkerton,
+looking reverently after him as he departed.  "Six foot of perfect
+gentleman and culture to his boots."
+
+During this interview the auction had stood transparently
+arrested, the auctioneer, the spectators, and even Bellairs, all
+well aware that Mr. Longhurst was the principal, and Jim but a
+speaking-trumpet.  But now that the Olympian Jupiter was
+gone, Mr. Borden thought proper to affect severity.
+
+"Come, come, Mr. Pinkerton.  Any advance?" he snapped.
+
+And Pinkerton, resolved on the big bluff, replied, "Two
+thousand dollars."
+
+Bellairs preserved his composure.  "And fifty," said he.  But
+there was a stir among the onlookers, and what was of more
+importance, Captain Trent had turned pale and visibly gulped.
+
+"Pitch it in again, Jim," said I.  "Trent is weakening."
+
+"Three thousand," said Jim.
+
+"And fifty," said Bellairs.
+
+And then the bidding returned to its original movement by
+hundreds and fifties; but I had been able in the meanwhile to
+draw two conclusions.  In the first place, Bellairs had made his
+last advance with a smile of gratified vanity; and I could see the
+creature was glorying in the kudos of an unusual position and
+secure of ultimate success.  In the second, Trent had once more
+changed colour at the thousand leap, and his relief, when he
+heard the answering fifty was manifest and unaffected.  Here
+then was a problem:  both were presumably in the same
+interest, yet the one was not in the confidence of the other.  Nor
+was this all.  A few bids later it chanced that my eye
+encountered that of Captain Trent, and his, which glittered with
+excitement, was instantly, and I thought guiltily, withdrawn. 
+He wished, then, to conceal his interest?  As Jim had said,
+there was some blamed thing going on.  And for certain, here
+were these two men, so strangely united, so strangely divided,
+both sharp-set to keep the wreck from us, and that at an
+exorbitant figure.
+
+Was the wreck worth more than we supposed? A sudden heat
+was kindled in my brain; the bids were nearing Longhurst's
+limit of five thousand; another minute, and all would be too
+late.  Tearing a leaf from my sketch-book, and inspired (I
+suppose) by vanity in my own powers of inference and
+observation, I took the one mad decision of my life.  "If you
+care to go ahead," I wrote, "I'm in for all I'm worth."
+
+Jim read and looked round at me like one bewildered; then his
+eyes lightened, and turning again to the auctioneer, he bid,
+"Five thousand one hundred dollars."
+
+"And fifty," said monotonous Bellairs.
+
+Presently Pinkerton scribbled, "What can it be?" and I
+answered, still on paper:  "I can't imagine; but there's
+something.  Watch Bellairs; he'll go up to the ten thousand, see
+if he don't."
+
+And he did, and we followed.  Long before this, word had gone
+abroad that there was battle royal:  we were surrounded by a
+crowd that looked on wondering; and when Pinkerton had
+offered ten thousand dollars (the outside value of the cargo,
+even were it safe in San Francisco Bay) and Bellairs, smirking
+from ear to ear to be the centre of so much attention, had jerked
+out his answering, "And fifty," wonder deepened to excitement.
+
+"Ten thousand one hundred," said Jim; and even as he spoke he
+made a sudden gesture with his hand, his face changed, and I
+could see that he had guessed, or thought that he had guessed,
+the mystery.  As he scrawled another memorandum in his note-
+book, his hand shook like a telegraph-operator's.
+
+"Chinese ship," ran the legend; and then, in big, tremulous
+half-text, and with a flourish that overran the margin, "Opium!"
+
+To be sure! thought I:  this must be the secret.  I knew that
+scarce a ship came in from any Chinese port, but she carried
+somewhere, behind a bulkhead, or in some cunning hollow of
+the beams, a nest of the valuable poison.  Doubtless there was
+some such treasure on the Flying Scud.  How much was it
+worth?  We knew not, we were gambling in the dark; but Trent
+knew, and Bellairs; and we could only watch and judge.
+
+By this time neither Pinkerton nor I were of sound mind. 
+Pinkerton was beside himself, his eyes like lamps.  I shook in
+every member.  To any stranger entering (say) in the course of
+the fifteenth thousand, we should probably have cut a poorer
+figure than Bellairs himself.  But we did not pause; and the
+crowd watched us, now in silence, now with a buzz of
+whispers.
+
+Seventeen thousand had been reached, when Douglas B.
+Longhurst, forcing his way into the opposite row of faces,
+conspicuously and repeatedly shook his head at Jim.  Jim's
+answer was a note of two words: "My racket!" which, when the
+great man had perused, he shook his finger warningly and
+departed, I thought, with a sorrowful countenance.
+
+Although Mr. Longhurst knew nothing of Bellairs, the shady
+lawyer knew all about the Wrecker Boss.  He had seen him
+enter the ring with manifest expectation; he saw him depart,
+and the bids continue, with manifest surprise and
+disappointment.  "Hullo," he plainly thought, "this is not the
+ring I'm fighting, then?" And he determined to put on a spurt.
+
+"Eighteen thousand," said he.
+
+"And fifty," said Jim, taking a leaf out of his adversary's book.
+
+"Twenty thousand," from Bellairs.
+
+"And fifty," from Jim, with a little nervous titter.
+
+And with one consent they returned to the old pace, only now it
+was Bellairs who took the hundreds, and Jim who did the fifty
+business.  But by this time our idea had gone abroad.  I could
+hear the word "opium" pass from mouth to mouth; and by the
+looks directed at us, I could see we were supposed to have
+some private information.  And here an incident occurred
+highly typical of San Francisco.  Close at my back there had
+stood for some time a stout, middle-aged gentleman, with
+pleasant eyes, hair pleasantly grizzled, and a ruddy, pleasing
+face.  All of a sudden he appeared as a third competitor, skied
+the Flying Scud with four fat bids of a thousand dollars each,
+and then as suddenly fled the field, remaining thenceforth (as
+before) a silent, interested spectator.
+
+Ever since Mr. Longhurst's useless intervention, Bellairs had
+seemed uneasy; and at this new attack, he began (in his turn) to
+scribble a note between the bids.  I imagined naturally enough
+that it would go to Captain Trent; but when it was done, and
+the writer turned and looked behind him in the crowd, to my
+unspeakable amazement, he did not seem to remark the
+captain's presence.
+
+"Messenger boy, messenger boy!" I heard him say.  "Somebody
+call me a messenger boy."
+
+At last somebody did, but it was not the captain.
+
+"He's sending for instructions," I wrote to Pinkerton.
+
+"For money," he wrote back.  "Shall I strike out?  I think this is
+the time."
+
+I nodded.
+
+"Thirty thousand," said Pinkerton, making a leap of close upon
+three thousand dollars.
+
+I could see doubt in Bellairs's eye; then, sudden resolution. 
+"Thirty-five thousand," said he.
+
+"Forty thousand," said Pinkerton.
+
+There was a long pause, during which Bellairs's countenance
+was as a book; and then, not much too soon for the impending
+hammer, "Forty thousand and five dollars," said he.
+
+Pinkerton and I exchanged eloquent glances.  We were of one
+mind.  Bellairs had tried a bluff; now he perceived his mistake,
+and was bidding against time; he was trying to spin out the sale
+until the messenger boy returned.
+
+"Forty-five thousand dollars," said Pinkerton: his voice was like
+a ghost's and tottered with emotion.
+
+"Forty-five thousand and five dollars," said Bellairs.
+
+"Fifty thousand," said Pinkerton.
+
+"I beg your pardon, Mr. Pinkerton.  Did I hear you make an
+advance, sir?" asked the auctioneer.
+
+"I--I have a difficulty in speaking," gasped Jim.  "It's fifty
+thousand, Mr. Borden."
+
+Bellairs was on his feet in a moment.  "Auctioneer," he said, "I
+have to beg the favour of three moments at the telephone.  In
+this matter, I am acting on behalf of a certain party to whom I
+have just written----"
+
+"I have nothing to do with any of this," said the auctioneer,
+brutally.  "I am here to sell this wreck.  Do you make any
+advance on fifty thousand?"
+
+"I have the honour to explain to you, sir," returned Bellairs,
+with a miserable assumption of dignity.  "Fifty thousand was
+the figure named by my principal; but if you will give me the
+small favour of two moments at the telephone--" 
+
+"O, nonsense!" said the auctioneer.  "If you make no advance,
+I'll knock it down to Mr. Pinkerton."
+
+"I warn you," cried the attorney, with sudden shrillness.  "Have
+a care what you're about.  You are here to sell for the
+underwriters, let me tell you--not to act for Mr. Douglas
+Longhurst.  This sale has been already disgracefully interrupted
+to allow that person to hold a consultation with his minions.  It
+has been much commented on."
+
+"There was no complaint at the time," said the auctioneer,
+manifestly discountenanced.  "You should have complained at
+the time."
+
+"I am not here to conduct this sale," replied Bellairs; "I am not
+paid for that."
+
+"Well, I am, you see," retorted the auctioneer, his impudence
+quite restored; and he resumed his sing-song.  "Any advance on
+fifty thousand dollars?  No advance on fifty thousand?  No
+advance, gentlemen?  Going at fifty thousand, the wreck of the
+brig Flying Scud--going--going--gone!"
+
+"My God, Jim, can we pay the money?" I cried, as the stroke of
+the hammer seemed to recall me from a dream.
+
+"It's got to be raised," said he, white as a sheet.  "It'll be a hell
+of a strain, Loudon.  The credit's good for it, I think; but I shall
+have to get around.  Write me a cheque for your stuff.  Meet me
+at the Occidental in an hour."
+
+I wrote my cheque at a desk, and I declare I could never have
+recognised my signature.  Jim was gone in a moment; Trent
+had vanished even earlier; only Bellairs remained exchanging
+insults with the auctioneer; and, behold! as I pushed my way
+out of the exchange, who should run full tilt into my arms, but
+the messenger boy?
+
+It was by so near a margin that we became the owners of the
+Flying Scud.
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER X.
+
+ IN WHICH THE CREW VANISH.
+
+
+At the door of the exchange I found myself along-side of the
+short, middle-aged gentleman who had made an appearance, so
+vigorous and so brief, in the great battle.
+
+"Congratulate you, Mr. Dodd," he said.  "You and your friend
+stuck to your guns nobly."
+
+"No thanks to you, sir," I replied, "running us up a thousand at
+a time, and tempting all the speculators in San Francisco to
+come and have a try."
+
+"O, that was temporary insanity," said he; "and I thank the
+higher powers I am still a free man.  Walking this way, Mr.
+Dodd?  I'll walk along with you.  It's pleasant for an old fogy
+like myself to see the young bloods in the ring; I've done some
+pretty wild gambles in my time in this very city, when it was a
+smaller place and I was a younger man.  Yes, I know you, Mr.
+Dodd.  By sight, I may say I know you extremely well, you and
+your followers, the fellows in the kilts, eh?  Pardon me.  But I
+have the misfortune to own a little box on the Saucelito shore. 
+I'll be glad to see you there any Sunday--without the fellows in
+kilts, you know; and I can give you a bottle of wine, and show
+you the best collection of Arctic voyages in the States.  Morgan
+is my name--Judge Morgan--a Welshman and a forty-niner."
+
+"O, if you're a pioneer," cried I, "come to me and I'll provide
+you with an axe."
+
+"You'll want your axes for yourself, I fancy," he returned, with
+one of his quick looks.  "Unless you have private knowledge,
+there will be a good deal of rather violent wrecking to do before
+you find that--opium, do you call it?"
+
+"Well, it's either opium, or we are stark, staring mad," I replied. 
+"But I assure you we have no private information.  We went in
+(as I suppose you did yourself) on observation."
+
+"An observer, sir?" inquired the judge.
+
+"I may say it is my trade--or, rather, was," said I.
+
+"Well now, and what did you think of Bellairs?" he asked.
+
+"Very little indeed," said I.
+
+"I may tell you," continued the judge, "that to me, the
+employment of a fellow like that appears inexplicable.  I knew
+him; he knows me, too; he has often heard from me in court;
+and I assure you the man is utterly blown upon; it is not safe to
+trust him with a dollar; and here we find him dealing up to fifty
+thousand.  I can't think who can have so trusted him, but I am
+very sure it was a stranger in San Francisco."
+
+"Some one for the owners, I suppose," said I.
+
+"Surely not!" exclaimed the judge.  "Owners in London can
+have nothing to say to opium smuggled between Hong Kong
+and San Francisco.  I should rather fancy they would be the last
+to hear of it--until the ship was seized.  No; I was thinking of
+the captain.  But where would he get the money? above all,
+after having laid out so much to buy the stuff in China? 
+Unless, indeed, he were acting for some one in 'Frisco; and in
+that case--here we go round again in the vicious circle--Bellairs
+would not have been employed."
+
+"I think I can assure you it was not the captain," said I; "for he
+and Bellairs are not acquainted."
+
+"Wasn't that the captain with the red face and coloured
+handkerchief?  He seemed to me to follow Bellairs's game with
+the most thrilling interest," objected Mr. Morgan.
+
+"Perfectly true," said I; "Trent is deeply interested; he very
+likely knew Bellairs, and he certainly knew what he was there
+for; but I can put my hand in the fire that Bellairs didn't know
+Trent."
+
+"Another singularity," observed the judge.  "Well, we have had
+a capital forenoon.  But you take an old lawyer's advice, and get
+to Midway Island as fast as you can.  There's a pot of money on
+the table, and Bellairs and Co. are not the men to stick at
+trifles."
+
+With this parting counsel Judge Morgan shook hands and
+made off along Montgomery Street, while I entered the
+Occidental Hotel, on the steps of which we had finished our
+conversation.  I was well known to the clerks, and as soon as it
+was understood that I was there to wait for Pinkerton and
+lunch, I was invited to a seat inside the counter.  Here, then, in
+a retired corner, I was beginning to come a little to myself after
+these so violent experiences, when who should come hurrying
+in, and (after a moment with a clerk) fly to one of the telephone
+boxes but Mr. Henry D. Bellairs in person?  Call it what you
+will, but the impulse was irresistible, and I rose and took a
+place immediately at the man's back.  It may be some excuse
+that I had often practised this very innocent form of
+eavesdropping upon strangers, and for fun.  Indeed, I scarce
+know anything that gives a lower view of man's intelligence
+than to overhear (as you thus do) one side of a communication.
+
+"Central," said the attorney, "2241 and 584 B" (or some such
+numbers)--"Who's that?--All right--Mr. Bellairs--Occidental;
+the wires are fouled in the other place--Yes, about three
+minutes--Yes--Yes--Your figure, I am sorry to say--No--I had
+no authority--Neither more nor less--I have every reason to
+suppose so--O, Pinkerton, Montana Block--Yes--Yes--Very
+good, sir--As you will, sir--Disconnect 584 B."
+
+Bellairs turned to leave; at sight of me behind him, up flew his
+hands, and he winced and cringed, as though in fear of bodily
+attack.  "O, it's you!" he cried; and then, somewhat recovered,
+"Mr.  Pinkerton's partner, I believe?  I am pleased to see you,
+sir--to congratulate you on your late success."  And with that he
+was gone, obsequiously bowing as he passed.
+
+And now a madcap humour came upon me.  It was plain
+Bellairs had been communicating with his principal; I knew the
+number, if not the name; should I ring up at once, it was more
+than likely he would return in person to the telephone; why
+should not I dash (vocally) into the presence of this mysterious
+person, and have some fun for my money.  I pressed the bell.
+
+"Central," said I, "connect again 2241 and 584 B."
+
+A phantom central repeated the numbers; there was a pause,
+and then "Two two four one," came in a tiny voice into my ear--
+a voice with the English sing-song--the voice plainly of a
+gentleman.  "Is that you again, Mr. Bellairs?" it trilled.  "I tell
+you it's no use.  Is that you, Mr. Bellairs?  Who is that?"
+
+"I only want to put a single question," said I, civilly.  "Why do
+you want to buy the Flying Scud?"
+
+No answer came.  The telephone vibrated and hummed in
+miniature with all the numerous talk of a great city; but the
+voice of 2241 was silent.  Once and twice I put my question;
+but the tiny, sing-song English voice, I heard no more.  The
+man, then, had fled? fled from an impertinent question?  It
+scarce seemed natural to me; unless on the principle that the
+wicked fleeth when no man pursueth.  I took the telephone list
+and turned the number up: "2241, Mrs. Keane, res. 942
+Mission Street."  And that, short of driving to the house and
+renewing my impertinence in person, was all that I could do.
+
+Yet, as I resumed my seat in the corner of the office, I was
+conscious of a new element of the uncertain, the underhand,
+perhaps even the dangerous, in our adventure; and there was
+now a new picture in my mental gallery, to hang beside that of
+the wreck under its canopy of sea-birds and of Captain Trent
+mopping his red brow--the picture of a man with a telephone
+dice-box to his ear, and at the small voice of a single question,
+struck suddenly as white as ashes.
+
+From these considerations I was awakened by the striking of
+the clock.  An hour and nearly twenty minutes had elapsed
+since Pinkerton departed for the money:  he was twenty
+minutes behind time; and to me who knew so well his
+gluttonous despatch of business and had so frequently admired
+his iron punctuality, the fact spoke volumes.  The twenty
+minutes slowly stretched into an hour; the hour had nearly
+extended to a second; and I still sat in my corner of the office,
+or paced the marble pavement of the hall, a prey to the most
+wretched anxiety and penitence.  The hour for lunch was nearly
+over before I remembered that I had not eaten.  Heaven knows I
+had no appetite; but there might still be much to do--it was
+needful I should keep myself in proper trim, if it were only to
+digest the now too probable bad news; and leaving word at the
+office for Pinkerton, I sat down to table and called for soup,
+oysters, and a pint of champagne.
+
+I was not long set, before my friend returned.  He looked pale
+and rather old, refused to hear of food, and called for tea.
+
+"I suppose all's up?" said I, with an incredible sinking.
+
+"No," he replied; "I've pulled it through, Loudon; just pulled it
+through.  I couldn't have raised another cent in all 'Frisco. 
+People don't like it; Longhurst even went back on me; said he
+wasn't a three-card-monte man."
+
+"Well, what's the odds?" said I.  "That's all we wanted, isn't it?"
+
+"Loudon, I tell you I've had to pay blood for that money," cried
+my friend, with almost savage energy and gloom.  "It's all on
+ninety days, too; I couldn't get another day--not another day.  If
+we go ahead with this affair, Loudon, you'll have to go yourself
+and make the fur fly.  I'll stay of course--I've got to stay and
+face the trouble in this city; though, I tell you, I just long to go. 
+I would show these fat brutes of sailors what work was; I
+would be all through that wreck and out at the other end, before
+they had boosted themselves upon the deck!  But you'll do your
+level best, Loudon; I depend on you for that.  You must be all
+fire and grit and dash from the word 'go.'   That schooner and
+the boodle on board of her are bound to be here before three
+months, or it's B. U. S. T.--bust."
+
+"I'll swear I'll do my best, Jim; I'll work double tides," said I. 
+"It is my fault that you are in this thing, and I'll get you out
+again or kill myself.  But what is that you say?  'If we go
+ahead?'  Have we any choice, then?"
+
+"I'm coming to that," said Jim.  "It isn't that I doubt the
+investment.  Don't blame yourself for that; you showed a fine,
+sound business instinct:  I always knew it was in you, but then
+it ripped right out.  I guess that little beast of an attorney knew
+what he was doing; and he wanted nothing better than to go
+beyond.  No, there's profit in the deal; it's not that; it's these
+ninety-day bills, and the strain I've given the credit, for I've
+been up and down, borrowing, and begging and bribing to
+borrow.  I don't believe there's another man but me in 'Frisco,"
+he cried, with a sudden fervor of self admiration, "who could
+have raised that last ten thousand!--Then there's another thing. 
+I had hoped you might have peddled that opium through the
+islands, which is safer and more profitable.  But with this
+three-month limit, you must make tracks for Honolulu straight,
+and communicate by steamer.  I'll try to put up something for
+you there; I'll have a man spoken to who's posted on that line of
+biz.  Keep a bright lookout for him as soon's you make the
+islands; for it's on the cards he might pick you up at sea in a
+whaleboat or a steam-launch, and bring the dollars right on
+board."
+
+It shows how much I had suffered morally during my sojourn
+in San Francisco, that even now when our fortunes trembled in
+the balance, I should have consented to become a smuggler and
+(of all things) a smuggler of opium.  Yet I did, and that in
+silence; without a protest, not without a twinge.
+
+"And suppose," said I, "suppose the opium is so securely
+hidden that I can't get hands on it?"
+
+"Then you will stay there till that brig is kindling-wood, and
+stay and split that kindling-wood with your penknife," cried
+Pinkerton.  "The stuff is there; we know that; and it must be
+found.  But all this is only the one string to our bow--though I
+tell you I've gone into it head-first, as if it was our bottom
+dollar.  Why, the first thing I did before I'd raised a cent, and
+with this other notion in my head already--the first thing I did
+was to secure the schooner.  The Nora Creina, she is, sixty-four
+tons, quite big enough for our purpose since the rice is spoiled,
+and the fastest thing of her tonnage out of San Francisco.  For a
+bonus of two hundred, and a monthly charter of three, I have
+her for my own time; wages and provisions, say four hundred
+more:  a drop in the bucket.  They began firing the cargo out of
+her (she was part loaded) near two hours ago; and about the
+same time John Smith got the order for the stores.  That's what
+I call business."
+
+"No doubt of that," said I.  "But the other notion?"
+
+
+"Well, here it is," said Jim.  "You agree with me that Bellairs
+was ready to go higher?"
+
+"I saw where he was coming.  "Yes--and why shouldn't he?"
+said I.  "Is that the line?"
+
+"That's the line, Loudon Dodd," assented Jim.  "If Bellairs and
+his principal have any desire to go me better, I'm their man."
+
+A sudden thought, a sudden fear, shot into my mind.  What if I
+had been right?  What if my childish pleasantry had frightened
+the principal away, and thus destroyed our chance?  Shame
+closed my mouth; I began instinctively a long course of
+reticence; and it was without a word of my meeting with
+Bellairs, or my discovery of the address in Mission Street, that I
+continued the discussion.
+
+"Doubtless fifty thousand was originally mentioned as a round
+sum," said I, "or at least, so Bellairs supposed.  But at the same
+time it may be an outside sum; and to cover the expenses we
+have already incurred for the money and the schooner--I am far
+from blaming you; I see how needful it was to be ready for
+either event--but to cover them we shall want a rather large
+advance."
+
+"Bellairs will go to sixty thousand; it's my belief, if he were
+properly handled, he would take the hundred," replied
+Pinkerton.  "Look back on the way the sale ran at the end."
+
+"That is my own impression as regards Bellairs, I admitted.
+"The point I am trying to make is that Bellairs himself may be
+mistaken; that what he supposed to be a round sum was really
+an outside figure."
+
+"Well, Loudon, if that is so," said Jim, with extraordinary
+gravity of face and voice, "if that is so, let him take the Flying
+Scud at fifty thousand, and joy go with her!  I prefer the loss."
+
+"Is that so, Jim?  Are we dipped as bad as that?" I cried.
+
+"We've put our hand farther out than we can pull it in again,
+Loudon," he replied.  "Why, man, that fifty thousand dollars,
+before we get clear again, will cost us nearer seventy.  Yes, it
+figures up overhead to more than ten per cent a month; and I
+could do no better, and there isn't the man breathing could have
+done as well.  It was a miracle, Loudon.  I couldn't but admire
+myself.  O, if we had just the four months!  And you know,
+Loudon, it may still be done.  With your energy and charm, if
+the worst comes to the worst, you can run that schooner as you
+ran one of your picnics; and we may have luck.  And, O, man!
+if we do pull it through, what a dashing operation it will be!
+What an advertisement! what a thing to talk of, and remember
+all our lives!  However," he broke off suddenly, "we must try
+the safe thing first.  Here's for the shyster!"
+
+There was another struggle in my mind, whether I should even
+now admit my knowledge of the Mission Street address.  But I
+had let the favourable moment slip.  I had now, which made it
+the more awkward, not merely the original discovery, but my
+late suppression to confess.  I could not help reasoning,
+besides, that the more natural course was to approach the
+principal by the road of his agent's office; and there weighed
+upon my spirits a conviction that we were already too late, and
+that the man was gone two hours ago.  Once more, then, I held
+my peace; and after an exchange of words at the telephone to
+assure ourselves he was at home, we set out for the attorney's
+office.
+
+The endless streets of any American city pass, from one end to
+another, through strange degrees and vicissitudes of splendour
+and distress, running under the same name between
+monumental warehouses, the dens and taverns of thieves, and
+the sward and shrubbery of villas.  In San Francisco, the sharp
+inequalities of the ground, and the sea bordering on so many
+sides, greatly exaggerate these contrasts.  The street for which
+we were now bound took its rise among blowing sands,
+somewhere in view of the Lone Mountain Cemetery; ran for a
+term across that rather windy Olympus of Nob Hill, or perhaps
+just skirted its frontier; passed almost immediately after
+through a stage of little houses, rather impudently painted, and
+offering to the eye of the observer this diagnostic peculiarity,
+that the huge brass plates upon the small and highly coloured
+doors bore only the first names of ladies--Norah or Lily or
+Florence; traversed China Town, where it was doubtless
+undermined with opium cellars, and its blocks pierced, after the
+similitude of rabbit-warrens, with a hundred doors and
+passages and galleries; enjoyed a glimpse of high publicity at
+the corner of Kearney; and proceeded, among dives and
+warehouses, towards the City Front and the region of the water-
+rats.  In this last stage of its career, where it was both grimy
+and solitary, and alternately quiet and roaring to the wheels of
+drays, we found a certain house of some pretension to neatness,
+and furnished with a rustic outside stair.  On the pillar of the
+stair a black plate bore in gilded lettering this device: "Harry D.
+Bellairs, Attorney-at-law.  Consultations, 9 to 6." On ascending
+the stairs, a door was found to stand open on the balcony, with
+this further inscription, "Mr. Bellairs In."
+
+"I wonder what we do next," said I.
+
+"Guess we sail right in," returned Jim, and suited the action to
+the word.
+
+The room in which we found ourselves was clean, but
+extremely bare.  A rather old-fashioned secretaire stood by the
+wall, with a chair drawn to the desk; in one corner was a shelf
+with half-a-dozen law books; and I can remember literally not
+another stick of furniture.  One inference imposed itself: Mr.
+Bellairs was in the habit of sitting down himself and suffering
+his clients to stand.  At the far end, and veiled by a curtain of
+red baize, a second door communicated with the interior of the
+house.  Hence, after some coughing and stamping, we elicited
+the shyster, who came timorously forth, for all the world like a
+man in fear of bodily assault, and then, recognising his guests,
+suffered from what I can only call a nervous paroxysm of
+courtesy.
+
+"Mr. Pinkerton and partner!" said he.  "I will go and fetch you
+seats."
+
+"Not the least," said Jim.  "No time.  Much rather stand.  This
+is business, Mr. Bellairs.  This morning, as you know, I bought
+the wreck, Flying Scud."
+
+The lawyer nodded.
+
+"And bought her," pursued my friend, "at a figure out of all
+proportion to the cargo and the circumstances, as they
+appeared?"
+
+"And now you think better of it, and would like to be off with
+your bargain?  I have been figuring upon this," returned the
+lawyer.  "My client, I will not hide from you, was displeased
+with me for putting her so high.  I think we were both too
+heated, Mr. Pinkerton: rivalry--the spirit of competition.  But I
+will be quite frank--I know when I am dealing with gentlemen
+--and I am almost certain, if you leave the matter in my hands,
+my client would relieve you of the bargain, so as you would
+lose"--he consulted our faces with gimlet-eyed calculation--
+"nothing," he added shrilly.
+
+And here Pinkerton amazed me.
+
+"That's a little too thin," said he.  "I have the wreck.  I know
+there's boodle in her, and I mean to keep her.  What I want is
+some points which may save me needless expense, and which
+I'm prepared to pay for, money down.  The thing for you to
+consider is just this:  am I to deal with you or direct with your
+principal?  If you are prepared to give me the facts right off,
+why, name your figure.  Only one thing!" added Jim, holding a
+finger up, "when I say 'money down,' I mean bills payable
+when the ship returns, and if the information proves reliable.  I
+don't buy pigs in pokes."
+
+I had seen the lawyer's face light up for a moment, and then, at
+the sound of Jim's proviso, miserably fade.  "I guess you know
+more about this wreck than I do, Mr. Pinkerton," said he.  "I
+only know that I was told to buy the thing, and tried, and
+couldn't."
+
+"What I like about you, Mr. Bellairs, is that you waste no
+time," said Jim.  "Now then, your client's name and address."
+
+"On consideration," replied the lawyer, with indescribable
+furtivity, "I cannot see that I am entitled to communicate my
+client's name.  I will sound him for you with pleasure, if you
+care to instruct me; but I cannot see that I can give you his
+address."
+
+"Very well," said Jim, and put his hat on.  "Rather a strong
+step, isn't it?" (Between every sentence was a clear pause.) "Not
+think better of it?  Well, come--call it a dollar?"
+
+"Mr. Pinkerton, sir!" exclaimed the offended attorney; and,
+indeed, I myself was almost afraid that Jim had mistaken his
+man and gone too far. 
+
+"No present use for a dollar?" says Jim.  "Well, look here, Mr.
+Bellairs:  we're both busy men, and I'll go to my outside figure
+with you right away--"
+
+"Stop this, Pinkerton," I broke in.  "I know the address: 924
+Mission Street."
+
+
+I do not know whether Pinkerton or Bellairs was the more
+taken aback.
+
+"Why in snakes didn't you say so, Loudon?" cried my friend.
+
+"You didn't ask for it before," said I, colouring to my temples
+under his troubled eyes.
+
+It was Bellairs who broke silence, kindly supplying me with all
+that I had yet to learn.  "Since you know Mr. Dickson's
+address," said he, plainly burning to be rid of us, "I suppose I
+need detain you no longer."
+
+I do not know how Pinkerton felt, but I had death in my soul as
+we came down the outside stair, from the den of this blotched
+spider.  My whole being was strung, waiting for Jim's first
+question, and prepared to blurt out, I believe, almost with tears,
+a full avowal.  But my friend asked nothing.
+
+"We must hack it," said he, tearing off in the direction of the
+nearest stand.  "No time to be lost.  You saw how I changed
+ground.  No use in paying the shyster's commission."
+
+Again I expected a reference to my suppression; again I was
+disappointed.  It was plain Jim feared the subject, and I felt I
+almost hated him for that fear.  At last, when we were already
+in the hack and driving towards Mission Street, I could bear
+my suspense no longer.
+
+"You do not ask me about that address," said I.
+
+"No," said he, quickly and timidly.  "What was it?  I would like
+to know."
+
+The note of timidity offended me like a buffet; my temper rose
+as hot as mustard.  "I must request you do not ask me," said I.
+"It is a matter I cannot explain." 
+
+The moment the foolish words were said, that moment I would
+have given worlds to recall them:  how much more, when
+Pinkerton, patting my hand, replied:  "All right, dear boy; not
+another word; that's all done.  I'm convinced it's perfectly
+right."  To return upon the subject was beyond my courage; but
+I vowed inwardly that I should do my utmost in the future for
+this mad speculation, and that I would cut myself in pieces
+before Jim should lose one dollar.
+
+We had no sooner arrived at the address than I had other things
+to think of.
+
+"Mr. Dickson?  He's gone," said the landlady.
+
+Where had he gone?
+
+"I'm sure I can't tell you," she answered.  "He was quite a
+stranger to me."
+
+"Did he express his baggage, ma'am?" asked Pinkerton.
+
+"Hadn't any," was the reply.  "He came last night and left again
+to-day with a satchel."
+
+"When did he leave?" I inquired.
+
+"It was about noon," replied the landlady.  "Some one rang up
+the telephone, and asked for him; and I reckon he got some
+news, for he left right away, although his rooms were taken by
+the week.  He seemed considerable put out: I reckon it was a
+death."
+
+My heart sank; perhaps my idiotic jest had indeed driven him
+away; and again I asked myself, Why? and whirled for a
+moment in a vortex of untenable hypotheses.
+
+"What was he like, ma'am?" Pinkerton was asking, when I
+returned to consciousness of my surroundings.
+
+"A clean shaved man," said the woman, and could be led or
+driven into no more significant description.
+
+"Pull up at the nearest drug-store," said Pinkerton to the driver;
+and when there, the telephone was put in operation, and the
+message sped to the Pacific Mail Steamship Company's office--
+this was in the days before Spreckels had arisen--"When does
+the next China steamer touch at Honolulu?"
+
+"The City of Pekin; she cast off the dock to-day, at half-past
+one," came the reply.
+
+"It's a clear case of bolt," said Jim.  "He's skipped, or my
+name's not Pinkerton.  He's gone to head us off at Midway
+Island."
+
+Somehow I was not so sure; there were elements in the case,
+not known to Pinkerton--the fears of the captain, for example
+--that inclined me otherwise; and the idea that I had terrified
+Mr. Dickson into flight, though resting on so slender a
+foundation, clung obstinately in my mind.  "Shouldn't we see
+the list of passengers?" I asked.
+
+"Dickson is such a blamed common name," returned Jim; "and
+then, as like as not, he would change it."
+
+At this I had another intuition.  A negative of a street scene,
+taken unconsciously when I was absorbed in other thought,
+rose in my memory with not a feature blurred:  a view, from
+Bellairs's door as we were coming down, of muddy roadway,
+passing drays, matted telegraph wires, a Chinaboy with a
+basket on his head, and (almost opposite) a corner grocery with
+the name of Dickson in great gilt letters.
+
+"Yes," said I, "you are right; he would change it.  And anyway,
+I don't believe it was his name at all; I believe he took it from a
+corner grocery beside Bellairs's."
+
+"As like as not," said Jim, still standing on the sidewalk with
+contracted brows.
+
+"Well, what shall we do next?" I asked.
+
+"The natural thing would be to rush the schooner," he replied. 
+"But I don't know.  I telephoned the captain to go at it head
+down and heels in air; he answered like a little man; and I
+guess he's getting around.  I believe, Loudon, we'll give Trent a
+chance.  Trent was in it; he was in it up to the neck; even if he
+couldn't buy, he could give us the straight tip."
+
+"I think so, too," said I.  "Where shall we find him?"
+
+"British consulate, of course," said Jim.  "And that's another
+reason for taking him first.  We can hustle that schooner up all
+evening; but when the consulate's shut, it's shut."
+
+At the consulate, we learned that Captain Trent had alighted
+(such is I believe the classic phrase) at the What Cheer House. 
+To that large and unaristocratic hostelry we drove, and
+addressed ourselves to a large clerk, who was chewing a
+toothpick and looking straight before him.
+
+"Captain Jacob Trent?"
+
+"Gone," said the clerk.
+
+"Where has he gone?" asked Pinkerton.
+
+"Cain't say," said the clerk.
+
+"When did he go?" I asked.
+
+"Don't know," said the clerk, and with the simplicity of a
+monarch offered us the spectacle of his broad back.
+
+What might have happened next I dread to picture, for
+Pinkerton's excitement had been growing steadily, and now
+burned dangerously high; but we were spared extremities by
+the intervention of a second clerk.
+
+"Why!  Mr. Dodd!" he exclaimed, running forward to the
+counter.  "Glad to see you, sir!  Can I do anything in your
+way?"
+
+How virtuous actions blossom!  Here was a young man to
+whose pleased ears I had rehearsed _Just before the battle,
+mother,_ at some weekly picnic; and now, in that tense
+moment of my life, he came (from the machine) to be my
+helper.
+
+"Captain Trent, of the wreck?  O yes, Mr. Dodd; he left about
+twelve; he and another of the men.  The Kanaka went earlier by
+the City of Pekin; I know that; I remember expressing his chest. 
+Captain Trent?  I'll inquire, Mr. Dodd.  Yes, they were all here. 
+Here are the names on the register; perhaps you would care to
+look at them while I go and see about the baggage?"
+
+I drew the book toward me, and stood looking at the four
+names all written in the same hand, rather a big and rather a
+bad one: Trent, Brown, Hardy, and (instead of Ah Sing) Jos.
+Amalu.
+
+"Pinkerton," said I, suddenly, "have you that _Occidental_ in
+your pocket?"
+
+"Never left me," said Pinkerton, producing the paper.
+
+
+I turned to the account of the wreck.  "Here," said I; "here's the
+name.  'Elias Goddedaal, mate.'  Why do we never come across
+Elias Goddedaal?"
+
+"That's so," said Jim.  "Was he with the rest in that saloon
+when you saw them?"
+
+"I don't believe it," said I.  "They were only four, and there was
+none that behaved like a mate."
+
+At this moment the clerk returned with his report.
+
+"The captain," it appeared, "came with some kind of an express
+waggon, and he and the man took off three chests and a big
+satchel.  Our porter helped to put them on, but they drove the
+cart themselves.  The porter thinks they went down town.  It
+was about one."
+
+"Still in time for the City of Pekin," observed Jim.
+
+"How many of them were here?" I inquired.
+
+"Three, sir, and the Kanaka," replied the clerk.  "I can't
+somehow fin out about the third, but he's gone too."
+
+"Mr. Goddedaal, the mate, wasn't here then?" I asked.
+
+"No, Mr. Dodd, none but what you see," says the clerk.
+
+"Nor you never heard where he was?"
+
+"No.  Any particular reason for finding these men, Mr. Dodd?"
+inquired the clerk.
+
+"This gentleman and I have bought the wreck," I explained;
+"we wished to get some information, and it is very annoying to
+find the men all gone."
+
+A certain group had gradually formed about us, for the wreck
+was still a matter of interest; and at this, one of the bystanders,
+a rough seafaring man, spoke suddenly.
+
+"I guess the mate won't be gone," said he.  "He's main sick;
+never left the sick-bay aboard the Tempest; so they tell ME."
+
+Jim took me by the sleeve.  "Back to the consulate," said he.
+
+But even at the consulate nothing was known of Mr.
+Goddedaal.  The doctor of the Tempest had certified him very
+sick; he had sent his papers in, but never appeared in person
+before the authorities.
+
+"Have you a telephone laid on to the Tempest?" asked
+Pinkerton.
+
+"Laid on yesterday," said the clerk.
+
+"Do you mind asking, or letting me ask?  We are very anxious
+to get hold of Mr. Goddedaal."
+
+"All right," said the clerk, and turned to the telephone.  "I'm
+sorry," he said presently, "Mr. Goddedaal has left the ship, and
+no one knows where he is."
+
+"Do you pay the men's passage home?" I inquired, a sudden
+thought striking me.
+
+"If they want it," said the clerk; "sometimes they don't.  But we
+paid the Kanaka's passage to Honolulu this morning; and by
+what Captain Trent was saying, I understand the rest are going
+home together."
+
+"Then you haven't paid them?" said I.
+
+"Not yet," said the clerk.
+
+"And you would be a good deal surprised, if I were to tell you
+they were gone already?" I asked.
+
+"O, I should think you were mistaken," said he.
+
+"Such is the fact, however," said I.
+
+"I am sure you must be mistaken," he repeated.
+
+"May I use your telephone one moment?" asked Pinkerton; and
+s soon as permission had been granted, I heard him ring up the
+printing-office where our advertisements were usually handled. 
+More I did not hear; for suddenly recalling the big, bad hand in
+the register of the What Cheer House, I asked the consulate
+clerk if he had a specimen of Captain Trent's writing.  
+Whereupon I learned that the captain could not write, having
+cut his hand open a little before the loss of the brig; that the
+latter part of the log even had been written up by Mr.
+Goddedaal; and that Trent had always signed with his left
+hand.  By the time I had gleaned this information, Pinkerton
+was ready.
+
+"That's all that we can do.  Now for the schooner," said he;
+"and by to-morrow evening I lay hands on Goddedaal, or my
+name's not Pinkerton."
+
+"How have you managed?" I inquired.
+
+"You'll see before you get to bed," said Pinkerton.  "And now,
+after all this backwarding and forwarding, and that hotel clerk,
+and that bug Bellairs, it'll be a change and a kind of consolation
+to see the schooner.  I guess things are humming there."
+
+But on the wharf, when we reached it, there was no sign of
+bustle, and, but for the galley smoke, no mark of life on the
+Norah Creina.  Pinkerton's face grew pale, and his mouth
+straightened, as he leaped on board.
+
+"Where's the captain of this----?" and he left the phrase
+unfinished, finding no epithet sufficiently energetic for his
+thoughts.
+
+It did not appear whom or what he was addressing; but a head,
+presumably the cook's, appeared in answer at the galley door.
+
+"In the cabin, at dinner," said the cook deliberately, chewing as
+he spoke.
+
+"Is that cargo out?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"None of it?"
+
+"O, there's some of it out.  We'll get at the rest of it livelier
+to-morrow, I guess."
+
+"I guess there'll be something broken first," said Pinkerton, and
+strode to the cabin.
+
+Here we found a man, fat, dark, and quiet, seated gravely at
+what seemed a liberal meal.  He looked up upon our entrance;
+and seeing Pinkerton continue to stand facing him in silence,
+hat on head, arms folded, and lips compressed, an expression
+of mingled wonder and annoyance began to dawn upon his
+placid face.
+
+"Well!" said Jim; and so this is what you call rushing around?"
+
+"Who are you?" cries the captain.
+
+"Me!  I'm Pinkerton!" retorted Jim, as though the name had
+been a talisman.
+
+"You're not very civil, whoever you are," was the reply.  But
+still a certain effect had been produced, for he scrambled to his
+feet, and added hastily, "A man must have a bit of dinner, you
+know, Mr. Pinkerton."
+
+"Where's your mate?" snapped Jim.
+
+"He's up town," returned the other.
+
+"Up town!" sneered Pinkerton.  "Now, I'll tell you what you are:
+you're a Fraud; and if I wasn't afraid of dirtying my boot, I
+would kick you and your dinner into that dock."
+
+"I'll tell you something, too," retorted the captain, duskily
+flushing.  "I wouldn't sail this ship for the man you are, if you
+went upon your knees.  I've dealt with gentlemen up to now."
+
+"I can tell you the names of a number of gentlemen you'll never
+deal with any more, and that's the whole of Longhurst's gang,"
+said Jim.  "I'll put your pipe out in that quarter, my friend. 
+Here, rout out your traps as quick as look at it, and take your
+vermin along with you.  I'll have a captain in, this very night,
+that's a sailor, and some sailors to work for him."
+
+"I'll go when I please, and that's to-morrow morning," cried the
+captain after us, as we departed for the shore.
+
+"There's something gone wrong with the world to-day; it must
+have come bottom up!" wailed Pinkerton.  "Bellairs, and then
+the hotel clerk, and now This Fraud!  And what am I to do for a
+captain, Loudon, with Longhurst gone home an hour ago, and
+the boys all scattered?"
+
+"I know," said I.  "Jump in!"  And then to the driver: "Do you
+know Black Tom's?"
+
+Thither then we rattled; passed through the bar, and found (as I
+had hoped) Johnson in the enjoyment of club life.  The table
+had been thrust upon one side; a South Sea merchant was
+discoursing music from a mouth-organ in one corner; and in
+the middle of the floor Johnson and a fellow-seaman, their
+arms clasped about each other's bodies, somewhat heavily
+danced.  The room was both cold and close; a jet of gas, which
+continually menaced the heads of the performers, shed a coarse
+illumination; the mouth-organ sounded shrill and dismal; and
+the faces of all concerned were church-like in their gravity.  It
+were, of course, indelicate to interrupt these solemn frolics; so
+we edged ourselves to chairs, for all the world like belated
+comers in a concert-room, and patiently waited for the end.  At
+length the organist, having exhausted his supply of breath,
+ceased abruptly in the middle of a bar.  With the cessation of
+the strain, the dancers likewise came to a full stop, swayed a
+moment, still embracing, and then separated and looked about
+the circle for applause.
+
+"Very well danced!" said one; but it appears the compliment
+was not strong enough for the performers, who (forgetful of the
+proverb) took up the tale in person.
+
+"Well," said Johnson.  "I mayn't be no sailor, but I can dance!"
+
+And his late partner, with an almost pathetic conviction, added,
+"My foot is as light as a feather."
+
+Seeing how the wind set, you may be sure I added a few words
+of praise before I carried Johnson alone into the passage: to
+whom, thus mollified, I told so much as I judged needful of our
+situation, and begged him, if he would not take the job himself,
+to find me a smart man.
+
+"Me!" he cried.  "I couldn't no more do it than I could try to go
+to hell!"
+
+"I thought you were a mate?" said I.
+
+"So I am a mate," giggled Johnson, "and you don't catch me
+shipping noways else.  But I'll tell you what, I believe I can get
+you Arty Nares:  you seen Arty; first-rate navigator and a son of
+a gun for style."  And he proceeded to explain to me that Mr.
+Nares, who had the promise of a fine barque in six months,
+after things had quieted down, was in the meantime living very
+private, and would be pleased to have a change of air.
+
+I called out Pinkerton and told him.  "Nares!" he cried, as soon
+as I had come to the name.  "I would jump at the chance of a
+man that had had Nares's trousers on!  Why, Loudon, he's the
+smartest deep-water mate out of San Francisco, and draws his
+dividends regular in service and out."  This hearty indorsation
+clinched the proposal; Johnson agreed to produce Nares before
+six the following morning; and Black Tom, being called into
+the consultation, promised us four smart hands for the same
+hour, and even (what appeared to all of us excessive) promised
+them sober.
+
+The streets were fully lighted when we left Black Tom's: street
+after street sparkling with gas or electricity, line after line of
+distant luminaries climbing the steep sides of hills towards the
+overvaulting darkness; and on the other hand, where the waters
+of the bay invisibly trembled, a hundred riding lanterns marked
+the position of a hundred ships.  The sea-fog flew high in
+heaven; and at the level of man's life and business it was clear
+and chill.  By silent consent, we paid the hack off, and
+proceeded arm in arm towards the Poodle Dog for dinner.
+
+At one of the first hoardings, I was aware of a bill-sticker at
+work:  it was a late hour for this employment, and I checked
+Pinkerton until the sheet should be unfolded.  This is what I
+read:--
+
+              TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS REWARD.
+                        
+                OFFICERS AND MEN OF THE
+
+              WRECKED BRIG FLYING SCUD
+                         
+                       APPLYING,
+
+               PERSONALLY OR BY LETTER,
+
+AT THE OFFICE OF JAMES PINKERTON, MONTANA
+BLOCK,
+
+         BEFORE NOON TO-MORROW, TUESDAY, 12TH,
+
+                     WILL RECEIVE
+                          
+              TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS REWARD.
+
+"This is your idea, Pinkerton!" I cried.
+
+"Yes.  They've lost no time; I'll say that for them--not like the
+Fraud," said he.  "But mind you, Loudon, that's not half of it. 
+The cream of the idea's here: we know our man's sick; well, a
+copy of that has been mailed to every hospital, every doctor,
+and every drug-store in San Francisco."
+
+Of course, from the nature of our business, Pinkerton could do
+a thing of the kind at a figure extremely reduced; for all that, I
+was appalled at the extravagance, and said so.
+
+"What matter a few dollars now?" he replied sadly.  "It's in
+three months that the pull comes, Loudon."
+
+We walked on again in silence, not without a shiver.  Even at
+the Poodle Dog, we took our food with small appetite and less
+speech; and it was not until he was warmed with a third glass
+of champagne that Pinkerton cleared his throat and looked
+upon me with a deprecating eye.
+
+"Loudon," said he, "there was a subject you didn't wish to be
+referred to.  I only want to do so indirectly.  It wasn't"--he
+faltered--"it wasn't because you were dissatisfied with me?" he
+concluded, with a quaver.
+
+"Pinkerton!" cried I.
+
+"No, no, not a word just now," he hastened to proceed.  "Let me
+speak first.  I appreciate, though I can't imitate, the delicacy of
+your nature; and I can well understand you would rather die
+than speak of it, and yet might feel disappointed.  I did think I
+could have done better myself.  But when I found how tight
+money was in this city, and a man like Douglas B. Longhurst--
+a forty-niner, the man that stood at bay in a corn patch for five
+hours against the San Diablo squatters--weakening on the
+operation, I tell you, Loudon, I began to despair; and--I may
+have made mistakes, no doubt there are thousands who could
+have done better--but I give you a loyal hand on it, I did my
+best."
+
+"My poor Jim," said I, "as if I ever doubted you! as if I didn't
+know you had done wonders!  All day I've been admiring your
+energy and resource.  And as for that affair----"
+
+"No, Loudon, no more, not a word more!  I don't want to hear,"
+cried Jim.
+
+"Well, to tell you the truth, I don't want to tell you," said I; "for
+it's a thing I'm ashamed of."
+
+"Ashamed, Loudon?  O, don't say that; don't use such an
+expression even in jest!" protested Pinkerton.
+
+"Do you never do anything you're ashamed of?" I inquired.
+
+"No," says he, rolling his eyes.  "Why?  I'm sometimes sorry
+afterwards, when it pans out different from what I figured.  But
+I can't see what I would want to be ashamed for."
+
+I sat a while considering with admiration the simplicity of my
+friend's character.  Then I sighed.  "Do you know, Jim, what
+I'm sorriest for?" said I.  "At this rate, I can't be best man at
+your marriage."
+
+"My marriage!" he repeated, echoing the sigh.  "No marriage
+for me now.  I'm going right down to-night to break it to her.  I
+think that's what's shaken me all day.  I feel as if I had had no
+right (after I was engaged) to operate so widely."
+
+"Well, you know, Jim, it was my doing, and you must lay the
+blame on me," said I.
+
+"Not a cent of it!" he cried.  "I was as eager as yourself, only
+not so bright at the beginning.  No; I've myself to thank for it;
+but it's a wrench."
+
+While Jim departed on his dolorous mission, I returned alone to
+the office, lit the gas, and sat down to reflect on the events of
+that momentous day:  on the strange features of the tale that
+had been so far unfolded, the disappearances, the terrors, the
+great sums of money; and on the dangerous and ungrateful task
+that awaited me in the immediate future.
+
+It is difficult, in the retrospect of such affairs, to avoid
+attributing to ourselves in the past a measure of the knowledge
+we possess to-day.  But I may say, and yet be well within the
+mark, that I was consumed that night with a fever of suspicion
+and curiosity; exhausted my fancy in solutions, which I still
+dismissed as incommensurable with the facts; and in the
+mystery by which I saw myself surrounded, found a precious
+stimulus for my courage and a convenient soothing draught for
+conscience.  Even had all been plain sailing, I do not hint that I
+should have drawn back.  Smuggling is one of the meanest of
+crimes, for by that we rob a whole country pro rata, and are
+therefore certain to impoverish the poor:  to smuggle opium is
+an offence particularly dark, since it stands related not so much
+to murder, as to massacre.  Upon all these points I was quite
+clear; my sympathy was all in arms against my interest; and
+had not Jim been involved, I could have dwelt almost with
+satisfaction on the idea of my failure.  But Jim, his whole
+fortune, and his marriage, depended upon my success; and I
+preferred the interests of my friend before those of all the
+islanders in the South Seas.  This is a poor, private morality, if
+you like; but it is mine, and the best I have; and I am not half
+so much ashamed of having embarked at all on this adventure,
+as I am proud that (while I was in it, and for the sake of my
+friend) I was up early and down late, set my own hand to
+everything, took dangers as they came, and for once in my life
+played the man throughout.  At the same time, I could have
+desired another field of energy; and I was the more grateful for
+the redeeming element of mystery.  Without that, though I
+might have gone ahead and done as well, it would scarce have
+been with ardour; and what inspired me that night with an
+impatient greed of the sea, the island, and the wreck, was the
+hope that I might stumble there upon the answer to a hundred
+questions, and learn why Captain Trent fanned his red face in
+the exchange, and why Mr. Dickson fled from the telephone in
+the Mission Street lodging-house.
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XI.
+
+ IN WHICH JIM AND I TAKE DIFFERENT WAYS.
+
+
+I was unhappy when I closed my eyes; and it was to
+unhappiness that I opened them again next morning, to a
+confused sense of some calamity still inarticulate, and to the
+consciousness of jaded limbs and of a swimming head.  I must
+have lain for some time inert and stupidly miserable, before I
+became aware of a reiterated knocking at the door; with which
+discovery all my wits flowed back in their accustomed
+channels, and I remembered the sale, and the wreck, and
+Goddedaal, and Nares, and Johnson, and Black Tom, and the
+troubles of yesterday, and the manifold engagements of the day 
+that was to come.  The thought thrilled me like a trumpet in the
+hour of battle.  In a moment, I had leaped from bed, crossed the
+office where Pinkerton lay in a deep trance of sleep on the
+convertible sofa, and stood in the doorway, in my night gear, to
+receive our visitors.
+
+Johnson was first, by way of usher, smiling.  From a little
+behind, with his Sunday hat tilted forward over his brow, and a
+cigar glowing between his lips, Captain Nares acknowledged
+our previous acquaintance with a succinct nod.  Behind him
+again, in the top of the stairway, a knot of sailors, the new crew
+of the Norah Creina, stood polishing the wall with back and
+elbow.  These I left without to their reflections.  But our two
+officers I carried at once into the office, where (taking Jim by
+the shoulder) I shook him slowly into consciousness.  He sat
+up, all abroad for the moment, and stared on the new captain.
+
+"Jim," said I, "this is Captain Nares.  Captain, Mr. Pinkerton."
+
+Nares repeated his curt nod, still without speech; and I thought
+he held us both under a watchful scrutiny.
+
+"O!" says Jim, "this is Captain Nares, is it?  Good morning,
+Captain Nares.  Happy to have the pleasure of your
+acquaintance, sir.  I know you well by reputation."
+
+Perhaps, under the circumstances of the moment, this was
+scarce a welcome speech.  At least, Nares received it with a
+grunt.
+
+"Well, Captain," Jim continued, "you know about the size of
+the business?  You're to take the Nora Creina to Midway
+Island, break up a wreck, call at Honolulu, and back to this
+port?  I suppose that's understood?"
+
+"Well," returned Nares, with the same unamiable reserve, "for a
+reason, which I guess you know, the cruise may suit me; but
+there's a point or two to settle.  We shall have to talk, Mr.
+Pinkerton.  But whether I go or not, somebody will; there's no
+sense in losing time; and you might give Mr. Johnson a note,
+let him take the hands right down, and set to to overhaul the
+rigging.  The beasts look sober," he added, with an air of great
+disgust, "and need putting to work to keep them so."
+
+This being agreed upon, Nares watched his subordinate depart
+and drew a visible breath.
+
+"And now we're alone and can talk," said he.  "What's this
+thing about?  It's been advertised like Barnum's museum; that
+poster of yours has set the Front talking; that's an objection in
+itself, for I'm laying a little dark just now; and anyway, before I
+take the ship, I require to know what I'm going after."
+
+Thereupon Pinkerton gave him the whole tale, beginning with a
+businesslike precision, and working himself up, as he went on,
+to the boiling-point of narrative enthusiasm.  Nares sat and
+smoked, hat still on head, and acknowledged each fresh feature
+of the story with a frowning nod.  But his pale blue eyes
+betrayed him, and lighted visibly.
+
+"Now you see for yourself," Pinkerton concluded:  "there's
+every last chance that Trent has skipped to Honolulu, and it
+won't take much of that fifty thousand dollars to charter a smart
+schooner down to Midway.  Here's where I want a man!" cried
+Jim, with contagious energy.  "That wreck's mine; I've paid for
+it, money down; and if it's got to be fought for, I want to see it
+fought for lively.  If you're not back in ninety days, I tell you
+plainly, I'll make one of the biggest busts ever seen upon this
+coast; it's life or death for Mr. Dodd and me.  As like as not,
+it'll come to grapples on the island; and when I heard your
+name last night--and a blame' sight more this morning when I
+saw the eye you've got in your head--I said, 'Nares is good
+enough for me!'"
+
+"I guess," observed Nares, studying the ash of his cigar, "the
+sooner I get that schooner outside the Farallones, the better
+you'll be pleased."
+
+"You're the man I dreamed of!" cried Jim, bouncing on the bed. 
+"There's not five per cent of fraud in all your carcase."
+
+"Just hold on," said Nares.  "There's another point.  I heard
+some talk about a supercargo."
+
+"That's Mr. Dodd, here, my partner," said Jim.
+
+"I don't see it," returned the captain drily.  "One captain's
+enough for any ship that ever I was aboard."
+
+"Now don't you start disappointing me," said Pinkerton; "for
+you're talking without thought.  I'm not going to give you the
+run of the books of this firm, am I?  I guess not.  Well, this is
+not only a cruise; it's a business operation; and that's in the
+hands of my partner.  You sail that ship, you see to breaking up
+that wreck and keeping the men upon the jump, and you'll find
+your hands about full.  Only, no mistake about one thing:  it
+has to be done to Mr. Dodd's satisfaction; for it's Mr. Dodd
+that's paying."
+
+"I'm accustomed to give satisfaction," said Mr. Nares, with a
+dark flush.
+
+"And so you will here!" cried Pinkerton.  "I understand you. 
+You're prickly to handle, but you're straight all through."
+
+"The position's got to be understood, though," returned Nares,
+perhaps a trifle mollified.  "My position, I mean.  I'm not going
+to ship sailing-master; it's enough out of my way already, to set
+a foot on this mosquito schooner."
+
+"Well, I'll tell you," retorted Jim, with an indescribable twinkle:
+"you just meet me on the ballast, and we'll make it a
+barquentine."
+
+Nares laughed a little; tactless Pinkerton had once more gained
+a victory in tact.  "Then there's another point," resumed the
+captain, tacitly relinquishing the last.  "How about the
+owners?"
+
+"O, you leave that to me; I'm one of Longhurst's crowd, you
+know," said Jim, with sudden bristling vanity.  "Any man that's
+good enough for me, is good enough for them."
+
+"Who are they?" asked Nares.
+
+"M'Intyre and Spittal," said Jim.
+
+"O, well, give me a card of yours," said the captain:  "you
+needn't bother to write; I keep M'Intyre and Spittal in my
+vest-pocket."
+
+Boast for boast; it was always thus with Nares and Pinkerton--
+the two vainest men of my acquaintance.  And having thus
+reinstated himself in his own opinion, the captain rose, and,
+with a couple of his stiff nods, departed.
+
+"Jim," I cried, as the door closed behind him, "I don't like that
+man."
+
+"You've just got to, Loudon," returned Jim.  "He's a typical
+American seaman--brave as a lion, full of resource, and stands
+high with his owners.  He's a man with a record."
+
+"For brutality at sea," said I.
+
+"Say what you like," exclaimed Pinkerton, "it was a good hour
+we got him in:  I'd trust Mamie's life to him to-morrow."
+
+"Well, and talking of Mamie?" says I.
+
+Jim paused with his trousers half on.  "She's the gallantest little
+soul God ever made!" he cried. "Loudon, I'd meant to knock
+you up last night, and I hope you won't take it unfriendly that I
+didn't.  I went in and looked at you asleep; and I saw you were
+all broken up, and let you be.  The news would keep, anyway;
+and even you, Loudon, couldn't feel it the same way as I did."
+
+"What news?" I asked.
+
+"It's this way," says Jim.  "I told her how we stood, and that I
+backed down from marrying.  'Are you tired of me?' says she:
+God bless her!  Well, I explained the whole thing over again,
+the chance of smash, your absence unavoidable, the point I
+made of having you for the best man, and that.  'If you're not
+tired of me, I think I see one way to manage,' says she.  "Let's
+get married to-morrow, and Mr. Loudon can be best man
+before he goes to sea.'  That's how she said it, crisp and bright,
+like one of Dickens's characters.  It was no good for me to talk
+about the smash.  'You'll want me all the more,' she said. 
+Loudon, I only pray I can make it up to her; I prayed for it last
+night beside your bed, while you lay sleeping--for you, and
+Mamie and myself; and--I don't know if you quite believe in
+prayer, I'm a bit Ingersollian myself--but a kind of sweetness
+came over me, and I couldn't help but think it was an answer. 
+Never was a man so lucky!  You and me and Mamie; it's a
+triple cord, Loudon.  If either of you were to die! And she likes
+you so much, and thinks you so accomplished and distingue-
+looking, and was just as set as I was to have you for best man. 
+'Mr. Loudon,' she calls you; seems to me so friendly!  And she
+sat up till three in the morning fixing up a costume for the
+marriage; it did me good to see her, Loudon, and to see that
+needle going, going, and to say 'All this hurry, Jim, is just to
+marry you!'  I couldn't believe it; it was so like some blame'
+fairy story.  To think of those old tin-type times about turned
+my head; I was so unrefined then, and so illiterate, and so
+lonesome; and here I am in clover, and I'm blamed if I can see
+what I've done to deserve it."
+
+So he poured forth with innocent volubility the fulness of his
+heart; and I, from these irregular communications, must pick
+out, here a little and there a little, the particulars of his new
+plan.  They were to be married, sure enough, that day; the
+wedding breakfast was to be at Frank's; the evening to be
+passed in a visit of God-speed aboard the Norah Creina; and
+then we were to part, Jim and I, he to his married life, I on my
+sea-enterprise.  If ever I cherished an ill-feeling for Miss
+Mamie, I forgave her now; so brave and kind, so pretty and
+venturesome, was her decision.  The weather frowned overhead
+with a leaden sky, and San Francisco had never (in all my
+experience) looked so bleak and gaunt, and shoddy, and crazy,
+like a city prematurely old; but through all my wanderings and
+errands to and fro, by the dock side or in the jostling street,
+among rude sounds and ugly sights, there ran in my mind, like
+a tiny strain of music, the thought of my friend's happiness.
+
+For that was indeed a day of many and incongruous
+occupations.  Breakfast was scarce swallowed before Jim must
+run to the City Hall and Frank's about the cares of marriage,
+and I hurry to John Smith's upon the account of stores, and
+thence, on a visit of certification, to the Norah Creina.
+Methought she looked smaller than ever, sundry great ships
+overspiring her from close without.  She was already a
+nightmare of disorder; and the wharf alongside was piled with
+a world of casks, and cases, and tins, and tools, and coils of
+rope, and miniature barrels of giant powder, such as it seemed
+no human ingenuity could stuff on board of her.  Johnson was
+in the waist, in a red shirt and dungaree trousers, his eye
+kindled with activity.  With him I exchanged a word or two;
+thence stepped aft along the narrow alleyway between the
+house and the rail, and down the companion to the main cabin,
+where the captain sat with the commissioner at wine.
+
+I gazed with disaffection at the little box which for many a day
+I was to call home.  On the starboard was a stateroom for the
+captain; on the port, a pair of frowsy berths, one over the other,
+and abutting astern upon the side of an unsavoury cupboard. 
+The walls were yellow and damp, the floor black and greasy;
+there was a prodigious litter of straw, old newspapers, and
+broken packing-cases; and by way of ornament, only a glass-
+rack, a thermometer presented "with compliments" of some
+advertising whiskey-dealer, and a swinging lamp.  It was hard
+to foresee that, before a week was up, I should regard that
+cabin as cheerful, lightsome, airy, and even spacious.
+
+I was presented to the commissioner, and to a young friend of
+his whom he had brought with him for the purpose (apparently)
+of smoking cigars; and after we had pledged one another in a
+glass of California port, a trifle sweet and sticky for a morning
+beverage, the functionary spread his papers on the table, and
+the hands were summoned.  Down they trooped, accordingly,
+into the cabin; and stood eyeing the ceiling or the floor, the
+picture of sheepish embarrassment, and with a common air of
+wanting to expectorate and not quite daring.  In admirable
+contrast, stood the Chinese cook, easy, dignified, set apart by
+spotless raiment, the hidalgo of the seas.
+
+I daresay you never had occasion to assist at the farce which
+followed.  Our shipping laws in the United States (thanks to
+the inimitable Dana) are conceived in a spirit of paternal
+stringency, and proceed throughout on the hypothesis that poor
+Jack is an imbecile, and the other parties to the contract, rogues
+and ruffians.  A long and wordy paper of precautions, a fo'c's'le
+bill of rights, must be read separately to each man.  I had now
+the benefit of hearing it five times in brisk succession; and you
+would suppose I was acquainted with its contents.  But the
+commissioner (worthy man) spends his days in doing little
+else; and when we bear in mind the parallel case of the
+irreverent curate, we need not be surprised that he took the
+passage tempo prestissimo, in one roulade of gabble --that I,
+with the trained attention of an educated man, could gather but
+a fraction of its import--and the sailors nothing.  No profanity
+in giving orders, no sheath-knives, Midway Island and any
+other port the master may direct, not to exceed six calendar
+months, and to this port to be paid off:  so it seemed to run,
+with surprising verbiage; so ended.  And with the end, the
+commissioner, in each case, fetched a deep breath, resumed his
+natural voice, and proceeded to business.  "Now, my man," he
+would say, "you ship A. B. at so many dollars, American gold
+coin.  Sign your name here, if you have one, and can write." 
+Whereupon, and the name (with infinite hard breathing) being
+signed, the commissioner would proceed to fill in the man's
+appearance, height, etc., on the official form.  In this task of
+literary portraiture he seemed to rely wholly upon temperament;
+for I could not perceive him to cast one glance on any of his
+models.  He was assisted, however, by a running commentary
+from the captain: "Hair blue and eyes red, nose five foot seven,
+and stature broken"--jests as old, presumably, as the American
+marine; and, like the similar pleasantries of the billiard board,
+perennially relished.  The highest note of humour was reached
+in the case of the Chinese cook, who was shipped under the
+name of "One Lung," to the sound of his own protests and the
+self-approving chuckles of the functionary.
+
+"Now, captain," said the latter, when the men were gone, and
+he had bundled up his papers, "the law requires you to carry a
+slop-chest and a chest of medicines."
+
+"I guess I know that," said Nares.
+
+"I guess you do," returned the commissioner, and helped
+himself to port.
+
+But when he was gone, I appealed to Nares on the same
+subject, for I was well aware we carried none of these
+provisions.
+
+"Well," drawled Nares, "there's sixty pounds of niggerhead on
+the quay, isn't there? and twenty pounds of salts; and I never
+travel without some painkiller in my gripsack."
+
+As a matter of fact, we were richer.  The captain had the usual
+sailor's provision of quack medicines, with which, in the usual
+sailor fashion, he would daily drug himself, displaying an
+extreme inconstancy, and flitting from Kennedy's Red
+Discovery to Kennedy's White, and from Hood's Sarsaparilla to
+Mother Seigel's Syrup.  And there were, besides, some
+mildewed and half-empty bottles, the labels obliterated, over
+which Nares would sometimes sniff and speculate.  "Seems to
+smell like diarrhoea stuff," he would remark.  "I wish't I knew,
+and I would try it." But the slop-chest was indeed represented
+by the plugs of niggerhead, and nothing else.  Thus paternal
+laws are made, thus they are evaded; and the schooner put to
+sea, like plenty of her neighbours, liable to a fine of six hundred
+dollars.
+
+This characteristic scene, which has delayed me overlong, was
+but a moment in that day of exercise and agitation.  To fit out a
+schooner for sea, and improvise a marriage between dawn and
+dusk, involves heroic effort.  All day Jim and I ran, and
+tramped, and laughed, and came near crying, and fell in sudden
+anxious consultations, and were sped (with a prepared sarcasm
+on our lips) to some fallacious milliner, and made dashes to the
+schooner and John Smith's, and at every second corner were
+reminded (by our own huge posters) of our desperate estate. 
+Between whiles, I had found the time to hover at some half-a-
+dozen jewellers' windows; and my present, thus intemperately
+chosen, was graciously accepted.  I believe, indeed, that was
+the last (though not the least) of my concerns, before the old
+minister, shabby and benign, was routed from his house and
+led to the office like a performing poodle; and there, in the
+growing dusk, under the cold glitter of Thirteen Star, two
+hundred strong, and beside the garish glories of the agricultural
+engine, Mamie and Jim were made one.  The scene was
+incongruous, but the business pretty, whimsical, and affecting:
+the typewriters with such kindly faces and fine posies, Mamie
+so demure, and Jim--how shall I describe that poor,
+transfigured Jim?  He began by taking the minister aside to the
+far end of the office.  I knew not what he said, but I have reason
+to believe he was protesting his unfitness; for he wept as he
+said it:  and the old minister, himself genuinely moved, was
+heard to console and encourage him, and at one time to use this
+expression:  "I assure you, Mr. Pinkerton, there are not many
+who can say so much"--from which I gathered that my friend
+had tempered his self-accusations with at least one legitimate
+boast.  From this ghostly counselling, Jim turned to me; and
+though he never got beyond the explosive utterance of my name
+and one fierce handgrip, communicated some of his own
+emotion, like a charge of electricity, to his best man.  We stood
+up to the ceremony at last, in a general and kindly
+discomposure.  Jim was all abroad; and the divine himself
+betrayed his sympathy in voice and demeanour, and concluded
+with a fatherly allocution, in which he congratulated Mamie
+(calling her "my dear") upon the fortune of an excellent
+husband, and protested he had rarely married a more
+interesting couple.  At this stage, like a glory descending, there
+was handed in, ex machina, the card of Douglas B. Longhurst,
+with congratulations and four dozen Perrier-Jouet.  A bottle
+was opened; and the minister pledged the bride, and the
+bridesmaids simpered and tasted, and I made a speech with
+airy bacchanalianism, glass in hand.  But poor Jim must leave
+the wine untasted.  "Don't touch it," I had found the opportunity
+to whisper; "in your state it will make you as drunk as a
+fiddler."  And Jim had wrung my hand with a "God bless you,
+Loudon!--saved me again!"
+
+Hard following upon this, the supper passed off at Frank's with
+somewhat tremulous gaiety.  And thence, with one half of the
+Perrier-Jouet--I would accept no more--we voyaged in a hack to
+the Norah Creina.
+
+"What a dear little ship!" cried Mamie, as our miniature craft
+was pointed out to her.  And then, on second thought, she
+turned to the best man.  "And how brave you must be, Mr.
+Dodd," she cried, "to go in that tiny thing so far upon the
+ocean!"  And I perceived I had risen in the lady's estimation.
+
+The dear little ship presented a horrid picture of confusion, and
+its occupants of weariness and ill-humour.  From the cabin the
+cook was storing tins into the lazarette, and the four hands,
+sweaty and sullen, were passing them from one to another from
+the waist.  Johnson was three parts asleep over the table; and in
+his bunk, in his own cabin, the captain sourly chewed and
+puffed at a cigar.
+
+"See here," he said, rising; "you'll be sorry you came.  We can't
+stop work if we're to get away to-morrow.  A ship getting ready
+for sea is no place for people, anyway.  You'll only interrupt my
+men."
+
+I was on the point of answering something tart; but Jim, who
+was acquainted with the breed, as he was with most things that
+had a bearing on affairs, made haste to pour in oil.
+
+"Captain," he said, "I know we're a nuisance here, and that
+you've had a rough time.  But all we want is that you should
+drink one glass of wine with us, Perrier-Jouet, from Longhurst,
+on the occasion of my marriage, and Loudon's--Mr. Dodd's--
+departure."
+
+"Well, it's your lookout," said Nares.  "I don't mind half an
+hour.  Spell, O!" he added to the men; "go and kick your heels
+for half an hour, and then you can turn to again a trifle livelier. 
+Johnson, see if you can't wipe off a chair for the lady."
+
+His tone was no more gracious than his language; but when
+Mamie had turned upon him the soft fire of her eyes, and
+informed him that he was the first sea-captain she had ever
+met, "except captains of steamers, of course"--she so qualified
+the statement--and had expressed a lively sense of his courage,
+and perhaps implied (for I suppose the arts of ladies are the
+same as those of men) a modest consciousness of his good
+looks, our bear began insensibly to soften; and it was already
+part as an apology, though still with unaffected heat of temper,
+that he volunteered some sketch of his annoyances.
+
+"A pretty mess we've had!" said he.  "Half the stores were
+wrong; I'll wring John Smith's neck for him some of these days. 
+Then two newspaper beasts came down, and tried to raise copy
+out of me, till I threatened them with the first thing handy; and
+then some kind of missionary bug, wanting to work his passage
+to Raiatea or somewhere.  I told him I would take him off the
+wharf with the butt end of my boot, and he went away cursing. 
+This vessel's been depreciated by the look of him."
+
+While the captain spoke, with his strange, humorous, arrogant
+abruptness, I observed Jim to be sizing him up, like a thing at
+once quaint and familiar, and with a scrutiny that was both
+curious and knowing.
+
+"One word, dear boy," he said, turning suddenly to me.  And
+when he had drawn me on deck, "That man," says he, "will
+carry sail till your hair grows white; but never you let on, never
+breathe a word.  I know his line:  he'll die before he'll take
+advice; and if you get his back up, he'll run you right under.  I
+don't often jam in my advice, Loudon; and when I do, it means
+I'm thoroughly posted."
+
+The little party in the cabin, so disastrously begun, finished,
+under the mellowing influence of wine and woman, in excellent
+feeling and with some hilarity.  Mamie, in a plush
+Gainsborough hat and a gown of wine-coloured silk, sat, an
+apparent queen, among her rude surroundings and companions. 
+The dusky litter of the cabin set off her radiant trimness:  tarry
+Johnson was a foil to her fair beauty; she glowed in that poor
+place, fair as a star; until even I, who was not usually of her
+admirers, caught a spark of admiration; and even the captain,
+who was in no courtly humour, proposed that the scene should
+be commemorated by my pencil.  It was the last act of the
+evening.  Hurriedly as I went about my task, the half-hour had
+lengthened out to more than three before it was completed:
+Mamie in full value, the rest of the party figuring in outline
+only, and the artist himself introduced in a back view, which
+was pronounced a likeness.  But it was to Mamie that I devoted
+the best of my attention; and it was with her I made my chief
+success.
+
+"O!" she cried, "am I really like that?  No wonder Jim ..." She
+paused.  "Why it's just as lovely as he's good!" she cried:  an
+epigram which was appreciated, and repeated as we made our
+salutations, and called out after the retreating couple as they
+passed away under the lamplight on the wharf.
+
+Thus it was that our farewells were smuggled through under an
+ambuscade of laughter, and the parting over ere I knew it was
+begun.  The figures vanished, the steps died away along the
+silent city front; on board, the men had returned to their
+labours, the captain to his solitary cigar; and after that long and
+complex day of business and emotion, I was at last alone and
+free.  It was, perhaps, chiefly fatigue that made my heart so
+heavy.  I leaned at least upon the house, and stared at the foggy
+heaven, or over the rail at the wavering reflection of the lamps,
+like a man that was quite done with hope and would have
+welcomed the asylum of the grave.  And all at once, as I thus
+stood, the City of Pekin flashed into my mind, racing her
+thirteen knots for Honolulu, with the hated Trent--perhaps with
+the mysterious Goddedaal--on board; and with the thought, the
+blood leaped and careered through all my body.  It seemed no
+chase at all; it seemed we had no chance, as we lay there bound
+to iron pillars, and fooling away the precious moments over tins
+of beans.  "Let them get there first!" I thought.  "Let them!  We
+can't be long behind."  And from that moment, I date myself a
+man of a rounded experience: nothing had lacked but this, that
+I should entertain and welcome the grim thought of bloodshed.
+
+It was long before the toil remitted in the cabin, and it was
+worth my while to get to bed; long after that, before sleep
+favoured me; and scarce a moment later (or so it seemed) when
+I was recalled to consciousness by bawling men and the jar of
+straining hawsers.
+
+The schooner was cast off before I got on deck.  In the misty
+obscurity of the first dawn, I saw the tug heading us with
+glowing fires and blowing smoke, and heard her beat the
+roughened waters of the bay.  Beside us, on her flock of hills,
+the lighted city towered up and stood swollen in the raw fog.  It
+was strange to see her burn on thus wastefully, with half-
+quenched luminaries, when the dawn was already grown strong
+enough to show me, and to suffer me to recognise, a solitary
+figure standing by the piles.
+
+Or was it really the eye, and not rather the heart, that identified
+that shadow in the dusk, among the shoreside lamps?  I know
+not.  It was Jim, at least; Jim, come for a last look; and we had
+but time to wave a valedictory gesture and exchange a wordless
+cry.  This was our second parting, and our capacities were now
+reversed.  It was mine to play the Argonaut, to speed affairs, to
+plan and to accomplish--if need were, at the price of life; it was
+his to sit at home, to study the calendar, and to wait.  I knew
+besides another thing that gave me joy.  I knew that my friend
+had succeeded in my education; that the romance of business, if
+our fantastic purchase merited the name, had at last stirred my
+dilletante nature; and, as we swept under cloudy Tamalpais and
+through the roaring narrows of the bay, the Yankee blood sang
+in my veins with suspense and exultation.
+
+Outside the heads, as if to meet my desire, we found it blowing
+fresh from the northeast.  No time had been lost.  The sun was
+not yet up before the tug cast off the hawser, gave us a salute of
+three whistles, and turned homeward toward the coast, which
+now began to gleam along its margin with the earliest rays of
+day.  There was no other ship in view when the Norah Creina, 
+lying over under all plain sail, began her long and lonely
+voyage to the wreck.
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XII.
+
+ THE "NORAH CREINA."
+
+
+I love to recall the glad monotony of a Pacific voyage, when the
+trades are not stinted, and the ship, day after day, goes free. 
+The mountain scenery of trade-wind clouds, watched (and in
+my case painted) under every vicissitude of light--blotting stars,
+withering in the moon's glory, barring the scarlet eve, lying
+across the dawn collapsed into the unfeatured morning bank, or
+at noon raising their snowy summits between the blue roof of
+heaven and the blue floor of sea; the small, busy, and deliberate
+world of the schooner, with its unfamiliar scenes, the spearing
+of dolphin from the bowsprit end, the holy war on sharks, the
+cook making bread on the main hatch; reefing down before a
+violent squall, with the men hanging out on the foot-ropes; the
+squall itself, the catch at the heart, the opened sluices of the
+sky; and the relief, the renewed loveliness of life, when all is
+over, the sun forth again, and our out-fought enemy only a blot
+upon the leeward sea.  I love to recall, and would that I could
+reproduce that life, the unforgettable, the unrememberable.  The
+memory, which shows so wise a backwardness in registering
+pain, is besides an imperfect recorder of extended pleasures;
+and a long-continued well-being escapes (as it were, by its
+mass) our petty methods of commemoration.  On a part of our
+life's map there lies a roseate, undecipherable haze, and that is
+all.
+
+Of one thing, if I am at all to trust my own annals, I was
+delightedly conscious.  Day after day, in the sun-gilded cabin,
+the whiskey-dealer's thermometer stood at 84.  Day after day,
+the air had the same indescribable liveliness and sweetness,
+soft and nimble, and cool as the cheek of health.  Day after day
+the sun flamed; night after night the moon beaconed, or the
+stars paraded their lustrous regiment.  I was aware of a
+spiritual change, or, perhaps, rather a molecular reconstitution. 
+My bones were sweeter to me.  I had come home to my own
+climate, and looked back with pity on those damp and wintry
+zones, miscalled the temperate.
+
+"Two years of this, and comfortable quarters to live in, kind of
+shake the grit out of a man," the captain remarked; "can't make
+out to be happy anywhere else.  A townie of mine was lost
+down this way, in a coalship that took fire at sea.  He struck the
+beach somewhere in the Navigators; and he wrote to me that
+when he left the place, it would be feet first.  He's well off, too,
+and his father owns some coasting craft Down East; but Billy
+prefers the beach, and hot rolls off the bread-fruit trees."
+
+A voice told me I was on the same track as Billy.  But when
+was this?  Our outward track in the Norah Creina lay well to
+the northward; and perhaps it is but the impression of a few pet
+days which I have unconsciously spread longer, or perhaps the
+feeling grew upon me later, in the run to Honolulu.  One thing I
+am sure:  it was before I had ever seen an island worthy of the
+name that I must date my loyalty to the South Seas.  The blank
+sea itself grew desirable under such skies; and wherever the
+trade-wind blows, I know no better country than a schooner's
+deck.
+
+But for the tugging anxiety as to the journey's end, the journey
+itself must thus have counted for the best of holidays.  My
+physical well-being was over-proof; effects of sea and sky kept
+me for ever busy with my pencil; and I had no lack of
+intellectual exercise of a different order in the study of my
+inconsistent friend, the captain.  I call him friend, here on the
+threshold; but that is to look well ahead.  At first, I was too
+much horrified by what I considered his barbarities, too much
+puzzled by his shifting humours, and too frequently annoyed by
+his small vanities, to regard him otherwise than as the cross of
+my existence.  It was only by degrees, in his rare hours of
+pleasantness, when he forgot (and made me forget) the
+weaknesses to which he was so prone, that he won me to a
+kind of unconsenting fondness.  Lastly, the faults were all
+embraced in a more generous view:  I saw them in their place,
+like discords in a musical progression; and accepted them and
+found them picturesque, as we accept and admire, in the
+habitable face of nature, the smoky head of the volcano or the
+pernicious thicket of the swamp.
+
+He was come of good people Down East, and had the
+beginnings of a thorough education.  His temper had been
+ungovernable from the first; and it is likely the defect was
+inherited, and the blame of the rupture not entirely his.  He ran
+away at least to sea; suffered horrible maltreatment, which
+seemed to have rather hardened than enlightened him; ran
+away again to shore in a South American port; proved his
+capacity and made money, although still a child; fell among
+thieves and was robbed; worked back a passage to the States,
+and knocked one morning at the door of an old lady whose
+orchard he had often robbed.  The introduction appears
+insufficient; but Nares knew what he was doing.  The sight of
+her old neighbourly depredator shivering at the door in tatters,
+the very oddity of his appeal, touched a soft spot in the
+spinster's heart.  "I always had a fancy for the old lady," Nares
+said, "even when she used to stampede me out of the orchard,
+and shake her thimble and her old curls at me out of the
+window as I was going by; I always thought she was a kind of
+pleasant old girl.  Well, when she came to the door that
+morning, I told her so, and that I was stone-broke; and she took
+me right in, and fetched out the pie."  She clothed him, taught
+him, and had him to sea again in better shape, welcomed him
+to her hearth on his return from every cruise, and when she died
+bequeathed him her possessions.  "She was a good old girl," he
+would say.  "I tell you, Mr. Dodd, it was a queer thing to see
+me and the old lady talking a pasear in the garden, and the old
+man scowling at us over the pickets.  She lived right next door
+to the old man, and I guess that's just what took me there.  I
+wanted him to know that I was badly beat, you see, and would
+rather go to the devil than to him.  What made the dig harder,
+he had quarrelled with the old lady about me and the orchard:  I
+guess that made him rage.  Yes, I was a beast when I was
+young.  But I was always pretty good to the old lady."  Since
+then he had prospered, not uneventfully, in his profession; the
+old lady's money had fallen in during the voyage of the
+Gleaner, and he was now, as soon as the smoke of that
+engagement cleared away, secure of his ship.  I suppose he was
+about thirty: a powerful, active man, with a blue eye, a thick
+head of hair, about the colour of oakum and growing low over
+the brow; clean-shaved and lean about the jaw; a good singer; a
+good performer on that sea-instrument, the accordion; a quick
+observer, a close reasoner; when he pleased, of a really elegant
+address; and when he chose, the greatest brute upon the seas.
+
+His usage of the men, his hazing, his bullying, his perpetual
+fault-finding for no cause, his perpetual and brutal sarcasm,
+might have raised a mutiny in a slave galley.  Suppose the
+steersman's eye to have wandered:  "You ----, ----, little,
+mutton-faced Dutchman," Nares would bawl; "you want a
+booting to keep you on your course!  I know a little city-front
+slush when I see one.  Just you glue your eye to that compass,
+or I'll show you round the vessel at the butt-end of my boot." 
+Or suppose a hand to linger aft, whither he had perhaps been
+summoned not a minute before.  "Mr. Daniells, will you oblige
+me by stepping clear of that main-sheet?" the captain might
+begin, with truculent courtesy.  "Thank you.  And perhaps
+you'll be so kind as to tell me what the hell you're doing on my
+quarter-deck?  I want no dirt of your sort here.  Is there nothing
+for you to do?  Where's the mate?  Don't you set ME to find
+work for you, or I'll find you some that will keep you on your
+back a fortnight."  Such allocutions, conceived with a perfect
+knowledge of his audience, so that every insult carried home,
+were delivered with a mien so menacing, and an eye so fiercely
+cruel, that his unhappy subordinates shrank and quailed.  Too
+often violence followed; too often I have heard and seen and
+boiled at the cowardly aggression; and the victim, his hands
+bound by law, has risen again from deck and crawled forward
+stupefied--I know not what passion of revenge in his wronged
+heart.
+
+It seems strange I should have grown to like this tyrant.  It may
+even seem strange that I should have stood by and suffered his
+excesses to proceed.  But I was not quite such a chicken as to
+interfere in public; for I would rather have a man or two
+mishandled than one half of us butchered in a mutiny and the
+rest suffer on the gallows.  And in private, I was unceasing in
+my protests.
+
+"Captain," I once said to him, appealing to his patriotism,
+which was of a hardy quality, "this is no way to treat American
+seamen.  You don't call it American to treat men like dogs?"
+
+"Americans?" he said grimly.  "Do you call these Dutchmen
+and Scattermouches [1] Americans?  I've been fourteen years to
+sea, all but one trip under American colours, and I've never laid
+eye on an American foremast hand.  There used to be such
+things in the old days, when thirty-five dollars were the wages
+out of Boston; and then you could see ships handled and run
+the way they want to be.  But that's all past and gone; and
+nowadays the only thing that flies in an American ship is a
+belaying-pin.  You don't know; you haven't a guess.  How
+would you like to go on deck for your middle watch, fourteen
+months on end, with all your duty to do and every one's life
+depending on you, and expect to get a knife ripped into you as
+you come out of your stateroom, or be sand-bagged as you pass
+the boat, or get tripped into the hold, if the hatches are off in
+fine weather?  That kind of shakes the starch out of the
+brotherly love and New Jerusalem business.  You go through
+the mill, and you'll have a bigger grudge against every old
+shellback that dirties his plate in the three oceans, than the
+Bank of California could settle up.  No; it has an ugly look to it,
+but the only way to run a ship is to make yourself a terror."
+
+[1] In sea-lingo (Pacific) DUTCHMAN includes all Teutons
+and folk from the basin of the Baltic; SCATTERMOUCH, all
+Latins and Levantines.
+
+"Come, Captain," said I, "there are degrees in everything.  You
+know American ships have a bad name; you know perfectly
+well if it wasn't for the high wage and the good food, there's not
+a man would ship in one if he could help; and even as it is,
+some prefer a British ship, beastly food and all."
+
+"O, the lime-juicers?" said he.  "There's plenty booting in lime-
+juicers, I guess; though I don't deny but what some of them are
+soft."  And with that he smiled like a man recalling something. 
+"Look here, that brings a yarn in my head," he resumed; "and
+for the sake of the joke, I'll give myself away.  It was in 1874, I
+shipped mate in the British ship Maria, from 'Frisco for
+Melbourne.  She was the queerest craft in some ways that ever
+I was aboard of.  The food was a caution; there was nothing fit
+to put your lips to--but the lime-juice, which was from the end
+bin no doubt:  it used to make me sick to see the men's dinners,
+and sorry to see my own.  The old man was good enough, I
+guess; Green was his name; a mild, fatherly old galoot.  But the
+hands were the lowest gang I ever handled; and whenever I
+tried to knock a little spirit into them, the old man took their
+part!  It was Gilbert and Sullivan on the high seas; but you bet I
+wouldn't let any man dictate to me.  'You give me your orders,
+Captain Green,' I said, 'and you'll find I'll carry them out; that's
+all you've got to say.  You'll find I do my duty,' I said; 'how I do
+it is my lookout; and there's no man born that's going to give
+me lessons.'  Well, there was plenty dirt on board that Maria
+first and last.  Of course, the old man put my back up, and, of
+course, he put up the crew's; and I had to regular fight my way
+through every watch.  The men got to hate me, so's I would
+hear them grit their teeth when I came up.  At last, one day, I
+saw a big hulking beast of a Dutchman booting the ship's boy. 
+I made one shoot of it off the house and laid that Dutchman
+out.  Up he came, and I laid him out again.  'Now,' I said, 'if
+there's a kick left in you, just mention it, and I'll stamp your
+ribs in like a packing-case.'  He thought better of it, and never
+let on; lay there as mild as a deacon at a funeral; and they took
+him below to reflect on his native Dutchland.  One night we got
+caught in rather a dirty thing about 25 south.  I guess we were
+all asleep; for the first thing I knew there was the fore-royal
+gone.  I ran forward, bawling blue hell; and just as I came by
+the foremast, something struck me right through the forearm
+and stuck there.  I put my other hand up, and by George! it was
+the grain; the beasts had speared me like a porpoise.  'Cap'n!' I
+cried.--'What's wrong?' says he.--'They've grained me,' says I.--
+'Grained you?' says he.  'Well, I've been looking for that.'----
+'And by God,' I cried, 'I want to have some of these beasts
+murdered for it!'--'Now, Mr. Nares,' says he, 'you better go
+below.  If I had been one of the men, you'd have got more than
+this.  And I want no more of your language on deck.  You've
+cost me my fore-royal already,' says he; 'and if you carry on,
+you'll have the three sticks out of her.'  That was old man
+Green's idea of supporting officers.  But you wait a bit; the
+cream's coming.  We made Melbourne right enough, and the
+old man said:  'Mr. Nares, you and me don't draw together. 
+You're a first-rate seaman, no mistake of that; but you're the
+most disagreeable man I ever sailed with; and your language
+and your conduct to the crew I cannot stomach.  I guess we'll
+separate.'  I didn't care about the berth, you may be sure; but I
+felt kind of mean; and if he made one kind of stink, I thought I
+could make another.  So I said I would go ashore and see how
+things stood; went, found I was all right, and came aboard
+again on the top rail.--'Are you getting your traps together, Mr.
+Nares?' says the old man.--'No,' says I, 'I don't know as we'll
+separate much before 'Frisco; at least,' I said, 'it's a point for
+your consideration.  I'm very willing to say good-by to the
+Maria, but I don't know whether you'll care to start me out with
+three months' wages.'  He got his money-box right away.  'My
+son,' says he, 'I think it cheap at the money.'  He had me there."
+
+
+It was a singular tale for a man to tell of himself; above all, in
+the midst of our discussion; but it was quite in character for
+Nares.  I never made a good hit in our disputes, I never justly
+resented any act or speech of his, but what I found it long after
+carefully posted in his day-book and reckoned (here was the
+man's oddity) to my credit.  It was the same with his father,
+whom he had hated; he would give a sketch of the old fellow,
+frank and credible, and yet so honestly touched that it was
+charming.  I have never met a man so strangely constituted:  to
+possess a reason of the most equal justice, to have his nerves at
+the same time quivering with petty spite, and to act upon the
+nerves and not the reason.
+
+A kindred wonder in my eyes was the nature of his courage. 
+There was never a braver man:  he went out to welcome
+danger; an emergency (came it never so sudden) strung him
+like a tonic.  And yet, upon the other hand, I have known none
+so nervous, so oppressed with possibilities, looking upon the
+world at large, and the life of a sailor in particular, with so
+constant and haggard a consideration of the ugly chances.  All
+his courage was in blood, not merely cold, but icy with
+reasoned apprehension.  He would lay our little craft rail under,
+and "hang on" in a squall, until I gave myself up for lost, and
+the men were rushing to their stations of their own accord. 
+"There," he would say, "I guess there's not a man on board
+would have hung on as long as I did that time; they'll have to
+give up thinking me no schooner sailor.  I guess I can shave
+just as near capsizing as any other captain of this vessel, drunk
+or sober." And then he would fall to repining and wishing
+himself well out of the enterprise, and dilate on the peril of the
+seas, the particular dangers of the schooner rig, which he
+abhorred, the various ways in which we might go to the
+bottom, and the prodigious fleet of ships that have sailed out in
+the course of history, dwindled from the eyes of watchers, and
+returned no more.  "Well," he would wind up, "I guess it don't
+much matter.  I can't see what any one wants to live for,
+anyway.  If I could get into some one else's apple-tree, and be
+about twelve years old, and just stick the way I was, eating
+stolen apples, I won't say.  But there's no sense in this
+grown-up business--sailorising, politics, the piety mill, and all
+the rest of it.  Good clean drowning is good enough for me."  It
+is hard to imagine any more depressing talk for a poor
+landsman on a dirty night; it is hard to imagine anything less
+sailor-like (as sailors are supposed to be, and generally are)
+than this persistent harping on the minor.
+
+
+But I was to see more of the man's gloomy constancy ere the
+cruise was at an end.
+
+On the morning of the seventeenth day I came on deck, to find
+the schooner under double reefs, and flying rather wild before a
+heavy run of sea.  Snoring trades and humming sails had been
+our portion hitherto.  We were already nearing the island.  My
+restrained excitement had begun again to overmaster me; and
+for some time my only book had been the patent log that trailed
+over the taffrail, and my chief interest the daily observation and
+our caterpillar progress across the chart.  My first glance,
+which was at the compass, and my second, which was at the
+log, were all that I could wish.  We lay our course; we had been
+doing over eight since nine the night before; and I drew a heavy
+breath of satisfaction.  And then I know not what odd and
+wintry appearance of the sea and sky knocked suddenly at my
+heart.  I observed the schooner to look more than usually small,
+the men silent and studious of the weather.  Nares, in one of his
+rusty humours, afforded me no shadow of a morning salutation. 
+He, too, seemed to observe the behaviour of the ship with an
+intent and anxious scrutiny.  What I liked still less, Johnson
+himself was at the wheel, which he span busily, often with a
+visible effort; and as the seas ranged up behind us, black and
+imminent, he kept casting behind him eyes of animal swiftness,
+and drawing in his neck between his shoulders, like a man
+dodging a blow.  From these signs, I gathered that all was not
+exactly for the best; and I would have given a good handful of
+dollars for a plain answer to the questions which I dared not
+put.  Had I dared, with the present danger signal in the
+captain's face, I should only have been reminded of my position
+as supercargo--an office never touched upon in kindness--and
+advised, in a very indigestible manner, to go below.  There was
+nothing for it, therefore, but to entertain my vague
+apprehensions as best I should be able, until it pleased the
+captain to enlighten me of his own accord.  This he did sooner
+than I had expected; as soon, indeed, as the Chinaman had
+summoned us to breakfast, and we sat face to face across the
+narrow board.
+
+"See here, Mr. Dodd," he began, looking at me rather queerly,
+"here is a business point arisen.  This sea's been running up for
+the last two days, and now it's too high for comfort.  The glass
+is falling, the wind is breezing up, and I won't say but what
+there's dirt in it.  If I lay her to, we may have to ride out a gale
+of wind and drift God knows where--on these French Frigate
+Shoals, for instance.  If I keep her as she goes, we'll make that
+island to-morrow afternoon, and have the lee of it to lie under,
+if we can't make out to run in.  The point you have to figure on,
+is whether you'll take the big chances of that Captain Trent
+making the place before you, or take the risk of something
+happening.  I'm to run this ship to your satisfaction," he added,
+with an ugly sneer.  "Well, here's a point for the supercargo."
+
+"Captain," I returned, with my heart in my mouth, "risk is
+better than certain failure."
+
+"Life is all risk, Mr. Dodd," he remarked.  "But there's one
+thing:  it's now or never; in half an hour, Archdeacon Gabriel
+couldn't lay her to, if he came down stairs on purpose."
+
+"All right," said I. "Llet's run."
+
+"Run goes," said he; and with that he fell to breakfast, and
+passed half an hour in stowing away pie and devoutly wishing
+himself back in San Francisco.
+
+When we came on deck again, he took the wheel from Johnson
+--it appears they could trust none among the hands--and I stood
+close beside him, feeling safe in this proximity, and tasting a
+fearful joy from our surroundings and the consciousness of my
+decision.  The breeze had already risen, and as it tore over our
+heads, it uttered at times a long hooting note that sent my heart
+into my boots.  The sea pursued us without remission, leaping
+to the assault of the low rail.  The quarter-deck was all awash,
+and we must close the companion doors.
+
+"And all this, if you please, for Mr. Pinkerton's dollars!" the
+captain suddenly exclaimed.  "There's many a fine fellow gone
+under, Mr. Dodd, because of drivers like your friend.  What do
+they care for a ship or two?  Insured, I guess.  What do they
+care for sailors' lives alongside of a few thousand dollars? 
+What they want is speed between ports, and a damned fool of a
+captain that'll drive a ship under as I'm doing this one.  You
+can put in the morning, asking why I do it."
+
+I sheered off to another part of the vessel as fast as civility
+permitted.  This was not at all the talk that I desired, nor was
+the train of reflection which it started anyway welcome.  Here I
+was, running some hazard of my life, and perilling the lives of
+seven others; exactly for what end, I was now at liberty to ask
+myself.  For a very large amount of a very deadly poison, was
+the obvious answer; and I thought if all tales were true, and I
+were soon to be subjected to cross-examination at the bar of
+Eternal Justice, it was one which would not increase my
+popularity with the court.  "Well, never mind, Jim," thought I.
+"I'm doing it for you."
+
+Before eleven, a third reef was taken in the mainsail; and
+Johnson filled the cabin with a storm-sail of No. 1 duck and sat
+cross-legged on the streaming floor, vigorously putting it to
+rights with a couple of the hands.  By dinner I had fled the
+deck, and sat in the bench corner, giddy, dumb, and stupefied
+with terror.  The frightened leaps of the poor Norah Creina,
+spanking like a stag for bare existence, bruised me between the
+table and the berths.  Overhead, the wild huntsman of the storm
+passed continuously in one blare of mingled noises; screaming
+wind, straining timber, lashing rope's end, pounding block and
+bursting sea contributed; and I could have thought there was at
+times another, a more piercing, a more human note, that
+dominated all, like the wailing of an angel; I could have
+thought I knew the angel's name, and that his wings were
+black.  It seemed incredible that any creature of man's art could
+long endure the barbarous mishandling of the seas, kicked as
+the schooner was from mountain side to mountain side, beaten
+and blown upon and wrenched in every joint and sinew, like a
+child upon the rack.  There was not a plank of her that did not
+cry aloud for mercy; and as she continued to hold together, I
+became conscious of a growing sympathy with her endeavours,
+a growing admiration for her gallant staunchness, that amused
+and at times obliterated my terrors for myself.  God bless every
+man that swung a mallet on that tiny and strong hull!  It was
+not for wages only that he laboured, but to save men's lives.
+
+All the rest of the day, and all the following night, I sat in the
+corner or lay wakeful in my bunk; and it was only with the
+return of morning that a new phase of my alarms drove me
+once more on deck.  A gloomier interval I never passed. 
+Johnson and Nares steadily relieved each other at the wheel
+and came below.  The first glance of each was at the glass,
+which he repeatedly knuckled and frowned upon; for it was
+sagging lower all the time.  Then, if Johnson were the visitor,
+he would pick a snack out of the cupboard, and stand, braced
+against the table, eating it, and perhaps obliging me with a
+word or two of his hee-haw conversation:  how it was "a son of
+a gun of a cold night on deck, Mr. Dodd" (with a grin); how "it
+wasn't no night for panjammers, he could tell me":  having
+transacted all which, he would throw himself down in his bunk
+and sleep his two hours with compunction.  But the captain
+neither ate nor slept.  "You there, Mr. Dodd?" he would say,
+after the obligatory visit to the glass.  "Well, my son, we're one
+hundred and four miles" (or whatever it was) "off the island,
+and scudding for all we're worth.  We'll make it to-morrow
+about four, or not, as the case may be.  That's the news.  And
+now, Mr. Dodd, I've stretched a point for you; you can see I'm
+dead tired; so just you stretch away back to your bunk again."
+And with this attempt at geniality, his teeth would settle hard
+down on his cigar, and he would pass his spell below staring
+and blinking at the cabin lamp through a cloud of tobacco 
+smoke.  He has told me since that he was happy, which I
+should never have divined.  "You see," he said, "the wind we
+had was never anything out of the way; but the sea was really
+nasty, the schooner wanted a lot of humouring, and it was clear
+from the glass that we were close to some dirt.  We might be
+running out of it, or we might be running right crack into it. 
+Well, there's always something sublime about a big deal like
+that; and it kind of raises a man in his own liking.  We're a
+queer kind of beasts, Mr. Dodd."
+
+The morning broke with sinister brightness; the air alarmingly
+transparent, the sky pure, the rim of the horizon clear and
+strong against the heavens.  The wind and the wild seas, now
+vastly swollen, indefatigably hunted us.  I stood on deck,
+choking with fear; I seemed to lose all power upon my limbs;
+my knees were as paper when she plunged into the murderous
+valleys; my heart collapsed when some black mountain fell in
+avalanche beside her counter, and the water, that was more
+than spray, swept round my ankles like a torrent.  I was
+conscious of but one strong desire, to bear myself decently in
+my terrors, and whatever should happen to my life, preserve my
+character:  as the captain said, we are a queer kind of beasts. 
+Breakfast time came, and I made shift to swallow some hot tea. 
+Then I must stagger below to take the time, reading the
+chronometer with dizzy eyes, and marvelling the while what
+value there could be in observations taken in a ship launched
+(as ours then was) like a missile among flying seas.  The
+forenoon dragged on in a grinding monotony of peril; every
+spoke of the wheel a rash, but an obliged experiment--rash as a
+forlorn hope, needful as the leap that lands a fireman from a
+burning staircase.  Noon was made; the captain dined on his
+day's work, and I on watching him; and our place was entered
+on the chart with a meticulous precision which seemed to me
+half pitiful and half absurd, since the next eye to behold that
+sheet of paper might be the eye of an exploring fish.  One
+o'clock came, then two; the captain gloomed and chafed, as he
+held to the coaming of the house, and if ever I saw dormant
+murder in man's eye, it was in his.  God help the hand that
+should have disobeyed him.
+
+Of a sudden, he turned towards the mate, who was doing his
+trick at the wheel.
+
+"Two points on the port bow," I heard him say.  And he took
+the wheel himself.
+
+Johnson nodded, wiped his eyes with the back of his wet hand,
+watched a chance as the vessel lunged up hill, and got to the
+main rigging, where he swarmed aloft.  Up and up, I watched
+him go, hanging on at every ugly plunge, gaining with every
+lull of the schooner's movement, until, clambering into the
+cross-trees and clinging with one arm around the masts, I could
+see him take one comprehensive sweep of the southwesterly
+horizon.  The next moment, he had slid down the backstay and
+stood on deck, with a grin, a nod, and a gesture of the finger
+that said "yes"; the next again, and he was back sweating and
+squirming at the wheel, his tired face streaming and smiling,
+and his hair and the rags and corners of his clothes lashing
+round him in the wind.
+
+Nares went below, fetched up his binocular, and fell into a
+silent perusal of the sea-line; I also, with my unaided eyesight. 
+Little by little, in that white waste of water, I began to make out
+a quarter where the whiteness appeared more condensed: the
+sky above was whitish likewise, and misty like a squall; and
+little by little there thrilled upon my ears a note deeper and
+more terrible than the yelling of the gale--the long, thundering
+roll of breakers.  Nares wiped his night glass on his sleeve and
+passed it to me, motioning, as he did so, with his hand.  An
+endless wilderness of raging billows came and went and
+danced in the circle of the glass; now and then a pale corner of
+sky, or the strong line of the horizon rugged with the heads of
+waves; and then of a sudden--come and gone ere I could fix it,
+with a swallow's swiftness--one glimpse of what we had come
+so far and paid so dear to see:  the masts and rigging of a brig
+pencilled on heaven, with an ensign streaming at the main, and
+the ragged ribbons of a topsail thrashing from the yard.  Again
+and again, with toilful searching, I recalled that apparition. 
+There was no sign of any land; the wreck stood between sea
+and sky, a thing the most isolated I had ever viewed; but as we
+drew nearer, I perceived her to be defended by a line of
+breakers which drew off on either hand, and marked, indeed,
+the nearest segment of the reef.  Heavy spray hung over them
+like a smoke, some hundred feet into the air; and the sound of
+their consecutive explosions rolled like a cannonade. 
+
+In half an hour we were close in; for perhaps as long again, we
+skirted that formidable barrier toward its farther side; and
+presently the sea began insensibly to moderate and the ship to
+go more sweetly.  We had gained the lee of the island as (for
+form's sake) I may call that ring of foam and haze and thunder;
+and shaking out a reef, wore ship and headed for the passage.
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XIII.
+
+ THE ISLAND AND THE WRECK.
+
+
+All hands were filled with joy.  It was betrayed in their alacrity
+and easy faces:  Johnson smiling broadly at the wheel, Nares
+studying the sketch chart of the island with an eye at peace, and
+the hands clustered forward, eagerly talking and pointing:  so
+manifest was our escape, so wonderful the attraction of a single
+foot of earth after so many suns had set and risen on an empty
+sea.  To add to the relief, besides, by one of those malicious
+coincidences which suggest for fate the image of an underbred
+and grinning schoolboy, we had no sooner worn ship than the
+wind began to abate.
+
+For myself, however, I did but exchange anxieties.  I was no
+sooner out of one fear than I fell upon another; no sooner secure
+that I should myself make the intended haven, than I began to
+be convinced that Trent was there before me.  I climbed into the
+rigging, stood on the board, and eagerly scanned that ring of
+coral reef and bursting breaker, and the blue lagoon which they
+enclosed.  The two islets within began to show plainly--Middle
+Brooks and Lower Brooks Island, the Directory named them:
+two low, bush-covered, rolling strips of sand, each with
+glittering beaches, each perhaps a mile or a mile and a half in
+length, running east and west, and divided by a narrow
+channel.  Over these, innumerable as maggots, there hovered,
+chattered, screamed and clanged, millions of twinkling sea-
+birds:  white and black; the black by far the largest.  With
+singular scintillations, this vortex of winged life swayed to and
+fro in the strong sunshine, whirled continually through itself,
+and would now and again burst asunder and scatter as wide as
+the lagoon:  so that I was irresistibly reminded of what I had
+read of nebular convulsions.  A thin cloud overspread the area
+of the reef and the adjacent sea--the dust, as I could not but
+fancy, of earlier explosions.  And a little apart, there was yet
+another focus of centrifugal and centripetal flight, where, hard
+by the deafening line of breakers, her sails (all but the tattered
+topsail) snugly furled down, and the red rag that marks Old
+England on the seas beating, union down, at the main--the
+Flying Scud, the fruit of so many toilers, a recollection in so
+many lives of men, whose tall spars had been mirrored in the
+remotest corners of the sea--lay stationary at last and forever, in
+the first stage of naval dissolution.  Towards her, the taut
+Norah Creina, vulture-wise, wriggled to windward:  come from
+so far to pick her bones.  And, look as I pleased, there was no
+other presence of man or of man's handiwork; no Honolulu
+schooner lay there crowded with armed rivals, no smoke rose
+from the fire at which I fancied Trent cooking a meal of sea-
+birds.  It seemed, after all, we were in time, and I drew a
+mighty breath.
+
+I had not arrived at this reviving certainty before the breakers
+were already close aboard, the leadsman at his station, and the
+captain posted in the fore cross-trees to con us through the coral
+lumps of the lagoon.  All circumstances were in our favour, the
+light behind, the sun low, the wind still fresh and steady, and
+the tide about the turn.  A moment later we shot at racing speed
+betwixt two pier heads of broken water; the lead began to be
+cast, the captain to bawl down his anxious directions, the
+schooner to tack and dodge among the scattered dangers of the
+lagoon; and at one bell in the first dog watch, we had come to
+our anchor off the north-east end of Middle Brooks Island, in
+five fathoms water.  The sails were gasketted and covered, the
+boats emptied of the miscellaneous stores and odds and ends of
+sea-furniture, that accumulate in the course of a voyage, the
+kedge sent ashore, and the decks tidied down:  a good three-
+quarters of an hour's work, during which I raged about the deck
+like a man with a strong toothache.  The transition from the
+wild sea to the comparative immobility of the lagoon had
+wrought strange distress among my nerves:  I could not hold
+still whether in hand or foot; the slowness of the men, tired as
+dogs after our rough experience outside, irritated me like
+something personal; and the irrational screaming of the sea-
+birds saddened me like a dirge.  It was a relief when, with
+Nares, and a couple of hands, I might drop into the boat and
+move off at last for the Flying Scud.
+
+"She looks kind of pitiful, don't she?" observed the captain,
+nodding towards the wreck, from which we were separated by
+some half a mile.  "Looks as if she didn't like her berth, and
+Captain Trent had used her badly.  Give her ginger, boys!" he
+added to the hands, "and you can all have shore liberty to-night
+to see the birds and paint the town red."
+
+We all laughed at the pleasantry, and the boat skimmed the
+faster over the rippling face of the lagoon.  The Flying Scud
+would have seemed small enough beside the wharves of San
+Francisco, but she was some thrice the size of the Norah
+Creina, which had been so long our continent; and as we
+craned up at her wall-sides, she impressed us with a mountain
+magnitude.  She lay head to the reef, where the huge blue wall
+of the rollers was for ever ranging up and crumbling down; and
+to gain her starboard side, we must pass below the stern.  The
+rudder was hard aport, and we could read the legend:
+
+                      FLYING SCUD
+
+                             HULL
+
+On the other side, about the break of the poop, some half a
+fathom of rope ladder trailed over the rail, and by this we made
+our entrance.
+
+She was a roomy ship inside, with a raised poop standing some
+three feet higher than the deck, and a small forward house, for
+the men's bunks and the galley, just abaft the foremast.  There
+was one boat on the house, and another and larger one, in beds
+on deck, on either hand of it.  She had been painted white, with
+tropical economy, outside and in; and we found, later on, that
+the stanchions of the rail, hoops of the scuttle but, etc., were
+picked out with green.  At that time, however, when we first
+stepped aboard, all was hidden under the droppings of
+innumerable sea-birds.
+
+The birds themselves gyrated and screamed meanwhile among
+the rigging; and when we looked into the galley, their outrush
+drove us back.  Savage-looking fowl they were, savagely
+beaked, and some of the black ones great as eagles.  Half-
+buried in the slush, we were aware of a litter of kegs in the
+waist; and these, on being somewhat cleaned, proved to be
+water beakers and quarter casks of mess beef with some
+colonial brand, doubtless collected there before the Tempest
+hove in sight, and while Trent and his men had no better
+expectation than to strike for Honolulu in the boats.  Nothing
+else was notable on deck, save where the loose topsail had
+played some havoc with the rigging, and there hung, and
+swayed, and sang in the declining wind, a raffle of intorted
+cordage.
+
+With a shyness that was almost awe, Nares and I descended
+the companion.  The stair turned upon itself and landed us just
+forward of a thwart-ship bulkhead that cut the poop in two. 
+The fore part formed a kind of miscellaneous store-room, with
+a double-bunked division for the cook (as Nares supposed) and
+second mate.  The after part contained, in the midst, the main
+cabin, running in a kind of bow into the curvature of the stern;
+on the port side, a pantry opening forward and a stateroom for
+the mate; and on the starboard, the captain's berth and water-
+closet.  Into these we did but glance:  the main cabin holding
+us.  It was dark, for the sea-birds had obscured the skylight
+with their droppings; it smelt rank and fusty; and it was beset
+with a loud swarm of flies that beat continually in our faces. 
+Supposing them close attendants upon man and his broken
+meat, I marvelled how they had found their way to Midway
+reef; it was sure at least some vessel must have brought them,
+and that long ago, for they had multiplied exceedingly.  Part of
+the floor was strewn with a confusion of clothes, books,
+nautical instruments, odds and ends of finery, and such trash as
+might be expected from the turning out of several seamen's
+chests, upon a sudden emergency and after a long cruise.  It
+was strange in that dim cabin, quivering with the near thunder
+of the breakers and pierced with the screaming of the fowls, to
+turn over so many things that other men had coveted, and
+prized, and worn on their warm bodies--frayed old
+underclothing, pyjamas of strange design, duck suits in every
+stage of rustiness, oil skins, pilot coats, bottles of scent,
+embroidered shirts, jackets of Ponjee silk--clothes for the night
+watch at sea or the day ashore in the hotel verandah; and
+mingled among these, books, cigars, fancy pipes, quantities of
+tobacco, many keys, a rusty pistol, and a sprinkling of cheap
+curiosities--Benares brass, Chinese jars and pictures, and
+bottles of odd shells in cotton, each designed no doubt for
+somebody at home--perhaps in Hull, of which Trent had been a
+native and his ship a citizen.
+
+Thence we turned our attention to the table, which stood
+spread, as if for a meal, with stout ship's crockery and the
+remains of food--a pot of marmalade, dregs of coffee in the
+mugs, unrecognisable remains of foods, bread, some toast, and
+a tin of condensed milk.  The table-cloth, originally of a red
+colour, was stained a dark brown at the captain's end,
+apparently with coffee; at the other end, it had been folded
+back, and a pen and ink-pot stood on the bare table.  Stools
+were here and there about the table, irregularly placed, as
+though the meal had been finished and the men smoking and
+chatting; and one of the stools lay on the floor, broken.
+
+"See! they were writing up the log," said Nares, pointing to the
+ink-bottle.  "Caught napping, as usual.  I wonder if there ever
+was a captain yet, that lost a ship with his log-book up to date?
+He generally has about a month to fill up on a clean break, like
+Charles Dickens and his serial novels.--What a regular, lime-
+juicer spread!" he added contemptuously.  "Marmalade--and
+toast for the old man!  Nasty, slovenly pigs!"
+
+There was something in this criticism of the absent that jarred
+upon my feelings.  I had no love indeed for Captain Trent or
+any of his vanished gang; but the desertion and decay of this
+once habitable cabin struck me hard:  the death of man's
+handiwork is melancholy like the death of man himself; and I
+was impressed with an involuntary and irrational sense of
+tragedy in my surroundings.
+
+"This sickens me," I said.  "Let's go on deck and breathe."
+
+The captain nodded.  "It IS kind of lonely, isn't it?" he said.
+"But I can't go up till I get the code signals.  I want to run up
+'Got Left' or something, just to brighten up this island home. 
+Captain Trent hasn't been here yet, but he'll drop in before long;
+and it'll cheer him up to see a signal on the brig." 
+
+"Isn't there some official expression we could use?" I asked,
+vastly taken by the fancy.  "'Sold for the benefit of the
+underwriters:  for further particulars, apply to J. Pinkerton,
+Montana Block, S.F.'"
+
+"Well," returned Nares, "I won't say but what an old navy
+quartermaster might telegraph all that, if you gave him a day to
+do it in and a pound of tobacco for himself.  But it's above my
+register.  I must try something short and sweet:  KB, urgent
+signal, 'Heave all aback'; or LM, urgent, 'The berth you're now
+in is not safe'; or what do you say to PQH?--'Tell my owners
+the ship answers remarkably well.'"
+
+"It's premature," I replied; "but it seems calculated to give pain
+to Trent.  PQH for me."
+
+The flags were found in Trent's cabin, neatly stored behind a
+lettered grating; Nares chose what he required and (I following)
+returned on deck, where the sun had already dipped, and the
+dusk was coming.
+
+"Here! don't touch that, you fool!" shouted the captain to one of
+the hands, who was drinking from the scuttle but. "That water's
+rotten!"
+
+"Beg pardon, sir," replied the man.  "Tastes quite sweet."
+
+"Let me see," returned Nares, and he took the dipper and held it
+to his lips.  "Yes, it's all right," he said.  "Must have rotted and
+come sweet again.  Queer, isn't it, Mr. Dodd?  Though I've
+known the same on a Cape Horner."
+
+There was something in his intonation that made me look him
+in the face; he stood a little on tiptoe to look right and left about
+the ship, like a man filled with curiosity, and his whole
+expression and bearing testified to some suppressed
+excitement.
+
+"You don't believe what you're saying!" I broke out.
+
+"O, I don't know but what I do!" he replied, laying a hand upon
+me soothingly.  "The thing's very possible.  Only, I'm bothered
+about something else."
+
+And with that he called a hand, gave him the code flags, and
+stepped himself to the main signal halliards, which vibrated
+under the weight of the ensign overhead.  A minute later, the
+American colours, which we had brought in the boat, replaced
+the English red, and PQH was fluttering at the fore.
+
+"Now, then," said Nares, who had watched the breaking out of
+his signal with the old-maidish particularity of an American
+sailor, "out with those handspikes, and let's see what water
+there is in the lagoon."
+
+The bars were shoved home; the barbarous cacophony of the
+clanking pump rose in the waist; and streams of ill-smelling
+water gushed on deck and made valleys in the slab guano. 
+Nares leaned on the rail, watching the steady stream of bilge as
+though he found some interest in it.
+
+
+"What is it that bothers you?" I asked.
+
+"Well, I'll tell you one thing shortly," he replied.  "But here's
+another.  Do you see those boats there, one on the house and
+two on the beds?  Well, where is the boat Trent lowered when
+he lost the hands?"
+
+"Got it aboard again, I suppose," said I.
+
+"Well, if you'll tell me why!" returned the captain.
+
+"Then it must have been another," I suggested.
+
+"She might have carried another on the main hatch, I won't
+deny," admitted Nares; "but I can't see what she wanted with it,
+unless it was for the old man to go out and play the accordion
+in, on moonlight nights."
+
+"It can't much matter, anyway," I reflected.
+
+"O, I don't suppose it does," said he, glancing over his shoulder
+at the spouting of the scuppers.
+
+"And how long are we to keep up this racket?" I asked. "We're
+simply pumping up the lagoon.  Captain Trent himself said she
+had settled down and was full forward."
+
+"Did he?" said Nares, with a significant dryness.  And almost
+as he spoke the pumps sucked, and sucked again, and the men
+threw down their bars.  "There, what do you make of that?" he
+asked.  "Now, I'll tell, Mr. Dodd," he went on, lowering his
+voice, but not shifting from his easy attitude against the rail,
+"this ship is as sound as the Norah Creina.  I had a guess of it
+before we came aboard, and now I know."
+
+"It's not possible!" I cried.  "What do you make of Trent?"
+
+"I don't make anything of Trent; I don't know whether he's a
+liar or only an old wife; I simply tell you what's the fact," said
+Nares.  "And I'll tell you something more," he added: "I've
+taken the ground myself in deep-water vessels; I know what
+I'm saying; and I say that, when she first struck and before she
+bedded down, seven or eight hours' work would have got this
+hooker off, and there's no man that ever went two years to sea
+but must have known it."
+
+
+I could only utter an exclamation.
+
+Nares raised his finger warningly.  "Don't let THEM get hold of
+it," said he.  "Think what you like, but say nothing."
+
+I glanced round; the dusk was melting into early night; the
+twinkle of a lantern marked the schooner's position in the
+distance; and our men, free from further labour, stood grouped
+together in the waist, their faces illuminated by their glowing
+pipes.
+
+"Why didn't Trent get her off?" inquired the captain.  "Why did
+he want to buy her back in 'Frisco for these fabulous sums,
+when he might have sailed her into the bay himself?"
+
+"Perhaps he never knew her value until then," I suggested.
+
+"I wish we knew her value now," exclaimed Nares.  "However,
+I don't want to depress you; I'm sorry for you, Mr. Dodd; I
+know how bothering it must be to you; and the best I can say's
+this:  I haven't taken much time getting down, and now I'm
+here I mean to work this thing in proper style.  I just want to
+put your mind at rest:  you shall have no trouble with me."
+
+There was something trusty and friendly in his voice; and I
+found myself gripping hands with him, in that hard, short
+shake that means so much with English-speaking people.
+
+"We'll do, old fellow," said he.  "We've shaken down into pretty
+good friends, you and me; and you won't find me working the
+business any the less hard for that.  And now let's scoot for
+supper."
+
+After supper, with the idle curiosity of the seafarer, we pulled
+ashore in a fine moonlight, and landed on Middle Brook's
+Island.  A flat beach surrounded it upon all sides; and the midst
+was occupied by a thicket of bushes, the highest of them
+scarcely five feet high, in which the sea-fowl lived.  Through
+this we tried at first to strike; but it were easier to cross
+Trafalgar Square on a day of demonstration than to invade
+these haunts of sleeping sea-birds.  The nests sank, and the
+eggs burst under footing; wings beat in our faces, beaks
+menaced our eyes, our minds were confounded with the
+screeching, and the coil spread over the island and mounted
+high into the air.
+
+
+"I guess we'll saunter round the beach," said Nares, when we
+had made good our retreat.
+
+The hands were all busy after sea-birds' eggs, so there were
+none to follow us.  Our way lay on the crisp sand by the margin
+of the water:  on one side, the thicket from which we had been
+dislodged; on the other, the face of the lagoon, barred with a
+broad path of moonlight, and beyond that, the line, alternately
+dark and shining, alternately hove high and fallen prone, of the
+external breakers.  The beach was strewn with bits of wreck
+and drift:  some redwood and spruce logs, no less than two
+lower masts of junks, and the stern-post of a European ship; all
+of which we looked on with a shade of serious concern,
+speaking of the dangers of the sea and the hard case of
+castaways.  In this sober vein we made the greater part of the
+circuit of the island; had a near view of its neighbour from the
+southern end; walked the whole length of the westerly side in
+the shadow of the thicket; and came forth again into the
+moonlight at the opposite extremity. 
+
+On our right, at the distance of about half a mile, the schooner
+lay faintly heaving at her anchors.  About half a mile down the
+beach, at a spot still hidden from us by the thicket, an upboiling
+of the birds showed where the men were still (with sailor-like
+insatiability) collecting eggs.  And right before us, in a small
+indentation of the sand, we were aware of a boat lying high and
+dry, and right side up.
+
+Nares crouched back into the shadow of the bushes.
+
+"What the devil's this?" he whispered.
+
+"Trent," I suggested, with a beating heart.
+
+"We were damned fools to come ashore unarmed," said he. 
+"But I've got to know where I stand."  In the shadow, his face
+looked conspicuously white, and his voice betrayed a strong
+excitement.  He took his boat's whistle from his pocket.  "In
+case I might want to play a tune," said he, grimly, and thrusting
+it between his teeth, advanced into the moonlit open; which we
+crossed with rapid steps, looking guiltily about us as we went. 
+Not a leaf stirred; and the boat, when we came up to it, offered
+convincing proof of long desertion.  She was an eighteen-foot
+whaleboat of the ordinary type, equipped with oars and thole-
+pins.  Two or three quarter-casks lay on the bilge amidships,
+one of which must have been broached, and now stank
+horribly; and these, upon examination, proved to bear the same
+New Zealand brand as the beef on board the wreck.
+
+"Well, here's the boat," said I; "here's one of your difficulties
+cleared away."
+
+"H'm," said he.  There was a little water in the bilge, and here
+he stooped and tasted it.
+
+"Fresh," he said.  "Only rain-water."
+
+"You don't object to that?" I asked.
+
+"No," said he.
+
+"Well, then, what ails you?" I cried.
+
+"In plain United States, Mr. Dodd," he returned, "a whaleboat,
+five ash sweeps, and a barrel of stinking pork."
+
+"Or, in other words, the whole thing?" I commented.
+
+"Well, it's this way," he condescended to explain.  "I've no use
+for a fourth boat at all; but a boat of this model tops the
+business.  I don't say the type's not common in these waters; it's
+as common as dirt; the traders carry them for surf-boats.  But
+the Flying Scud? a deep-water tramp, who was lime-juicing
+around between big ports, Calcutta and Rangoon and 'Frisco
+and the Canton River?  No, I don't see it."
+
+We were leaning over the gunwale of the boat as we spoke. 
+The captain stood nearest the bow, and he was idly playing
+with the trailing painter, when a thought arrested him.  He
+hauled the line in hand over hand, and stared, and remained
+staring, at the end.
+
+"Anything wrong with it?" I asked.
+
+"Do you know, Mr. Dodd," said he, in a queer voice, "this
+painter's been cut?  A sailor always seizes a rope's end, but this
+is sliced short off with the cold steel.  This won't do at all for
+the men," he added.  "Just stand by till I fix it up more natural."
+
+"Any guess what it all means?" I asked.
+
+"Well, it means one thing," said he.  "It means Trent was a liar. 
+I guess the story of the Flying Scud was a sight more
+picturesque than he gave out."
+
+Half an hour later, the whaleboat was lying astern of the Norah
+Creina; and Nares and I sought our bunks, silent and half-
+bewildered by our late discoveries.
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XIV.
+
+ THE CABIN OF THE "FLYING SCUD."
+
+
+The sun of the morrow had not cleared the morning bank:  the
+lake of the lagoon, the islets, and the wall of breakers now
+beginning to subside, still lay clearly pictured in the flushed
+obscurity of early day, when we stepped again upon the deck of
+the Flying Scud: Nares, myself, the mate, two of the hands, and
+one dozen bright, virgin axes, in war against that massive
+structure.  I think we all drew pleasurable breath; so profound
+in man is the instinct of destruction, so engaging is the interest
+of the chase.  For we were now about to taste, in a supreme
+degree, the double joys of demolishing a toy and playing "Hide
+the handkerchief":  sports from which we had all perhaps
+desisted since the days of infancy.  And the toy we were to
+burst in pieces was a deep-sea ship; and the hidden good for
+which we were to hunt was a prodigious fortune.
+
+The decks were washed down, the main hatch removed, and a
+gun-tackle purchase rigged before the boat arrived with
+breakfast.  I had grown so suspicious of the wreck, that it was a
+positive relief to me to look down into the hold, and see it full,
+or nearly full, of undeniable rice packed in the Chinese fashion
+in boluses of matting.  Breakfast over, Johnson and the hands
+turned to upon the cargo; while Nares and I, having smashed
+open the skylight and rigged up a windsail on deck, began the
+work of rummaging the cabins.
+
+I must not be expected to describe our first day's work, or (for
+that matter) any of the rest, in order and detail as it occurred. 
+Such particularity might have been possible for several officers
+and a draft of men from a ship of war, accompanied by an
+experienced secretary with a knowledge of shorthand.  For two
+plain human beings, unaccustomed to the use of the broad-axe
+and consumed with an impatient greed of the result, the whole
+business melts, in the retrospect, into a nightmare of exertion,
+heat, hurry, and bewilderment; sweat pouring from the face like
+rain, the scurry of rats, the choking exhalations of the bilge, and
+the throbs and splinterings of the toiling axes.  I shall content
+myself with giving the cream of our discoveries in a logical
+rather than a temporal order; though the two indeed practically
+coincided, and we had finished our exploration of the cabin,
+before we could be certain of the nature of the cargo.
+
+Nares and I began operations by tossing up pell-mell through
+the companion, and piling in a squalid heap about the wheel,
+all clothes, personal effects, the crockery, the carpet, stale
+victuals, tins of meat, and in a word, all movables from the
+main cabin.  Thence, we transferred our attention to the
+captain's quarters on the starboard side.  Using the blankets for
+a basket, we sent up the books, instruments, and clothes to
+swell our growing midden on the deck; and then Nares, going
+on hands and knees, began to forage underneath the bed.  Box
+after box of Manilla cigars rewarded his search.  I took
+occasion to smash some of these boxes open, and even to
+guillotine the bundles of cigars; but quite in vain--no secret
+cache of opium encouraged me to continue.
+
+"I guess I've got hold of the dicky now!" exclaimed Nares, and
+turning round from my perquisitions, I found he had drawn
+forth a heavy iron box, secured to the bulkhead by chain and
+padlock.  On this he was now gazing, not with the triumph that
+instantly inflamed my own bosom, but with a somewhat foolish
+appearance of surprise.
+
+"By George, we have it now!" I cried, and would have shaken
+hands with my companion; but he did not see, or would not
+accept, the salutation.
+
+"Let's see what's in it first," he remarked dryly.  And he
+adjusted the box upon its side, and with some blows of an axe
+burst the lock open.  I threw myself beside him, as he replaced
+the box on its bottom and removed the lid.  I cannot tell what I
+expected; a million's worth of diamonds might perhaps have
+pleased me; my cheeks burned, my heart throbbed to bursting;
+and lo! there was disclosed but a trayful of papers, neatly taped,
+and a cheque-book of the customary pattern.  I made a snatch at
+the tray to see what was beneath; but the captain's hand fell on
+mine, heavy and hard.
+
+"Now, boss!" he cried, not unkindly, "is this to be run
+shipshape? or is it a Dutch grab-racket?"
+
+And he proceeded to untie and run over the contents of the
+papers, with a serious face and what seemed an ostentation of
+delay.  Me and my impatience it would appear he had
+forgotten; for when he was quite done, he sat a while thinking,
+whistled a bar or two, refolded the papers, tied them up again;
+and then, and not before, deliberately raised the tray.
+
+I saw a cigar-box, tied with a piece of fishing-line, and four fat
+canvas-bags.  Nares whipped out his knife, cut the line, and
+opened the box.  It was about half full of sovereigns.
+
+"And the bags?" I whispered.
+
+The captain ripped them open one by one, and a flood of mixed
+silver coin burst forth and rattled in the rusty bottom of the box. 
+Without a word, he set to work to count the gold.
+
+"What is this?" I asked.
+
+"It's the ship's money," he returned, doggedly continuing his
+work.
+
+"The ship's money?" I repeated.  "That's the money Trent
+tramped and traded with?   And there's his cheque-book to
+draw upon his owners?  And he has left it?"
+
+"I guess he has," said Nares, austerely, jotting down a note of
+the gold; and I was abashed into silence till his task should be
+completed.
+
+It came, I think, to three hundred and seventy-eight pounds
+sterling; some nineteen pounds of it in silver: all of which we
+turned again into the chest.
+
+"And what do you think of that?" I asked.
+
+"Mr. Dodd," he replied, "you see something of the rumness of
+this job, but not the whole.  The specie bothers you, but what
+gets me is the papers.  Are you aware that the master of a ship
+has charge of all the cash in hand, pays the men advances,
+receives freight and passage money, and runs up bills in every
+port?  All this he does as the owner's confidential agent, and
+his integrity is proved by his receipted bills.  I tell you, the
+captain of a ship is more likely to forget his pants than these
+bills which guarantee his character.  I've known men drown to
+save them:  bad men, too; but this is the shipmaster's honour. 
+And here this Captain Trent--not hurried, not threatened with
+anything but a free passage in a British man-of-war--has left
+them all behind!  I don't want to express myself too strongly,
+because the facts appear against me, but the thing is
+impossible."
+
+Dinner came to us not long after, and we ate it on deck, in a
+grim silence, each privately racking his brain for some solution
+of the mysteries.  I was indeed so swallowed up in these
+considerations, that the wreck, the lagoon, the islets, and the
+strident sea-fowl, the strong sun then beating on my head, and
+even the gloomy countenance of the captain at my elbow, all
+vanished from the field of consciousness.  My mind was a
+blackboard, on which I scrawled and blotted out hypotheses;
+comparing each with the pictorial records in my memory:
+cyphering with pictures.  In the course of this tense mental
+exercise I recalled and studied the faces of one memorial
+masterpiece, the scene of the saloon; and here I found myself,
+on a sudden, looking in the eyes of the Kanaka.
+
+"There's one thing I can put beyond doubt, at all events," I
+cried, relinquishing my dinner and getting briskly afoot. 
+"There was that Kanaka I saw in the bar with Captain Trent,
+the fellow the newspapers and ship's articles made out to be a
+Chinaman.  I mean to rout his quarters out and settle that."
+
+"All right," said Nares.  "I'll lazy off a bit longer, Mr. Dodd; I
+feel pretty rocky and mean."
+
+We had thoroughly cleared out the three after-compartments of
+the ship:  all the stuff from the main cabin and the mate's and
+captain's quarters lay piled about the wheel; but in the forward
+stateroom with the two bunks, where Nares had said the mate
+and cook most likely berthed, we had as yet done nothing. 
+Thither I went.  It was very bare; a few photographs were
+tacked on the bulkhead, one of them indecent; a single chest
+stood open, and, like all we had yet found, it had been partly
+rifled.  An armful of two-shilling novels proved to me beyond a
+doubt it was a European's; no Chinaman would have possessed
+any, and the most literate Kanaka conceivable in a ship's galley
+was not likely to have gone beyond one.  It was plain, then, that
+the cook had not berthed aft, and I must look elsewhere.
+
+The men had stamped down the nests and driven the birds from
+the galley, so that I could now enter without contest.  One door
+had been already blocked with rice; the place was in part
+darkness, full of a foul stale smell, and a cloud of nasty flies; it
+had been left, besides, in some disorder, or else the birds,
+during their time of tenancy, had knocked the things about; and
+the floor, like the deck before we washed it, was spread with
+pasty filth.  Against the wall, in the far corner, I found a
+handsome chest of camphor-wood bound with brass, such as
+Chinamen and sailors love, and indeed all of mankind that
+plies in the Pacific.  From its outside view I could thus make no
+deduction; and, strange to say, the interior was concealed.  All
+the other chests, as I have said already, we had found gaping
+open, and their contents scattered abroad; the same remark we
+found to apply afterwards in the quarters of the seamen; only
+this camphor-wood chest, a singular exception, was both closed
+and locked.
+
+I took an axe to it, readily forced the paltry Chinese fastening,
+and, like a Custom-House officer, plunged my hands among
+the contents.  For some while I groped among linen and cotton. 
+Then my teeth were set on edge with silk, of which I drew forth
+several strips covered with mysterious characters.  And these
+settled the business, for I recognised them as a kind of bed-
+hanging popular with the commoner class of the Chinese.  Nor
+were further evidences wanting, such as night-clothes of an
+extraordinary design, a three-stringed Chinese fiddle, a silk
+handkerchief full of roots and herbs, and a neat apparatus for
+smoking opium, with a liberal provision of the drug.  Plainly,
+then, the cook had been a Chinaman; and, if so, who was Jos.
+Amalu? Or had Jos. stolen the chest before he proceeded to
+ship under a false name and domicile? It was possible, as
+anything was possible in such a welter; but, regarded as a
+solution, it only led and left me deeper in the bog.  For why
+should this chest have been deserted and neglected, when the
+others were rummaged or removed? and where had Jos. come
+by that second chest, with which (according to the clerk at the
+What Cheer) he had started for Honolulu?
+
+
+"And how have YOU fared?" inquired the captain, whom I
+found luxuriously reclining in our mound of litter.  And the
+accent on the pronoun, the heightened colour of the speaker's
+face, and the contained excitement in his tones, advertised me 
+at once that I had not been alone to make discoveries.
+
+"I have found a Chinaman's chest in the galley," said I, "and
+John (if there was any John) was not so much as at the pains to
+take his opium."
+
+Nares seemed to take it mighty quietly.  "That so?" said he. 
+"Now, cast your eyes on that and own you're beaten!" And with
+a formidable clap of his open hand he flattened out before me,
+on the deck, a pair of newspapers.
+
+I gazed upon them dully, being in no mood for fresh
+discoveries.
+
+"Look at them, Mr. Dodd," cried the captain sharply.  "Can't
+you look at them?" And he ran a dirty thumb along the title. 
+"'_Sydney Morning Herald, November 26th,' can't you make
+that out?" he cried, with rising energy.  "And don't you know,
+sir, that not thirteen days after this paper appeared in New
+South Pole, this ship we're standing in heaved her blessed
+anchors out of China? How did the _Sydney Morning Herald_
+get to Hong Kong in thirteen days?  Trent made no land, he
+spoke no ship, till he got here.  Then he either got it here or in
+Hong Kong.  I give you your choice, my son!" he cried, and fell
+back among the clothes like a man weary of life.
+
+"Where did you find them?" I asked.  "In that black bag?"
+
+"Guess so," he said.  "You needn't fool with it.  There's nothing
+else but a lead-pencil and a kind of worked-out knife."
+
+I looked in the bag, however, and was well rewarded.
+
+"Every man to his trade, captain," said I.  "You're a sailor, and
+you've given me plenty of points; but I am an artist, and allow
+me to inform you this is quite as strange as all the rest.  The
+knife is a palette-knife; the pencil a Winsor and Newton, and a
+B B B at that.  A palette-knife and a B B B on a tramp brig! It's
+against the laws of nature."
+
+"It would sicken a dog, wouldn't it?" said Nares.
+
+"Yes," I continued, "it's been used by an artist, too:  see how it's
+sharpened--not for writing--no man could write with that.  An
+artist, and straight from Sydney?  How can he come in?"
+
+"O, that's natural enough," sneered Nares.  "They cabled him to
+come up and illustrate this dime novel."
+
+We fell a while silent.
+
+"Captain," I said at last, "there is something deuced underhand
+about this brig.  You tell me you've been to sea a good part of
+your life.  You must have seen shady things done on ships, and
+heard of more.  Well, what is this? is it insurance? is it piracy?
+what is it ABOUT? what can it be for?"
+
+"Mr. Dodd," returned Nares, "you're right about me having
+been to sea the bigger part of my life.  And you're right again
+when you think I know a good many ways in which a dishonest
+captain mayn't be on the square, nor do exactly the right thing
+by his owners, and altogether be just a little too smart by
+ninety-nine and three-quarters.  There's a good many ways, but
+not so many as you'd think; and not one that has any mortal
+thing to do with Trent.  Trent and his whole racket has got to
+do with nothing--that's the bed-rock fact; there's no sense to it,
+and no use in it, and no story to it:  it's a beastly dream.  And
+don't you run away with that notion that landsmen take about
+ships.  A society actress don't go around more publicly than
+what a ship does, nor is more interviewed, nor more
+humbugged, nor more run after by all sorts of little fussinesses
+in brass buttons.  And more than an actress, a ship has a deal to
+lose; she's capital, and the actress only character--if she's that. 
+The ports of the world are thick with people ready to kick a
+captain into the penitentiary if he's not as bright as a dollar and
+as honest as the morning star; and what with Lloyd keeping
+watch and watch in every corner of the three oceans, and the
+insurance leeches, and the consuls, and the customs bugs, and
+the medicos, you can only get the idea by thinking of a
+landsman watched by a hundred and fifty detectives, or a
+stranger in a village Down East."
+
+"Well, but at sea?" I said.
+
+"You make me tired," retorted the captain.  "What's the use--at
+sea?  Everything's got to come to bearings at some port, hasn't
+it?  You can't stop at sea for ever, can you?--No; the Flying
+Scud is rubbish; if it meant anything, it would have to mean
+something so almighty intricate that James G. Blaine hasn't got
+the brains to engineer it; and I vote for more axeing, pioneering,
+and opening up the resources of this phenomenal brig, and less
+general fuss," he added, arising.  "The dime-museum
+symptoms will drop in of themselves, I guess, to keep us
+cheery."
+
+But it appeared we were at the end of discoveries for the day;
+and we left the brig about sundown, without being further
+puzzled or further enlightened.  The best of the cabin spoils--
+books, instruments, papers, silks, and curiosities--we carried
+along with us in a blanket, however, to divert the evening
+hours; and when supper was over, and the table cleared, and
+Johnson set down to a dreary game of cribbage between his
+right hand and his left, the captain and I turned out our blanket
+on the floor, and sat side by side to examine and appraise the
+spoils.
+
+The books were the first to engage our notice.  These were
+rather numerous (as Nares contemptuously put it) "for a lime-
+juicer."  Scorn of the British mercantile marine glows in the
+breast of every Yankee merchant captain; as the scorn is not
+reciprocated, I can only suppose it justified in fact; and
+certainly the old country mariner appears of a less studious
+disposition.  The more credit to the officers of the Flying Scud,
+who had quite a library, both literary and professional.  There
+were Findlay's five directories of the world--all broken-backed,
+as is usual with Findlay, and all marked and scribbled over
+with corrections and additions--several books of navigation, a
+signal code, and an Admiralty book of a sort of orange hue,
+called _Islands of the Eastern Pacific Ocean, Vol. III._, which
+appeared from its imprint to be the latest authority, and showed
+marks of frequent consultation in the passages about the French
+Frigate Shoals, the Harman, Cure, Pearl, and Hermes reefs,
+Lisiansky Island, Ocean Island, and the place where we then
+lay--Brooks or Midway.  A volume of Macaulay's _Essays_
+and a shilling Shakespeare led the van of the belles lettres; the
+rest were novels:  several Miss Braddons--of course, _Aurora
+Floyd_, which has penetrated to every isle of the Pacific, a good
+many cheap detective books, _Rob Roy_, Auerbach's _Auf der
+Hohe_ in the German, and a prize temperance story, pillaged
+(to judge by the stamp) from an Anglo-Indian circulating
+library.
+
+"The Admiralty man gives a fine picture of our island,"
+remarked Nares, who had turned up Midway Island.  "He
+draws the dreariness rather mild, but you can make out he
+knows the place."
+
+"Captain," I cried, "you've struck another point in this mad
+business.  See here," I went on eagerly, drawing from my
+pocket a crumpled fragment of the _Daily Occidental_ which I
+had inherited from Jim:  "'misled by Hoyt's Pacific Directory'?
+Where's Hoyt?"
+
+"Let's look into that," said Nares.  "I got that book on purpose
+for this cruise." Therewith he fetched it from the shelf in his
+berth, turned to Midway Island, and read the account aloud.  It
+stated with precision that the Pacific Mail Company were about
+to form a depot there, in preference to Honolulu, and that they
+had already a station on the island.
+
+"I wonder who gives these Directory men their information,"
+Nares reflected.  "Nobody can blame Trent after that.  I never
+got in company with squarer lying; it reminds a man of a
+presidential campaign."
+
+"All very well," said I.  "That's your Hoyt, and a fine, tall copy. 
+But what I want to know is, where is Trent's Hoyt?"
+
+"Took it with him," chuckled Nares.  "He had left everything
+else, bills and money and all the rest; he was bound to take
+something, or it would have aroused attention on the Tempest: 
+'Happy thought,' says he, 'let's take Hoyt.'"
+
+"And has it not occurred to you," I went on, "that all the Hoyts
+in creation couldn't have misled Trent, since he had in his hand
+that red admiralty book, an official publication, later in date,
+and particularly full on Midway Island?"
+
+"That's a fact!" cried Nares; "and I bet the first Hoyt he ever
+saw was out of the mercantile library of San Francisco.  Looks
+as if he had brought her here on purpose, don't it?  But then
+that's inconsistent with the steam-crusher of the sale.  That's the
+trouble with this brig racket; any one can make half a dozen
+theories for sixty or seventy per cent of it; but when they're
+made, there's always a fathom or two of slack hanging out of
+the other end."
+
+I believe our attention fell next on the papers, of which we had
+altogether a considerable bulk.  I had hoped to find among
+these matter for a full-length character of Captain Trent; but
+here I was doomed, on the whole, to disappointment.  We
+could make out he was an orderly man, for all his bills were
+docketed and preserved.  That he was convivial, and inclined to
+be frugal even in conviviality, several documents proclaimed. 
+Such letters as we found were, with one exception, arid notes
+from tradesmen.  The exception, signed Hannah Trent, was a
+somewhat fervid appeal for a loan.  "You know what
+misfortunes I have had to bear," wrote Hannah, "and how much
+I am disappointed in George.  The landlady appeared a true
+friend when I first came here, and I thought her a perfect lady. 
+But she has come out since then in her true colours; and if you
+will not be softened by this last appeal, I can't think what is to
+become of your affectionate----" and then the signature.  This
+document was without place or date, and a voice told me that it
+had gone likewise without answer.  On the whole, there were
+few letters anywhere in the ship; but we found one before we
+were finished, in a seaman's chest, of which I must transcribe
+some sentences.  It was dated from some place on the Clyde. 
+"My dearist son," it ran, "this is to tell you your dearist father
+passed away, Jan twelft, in the peace of the Lord.  He had your
+photo and dear David's lade upon his bed, made me sit by him. 
+Let's be a' thegither, he said, and gave you all his blessing.  O
+my dear laddie, why were nae you and Davie here?  He would
+have had a happier passage.  He spok of both of ye all night
+most beautiful, and how ye used to stravaig on the Saturday
+afternoons, and of auld Kelvinside.  Sooth the tune to me, he
+said, though it was the Sabbath, and I had to sooth him Kelvin
+Grove, and he looked at his fiddle, the dear man.  I cannae bear
+the sight of it, he'll never play it mair.  O my lamb, come home
+to me, I'm all by my lane now."  The rest was in a religious
+vein and quite conventional.  I have never seen any one more
+put out than Nares, when I handed him this letter; he had read
+but a few words, before he cast it down; it was perhaps a
+minute ere he picked it up again, and the performance was
+repeated the third time before he reached the end.
+
+"It's touching, isn't it?" said I.
+
+For all answer, Nares exploded in a brutal oath; and it was
+some half an hour later that he vouchsafed an explanation.  "I'll
+tell you what broke me up about that letter," said he.  "My old
+man played the fiddle, played it all out of tune:  one of the
+things he played was _Martyrdom,_ I remember--it was all
+martyrdom to me.  He was a pig of a father, and I was a pig of
+a son; but it sort of came over me I would like to hear that
+fiddle squeak again.  Natural," he added; "I guess we're all
+beasts."
+
+"All sons are, I guess," said I.  "I have the same trouble on my
+conscience:  we can shake hands on that."  Which (oddly
+enough, perhaps) we did.
+
+Amongst the papers we found a considerable sprinkling of
+photographs; for the most part either of very debonair-looking
+young ladies or old women of the lodging-house persuasion. 
+But one among them was the means of our crowning discovery.
+
+"They're not pretty, are they, Mr. Dodd?" said Nares, as he
+passed it over.
+
+"Who?" I asked, mechanically taking the card (it was a quarter-
+plate) in hand, and smothering a yawn; for the hour was late,
+the day had been laborious, and I was wearying for bed.
+
+"Trent and Company," said he.  "That's a historic picture of the
+gang."
+
+I held it to the light, my curiosity at a low ebb: I had seen
+Captain Trent once, and had no delight in viewing him again. 
+It was a photograph of the deck of the brig, taken from forward:
+all in apple-pie order; the hands gathered in the waist, the
+officers on the poop.  At the foot of the card was written "Brig
+Flying Scud, Rangoon," and a date; and above or below each
+individual figure the name had been carefully noted.
+
+As I continued to gaze, a shock went through me; the dimness
+of sleep and fatigue lifted from my eyes, as fog lifts in the
+channel; and I beheld with startled clearness the photographic
+presentment of a crowd of strangers.  "J. Trent, Master" at the
+top of the card directed me to a smallish, weazened man, with
+bushy eyebrows and full white beard, dressed in a frock coat
+and white trousers; a flower stuck in his button-hole, his
+bearded chin set forward, his mouth clenched with habitual
+determination.  There was not much of the sailor in his looks,
+but plenty of the martinet:  a dry, precise man, who might pass
+for a preacher in some rigid sect; and whatever he was, not the
+Captain Trent of San Francisco.  The men, too, were all new to
+me:  the cook, an unmistakable Chinaman, in his characteristic
+dress, standing apart on the poop steps.  But perhaps I turned
+on the whole with the greatest curiosity to the figure labelled
+"E. Goddedaal, 1st off."  He whom I had never seen, he might
+be the identical; he might be the clue and spring of all this
+mystery; and I scanned his features with the eye of a detective. 
+He was of great stature, seemingly blonde as a viking, his hair
+clustering round his head in frowsy curls, and two enormous
+whiskers, like the tusks of some strange animal, jutting from
+his cheeks.  With these virile appendages and the defiant
+attitude in which he stood, the expression of his face only
+imperfectly harmonised.  It was wild, heroic, and womanish
+looking; and I felt I was prepared to hear he was a
+sentimentalist, and to see him weep. 
+
+For some while I digested my discovery in private, reflecting
+how best, and how with most of drama, I might share it with
+the captain.  Then my sketch-book came in my head; and I
+fished it out from where it lay, with other miscellaneous
+possessions, at the foot of my bunk and turned to my sketch of
+Captain Trent and the survivors of the British brig Flying Scud
+in the San Francisco bar-room.
+
+"Nares," said I, "I've told you how I first saw Captain Trent in
+that saloon in 'Frisco? how he came with his men, one of them
+a Kanaka with a canary-bird in a cage? and how I saw him
+afterwards at the auction, frightened to death, and as much
+surprised at how the figures skipped up as anybody there? 
+Well," said I, "there's the man I saw"--and I laid the sketch
+before him--"there's Trent of 'Frisco and there are his three
+hands.  Find one of them in the photograph, and I'll be
+obliged."
+
+Nares compared the two in silence.  "Well," he said at last, "I
+call this rather a relief:  seems to clear the horizon.  We might
+have guessed at something of the kind from the double ration of
+chests that figured."
+
+"Does it explain anything?" I asked.
+
+"It would explain everything," Nares replied, "but for the
+steam-crusher.  It'll all tally as neat as a patent puzzle, if you
+leave out the way these people bid the wreck up.  And there we
+come to a stone wall.  But whatever it is, Mr. Dodd, it's on the
+crook."
+
+"And looks like piracy," I added.
+
+"Looks like blind hookey!" cried the captain.  "No, don't you
+deceive yourself; neither your head nor mine is big enough to
+put a name on this business."
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XV.
+
+ THE CARGO OF THE "FLYING SCUD."
+
+
+In my early days I was a man, the most wedded to his idols of
+my generation.  I was a dweller under roofs:  the gull of that
+which we call civilisation; a superstitious votary of the plastic
+arts; a cit; and a prop of restaurants.  I had a comrade in those
+days, somewhat of an outsider, though he moved in the
+company of artists, and a man famous in our small world for
+gallantry, knee breeches, and dry and pregnant sayings.  He,
+looking on the long meals and waxing bellies of the French,
+whom I confess I somewhat imitated, branded me as "a
+cultivator of restaurant fat."  And I believe he had his finger on
+the dangerous spot; I believe, if things had gone smooth with
+me, I should be now swollen like a prize-ox in body, and fallen
+in mind to a thing perhaps as low as many types of bourgeois
+--the implicit or exclusive artist.  That was a home word of
+Pinkerton's, deserving to be writ in letters of gold on the portico
+of every school of art:  "What I can't see is why you should
+want to do nothing else."  The dull man is made, not by the
+nature, but by the degree of his immersion in a single business. 
+And all the more if that be sedentary, uneventful, and
+ingloriously safe.  More than one half of him will then remain
+unexercised and undeveloped; the rest will be distended and
+deformed by over-nutrition, over-cerebration, and the heat of
+rooms.  And I have often marvelled at the impudence of
+gentlemen, who describe and pass judgment on the life of man,
+in almost perfect ignorance of all its necessary elements and
+natural careers.  Those who dwell in clubs and studios may
+paint excellent pictures or write enchanting novels.  There is
+one thing that they should not do:  they should pass no
+judgment on man's destiny, for it is a thing with which they are
+unacquainted.  Their own life is an excrescence of the moment,
+doomed, in the vicissitude of history, to pass and disappear: 
+the eternal life of man, spent under sun and rain and in rude
+physical effort, lies upon one side, scarce changed since the
+beginning.
+
+I would I could have carried along with me to Midway Island
+all the writers and the prating artists of my time.  Day after day
+of hope deferred, of heat, of unremitting toil; night after night of
+aching limbs, bruised hands, and a mind obscured with the
+grateful vacancy of physical fatigue:  the scene, the nature of 
+my employment; the rugged speech and faces of my fellow-
+toilers, the glare of the day on deck, the stinking twilight in the
+bilge, the shrill myriads of the ocean-fowl:  above all, the sense
+of our immitigable isolation from the world and from the
+current epoch;--keeping another time, some eras old; the new
+day heralded by no daily paper, only by the rising sun; and the
+State, the churches, the peopled empires, war, and the rumours
+of war, and the voices of the arts, all gone silent as in the days
+ere they were yet invented.  Such were the conditions of my
+new experience in life, of which (if I had been able) I would
+have had all my confreres and contemporaries to partake:
+forgetting, for that while, the orthodoxies of the moment, and
+devoted to a single and material purpose under the eye of
+heaven.
+
+Of the nature of our task, I must continue to give some
+summary idea.  The forecastle was lumbered with ship's
+chandlery, the hold nigh full of rice, the lazarette crowded with
+the teas and silks.  These must all be dug out; and that made
+but a fraction of our task.  The hold was ceiled throughout; a
+part, where perhaps some delicate cargo was once stored, had
+been lined, in addition, with inch boards; and between every
+beam there was a movable panel into the bilge.  Any of these,
+the bulkheads of the cabins, the very timbers of the hull itself,
+might be the place of hiding.  It was therefore necessary to
+demolish, as we proceeded, a great part of the ship's inner skin
+and fittings, and to auscultate what remained, like a doctor
+sounding for a lung disease.  Upon the return, from any beam
+or bulkhead, of a flat or doubtful sound, we must up axe and
+hew into the timber:  a violent and--from the amount of dry rot
+in the wreck--a mortifying exercise.  Every night saw a deeper
+inroad into the bones of the Flying Scud--more beams tapped
+and hewn in splinters, more planking peeled away and tossed
+aside --and every night saw us as far as ever from the end and
+object of our arduous devastation.  In this perpetual
+disappointment, my courage did not fail me, but my spirits
+dwindled; and Nares himself grew silent and morose.  At night,
+when supper was done, we passed an hour in the cabin, mostly
+without speech:  I, sometimes dozing over a book; Nares,
+sullenly but busily drilling sea-shells with the instrument called
+a Yankee Fiddle.  A stranger might have supposed we were
+estranged; as a matter of fact, in this silent comradeship of
+labour, our intimacy grew.
+
+I had been struck, at the first beginning of our enterprise upon
+the wreck, to find the men so ready at the captain's lightest
+word.  I dare not say they liked, but I can never deny that they
+admired him thoroughly.  A mild word from his mouth was
+more valued than flattery and half a dollar from myself; if he
+relaxed at all from his habitual attitude of censure, smiling
+alacrity surrounded him; and I was led to think his theory of
+captainship, even if pushed to excess, reposed upon some
+ground of reason.  But even terror and admiration of the captain
+failed us before the end.  The men wearied of the hopeless,
+unremunerative quest and the long strain of labour.  They
+began to shirk and grumble.  Retribution fell on them at once,
+and retribution multiplied the grumblings.  With every day it
+took harder driving to keep them to the daily drudge; and we,
+in our narrow boundaries, were kept conscious every moment
+of the ill-will of our assistants.
+
+In spite of the best care, the object of our search was perfectly
+well known to all on board; and there had leaked out besides
+some knowledge of those inconsistencies that had so greatly
+amazed the captain and myself.  I could overhear the men
+debate the character of Captain Trent, and set forth competing 
+theories of where the opium was stowed; and as they seemed to
+have been eavesdropping on ourselves, I thought little shame to
+prick up my ears when I had the return chance of spying upon
+them, in this way.  I could diagnose their temper and judge
+how far they were informed upon the mystery of the Flying
+Scud.  It was after having thus overheard some almost
+mutinous speeches that a fortunate idea crossed my mind.  At
+night, I matured it in my bed, and the first thing the next
+morning, broached it to the captain.
+
+"Suppose I spirit up the hands a bit," I asked, "by the offer of a
+reward?"
+
+"If you think you're getting your month's wages out of them the
+way it is, I don't," was his reply.  "However, they are all the
+men you've got, and you're the supercargo."
+
+This, from a person of the captain's character, might be
+regarded as complete adhesion; and the crew were accordingly
+called aft.  Never had the captain worn a front more menacing. 
+It was supposed by all that some misdeed had been discovered,
+and some surprising punishment was to be announced.
+
+"See here, you!" he threw at them over his shoulder as he
+walked the deck, "Mr. Dodd here is going to offer a reward to
+the first man who strikes the opium in that wreck.  There's two
+ways of making a donkey go; both good, I guess:  the one's
+kicks and the other's carrots.  Mr. Dodd's going to try the
+carrots.  Well, my sons,"--and here he faced the men for the
+first time with his hands behind him--"if that opium's not found
+in five days, you can come to me for the kicks."
+
+He nodded to the present narrator, who took up the tale.  "Here
+is what I propose, men," said I:  "I put up one hundred and fifty
+dollars.  If any man can lay hands on the stuff right away, and
+off his own club, he shall have the hundred and fifty down.  If
+any one can put us on the scent of where to look, he shall have
+a hundred and twenty-five, and the balance shall be for the
+lucky one who actually picks it up.  We'll call it the Pinkerton
+Stakes, captain," I added, with a smile.
+
+"Call it the Grand Combination Sweep, then," cries he. "For I
+go you better.--Look here, men, I make up this jack-pot to two
+hundred and fifty dollars, American gold coin."
+
+"Thank you, Captain Nares," said I; "that was handsomely
+done."
+
+"It was kindly meant," he returned.
+
+The offer was not made in vain; the hands had scarce yet
+realised the magnitude of the reward, they had scarce begun to
+buzz aloud in the extremity of hope and wonder, ere the
+Chinese cook stepped forward with gracious gestures and
+explanatory smiles.
+
+"Captain," he began, "I serv-um two year Melican navy;
+serv-um six year mail-boat steward.  Savvy plenty."
+
+"Oho!" cried Nares, "you savvy plenty, do you? (Beggar's seen
+this trick in the mail-boats, I guess.) Well, why you no savvy a
+little sooner, sonny?"
+
+"I think bimeby make-um reward," replied the cook, with
+smiling dignity.
+
+"Well, you can't say fairer than that," the captain admitted, "and
+now the reward's offered, you'll talk?  Speak up, then.  Suppose
+you speak true, you get reward.  See?"
+
+"I think long time," replied the Chinaman.  "See plenty litty mat
+lice; too-muchy plenty litty mat lice; sixty ton, litty mat lice.  I
+think all-e-time:  perhaps plenty opium plenty litty mat lice."
+
+"Well, Mr. Dodd, how does that strike you?" asked the captain. 
+"He may be right, he may be wrong.  He's likely to be right:  for
+if he isn't, where can the stuff be?  On the other hand, if he's
+wrong, we destroy a hundred and fifty tons of good rice for
+nothing.  It's a point to be considered." 
+
+"I don't hesitate," said I.  "Let's get to the bottom of the thing. 
+The rice is nothing; the rice will neither make nor break us."
+
+"That's how I expected you to see it," returned Nares.
+
+And we called the boat away and set forth on our new quest.
+
+The hold was now almost entirely emptied; the mats (of which
+there went forty to the short ton) had been stacked on deck, and
+now crowded the ship's waist and forecastle.  It was our task to
+disembowel and explore six thousand individual mats, and
+incidentally to destroy a hundred and fifty tons of valuable
+food.  Nor were the circumstances of the day's business less
+strange than its essential nature.  Each man of us, armed with a
+great knife, attacked the pile from his own quarter, slashed into
+the nearest mat, burrowed in it with his hands, and shed forth
+the rice upon the deck, where it heaped up, overflowed, and
+was trodden down, poured at last into the scuppers, and
+occasionally spouted from the vents.  About the wreck, thus
+transformed into an overflowing granary, the sea-fowl swarmed
+in myriads and with surprising insolence.  The sight of so much
+food confounded them; they deafened us with their shrill
+tongues, swooped in our midst, dashed in our faces, and
+snatched the grain from between our fingers.  The men--their
+hands bleeding from these assaults--turned savagely on the
+offensive, drove their knives into the birds, drew them out
+crimsoned, and turned again to dig among the rice, unmindful
+of the gawking creatures that struggled and died among their
+feet.  We made a singular picture:  the hovering and diving
+birds; the bodies of the dead discolouring the rice with blood;
+the scuppers vomiting breadstuff; the men, frenzied by the gold
+hunt, toiling, slaying, and shouting aloud:  over all, the lofty
+intricacy of rigging and the radiant heaven of the Pacific.  Every
+man there toiled in the immediate hope of fifty dollars; and I, of
+fifty thousand.  Small wonder if we waded callously in blood
+and food.
+
+It was perhaps about ten in the forenoon when the scene was
+interrupted.  Nares, who had just ripped open a fresh mat, drew
+forth, and slung at his feet, among the rice, a papered tin box.
+
+"How's that?" he shouted.
+
+A cry broke from all hands:  the next moment, forgetting their
+own disappointment, in that contagious sentiment of success,
+they gave three cheers that scared the sea-birds; and the next,
+they had crowded round the captain, and were jostling together
+and groping with emulous hands in the new-opened mat.  Box
+after box rewarded them, six in all; wrapped, as I have said, in
+a paper envelope, and the paper printed on, in Chinese
+characters.
+
+Nares turned to me and shook my hand.  "I began to think we
+should never see this day," said he.  "I congratulate you, Mr.
+Dodd, on having pulled it through."
+
+The captain's tones affected me profoundly; and when Johnson
+and the men pressed round me in turn with congratulations, the
+tears came in my eyes.
+
+"These are five-tael boxes, more than two pounds," said Nares,
+weighing one in his hand.  "Say two hundred and fifty dollars
+to the mat.  Lay into it, boys! We'll make Mr. Dodd a
+millionnaire before dark."
+
+It was strange to see with what a fury we fell to.  The men had
+now nothing to expect; the mere idea of great sums inspired
+them with disinterested ardour.  Mats were slashed and
+disembowelled, the rice flowed to our knees in the ship's waist,
+the sweat ran in our eyes and blinded us, our arms ached to
+agony; and yet our fire abated not.  Dinner came; we were too
+weary to eat, too hoarse for conversation; and yet dinner was
+scarce done, before we were afoot again and delving in the rice. 
+Before nightfall not a mat was unexplored, and we were face to
+face with the astonishing result.
+
+For of all the inexplicable things in the story of the Flying
+Scud, here was the most inexplicable.  Out of the six thousand
+mats, only twenty were found to have been sugared; in each we
+found the same amount, about twelve pounds of drug; making
+a grand total of two hundred and forty pounds.  By the last San
+Francisco quotation, opium was selling for a fraction over
+twenty dollars a pound; but it had been known not long before
+to bring as much as forty in Honolulu, where it was
+contraband.
+
+Taking, then, this high Honolulu figure, the value of the opium
+on board the Flying Scud fell considerably short of ten
+thousand dollars, while at the San Francisco rate it lacked a
+trifle of five thousand.  And fifty thousand was the price that
+Jim and I had paid for it.  And Bellairs had been eager to go
+higher!  There is no language to express the stupor with which I
+contemplated this result.
+
+It may be argued we were not yet sure; there might be yet
+another cache; and you may be certain in that hour of my
+distress the argument was not forgotten.  There was never a
+ship more ardently perquested; no stone was left unturned, and
+no expedient untried; day after day of growing despair, we
+punched and dug in the brig's vitals, exciting the men with
+promises and presents; evening after evening Nares and I sat
+face to face in the narrow cabin, racking our minds for some
+neglected possibility of search.  I could stake my salvation on
+the certainty of the result:  in all that ship there was nothing left
+of value but the timber and the copper nails.  So that our case
+was lamentably plain; we had paid fifty thousand dollars, borne
+the charges of the schooner, and paid fancy interest on money;
+and if things went well with us, we might realise fifteen per
+cent of the first outlay.  We were not merely bankrupt, we were
+comic bankrupts:  a fair butt for jeering in the streets.  I hope I
+bore the blow with a good countenance; indeed, my mind had
+long been quite made up, and since the day we found the opium
+I had known the result.  But the thought of Jim and Mamie
+ached in me like a physical pain, and I shrank from speech and
+companionship.
+
+I was in this frame of mind when the captain proposed that we
+should land upon the island.  I saw he had something to say,
+and only feared it might be consolation; for I could just bear my
+grief, not bungling sympathy; and yet I had no choice but to 
+accede to his proposal.
+
+We walked awhile along the beach in silence.  The sun
+overhead reverberated rays of heat; the staring sand, the glaring
+lagoon, tortured our eyes; and the birds and the boom of the
+far-away breakers made a savage symphony.
+
+"I don't require to tell you the game's up?" Nares asked.
+
+"No," said I.
+
+"I was thinking of getting to sea to-morrow," he pursued.
+
+"The best thing you can do," said I.
+
+"Shall we say Honolulu?" he inquired.
+
+
+"O, yes; let's stick to the programme," I cried.  "Honolulu be it!"
+
+There was another silence, and then Nares cleared his throat.
+
+"We've been pretty good friends, you and me, Mr. Dodd," he
+resumed.  "We've been going through the kind of thing that
+tries a man.  We've had the hardest kind of work, we've been
+badly backed, and now we're badly beaten.  And we've fetched
+through without a word of disagreement.  I don't say this to
+praise myself:  it's my trade; it's what I'm paid for, and trained
+for, and brought up to.  But it was another thing for you; it was
+all new to you; and it did me good to see you stand right up to
+it and swing right into it, day in, day out.  And then see how
+you've taken this disappointment, when everybody knows you
+must have been tautened up to shying-point!  I wish you'd let
+me tell you, Mr. Dodd, that you've stood out mighty manly and
+handsomely in all this business, and made every one like you
+and admire you.  And I wish you'd let me tell you, besides, that
+I've taken this wreck business as much to heart as you have;
+something kind of rises in my throat when I think we're beaten;
+and if I thought waiting would do it, I would stick on this reef
+until we starved."
+
+I tried in vain to thank him for these generous words, but he
+was beforehand with me in a moment.
+
+"I didn't bring you ashore to sound my praises," he interrupted. 
+"We understand one another now, that's all; and I guess you
+can trust me.  What I wished to speak about is more important,
+and it's got to be faced.  What are we to do about the Flying
+Scud and the dime novel?"
+
+"I really have thought nothing about that," I replied.  "But I
+expect I mean to get at the bottom of it; and if the bogus
+Captain Trent is to be found on the earth's surface, I guess I
+mean to find him."
+
+"All you've got to do is talk," said Nares; "you can make the
+biggest kind of boom; it isn't often the reporters have a chance
+at such a yarn as this; and I can tell you how it will go.  It will
+go by telegraph, Mr. Dodd; it'll be telegraphed by the column,
+and head-lined, and frothed up, and denied by authority, and
+it'll hit bogus Captain Trent in a Mexican bar-room, and knock
+over bogus Goddedaal in a slum somewhere up the Baltic, and
+bowl down Hardy and Brown in sailors' music halls round
+Greenock.  O, there's no doubt you can have a regular domestic
+Judgment Day.  The only point is whether you deliberately
+want to."
+
+"Well," said I, "I deliberately don't want one thing:  I
+deliberately don't want to make a public exhibition of myself
+and Pinkerton:  so moral--smuggling opium; such damned
+fools--paying fifty thousand for a 'dead horse'!"
+
+"No doubt it might damage you in a business sense," the
+captain agreed.  "And I'm pleased you take that view; for I've
+turned kind of soft upon the job.  There's been some
+crookedness about, no doubt of it; but, Law bless you! if we
+dropped upon the troupe, all the premier artists would slip right
+out with the boodle in their grip-sacks, and you'd only collar a
+lot of old mutton-headed shell-backs that didn't know the back
+of the business from the front.  I don't take much stock in
+Mercantile Jack, you know that; but, poor devil, he's got to go
+where he's told; and if you make trouble, ten to one it'll make
+you sick to see the innocents who have to stand the racket.  It
+would be different if we understood the operation; but we don't,
+you see:  there's a lot of queer corners in life; and my vote is to
+let the blame' thing lie."
+
+"You speak as if we had that in our power," I objected.
+
+"And so we have," said he.
+
+"What about the men?" I asked.  "They know too much by half;
+and you can't keep them from talking."
+
+"Can't I?" returned Nares.  "I bet a boarding-master can!  They
+can be all half-seas-over, when they get ashore, blind drunk by
+dark, and cruising out of the Golden Gate in different deep-sea
+ships by the next morning.  Can't keep them from talking, can't
+I?  Well, I can make 'em talk separate, leastways.  If a whole
+crew came talking, parties would listen; but if it's only one lone
+old shell-back, it's the usual yarn.  And at least, they needn't
+talk before six months, or--if we have luck, and there's a whaler
+handy--three years.  And by that time, Mr. Dodd, it's ancient
+history."
+
+"That's what they call Shanghaiing, isn't it?" I asked.  "I
+thought it belonged to the dime novel."
+
+"O, dime novels are right enough," returned the captain. 
+"Nothing wrong with the dime novel, only that things happen
+thicker than they do in life, and the practical seamanship is off-
+colour."
+
+"So we can keep the business to ourselves," I mused.
+
+"There's one other person that might blab," said the captain. 
+"Though I don't believe she has anything left to tell."
+
+"And who is SHE?" I asked.
+
+"The old girl there," he answered, pointing to the wreck.  "I
+know there's nothing in her; but somehow I'm afraid of some
+one else--it's the last thing you'd expect, so it's just the first
+that'll happen--some one dropping into this God-forgotten
+island where nobody drops in, waltzing into that wreck that
+we've grown old with searching, stooping straight down, and
+picking right up the very thing that tells the story.  What's that
+to me? you may ask, and why am I gone Soft Tommy on this
+Museum of Crooks?  They've smashed up you and Mr.
+Pinkerton; they've turned my hair grey with conundrums;
+they've been up to larks, no doubt; and that's all I know of them
+--you say.  Well, and that's just where it is.  I don't know
+enough; I don't know what's uppermost; it's just such a lot of
+miscellaneous eventualities as I don't care to go stirring up; and 
+I ask you to let me deal with the old girl after a patent of my
+own."
+
+"Certainly--what you please," said I, scarce with attention, for a
+new thought now occupied my brain.  "Captain," I broke out,
+"you are wrong: we cannot hush this up.  There is one thing
+you have forgotten."
+
+"What is that?" he asked.
+
+"A bogus Captain Trent, a bogus Goddedaal, a whole bogus
+crew, have all started home," said I.  "If we are right, not one of
+them will reach his journey's end.  And do you mean to say that
+such a circumstance as that can pass without remark?"
+
+"Sailors," said the captain, "only sailors!  If they were all bound
+for one place, in a body, I don't say so; but they're all going
+separate--to Hull, to Sweden, to the Clyde, to the Thames. 
+Well, at each place, what is it?  Nothing new.  Only one sailor
+man missing:  got drunk, or got drowned, or got left:  the
+proper sailor's end."
+
+
+Something bitter in the thought and in the speaker's tones
+struck me hard.  "Here is one that has got left!" I cried, getting
+sharply to my feet; for we had been some time seated.  "I wish
+it were the other.  I don't--don't relish going home to Jim with
+this!"
+
+"See here," said Nares, with ready tact, "I must be getting
+aboard.  Johnson's in the brig annexing chandlery and canvas,
+and there's some things in the Norah that want fixing against
+we go to sea.  Would you like to be left here in the chicken-
+ranch?  I'll send for you to supper."
+
+I embraced the proposal with delight.  Solitude, in my frame of
+mind, was not too dearly purchased at the risk of sunstroke or
+sand-blindness; and soon I was alone on the ill-omened islet.  I
+should find it hard to tell of what I thought--of Jim, of Mamie,
+of our lost fortune, of my lost hopes, of the doom before me:  to
+turn to at some mechanical occupation in some subaltern rank,
+and to toil there, unremarked and unamused, until the hour of
+the last deliverance.  I was, at least, so sunk in sadness that I
+scarce remarked where I was going; and chance (or some finer
+sense that lives in us, and only guides us when the mind is in
+abeyance) conducted my steps into a quarter of the island
+where the birds were few.  By some devious route, which I was
+unable to retrace for my return, I was thus able to mount,
+without interruption, to the highest point of land.  And here I
+was recalled to consciousness by a last discovery.
+
+The spot on which I stood was level, and commanded a wide
+view of the lagoon, the bounding reef, the round horizon. 
+Nearer hand I saw the sister islet, the wreck, the Norah Creina,
+and the Norah's boat already moving shoreward.  For the sun
+was now low, flaming on the sea's verge; and the galley
+chimney smoked on board the schooner.
+
+It thus befell that though my discovery was both affecting and
+suggestive, I had no leisure to examine further.  What I saw
+was the blackened embers of fire of wreck.  By all the signs, it
+must have blazed to a good height and burned for days; from
+the scantling of a spar that lay upon the margin only half
+consumed, it must have been the work of more than one; and I
+received at once the image of a forlorn troop of castaways,
+houseless in that lost corner of the earth, and feeding there their
+fire of signal.  The next moment a hail reached me from the
+boat; and bursting through the bushes and the rising sea-fowl, I
+said farewell (I trust for ever) to that desert isle.
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XVI.
+
+IN WHICH I TURN SMUGGLER, AND THE CAPTAIN CASUIST
+
+
+The last night at Midway, I had little sleep; the next morning,
+after the sun was risen, and the clatter of departure had begun
+to reign on deck, I lay a long while dozing; and when at last I
+stepped from the companion, the schooner was already leaping
+through the pass into the open sea.  Close on her board, the
+huge scroll of a breaker unfurled itself along the reef with a
+prodigious clamour; and behind I saw the wreck vomiting into
+the morning air a coil of smoke.  The wreaths already blew out
+far to leeward, flames already glittered in the cabin skylight;
+and the sea-fowl were scattered in surprise as wide as the
+lagoon.  As we drew farther off, the conflagration of the Flying
+Scud flamed higher; and long after we had dropped all signs of
+Midway Island, the smoke still hung in the horizon like that of
+a distant steamer.  With the fading out of that last vestige, the
+Norah Creina, passed again into the empty world of cloud and
+water by which she had approached; and the next features that
+appeared, eleven days later, to break the line of sky, were the
+arid mountains of Oahu.
+
+It has often since been a comfortable thought to me that we had
+thus destroyed the tell-tale remnants of the Flying Scud; and
+often a strange one that my last sight and reminiscence of that
+fatal ship should be a pillar of smoke on the horizon.  To so
+many others besides myself the same appearance had played a
+part in the various stages of that business:  luring some to what
+they little imagined, filling some with unimaginable terrors. 
+But ours was the last smoke raised in the story; and with its
+dying away the secret of the Flying Scud became a private
+property.
+
+It was by the first light of dawn that we saw, close on board,
+the metropolitan island of Hawaii.  We held along the coast, as
+near as we could venture, with a fresh breeze and under an
+unclouded heaven; beholding, as we went, the arid mountain
+sides and scrubby cocoa-palms of that somewhat melancholy
+archipelago.  About four of the afternoon we turned Waimanolo
+Point, the westerly headland of the great bight of Honolulu;
+showed ourselves for twenty minutes in full view; and then fell
+again to leeward, and put in the rest of daylight, plying under
+shortened sail under the lee of Waimanolo.
+
+A little after dark we beat once more about the point, and crept
+cautiously toward the mouth of the Pearl Lochs, where Jim and
+I had arranged I was to meet the smugglers.  The night was
+happily obscure, the water smooth.  We showed, according to
+instructions, no light on deck:  only a red lantern dropped from
+either cathead to within a couple of feet of the water.  A lookout
+was stationed on the bowsprit end, another in the crosstrees;
+and the whole ship's company crowded forward, scouting for
+enemies or friends.  It was now the crucial moment of our
+enterprise; we were now risking liberty and credit; and that for
+a sum so small to a man in my bankrupt situation, that I could
+have laughed aloud in bitterness.  But the piece had been
+arranged, and we must play it to the finish.
+
+For some while, we saw nothing but the dark mountain outline
+of the island, the torches of native fishermen glittering here and
+there along the foreshore, and right in the midst that cluster of
+brave lights with which the town of Honolulu advertises itself
+to the seaward.  Presently a ruddy star appeared inshore of us,
+and seemed to draw near unsteadily.  This was the anticipated
+signal; and we made haste to show the countersign, lowering a
+white light from the quarter, extinguishing the two others, and
+laying the schooner incontinently to.  The star approached
+slowly; the sounds of oars and of men's speech came to us
+across the water; and then a voice hailed us.
+
+"Is that Mr. Dodd?"
+
+"Yes," I returned.  "Is Jim Pinkerton there?"
+
+"No, sir," replied the voice.  "But there's one of his crowd here;
+name of Speedy."
+
+"I'm here, Mr. Dodd," added Speedy himself.   "I have letters
+for you."
+
+"All right," I replied.  "Come aboard, gentlemen, and let me see
+my mail."
+
+A whaleboat accordingly ranged alongside, and three men
+boarded us:  my old San Francisco friend, the stock-gambler
+Speedy, a little wizened person of the name of Sharpe, and a
+big, flourishing, dissipated-looking man called Fowler.  The
+two last (I learned afterward) were frequent partners; Sharpe
+supplied the capital, and Fowler, who was quite a character in
+the islands and occupied a considerable station, brought
+activity, daring, and a private influence, highly necessary in the
+case.  Both seemed to approach the business with a keen sense
+of romance; and I believe this was the chief attraction, at least
+with Fowler--for whom I early conceived a sentiment of liking. 
+But in that first moment I had something else to think of than
+to judge my new acquaintances; and before Speedy had fished
+out the letters, the full extent of our misfortune was revealed.
+
+"We've rather bad news for you, Mr. Dodd," said Fowler. 
+"Your firm's gone up."
+
+"Already!" I exclaimed.
+
+"Well, it was thought rather a wonder Pinkerton held on as
+long as he did," was the reply.  "The wreck deal was too big for
+your credit; you were doing a big business, no doubt, but you
+were doing it on precious little capital; and when the strain
+came, you were bound to go.  Pinkerton's through all right:
+seven cents dividend; some remarks made, but nothing to hurt;
+the press let you down easy--I guess Jim had relations there. 
+The only trouble is, that all this Flying Scud affair got in the
+papers with the rest; everybody's wide awake in Honolulu, and
+the sooner we get the stuff in and the dollars out, the better for
+all concerned."
+
+"Gentlemen," said I, "you must excuse me.  My friend, the
+captain here, will drink a glass of champagne with you to give
+you patience; but as for myself, I am unfit even for ordinary
+conversation till I have read these letters."
+
+They demurred a little:  and indeed the danger of delay seemed
+obvious; but the sight of my distress, which I was unable
+entirely to control, appealed strongly to their good-nature; and I
+was suffered at last to get by myself on deck, where, by the
+light of a lantern smuggled under shelter of the low rail, I read
+the following wretched correspondence.
+
+  "My dear Loudon," ran the first, "this will be handed you by
+your friend Speedy of the Catamount.  His sterling character
+and loyal devotion to yourself pointed him out as the best man
+for our purposes in Honolulu--the parties on the spot being
+difficult to manipulate.  A man called Billy Fowler (you must
+have heard of Billy) is the boss; he is in politics some, and
+squares the officers.  I have hard times before me in the city,
+but I feel as bright as a dollar and as strong as John L.
+Sullivan.  What with Mamie here, and my partner speeding
+over the seas, and the bonanza in the wreck, I feel like I could
+juggle with the Pyramids of Egypt, same as conjurers do with
+aluminium balls.  My earnest prayers follow you, Loudon, that
+you may feel the way I do--just inspired!  My feet don't touch
+the ground; I kind of swim.  Mamie is like Moses and Aaron
+that held up the other individual's arms.  She carries me along
+like a horse and buggy.  I am beating the record.   
+
+                                                "Your true partner,
+
+                                                          "J. PINKERTON."
+
+Number two was in a different style:--
+
+  "My dearest Loudon, how am I to prepare you for this dire
+intelligence?  O dear me, it will strike you to the earth.  The
+Fiat has gone forth; our firm went bust at a quarter before
+twelve.  It was a bill of Bradley's (for $200) that brought these
+vast operations to a close, and evolved liabilities of upwards of
+two hundred and fifty thousand.  O, the shame and pity of it!
+and you but three weeks gone!  Loudon, don't blame your
+partner:  if human hands and brains could have sufficed, I
+would have held the thing together.  But it just slowly
+crumbled; Bradley was the last kick, but the blamed business
+just MELTED.  I give the liabilities; it's supposed they're all in;
+for the cowards were waiting, and the claims were filed like
+taking tickets to hear Patti.  I don't quite have the hang of the
+assets yet, our interests were so extended; but I am at it day and
+night, and I guess will make a creditable dividend.  If the
+wreck pans out only half the way it ought, we'll turn the laugh
+still.  I am as full of grit and work as ever, and just tower above
+our troubles.  Mamie is a host in herself.  Somehow I feel like it
+was only me that had gone bust, and you and she soared clear
+of it.  Hurry up.  That's all you have to do.
+
+                                             "Yours ever,
+
+                                                       "J. PINKERTON."
+
+The third was yet more altered:--
+
+"My poor Loudon," it began, "I labour far into the night getting
+our affairs in order; you could not believe their vastness and
+complexity.  Douglas B. Longhurst said humorously that the
+receiver's work would be cut out for him.  I cannot deny that
+some of them have a speculative look.  God forbid a sensitive,
+refined spirit like yours should ever come face to face with a
+Commissioner in Bankruptcy; these men get all the sweetness
+knocked right out of them.  But I could bear up better if it
+weren't for press comments.  Often and often, Loudon, I recall
+to mind your most legitimate critiques of the press system. 
+They published an interview with me, not the least like what I
+said, and with JEERING comments; it would make your blood
+boil, it was literally INHUMANE; I wouldn't have written it
+about a yellow dog that was in trouble like what I am.  Mamie
+just winced, the first time she has turned a hair right through
+the whole catastrophe.  How wonderfully true was what you
+said long ago in Paris, about touching on people's personal
+appearance!  The fellow said--"  And then these words had
+been scored through; and my distressed friend turned to another
+subject.  "I cannot bear to dwell upon our assets.  They simply
+don't show up.  Even Thirteen Star, as sound a line as can be
+produced upon this coast, goes begging.  The wreck has thrown
+a blight on all we ever touched.  And where's the use?  God
+never made a wreck big enough to fill our deficit.  I am haunted
+by the thought that you may blame me; I know how I despised
+your remonstrances.  O, Loudon, don't be hard on your
+miserable partner.  The funny-dog business is what kills.  I fear
+your stern rectitude of mind like the eye of God.  I cannot think
+but what some of my books seem mixed up; otherwise, I don't
+seem to see my way as plain as I could wish to.  Or else my
+brain is gone soft.  Loudon, if there should be any
+unpleasantness, you can trust me to do the right thing and keep
+you clear.  I've been telling them already, how you had no
+business grip and never saw the books.  O, I trust I have done
+right in this!  I knew it was a liberty; I know you may justly
+complain; but it was some things that were said.  And mind
+you, all legitimate business!  Not even your shrinking
+sensitiveness could find fault with the first look of one of them,
+if they had panned out right.  And you know, the Flying Scud
+was the biggest gamble of the crowd, and that was your own
+idea.  Mamie says she never could bear to look you in the face,
+if that idea had been mine, she is SO conscientious!
+
+                                                          "Your broken-hearted
+
+                                                                                 "JIM."
+
+The last began without formality:--
+
+"This is the end of me commercially.  I give up; my nerve is
+gone.  I suppose I ought to be glad; for we're through the court. 
+I don't know as ever I knew how, and I'm sure I don't
+remember.  If it pans out--the wreck, I mean--we'll go to
+Europe, and live on the interest of our money.  No more work
+for me.  I shake when people speak to me.  I have gone on,
+hoping and hoping, and working and working, and the lead has
+pinched right out.  I want to lie on my back in a garden and
+read Shakespeare and E. P. Roe.  Don't suppose it's cowardice,
+Loudon.  I'm a sick man.  Rest is what I must have.  I've
+worked hard all my life; I never spared myself; every dollar I
+ever made, I've coined my brains for it.  I've never done a mean
+thing; I've lived respectable, and given to the poor. Who has a
+better right to a holiday than I have?  And I mean to have a year
+of it straight out; and if I don't, I shall lie right down here in my
+tracks, and die of worry and brain trouble.  Don't mistake. 
+That's so.  If there are any pickings at all, TRUST SPEEDY;
+don't let the creditors get wind of what there is.  I helped you
+when you were down; help me now.  Don't deceive yourself;
+you've got to help me right now, or never.  I am clerking, and
+NOT FIT TO CYPHER.  Mamie's typewriting at the Phoenix
+Guano Exchange, down town.  The light is right out of my life. 
+I know you'll not like to do what I propose.  Think only of this;
+that it's life or death for
+
+                                                                  "JIM PINKERTON.
+
+"P.S.  Our figure was seven per cent.  O, what a fall was there!
+Well, well, it's past mending; I don't want to whine.  But,
+Loudon, I do want to live.  No more ambition; all I ask is life.  I
+have so much to make it sweet to me!  I am clerking, and
+USELESS AT THAT.  I know I would have fired such a clerk
+inside of forty minutes, in MY time.  But my time's over.  I can
+only cling on to you.  Don't fail 
+
+                                                                  "JIM PINKERTON."
+
+There was yet one more postscript, yet one more outburst of
+self-pity and pathetic adjuration; and a doctor's opinion,
+unpromising enough, was besides enclosed.  I pass them both
+in silence.  I think shame to have shown, at so great length, the
+half-baked virtues of my friend dissolving in the crucible of
+sickness and distress; and the effect upon my spirits can be
+judged already.  I got to my feet when I had done, drew a deep
+breath, and stared hard at Honolulu.  One moment the world
+seemed at an end; the next, I was conscious of a rush of
+independent energy.  On Jim I could rely no longer; I must now
+take hold myself.  I must decide and act on my own better
+thoughts.
+
+The word was easy to say; the thing, at the first blush, was
+undiscoverable.  I was overwhelmed with miserable, womanish
+pity for my broken friend; his outcries grieved my spirit; I saw
+him then and now--then, so invincible; now, brought so low--
+and knew neither how to refuse, nor how to consent to his
+proposal.  The remembrance of my father, who had fallen in the
+same field unstained, the image of his monument
+incongruously rising, a fear of the law, a chill air that seemed to
+blow upon my fancy from the doors of prisons, and the
+imaginary clank of fetters, recalled me to a different resolve. 
+And then again, the wails of my sick partner intervened.  So I
+stood hesitating, and yet with a strong sense of capacity behind:
+sure, if I could but choose my path, that I should walk in it with
+resolution.
+
+Then I remembered that I had a friend on board, and stepped to
+the companion.
+
+"Gentlemen," said I, "only a few moments more:  but these, I
+regret to say, I must make more tedious still by removing your
+companion.  It is indispensable that I should have a word or
+two with Captain Nares."
+
+Both the smugglers were afoot at once, protesting.  The
+business, they declared, must be despatched at once; they had
+run risk enough, with a conscience; and they must either finish
+now, or go.
+
+"The choice is yours, gentlemen," said I, "and, I believe, the
+eagerness.  I am not yet sure that I have anything in your way;
+even if I have, there are a hundred things to be considered; and
+I assure you it is not at all my habit to do business with a pistol
+to my head."
+
+"That is all very proper, Mr. Dodd; there is no wish to coerce
+you, believe me," said Fowler; "only, please consider our
+position.  It is really dangerous; we were not the only people to
+see your schooner off Waimanolo."
+
+"Mr. Fowler," I replied, "I was not born yesterday.  Will you
+allow me to express an opinion, in which I may be quite wrong,
+but to which I am entirely wedded? If the custom-house officers
+had been coming, they would have been here now.  In other
+words, somebody is working the oracle, and (for a good guess)
+his name is Fowler."
+
+Both men laughed loud and long; and being supplied with
+another bottle of Longhurst's champagne, suffered the captain
+and myself to leave them without further word.
+
+I gave Nares the correspondence, and he skimmed it through.
+
+"Now, captain," said I, "I want a fresh mind on this.  What
+does it mean?"
+
+"It's large enough text," replied the captain.  "It means you're to
+stake your pile on Speedy, hand him over all you can, and hold
+your tongue.  I almost wish you hadn't shown it me," he added
+wearily.  "What with the specie from the wreck and the opium
+money, it comes to a biggish deal."
+
+"That's supposing that I do it?" said I.
+
+"Exactly," said he, "supposing you do it."
+
+"And there are pros and cons to that," I observed.
+
+"There's San Quentin, to start in with," said the captain; "and
+suppose you clear the penitentiary, there's the nasty taste in the
+mouth.  The figure's big enough to make bad trouble, but it's
+not big enough to be picturesque; and I should guess a man
+always feels kind of small who has sold himself under six
+cyphers.  That would be my way, at least; there's an excitement
+about a million that might carry me on; but the other way, I
+should feel kind of lonely when I woke in bed.  Then there's
+Speedy.  Do you know him well?"
+
+"No, I do not," said I.
+
+"Well, of course he can vamoose with the entire speculation, if
+he chooses," pursued the captain, "and if he don't I can't see but
+what you've got to support and bed and board with him to the
+end of time.  I guess it would weary me.  Then there's Mr.
+Pinkerton, of course.  He's been a good friend to you, hasn't he?
+Stood by you, and all that? and pulled you through for all he
+was worth?"
+
+
+"That he has," I cried; "I could never begin telling you my debt
+to him!"
+
+"Well, and that's a consideration," said the captain.  "As a
+matter of principle, I wouldn't look at this business at the
+money.  'Not good enough,' would be my word.  But even
+principle goes under when it comes to friends--the right sort, I
+mean. This Pinkerton is frightened, and he seems sick; the
+medico don't seem to care a cent about his state of health; and
+you've got to figure how you would like it if he came to die. 
+Remember, the risk of this little swindle is all yours; it's no sort
+of risk to Mr. Pinkerton.  Well, you've got to put it that way
+plainly, and see how you like the sound of it: my friend
+Pinkerton is in danger of the New Jerusalem, I am in danger of
+San Quentin; which risk do I propose to run?"
+
+"That's an ugly way to put it," I objected, "and perhaps hardly
+fair.  There's right and wrong to be considered."
+
+"Don't know the parties," replied Nares; "and I'm coming to
+them, anyway.  For it strikes me, when it came to smuggling
+opium, you walked right up?"
+
+"So I did," I said; "sick I am to have to say it!"
+
+"All the same," continued Nares, "you went into the opium-
+smuggling with your head down; and a good deal of fussing
+I've listened to, that you hadn't more of it to smuggle.  Now,
+maybe your partner's not quite fixed the same as you are;
+maybe he sees precious little difference between the one thing
+and the other."
+
+"You could not say truer:  he sees none, I do believe," cried I;
+"and though I see one, I could never tell you how."
+
+"We never can," said the oracular Nares; "taste is all a matter of
+opinion.  But the point is, how will your friend take it?  You
+refuse a favour, and you take the high horse at the same time;
+you disappoint him, and you rap him over the knuckles.  It
+won't do, Mr. Dodd; no friendship can stand that.  You must be
+as good as your friend, or as bad as your friend, or start on a
+fresh deal without him."
+
+"I don't see it!" said I.  "You don't know Jim!"
+
+"Well, you WILL see," said Nares.  "And now, here's another
+point.  This bit of money looks mighty big to Mr. Pinkerton; it
+may spell life or health to him; but among all your creditors, I
+don't see that it amounts to a hill of beans--I don't believe it'll
+pay their car-fares all round.  And don't you think you'll ever
+get thanked.  You were known to pay a long price for the
+chance of rummaging that wreck; you do the rummaging, you
+come home, and you hand over ten thousand--or twenty, if you
+like--a part of which you'll have to own up you made by
+smuggling; and, mind! you'll never get Billy Fowler to stick his
+name to a receipt.  Now just glance at the transaction from the
+outside, and see what a clear case it makes.  Your ten thousand
+is a sop; and people will only wonder you were so damned
+impudent as to offer such a small one!  Whichever way you
+take it, Mr. Dodd, the bottom's out of your character; so there's
+one thing less to be considered."
+
+"I daresay you'll scarce believe me," said I, "but I feel that a
+positive relief."
+
+"You must be made some way different from me, then,"
+returned Nares.  "And, talking about me, I might just mention
+how I stand.  You'll have no trouble from me--you've trouble
+enough of your own; and I'm friend enough, when a friend's in
+need, to shut my eyes and go right where he tells me.  All the
+same, I'm rather queerly fixed.  My owners'll have to rank with
+the rest on their charter-party.  Here am I, their representative!
+and I have to look over the ship's side while the bankrupt walks
+his assets ashore in Mr. Speedy's hat-box.  It's a thing I
+wouldn't do for James G. Blaine; but I'll do it for you, Mr.
+Dodd, and only sorry I can't do more."
+
+"Thank you, captain; my mind is made up," said I.  "I'll go
+straight, RUAT COELUM!  I never understood that old tag
+before to-night."
+
+"I hope it isn't my business that decides you?" asked the
+captain.
+
+"I'll never deny it was an element," said I.  "I hope, I hope I'm
+not cowardly; I hope I could steal for Jim myself; but when it
+comes to dragging in you and Speedy, and this one and the
+other, why, Jim has got to die, and there's an end.  I'll try and
+work for him when I get to 'Frisco, I suppose; and I suppose I'll
+fail, and look on at his death, and kick myself:  it can't be
+helped--I'll fight it on this line."
+
+
+"I don't say as you're wrong," replied Nares, "and I'll be hanged
+if I know if you're right.  It suits me anyway.  And look here--
+hadn't you better just show our friends over the side?" he
+added; "no good of being at the risk and worry of smuggling for
+the benefit of creditors."
+
+"I don't think of the creditors," said I.  "But I've kept this pair so
+long, I haven't got the brass to fire them now."
+
+Indeed, I believe that was my only reason for entering upon a
+transaction which was now outside my interest, but which (as it
+chanced) repaid me fifty-fold in entertainment.  Fowler and
+Sharpe were both preternaturally sharp; they did me the honour
+in the beginning to attribute to myself their proper vices; and
+before we were done had grown to regard me with an esteem
+akin to worship.  This proud position I attained by no more
+recondite arts, than telling the mere truth and unaffectedly
+displaying my indifference to the result.  I have doubtless stated
+the essentials of all good diplomacy, which may be rather
+regarded, therefore, as a grace of state, than the effect of
+management.  For to tell the truth is not in itself diplomatic,
+and to have no care for the result a thing involuntary.  When I
+mentioned, for instance, that I had but two hundred and forty
+pounds of drug, my smugglers exchanged meaning glances, as
+who should say, "Here is a foeman worthy of our steel!"  But
+when I carelessly proposed thirty-five dollars a pound, as an
+amendment to their offered twenty, and wound up with the
+remark:  "The whole thing is a matter of moonshine to me,
+gentlemen.  Take it or want it, and fill your glasses"--I had the
+indescribable gratification to see Sharpe nudge Fowler
+warningly, and Fowler choke down the jovial acceptance that
+stood ready on his lips, and lamely substitute a "No--no more
+wine, please, Mr. Dodd!" Nor was this all: for when the affair
+was settled at fifty dollars a pound--a shrewd stroke of business
+for my creditors--and our friends had got on board their
+whaleboat and shoved off, it appeared they were imperfectly
+acquainted with the conveyance of sound upon still water, and I
+had the joy to overhear the following testimonial.
+
+"Deep man, that Dodd," said Sharpe.
+
+And the bass-toned Fowler echoed, "Damned if I understand
+his game."
+
+Thus we were left once more alone upon the Norah Creina; and
+the news of the night, and the lamentations of Pinkerton, and
+the thought of my own harsh decision, returned and besieged
+me in the dark.  According to all the rubbish I had read, I
+should have been sustained by the warm consciousness of
+virtue.  Alas, I had but the one feeling:  that I had sacrificed my
+sick friend to the fear of prison-cells and stupid starers.  And no
+moralist has yet advanced so far as to number cowardice
+amongst the things that are their own reward.
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XVII.
+
+ LIGHT FROM THE MAN OF WAR.
+
+
+In the early sunlight of the next day, we tossed close off the
+buoy and saw the city sparkle in its groves about the foot of the
+Punch-bowl, and the masts clustering thick in the small
+harbour.  A good breeze, which had risen with the sea, carried
+us triumphantly through the intricacies of the passage; and we
+had soon brought up not far from the landing-stairs.  I
+remember to have remarked an ugly horned reptile of a modern
+warship in the usual moorings across the port, but my mind
+was so profoundly plunged in melancholy that I paid no heed.
+
+Indeed, I had little time at my disposal.  Messieurs Sharpe and
+Fowler had left the night before in the persuasion that I was a
+liar of the first magnitude; the genial belief brought them
+aboard again with the earliest opportunity, proffering help to
+one who had proved how little he required it, and hospitality to
+so respectable a character.  I had business to mind, I had some
+need both of assistance and diversion; I liked Fowler--I don't
+know why; and in short, I let them do with me as they desired. 
+No creditor intervening, I spent the first half of the day
+inquiring into the conditions of the tea and silk market under
+the auspices of Sharpe; lunched with him in a private
+apartment at the Hawaiian Hotel--for Sharpe was a teetotaler in
+public; and about four in the afternoon was delivered into the
+hands of Fowler.  This gentleman owned a bungalow on the
+Waikiki beach; and there in company with certain young
+bloods of Honolulu, I was entertained to a sea-bathe,
+indiscriminate cocktails, a dinner, a hula-hula, and (to round
+off the night), poker and assorted liquors.  To lose money in the
+small hours to pale, intoxicated youth, has always appeared to
+me a pleasure overrated.  In my then frame of mind, I confess I
+found it even delightful; put up my money (or rather my
+creditors'), and put down Fowler's champagne with equal
+avidity and success; and awoke the next morning to a mild
+headache and the rather agreeable lees of the last night's
+excitement.  The young bloods, many of whom were still far
+from sober, had taken the kitchen into their own hands, vice the
+Chinaman deposed; and since each was engaged upon a dish of
+his own, and none had the least scruple in demolishing his
+neighbour's handiwork, I became early convinced that many
+eggs would be broken and few omelets made.  The discovery of
+a jug of milk and a crust of bread enabled me to stay my
+appetite; and since it was Sunday, when no business could be
+done, and the festivities were to be renewed that night in the
+abode of Fowler, it occurred to me to slip silently away and
+enjoy some air and solitude.
+
+I turned seaward under the dead crater known as Diamond
+Head.  My way was for some time under the shade of certain
+thickets of green, thorny trees, dotted with houses.  Here I
+enjoyed some pictures of the native life:  wide-eyed, naked
+children, mingled with pigs; a youth asleep under a tree; an old
+gentleman spelling through glasses his Hawaiian Bible; the
+somewhat embarrassing spectacle of a lady at her bath in a
+spring; and the glimpse of gaudy-coloured gowns in the deep
+shade of the houses.  Thence I found a road along the beach
+itself, wading in sand, opposed and buffeted by the whole
+weight of the Trade:  on one hand, the glittering and sounding
+surf, and the bay lively with many sails; on the other,
+precipitous, arid gullies and sheer cliffs, mounting towards the
+crater and the blue sky.  For all the companionship of
+skimming vessels, the place struck me with a sense of solitude. 
+There came in my head what I had been told the day before at
+dinner, of a cavern above in the bowels of the volcano, a place
+only to be visited with the light of torches, a treasure-house of
+the bones of priests and warriors, and clamorous with the voice
+of an unseen river pouring seaward through the crannies of the
+mountain.  At the thought, it was revealed to me suddenly, how
+the bungalows, and the Fowlers, and the bright busy town and
+crowding ships, were all children of yesterday; and for
+centuries before, the obscure life of the natives, with its glories
+and ambitions, its joys and crimes and agonies, had rolled
+unseen, like the mountain river, in that sea-girt place.  Not
+Chaldea appeared more ancient, nor the Pyramids of Egypt
+more abstruse; and I heard time measured by "the drums and
+tramplings" of immemorial conquests, and saw myself the
+creature of an hour.  Over the bankruptcy of Pinkerton and
+Dodd, of Montana Block, S. F., and the conscientious troubles
+of the junior partner, the spirit of eternity was seen to smile. 
+
+To this mood of philosophic sadness, my excesses of the night
+before no doubt contributed; for more things than virtue are at
+times their own reward:  but I was greatly healed at least of my
+distresses.  And while I was yet enjoying my abstracted
+humour, a turn of the beach brought me in view of the
+signal-station, with its watch-house and flag-staff, perched on
+the immediate margin of a cliff.  The house was new and clean
+and bald, and stood naked to the Trades.  The wind beat about
+it in loud squalls; the seaward windows rattled without mercy;
+the breach of the surf below contributed its increment of noise;
+and the fall of my foot in the narrow verandah passed unheard
+by those within.
+
+There were two on whom I thus entered unexpectedly:  the
+look-out man, with grizzled beard, keen seaman's eyes, and
+that brand on his countenance that comes of solitary living; and
+a visitor, an oldish, oratorical fellow, in the smart tropical array
+of the British man-o'-war's man, perched on a table, and
+smoking a cigar.  I was made pleasantly welcome, and was
+soon listening with amusement to the sea-lawyer.
+
+"No, if I hadn't have been born an Englishman," was one of his
+sentiments, "damn me!  I'd rather 'a been born a Frenchy!  I'd
+like to see another nation fit to black their boots."  Presently
+after, he developed his views on home politics with similar
+trenchancy.  "I'd rather be a brute beast than what I'd be a
+liberal," he said.  "Carrying banners and that! a pig's got more
+sense.  Why, look at our chief engineer--they do say he carried
+a banner with his own 'ands: "Hooroar for Gladstone!" I
+suppose, or "Down with the Aristocracy!"  What 'arm does the
+aristocracy do?  Show me a country any good without one!  Not
+the States; why, it's the 'ome of corruption!  I knew a man--he
+was a good man, 'ome born--who was signal quartermaster in
+the Wyandotte.  He told me he could never have got there if he
+hadn't have 'run with the boys'--told it me as I'm telling you. 
+Now, we're all British subjects here----" he was going on.
+
+"I am afraid I am an American," I said apologetically.
+
+He seemed the least bit taken aback, but recovered himself; and
+with the ready tact of his betters, paid me the usual British
+compliment on the riposte.  "You don't say so!" he exclaimed.
+"Well, I give you my word of honour, I'd never have guessed it. 
+Nobody could tell it on you," said he, as though it were some
+form of liquor.
+
+I thanked him, as I always do, at this particular stage, with his
+compatriots:  not so much perhaps for the compliment to
+myself and my poor country, as for the revelation (which is ever
+fresh to me) of Britannic self-sufficiency and taste.  And he was
+so far softened by my gratitude as to add a word of praise on
+the American method of lacing sails.  "You're ahead of us in
+lacing sails," he said.  "You can say that with a clear
+conscience."
+
+"Thank you," I replied.  "I shall certainly do so."
+
+At this rate, we got along swimmingly; and when I rose to
+retrace my steps to the Fowlery, he at once started to his feet
+and offered me the welcome solace of his company for the
+return.  I believe I discovered much alacrity at the idea, for the
+creature (who seemed to be unique, or to represent a type like
+that of the dodo) entertained me hugely.  But when he had
+produced his hat, I found I was in the way of more than
+entertainment; for on the ribbon I could read the legend: 
+"H.M.S. Tempest."
+
+"I say," I began, when our adieus were paid, and we were
+scrambling down the path from the look-out, "it was your ship
+that picked up the men on board the Flying Scud, wasn't it?"
+
+"You may say so," said he.  "And a blessed good job for the
+Flying-Scuds.  It's a God-forsaken spot, that Midway Island."
+
+"I've just come from there," said I.  "It was I who bought the
+wreck."
+
+"Beg your pardon, sir," cried the sailor: "gen'lem'n in the white
+schooner?"
+
+"The same," said I.
+
+My friend saluted, as though we were now, for the first time,
+formally introduced.
+
+"Of course," I continued, "I am rather taken up with the whole
+story; and I wish you would tell me what you can of how the
+men were saved."
+
+"It was like this," said he.  "We had orders to call at Midway
+after castaways, and had our distance pretty nigh run down the
+day before.  We steamed half-speed all night, looking to make
+it about noon; for old Tootles--beg your pardon, sir--the captain
+--was precious scared of the place at night.  Well, there's nasty,
+filthy currents round that Midway; YOU know, as has been
+there; and one on 'em must have set us down.  Leastways,
+about six bells, when we had ought to been miles away, some
+one sees a sail, and lo and be'old, there was the spars of a full-
+rigged brig!  We raised her pretty fast, and the island after her;
+and made out she was hard aground, canted on her bilge, and
+had her ens'n flying, union down.  It was breaking 'igh on the
+reef, and we laid well out, and sent a couple of boats.  I didn't
+go in neither; only stood and looked on; but it seems they was
+all badly scared and muddled, and didn't know which end was
+uppermost.  One on 'em kep' snivelling and wringing of his
+'ands; he come on board all of a sop like a monthly nurse.  That
+Trent, he come first, with his 'and in a bloody rag.  I was near
+'em as I am to you; and I could make out he was all to bits--
+'eard his breath rattle in his blooming lungs as he come down
+the ladder.  Yes, they was a scared lot, small blame to 'em, I
+say!  The next after Trent, come him as was mate."
+
+"Goddedaal!" I exclaimed.
+
+"And a good name for him too," chuckled the man-o'-war's
+man, who probably confounded the word with a familiar oath. 
+"A good name too; only it weren't his. He was a gen'lem'n born,
+sir, as had gone maskewerading.  One of our officers knowed
+him at 'ome, reckonises him, steps up, 'olds out his 'and right
+off, and says he:  ''Ullo, Norrie, old chappie!' he says.  The
+other was coming up, as bold as look at it; didn't seem put
+out--that's where blood tells, sir!  Well, no sooner does he 'ear
+his born name given him, than he turns as white as the Day of
+Judgment, stares at Mr. Sebright like he was looking at a
+ghost, and then (I give you my word of honour) turned to, and
+doubled up in a dead faint.  'Take him down to my berth,' says
+Mr. Sebright.  ''Tis poor old Norrie Carthew,' he says."
+
+"And what--what sort of a gentleman was this Mr. Carthew?" I
+gasped.
+
+"The ward-room steward told me he was come of the best
+blood in England," was my friend's reply: "Eton and 'Arrow
+bred;--and might have been a bar'net!"
+
+"No, but to look at?" I corrected him.
+
+
+"The same as you or me," was the uncompromising answer:
+"not much to look at.  I didn't know he was a gen'lem'n; but
+then, I never see him cleaned up."
+
+"How was that?" I cried.  "O yes, I remember: he was sick all
+the way to 'Frisco, was he not?"
+
+"Sick, or sorry, or something," returned my informant. "My
+belief, he didn't hanker after showing up.  He kep' close; the
+ward-room steward, what took his meals in, told me he ate nex'
+to nothing; and he was fetched ashore at 'Frisco on the quiet. 
+Here was how it was.  It seems his brother had took and died,
+him as had the estate.  This one had gone in for his beer, by
+what I could make out; the old folks at 'ome had turned rusty;
+no one knew where he had gone to.  Here he was, slaving in a
+merchant brig, shipwrecked on Midway, and packing up his
+duds for a long voyage in a open boat.  He comes on board our
+ship, and by God, here he is a landed proprietor, and may be in
+Parliament to-morrow!  It's no less than natural he should keep
+dark:  so would you and me in the same box."
+
+"I daresay," said I.  "But you saw more of the others?"
+
+"To be sure," says he: "no 'arm in them from what I see.  There
+was one 'Ardy there: colonial born he was, and had been
+through a power of money.  There was no nonsense about
+'Ardy; he had been up, and he had come down, and took it so. 
+His 'eart was in the right place; and he was well-informed, and
+knew French; and Latin, I believe, like a native!  I liked that
+'Ardy; he was a good-looking boy, too."
+
+"Did they say much about the wreck?" I asked.
+
+"There wasn't much to say, I reckon," replied the man-o'-war's
+man.  "It was all in the papers.  'Ardy used to yarn most about
+the coins he had gone through; he had lived with book-makers,
+and jockeys, and pugs, and actors, and all that:  a precious low
+lot!" added this judicious person.  "But it's about here my 'orse
+is moored, and by your leave I'll be getting ahead."
+
+"One moment," said I.  "Is Mr. Sebright on board?"
+
+"No, sir, he's ashore to-day," said the sailor.  "I took up a bag
+for him to the 'otel."
+
+With that we parted.  Presently after my friend overtook and
+passed me on a hired steed which seemed to scorn its cavalier;
+and I was left in the dust of his passage, a prey to whirling
+thoughts.  For I now stood, or seemed to stand, on the
+immediate threshold of these mysteries.  I knew the name of the
+man Dickson--his name was Carthew; I knew where the money
+came from that opposed us at the sale--it was part of Carthew's
+inheritance; and in my gallery of illustrations to the history of
+the wreck, one more picture hung; perhaps the most dramatic
+of the series.  It showed me the deck of a warship in that distant
+part of the great ocean, the officers and seamen looking
+curiously on; and a man of birth and education, who had been
+sailing under an alias on a trading brig, and was now rescued
+from desperate peril, felled like an ox by the bare sound of his
+own name.  I could not fail to be reminded of my own
+experience at the Occidental telephone.  The hero of three
+styles, Dickson, Goddedaal, or Carthew, must be the owner of
+a lively--or a loaded--conscience, and the reflection recalled to
+me the photograph found on board the Flying Scud; just such a
+man, I reasoned, would be capable of just such starts and
+crises, and I inclined to think that Goddedaal (or Carthew) was
+the mainspring of the mystery.
+
+One thing was plain: as long as the Tempest was in reach, I
+must make the acquaintance of both Sebright and the doctor. 
+To this end, I excused myself with Mr. Fowler, returned to
+Honolulu, and passed the remainder of the day hanging vainly
+round the cool verandahs of the hotel.  It was near nine o'clock
+at night before I was rewarded.
+
+"That is the gentleman you were asking for," said the clerk.
+
+I beheld a man in tweeds, of an incomparable languor of
+demeanour, and carrying a cane with genteel effort.  From the
+name, I had looked to find a sort of Viking and young ruler of
+the battle and the tempest; and I was the more disappointed,
+and not a little alarmed, to come face to face with this
+impracticable type. 
+
+"I believe I have the pleasure of addressing Lieutenant
+Sebright," said I, stepping forward.
+
+"Aw, yes," replied the hero; "but, aw!  I dawn't knaw you, do
+I?" (He spoke for all the world like Lord Foppington in the old
+play--a proof of the perennial nature of man's affectations.  But
+his limping dialect, I scorn to continue to reproduce.)
+
+
+"It was with the intention of making myself known, that I have
+taken this step," said I, entirely unabashed (for impudence
+begets in me its like--perhaps my only martial attribute).  "We
+have a common subject of interest, to me very lively; and I
+believe I may be in a position to be of some service to a friend
+of yours--to give him, at least, some very welcome
+information."
+
+The last clause was a sop to my conscience:  I could not
+pretend, even to myself, either the power or the will to serve
+Mr. Carthew; but I felt sure he would like to hear the Flying
+Scud was burned.
+
+"I don't know--I--I don't understand you," stammered my
+victim.  "I don't have any friends in Honolulu, don't you know?"
+
+"The friend to whom I refer is English," I replied.  "It is Mr.
+Carthew, whom you picked up at Midway.  My firm has
+bought the wreck; I am just returned from breaking her up; and
+--to make my business quite clear to you--I have a
+communication it is necessary I should make; and have to
+trouble you for Mr. Carthew's address."
+
+It will be seen how rapidly I had dropped all hope of interesting
+the frigid British bear.  He, on his side, was plainly on thorns at
+my insistence; I judged he was suffering torments of alarm lest
+I should prove an undesirable acquaintance; diagnosed him for
+a shy, dull, vain, unamiable animal, without adequate defence--
+a sort of dishoused snail; and concluded, rightly enough, that
+he would consent to anything to bring our interview to a
+conclusion.  A moment later, he had fled, leaving me with a
+sheet of paper, thus inscribed:--
+
+                                           Norris Carthew,
+
+                                               Stallbridge-le-Carthew,
+
+                                                         Dorset.
+
+I might have cried victory, the field of battle and some of the
+enemy's baggage remaining in my occupation.  As a matter of
+fact, my moral sufferings during the engagement had rivalled
+those of Mr. Sebright; I was left incapable of fresh hostilities; I
+owned that the navy of old England was (for me) invincible as
+of yore; and giving up all thought of the doctor, inclined to
+salute her veteran flag, in the future, from a prudent distance. 
+Such was my inclination, when I retired to rest; and my first
+experience the next morning strengthened it to certainty.  For I
+had the pleasure of encountering my fair antagonist on his way
+on board; and he honoured me with a recognition so
+disgustingly dry, that my impatience overflowed, and (recalling
+the tactics of Nelson) I neglected to perceive or to return it.
+
+Judge of my astonishment, some half-hour later, to receive a
+note of invitation from the Tempest.
+
+"Dear Sir," it began, "we are all naturally very much interested
+in the wreck of the Flying Scud, and as soon as I mentioned
+that I had the pleasure of making your acquaintance, a very
+general wish was expressed that you would come and dine on
+board.  It will give us all the greatest pleasure to see you
+to-night, or in case you should be otherwise engaged, to
+luncheon either to-morrow or to-day." A note of the hours
+followed, and the document wound up with the name of "J.
+Lascelles Sebright," under an undeniable statement that he was
+sincerely mine. 
+
+"No, Mr. Lascelles Sebright," I reflected, "you are not, but I
+begin to suspect that (like the lady in the song) you are
+another's.  You have mentioned your adventure, my friend; you
+have been blown up; you have got your orders; this note has
+been dictated; and I am asked on board (in spite of your
+melancholy protests) not to meet the men, and not to talk about
+the Flying Scud, but to undergo the scrutiny of some one
+interested in Carthew:  the doctor, for a wager.  And for a
+second wager, all this springs from your facility in giving the
+address."  I lost no time in answering the billet, electing for the
+earliest occasion; and at the appointed hour, a somewhat
+blackguard-looking boat's crew from the Norah Creina
+conveyed me under the guns of the Tempest.
+
+The ward-room appeared pleased to see me; Sebright's brother
+officers, in contrast to himself, took a boyish interest in my
+cruise; and much was talked of the Flying Scud; of how she
+had been lost, of how I had found her, and of the weather, the
+anchorage, and the currents about Midway Island.  Carthew
+was referred to more than once without embarrassment; the
+parallel case of a late Earl of Aberdeen, who died mate on
+board a Yankee schooner, was adduced.  If they told me little of
+the man, it was because they had not much to tell, and only felt
+an interest in his recognition and pity for his prolonged ill-
+health.  I could never think the subject was avoided; and it was
+clear that the officers, far from practising concealment, had
+nothing to conceal.
+
+So far, then, all seemed natural, and yet the doctor troubled me. 
+This was a tall, rugged, plain man, on the wrong side of fifty,
+already gray, and with a restless mouth and bushy eyebrows: he
+spoke seldom, but then with gaiety; and his great, quaking,
+silent laughter was infectious.  I could make out that he was at
+once the quiz of the ward-room and perfectly respected; and I
+made sure that he observed me covertly.  It is certain I returned
+the compliment.  If Carthew had feigned sickness--and all
+seemed to point in that direction--here was the man who knew
+all--or certainly knew much.  His strong, sterling face
+progressively and silently persuaded of his full knowledge. 
+That was not the mouth, these were not the eyes, of one who
+would act in ignorance, or could be led at random.  Nor again
+was it the face of a man squeamish in the case of malefactors;
+there was even a touch of Brutus there, and something of the
+hanging judge.  In short, he seemed the last character for the
+part assigned him in my theories; and wonder and curiosity
+contended in my mind.
+
+Luncheon was over, and an adjournment to the smoking-room
+proposed, when (upon a sudden impulse) I burned my ships,
+and pleading indisposition, requested to consult the doctor.
+
+"There is nothing the matter with my body, Dr. Urquart," said I,
+as soon as we were alone.
+
+He hummed, his mouth worked, he regarded me steadily with
+his gray eyes, but resolutely held his peace.
+
+
+"I want to talk to you about the Flying Scud and Mr. Carthew,"
+I resumed.  "Come:  you must have expected this.  I am sure
+you know all; you are shrewd, and must have a guess that I
+know much.  How are we to stand to one another? and how am
+I to stand to Mr. Carthew?"
+
+"I do not fully understand you," he replied, after a pause; and
+then, after another: "It is the spirit I refer to, Mr. Dodd."
+
+"The spirit of my inquiries?" I asked.
+
+He nodded.
+
+
+"I think we are at cross-purposes," said I.  "The spirit is
+precisely what I came in quest of.  I bought the Flying Scud at
+a ruinous figure, run up by Mr. Carthew through an agent; and
+I am, in consequence, a bankrupt.  But if I have found no
+fortune in the wreck, I have found unmistakable evidences of
+foul play.  Conceive my position:  I am ruined through this
+man, whom I never saw; I might very well desire revenge or
+compensation; and I think you will admit I have the means to
+extort either."
+
+He made no sign in answer to this challenge.
+
+"Can you not understand, then," I resumed, "the spirit in which
+I come to one who is surely in the secret, and ask him, honestly
+and plainly: How do I stand to Mr. Carthew?"
+
+"I must ask you to be more explicit," said he.
+
+"You do not help me much," I retorted.  "But see if you can
+understand:  my conscience is not very fine-spun; still, I have
+one.  Now, there are degrees of foul play, to some of which I
+have no particular objection. I am sure with Mr. Carthew, I am
+not at all the person to forgo an advantage; and I have much
+curiosity.  But on the other hand, I have no taste for
+persecution; and I ask you to believe that I am not the man to
+make bad worse, or heap trouble on the unfortunate."
+
+"Yes; I think I understand," said he.  "Suppose I pass you my
+word that, whatever may have occurred, there were excuses--
+great excuses--I may say, very great?"
+
+"It would have weight with me, doctor," I replied.
+
+"I may go further," he pursued.  "Suppose I had been there, or
+you had been there:  after a certain event had taken place, it's a
+grave question what we might have done--it's even a question
+what we could have done--ourselves.  Or take me.  I will be
+plain with you, and own that I am in possession of the facts. 
+You have a shrewd guess how I have acted in that knowledge.
+May I ask you to judge from the character of my action,
+something of the nature of that knowledge, which I have no
+call, nor yet no title, to share with you?"
+
+I cannot convey a sense of the rugged conviction and judicial
+emphasis of Dr. Urquart's speech.  To those who did not hear
+him, it may appear as if he fed me on enigmas; to myself, who
+heard, I seemed to have received a lesson and a compliment.
+
+"I thank you," I said.  "I feel you have said as much as possible,
+and more than I had any right to ask.  I take that as a mark of
+confidence, which I will try to deserve.  I hope, sir, you will let 
+me regard you as a friend."
+
+He evaded my proffered friendship with a blunt proposal to
+rejoin the mess; and yet a moment later, contrived to alleviate
+the snub.  For, as we entered the smoking-room, he laid his
+hand on my shoulder with a kind familiarity.
+
+"I have just prescribed for Mr. Dodd," says he, "a glass of our
+Madeira."
+
+I have never again met Dr. Urquart:  but he wrote himself so
+clear upon my memory that I think I see him still.  And indeed
+I had cause to remember the man for the sake of his
+communication.  It was hard enough to make a theory fit the
+circumstances of the Flying Scud; but one in which the chief
+actor should stand the least excused, and might retain the
+esteem or at least the pity of a man like Dr. Urquart, failed me
+utterly.  Here at least was the end of my discoveries; I learned
+no more, till I learned all; and my reader has the evidence
+complete.  Is he more astute than I was? or, like me, does he
+give it up?
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+ CROSS-QUESTIONS AND CROOKED ANSWERS.
+
+
+I have said hard words of San Francisco; they must scarce be
+literally understood (one cannot suppose the Israelites did
+justice to the land of Pharaoh); and the city took a fine revenge
+of me on my return.  She had never worn a more becoming
+guise; the sun shone, the air was lively, the people had flowers
+in their button-holes and smiles upon their faces; and as I made
+my way towards Jim's place of employment, with some very
+black anxieties at heart, I seemed to myself a blot on the
+surrounding gaiety.
+
+My destination was in a by-street in a mean, rickety building; 
+"The Franklin H. Dodge Steam Printing Company" appeared
+upon its front, and in characters of greater freshness, so as to
+suggest recent conversion, the watch-cry, "White Labour Only."
+In the office, in a dusty pen, Jim sat alone before a table.  A
+wretched change had overtaken him in clothes, body, and
+bearing; he looked sick and shabby; he who had once rejoiced
+in his day's employment, like a horse among pastures, now sat
+staring on a column of accounts, idly chewing a pen, at times
+heavily sighing, the picture of inefficiency and inattention.  He
+was sunk deep in a painful reverie; he neither saw nor heard
+me; and I stood and watched him unobserved.  I had a sudden
+vain relenting.  Repentance bludgeoned me.  As I had predicted
+to Nares, I stood and kicked myself.  Here was I come home
+again, my honour saved; there was my friend in want of rest,
+nursing, and a generous diet; and I asked myself with Falstaff,
+"What is in that word honour? what is that honour?" and, like
+Falstaff, I told myself that it was air.
+
+"Jim!" said I.
+
+"Loudon!" he gasped, and jumped from his chair and stood
+shaking.
+
+The next moment I was over the barrier, and we were hand in
+hand.
+
+"My poor old man!" I cried.
+
+"Thank God, you're home at last!" he gulped, and kept patting
+my shoulder with his hand.
+
+"I've no good news for you, Jim!" said I.
+
+"You've come--that's the good news that I want," he replied. 
+"O, how I've longed for you, Loudon!"
+
+"I couldn't do what you wrote me," I said, lowering my voice. 
+"The creditors have it all.  I couldn't do it."
+
+"Ssh!" returned Jim.  "I was crazy when wrote.  I could never
+have looked Mamie in the face if we had done it.  O, Loudon,
+what a gift that woman is!  You think you know something of
+life:  you just don't know anything.  It's the GOODNESS of the
+woman, it's a revelation!"
+
+"That's all right," said I.  "That's how I hoped to hear you, Jim."
+
+"And so the Flying Scud was a fraud," he resumed.  "I didn't
+quite understand your letter, but I made out that."
+
+"Fraud is a mild term for it," said I.  "The creditors will never
+believe what fools we were.  And that reminds me," I
+continued, rejoicing in the transition, "how about the
+bankruptcy?"
+
+"You were lucky to be out of that," answered Jim, shaking his
+head; "you were lucky not to see the papers.  The _Occidental_
+called me a fifth-rate Kerbstone broker with water on the brain;
+another said I was a tree-frog that had got into the same
+meadow with Longhurst, and had blown myself out till I went
+pop.  It was rough on a man in his honeymoon; so was what
+they said about my looks, and what I had on, and the way I
+perspired.  But I braced myself up with the Flying Scud.  How
+did it exactly figure out anyway?  I don't seem to catch on to
+that story, Loudon."
+
+"The devil you don't!" thinks I to myself; and then aloud:  "You
+see we had neither one of us good luck.  I didn't do much more
+than cover current expenses; and you got floored immediately. 
+How did we come to go so soon?"
+
+"Well, we'll have to have a talk over all this," said Jim with a
+sudden start.  "I should be getting to my books; and I guess you
+had better go up right away to Mamie.  She's at Speedy's.  She
+expects you with impatience.  She regards you in the light of a
+favourite brother, Loudon."
+
+Any scheme was welcome which allowed me to postpone the
+hour of explanation, and avoid (were it only for a breathing
+space) the topic of the Flying Scud.  I hastened accordingly to
+Bush Street.  Mrs. Speedy, already rejoicing in the return of a
+spouse, hailed me with acclamation.  "And it's beautiful you're
+looking, Mr. Dodd, my dear," she was kind enough to say. 
+"And a miracle they naygur waheenies let ye lave the oilands.  I
+have my suspicions of Shpeedy," she added, roguishly.  "Did ye
+see him after the naygresses now?"
+
+I gave Speedy an unblemished character.
+
+"The one of ye will niver bethray the other," said the playful
+dame, and ushered me into a bare room, where Mamie sat
+working a type-writer.
+
+I was touched by the cordiality of her greeting.  With the
+prettiest gesture in the world she gave me both her hands;
+wheeled forth a chair; and produced, from a cupboard, a tin of 
+my favourite tobacco, and a book of my exclusive cigarette
+papers.
+
+"There!" she cried; "you see, Mr. Loudon, we were all prepared
+for you; the things were bought the very day you sailed."
+
+I imagined she had always intended me a pleasant welcome;
+but the certain fervour of sincerity, which I could not help
+remarking, flowed from an unexpected source.  Captain Nares,
+with a kindness for which I can never be sufficiently grateful,
+had stolen a moment from his occupations, driven to call on
+Mamie, and drawn her a generous picture of my prowess at the
+wreck.  She was careful not to breathe a word of this interview,
+till she had led me on to tell my adventures for myself.
+
+"Ah! Captain Nares was better," she cried, when I had done. 
+"From your account, I have only learned one new thing, that
+you are modest as well as brave."
+
+I cannot tell with what sort of disclamation I sought to reply.
+
+"It is of no use," said Mamie.  "I know a hero.  And when I
+heard of you working all day like a common labourer, with
+your hands bleeding and your nails broken--and how you told
+the captain to 'crack on' (I think he said) in the storm, when he
+was terrified himself--and the danger of that horrid mutiny"--
+(Nares had been obligingly dipping his brush in earthquake
+and eclipse)--"and how it was all done, in part at least, for Jim
+and me--I felt we could never say how we admired and thanked
+you."
+
+"Mamie," I cried, "don't talk of thanks; it is not a word to be
+used between friends.  Jim and I have been prosperous
+together; now we shall be poor together.  We've done our best,
+and that's all that need be said.  The next thing is for me to find
+a situation, and send you and Jim up country for a long holiday
+in the redwoods--for a holiday Jim has got to have."
+
+"Jim can't take your money, Mr. Loudon," said Mamie.
+
+"Jim?" cried I.  "He's got to.  Didn't I take his?"
+
+Presently after, Jim himself arrived, and before he had yet done
+mopping his brow, he was at me with the accursed subject. 
+"Now, Loudon," said he, "here we are all together, the day's
+work done and the evening before us; just start in with the
+whole story."
+
+"One word on business first," said I, speaking from the lips
+outward, and meanwhile (in the private apartments of my
+brain) trying for the thousandth time to find some plausible
+arrangement of my story.  "I want to have a notion how we
+stand about the bankruptcy."
+
+"O, that's ancient history," cried Jim.  "We paid seven cents,
+and a wonder we did as well.  The receiver----" (methought a
+spasm seized him at the name of this official, and he broke off). 
+"But it's all past and done with anyway; and what I want to get
+at is the facts about the wreck.  I don't seem to understand it;
+appears to me like as there was something underneath."
+
+"There was nothing IN it, anyway," I said, with a forced laugh.
+
+"That's what I want to judge of," returned Jim.
+
+"How the mischief is it I can never keep you to that
+bankruptcy?  It looks as if you avoided it," said I--for a man in
+my situation, with unpardonable folly.
+
+"Don't it look a little as if you were trying to avoid the wreck?"
+asked Jim.
+
+It was my own doing; there was no retreat.  "My dear fellow, if
+you make a point of it, here goes!" said I, and launched with
+spurious gaiety into the current of my tale.  I told it with point
+and spirit; described the island and the wreck, mimicked
+Anderson and the Chinese, maintained the suspense....  My pen
+has stumbled on the fatal word.  I maintained the suspense so
+well that it was never relieved; and when I stopped--I dare not
+say concluded, where there was no conclusion--I found Jim and
+Mamie regarding me with surprise.
+
+"Well?" said Jim.
+
+"Well, that's all," said I.
+
+"But how do you explain it?" he asked.
+
+"I can't explain it," said I.
+
+
+Mamie wagged her head ominously.
+
+"But, great Caesar's ghost! the money was offered!" cried Jim. 
+"It won't do, Loudon; it's nonsense, on the face of it!  I don't say
+but what you and Nares did your best; I'm sure, of course, you
+did; but I do say, you got fooled.  I say the stuff is in that ship
+to-day, and I say I mean to get it."
+
+"There is nothing in the ship, I tell you, but old wood and iron!"
+said I.
+
+"You'll see," said Jim.  "Next time I go myself.  I'll take Mamie
+for the trip; Longhurst won't refuse me the expense of a
+schooner.  You wait till I get the searching of her."
+
+"But you can't search her!" cried I.  "She's burned."
+
+"Burned!" cried Mamie, starting a little from the attitude of
+quiescent capacity in which she had hitherto sat to hear me, her
+hands folded in her lap.
+
+There was an appreciable pause.
+
+"I beg your pardon, Loudon," began Jim at last, "but why in
+snakes did you burn her?"
+
+"It was an idea of Nares's," said I.
+
+"This is certainly the strangest circumstance of all," observed
+Mamie.
+
+"I must say, Loudon, it does seem kind of unexpected," added
+Jim.  "It seems kind of crazy even.  What did you--what did
+Nares expect to gain by burning her?"
+
+"I don't know; it didn't seem to matter; we had got all there was
+to get," said I.
+
+"That's the very point," cried Jim.  "It was quite plain you
+hadn't."
+
+"What made you so sure?" asked Mamie.
+
+"How can I tell you?" I cried.  "We had been all through her. 
+We WERE sure; that's all that I can say."
+
+
+"I begin to think you were," she returned, with a significant
+emphasis.
+
+Jim hurriedly intervened.  "What I don't quite make out,
+Loudon, is that you don't seem to appreciate the peculiarities of
+the thing," said he.  "It doesn't seem to have struck you same as
+it does me."
+
+"Pshaw! why go on with this?" cried Mamie, suddenly rising. 
+"Mr. Dodd is not telling us either what he thinks or what he
+knows."
+
+"Mamie!" cried Jim.
+
+"You need not be concerned for his feelings, James; he is not
+concerned for yours," returned the lady.  "He dare not deny it,
+besides.  And this is not the first time he has practised
+reticence.  Have you forgotten that he knew the address, and
+did not tell it you until that man had escaped?"
+
+Jim turned to me pleadingly--we were all on our feet.
+"Loudon," he said, "you see Mamie has some fancy; and I must
+say there's just a sort of a shadow of an excuse; for it IS
+bewildering--even to me, Loudon, with my trained business
+intelligence.  For God's sake, clear it up."
+
+"This serves me right," said I.  "I should not have tried to keep
+you in the dark; I should have told you at first that I was
+pledged to secrecy; I should have asked you to trust me in the
+beginning.  It is all I can do now.  There is more of the story,
+but it concerns none of us, and my tongue is tied.  I have given
+my word of honour.  You must trust me and try to forgive me."
+
+"I daresay I am very stupid, Mr. Dodd," began Mamie, with an
+alarming sweetness, "but I thought you went upon this trip as
+my husband's representative and with my husband's money?
+You tell us now that you are pledged, but I should have thought
+you were pledged first of all to James.  You say it does not
+concern us; we are poor people, and my husband is sick, and it
+concerns us a great deal to understand how we come to have
+lost our money, and why our representative comes back to us
+with nothing.  You ask that we should trust you; you do not
+seem to understand; the question we are asking ourselves is
+whether we have not trusted you too much."
+
+"I do not ask you to trust me," I replied.  "I ask Jim.  He knows
+me."
+
+"You think you can do what you please with James; you trust to
+his affection, do you not?  And me, I suppose, you do not
+consider," said Mamie.  "But it was perhaps an unfortunate day
+for you when we were married, for I at least am not blind.  The
+crew run away, the ship is sold for a great deal of money, you
+know that man's address and you conceal it, you do not find
+what you were sent to look for, and yet you burn the ship; and
+now, when we ask explanations, you are pledged to secrecy!
+But I am pledged to no such thing; I will not stand by in silence
+and see my sick and ruined husband betrayed by his
+condescending friend.  I will give you the truth for once.  Mr.
+Dodd, you have been bought and sold."
+
+"Mamie," cried Jim, "no more of this!  It's me you're striking;
+it's only me you hurt.  You don't know, you cannot understand
+these things.  Why, to-day, if it hadn't been for Loudon, I
+couldn't have looked you in the face.  He saved my honesty."
+
+"I have heard plenty of this talk before," she replied.  "You are
+a sweet-hearted fool, and I love you for it.  But I am a clear-
+headed woman; my eyes are open, and I understand this man's
+hypocrisy.  Did he not come here to-day and pretend he would
+take a situation--pretend he would share his hard-earned wages
+with us until you were well?  Pretend!  It makes me furious!
+His wages! a share of his wages!  That would have been your
+pittance, that would have been your share of the Flying
+Scud--you who worked and toiled for him when he was a
+beggar in the streets of Paris.  But we do not want your charity;
+thank God, I can work for my own husband!  See what it is to
+have obliged a gentleman.  He would let you pick him up when
+he was begging; he would stand and look on, and let you black
+his shoes, and sneer at you.  For you were always sneering at
+my James; you always looked down upon him in your heart,
+you know it!"  She turned back to Jim.  "And now when he is
+rich," she began, and then swooped again on me.  "For you are
+rich, I dare you to deny it; I defy you to look me in the face and
+try to deny that you are rich--rich with our money--my
+husband's money----"
+
+Heaven knows to what a height she might have risen, being, by
+this time, bodily whirled away in her own hurricane of words. 
+Heart-sickness, a black depression, a treacherous sympathy
+with my assailant, pity unutterable for poor Jim, already filled,
+divided, and abashed my spirit.  Flight seemed the only
+remedy; and making a private sign to Jim, as if to ask
+permission, I slunk from the unequal field.
+
+I was but a little way down the street, when I was arrested by
+the sound of some one running, and Jim's voice calling me by
+name.  He had followed me with a letter which had been long
+awaiting my return.
+
+I took it in a dream.  "This has been a devil of a business," said
+I.
+
+"Don't think hard of Mamie," he pleaded.  "It's the way she's
+made; it's her high-toned loyalty.  And of course I know it's all
+right.  I know your sterling character; but you didn't, somehow,
+make out to give us the thing straight, Loudon.  Anybody might
+have--I mean it--I mean----"
+
+"Never mind what you mean, my poor Jim," said I.  "She's a
+gallant little woman and a loyal wife:  and I thought her
+splendid.  My story was as fishy as the devil.  I'll never think
+the less of either her or you."
+
+"It'll blow over; it must blow over," said he.
+
+"It never can," I returned, sighing:  "and don't you try to make
+it!  Don't name me, unless it's with an oath.  And get home to
+her  right away.  Good by, my best of friends.  Good by, and
+God bless you.  We shall never meet again."
+
+"O Loudon, that we should live to say such words!" he cried.
+
+I had no views on life, beyond an occasional impulse to commit
+suicide, or to get drunk, and drifted down the street, semi-
+conscious, walking apparently on air, in the light-headedness of
+grief.  I had money in my pocket, whether mine or my creditors'
+I had no means of guessing; and, the Poodle Dog lying in my
+path, I went mechanically in and took a table.  A waiter
+attended me, and I suppose I gave my orders; for presently I
+found myself, with a sudden return of consciousness, beginning
+dinner.  On the white cloth at my elbow lay the letter,
+addressed in a clerk's hand, and bearing an English stamp and
+the Edinburgh postmark.  A bowl of bouillon and a glass of
+wine awakened in one corner of my brain (where all the rest
+was in mourning, the blinds down as for a funeral) a faint stir
+of curiosity; and while I waited the next course, wondering the
+while what I had ordered, I opened and began to read the epoch
+-making document.
+ 
+"DEAR SIR:  I am charged with the melancholy duty of
+announcing to you the death of your excellent grandfather, Mr.
+Alexander Loudon, on the 17th ult. On Sunday the 13th, he
+went to church as usual in the forenoon, and stopped on his
+way home, at the corner of Princes Street, in one of our
+seasonable east winds, to talk with an old friend.  The same
+evening acute bronchitis declared itself; from the first, Dr.
+M'Combie anticipated a fatal result, and the old gentleman
+appeared to have no illusion as to his own state.  He repeatedly
+assured me it was 'by' with him now; 'and high time, too,' he
+once added with characteristic asperity.  He was not in the least
+changed on the approach of death:  only (what I am sure must
+be very grateful to your feelings) he seemed to think and speak
+even more kindly than usual of yourself:  referring to you as
+'Jeannie's yin,' with strong expressions of regard.  'He was the
+only one I ever liket of the hale jing-bang,'  was one of his
+expressions; and you will be glad to know that he dwelt
+particularly on the dutiful respect you had always displayed in
+your relations.  The small codicil, by which he bequeaths you
+his Molesworth and other professional works, was added (you
+will observe) on the day before his death; so that you were in
+his thoughts until the end.  I should say that, though rather a
+trying patient, he was most tenderly nursed by your uncle, and
+your cousin, Miss Euphemia.  I enclose a copy of the testament,
+by which you will see that you share equally with Mr. Adam,
+and that I hold at your disposal a sum nearly approaching
+seventeen thousand pounds.  I beg to congratulate you on this
+considerable acquisition, and expect your orders, to which I
+shall hasten to give my best attention.  Thinking that you might
+desire to return at once to this country, and not knowing how
+you may be placed, I enclose a credit for six hundred pounds. 
+Please sign the accompanying slip, and let me have it at your
+earliest convenience.
+
+                         "I am, dear sir, yours truly,
+
+                                       "W. RUTHERFORD GREGG."
+
+"God bless the old gentleman!" I thought; "and for that matter
+God bless Uncle Adam! and my cousin Euphemia! and Mr.
+Gregg!"  I had a vision of that grey old life now brought to an
+end--"and high time too"--a vision of those Sabbath streets
+alternately vacant and filled with silent people; of the babel of
+the bells, the long-drawn psalmody, the shrewd sting of the
+east wind, the hollow, echoing, dreary house to which "Ecky"
+had returned with the hand of death already on his shoulder; a
+vision, too, of the long, rough country lad, perhaps a serious
+courtier of the lasses in the hawthorn den, perhaps a rustic
+dancer on the green, who had first earned and answered to that
+harsh diminutive.  And I asked myself  if, on the whole, poor
+Ecky had succeeded in life; if the last state of that man were not
+on the whole worse than the first; and the house in Randolph
+Crescent a less admirable dwelling than the hamlet where he
+saw the day and grew to manhood.  Here was a consolatory
+thought for one who was himself a failure.
+
+Yes, I declare the word came in my mind; and all the while, in
+another partition of the brain, I was glowing and singing for my
+new-found opulence.  The pile of gold--four thousand two
+hundred and fifty double eagles, seventeen thousand ugly
+sovereigns, twenty-one thousand two hundred and fifty
+Napoleons--danced, and rang and ran molten, and lit up life
+with their effulgence, in the eye of fancy.  Here were all things
+made plain to me:  Paradise--Paris, I mean--Regained, Carthew
+protected, Jim restored, the creditors...
+
+"The creditors!" I repeated, and sank back benumbed. It was all
+theirs to the last farthing:  my grandfather had died too soon to
+save me.
+
+I must have somewhere a rare vein of decision.  In that
+revolutionary moment, I found myself prepared for all extremes
+except the one:  ready to do anything, or to go anywhere, so
+long as I might save my money.  At the worst, there was flight,
+flight to some of those blest countries where the serpent,
+extradition, has not yet entered in.
+
+          On no condition is extradition
+               Allowed in Callao!
+
+--the old lawless words haunted me; and I saw myself hugging
+my gold in the company of such men as had once made and
+sung them, in the rude and bloody wharfside drinking-shops of
+Chili and Peru.  The run of my ill-luck, the breach of my old
+friendship, this bubble fortune flaunted for a moment in my
+eyes and snatched again, had made me desperate and (in the
+expressive vulgarism) ugly.  To drink vile spirits among vile
+companions by the flare of a pine-torch; to go burthened with
+my furtive treasure in a belt; to fight for it knife in hand, rolling
+on a clay floor; to flee perpetually in fresh ships and to be
+chased through the sea from isle to isle, seemed, in my then
+frame of mind, a welcome series of events.
+
+That was for the worst; but it began to dawn slowly on my
+mind that there was yet a possible better.  Once escaped, once
+safe in Callao, I might approach my creditors with a good
+grace; and properly handled by a cunning agent, it was just
+possible they might accept some easy composition.  The hope
+recalled me to the bankruptcy.  It was strange, I reflected:  often
+as I had questioned Jim, he had never obliged me with an
+answer.  In his haste for news about the wreck, my own no less
+legitimate curiosity had gone disappointed.  Hateful as the
+thought was to me, I must return at once and find out where I
+stood.
+
+I left my dinner still unfinished, paying for the whole, of
+course, and tossing the waiter a gold piece.  I was reckless; I
+knew not what was mine and cared not:  I must take what I
+could get and give as I was able; to rob and to squander
+seemed the complementary parts of my new destiny.  I walked
+up Bush Street, whistling, brazening myself to confront Mamie
+in the first place, and the world at large and a certain visionary
+judge upon a bench in the second.  Just outside, I stopped and
+lighted a cigar to give me greater countenance; and puffing this
+and wearing what (I am sure) was a wretched assumption of
+braggadocio, I reappeared on the scene of my disgrace.
+
+My friend and his wife were finishing a poor meal--rags of old
+mutton, the remainder cakes from breakfast eaten cold, and a
+starveling pot of coffee.
+
+"I beg your pardon, Mrs. Pinkerton," said I.  "Sorry to inflict my
+presence where it cannot be desired; but there is a piece of
+business necessary to be discussed."
+
+"Pray do not consider me," said Mamie, rising, and she sailed
+into the adjoining bedroom.
+
+Jim watched her go and shook his head; he looked miserably
+old and ill.
+
+"What is it, now?" he asked.
+
+"Perhaps you remember you answered none of my questions,"
+said I.
+
+
+"Your questions?" faltered Jim.
+
+"Even so, Jim.  My questions," I repeated.  "I put questions as
+well as yourself; and however little I may have satisfied Mamie
+with my answers, I beg to remind you that you gave me none at
+all."
+
+"You mean about the bankruptcy?" asked Jim.
+
+I nodded.
+
+He writhed in his chair.  "The straight truth is, I was ashamed,"
+he said.  "I was trying to dodge you.  I've been playing fast and
+loose with you, Loudon; I've deceived you from the first, I
+blush to own it.  And here you came home and put the very
+question I was fearing.  Why did we bust so soon?  Your keen
+business eye had not deceived you.  That's the point, that's my
+shame; that's what killed me this afternoon when Mamie was
+treating you so, and my conscience was telling me all the time,
+Thou art the man."
+
+"What was it, Jim?" I asked.
+
+"What I had been at all the time, Loudon," he wailed; "and I
+don't know how I'm to look you in the face and say it, after my
+duplicity.  It was stocks," he added in a whisper.
+
+"And you were afraid to tell me that!" I cried.  "You poor, old,
+cheerless dreamer! what would it matter what you did or didn't?
+Can't you see we're doomed?  And anyway, that's not my point. 
+It's how I stand that I want to know.  There is a particular
+reason.  Am I clear?  Have I a certificate, or what have I to do
+to get one?  And when will it be dated?  You can't think what
+hangs by it!"
+
+"That's the worst of all," said Jim, like a man in a dream, "I
+can't see how to tell him!"
+
+"What do you mean?" I cried, a small pang of terror at my
+heart.
+
+"I'm afraid I sacrificed you, Loudon," he said, looking at me
+pitifully.
+
+"Sacrificed me?" I repeated.  "How? What do you mean by
+sacrifice?"
+
+"I know it'll shock your delicate self-respect," he said; "but
+what was I to do?  Things looked so bad.  The receiver----" (as
+usual, the name stuck in his throat, and he began afresh). 
+"There was a lot of talk; the reporters were after me already;
+there was the trouble and all about the Mexican business; and I
+got scared right out, and I guess I lost my head.  You weren't
+there, you see, and that was my temptation."
+
+I did not know how long he might thus beat about the bush
+with dreadful hintings, and I was already beside myself with
+terror.  What had he done?  I saw he had been tempted; I knew
+from his letters that he was in no condition to resist.  How had
+he sacrificed the absent?
+
+"Jim," I said, "you must speak right out.  I've got all that I can
+carry."
+
+"Well," he said--"I know it was a liberty--I made it out you
+were no business man, only a stone-broke painter; that half the
+time you didn't know anything anyway, particularly money and
+accounts.  I said you never could be got to understand whose
+was whose.  I had to say that because of some entries in the
+books----"
+
+"For God's sake," I cried, "put me out of this agony!  What did
+you accuse me of?"
+
+"Accuse you of?" repeated Jim.  "Of what I'm telling you.  And
+there being no deed of partnership, I made out you were only a
+kind of clerk that I called a partner just to give you taffy; and so
+I got you ranked a creditor on the estate for your wages and the
+money you had lent.  And----"
+
+I believe I reeled.  "A creditor!" I roared; "a creditor!  I'm not in
+the bankruptcy at all?"
+
+"No," said Jim.  "I know it was a liberty----"
+
+"O, damn your liberty! read that," I cried, dashing the letter
+before him on the table, "and call in your wife, and be done
+with eating this truck "--as I spoke, I slung the cold mutton in
+the empty grate--"and let's all go and have a champagne
+supper.  I've dined--I'm sure I don't remember what I had; I'd
+dine again ten scores of times upon a night like this.  Read it,
+you blaying ass!  I'm not insane.  Here, Mamie," I continued,
+opening the bedroom door, "come out and make it up with me,
+and go and kiss your husband; and I'll tell you what, after the
+supper, let's go to some place where there's a band, and I'll
+waltz with you till sunrise."
+
+"What does it all mean?" cried Jim.
+
+"It means we have a champagne supper to-night, and all go to
+Napa Valley or to Monterey to-morrow," said I.  "Mamie, go
+and get your things on; and you, Jim, sit down right where you
+are, take a sheet of paper, and tell Franklin Dodge to go to
+Texas.  Mamie, you were right, my dear; I was rich all the time,
+and didn't know it."
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XIX.
+
+ TRAVELS WITH A SHYSTER.
+
+
+The absorbing and disastrous adventure of the Flying Scud was
+now quite ended; we had dashed into these deep waters and we
+had escaped again to starve, we had been ruined and were
+saved, had quarrelled and made up; there remained nothing but
+to sing Te Deum, draw a line, and begin on a fresh page of my
+unwritten diary.  I do not pretend that I recovered all I had lost
+with Mamie; it would have been more than I had merited; and I
+had certainly been more uncommunicative than became either
+the partner or the friend.  But she accepted the position
+handsomely; and during the week that I now passed with them,
+both she and Jim had the grace to spare me questions.  It was
+to Calistoga that we went; there was some rumour of a Napa
+land-boom at the moment, the possibility of stir attracted Jim,
+and he informed me he would find a certain joy in looking on,
+much as Napoleon on St. Helena took a pleasure to read
+military works.  The field of his ambition was quite closed; he
+was done with action; and looked forward to a ranch in a
+mountain dingle, a patch of corn, a pair of kine, a leisurely and
+contemplative age in the green shade of forests.  "Just let me
+get down on my back in a hayfield," said he, "and you'll find
+there's no more snap to me than that much putty."
+
+And for two days the perfervid being actually rested.  The third,
+he was observed in consultation with the local editor, and
+owned he was in two minds about purchasing the press and
+paper.  "It's a kind of a hold for an idle man," he said,
+pleadingly; "and if the section was to open up the way it ought
+to, there might be dollars in the thing."  On the fourth day he
+was gone till dinner-time alone; on the fifth we made a long
+picnic drive to the fresh field of enterprise; and the sixth was
+passed entirely in the preparation of prospectuses.  The pioneer
+of McBride City was already upright and self-reliant as of yore;
+the fire rekindled in his eye, the ring restored to his voice; a
+charger sniffing battle and saying ha-ha, among the spears.  On
+the seventh morning we signed a deed of partnership, for Jim
+would not accept a dollar of my money otherwise; and having
+once more engaged myself--or that mortal part of me, my
+purse--among the wheels of his machinery, I returned alone to
+San Francisco and took quarters in the Palace Hotel.
+
+The same night I had Nares to dinner.  His sunburnt face, his
+queer and personal strain of talk, recalled days that were scarce
+over and that seemed already distant.  Through the music of the
+band outside, and the chink and clatter of the dining-room, it
+seemed to me as if I heard the foaming of the surf and the
+voices of the sea-birds about Midway Island.  The bruises on
+our hands were not yet healed; and there we sat, waited on by
+elaborate darkies, eating pompano and drinking iced
+champagne.
+
+"Think of our dinners on the Norah, captain, and then oblige
+me by looking round the room for contrast."
+
+He took the scene in slowly.  "Yes, it is like a dream," he said:
+"like as if the darkies were really about as big as dimes; and a
+great big scuttle might open up there, and Johnson stick in a
+great big head and shoulders, and cry, 'Eight bells!'--and the
+whole thing vanish."
+
+"Well, it's the other thing that has done that," I replied.  "It's all
+bygone now, all dead and buried.  Amen! say I."
+
+"I don't know that, Mr. Dodd; and to tell you the fact, I don't
+believe it," said Nares.  "There's more Flying Scud in the oven;
+and the baker's name, I take it, is Bellairs.  He tackled me the
+day we came in:  sort of a razee of poor old humanity--jury
+clothes--full new suit of pimples:  knew him at once from your 
+description.  I let him pump me till I saw his game.  He knows
+a good deal that we don't know, a good deal that we do, and
+suspects the balance.  There's trouble brewing for somebody."
+
+I was surprised I had not thought of this before.  Bellairs had
+been behind the scenes; he had known Dickson; he knew the
+flight of the crew; it was hardly possible but what he should
+suspect; it was certain if he suspected, that he would seek to
+trade on the suspicion.  And sure enough, I was not yet dressed
+the next morning ere the lawyer was knocking at my door.  I let
+him in, for I was curious; and he, after some ambiguous
+prolegomena, roundly proposed I should go shares with him. 
+
+"Shares in what?" I inquired.
+
+"If you will allow me to clothe my idea in a somewhat vulgar
+form," said he, "I might ask you, did you go to Midway for your
+health?"
+
+"I don't know that I did," I replied.
+
+"Similarly, Mr. Dodd, you may be sure I would never have
+taken the present step without influential grounds," pursued the
+lawyer.  "Intrusion is foreign to my character.  But you and I,
+sir, are engaged on the same ends.  If we can continue to work
+the thing in company, I place at your disposal my knowledge of
+the law and a considerable practice in delicate negotiations
+similar to this.  Should you refuse to consent, you might find in
+me a formidable and"--he hesitated--"and to my own regret,
+perhaps a dangerous competitor."
+
+"Did you get this by heart?" I asked, genially.
+
+"I advise YOU to!" he said, with a sudden sparkle of temper
+and menace, instantly gone, instantly succeeded by fresh
+cringing.  "I assure you, sir, I arrive in the character of a friend;
+and I believe you underestimate my information.  If I may
+instance an example, I am acquainted to the last dime with
+what you made (or rather lost), and I know you have since
+cashed a considerable draft on London."
+
+"What do you infer?" I asked.
+
+"I know where that draft came from," he cried, wincing back
+like one who has greatly dared, and instantly regrets the
+venture.
+
+"So?" said I.
+
+"You forget I was Mr. Dickson's confidential agent," he
+explained.  "You had his address, Mr. Dodd.  We were the only
+two that he communicated with in San Francisco.  You see my
+deductions are quite obvious:  you see how open and frank I
+deal with you, as I should wish to do with any gentleman with
+whom I was conjoined in business.  You see how much I
+know; and it can scarcely escape your strong common-sense,
+how much better it would be if I knew all.  You cannot hope to
+get rid of me at this time of day, I have my place in the affair, I
+cannot be shaken off; I am, if you will excuse a rather technical
+pleasantry, an encumbrance on the estate.  The actual harm I
+can do, I leave you to valuate for yourself.  But without going
+so far, Mr. Dodd, and without in any way inconveniencing
+myself, I could make things very uncomfortable.  For instance,
+Mr. Pinkerton's liquidation.  You and I know, sir--and you
+better than I--on what a large fund you draw.  Is Mr. Pinkerton
+in the thing at all?  It was you only who knew the address, and
+you were concealing it.  Suppose I should communicate with
+Mr. Pinkerton----"
+
+"Look here!" I interrupted, "communicate with him (if you will
+permit me to clothe my idea in a vulgar shape) till you are blue
+in the face.  There is only one person with whom I refuse to
+allow you to communicate further, and that is myself.   Good
+morning."
+
+He could not conceal his rage, disappointment, and surprise;
+and in the passage (I have no doubt) was shaken by St. Vitus.
+
+I was disgusted by this interview; it struck me hard to be
+suspected on all hands, and to hear again from this trafficker
+what I had heard already from Jim's wife; and yet my strongest
+impression was different and might rather be described as an
+impersonal fear.  There was something against nature in the
+man's craven impudence; it was as though a lamb had butted
+me; such daring at the hands of such a dastard, implied
+unchangeable resolve, a great pressure of necessity, and
+powerful means.  I thought of the unknown Carthew, and it
+sickened me to see this ferret on his trail. 
+
+Upon inquiry I found the lawyer was but just disbarred for
+some malpractice; and the discovery added excessively to my
+disquiet.  Here was a rascal without money or the means of
+making it, thrust out of the doors of his own trade, publicly
+shamed, and doubtless in a deuce of a bad temper with the
+universe.  Here, on the other hand, was a man with a secret;
+rich, terrified, practically in hiding; who had been willing to
+pay ten thousand pounds for the bones of the Flying Scud.  I
+slipped insensibly into a mental alliance with the victim; the
+business weighed on me; all day long, I was wondering how
+much the lawyer knew, how much he guessed, and when he
+would open his attack.
+
+Some of these problems are unsolved to this day; others were
+soon made clear.  Where he got Carthew's name is still a
+mystery; perhaps some sailor on the Tempest, perhaps my own
+sea-lawyer served him for a tool; but I was actually at his
+elbow when he learned the address.  It fell so.  One evening,
+when I had an engagement and was killing time until the hour,
+I chanced to walk in the court of the hotel while the band
+played.  The place was bright as day with the electric light; and
+I recognised, at some distance among the loiterers, the person
+of Bellairs in talk with a gentleman whose face appeared
+familiar.  It was certainly some one I had seen, and seen
+recently; but who or where, I knew not.  A porter standing hard
+by, gave me the necessary hint.  The stranger was an English
+navy man, invalided home from Honolulu, where he had left
+his ship; indeed, it was only from the change of clothes and the
+effects of sickness, that I had not immediately recognised my
+friend and correspondent, Lieutenant Sebright.
+
+The conjunction of these planets seeming ominous, I drew
+near; but it seemed Bellairs had done his business; he vanished
+in the crowd, and I found my officer alone.
+
+"Do you know whom you have been talking to, Mr. Sebright?"
+I began.
+
+"No," said he; "I don't know him from Adam.  Anything
+wrong?"
+
+"He is a disreputable lawyer, recently disbarred," said I.  "I
+wish I had seen you in time.  I trust you told him nothing about
+Carthew?"
+
+He flushed to his ears.  "I'm awfully sorry," he said.  "He
+seemed civil, and I wanted to get rid of him.  It was only the
+address he asked."
+
+"And you gave it?" I cried.
+
+"I'm really awfully sorry," said Sebright.  "I'm afraid I did." 
+
+"God forgive you!" was my only comment, and I turned my
+back upon the blunderer.
+
+The fat was in the fire now:  Bellairs had the address, and I was
+the more deceived or Carthew would have news of him.  So
+strong was this impression, and so painful, that the next
+morning I had the curiosity to pay the lawyer's den a visit.  An
+old woman was scrubbing the stair, and the board was down.
+
+"Lawyer Bellairs?" said the old woman.  "Gone East this
+morning.  There's Lawyer Dean next block up."
+
+I did not trouble Lawyer Dean, but walked slowly back to my
+hotel, ruminating as I went.  The image of the old woman
+washing that desecrated stair had struck my fancy; it seemed
+that all the water-supply of the city and all the soap in the State
+would scarce suffice to cleanse it, it had been so long a clearing
+-house of dingy secrets and a factory of sordid fraud.  And now
+the corner was untenanted; some judge, like a careful
+housewife, had knocked down the web, and the bloated spider
+was scuttling elsewhere after new victims.  I had of late (as I
+have said) insensibly taken sides with Carthew; now when his
+enemy was at his heels, my interest grew more warm; and I
+began to wonder if I could not help.  The drama of the Flying
+Scud was entering on a new phase.  It had been singular from
+the first:  it promised an extraordinary conclusion; and I, who
+had paid so much to learn the beginning, might pay a little
+more and see the end.  I lingered in San Francisco,
+indemnifying myself after the hardships of the cruise, spending
+money, regretting it, continually promising departure for the
+morrow.  Why not go indeed, and keep a watch upon Bellairs?
+If I missed him, there was no harm done, I was the nearer
+Paris.  If I found and kept his trail, it was hard if I could not put
+some stick in his machinery, and at the worst I could promise
+myself interesting scenes and revelations.
+
+In such a mixed humour, I made up what it pleases me to call
+my mind, and once more involved myself in the story of
+Carthew and the Flying Scud.  The same night I wrote a letter
+of farewell to Jim, and one of anxious warning to Dr. Urquart
+begging him to set Carthew on his guard; the morrow saw me
+in the ferry-boat; and ten days later, I was walking the
+hurricane deck on the City of Denver.  By that time my mind
+was pretty much made down again, its natural condition:  I told
+myself that I was bound for Paris or Fontainebleau to resume
+the study of the arts; and I thought no more of Carthew or
+Bellairs, or only to smile at my own fondness.  The one I could
+not serve, even if I wanted; the other I had no means of finding,
+even if I could have at all influenced him after he was found.
+
+And for all that, I was close on the heels of an absurd
+adventure.  My neighbour at table that evening was a 'Frisco
+man whom I knew slightly.  I found he had crossed the plains
+two days in front of me, and this was the first steamer that had
+left New York for Europe since his arrival.  Two days before
+me meant a day before Bellairs; and dinner was scarce done
+before I was closeted with the purser.
+
+"Bellairs?" he repeated.  "Not in the saloon, I am sure.  He may
+be in the second class.  The lists are not made out, but--Hullo! 
+'Harry D. Bellairs?'  That the name?  He's there right enough."
+
+And the next morning I saw him on the forward deck, sitting in
+a chair, a book in his hand, a shabby puma skin rug about his
+knees:  the picture of respectable decay.  Off and on, I kept him
+in my eye.  He read a good deal, he stood and looked upon the
+sea, he talked occasionally with his neighbours, and once when
+a child fell he picked it up and soothed it.  I damned him in my
+heart; the book, which I was sure he did not read--the sea, to
+which I was ready to take oath he was indifferent--the child,
+whom I was certain he would as lieve have tossed overboard
+--all seemed to me elements in a theatrical performance; and I
+made no doubt he was already nosing after the secrets of his
+fellow-passengers.  I took no pains to conceal myself, my scorn
+for the creature being as strong as my disgust.  But he never
+looked my way, and it was night before I learned he had
+observed me.
+
+I was smoking by the engine-room door, for the air was a little
+sharp, when a voice rose close beside me in the darkness.
+
+"I beg your pardon, Mr. Dodd," it said.
+
+"That you, Bellairs?" I replied.
+
+"A single word, sir.  Your presence on this ship has no
+connection with our interview?" he asked.  "You have no idea,
+Mr. Dodd, of returning upon your determination?"
+
+"None," said I; and then, seeing he still lingered, I was polite
+enough to add "Good evening;" at which he sighed and went
+away.
+
+
+The next day, he was there again with the chair and the puma
+skin; read his book and looked at the sea with the same
+constancy; and though there was no child to be picked up, I
+observed him to attend repeatedly on a sick woman.  Nothing
+fosters suspicion like the act of watching; a man spied upon
+can hardly blow his nose but we accuse him of designs; and I
+took an early opportunity to go forward and see the woman for
+myself.  She was poor, elderly, and painfully plain; I stood
+abashed at the sight, felt I owed Bellairs amends for the
+injustice of my thoughts, and seeing him standing by the rail in
+his usual attitude of contemplation, walked up and addressed
+him by name.
+
+"You seem very fond of the sea," said I.
+
+"I may really call it a passion, Mr. Dodd," he replied.  "And the
+tall cataract haunted me like a passion," he quoted.  "I never
+weary of the sea, sir. This is my first ocean voyage.  I find it a
+glorious experience."  And once more my disbarred lawyer
+dropped into poetry:  "Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean,
+roll!"
+
+Though I had learned the piece in my reading-book at school, I
+came into the world a little too late on the one hand--and I
+daresay a little too early on the other--to think much of Byron;
+and the sonorous verse, prodigiously well delivered, struck me
+with surprise.
+
+"You are fond of poetry, too?" I asked.
+
+"I am a great reader," he replied.  "At one time I had begun to
+amass quite a small but well selected library; and when that
+was scattered, I still managed to preserve a few volumes--
+chiefly of pieces designed for recitation--which have been my
+travelling companions."
+
+"Is that one of them?" I asked, pointing to the volume in his
+hand.
+
+"No, sir," he replied, showing me a translation of the _Sorrows
+of Werther_, "that is a novel I picked up some time ago.  It has
+afforded me great pleasure, though immoral."
+
+"O, immoral!" cried I, indignant as usual at any complication of
+art and ethics.
+
+
+"Surely you cannot deny that, sir--if you know the book," he
+said.  "The passion is illicit, although certainly drawn with a
+good deal of pathos.  It is not a work one could possibly put
+into the hands of a lady; which is to be regretted on all
+accounts, for I do not know how it may strike you; but it seems
+to me--as a depiction, if I make myself clear--to rise high above
+its compeers--even famous compeers.  Even in Scott, Dickens,
+Thackeray, or Hawthorne, the sentiment of love appears to me
+to be frequently done less justice to."
+
+"You are expressing a very general opinion," said I.
+
+"Is that so, indeed, sir?" he exclaimed, with unmistakable
+excitement.  "Is the book well known? and who was
+GO-EATH?  I am interested in that, because upon the title-page
+the usual initials are omitted, and it runs simply 'by
+GO-EATH.'  Was he an author of distinction?  Has he written
+other works?"
+
+Such was our first interview, the first of many; and in all he
+showed the same attractive qualities and defects.  His taste for
+literature was native and unaffected; his sentimentality,
+although extreme and a thought ridiculous, was plainly
+genuine.  I wondered at my own innocent wonder.  I knew that
+Homer nodded, that Caesar had compiled a jest-book, that
+Turner lived by preference the life of Puggy Booth, that Shelley
+made paper boats, and Wordsworth wore green spectacles! and
+with all this mass of evidence before me, I had expected
+Bellairs to be entirely of one piece, subdued to what he worked
+in, a spy all through.  As I abominated the man's trade, so I had
+expected to detest the man himself; and behold, I liked him. 
+Poor devil! he was essentially a man on wires, all sensibility
+and tremor, brimful of a cheap poetry, not without parts, quite
+without courage.  His boldness was despair; the gulf behind
+him thrust him on; he was one of those who might commit a
+murder rather than confess the theft of a postage-stamp.  I was
+sure that his coming interview with Carthew rode his
+imagination like a nightmare; when the thought crossed his
+mind, I used to think I knew of it, and that the qualm appeared
+in his face visibly.  Yet he would never flinch:  necessity
+stalking at his back, famine (his old pursuer) talking in his ear;
+and I used to wonder whether I most admired, or most
+despised, this quivering heroism for evil.  The image that
+occurred to me after his visit was just; I had been butted by a
+lamb; and the phase of life that I was now studying might be
+called the Revolt of a Sheep.
+
+It could be said of him that he had learned in sorrow what he
+taught in song--or wrong; and his life was that of one of his
+victims.  He was born in the back parts of the State of New
+York; his father a farmer, who became subsequently bankrupt
+and went West.  The lawyer and money-lender who had ruined
+this poor family seems to have conceived in the end a feeling of
+remorse; he turned the father out indeed, but he offered, in 
+compensation, to charge himself with one of the sons:  and
+Harry, the fifth child and already sickly, was chosen to be left
+behind.  He made himself useful in the office; picked up the
+scattered rudiments of an education; read right and left;
+attended and debated at the Young Men's Christian
+Association; and in all his early years, was the model for a
+good story-book.  His landlady's daughter was his bane.  He
+showed me her photograph; she was a big, handsome, dashing,
+dressy, vulgar hussy, without character, without tenderness,
+without mind, and (as the result proved) without virtue.  The
+sickly and timid boy was in the house; he was handy; when she
+was otherwise unoccupied, she used and played with him: 
+Romeo and Cressida; till in that dreary life of a poor boy in a
+country town, she grew to be the light of his days and the
+subject of his dreams.  He worked hard, like Jacob, for a wife;
+he surpassed his patron in sharp practice; he was made head
+clerk; and the same night, encouraged by a hundred freedoms,
+depressed by the sense of his youth and his infirmities, he
+offered marriage and was received with laughter.  Not a year
+had passed, before his master, conscious of growing infirmities,
+took him for a partner; he proposed again; he was accepted; led
+two years of troubled married life; and awoke one morning to
+find his wife had run away with a dashing drummer, and had
+left him heavily in debt.  The debt, and not the drummer, was
+supposed to be the cause of the hegira; she had concealed her
+liabilities, they were on the point of bursting forth, she was
+weary of Bellairs; and she took the drummer as she might have
+taken a cab.  The blow disabled her husband, his partner was
+dead; he was now alone in the business, for which he was no
+longer fit; the debts hampered him; bankruptcy followed; and
+he fled from city to city, falling daily into lower practice.  It is
+to be considered that he had been taught, and had learned as a
+delightful duty, a kind of business whose highest merit is to
+escape the commentaries of the bench:  that of the usurious
+lawyer in a county town.  With this training, he was now shot,
+a penniless stranger, into the deeper gulfs of cities; and the
+result is scarce a thing to be surprised at. 
+
+
+"Have you heard of your wife again?" I asked.
+
+He displayed a pitiful agitation.  "I am afraid you will think ill
+of me," he said.
+
+"Have you taken her back?" I asked.
+
+"No, sir.  I trust I have too much self-respect," he answered,
+"and, at least, I was never tempted.  She won't come, she
+dislikes, she seems to have conceived a positive distaste for me,
+and yet I was considered an indulgent husband."
+
+"You are still in relations, then?" I asked.
+
+"I place myself in your hands, Mr. Dodd," he replied.  "The
+world is very hard; I have found it bitter hard myself--bitter
+hard to live.  How much worse for a woman, and one who has
+placed herself (by her own misconduct, I am far from denying
+that) in so unfortunate a position!"
+
+"In short, you support her?" I suggested.
+
+"I cannot deny it.  I practically do," he admitted. "It has been a
+mill-stone round my neck.  But I think she is grateful.  You can
+see for yourself."
+
+He handed me a letter in a sprawling, ignorant hand, but
+written with violet ink on fine, pink paper with a monogram.  It
+was very foolishly expressed, and I thought (except for a few
+obvious cajoleries) very heartless and greedy in meaning.  The
+writer said she had been sick, which I disbelieved; declared the
+last remittance was all gone in doctor's bills, for which I took
+the liberty of substituting dress, drink, and monograms; and
+prayed for an increase, which I could only hope had been
+denied her.
+
+"I think she is really grateful?" he asked, with some eagerness,
+as I returned it.
+
+"I daresay," said I.  "Has she any claim on you?"
+
+"O no, sir.  I divorced her," he replied.  "I have a very strong
+sense of self-respect in such matters, and I divorced her
+immediately."
+
+"What sort of life is she leading now?" I asked.
+
+"I will not deceive you, Mr. Dodd.  I do not know, I make a
+point of not knowing; it appears more dignified.  I have been
+very harshly criticised," he added, sighing.
+
+It will be seen that I had fallen into an ignominious intimacy
+with the man I had gone out to thwart.  My pity for the
+creature, his admiration for myself, his pleasure in my society,
+which was clearly unassumed, were the bonds with which I
+was fettered; perhaps I should add, in honesty, my own ill-
+regulated interest in the phases of life and human character. 
+The fact is (at least) that we spent hours together daily, and that
+I was nearly as much on the forward deck as in the saloon.  Yet
+all the while I could never forget he was a shabby trickster,
+embarked that very moment in a dirty enterprise.  I used to tell
+myself at first that our acquaintance was a stroke of art, and
+that I was somehow fortifying Carthew.  I told myself, I say;
+but I was no such fool as to believe it, even then.  In these
+circumstances I displayed the two chief qualities of my
+character on the largest scale--my helplessness and my
+instinctive love of procrastination--and fell upon a course of
+action so ridiculous that I blush when I recall it.
+
+We reached Liverpool one forenoon, the rain falling thickly and
+insidiously on the filthy town.  I had no plans, beyond a
+sensible unwillingness to let my rascal escape; and I ended by
+going to the same inn with him, dining with him, walking with
+him in the wet streets, and hearing with him in a penny gaff
+that venerable piece, _The Ticket-of-Leave Man_.  It was one
+of his first visits to a theatre, against which places of
+entertainment he had a strong prejudice; and his innocent,
+pompous talk, innocent old quotations, and innocent reverence
+for the character of Hawkshaw delighted me beyond relief.  In
+charity to myself, I dwell upon and perhaps exaggerate my
+pleasures.  I have need of all conceivable excuses, when I
+confess that I went to bed without one word upon the matter of
+Carthew, but not without having covenanted with my rascal for
+a visit to Chester the next day.  At Chester we did the
+Cathedral, walked on the walls, discussed Shakespeare and the
+musical glasses--and made a fresh engagement for the morrow. 
+I do not know, and I am glad to have forgotten, how long these
+travels were continued.  We visited at least, by singular
+zigzags, Stratford, Warwick, Coventry, Gloucester, Bristol,
+Bath, and Wells.  At each stage we spoke dutifully of the scene
+and its associations; I sketched, the Shyster spouted poetry and
+copied epitaphs.  Who could doubt we were the usual
+Americans, travelling with a design of self-improvement? 
+Who was to guess that one was a blackmailer, trembling to
+approach the scene of action--the other a helpless, amateur
+detective, waiting on events?
+
+It is unnecessary to remark that none occurred, or none the least
+suitable with my design of protecting Carthew.  Two trifles,
+indeed, completed though they scarcely changed my conception
+of the Shyster.  The first was observed in Gloucester, where we
+spent Sunday, and I proposed we should hear service in the
+cathedral.  To my surprise, the creature had an ISM of his own,
+to which he was loyal; and he left me to go alone to the
+cathedral--or perhaps not to go at all--and stole off down a
+deserted alley to some Bethel or Ebenezer of the proper shade. 
+When we met again at lunch, I rallied him, and he grew restive.
+
+"You need employ no circumlocutions with me, Mr. Dodd," he
+said suddenly.  "You regard my behaviour from an
+unfavourable point of view:  you regard me, I much fear, as
+hypocritical."
+
+I was somewhat confused by the attack.  "You know what I
+think of your trade," I replied, lamely and coarsely.
+
+"Excuse me, if I seem to press the subject," he continued, "but
+if you think my life erroneous, would you have me neglect the
+means of grace?  Because you consider me in the wrong on one
+point, would you have me place myself on the wrong in all?
+Surely, sir, the church is for the sinner."
+
+"Did you ask a blessing on your present enterprise?" I sneered.
+
+He had a bad attack of St. Vitus, his face was changed, and his
+eyes flashed.  "I will tell you what I did!" he cried.  "I prayed
+for an unfortunate man and a wretched woman whom he tries
+to support."
+
+I cannot pretend that I found any repartee.
+
+The second incident was at Bristol, where I lost sight of my
+gentleman some hours.  From this eclipse, he returned to me
+with thick speech, wandering footsteps, and a back all
+whitened with plaster.  I had half expected, yet I could have
+wept to see it.  All disabilities were piled on that weak back--
+domestic misfortune, nervous disease, a displeasing exterior, 
+empty pockets, and the slavery of vice.
+
+I will never deny that our prolonged conjunction was the result
+of double cowardice.  Each was afraid to leave the other, each
+was afraid to speak, or knew not what to say.  Save for my ill-
+judged allusion at Gloucester, the subject uppermost in both
+our minds was buried.  Carthew, Stallbridge-le-Carthew,
+Stallbridge-Minster--which we had long since (and severally)
+identified to be the nearest station--even the name of
+Dorsetshire was studiously avoided.  And yet we were making
+progress all the time, tacking across broad England like an
+unweatherly vessel on a wind; approaching our destination, not
+openly, but by a sort of flying sap.  And at length, I can scarce
+tell how, we were set down by a dilatory butt-end of local train
+on the untenanted platform of Stallbridge-Minster.
+
+The town was ancient and compact:  a domino of tiled houses
+and walled gardens, dwarfed by the disproportionate bigness of
+the church.  From the midst of the thoroughfare which divided
+it in half, fields and trees were visible at either end; and
+through the sally-port of every street, there flowed in from the
+country a silent invasion of green grass.  Bees and birds
+appeared to make the majority of the inhabitants; every garden
+had its row of hives, the eaves of every house were plastered
+with the nests of swallows, and the pinnacles of the church
+were flickered about all day long by a multitude of wings.  The
+town was of Roman foundation; and as I looked out that
+afternoon from the low windows of the inn, I should scarce
+have been surprised to see a centurion coming up the street
+with a fatigue draft of legionaries.  In short, Stallbridge-
+Minster was one of those towns which appear to be maintained
+by England for the instruction and delight of the American
+rambler; to which he seems guided by an instinct not less
+surprising than the setter's; and which he visits and quits with
+equal enthusiasm.
+
+I was not at all in the humour of the tourist.  I had wasted
+weeks of time and accomplished nothing; we were on the eve
+of the engagement, and I had neither plans nor allies.  I had
+thrust myself into the trade of private providence and amateur
+detective; I was spending money and I was reaping disgrace. 
+All the time, I kept telling myself that I must at least speak;
+that this ignominious silence should have been broken long
+ago, and must be broken now.  I should have broken it when he
+first proposed to come to Stallbridge-Minster; I should have
+broken it in the train; I should break it there and then, on the
+inn doorstep, as the omnibus rolled off.  I turned toward him at
+the thought; he seemed to wince, the words died on my lips,
+and I proposed instead that we should visit the Minster.
+
+While we were engaged upon this duty, it came on to rain in a
+manner worthy of the tropics.  The vault reverberated; every
+gargoyle instantly poured its full discharge; we waded back to
+the inn, ankle-deep in impromptu brooks; and the rest of the
+afternoon sat weatherbound, hearkening to the sonorous
+deluge.  For two hours I talked of indifferent matters,
+laboriously feeding the conversation; for two hours my mind
+was quite made up to do my duty instantly--and at each
+particular instant I postponed it till the next.  To screw up my
+faltering courage, I called at dinner for some sparkling wine.  It
+proved when it came to be detestable; I could not put it to my
+lips; and Bellairs, who had as much palate as a weevil, was left
+to finish it himself.  Doubtless the wine flushed him; doubtless
+he may have observed my embarrassment of the afternoon;
+doubtless he was conscious that we were approaching a crisis,
+and that that evening, if I did not join with him, I must declare
+myself an open enemy.  At least he fled.  Dinner was done; this
+was the time when I had bound myself to break my silence; no
+more delays were to be allowed, no more excuses received.  I
+went upstairs after some tobacco; which I felt to be a mere
+necessity in the circumstances; and when I returned, the man
+was gone.  The waiter told me he had left the house.
+
+The rain still plumped, like a vast shower-bath, over the
+deserted town.  The night was dark and windless:  the street lit
+glimmeringly from end to end, lamps, house windows, and the
+reflections in the rain-pools all contributing.  From a public-
+house on the other side of the way, I heard a harp twang and a
+doleful voice upraised in the "Larboard Watch," "The Anchor's
+Weighed," and other naval ditties.  Where had my Shyster
+wandered?  In all likelihood to that lyrical tavern; there was no
+choice of diversion; in comparison with Stallbridge-Minster on
+a rainy night, a sheepfold would seem gay.
+
+Again I passed in review the points of my interview, on which I
+was always constantly resolved so long as my adversary was
+absent from the scene:  and again they struck me as inadequate. 
+From this dispiriting exercise I turned to the native
+amusements of the inn coffee-room, and studied for some time
+the mezzotints that frowned upon the wall.  The railway guide,
+after showing me how soon I could leave Stallbridge and how
+quickly I could reach Paris, failed to hold my attention.  An
+illustrated advertisement book of hotels brought me very low
+indeed; and when it came to the local paper, I could have wept. 
+At this point, I found a passing solace in a copy of Whittaker's
+Almanac, and obtained in fifty minutes more information than I
+have yet been able to use.
+
+Then a fresh apprehension assailed me.  Suppose Bellairs had
+given me the slip? suppose he was now rolling on the road to
+Stallbridge-le-Carthew? or perhaps there already and laying
+before a very white-faced auditor his threats and propositions?
+A hasty person might have instantly pursued.  Whatever I am, I
+am not hasty, and I was aware of three grave objections.  In the
+first place, I could not be certain that Bellairs was gone.  In the
+second, I had no taste whatever for a long drive at that hour of
+the night and in so merciless a rain.  In the third, I had no idea
+how I was to get admitted if I went, and no idea what I should
+say if I got admitted.  "In short," I concluded, "the whole
+situation is the merest farce.  You have thrust yourself in where
+you had no business and have no power.  You would be quite
+as useful in San Francisco; far happier in Paris; and being (by
+the wrath of God) at Stallbridge-Minster, the wisest thing is to
+go quietly to bed."  On the way to my room, I saw (in a flash)
+that which I ought to have done long ago, and which it was
+now too late to think of--written to Carthew, I mean, detailing
+the facts and describing Bellairs, letting him defend himself if
+he were able, and giving him time to flee if he were not.  It was
+the last blow to my self-respect; and I flung myself into my bed
+with contumely.
+
+I have no guess what hour it was, when I was wakened by the
+entrance of Bellairs carrying a candle.  He had been drunk, for
+he was bedaubed with mire from head to foot; but he was now
+sober and under the empire of some violent emotion which he
+controlled with difficulty.  He trembled visibly; and more than
+once, during the interview which followed, tears suddenly and
+silently overflowed his cheeks.
+
+"I have to ask your pardon, sir, for this untimely visit," he said. 
+"I make no defence, I have no excuse, I have disgraced myself,
+I am properly punished; I appear before you to appeal to you in
+mercy for the most trifling aid or, God help me! I fear I may go
+mad."
+
+"What on earth is wrong?" I asked.
+
+"I have been robbed," he said.  "I have no defence to offer; it
+was of my own fault, I am properly punished."
+
+"But, gracious goodness me!" I cried, "who is there to rob you
+in a place like this?"
+
+"I can form no opinion," he replied.  "I have no idea.  I was
+lying in a ditch inanimate.  This is a degrading confession, sir;
+I can only say in self-defence that perhaps (in your good nature)
+you have made yourself partly responsible for my shame.  I am
+not used to these rich wines."
+
+"In what form was your money?  Perhaps it may be traced," I
+suggested.
+
+"It was in English sovereigns.  I changed it in New York; I got
+very good exchange," he said, and then, with a momentary
+outbreak, "God in heaven, how I toiled for it!" he cried.
+
+"That doesn't sound encouraging," said I.  "It may be worth
+while to apply to the police, but it doesn't sound a hopeful
+case."
+
+"And I have no hope in that direction," said Bellairs. "My
+hopes, Mr. Dodd, are all fixed upon yourself.  I could easily
+convince you that a small, a very small advance, would be in
+the nature of an excellent investment; but I prefer to rely on
+your humanity.  Our acquaintance began on an unusual footing;
+but you have now known me for some time, we have been
+some time--I was going to say we had been almost intimate. 
+Under the impulse of instinctive sympathy, I have bared my
+heart to you, Mr. Dodd, as I have done to few; and I believe--I
+trust--I may say that I feel sure--you heard me with a kindly
+sentiment.  This is what brings me to your side at this most
+inexcusable hour.  But put yourself in my place--how could I
+sleep--how could I dream of sleeping, in this blackness of
+remorse and despair?  There was a friend at hand--so I ventured
+to think of you; it was instinctive; I fled to your side, as the
+drowning man clutches at a straw.  These expressions are not
+exaggerated, they scarcely serve to express the agitation of my
+mind.  And think, sir, how easily you can restore me to hope
+and, I may say, to reason.  A small loan, which shall be
+faithfully repaid.  Five hundred dollars would be ample."  He
+watched me with burning eyes.  "Four hundred would do.  I
+believe, Mr. Dodd, that I could manage with economy on two."
+
+"And then you will repay me out of Carthew's pocket?" I said. 
+"I am much obliged.  But I will tell you what I will do:  I will
+see you on board a steamer, pay your fare through to San
+Francisco, and place fifty dollars in the purser's hands, to be
+given you in New York."
+
+He drank in my words; his face represented an ecstasy of
+cunning thought.  I could read there, plain as print, that he but
+thought to overreach me.
+
+"And what am I to do in 'Frisco?" he asked.  "I am disbarred, I
+have no trade, I cannot dig, to beg----" he paused in the
+citation.  "And you know that I am not alone," he added,
+"others depend upon me."
+
+"I will write to Pinkerton," I returned.  "I feel sure he can help
+you to some employment, and in the meantime, and for three
+months after your arrival, he shall pay to yourself personally, on
+the first and the fifteenth, twenty-five dollars."
+
+"Mr. Dodd, I scarce believe you can be serious in this offer," he
+replied.  "Have you forgotten the circumstances of the case? 
+Do you know these people are the magnates of the section?
+They were spoken of to-night in the saloon; their wealth must
+amount to many millions of dollars in real estate alone; their
+house is one of the sights of the locality, and you offer me a
+bribe of a few hundred!"
+
+"I offer you no bribe, Mr. Bellairs, I give you alms," I returned. 
+"I will do nothing to forward you in your hateful business; yet I
+would not willingly have you starve."
+
+"Give me a hundred dollars then, and be done with it," he cried. 
+
+"I will do what I have said, and neither more nor less," said I.
+
+"Take care," he cried.  "You are playing a fool's game; you are
+making an enemy for nothing; you will gain nothing by this, I
+warn you of it!"  And then with one of his changes, "Seventy
+dollars--only seventy--in mercy, Mr. Dodd, in common charity. 
+Don't dash the bowl from my lips!  You have a kindly heart. 
+Think of my position, remember my unhappy wife."
+
+"You should have thought of her before," said I.  "I have made
+my offer, and I wish to sleep."
+
+"Is that your last word, sir?  Pray consider; pray weigh both
+sides:  my misery, your own danger.  I warn you--I beseech
+you; measure it well before you answer," so he half pleaded,
+half threatened me, with clasped hands.
+
+"My first word, and my last," said I.
+
+The change upon the man was shocking.  In the storm of anger
+that now shook him, the lees of his intoxication rose again to
+the surface; his face was deformed, his words insane with fury;
+his pantomime excessive in itself, was distorted by an access of
+St. Vitus.
+
+"You will perhaps allow me to inform you of my cold opinion,"
+he began, apparently self-possessed, truly bursting with rage:
+"when I am a glorified saint, I shall see you howling for a drop
+of water and exult to see you.  That your last word!  Take it in
+your face, you spy, you false friend, you fat hypocrite!  I defy, I
+defy and despise and spit upon you!  I'm on the trail, his trail or
+yours, I smell blood, I'll follow it on my hands and knees, I'll
+starve to follow it!  I'll hunt you down, hunt you, hunt you
+down!  If I were strong, I'd tear your vitals out, here in this
+room--tear them out--I'd tear them out!  Damn, damn, damn!
+You think me weak!  I can bite, bite to the blood, bite you, hurt
+you, disgrace you ..."
+
+He was thus incoherently raging, when the scene was
+interrupted by the arrival of the landlord and inn servants in
+various degrees of deshabille, and to them I gave my temporary
+lunatic in charge.
+
+"Take him to his room," I said, "he's only drunk."
+
+These were my words; but I knew better.  After all my study of
+Mr. Bellairs, one discovery had been reserved for the last
+moment:  that of his latent and essential madness.
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XX.
+
+ STALLBRIDGE-LE-CARTHEW.
+
+
+Long before I was awake, the shyster had disappeared, leaving
+his bill unpaid.  I did not need to inquire where he was gone, I
+knew too well, I knew there was nothing left me but to follow;
+and about ten in the morning, set forth in a gig for Stallbridge
+-le-Carthew.
+
+The road, for the first quarter of the way, deserts the valley of
+the river, and crosses the summit of a chalk-down, grazed over
+by flocks of sheep and haunted by innumerable larks.  It was a
+pleasant but a vacant scene, arousing but not holding the
+attention; and my mind returned to the violent passage of the
+night before.  My thought of the man I was pursuing had been 
+greatly changed.  I conceived of him, somewhere in front of me,
+upon his dangerous errand, not to be turned aside, not to be
+stopped, by either fear or reason.  I had called him a ferret; I
+conceived him now as a mad dog.  Methought he would run,
+not walk; methought, as he ran, that he would bark and froth at
+the lips; methought, if the great wall of China were to rise
+across his path, he would attack it with his nails.
+
+Presently the road left the down, returned by a precipitous
+descent into the valley of the Stall, and ran thenceforward
+among enclosed fields and under the continuous shade of trees. 
+I was told we had now entered on the Carthew property.  By
+and by, a battlemented wall appeared on the left hand, and a
+little after I had my first glimpse of the mansion.  It stood in a
+hollow of a bosky park, crowded to a degree that surprised and
+even displeased me, with huge timber and dense shrubberies of
+laurel and rhododendron.  Even from this low station and the
+thronging neighbourhood of the trees, the pile rose conspicuous
+like a cathedral.  Behind, as we continued to skirt the park
+wall, I began to make out a straggling town of offices which
+became conjoined to the rear with those of the home farm.  On
+the left was an ornamental water sailed in by many swans.  On
+the right extended a flower garden, laid in the old manner, and
+at this season of the year, as brilliant as stained glass.  The
+front of the house presented a facade of more than sixty
+windows, surmounted by a formal pediment and raised upon a
+terrace.  A wide avenue, part in gravel, part in turf, and
+bordered by triple alleys, ran to the great double gateways.  It
+was impossible to look without surprise on a place that had
+been prepared through so many generations, had cost so many
+tons of minted gold, and was maintained in order by so great a
+company of emulous servants.  And yet of these there was no
+sign but the perfection of their work.  The whole domain was
+drawn to the line and weeded like the front plot of some
+suburban amateur; and I looked in vain for any belated
+gardener, and listened in vain for any sounds of labour.  Some
+lowing of cattle and much calling of birds alone disturbed the
+stillness, and even the little hamlet, which clustered at the
+gates, appeared to hold its breath in awe of its great neighbour,
+like a troop of children who should have strayed into a king's
+anteroom.
+
+The Carthew Arms, the small but very comfortable inn, was a
+mere appendage and outpost of the family whose name it bore. 
+Engraved portraits of by-gone Carthews adorned the walls;
+Fielding Carthew, Recorder of the city of London; Major-
+General John Carthew in uniform, commanding some military
+operations; the Right Honourable Bailley Carthew, Member of
+Parliament for Stallbridge, standing by a table and brandishing
+a document; Singleton Carthew, Esquire, represented in the
+foreground of a herd of cattle--doubtless at the desire of his
+tenantry, who had made him a compliment of this work of art;
+and the Venerable Archdeacon Carthew, D.D., LL.D., A.M.,
+laying his hand on the head of a little child in a manner highly
+frigid and ridiculous.  So far as my memory serves me, there
+were no other pictures in this exclusive hostelry; and I was not
+surprised to learn that the landlord was an ex-butler, the
+landlady an ex-lady's-maid, from the great house; and that the
+bar-parlour was a sort of perquisite of former servants.
+
+To an American, the sense of the domination of this family over
+so considerable a tract of earth was even oppressive; and as I
+considered their simple annals, gathered from the legends of
+the engravings, surprise began to mingle with my disgust. 
+"Mr. Recorder" doubtless occupies an honourable post; but I
+thought that, in the course of so many generations, one Carthew
+might have clambered higher.  The soldier had stuck at Major-
+General; the churchman bloomed unremarked in an
+archidiaconate; and though the Right Honourable Bailley
+seemed to have sneaked into the privy council, I have still to
+learn what he did when he had got there.  Such vast means, so
+long a start, and such a modest standard of achievement, struck
+in me a strong sense of the dulness of that race.
+
+I found that to come to the hamlet and not visit the Hall, would
+be regarded as a slight.  To feed the swans, to see the peacocks
+and the Raphaels--for these commonplace people actually
+possessed two Raphaels--to risk life and limb among a famous
+breed of cattle called the Carthew Chillinghams, and to do
+homage to the sire (still living) of Donibristle, a renowned
+winner of the oaks:  these, it seemed, were the inevitable
+stations of the pilgrimage.  I was not so foolish as to resist, for I
+might have need before I was done of general good-will; and
+two pieces of news fell in which changed my resignation to
+alacrity.  It appeared in the first place, that Mr. Norris was from
+home "travelling "; in the second, that a visitor had been before
+me and already made the tour of the Carthew curiosities.  I
+thought I knew who this must be; I was anxious to learn what
+he had done and seen; and fortune so far favoured me that the
+under-gardener singled out to be my guide had already
+performed the same function for my predecessor.
+
+"Yes, sir," he said, "an American gentleman right enough.  At
+least, I don't think he was quite a gentleman, but a very civil
+person."
+
+The person, it seems, had been civil enough to be delighted
+with the Carthew Chillinghams, to perform the whole
+pilgrimage with rising admiration, and to have almost
+prostrated himself before the shrine of Donibristle's sire.
+
+"He told me, sir," continued the gratified under-gardener, "that
+he had often read of the 'stately 'omes of England,' but ours was
+the first he had the chance to see.  When he came to the 'ead of
+the long alley, he fetched his breath.  'This is indeed a lordly
+domain!' he cries.  And it was natural he should be interested in
+the place, for it seems Mr. Carthew had been kind to him in the
+States.  In fact, he seemed a grateful kind of person, and
+wonderful taken up with flowers."
+
+I heard this story with amazement.  The phrases quoted told
+their own tale; they were plainly from the shyster's mint.  A few
+hours back I had seen him a mere bedlamite and fit for a strait-
+waistcoat; he was penniless in a strange country; it was highly
+probable he had gone without breakfast; the absence of Norris
+must have been a crushing blow; the man (by all reason)
+should have been despairing.  And now I heard of him, clothed
+and in his right mind, deliberate, insinuating, admiring vistas,
+smelling flowers, and talking like a book.  The strength of
+character implied amazed and daunted me.
+
+"This is curious," I said to the under-gardener.  "I have had the
+pleasure of some acquaintance with Mr. Carthew myself; and I
+believe none of our western friends ever were in England.  Who
+can this person be?  He couldn't--no, that's impossible, he could
+never have had the impudence.  His name was not Bellairs?" 
+
+"I didn't 'ear the name, sir.  Do you know anything against
+him?" cried my guide.
+
+"Well," said I, "he is certainly not the person Carthew would
+like to have here in his absence."
+
+"Good gracious me!" exclaimed the gardener.  "He was so
+pleasant spoken, too; I thought he was some form of a
+schoolmaster.  Perhaps, sir, you wouldn't mind going right up
+to Mr. Denman?  I recommended him to Mr. Denman, when he
+had done the grounds.  Mr. Denman is our butler, sir," he
+added.
+
+The proposal was welcome, particularly as affording me a
+graceful retreat from the neighbourhood of the Carthew
+Chillinghams; and, giving up our projected circuit, we took a
+short cut through the shrubbery and across the bowling green to
+the back quarters of the Hall.
+
+The bowling green was surrounded by a great hedge of yew,
+and entered by an archway in the quick.  As we were issuing
+from this passage, my conductor arrested me. 
+
+"The Honourable Lady Ann Carthew," he said, in an august
+whisper.  And looking over his shoulder, I was aware of an old
+lady with a stick, hobbling somewhat briskly along the garden
+path.  She must have been extremely handsome in her youth;
+and even the limp with which she walked could not deprive her
+of an unusual and almost menacing dignity of bearing. 
+Melancholy was impressed besides on every feature, and her
+eyes, as she looked straight before her, seemed to contemplate
+misfortune.
+
+"She seems sad," said I, when she had hobbled past and we
+had resumed our walk.
+
+"She enjoy rather poor spirits, sir," responded the under-
+gardener.  "Mr. Carthew--the old gentleman, I mean--died less
+than a year ago; Lord Tillibody, her ladyship's brother, two
+months after; and then there was the sad business about the
+young gentleman.  Killed in the 'unting-field, sir; and her
+ladyship's favourite.  The present Mr. Norris has never been so
+equally."
+
+"So I have understood," said I, persistently, and (I think)
+gracefully pursuing my inquiries and fortifying my position as a
+family friend.  "Dear, dear, how sad! And has this change--poor
+Carthew's return, and all--has this not mended matters?"
+
+"Well, no, sir, not a sign of it," was the reply.  "Worse, we
+think, than ever."
+
+"Dear, dear!" said I again.
+
+"When Mr. Norris arrived, she DID seem glad to see him," he
+pursued; "and we were all pleased, I'm sure; for no one knows
+the young gentleman but what likes him.  Ah, sir, it didn't last
+long!  That very night they had a talk, and fell out or
+something; her ladyship took on most painful; it was like old
+days, but worse.  And the next morning Mr. Norris was off
+again upon his travels.  "Denman," he said to Mr. Denman,
+"Denman, I'll never come back," he said, and shook him by the
+'and.  I wouldn't be saying all this to a stranger, sir," added my
+informant, overcome with a sudden fear lest he had gone too
+far.
+
+He had indeed told me much, and much that was unsuspected
+by himself.  On that stormy night of his return, Carthew had
+told his story; the old lady had more upon her mind than mere
+bereavements; and among the mental pictures on which she
+looked, as she walked staring down the path, was one of
+Midway Island and the Flying Scud.
+
+Mr. Denman heard my inquiries with discomposure, but
+informed me the shyster was already gone. 
+
+"Gone?" cried I.  "Then what can he have come for?  One thing
+I can tell you, it was not to see the house."
+
+"I don't see it could have been anything else," replied the butler.
+
+"You may depend upon it it was," said I.  "And whatever it
+was, he has got it.  By the way, where is Mr. Carthew at
+present?  I was sorry to find he was from home."
+
+"He is engaged in travelling, sir," replied the butler, dryly.
+
+"Ah, bravo!" cried I.  "I laid a trap for you there, Mr. Denman. 
+Now I need not ask you; I am sure you did not tell this prying
+stranger."
+
+"To be sure not, sir," said the butler.
+
+I went through the form of "shaking him by the 'and"--like Mr.
+Norris--not, however, with genuine enthusiasm. For I had
+failed ingloriously to get the address for myself; and I felt a
+sure conviction that Bellairs had done better, or he had still
+been here and still cultivating Mr. Denman.
+
+I had escaped the grounds and the cattle; I could not escape the
+house.  A lady with silver hair, a slender silver voice, and a
+stream of insignificant information not to be diverted, led me
+through the picture gallery, the music-room, the great dining-
+room, the long drawing-room, the Indian room, the theatre, and
+every corner (as I thought) of that interminable mansion.  There
+was but one place reserved; the garden-room, whither Lady
+Ann had now retired.  I paused a moment on the outside of the
+door, and smiled to myself.  The situation was indeed strange,
+and these thin boards divided the secret of the Flying Scud.
+
+All the while, as I went to and fro, I was considering the visit
+and departure of Bellairs.  That he had got the address, I was
+quite certain:  that he had not got it by direct questioning, I was
+convinced; some ingenuity, some lucky accident, had served
+him.  A similar chance, an equal ingenuity, was required; or I
+was left helpless, the ferret must run down his prey, the great
+oaks fall, the Raphaels be scattered, the house let to some
+stockbroker suddenly made rich, and the name which now
+filled the mouths of five or six parishes dwindle to a memory. 
+Strange that such great matters, so old a mansion, a family so
+ancient and so dull, should come to depend for perpetuity upon
+the intelligence, the discretion, and the cunning of a Latin-
+Quarter student!  What Bellairs had done, I must do likewise. 
+Chance or ingenuity, ingenuity or chance--so I continued to
+ring the changes as I walked down the avenue, casting back
+occasional glances at the red brick facade and the twinkling
+windows of the house.  How was I to command chance? where
+was I to find the ingenuity?
+
+These reflections brought me to the door of the inn.  And here,
+pursuant to my policy of keeping well with all men, I
+immediately smoothed my brow, and accepted (being the only
+guest in the house) an invitation to dine with the family in the
+bar-parlour.  I sat down accordingly with Mr. Higgs the
+ex-butler, Mrs. Higgs the ex-lady's-maid, and Miss Agnes
+Higgs their frowsy-headed little girl, the least promising and
+(as the event showed) the most useful of the lot.  The talk ran
+endlessly on the great house and the great family; the roast
+beef, the Yorkshire pudding, the jam-roll, and the cheddar
+cheese came and went, and still the stream flowed on; near four
+generations of Carthews were touched upon without eliciting
+one point of interest; and we had killed Mr. Henry in "the
+'unting-field," with a vast elaboration of painful circumstance,
+and buried him in the midst of a whole sorrowing county,
+before I could so much as manage to bring upon the stage my
+intimate friend, Mr. Norris.  At the name, the ex-butler grew
+diplomatic, and the ex-lady's-maid tender.  He was the only
+person of the whole featureless series who seemed to have
+accomplished anything worth mention; and his achievements,
+poor dog, seemed to have been confined to going to the devil
+and leaving some regrets.  He had been the image of the Right
+Honourable Bailley, one of the lights of that dim house, and a
+career of distinction had been predicted of him in consequence
+almost from the cradle.  But before he was out of long clothes,
+the cloven foot began to show; he proved to be no Carthew,
+developed a taste for low pleasures and bad company, went
+birdnesting with a stable-boy before he was eleven, and when
+he was near twenty, and might have been expected to display at 
+least some rudiments of the family gravity, rambled the country
+over with a knapsack, making sketches and keeping company
+in wayside inns.  He had no pride about him, I was told; he
+would sit down with any man; and it was somewhat
+woundingly implied that I was indebted to this peculiarity for
+my own acquaintance with the hero. Unhappily, Mr. Norris
+was not only eccentric, he was fast.  His debts were still
+remembered at the University; still more, it appeared, the
+highly humorous circumstances attending his expulsion.  "He
+was always fond of his jest," commented Mrs. Higgs. 
+
+"That he were!" observed her lord.
+
+But it was after he went into the diplomatic service that the real
+trouble began.
+
+"It seems, sir, that he went the pace extraordinary," said the
+ex-butler, with a solemn gusto.
+
+"His debts were somethink awful," said the lady's-maid.  "And
+as nice a young gentleman all the time as you would wish to
+see!"
+
+"When word came to Mr. Carthew's ears, the turn up was
+'orrible," continued Mr. Higgs.  "I remember it as if it was
+yesterday.  The bell was rung after her la'ship was gone, which
+I answered it myself, supposing it were the coffee.  There was
+Mr. Carthew on his feet.  ''Iggs,' he says, pointing with his
+stick, for he had a turn of the gout, 'order the dog-cart instantly
+for this son of mine which has disgraced hisself.'  Mr. Norris
+say nothink:  he sit there with his 'ead down, making belief to
+be looking at a walnut.  You might have bowled me over with
+a straw," said Mr. Higgs.
+
+"Had he done anything very bad?" I asked.
+
+"Not he, Mr. Dodsley!" cried the lady--it was so she had
+conceived my name.  "He never did anythink to all really wrong
+in his poor life.  The 'ole affair was a disgrace.  It was all rank
+favouritising."
+
+"Mrs. 'Iggs!  Mrs. 'Iggs!" cried the butler warningly.
+
+"Well, what do I care?" retorted the lady, shaking her ringlets. 
+"You know it was yourself, Mr. 'Iggs, and so did every member
+of the staff."
+
+While I was getting these facts and opinions, I by no means
+neglected the child.  She was not attractive; but fortunately she
+had reached the corrupt age of seven, when half a crown
+appears about as large as a saucer and is fully as rare as the
+dodo.  For a shilling down, sixpence in her money-box, and an
+American gold dollar which I happened to find in my pocket, I
+bought the creature soul and body.  She declared her intention
+to accompany me to the ends of the earth; and had to be
+chidden by her sire for drawing comparisons between myself
+and her uncle William, highly damaging to the latter.
+
+Dinner was scarce done, the cloth was not yet removed, when
+Miss Agnes must needs climb into my lap with her stamp
+album, a relic of the generosity of Uncle William.  There are
+few things I despise more than old stamps, unless perhaps it be
+crests; for cattle (from the Carthew Chillinghams down to the
+old gate-keeper's milk-cow in the lane) contempt is far from
+being my first sentiment.  But it seemed I was doomed to pass
+that day in viewing curiosities, and smothering a yawn, I
+devoted myself once more to tread the well-known round.  I
+fancy Uncle William must have begun the collection himself
+and tired of it, for the book (to my surprise) was quite
+respectably filled.  There were the varying shades of the
+English penny, Russians with the coloured heart, old
+undecipherable Thurn-und-Taxis, obsolete triangular Cape of
+Good Hopes, Swan Rivers with the Swan, and Guianas with
+the sailing ship.  Upon all these I looked with the eyes of a fish
+and the spirit of a sheep; I think indeed I was at times asleep;
+and it was probably in one of these moments that I capsized the
+album, and there fell from the end of it, upon the floor, a
+considerable number of what I believe to be called
+"exchanges."
+
+Here, against all probability, my chance had come to me; for as
+I gallantly picked them up, I was struck with the
+disproportionate amount of five-sous French stamps.  Some
+one, I reasoned, must write very regularly from France to the
+neighbourhood of Stallbridge-le-Carthew.  Could it be Norris?
+On one stamp I made out an initial C; upon a second I got as
+far as CH; beyond which point, the postmark used was in every
+instance undecipherable.  CH, when you consider that about a
+quarter of the towns in France begin with "chateau," was an
+insufficient clue; and I promptly annexed the plainest of the
+collection in order to consult the post-office.
+
+The wretched infant took me in the fact.  "Naughty man, to 'teal
+my 'tamp!" she cried; and when I would have brazened it off
+with a denial, recovered and displayed the stolen article.
+
+My position was now highly false; and I believe it was in mere
+pity that Mrs. Higgs came to my rescue with a welcome
+proposition.  If the gentleman was really interested in stamps,
+she said, probably supposing me a monomaniac on the point,
+he should see Mr. Denman's album.  Mr. Denman had been
+collecting forty years, and his collection was said to be worth a
+mint of money.  "Agnes," she went on, "if you were a kind little
+girl, you would run over to the 'All, tell Mr. Denman there's a
+connaisseer in the 'ouse, and ask him if one of the young
+gentlemen might bring the album down."
+
+"I should like to see his exchanges too," I cried, rising to the
+occasion.  "I may have some of mine in my pocket-book and we
+might trade."
+
+Half an hour later Mr. Denman arrived himself with a most
+unconscionable volume under his arm.  "Ah, sir," he cried,
+"when I 'eard you was a collector, I dropped all.  It's a saying of
+mine, Mr. Dodsley, that collecting stamps makes all collectors
+kin.  It's a bond, sir; it creates a bond."
+
+Upon the truth of this, I cannot say; but there is no doubt that
+the attempt to pass yourself off for a collector falsely creates a
+precarious situation.
+
+"Ah, here's the second issue!" I would say, after consulting the
+legend at the side.  "The pink--no, I mean the mauve--yes,
+that's the beauty of this lot.  Though of course, as you say," I
+would hasten to add, "this yellow on the thin paper is more
+rare."
+
+Indeed I must certainly have been detected, had I not plied Mr.
+Denman in self-defence with his favourite liquor--a port so
+excellent that it could never have ripened in the cellar of the
+Carthew Arms, but must have been transported, under cloud of
+night, from the neighbouring vaults of the great house.  At each
+threat of exposure, and in particular whenever I was directly
+challenged for an opinion, I made haste to fill the butler's glass,
+and by the time we had got to the exchanges, he was in a
+condition in which no stamp collector need be seriously feared. 
+God forbid I should hint that he was drunk; he seemed
+incapable of the necessary liveliness; but the man's eyes were
+set, and so long as he was suffered to talk without interruption,
+he seemed careless of my heeding him.
+
+In Mr. Denman's exchanges, as in those of little Agnes, the
+same peculiarity was to be remarked, an undue preponderance
+of that despicably common stamp, the French twenty-five
+centimes.  And here joining them in stealthy review, I found the
+C and the CH; then something of an A just following; and then
+a terminal Y.  Here was also the whole name spelt out to me; it
+seemed familiar, too; and yet for some time I could not bridge
+the imperfection.  Then I came upon another stamp, in which
+an L was legible before the Y, and in a moment the word
+leaped up complete.  Chailly, that was the name; Chailly-
+en-Biere, the post town of Barbizon--ah, there was the very
+place for any man to hide himself--there was the very place for
+Mr. Norris, who had rambled over England making sketches--
+the very place for Goddedaal, who had left a palette-knife on
+board the Flying Scud.  Singular, indeed, that while I was
+drifting over England with the shyster, the man we were in
+quest of awaited me at my own ultimate destination.
+
+Whether Mr. Denman had shown his album to Bellairs,
+whether, indeed, Bellairs could have caught (as I did) this hint
+from an obliterated postmark, I shall never know, and it
+mattered not.  We were equal now; my task at Stallbridge-le-
+Carthew was accomplished; my interest in postage-stamps died
+shamelessly away; the astonished Denman was bowed out; and
+ordering the horse to be put in, I plunged into the study of the
+time-table.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXI.
+
+ FACE TO FACE.
+
+
+I fell from the skies on Barbizon about two o'clock of a
+September afternoon.  It is the dead hour of the day; all the
+workers have gone painting, all the idlers strolling, in the forest
+or the plain; the winding causewayed street is solitary, and the
+inn deserted.  I was the more pleased to find one of my old
+companions in the dining-room; his town clothes marked him
+for a man in the act of departure; and indeed his portmanteau
+lay beside him on the floor.
+
+"Why, Stennis," I cried, "you're the last man I expected to find
+here."
+
+"You won't find me here long," he replied.  "King Pandion he is
+dead; all his friends are lapped in lead.  For men of our
+antiquity, the poor old shop is played out."
+
+"I have had playmates, I have had companions," I quoted in
+return.  We were both moved, I think, to meet again in this
+scene of our old pleasure parties so unexpectedly, after so long
+an interval, and both already so much altered.
+
+"That is the sentiment," he replied.  "All, all are gone, the old
+familiar faces.  I have been here a week, and the only living
+creature who seemed to recollect me was the Pharaon.  Bar the
+Sirons, of course, and the perennial Bodmer."
+
+"Is there no survivor?" I inquired.
+
+"Of our geological epoch? not one," he replied.  "This is the city
+of Petra in Edom."
+
+"And what sort of Bedouins encamp among the ruins?" I asked.
+
+"Youth, Dodd, youth; blooming, conscious youth," he returned. 
+"Such a gang, such reptiles! to think we were like that!  I
+wonder Siron didn't sweep us from his premises."
+
+"Perhaps we weren't so bad," I suggested.
+
+"Don't let me depress you," said he.  "We were both Anglo-
+Saxons, anyway, and the only redeeming feature to-day is
+another."
+
+The thought of my quest, a moment driven out by this
+rencounter, revived in my mind.  "Who is he?" I cried.  "Tell
+me about him."
+
+"What, the Redeeming Feature?" said he.  "Well, he's a very
+pleasing creature, rather dim, and dull, and genteel, but really
+pleasing.  He is very British, though, the artless Briton! 
+Perhaps you'll find him too much so for the transatlantic nerves. 
+Come to think of it, on the other hand, you ought to get on
+famously.   He is an admirer of your great republic in one of its
+(excuse me) shoddiest features; he takes in and sedulously
+reads a lot of American papers.  I warned you he was artless."
+
+"What papers are they?" cried I.
+
+"San Francisco papers," said he.  "He gets a bale of them about
+twice a week, and studies them like the Bible.  That's one of his
+weaknesses; another is to be incalculably rich.  He has taken
+Masson's old studio--you remember?--at the corner of the road;
+he has furnished it regardless of expense, and lives there
+surrounded with vins fins and works of art.  When the youth of
+to-day goes up to the Caverne des Brigands to make punch--
+they do all that we did, like some nauseous form of ape (I never
+appreciated before what a creature of tradition mankind is)
+--this Madden follows with a basket of champagne.  I told him
+he was wrong, and the punch tasted better; but he thought the
+boys liked the style of the thing, and I suppose they do.  He is a
+very good-natured soul, and a very melancholy, and rather a
+helpless.  O, and he has a third weakness which I came near
+forgetting.  He paints.  He has never been taught, and he's past
+thirty, and he paints."
+
+"How?" I asked.
+
+"Rather well, I think," was the reply.  "That's the annoying part
+of it.  See for yourself.  That panel is his."
+
+I stepped toward the window.  It was the old familiar room,
+with the tables set like a Greek P, and the sideboard, and the
+aphasiac piano, and the panels on the wall.  There were Romeo
+and Juliet, Antwerp from the river, Enfield's ships among the
+ice, and the huge huntsman winding a huge horn; mingled with
+them a few new ones, the thin crop of a succeeding generation,
+not better and not worse.  It was to one of these I was directed;
+a thing coarsely and wittily handled, mostly with the palette-
+knife, the colour in some parts excellent, the canvas in others
+loaded with mere clay.  But it was the scene, and not the art or
+want of it, that riveted my notice.  The foreground was of sand
+and scrub and wreckwood; in the middle distance the many-
+hued and smooth expanse of a lagoon, enclosed by a wall of
+breakers; beyond, a blue strip of ocean.  The sky was cloudless,
+and I could hear the surf break.  For the place was Midway
+Island; the point of view the very spot at which I had landed
+with the captain for the first time, and from which I had
+re-embarked the day before we sailed.  I had already been
+gazing for some seconds, before my attention was arrested by a
+blur on the sea-line; and stooping to look, I recognised the
+smoke of a steamer.
+
+"Yes," said I, turning toward Stennis, "it has merit. What is it?"
+
+"A fancy piece," he returned.  "That's what pleased me. So few
+of the fellows in our time had the imagination of a garden
+snail."
+
+"Madden, you say his name is?" I pursued.
+
+"Madden," he repeated.
+
+"Has he travelled much?" I inquired.
+
+"I haven't an idea.  He is one of the least autobiographical of
+men.  He sits, and smokes, and giggles, and sometimes he
+makes small jests; but his contributions to the art of pleasing
+are generally confined to looking like a gentleman and being
+one.  No," added Stennis, "he'll never suit you, Dodd; you like
+more head on your liquor.  You'll find him as dull as ditch
+water."
+
+"Has he big blonde side-whiskers like tusks?" I asked, mindful
+of the photograph of Goddedaal.
+
+"Certainly not:  why should he?" was the reply.
+
+"Does he write many letters?" I continued.
+
+"God knows," said Stennis.  "What is wrong with you?  I never
+saw you taken this way before."
+
+
+"The fact is, I think I know the man," said I.  "I think I'm
+looking for him.  I rather think he is my long-lost brother."
+
+"Not twins, anyway," returned Stennis.
+
+And about the same time, a carriage driving up to the inn, he
+took his departure.
+
+I walked till dinner-time in the plain, keeping to the fields; for I
+instinctively shunned observation, and was racked by many
+incongruous and impatient feelings.  Here was a man whose
+voice I had once heard, whose doings had filled so many days
+of my life with interest and distress, whom I had lain awake to
+dream of like a lover; and now his hand was on the door; now
+we were to meet; now I was to learn at last the mystery of the
+substituted crew.  The sun went down over the plain of the
+Angelus, and as the hour approached, my courage lessened.  I
+let the laggard peasants pass me on the homeward way.  The
+lamps were lit, the soup was served, the company were all at
+table, and the room sounded already with multitudinous talk
+before I entered.  I took my place and found I was opposite to
+Madden.  Over six feet high and well set up, the hair dark and
+streaked with silver, the eyes dark and kindly, the mouth very
+good-natured, the teeth admirable; linen and hands exquisite;
+English clothes, an English voice, an English bearing:  the man
+stood out conspicuous from the company.  Yet he had made
+himself at home, and seemed to enjoy a certain quiet popularity
+among the noisy boys of the table d'hote.  He had an odd, silver
+giggle of a laugh, that sounded nervous even when he was
+really amused, and accorded ill with his big stature and manly,
+melancholy face.  This laugh fell in continually all through
+dinner like the note of the triangle in a piece of modern French
+music; and he had at times a kind of pleasantry, rather of
+manner than of words, with which he started or maintained the
+merriment.  He took his share in these diversions, not so much
+like a man in high spirits, but like one of an approved good 
+nature, habitually self-forgetful, accustomed to please and to
+follow others.  I have remarked in old soldiers much the same
+smiling sadness and sociable self-effacement.
+
+I feared to look at him, lest my glances should betray my deep
+excitement, and chance served me so well that the soup was
+scarce removed before we were naturally introduced.  My first
+sip of Chateau Siron, a vintage from which I had been long
+estranged, startled me into speech.
+
+
+"O, this'll never do!" I cried, in English.
+
+"Dreadful stuff, isn't it?" said Madden, in the same language. 
+"Do let me ask you to share my bottle.  They call it Chambertin,
+which it isn't; but it's fairly palatable, and there's nothing in this
+house that a man can drink at all."
+
+I accepted; anything would do that paved the way to better
+knowledge.
+
+"Your name is Madden, I think," said I.  "My old friend Stennis
+told me about you when I came."
+
+"Yes, I am sorry he went; I feel such a Grandfather William,
+alone among all these lads," he replied.
+
+"My name is Dodd," I resumed.
+
+"Yes," said he, "so Madame Siron told me."
+
+"Dodd, of San Francisco," I continued.  "Late of Pinkerton and
+Dodd."
+
+"Montana Block, I think?" said he.
+
+"The same," said I.
+
+Neither of us looked at each other; but I could see his hand
+deliberately making bread pills.
+
+"That's a nice thing of yours," I pursued, "that panel. The
+foreground is a little clayey, perhaps, but the lagoon is
+excellent."
+
+"You ought to know," said he.
+
+"Yes," returned I, "I'm rather a good judge of--that panel."
+
+There was a considerable pause.
+
+"You know a man by the name of Bellairs, don't you?" he
+resumed.
+
+"Ah!" cried I, "you have heard from Doctor Urquart?"
+
+"This very morning," he replied.
+
+"Well, there is no hurry about Bellairs," said I.  "It's rather a
+long story and rather a silly one.  But I think we have a good
+deal to tell each other, and perhaps we had better wait till we
+are more alone."
+
+"I think so," said he.  "Not that any of these fellows know
+English, but we'll be more comfortable over at my place.  Your
+health, Dodd."
+
+And we took wine together across the table.
+
+Thus had this singular introduction passed unperceived in the
+midst of more than thirty persons, art students, ladies in
+dressing-gowns and covered with rice powder, six foot of Siron
+whisking dishes over our head, and his noisy sons clattering in
+and out with fresh relays.
+
+"One question more," said I: "Did you recognise my voice?"
+
+"Your voice?" he repeated.  "How should I?  I had never heard
+it--we have never met."
+
+"And yet, we have been in conversation before now," said I,
+"and I asked you a question which you never answered, and
+which I have since had many thousand better reasons for
+putting to myself."
+
+He turned suddenly white.  "Good God!" he cried, "are you the
+man in the telephone?"
+
+I nodded.
+
+"Well, well!" said he.  "It would take a good deal of
+magnanimity to forgive you that.  What nights I have passed!
+That little whisper has whistled in my ear ever since, like the
+wind in a keyhole.  Who could it be?  What could it mean?  I
+suppose I have had more real, solid misery out of that ..."  He
+paused, and looked troubled.  "Though I had more to bother
+me, or ought to have," he added, and slowly emptied his glass.
+
+"It seems we were born to drive each other crazy with
+conundrums," said I.  "I have often thought my head would
+split."
+
+Carthew burst into his foolish laugh.  "And yet neither you nor
+I had the worst of the puzzle," he cried. "There were others
+deeper in."
+
+"And who were they?" I asked.
+
+"The underwriters," said he.
+
+"Why, to be sure!" cried I, "I never thought of that. What could
+they make of it?"
+
+"Nothing," replied Carthew.  "It couldn't be explained.  They
+were a crowd of small dealers at Lloyd's who took it up in
+syndicate; one of them has a carriage now; and people say he is
+a deuce of a deep fellow, and has the makings of a great
+financier.  Another furnished a small villa on the profits.  But
+they're all hopelessly muddled; and when they meet each other,
+they don't know where to look, like the Augurs."
+
+Dinner was no sooner at an end than he carried me across the
+road to Masson's old studio.  It was strangely changed.  On the
+walls were tapestry, a few good etchings, and some amazing
+pictures--a Rousseau, a Corot, a really superb old Crome, a
+Whistler, and a piece which my host claimed (and I believe) to
+be a Titian.  The room was furnished with comfortable English
+smoking-room chairs, some American rockers, and an
+elaborate business table; spirits and soda-water (with the mark
+of Schweppe, no less) stood ready on a butler's tray, and in one
+corner, behind a half-drawn curtain, I spied a camp-bed and a
+capacious tub.  Such a room in Barbizon astonished the
+beholder, like the glories of the cave of Monte Cristo.
+
+"Now," said he, "we are quiet.  Sit down, if you don't mind, and
+tell me your story all through."
+
+I did as he asked, beginning with the day when Jim showed me
+the passage in the _Daily Occidental_, and winding up with the
+stamp album and the Chailly postmark.  It was a long business;
+and Carthew made it longer, for he was insatiable of details;
+and it had struck midnight on the old eight-day clock in the
+corner, before I had made an end.
+
+"And now," said he, "turn about: I must tell you my side, much
+as I hate it.  Mine is a beastly story.  You'll wonder how I can
+sleep.  I've told it once before, Mr. Dodd."
+
+"To Lady Ann?" I asked.
+
+"As you suppose," he answered; "and to say the truth, I had
+sworn never to tell it again.  Only, you seem somehow entitled
+to the thing; you have paid dear enough, God knows; and God
+knows I hope you may like it, now you've got it!"
+
+With that he began his yarn.  A new day had dawned, the cocks
+crew in the village and the early woodmen were afoot, when he
+concluded.
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXII.
+
+ THE REMITTANCE MAN.
+
+
+Singleton Carthew, the father of Norris, was heavily built and
+feebly vitalised, sensitive as a musician, dull as a sheep, and
+conscientious as a dog.  He took his position with seriousness,
+even with pomp; the long rooms, the silent servants, seemed in
+his eyes like the observances of some religion of which he was
+the mortal god.  He had the stupid man's intolerance of
+stupidity in others; the vain man's exquisite alarm lest it should
+be detected in himself.  And on both sides Norris irritated and
+offended him.  He thought his son a fool, and he suspected that
+his son returned the compliment with interest.  The history of
+their relation was simple; they met seldom, they quarrelled
+often.  To his mother, a fiery, pungent, practical woman,
+already disappointed in her husband and her elder son, Norris
+was only a fresh disappointment. 
+
+Yet the lad's faults were no great matter; he was diffident,
+placable, passive, unambitious, unenterprising; life did not
+much attract him; he watched it like a curious and dull
+exhibition, not much amused, and not tempted in the least to
+take a part.  He beheld his father ponderously grinding sand,
+his mother fierily breaking butterflies, his brother labouring at
+the pleasures of the Hawbuck with the ardour of a soldier in a
+doubtful battle; and the vital sceptic looked on wondering. 
+They were careful and troubled about many things; for him
+there seemed not even one thing needful.  He was born
+disenchanted, the world's promises awoke no echo in his
+bosom, the world's activities and the world's distinctions
+seemed to him equally without a base in fact.  He liked the
+open air; he liked comradeship, it mattered not with whom, his
+comrades were only a remedy for solitude.  And he had a taste
+for painted art.  An array of fine pictures looked upon his
+childhood, and from these roods of jewelled canvas he received
+an indelible impression.  The gallery at Stallbridge betokened
+generations of picture lovers; Norris was perhaps the first of his
+race to hold the pencil.  The taste was genuine, it grew and
+strengthened with his growth; and yet he suffered it to be
+suppressed with scarce a struggle.  Time came for him to go to
+Oxford, and he resisted faintly.  He was stupid, he said; it was
+no good to put him through the mill; he wished to be a painter. 
+The words fell on his father like a thunderbolt, and Norris
+made haste to give way.  "It didn't really matter, don't you
+know?" said he.  "And it seemed an awful shame to vex the old
+boy."
+
+To Oxford he went obediently, hopelessly; and at Oxford
+became the hero of a certain circle.  He was active and adroit;
+when he was in the humour, he excelled in many sports; and
+his singular melancholy detachment gave him a place apart. 
+He set a fashion in his clique.  Envious undergraduates sought
+to parody his unaffected lack of zeal and fear; it was a kind of
+new Byronism more composed and dignified.  "Nothing really
+mattered"; among other things, this formula embraced the
+dons; and though he always meant to be civil, the effect on the
+college authorities was one of startling rudeness.  His
+indifference cut like insolence; and in some outbreak of his
+constitutional levity (the complement of his melancholy) he
+was "sent down" in the middle of the second year.
+
+The event was new in the annals of the Carthews, and
+Singleton was prepared to make the most of it.  It had been
+long his practice to prophesy for his second son a career of ruin
+and disgrace.  There is an advantage in this artless parental
+habit.  Doubtless the father is interested in his son; but
+doubtless also the prophet grows to be interested in his
+prophecies.  If the one goes wrong, the others come true.  Old
+Carthew drew from this source esoteric consolations; he dwelt
+at length on his own foresight; he produced variations hitherto
+unheard from the old theme "I told you so," coupled his son's
+name with the gallows and the hulks, and spoke of his small
+handful of college debts as though he must raise money on a
+mortgage to discharge them.
+
+"I don't think that is fair, sir," said Norris.  "I lived at college
+exactly as you told me.  I am sorry I was sent down, and you
+have a perfect right to blame me for that; but you have no right
+to pitch into me about these debts."
+
+The effect upon a stupid man not unjustly incensed need
+scarcely be described.  For a while Singleton raved.
+
+"I'll tell you what, father," said Norris at last, "I don't think this
+is going to do.  I think you had better let me take to painting. 
+It's the only thing I take a spark of interest in.  I shall never be
+steady as long as I'm at anything else."
+
+"When you stand here, sir, to the neck in disgrace," said the
+father, "I should have hoped you would have had more good
+taste than to repeat this levity."
+
+The hint was taken; the levity was never more obtruded on the
+father's notice, and Norris was inexorably launched upon a
+backward voyage.  He went abroad to study foreign languages,
+which he learned, at a very expensive rate; and a fresh crop of
+debts fell soon to be paid, with similar lamentations, which
+were in this case perfectly justified, and to which Norris paid
+no regard.  He had been unfairly treated over the Oxford affair;
+and with a spice of malice very surprising in one so placable,
+and an obstinacy remarkable in one so weak, refused from that
+day forward to exercise the least captaincy on his expenses.  He
+wasted what he would; he allowed his servants to despoil him
+at their pleasure; he sowed insolvency; and when the crop was
+ripe, notified his father with exasperating calm.  His own
+capital was put in his hands, he was planted in the diplomatic
+service and told he must depend upon himself.
+  
+He did so till he was twenty-five; by which time he had spent
+his money, laid in a handsome choice of debts, and acquired
+(like so many other melancholic and uninterested persons) a
+habit of gambling.  An Austrian colonel--the same who
+afterwards hanged himself at Monte Carlo--gave him a lesson
+which lasted two-and-twenty hours, and left him wrecked and
+helpless.  Old Singleton once more repurchased the honour of
+his name, this time at a fancy figure; and Norris was set afloat
+again on stern conditions.  An allowance of three hundred
+pounds in the year was to be paid to him quarterly by a lawyer
+in Sydney, New South Wales.  He was not to write.  Should he
+fail on any quarter-day to be in Sydney, he was to be held for
+dead, and the allowance tacitly withdrawn.  Should he return to
+Europe, an advertisement publicly disowning him was to
+appear in every paper of repute. 
+
+It was one of his most annoying features as a son, that he was
+always polite, always just, and in whatever whirlwind of
+domestic anger, always calm.  He expected trouble; when
+trouble came, he was unmoved:  he might have said with
+Singleton, "I told you so"; he was content with thinking, "just
+as I expected."  On the fall of these last thunderbolts, he bore
+himself like a person only distantly interested in the event;
+pocketed the money and the reproaches, obeyed orders
+punctually; took ship and came to Sydney.  Some men are still
+lads at twenty-five; and so it was with Norris.  Eighteen days
+after he landed, his quarter's allowance was all gone, and with
+the light-hearted hopefulness of strangers in what is called a
+new country, he began to besiege offices and apply for all
+manner of incongruous situations.  Everywhere, and last of all
+from his lodgings, he was bowed out; and found himself
+reduced, in a very elegant suit of summer tweeds, to herd and
+camp with the degraded outcasts of the city. 
+
+In this strait, he had recourse to the lawyer who paid him his
+allowance.
+
+"Try to remember that my time is valuable, Mr. Carthew," said
+the lawyer.  "It is quite unnecessary you should enlarge on the
+peculiar position in which you stand.  Remittance men, as we
+call them here, are not so rare in my experience; and in such
+cases I act upon a system.  I make you a present of a sovereign;
+here it is.  Every day you choose to call, my clerk will advance
+you a shilling; on Saturday, since my office is closed on
+Sunday, he will advance you half a crown.  My conditions are
+these:  that you do not come to me, but to my clerk; that you do
+not come here the worse of liquor; and you go away the
+moment you are paid and have signed a receipt.  I wish you a
+good-morning."
+
+"I have to thank you, I suppose," said Carthew.  "My position is
+so wretched that I cannot even refuse this starvation
+allowance."
+
+"Starvation!" said the lawyer, smiling.  "No man will starve
+here on a shilling a day.  I had on my hands another young
+gentleman, who remained continuously intoxicated for six years
+on the same allowance."  And he once more busied himself
+with his papers.
+
+In the time that followed, the image of the smiling lawyer
+haunted Carthew's memory.  "That three minutes' talk was all
+the education I ever had worth talking of," says he.  "It was all
+life in a nut-shell.  Confound it!  I thought, have I got to the
+point of envying that ancient fossil?"
+
+Every morning for the next two or three weeks, the stroke of ten
+found Norris, unkempt and haggard, at the lawyer's door.  The
+long day and longer night he spent in the Domain, now on a
+bench, now on the grass under a Norfolk Island pine, the
+companion of perhaps the lowest class on earth, the Larrikins
+of Sydney.  Morning after morning, the dawn behind the
+lighthouse recalled him from slumber; and he would stand and
+gaze upon the changing east, the fading lenses, the smokeless
+city, and the many-armed and many-masted harbour growing
+slowly clear under his eyes.  His bed-fellows (so to call them)
+were less active; they lay sprawled upon the grass and benches,
+the dingy men, the frowsy women, prolonging their late repose;
+and Carthew wandered among the sleeping bodies alone, and
+cursed the incurable stupidity of his behaviour.  Day brought a
+new society of nursery-maids and children, and fresh-dressed
+and (I am sorry to say) tight-laced maidens, and gay people in
+rich traps; upon the skirts of which Carthew and "the other
+blackguards"--his own bitter phrase--skulked, and chewed
+grass, and looked on.  Day passed, the light died, the green and
+leafy precinct sparkled with lamps or lay in shadow, and the
+round of the night began again, the loitering women, the
+lurking men, the sudden outburst of screams, the sound of
+flying feet.  "You mayn't believe it," says Carthew, "but I got to
+that pitch that I didn't care a hang.  I have been wakened out of
+my sleep to hear a woman screaming, and I have only turned
+upon my other side.  Yes, it's a queer place, where the
+dowagers and the kids walk all day, and at night you can hear
+people bawling for help as if it was the Forest of Bondy, with
+the lights of a great town all round, and parties spinning
+through in cabs from Government House and dinner with my
+lord!"
+
+It was Norris's diversion, having none other, to scrape
+acquaintance, where, how, and with whom he could.  Many a
+long dull talk he held upon the benches or the grass; many a
+strange waif he came to know; many strange things he heard,
+and saw some that were abominable.  It was to one of these last
+that he owed his deliverance from the Domain.  For some time
+the rain had been merciless; one night after another he had been
+obliged to squander fourpence on a bed and reduce his board to
+the remaining eightpence:  and he sat one morning near the
+Macquarrie Street entrance, hungry, for he had gone without
+breakfast, and wet, as he had already been for several days,
+when the cries of an animal in distress attracted his attention. 
+Some fifty yards away, in the extreme angle of the grass, a
+party of the chronically unemployed had got hold of a dog,
+whom they were torturing in a manner not to be described.  The
+heart of Norris, which had grown indifferent to the cries of
+human anger or distress, woke at the appeal of the dumb
+creature.  He ran amongst the Larrikins, scattered them,
+rescued the dog, and stood at bay.  They were six in number,
+shambling gallowsbirds; but for once the proverb was right,
+cruelty was coupled with cowardice, and the wretches cursed
+him and made off.  It chanced that this act of prowess had not
+passed unwitnessed.  On a bench near by there was seated a
+shopkeeper's assistant out of employ, a diminutive, cheerful,
+red-headed creature by the name of Hemstead.  He was the last
+man to have interfered himself, for his discretion more than
+equalled his valour; but he made haste to congratulate Carthew,
+and to warn him he might not always be so fortunate.
+
+"They're a dyngerous lot of people about this park.  My word! it
+doesn't do to ply with them!" he observed, in that RYCY
+AUSTRYLIAN English, which (as it has received the
+imprimatur of Mr. Froude) we should all make haste to imitate. 
+
+"Why, I'm one of that lot myself," returned Carthew.
+
+Hemstead laughed and remarked that he knew a gentleman
+when he saw one.
+
+"For all that, I am simply one of the unemployed," said
+Carthew, seating himself beside his new acquaintance, as he
+had sat (since this experience began) beside so many dozen
+others.
+
+"I'm out of a plyce myself," said Hemstead.
+
+"You beat me all the way and back," says Carthew.  "My
+trouble is that I have never been in one."
+
+"I suppose you've no tryde?" asked Hemstead.
+
+"I know how to spend money," replied Carthew, "and I really
+do know something of horses and something of the sea.  But
+the unions head me off; if it weren't for them, I might have had
+a dozen berths."
+
+"My word!" cried the sympathetic listener.  "Ever try the
+mounted police?" he inquired.
+
+"I did, and was bowled out," was the reply; "couldn't pass the
+doctors."
+
+"Well, what do you think of the ryleways, then?" asked
+Hemstead.
+
+"What do YOU think of them, if you come to that?" asked
+Carthew.
+
+"O, _I_ don't think of them; I don't go in for manual labour,"
+said the little man proudly.  "But if a man don't mind that, he's
+pretty sure of a job there."
+
+"By George, you tell me where to go!" cried Carthew, rising.
+
+The heavy rains continued, the country was already overrun
+with floods; the railway system daily required more hands,
+daily the superintendent advertised; but "the unemployed"
+preferred the resources of charity and rapine, and a navvy, even
+an amateur navvy, commanded money in the market.  The
+same night, after a tedious journey, and a change of trains to
+pass a landslip, Norris found himself in a muddy cutting
+behind South Clifton, attacking his first shift of manual labour.
+
+For weeks the rain scarce relented.  The whole front of the
+mountain slipped seaward from above, avalanches of clay,
+rock, and uprooted forest spewed over the cliffs and fell upon
+the beach or in the breakers.  Houses were carried bodily away
+and smashed like nuts; others were menaced and deserted, the
+door locked, the chimney cold, the dwellers fled elsewhere for
+safety.  Night and day the fire blazed in the encampment; night
+and day hot coffee was served to the overdriven toilers in the
+shift; night and day the engineer of the section made his rounds
+with words of encouragement, hearty and rough and well suited
+to his men.  Night and day, too, the telegraph clicked with
+disastrous news and anxious inquiry.  Along the terraced line
+of rail, rare trains came creeping and signalling; and paused at
+the threatened corner, like living things conscious of peril.  The
+commandant of the post would hastily review his labours,
+make (with a dry throat) the signal to advance; and the whole
+squad line the way and look on in a choking silence, or burst
+into a brief cheer as the train cleared the point of danger and
+shot on, perhaps through the thin sunshine between squalls,
+perhaps with blinking lamps into the gathering, rainy twilight. 
+
+One such scene Carthew will remember till he dies.  It blew
+great guns from the seaward; a huge surf bombarded, five
+hundred feet below him, the steep mountain's foot; close in was
+a vessel in distress, firing shots from a fowling-piece, if any
+help might come.  So he saw and heard her the moment before
+the train appeared and paused, throwing up a Babylonian tower
+of smoke into the rain, and oppressing men's hearts with the
+scream of her whistle.  The engineer was there himself; he
+paled as he made the signal:  the engine came at a foot's pace;
+but the whole bulk of mountain shook and seemed to nod
+seaward, and the watching navvies instinctively clutched at
+shrubs and trees:  vain precautions, vain as the shots from the
+poor sailors.  Once again fear was disappointed; the train
+passed unscathed; and Norris, drawing a long breath,
+remembered the labouring ship and glanced below.  She was
+gone.
+
+So the days and the nights passed:  Homeric labour in Homeric
+circumstance.  Carthew was sick with sleeplessness and coffee;
+his hands, softened by the wet, were cut to ribbons; yet he
+enjoyed a peace of mind and health of body hitherto unknown. 
+Plenty of open air, plenty of physical exertion, a continual
+instancy of toil; here was what had been hitherto lacking in that
+misdirected life, and the true cure of vital scepticism.  To get
+the train through:  there was the recurrent problem; no time
+remained to ask if it were necessary.  Carthew, the idler, the
+spendthrift, the drifting dilettant, was soon remarked, praised,
+and advanced.  The engineer swore by him and pointed him out
+for an example.  "I've a new chum, up here," Norris overheard
+him saying, "a young swell.  He's worth any two in the squad."
+The words fell on the ears of the discarded son like music; and
+from that moment, he not only found an interest, he took a
+pride, in his plebeian tasks.
+
+The press of work was still at its highest when quarter-day
+approached.  Norris was now raised to a position of some trust;
+at his discretion, trains were stopped or forwarded at the
+dangerous cornice near North Clifton; and he found in this
+responsibility both terror and delight.  The thought of the
+seventy-five pounds that would soon await him at the lawyer's,
+and of his own obligation to be present every quarter-day in
+Sydney, filled him for a little with divided councils.  Then he
+made up his mind, walked in a slack moment to the inn at
+Clifton, ordered a sheet of paper and a bottle of beer, and wrote,
+explaining that he held a good appointment which he would
+lose if he came to Sydney, and asking the lawyer to accept this
+letter as an evidence of his presence in the colony, and retain
+the money till next quarter-day.  The answer came in course of
+post, and was not merely favourable but cordial.  "Although
+what you propose is contrary to the terms of my instructions," it
+ran, "I willingly accept the responsibility of granting your
+request.  I should say I am agreeably disappointed in your
+behaviour.  My experience has not led me to found much
+expectations on gentlemen in your position." 
+
+The rains abated, and the temporary labour was discharged; not
+Norris, to whom the engineer clung as to found money; not
+Norris, who found himself a ganger on the line in the regular
+staff of navvies.  His camp was pitched in a grey wilderness of
+rock and forest, far from any house; as he sat with his mates
+about the evening fire, the trains passing on the track were their
+next and indeed their only neighbours, except the wild things of
+the wood.  Lovely weather, light and monotonous employment,
+long hours of somnolent camp-fire talk, long sleepless nights,
+when he reviewed his foolish and fruitless career as he rose and
+walked in the moonlit forest, an occasional paper of which he
+would read all, the advertisements with as much relish as the
+text:  such was the tenor of an existence which soon began to
+weary and harass him.  He lacked and regretted the fatigue, the
+furious hurry, the suspense, the fires, the midnight coffee, the
+rude and mud-bespattered poetry of the first toilful weeks.  In
+the quietness of his new surroundings, a voice summoned him
+from this exorbital part of life, and about the middle of October
+he threw up his situation and bade farewell to the camp of tents
+and the shoulder of Bald Mountain.
+
+Clad in his rough clothes, with a bundle on his shoulder and
+his accumulated wages in his pocket, he entered Sydney for the
+second time, and walked with pleasure and some bewilderment
+in the cheerful streets, like a man landed from a voyage.  The
+sight of the people led him on.  He forgot his necessary errands,
+he forgot to eat.  He wandered in moving multitudes like a stick
+upon a river.  Last he came to the Domain and strolled there,
+and remembered his shame and sufferings, and looked with
+poignant curiosity at his successors.  Hemstead, not much
+shabbier and no less cheerful than before, he recognised and
+addressed like an old family friend.
+
+"That was a good turn you did me," said he.  "That railway was
+the making of me.  I hope you've had luck yourself."
+
+
+"My word, no!" replied the little man.  "I just sit here and read
+the _Dead Bird_.  It's the depression in tryde, you see.  There's
+no positions goin' that a man like me would care to look at."
+And he showed Norris his certificates and written characters,
+one from a grocer in Wooloomooloo, one from an ironmonger,
+and a third from a billiard saloon.  "Yes," he said, "I tried bein'
+a billiard marker.  It's no account; these lyte hours are no use
+for a man's health.  I won't be no man's slyve," he added firmly.
+
+On the principle that he who is too proud to be a slave is
+usually not too modest to become a pensioner, Carthew gave
+him half a sovereign, and departed, being suddenly struck with
+hunger, in the direction of the Paris House.  When he came to
+that quarter of the city, the barristers were trotting in the streets
+in wig and gown, and he stood to observe them with his bundle
+on his shoulder, and his mind full of curious recollections of the
+past.
+
+"By George!" cried a voice, "it's Mr. Carthew!"
+
+And turning about he found himself face to face with a
+handsome sunburnt youth, somewhat fatted, arrayed in the
+finest of fine raiment, and sporting about a sovereign's worth of
+flowers in his buttonhole. Norris had met him during his first
+days in Sydney at a farewell supper; had even escorted him on
+board a schooner full of cockroaches and black-boy sailors, in
+which he was bound for six months among the islands; and had
+kept him ever since in entertained remembrance.  Tom Hadden
+(known to the bulk of Sydney folk as Tommy) was heir to a
+considerable property, which a prophetic father had placed in
+the hands of rigorous trustees.  The income supported Mr.
+Hadden in splendour for about three months out of twelve; the
+rest of the year he passed in retreat among the islands.  He was
+now about a week returned from his eclipse, pervading Sydney
+in hansom cabs and airing the first bloom of six new suits of
+clothes; and yet the unaffected creature hailed Carthew in his
+working jeans and with the damning bundle on his shoulder, as
+he might have claimed acquaintance with a duke.
+
+"Come and have a drink!" was his cheerful cry.
+
+"I'm just going to have lunch at the Paris House," returned
+Carthew.  "It's a long time since I have had a decent meal."
+
+"Splendid scheme!" said Hadden.  "I've only had breakfast half
+an hour ago; but we'll have a private room, and I'll manage to
+pick something.  It'll brace me up.  I was on an awful tear last
+night, and I've met no end of fellows this morning."  To meet a
+fellow, and to stand and share a drink, were with Tom
+synonymous terms.
+
+They were soon at table in the corner room up-stairs, and
+paying due attention to the best fare in Sydney.  The odd
+similarity of their positions drew them together, and they began
+soon to exchange confidences.  Carthew related his privations
+in the Domain and his toils as a navvy; Hadden gave his
+experience as an amateur copra merchant in the South Seas,
+and drew a humorous picture of life in a coral island.  Of the
+two plans of retirement, Carthew gathered that his own had
+been vastly the more lucrative; but Hadden's trading outfit had
+consisted largely of bottled stout and brown sherry for his own
+consumption.
+
+"I had champagne too," said Hadden, "but I kept that in case of
+sickness, until I didn't seem to be going to be sick, and then I
+opened a pint every Sunday.  Used to sleep all morning, then
+breakfast with my pint of fizz, and lie in a hammock and read
+Hallam's _Middle Ages_.  Have you read that?  I always take
+something solid to the islands.  There's no doubt I did the thing
+in rather a fine style; but if it was gone about a little cheaper, or
+there were two of us to bear the expense, it ought to pay hand
+over fist.  I've got the influence, you see.  I'm a chief now, and
+sit in the speak-house under my own strip of roof.  I'd like to
+see them taboo ME!  They daren't try it; I've a strong party, I
+can tell you.  Why, I've had upwards of thirty cowtops sitting in
+my front verandah eating tins of salmon."
+
+"Cowtops?" asked Carthew, "what are they?"
+
+"That's what Hallam would call feudal retainers," explained
+Hadden, not without vainglory.  "They're My Followers.  They
+belong to My Family.  I tell you, they come expensive, though;
+you can't fill up all these retainers on tinned salmon for
+nothing; but whenever I could get it, I would give 'em squid. 
+Squid's good for natives, but I don't care for it, do you?--or
+shark either.  It's like the working classes at home.  With copra
+at the price it is, they ought to be willing to bear their share of
+the loss; and so I've told them again and again.  I think it's a
+man's duty to open their minds, and I try to, but you can't get
+political economy into them; it doesn't seem to reach their
+intelligence."
+
+
+There was an expression still sticking in Carthew's memory,
+and he returned upon it with a smile.  "Talking of political
+economy," said he, "you said if there were two of us to bear the
+expense, the profits would increase.  How do you make out
+that?"
+
+"I'll show you! I'll figure it out for you!" cried Hadden, and with
+a pencil on the back of the bill of fare proceeded to perform
+miracles.  He was a man, or let us rather say a lad, of unusual
+projective power.  Give him the faintest hint of any speculation,
+and the figures flowed from him by the page.  A lively
+imagination and a ready though inaccurate memory supplied
+his data; he delivered himself with an inimitable heat that made
+him seem the picture of pugnacity; lavished contradiction; had
+a form of words, with or without significance, for every form of
+criticism; and the looker-on alternately smiled at his simplicity
+and fervour, or was amazed by his unexpected shrewdness.  He
+was a kind of Pinkerton in play.  I have called Jim's the
+romance of business; this was its Arabian tale.
+
+"Have you any idea what this would cost?" he asked, pausing at
+an item.
+
+"Not I," said Carthew.
+
+"Ten pounds ought to be ample," concluded the projector.
+
+"O, nonsense!" cried Carthew.  "Fifty at the very least."
+
+"You told me yourself this moment you knew nothing about it!"
+cried Tommy.  "How can I make a calculation, if you blow hot
+and cold? You don't seem able to be serious!"
+
+But he consented to raise his estimate to twenty; and a little
+after, the calculation coming out with a deficit, cut it down
+again to five pounds ten, with the remark, "I told you it was
+nonsense.  This sort of thing has to be done strictly, or where's
+the use?"
+
+Some of these processes struck Carthew as unsound; and he
+was at times altogether thrown out by the capricious startings
+of the prophet's mind.  These plunges seemed to be gone into
+for exercise and by the way, like the curvets of a willing horse. 
+Gradually the thing took shape; the glittering if baseless edifice
+arose; and the hare still ran on the mountains, but the soup was
+already served in silver plate.  Carthew in a few days could
+command a hundred and fifty pounds; Hadden was ready with
+five hundred; why should they not recruit a fellow or two more,
+charter an old ship, and go cruising on their own account?
+Carthew was an experienced yachtsman; Hadden professed
+himself able to "work an approximate sight." Money was
+undoubtedly to be made, or why should so many vessels cruise
+about the islands? they, who worked their own ship, were sure
+of a still higher profit.
+
+"And whatever else comes of it, you see," cried Hadden, "we
+get our keep for nothing.  Come, buy some togs, that's the first
+thing you have to do of course; and then we'll take a hansom
+and go to the Currency Lass."
+
+"I'm going to stick to the togs I have," said Norris.
+
+"Are you?" cried Hadden.  "Well, I must say I admire you. 
+You're a regular sage.  It's what you call Pythagoreanism, isn't
+it? if I haven't forgotten my philosophy."
+
+"Well, I call it economy," returned Carthew.  "If we are going
+to try this thing on, I shall want every sixpence."
+
+"You'll see if we're going to try it!" cried Tommy, rising radiant
+from table.  "Only, mark you, Carthew, it must be all in your
+name.  I have capital, you see; but you're all right.  You can
+play vacuus viator, if the thing goes wrong."
+
+"I thought we had just proved it was quite safe," said Carthew.
+
+"There's nothing safe in business, my boy," replied the sage;
+"not even bookmaking."
+
+The public house and tea garden called the Currency Lass
+represented a moderate fortune gained by its proprietor,
+Captain Bostock, during a long, active, and occasionally
+historic career among the islands. Anywhere from Tonga to the
+Admiralty Isles, he knew the ropes and could lie in the native
+dialect.  He had seen the end of sandal wood, the end of oil,
+and the beginning of copra; and he was himself a commercial
+pioneer, the first that ever carried human teeth into the Gilberts. 
+He was tried for his life in Fiji in Sir Arthur Gordon's time; and
+if ever he prayed at all, the name of Sir Arthur was certainly not
+forgotten.  He was speared in seven places in New Ireland--the
+same time his mate was killed--the famous "outrage on the brig
+Jolly Roger"; but the treacherous savages made little by their
+wickedness, and Bostock, in spite of their teeth, got seventy-
+five head of volunteer labour on board, of whom not more than
+a dozen died of injuries.  He had a hand, besides, in the
+amiable pleasantry which cost the life of Patteson; and when
+the sham bishop landed, prayed, and gave his benediction to
+the natives, Bostock, arrayed in a female chemise out of the
+traderoom, had stood at his right hand and boomed amens. 
+This, when he was sure he was among good fellows, was his
+favourite yarn.  "Two hundred head of labour for a hatful of
+amens," he used to name the tale; and its sequel, the death of
+the real bishop, struck him as a circumstance of extraordinary
+humour.
+
+Many of these details were communicated in the hansom, to the
+surprise of Carthew.
+
+"Why do we want to visit this old ruffian?" he asked.
+
+"You wait till you hear him," replied Tommy.  "That man
+knows everything."
+
+On descending from the hansom at the Currency Lass, Hadden
+was struck with the appearance of the cabman, a gross, salt-
+looking man, red-faced, blue-eyed, short-handed and short-
+winded, perhaps nearing forty.
+
+"Surely I know you?" said he.  "Have you driven me before?"
+
+"Many's the time, Mr. Hadden," returned the driver. "The last
+time you was back from the islands, it was me that drove you to
+the races, sir."
+
+"All right:  jump down and have a drink then," said Tom, and
+he turned and led the way into the garden.
+
+Captain Bostock met the party:  he was a slow, sour old man,
+with fishy eyes; greeted Tommy offhand, and (as was
+afterwards remembered) exchanged winks with the driver.
+
+"A bottle of beer for the cabman there at that table," said Tom. 
+"Whatever you please from shandygaff to champagne at this
+one here; and you sit down with us.  Let me make you
+acquainted with my friend, Mr. Carthew.  I've come on
+business, Billy; I want to consult you as a friend; I'm going into
+the island trade upon my own account."
+
+
+Doubtless the captain was a mine of counsel, but opportunity
+was denied him.  He could not venture on a statement, he was
+scarce allowed to finish a phrase, before Hadden swept him
+from the field with a volley of protest and correction.  That
+projector, his face blazing with inspiration, first laid before him
+at inordinate length a question, and as soon as he attempted to
+reply, leaped at his throat, called his facts in question, derided
+his policy, and at times thundered on him from the heights of
+moral indignation.
+
+"I beg your pardon," he said once.  "I am a gentleman, Mr.
+Carthew here is a gentleman, and we don't mean to do that
+class of business.  Can't you see who you are talking to?  Can't
+you talk sense?  Can't you give us 'a dead bird' for a good
+traderoom?"
+
+"No, I don't suppose I can," returned old Bostock; "not when I
+can't hear my own voice for two seconds together.  It was gin
+and guns I did it with."
+
+"Take your gin and guns to Putney!" cried Hadden.  "It was the
+thing in your times, that's right enough; but you're old now, and
+the game's up.  I'll tell you what's wanted now-a-days, Bill
+Bostock," said he; and did, and took ten minutes to it.
+
+Carthew could not refrain from smiling.  He began to think less
+seriously of the scheme, Hadden appearing too irresponsible a
+guide; but on the other hand, he enjoyed himself amazingly.  It
+was far from being the same with Captain Bostock.
+
+"You know a sight, don't you?" remarked that gentleman,
+bitterly, when Tommy paused.
+
+"I know a sight more than you, if that's what you mean,"
+retorted Tom.  "It stands to reason I do. You're not a man of any
+education; you've been all your life at sea or in the islands; you
+don't suppose you can give points to a man like me?"
+
+"Here's your health, Tommy," returned Bostock.  "You'll make
+an A-one bake in the New Hebrides."
+
+"That's what I call talking," cried Tom, not perhaps grasping
+the spirit of this doubtful compliment.  "Now you give me your
+attention.  We have the money and the enterprise, and I have
+the experience:  what we want is a cheap, smart boat, a good
+captain, and an introduction to some house that will give us
+credit for the trade."
+
+"Well, I'll tell you," said Captain Bostock.  "I have seen men
+like you baked and eaten, and complained of afterwards.  Some
+was tough, and some hadn't no flaviour," he added grimly.
+
+"What do you mean by that?" cried Tom.
+
+"I mean I don't care," cried Bostock.  "It ain't any of my
+interests.  I haven't underwrote your life.  Only I'm blest if I'm
+not sorry for the cannibal as tries to eat your head.  And what I
+recommend is a cheap, smart coffin and a good undertaker. 
+See if you can find a house to give you credit for a coffin!  Look
+at your friend there; HE'S got some sense; he's laughing at you
+so as he can't stand."
+
+The exact degree of ill-feeling in Mr. Bostock's mind was
+difficult to gauge; perhaps there was not much, perhaps he
+regarded his remarks as a form of courtly badinage.  But there
+is little doubt that Hadden resented them.  He had even risen
+from his place, and the conference was on the point of breaking
+up, when a new voice joined suddenly in the conversation. 
+
+The cabman sat with his back turned upon the party, smoking a
+meerschaum pipe.  Not a word of Tommy's eloquence had
+missed him, and he now faced suddenly about with these
+amazing words:--
+
+"Excuse me, gentlemen; if you'll buy me the ship I want, I'll get
+you the trade on credit."
+
+There was a pause.
+
+"Well, what do YOU, mean?" gasped Tommy.
+
+"Better tell 'em who I am, Billy," said the cabman.
+
+"Think it safe, Joe?" inquired Mr. Bostock.
+
+"I'll take my risk of it," returned the cabman.
+
+"Gentlemen," said Bostock, rising solemnly, "let me make you
+acquainted with Captain Wicks of the Grace Darling."
+
+"Yes, gentlemen, that is what I am," said the cabman.  "You
+know I've been in trouble; and I don't deny but what I struck
+the blow, and where was I to get evidence of my provocation?
+So I turned to and took a cab, and I've driven one for three year
+now and nobody the wiser."
+
+"I beg your pardon," said Carthew, joining almost for the first
+time; "I'm a new chum.  What was the charge?"
+
+"Murder," said Captain Wicks, "and I don't deny but what I
+struck the blow.  And there's no sense in my trying to deny I
+was afraid to go to trial, or why would I be here?  But it's a fact
+it was flat mutiny.  Ask Billy here.  He knows how it was."
+
+Carthew breathed long; he had a strange, half-pleasurable
+sense of wading deeper in the tide of life.  "Well," said he, "you
+were going on to say?"
+
+"I was going on to say this," said the captain sturdily.  "I've
+overheard what Mr. Hadden has been saying, and I think he
+talks good sense.  I like some of his ideas first chop.  He's
+sound on traderooms; he's all there on the traderoom, and I see
+that he and I would pull together.  Then you're both gentlemen,
+and I like that," observed Captain Wicks.  "And then I'll tell
+you I'm tired of this cabbing cruise, and I want to get to work
+again.  Now, here's my offer.  I've a little money I can stake up,
+--all of a hundred anyway.  Then my old firm will give me
+trade, and jump at the chance; they never lost by me; they know
+what I'm worth as supercargo.  And, last of all, you want a
+good captain to sail your ship for you.  Well, here I am.  I've
+sailed schooners for ten years.  Ask Billy if I can handle a
+schooner."
+
+"No man better," said Billy.
+
+"And as for my character as a shipmate," concluded Wicks, "go
+and ask my old firm."
+
+"But look here!" cried Hadden, "how do you mean to manage?
+You can whisk round in a hansom, and no questions asked. 
+But if you try to come on a quarter-deck, my boy, you'll get
+nabbed."
+
+"I'll have to keep back till the last," replied Wicks, "and take
+another name."
+
+"But how about clearing? what other name?" asked Tommy, a
+little bewildered.
+
+"I don't know yet," returned the captain, with a grin.  "I'll see
+what the name is on my new certificate, and that'll be good
+enough for me.  If I can't get one to buy, though I never heard
+of such a thing, there's old Kirkup, he's turned some sort of
+farmer down Bondi way; he'll hire me his."
+
+"You seemed to speak as if you had a ship in view," said
+Carthew.
+
+"So I have, too," said Captain Wicks, "and a beauty.  Schooner
+yacht Dream; got lines you never saw the beat of; and a witch
+to go.  She passed me once off Thursday Island, doing two
+knots to my one and laying a point and a half better; and the
+Grace Darling was a ship that I was proud of.   I took and tore
+my hair.  The Dream's been MY dream ever since.  That was in
+her old days, when she carried a blue ens'n.  Grant Sanderson
+was the party as owned her; he was rich and mad, and got a
+fever at last somewhere about the Fly River, and took and died. 
+The captain brought the body back to Sydney, and paid off. 
+Well, it turned out Grant Sanderson had left any quantity of
+wills and any quantity of widows, and no fellow could make
+out which was the genuine article.  All the widows brought
+lawsuits against all the rest, and every will had a firm of
+lawyers on the quarterdeck as long as your arm.  They tell me it
+was one of the biggest turns-to that ever was seen, bar
+Tichborne; the Lord Chamberlain himself was floored, and so
+was the Lord Chancellor; and all that time the Dream lay
+rotting up by Glebe Point.  Well, it's done now; they've picked
+out a widow and a will; tossed up for it, as like as not; and the
+Dream's for sale.  She'll go cheap; she's had a long turn-to at
+rotting."
+
+"What size is she?"
+
+"Well, big enough.  We don't want her bigger.  A hundred and
+ninety, going two hundred," replied the captain.  "She's fully
+big for us three; it would be all the better if we had another
+hand, though it's a pity too, when you can pick up natives for
+half nothing.  Then we must have a cook.  I can fix raw sailor-
+men, but there's no going to sea with a new-chum cook.  I can
+lay hands on the man we want for that:  a Highway boy, an old
+shipmate of mine, of the name of Amalu.  Cooks first rate, and
+it's always better to have a native; he aint fly, you can turn him
+to as you please, and he don't know enough to stand out for his
+rights."
+
+From the moment that Captain Wicks joined in the
+conversation, Carthew recovered interest and confidence; the
+man (whatever he might have done) was plainly good-natured,
+and plainly capable; if he thought well of the enterprise, offered
+to contribute money, brought experience, and could thus solve
+at a word the problem of the trade, Carthew was content to go
+ahead.  As for Hadden, his cup was full; he and Bostock
+forgave each other in champagne; toast followed toast; it was
+proposed and carried amid acclamation to change the name of
+the schooner (when she should be bought) to the Currency
+Lass; and the Currency Lass Island Trading Company was
+practically founded before dusk.
+
+Three days later, Carthew stood before the lawyer, still in his
+jean suit, received his hundred and fifty pounds, and proceeded
+rather timidly to ask for more indulgence.
+
+"I have a chance to get on in the world," he said.  "By
+to-morrow evening I expect to be part owner of a ship."
+
+"Dangerous property, Mr. Carthew," said the lawyer.
+
+"Not if the partners work her themselves and stand to go down
+along with her," was the reply.
+
+"I conceive it possible you might make something of it in that
+way," returned the other.  "But are you a seaman?  I thought
+you had been in the diplomatic service."
+
+"I am an old yachtsman," said Norris.  "And I must do the best
+I can.  A fellow can't live in New South Wales upon
+diplomacy.  But the point I wish to prepare you for is this.  It
+will be impossible I should present myself here next quarter-
+day; we expect to make a six months' cruise of it among the
+islands."
+
+"Sorry, Mr. Carthew:  I can't hear of that," replied the lawyer.
+
+"I mean upon the same conditions as the last," said Carthew.
+
+"The conditions are exactly opposite," said the lawyer.  "Last
+time I had reason to know you were in the colony; and even
+then I stretched a point.  This time, by your own confession,
+you are contemplating a breach of the agreement; and I give
+you warning if you carry it out and I receive proof of it (for I
+will agree to regard this conversation as confidential) I shall
+have no choice but to do my duty.  Be here on quarter-day, or 
+your allowance ceases."
+
+"This is very hard and, I think, rather silly," returned Carthew.
+
+"It is not of my doing.  I have my instructions," said the lawyer.
+
+"And you so read these instructions, that I am to be prohibited
+from making an honest livelihood?" asked Carthew.
+
+"Let us be frank," said the lawyer.  "I find nothing in these
+instructions about an honest livelihood.  I have no reason to
+suppose my clients care anything about that.  I have reason to
+suppose only one thing,--that they mean you shall stay in this
+colony, and to guess another, Mr. Carthew.  And to guess
+another."
+
+"What do you mean by that?" asked Norris.
+
+"I mean that I imagine, on very strong grounds, that your
+family desire to see no more of you," said the lawyer.  "O, they
+may be very wrong; but that is the impression conveyed, that is
+what I suppose I am paid to bring about, and I have no choice
+but to try and earn my hire."
+
+"I would scorn to deceive you," said Norris, with a strong flush,
+"you have guessed rightly.  My family refuse to see me; but I
+am not going to England, I am going to the islands.  How does
+that affect the islands?"
+
+"Ah, but I don't know that you are going to the islands," said
+the lawyer, looking down, and spearing the blotting-paper with
+a pencil.
+
+"I beg your pardon.  I have the pleasure of informing you," said
+Norris.
+
+"I am afraid, Mr. Carthew, that I cannot regard that
+communication as official," was the slow reply.
+
+"I am not accustomed to have my word doubted!" cried Norris.
+
+"Hush!  I allow no one to raise his voice in my office," said the
+lawyer.  "And for that matter--you seem to be a young
+gentleman of sense--consider what I know of you.  You are a
+discarded son; your family pays money to be shut of you.  What
+have you done?  I don't know.  But do you not see how foolish I
+should be, if I exposed my business reputation on the safeguard
+of the honour of a gentleman of whom I know just so much and
+no more?  This interview is very disagreeable.  Why prolong it? 
+Write home, get my instructions changed, and I will change my
+behaviour.  Not otherwise."
+
+"I am very fond of three hundred a year," said Norris, "but I
+cannot pay the price required.  I shall not have the pleasure of
+seeing you again."
+
+"You must please yourself," said the lawyer.  "Fail to be here
+next quarter-day, and the thing stops.  But I warn you, and I
+mean the warning in a friendly spirit. Three months later you
+will be here begging, and I shall have no choice but to show
+you in the street."
+
+"I wish you a good-evening," said Norris.
+
+"The same to you, Mr. Carthew," retorted the lawyer, and rang
+for his clerk.
+
+So it befell that Norris during what remained to him of arduous
+days in Sydney, saw not again the face of his legal adviser; and
+he was already at sea, and land was out of sight, when Hadden
+brought him a Sydney paper, over which he had been dozing in
+the shadow of the galley, and showed him an advertisement.
+
+"Mr. Norris Carthew is earnestly entreated to call without delay
+at the office of Mr. ----, where important intelligence awaits
+him."
+
+"It must manage to wait for me six months," said Norris, lightly
+enough, but yet conscious of a pang of curiosity.
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+ THE BUDGET OF THE "CURRENCY LASS."
+
+
+Before noon on the 26th November, there cleared from the port
+of Sydney the schooner, Currency Lass.  The owner, Norris
+Carthew, was on board in the somewhat unusual position of
+mate; the master's name purported to be William Kirkup; the
+cook was a Hawaiian boy, Joseph Amalu; and there were two
+hands before the mast, Thomas Hadden and Richard Hemstead,
+the latter chosen partly because of his humble character, partly
+because he had an odd-job-man's handiness with tools.  The
+Currency Lass was bound for the South Sea Islands, and first of
+all for Butaritari in the Gilberts, on a register; but it was
+understood about the harbour that her cruise was more than
+half a pleasure trip.  A friend of the late Grant Sanderson (of
+Auchentroon and Kilclarty) might have recognised in that
+tall-masted ship, the transformed and rechristened Dream; and
+the Lloyd's surveyor, had the services of such a one been called
+in requisition, must have found abundant subject of remark.
+
+For time, during her three years' inaction, had eaten deep into
+the Dream and her fittings; she had sold in consequence a
+shade above her value as old junk; and the three adventurers
+had scarce been able to afford even the most vital repairs.  The
+rigging, indeed, had been partly renewed, and the rest set up;
+all Grant Sanderson's old canvas had been patched together
+into one decently serviceable suit of sails; Grant Sanderson's
+masts still stood, and might have wondered at themselves.  "I
+haven't the heart to tap them," Captain Wicks used to observe,
+as he squinted up their height or patted their rotundity; and "as
+rotten as our foremast" was an accepted metaphor in the ship's
+company.  The sequel rather suggests it may have been sounder
+than was thought; but no one knew for certain, just as no one
+except the captain appreciated the dangers of the cruise.  The
+captain, indeed, saw with clear eyes and spoke his mind aloud;
+and though a man of an astonishing hot-blooded courage,
+following life and taking its dangers in the spirit of a hound
+upon the slot, he had made a point of a big whaleboat.  "Take
+your choice," he had said; "either new masts and rigging or that
+boat.  I simply ain't going to sea without the one or the other. 
+Chicken coops are good enough, no doubt, and so is a dinghy;
+but they ain't for Joe."  And his partners had been forced to
+consent, and saw six and thirty pounds of their small capital
+vanish in the turn of a hand. 
+
+All four had toiled the best part of six weeks getting ready; and
+though Captain Wicks was of course not seen or heard of, a
+fifth was there to help them, a fellow in a bushy red beard,
+which he would sometimes lay aside when he was below, and
+who strikingly resembled Captain Wicks in voice and
+character.  As for Captain Kirkup, he did not appear till the last
+moment, when he proved to be a burly mariner, bearded like
+Abou Ben Adhem.  All the way down the harbour and through
+the Heads, his milk-white whiskers blew in the wind and were
+conspicuous from shore; but the Currency Lass had no sooner
+turned her back upon the lighthouse, than he went below for
+the inside of five seconds and reappeared clean shaven.  So
+many doublings and devices were required to get to sea with an
+unseaworthy ship and a captain that was "wanted." Nor might
+even these have sufficed, but for the fact that Hadden was a
+public character, and the whole cruise regarded with an eye of
+indulgence as one of Tom's engaging eccentricities.  The ship,
+besides, had been a yacht before; and it came the more natural
+to allow her still some of the dangerous liberties of her old
+employment.
+
+A strange ship they had made of it, her lofty spars disfigured
+with patched canvas, her panelled cabin fitted for a traderoom
+with rude shelves.  And the life they led in that anomalous
+schooner was no less curious than herself.   Amalu alone
+berthed forward; the rest occupied staterooms, camped upon
+the satin divans, and sat down in Grant Sanderson's parquetry
+smoking-room to meals of junk and potatoes, bad of their kind
+and often scant in quantity.  Hemstead grumbled; Tommy had
+occasional moments of revolt and increased the ordinary by a
+few haphazard tins or a bottle of his own brown sherry.  But
+Hemstead grumbled from habit, Tommy revolted only for the
+moment, and there was underneath a real and general
+acquiescence in these hardships.  For besides onions and
+potatoes, the Currency Lass may be said to have gone to sea
+without stores.  She carried two thousand pounds' worth of
+assorted trade, advanced on credit, their whole hope and
+fortune.  It was upon this that they subsisted--mice in their own
+granary.  They dined upon their future profits; and every scanty
+meal was so much in the savings bank.
+
+Republican as were their manners, there was no practical, at
+least no dangerous, lack of discipline.  Wicks was the only
+sailor on board, there was none to criticise; and besides, he was
+so easy-going, and so merry-minded, that none could bear to
+disappoint him.  Carthew did his best, partly for the love of
+doing it, partly for love of the captain; Amalu was a willing
+drudge, and even Hemstead and Hadden turned to upon
+occasion with a will.  Tommy's department was the trade and
+traderoom; he would work down in the hold or over the shelves
+of the cabin, till the Sydney dandy was unrecognizable; come
+up at last, draw a bucket of sea-water, bathe, change, and lie
+down on deck over a big sheaf of Sydney _Heralds_ and _Dead
+Birds_, or perhaps with a volume of Buckle's _History of
+Civilisation_, the standard work selected for that cruise.  In the
+latter case, a smile went round the ship, for Buckle almost
+invariably laid his student out, and when Tom awoke again he
+was almost always in the humour for brown sherry.  The
+connection was so well established that "a glass of Buckle" or
+"a bottle of civilisation" became current pleasantries on board
+the Currency Lass.
+
+Hemstead's province was that of the repairs, and he had his
+hands full.  Nothing on board but was decayed in a proportion;
+the lamps leaked; so did the decks; door-knobs came off in the
+hand, mouldings parted company with the panels, the pump
+declined to suck, and the defective bathroom came near to
+swamp the ship.  Wicks insisted that all the nails were long
+ago consumed, and that she was only glued together by the
+rust.  "You shouldn't make me laugh so much, Tommy," he
+would say.  "I'm afraid I'll shake the sternpost out of her."  And,
+as Hemstead went to and fro with his tool basket on an endless
+round of tinkering, Wicks lost no opportunity of chaffing him
+upon his duties.  "If you'd turn to at sailoring or washing paint
+or something useful, now," he would say, "I could see the fun
+of it.  But to be mending things that haven't no insides to them
+appears to me the height of foolishness." And doubtless these
+continual pleasantries helped to reassure the landsmen, who
+went to and fro unmoved, under circumstances that might have
+daunted Nelson.
+
+The weather was from the outset splendid, and the wind fair
+and steady.  The ship sailed like a witch.  "This Currency Lass
+is a powerful old girl, and has more complaints than I would
+care to put a name on," the captain would say, as he pricked the
+chart; "but she could show her blooming heels to anything of
+her size in the Western Pacific."  To wash decks, relieve the
+wheel, do the day's work after dinner on the smoking-room
+table, and take in kites at night,--such was the easy routine of
+their life.  In the evening--above all, if Tommy had produced
+some of his civilisation--yarns and music were the rule.  Amalu
+had a sweet Hawaiian voice; and Hemstead, a great hand upon
+the banjo, accompanied his own quavering tenor with effect. 
+There was a sense in which the little man could sing.  It was
+great to hear him deliver _My Boy Tammie_ in Austrylian; and
+the words (some of the worst of the ruffian Macneil's) were
+hailed in his version with inextinguishable mirth.
+
+     Where hye ye been a' dye?
+
+
+he would ask, and answer himself:--
+
+     I've been by burn and flowery brye,
+     Meadow green an' mountain grye,
+     Courtin' o' this young thing,
+          Just come frye her mammie.
+
+It was the accepted jest for all hands to greet the conclusion of
+this song with the simultaneous cry: "My word!" thus winging
+the arrow of ridicule with a feather from the singer's wing.  But
+he had his revenge with _Home, Sweet Home,_ and _Where is
+my Wandering Boy To-night?_--ditties into which he threw the
+most intolerable pathos.  It appeared he had no home, nor had
+ever had one, nor yet any vestige of a family, except a truculent
+uncle, a baker in Newcastle, N.S.W.  His domestic sentiment
+was therefore wholly in the air, and expressed an unrealised
+ideal.  Or perhaps, of all his experiences, this of the Currency
+Lass, with its kindly, playful, and tolerant society, approached
+it the most nearly.
+
+It is perhaps because I know the sequel, but I can never think
+upon this voyage without a profound sense of pity and mystery;
+of the ship (once the whim of a rich blackguard) faring with her
+battered fineries and upon her homely errand, across the plains
+of ocean, and past the gorgeous scenery of dawn and sunset;
+and the ship's company, so strangely assembled, so Britishly
+chuckle-headed, filling their days with chaff in place of
+conversation; no human book on board with them except
+Hadden's Buckle, and not a creature fit either to read or to
+understand it; and the one mark of any civilised interest, being
+when Carthew filled in his spare hours with the pencil and the
+brush:  the whole unconscious crew of them posting in the
+meanwhile towards so tragic a disaster.
+
+Twenty-eight days out of Sydney, on Christmas eve, they
+fetched up to the entrance of the lagoon, and plied all that night
+outside, keeping their position by the lights of fishers on the
+reef and the outlines of the palms against the cloudy sky.  With
+the break of day, the schooner was hove to, and the signal for a
+pilot shown.  But it was plain her lights must have been
+observed in the darkness by the native fishermen, and word
+carried to the settlement, for a boat was already under weigh. 
+She came towards them across the lagoon under a great press
+of sail, lying dangerously down, so that at times, in the heavier
+puffs, they thought she would turn turtle; covered the distance
+in fine style, luffed up smartly alongside, and emitted a
+haggard looking white man in pyjamas.
+
+"Good-mornin', Cap'n," said he, when he had made good his
+entrance.  "I was taking you for a Fiji man-of-war, what with
+your flush decks and them spars.  Well, gen'lemen all, here's
+wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year," he
+added, and lurched against a stay.
+
+"Why, you're never the pilot?" exclaimed Wicks, studying him
+with a profound disfavour.  "You've never taken a ship in--don't
+tell me!"
+
+"Well, I should guess I have," returned the pilot.  "I'm Captain
+Dobbs, I am; and when I take charge, the captain of that ship
+can go below and shave."
+
+"But, man alive! you're drunk, man!" cried the captain.
+
+"Drunk!" repeated Dobbs.  "You can't have seen much life if
+you call me drunk.  I'm only just beginning.  Come night, I 
+won't say; I guess I'll be properly full by then.  But now I'm the
+soberest man in all Big Muggin."
+
+"It won't do," retorted Wicks.  "Not for Joseph, sir.  I can't have
+you piling up my schooner."
+
+"All right," said Dobbs, "lay and rot where you are, or take and
+go in and pile her up for yourself like the captain of the Leslie. 
+That's business, I guess; grudged me twenty dollars' pilotage,
+and lost twenty thousand in trade and a brand new schooner;
+ripped the keel right off of her, and she went down in the inside
+of four minutes, and lies in twenty fathom, trade and all."
+
+"What's all this?" cried Wicks.  "Trade? What vessel was this
+Leslie, anyhow?"
+
+"Consigned to Cohen and Co., from 'Frisco," returned the pilot,
+"and badly wanted.  There's a barque inside filling up for
+Hamburg--you see her spars over there; and there's two more
+ships due, all the way from Germany, one in two months, they
+say, and one in three; Cohen and Co.'s agent (that's Mr.
+Topelius) has taken and lain down with the jaundice on the
+strength of it.  I guess most people would, in his shoes; no
+trade, no copra, and twenty hundred ton of shipping due.  If
+you've any copra on board, cap'n, here's your chance.  Topelius
+will buy, gold down, and give three cents.  It's all found money
+to him, the way it is, whatever he pays for it.  And that's what
+come of going back on the pilot."
+
+"Excuse me one moment, Captain Dobbs.  I wish to speak with
+my mate," said the captain, whose face had begun to shine and
+his eyes to sparkle.
+
+"Please yourself," replied the pilot.  "You couldn't think of
+offering a man a nip, could you? just to brace him up.  This
+kind of thing looks damned inhospitable, and gives a schooner
+a bad name."
+
+"I'll talk about that after the anchor's down," returned Wicks,
+and he drew Carthew forward.  "I say," he whispered, "here's a
+fortune."
+
+"How much do you call that?" asked Carthew.
+
+"I can't put a figure on it yet--I daren't!" said the captain.  "We
+might cruise twenty years and not find the match of it.  And
+suppose another ship came in to-night?  Everything's possible! 
+And the difficulty is this Dobbs.  He's as drunk as a marine. 
+How can we trust him?  We ain't insured--worse luck!"
+
+"Suppose you took him aloft and got him to point out the
+channel?" suggested Carthew.  "If he tallied at all with the
+chart, and didn't fall out of the rigging, perhaps we might risk
+it."
+
+"Well, all's risk here," returned the captain.  "Take the wheel
+yourself, and stand by.  Mind, if there's two orders, follow
+mine, not his.  Set the cook for'ard with the heads'ls, and the
+two others at the main sheet, and see they don't sit on it." With
+that he called the pilot; they swarmed aloft in the fore rigging,
+and presently after there was bawled down the welcome order
+to ease sheets and fill away.
+
+At a quarter before nine o'clock on Christmas morning the
+anchor was let go.
+
+The first cruise of the Currency Lass had thus ended in a stroke
+of fortune almost beyond hope.  She had brought two thousand
+pounds' worth of trade, straight as a homing pigeon, to the
+place where it was most required.  And Captain Wicks (or,
+rather, Captain Kirkup) showed himself the man to make the
+best of his advantage.  For hard upon two days he walked a
+verandah with Topelius, for hard upon two days his partners
+watched from the neighbouring public house the field of battle;
+and the lamps were not yet lighted on the evening of the second
+before the enemy surrendered.  Wicks came across to the Sans
+Souci, as the saloon was called, his face nigh black, his eyes
+almost closed and all bloodshot, and yet bright as lighted
+matches.
+
+"Come out here, boys," he said; and when they were some way
+off among the palms, "I hold twenty-four," he added in a voice
+scarcely recognizable, and doubtless referring to the venerable
+game of cribbage.
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Tommy.
+
+"I've sold the trade," answered Wicks; "or, rather, I've sold only
+some of it, for I've kept back all the mess beef and half the flour
+and biscuit; and, by God, we're still provisioned for four
+months! By God, it's as good as stolen!"
+
+"My word!" cried Hemstead.
+
+"But what have you sold it for?" gasped Carthew, the captain's
+almost insane excitement shaking his nerve.
+
+"Let me tell it my own way," cried Wicks, loosening his neck. 
+"Let me get at it gradual, or I'll explode.  I've not only sold it,
+boys, I've wrung out a charter on my own terms to 'Frisco and
+back; on my own terms.  I made a point of it.  I fooled him first
+by making believe I wanted copra, which of course I knew he
+wouldn't hear of--couldn't, in fact; and whenever he showed
+fight, I trotted out the copra, and that man dived!  I would take
+nothing but copra, you see; and so I've got the blooming lot in
+specie--all but two short bills on 'Frisco.  And the sum?  Well,
+this whole adventure, including two thousand pounds of credit,
+cost us two thousand seven hundred and some odd.  That's all
+paid back; in thirty days' cruise we've paid for the schooner and
+the trade.  Heard ever any man the match of that?  And it's not
+all!  For besides that," said the captain, hammering his words,
+"we've got Thirteen Blooming Hundred Pounds of profit to
+divide.  I bled him in four Thou.!" he cried, in a voice that
+broke like a schoolboy's.
+
+For a moment the partners looked upon their chief with
+stupefaction, incredulous surprise their only feeling.  Tommy
+was the first to grasp the consequences.
+
+"Here," he said, in a hard, business tone.  "Come back to that
+saloon.  I've got to get drunk."
+
+"You must please excuse me, boys," said the captain, earnestly. 
+"I daren't taste nothing.  If I was to drink one glass of beer, it's
+my belief I'd have the apoplexy.  The last scrimmage, and the
+blooming triumph, pretty nigh hand done me."
+
+"Well, then, three cheers for the captain," proposed Tommy.
+
+But Wicks held up a shaking hand.  "Not that either, boys," he
+pleaded.  "Think of the other buffer, and let him down easy.  If
+I'm like this, just fancy what Topelius is!  If he heard us singing
+out, he'd have the staggers."
+
+As a matter of fact, Topelius accepted his defeat with a good
+grace; but the crew of the wrecked Leslie, who were in the
+same employment and loyal to their firm, took the thing more
+bitterly.  Rough words and ugly looks were common.  Once
+even they hooted Captain Wicks from the saloon verandah; the
+Currency Lasses drew out on the other side; for some minutes
+there had like to have been a battle in Butaritari; and though
+the occasion passed off without blows, it left on either side an
+increase of ill-feeling. 
+
+No such small matter could affect the happiness of the
+successful traders.  Five days more the ship lay in the lagoon,
+with little employment for any one but Tommy and the captain,
+for Topelius's natives discharged cargo and brought ballast; the
+time passed like a pleasant dream; the adventurers sat up half
+the night debating and praising their good fortune, or strayed
+by day in the narrow isle, gaping like Cockney tourists; and on
+the first of the new year, the Currency Lass weighed anchor for
+the second time and set sail for 'Frisco, attended by the same
+fine weather and good luck.  She crossed the doldrums with but
+small delay; on a wind and in ballast of broken coral, she
+outdid expectations; and, what added to the happiness of the
+ship's company, the small amount of work that fell on them to
+do, was now lessened by the presence of another hand.  This
+was the boatswain of the Leslie; he had been on bad terms with
+his own captain, had already spent his wages in the saloons of
+Butaritari, had wearied of the place, and while all his
+shipmates coldly refused to set foot on board the Currency
+Lass, he had offered to work his passage to the coast.   He was
+a north of Ireland man, between Scotch and Irish, rough, loud,
+humorous, and emotional, not without sterling qualities, and an
+expert and careful sailor.  His frame of mind was different
+indeed from that of his new shipmates; instead of making an
+unexpected fortune, he had lost a berth; and he was besides
+disgusted with the rations, and really appalled at the condition
+of the schooner.  A stateroom door had stuck, the first day at
+sea, and Mac (as they called him) laid his strength to it and
+plucked it from the hinges.
+
+"Glory!" said he, "this ship's rotten."
+
+"I believe you, my boy," said Captain Wicks.
+
+The next day the sailor was observed with his nose aloft.
+
+"Don't you get looking at these sticks," the captain said, "or
+you'll have a fit and fall overboard."
+
+Mac turned towards the speaker with rather a wild eye.  "Why,
+I see what looks like a patch of dry rot up yonder, that I bet I
+could stick my fist into," said he.
+
+"Looks as if a fellow could stick his head into it, don't it?" 
+returned Wicks.  "But there's no good prying into things that
+can't be mended."
+
+"I think I was a Currency Ass to come on board of her!"
+reflected Mac.
+
+"Well, I never said she was seaworthy," replied the captain: "I
+only said she could show her blooming heels to anything afloat. 
+And besides, I don't know that it's dry rot; I kind of sometimes
+hope it isn't.  Here; turn to and heave the log; that'll cheer you
+up."
+
+"Well, there's no denying it, you're a holy captain," said Mac.
+
+And from that day on, he made but the one reference to the
+ship's condition; and that was whenever Tommy drew upon his
+cellar.  "Here's to the junk trade!" he would say, as he held out
+his can of sherry.
+
+"Why do you always say that?" asked Tommy.
+
+"I had an uncle in the business," replied Mac, and launched at
+once into a yarn, in which an incredible number of the
+characters were "laid out as nice as you would want to see,"
+and the oaths made up about two-fifths of every conversation.
+
+Only once he gave them a taste of his violence; he talked of it,
+indeed, often; "I'm rather a voilent man," he would say, not
+without pride; but this was the only specimen.  Of a sudden, he
+turned on Hemstead in the ship's waist, knocked him against
+the foresail boom, then knocked him under it, and had set him
+up and knocked him down once more, before any one had
+drawn a breath.
+
+"Here! Belay that!" roared Wicks, leaping to his feet.  "I won't
+have none of this."
+
+Mac turned to the captain with ready civility.  "I only want to
+learn him manners," said he.  "He took and called me
+Irishman."
+
+"Did he?" said Wicks.  "O, that's a different story!  What made
+you do it, you tomfool? You ain't big enough to call any man
+that."
+
+"I didn't call him it," spluttered Hemstead, through his blood
+and tears.  "I only mentioned-like he was."
+
+"Well, let's have no more of it," said Wicks.
+
+"But you ARE Irish, ain't you?" Carthew asked of his new
+shipmate shortly after.
+
+"I may be," replied Mac, "but I'll allow no Sydney duck to call
+me so.  No," he added, with a sudden heated countenance, "nor
+any Britisher that walks! Why, look here," he went on, "you're a
+young swell, aren't you?  Suppose I called you that!"  'I'll show
+you,' you would say, and turn to and take it out of me straight."
+
+On the 28th of January, when in lat. 27 degrees 20' N., long.
+177 degrees W., the wind chopped suddenly into the west, not
+very strong, but puffy and with flaws of rain.  The captain,
+eager for easting, made a fair wind of it and guyed the booms
+out wing and wing.  It was Tommy's trick at the wheel, and as
+it was within half an hour of the relief (seven thirty in the
+morning), the captain judged it not worth while to change him.
+
+The puffs were heavy but short; there was nothing to be called
+a squall, no danger to the ship, and scarce more than usual to
+the doubtful spars.  All hands were on deck in their oilskins,
+expecting breakfast; the galley smoked, the ship smelt of
+coffee, all were in good humour to be speeding eastward a full
+nine; when the rotten foresail tore suddenly between two cloths
+and then split to either hand.  It was for all the world as though
+some archangel with a huge sword had slashed it with the
+figure of a cross; all hands ran to secure the slatting canvas;
+and in the sudden uproar and alert, Tommy Hadden lost his
+head.  Many of his days have been passed since then in
+explaining how the thing happened; of these explanations it
+will be sufficient to say that they were all different and none
+satisfactory; and the gross fact remains that the main boom
+gybed, carried away the tackle, broke the mainmast some three
+feet above the deck and whipped it overboard.  For near a
+minute the suspected foremast gallantly resisted; then followed
+its companion; and by the time the wreck was cleared, of the
+whole beautiful fabric that enabled them to skim the seas, two
+ragged stumps remained.
+
+In these vast and solitary waters, to be dismasted is perhaps the
+worst calamity.  Let the ship turn turtle and go down, and at
+least the pang is over.  But men chained on a hulk may pass
+months scanning the empty sea line and counting the steps of
+death's invisible approach.  There is no help but in the boats,
+and what a help is that!  There heaved the Currency Lass, for
+instance, a wingless lump, and the nearest human coast (that of
+Kauai in the Sandwiches) lay about a thousand miles to south
+and east of her.  Over the way there, to men contemplating that
+passage in an open boat, all kinds of misery, and the fear of
+death and of madness, brooded.
+
+A serious company sat down to breakfast; but the captain
+helped his neighbours with a smile.
+
+"Now, boys," he said, after a pull at the hot coffee, "we're done
+with this Currency Lass, and no mistake.  One good job:  we
+made her pay while she lasted, and she paid first rate; and if we
+were to try our hand again, we can try in style.  Another good
+job:  we have a fine, stiff, roomy boat, and you know who you
+have to thank for that.  We've got six lives to save, and a pot of
+money; and the point is, where are we to take 'em?"
+
+"It's all two thousand miles to the nearest of the Sandwiches, I
+fancy," observed Mac.
+
+"No, not so bad as that," returned the captain.  "But it's bad
+enough:  rather better'n a thousand."
+
+"I know a man who once did twelve hundred in a boat," said
+Mac, "and he had all he wanted.  He fetched ashore in the
+Marquesas, and never set a foot on anything floating from that
+day to this.  He said he would rather put a pistol to his head
+and knock his brains out."
+
+"Ay, ay!" said Wicks.  "Well I remember a boat's crew that
+made this very island of Kauai, and from just about where we
+lie, or a bit further.  When they got up with the land, they were
+clean crazy.  There was an iron-bound coast and an Old Bob
+Ridley of a surf on.  The natives hailed 'em from fishing-boats,
+and sung out it couldn't be done at the money.  Much they
+cared! there was the land, that was all they knew; and they
+turned to and drove the boat slap ashore in the thick of it, and
+was all drowned but one.  No; boat trips are my eye,"
+concluded the captain, gloomily.
+
+The tone was surprising in a man of his indomitable temper. 
+"Come, Captain," said Carthew, "you have something else up
+your sleeve; out with it!"
+
+"It's a fact," admitted Wicks.  "You see there's a raft of little
+bally reefs about here, kind of chicken-pox on the chart.  Well,
+I looked 'em all up, and there's one--Midway or Brooks they
+call it, not forty mile from our assigned position--that I got
+news of.  It turns out it's a coaling station of the Pacific Mail,"
+he said, simply.
+
+"Well, and I know it ain't no such a thing," said Mac. "I been
+quartermaster in that line myself."
+
+"All right," returned Wicks.  "There's the book.  Read what
+Hoyt says--read it aloud and let the others hear."
+
+Hoyt's falsehood (as readers know) was explicit; incredulity
+was impossible, and the news itself delightful beyond hope. 
+Each saw in his mind's eye the boat draw in to a trim island
+with a wharf, coal-sheds, gardens, the Stars and Stripes and the
+white cottage of the keeper; saw themselves idle a few weeks in
+tolerable quarters, and then step on board the China mail,
+romantic waifs, and yet with pocketsful of money, calling for
+champagne, and waited on by troops of stewards.  Breakfast,
+that had begun so dully, ended amid sober jubilation, and all
+hands turned immediately to prepare the boat.
+
+Now that all spars were gone, it was no easy job to get her
+launched.  Some of the necessary cargo was first stowed on
+board; the specie, in particular, being packed in a strong chest
+and secured with lashings to the afterthwart in case of a
+capsize.  Then a piece of the bulwark was razed to the level of
+the deck, and the boat swung thwart-ship, made fast with a
+slack line to either stump, and successfully run out.  For a
+voyage of forty miles to hospitable quarters, not much food or
+water was required; but they took both in superfluity.  Amalu
+and Mac, both ingrained sailor-men, had chests which were the
+headquarters of their lives; two more chests with handbags,
+oilskins, and blankets supplied the others; Hadden, amid
+general applause, added the last case of the brown sherry; the
+captain brought the log, instruments, and chronometer; nor did
+Hemstead forget the banjo or a pinned handkerchief of
+Butaritari shells.
+
+It was about three P.M. when they pushed off, and (the wind
+being still westerly) fell to the oars.  "Well, we've got the guts
+out of YOU!" was the captain's nodded farewell to the hulk of
+the Currency Lass, which presently shrank and faded in the sea. 
+A little after a calm succeeded, with much rain; and the first
+meal was eaten, and the watch below lay down to their uneasy
+slumber on the bilge under a roaring shower-bath.  The twenty-
+ninth dawned overhead from out of ragged clouds; there is no
+moment when a boat at sea appears so trenchantly black and so
+conspicuously little; and the crew looked about them at the sky
+and water with a thrill of loneliness and fear.  With sunrise the
+trade set in, lusty and true to the point; sail was made; the boat
+flew; and by about four in the afternoon, they were well up with
+the closed part of the reef, and the captain standing on the
+thwart, and holding by the mast, was studying the island
+through the binoculars.
+
+"Well, and where's your station?" cried Mac.
+
+"I don't someway pick it up," replied the captain.
+
+"No, nor never will!" retorted Mac, with a clang of despair and
+triumph in his tones.
+
+The truth was soon plain to all.  No buoys, no beacons, no
+lights, no coal, no station; the castaways pulled through a
+lagoon and landed on an isle, where was no mark of man but
+wreckwood, and no sound but of the sea.  For the seafowl that
+harboured and lived there at the epoch of my visit were then
+scattered into the uttermost parts of the ocean, and had left no
+traces of their sojourn besides dropped feathers and addled
+eggs.  It was to this they had been sent, for this they had
+stooped all night over the dripping oars, hourly moving further
+from relief.  The boat, for as small as it was, was yet eloquent
+of the hands of men, a thing alone indeed upon the sea but yet
+in itself all human; and the isle, for which they had exchanged
+it, was ingloriously savage, a place of distress, solitude, and
+hunger unrelieved.  There was a strong glare and shadow of the
+evening over all; in which they sat or lay, not speaking, careless
+even to eat, men swindled out of life and riches by a lying
+book.  In the great good nature of the whole party, no word of
+reproach had been addressed to Hadden, the author of these
+disasters.  But the new blow was less magnanimously borne,
+and many angry glances rested on the captain.
+
+Yet it was himself who roused them from their lethargy. 
+Grudgingly they obeyed, drew the boat beyond tidemark, and
+followed him to the top of the miserable islet, whence a view
+was commanded of the whole wheel of the horizon, then part
+darkened under the coming night, part dyed with the hues of
+the sunset and populous with the sunset clouds.  Here the camp
+was pitched and a tent run up with the oars, sails, and mast. 
+And here Amalu, at no man's bidding, from the mere instinct of
+habitual service, built a fire and cooked a meal.  Night was
+come, and the stars and the silver sickle of new moon beamed
+overhead, before the meal was ready.  The cold sea shone about
+them, and the fire glowed in their faces, as they ate.  Tommy
+had opened his case, and the brown sherry went the round; but
+it was long before they came to conversation. 
+
+"Well, is it to be Kauai after all?" asked Mac suddenly.
+
+"This is bad enough for me," said Tommy.  "Let's stick it out
+where we are."
+
+"Well, I can tell ye one thing," said Mac, "if ye care to hear it.
+When I was in the China mail, we once made this island.  It's
+in the course from Honolulu."
+
+"Deuce it is!" cried Carthew.  "That settles it, then. Let's stay. 
+We must keep good fires going; and there's plenty wreck."
+
+"Lashings of wreck!" said the Irishman.  "There's nothing here
+but wreck and coffin boards."
+
+"But we'll have to make a proper blyze," objected Hemstead. 
+"You can't see a fire like this, not any wye awye, I mean."
+
+"Can't you?" said Carthew.  "Look round."
+
+They did, and saw the hollow of the night, the bare, bright face
+of the sea, and the stars regarding them; and the voices died in
+their bosoms at the spectacle.  In that huge isolation, it seemed
+they must be visible from China on the one hand and California
+on the other.
+
+"My God, it's dreary!" whispered Hemstead.
+
+"Dreary?" cried Mac, and fell suddenly silent.
+
+"It's better than a boat, anyway," said Hadden.  "I've had my
+bellyful of boat."
+
+"What kills me is that specie!" the captain broke out.  "Think of
+all that riches,--four thousand in gold, bad silver, and short
+bills--all found money, too!--and no more use than that much
+dung!"
+
+"I'll tell you one thing," said Tommy.  "I don't like it being in
+the boat--I don't care to have it so far away."
+
+"Why, who's to take it?" cried Mac, with a guffaw of evil
+laughter.
+
+But this was not at all the feeling of the partners, who rose,
+clambered down the isle, brought back the inestimable
+treasure-chest slung upon two oars, and set it conspicuous in
+the shining of the fire.
+
+"There's my beauty!" cried Wicks, viewing it with a cocked
+head.  "That's better than a bonfire.  What! we have a chest
+here, and bills for close upon two thousand pounds; there's no
+show to that,--it would go in your vest-pocket,--but the rest!
+upwards of forty pounds avoirdupois of coined gold, and close
+on two hundredweight of Chile silver! What! ain't that good
+enough to fetch a fleet?  Do you mean to say that won't affect a
+ship's compass?  Do you mean to tell me that the lookout won't
+turn to and SMELL it?" he cried.
+
+Mac, who had no part nor lot in the bills, the forty pounds of
+gold, or the two hundredweight of silver, heard this with
+impatience, and fell into a bitter, choking laughter.  "You'll
+see!" he said harshly.  "You'll be glad to feed them bills into the
+fire before you're through with ut!"  And he turned, passed by
+himself out of the ring of the firelight, and stood gazing
+seaward.
+
+His speech and his departure extinguished instantly those
+sparks of better humour kindled by the dinner and the chest. 
+The group fell again to an ill-favoured silence, and Hemstead
+began to touch the banjo, as was his habit of an evening.  His
+repertory was small:  the chords of _Home, Sweet Home_ fell
+under his fingers; and when he had played the symphony, he
+instinctively raised up his voice.  "Be it never so 'umble, there's
+no plyce like 'ome," he sang.  The last word was still upon his 
+lips, when the instrument was snatched from him and dashed
+into the fire; and he turned with a cry to look into the furious
+countenance of Mac.
+
+"I'll be damned if I stand this!" cried the captain, leaping up
+belligerent.
+
+"I told ye I was a voilent man," said Mac, with a movement of
+deprecation very surprising in one of his character.  "Why don't
+he give me a chance then?  Haven't we enough to bear the way
+we are?"  And to the wonder and dismay of all, the man choked
+upon a sob.  "It's ashamed of meself I am," he said presently,
+his Irish accent twenty-fold increased.  "I ask all your pardons
+for me voilence; and especially the little man's, who is a
+harmless crayture, and here's me hand to'm, if he'll condescind
+to take me by 't."
+
+So this scene of barbarity and sentimentalism passed off,
+leaving behind strange and incongruous impressions.  True,
+every one was perhaps glad when silence succeeded that all too
+appropriate music; true, Mac's apology and subsequent
+behaviour rather raised him in the opinion of his fellow-
+castaways.  But the discordant note had been struck, and its
+harmonics tingled in the brain.  In that savage, houseless isle,
+the passions of man had sounded, if only for the moment, and
+all men trembled at the possibilities of horror.
+
+It was determined to stand watch and watch in case of passing
+vessels; and Tommy, on fire with an idea, volunteered to stand
+the first.  The rest crawled under the tent, and were soon
+enjoying that comfortable gift of sleep, which comes
+everywhere and to all men, quenching anxieties and speeding
+time.  And no sooner were all settled, no sooner had the drone
+of many snorers begun to mingle with and overcome the surf,
+than Tommy stole from his post with the case of sherry, and
+dropped it in a quiet cove in a fathom of water.  But the stormy
+inconstancy of Mac's behaviour had no connection with a gill
+or two of wine; his passions, angry and otherwise, were on a
+different sail plan from his neighbours'; and there were
+possibilities of good and evil in that hybrid Celt beyond their
+prophecy. 
+
+About two in the morning, the starry sky--or so it seemed, for
+the drowsy watchman had not observed the approach of any
+cloud--brimmed over in a deluge; and for three days it rained
+without remission.  The islet was a sponge, the castaways sops;
+the view all gone, even the reef concealed behind the curtain of
+the falling water.  The fire was soon drowned out; after a
+couple of boxes of matches had been scratched in vain, it was
+decided to wait for better weather; and the party lived in
+wretchedness on raw tins and a ration of hard bread.
+
+By the 2nd February, in the dark hours of the morning watch,
+the clouds were all blown by; the sun rose glorious; and once
+more the castaways sat by a quick fire, and drank hot coffee
+with the greed of brutes and sufferers.  Thenceforward their
+affairs moved in a routine.  A fire was constantly maintained;
+and this occupied one hand continuously, and the others for an
+hour or so in the day.  Twice a day, all hands bathed in the
+lagoon, their chief, almost their only pleasure.  Often they
+fished in the lagoon with good success.  And the rest was
+passed in lolling, strolling, yarns, and disputation.  The time of
+the China steamers was calculated to a nicety; which done, the
+thought was rejected and ignored.  It was one that would not
+bear consideration.  The boat voyage having been tacitly set
+aside, the desperate part chosen to wait there for the coming of
+help or of starvation, no man had courage left to look his
+bargain in the face, far less to discuss it with his neighbours. 
+But the unuttered terror haunted them; in every hour of
+idleness, at every moment of silence, it returned, and breathed a
+chill about the circle, and carried men's eyes to the horizon.
+Then, in a panic of self-defence, they would rally to some other
+subject.  And, in that lone spot, what else was to be found to
+speak of but the treasure?
+
+That was indeed the chief singularity, the one thing
+conspicuous in their island life; the presence of that chest of
+bills and specie dominated the mind like a cathedral; and there
+were besides connected with it, certain irking problems well
+fitted to occupy the idle.  Two thousand pounds were due to the
+Sydney firm:  two thousand pounds were clear profit, and fell to
+be divided in varying proportions among six.  It had been
+agreed how the partners were to range; every pound of capital
+subscribed, every pound that fell due in wages, was to count for
+one "lay."  Of these, Tommy could claim five hundred and ten,
+Carthew one hundred and seventy, Wicks one hundred and
+forty, and Hemstead and Amalu ten apiece:  eight hundred and
+forty "lays" in all.  What was the value of a lay?  This was at
+first debated in the air and chiefly by the strength of Tommy's
+lungs.  Then followed a series of incorrect calculations; from
+which they issued, arithmetically foiled, but agreed from
+weariness upon an approximate value of 2 pounds, 7 shillings 
+7 1/4 pence.  The figures were admittedly incorrect; the sum of
+the shares came not to 2000 pounds, but to 1996 pounds, 6
+shillings:  3 pounds, 14 shillings being thus left unclaimed. 
+But it was the nearest they had yet found, and the highest as
+well, so that the partners were made the less critical by the
+contemplation of their splendid dividends.  Wicks put in 100
+pounds and stood to draw captain's wages for two months; his
+taking was 333 pounds 3 shillings 6 1/2 pence.  Carthew had
+put in 150 pounds:  he was to take out 401 pounds, 18 shillings
+6 1/2 pence.  Tommy's 500 pounds had grown to be 1213
+pounds 12 shillings 9 3/4 pence; and Amalu and Hemstead,
+ranking for wages only, had 22 pounds, 16 shillings 1/2 pence,
+each.
+
+From talking and brooding on these figures, it was but a step to
+opening the chest; and once the chest open, the glamour of the
+cash was irresistible.  Each felt that he must see his treasure
+separate with the eye of flesh, handle it in the hard coin, mark it
+for his own, and stand forth to himself the approved owner. 
+And here an insurmountable difficulty barred the way.  There
+were some seventeen shillings in English silver:  the rest was
+Chile; and the Chile dollar, which had been taken at the rate of
+six to the pound sterling, was practically their smallest coin.  It
+was decided, therefore, to divide the pounds only, and to throw
+the shillings, pence, and fractions in a common fund.  This,
+with the three pound fourteen already in the heel, made a total
+of seven pounds one shilling.
+
+"I'll tell you," said Wicks.  "Let Carthew and Tommy and me
+take one pound apiece, and Hemstead and Amalu split the
+other four, and toss up for the odd bob."
+
+"O, rot!" said Carthew.  "Tommy and I are bursting already. 
+We can take half a sov' each, and let the other three have forty
+shillings."
+
+"I'll tell you now--it's not worth splitting," broke in Mac.  "I've
+cards in my chest.  Why don't you play for the slump sum?"
+
+In that idle place, the proposal was accepted with delight. 
+Mac, as the owner of the cards, was given a stake; the sum was
+played for in five games of cribbage; and when Amalu, the last
+survivor in the tournament, was beaten by Mac, it was found
+the dinner hour was past.  After a hasty meal, they fell again
+immediately to cards, this time (on Carthew's proposal) to Van
+John.  It was then probably two P.M. of the 9th February; and
+they played with varying chances for twelve hours, slept
+heavily, and rose late on the morrow to resume the game.  All
+day of the 10th, with grudging intervals for food, and with one
+long absence on the part of Tommy from which he returned
+dripping with the case of sherry, they continued to deal and
+stake.  Night fell:  they drew the closer to the fire.  It was
+maybe two in the morning, and Tommy was selling his deal by
+auction, as usual with that timid player; when Carthew, who
+didn't intend to bid, had a moment of leisure and looked round
+him.  He beheld the moonlight on the sea, the money piled and
+scattered in that incongruous place, the perturbed faces of the
+players; he felt in his own breast the familiar tumult; and it
+seemed as if there rose in his ears a sound of music, and the
+moon seemed still to shine upon a sea, but the sea was
+changed, and the Casino towered from among lamplit gardens, 
+and the money clinked on the green board.  "Good God!" he
+thought, "am I gambling again?"  He looked the more curiously
+about the sandy table.  He and Mac had played and won like
+gamblers; the mingled gold and silver lay by their places in the
+heap.  Amalu and Hemstead had each more than held their
+own, but Tommy was cruel far to leeward, and the captain was
+reduced to perhaps fifty pounds.
+
+"I say, let's knock off," said Carthew.
+
+"Give that man a glass of Buckle," said some one, and a fresh
+bottle was opened, and the game went inexorably on.
+
+Carthew was himself too heavy a winner to withdraw or to say
+more; and all the rest of the night he must look on at the
+progress of this folly, and make gallant attempts to lose with
+the not uncommon consequence of winning more.  The first
+dawn of the 11th February found him well-nigh desperate.  It
+chanced he was then dealer, and still winning.  He had just
+dealt a round of many tens; every one had staked heavily; the
+captain had put up all that remained to him, twelve pounds in
+gold and a few dollars; and Carthew, looking privately at his
+cards before he showed them, found he held a natural.
+
+"See here, you fellows," he broke out, "this is a sickening
+business, and I'm done with it for one."  So saying, he showed
+his cards, tore them across, and rose from the ground.
+
+The company stared and murmured in mere amazement; but
+Mac stepped gallantly to his support.
+
+"We've had enough of it, I do believe," said he.  "But of course
+it was all fun, and here's my counters back.  All counters in,
+boys!" and he began to pour his winnings into the chest, which
+stood fortunately near him.
+
+Carthew stepped across and wrung him by the hand.  "I'll never
+forget this," he said.
+
+"And what are ye going to do with the Highway boy and the
+plumber?" inquired Mac, in a low tone of voice.  "They've both
+wan, ye see."
+
+"That's true!" said Carthew aloud.  "Amalu and Hemstead,
+count your winnings; Tommy and I pay that."
+
+It was carried without speech:  the pair glad enough to receive
+their winnings, it mattered not from whence; and Tommy, who
+had lost about five hundred pounds, delighted with the
+compromise.
+
+"And how about Mac?" asked Hemstead.  "Is he to lose all?"
+
+"I beg your pardon, plumber.  I'm sure ye mean well," returned
+the Irishman, "but you'd better shut your face, for I'm not that
+kind of a man.  If I t'ought I had wan that money fair, there's
+never a soul here could get it from me.  But I t'ought it was in
+fun; that was my mistake, ye see; and there's no man big
+enough upon this island to give a present to my mother's son. 
+So there's my opinion to ye, plumber, and you can put it in your
+pockut till required."
+
+
+"Well, I will say, Mac, you're a gentleman," said Carthew, as
+he helped him to shovel back his winnings into the treasure 
+chest.
+
+"Divil a fear of it, sir! a drunken sailor-man," said Mac.
+
+The captain had sat somewhile with his face in his hands:  now
+he rose mechanically, shaking and stumbling like a drunkard
+after a debauch.  But as he rose, his face was altered, and his
+voice rang out over the isle, "Sail, ho!"
+
+All turned at the cry, and there, in the wild light of the
+morning, heading straight for Midway Reef, was the brig
+Flying Scud of Hull.
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+ A HARD BARGAIN.
+
+
+The ship which thus appeared before the castaways had long
+"tramped" the ocean, wandering from one port to another as
+freights offered.  She was two years out from London, by the
+Cape of Good Hope, India, and the Archipelago; and was now
+bound for San Francisco in the hope of working homeward
+round the Horn.  Her captain was one Jacob Trent. He had
+retired some five years before to a suburban cottage, a patch of
+cabbages, a gig, and the conduct of what he called a Bank.  The
+name appears to have been misleading.  Borrowers were
+accustomed to choose works of art and utility in the front shop;
+loaves of sugar and bolts of broadcloth were deposited in
+pledge; and it was a part of the manager's duty to dash in his
+gig on Saturday evenings from one small retailer's to another,
+and to annex in each the bulk of the week's takings.  His was
+thus an active life, and to a man of the type of a rat, filled with
+recondite joys.  An unexpected loss, a law suit, and the
+unintelligent commentary of the judge upon the bench,
+combined to disgust him of the business.  I was so
+extraordinarily fortunate as to find, in an old newspaper, a
+report of the proceedings in Lyall v. The Cardiff Mutual
+Accommodation Banking Co.  "I confess I fail entirely to
+understand the nature of the business," the judge had remarked,
+while Trent was being examined in chief; a little after, on fuller
+information--"They call it a bank," he had opined, "but it seems
+to me to be an unlicensed pawnshop"; and he wound up with
+this appalling allocution:  "Mr. Trent, I must put you on your
+guard; you must be very careful, or we shall see you here
+again."  In the inside of a week the captain disposed of the
+bank, the cottage, and the gig and horse; and to sea again in the
+Flying Scud, where he did well and gave high satisfaction to
+his owners.  But the glory clung to him; he was a plain sailor
+-man, he said, but he could never long allow you to forget that
+he had been a banker.
+
+His mate, Elias Goddedaal, was a huge viking of a man, six
+feet three and of proportionate mass, strong, sober, industrious,
+musical, and sentimental.  He ran continually over into
+Swedish melodies, chiefly in the minor.  He had paid nine
+dollars to hear Patti; to hear Nilsson, he had deserted a ship
+and two months' wages; and he was ready at any time to walk
+ten miles for a good concert, or seven to a reasonable play.  On
+board he had three treasures:  a canary bird, a concertina, and a
+blinding copy of the works of Shakespeare.  He had a gift,
+peculiarly Scandinavian, of making friends at sight:  an
+elemental innocence commended him; he was without fear,
+without reproach, and without money or the hope of making it.
+
+Holdorsen was second mate, and berthed aft, but messed
+usually with the hands.
+
+Of one more of the crew, some image lives.  This was a
+foremast hand out of the Clyde, of the name of Brown.  A
+small, dark, thickset creature, with dog's eyes, of a disposition
+incomparably mild and harmless, he knocked about seas and
+cities, the uncomplaining whiptop of one vice.  "The drink is
+my trouble, ye see," he said to Carthew shyly; "and it's the more
+shame to me because I'm come of very good people at Bowling,
+down the wa'er."  The letter that so much affected Nares, in
+case the reader should remember it, was addressed to this man
+Brown.
+
+Such was the ship that now carried joy into the bosoms of the
+castaways.  After the fatigue and the bestial emotions of their
+night of play, the approach of salvation shook them from all
+self-control.  Their hands trembled, their eyes shone, they
+laughed and shouted like children as they cleared their camp:
+and some one beginning to whistle _Marching Through
+Georgia,_ the remainder of the packing was conducted, amidst
+a thousand interruptions, to these martial strains.  But the
+strong head of Wicks was only partly turned.
+
+
+"Boys," he said, "easy all!  We're going aboard of a ship of
+which we don't know nothing; we've got a chest of specie, and
+seeing the weight, we can't turn to and deny it.  Now, suppose
+she was fishy; suppose it was some kind of a Bully Hayes
+business!  It's my opinion we'd better be on hand with the
+pistols."
+
+Every man of the party but Hemstead had some kind of a
+revolver; these were accordingly loaded and disposed about the
+persons of the castaways, and the packing was resumed and
+finished in the same rapturous spirit as it was begun.  The sun
+was not yet ten degrees above the eastern sea, but the brig was
+already close in and hove to, before they had launched the boat
+and sped, shouting at the oars, towards the passage.
+
+It was blowing fresh outside, with a strong send of sea.  The
+spray flew in the oarsmen's faces.  They saw the Union Jack
+blow abroad from the Flying Scud, the men clustered at the
+rail, the cook in the galley door, the captain on the quarter-deck
+with a pith helmet and binoculars.  And the whole familiar
+business, the comfort, company, and safety of a ship, heaving
+nearer at each stroke, maddened them with joy.
+
+Wicks was the first to catch the line, and swarm on board,
+helping hands grabbing him as he came and hauling him
+across the rail.
+
+"Captain, sir, I suppose?" he said, turning to the hard old man
+in the pith helmet.
+
+"Captain Trent, sir," returned the old gentleman.
+
+"Well, I'm Captain Kirkup, and this is the crew of the Sydney
+schooner Currency Lass, dismasted at sea January 28th."
+
+"Ay, ay," said Trent.  "Well, you're all right now.  Lucky for
+you I saw your signal.  I didn't know I was so near this beastly
+island, there must be a drift to the south'ard here; and when I
+came on deck this morning at eight bells, I thought it was a
+ship afire."
+
+It had been agreed that, while Wicks was to board the ship and
+do the civil, the rest were to remain in the whaleboat and see
+the treasure safe.  A tackle was passed down to them; to this
+they made fast the invaluable chest, and gave the word to
+heave.  But the unexpected weight brought the hand at the
+tackle to a stand; two others ran to tail on and help him, and the
+thing caught the eye of Trent.
+
+"'Vast heaving!" he cried sharply; and then to Wicks: "What's
+that?  I don't ever remember to have seen a chest weigh like
+that."
+
+"It's money," said Wicks.
+
+"It's what?" cried Trent.
+
+"Specie," said Wicks; "saved from the wreck."
+
+Trent looked at him sharply.  "Here, let go that chest again, Mr.
+Goddedaal," he commanded, "shove the boat off, and stream
+her with a line astern."
+
+"Ay, ay, sir!" from Goddedaal.
+
+"What the devil's wrong?" asked Wicks.
+
+"Nothing, I daresay," returned Trent.  "But you'll allow it's a
+queer thing when a boat turns up in mid-ocean with half a ton
+of specie,--and everybody armed," he added, pointing to
+Wicks's pocket.  "Your boat will lay comfortably astern, while
+you come below and make yourself satisfactory."
+
+"O, if that's all!" said Wicks.  "My log and papers are as right
+as the mail; nothing fishy about us."  And he hailed his friends
+in the boat, bidding them have patience, and turned to follow
+Captain Trent.
+
+"This way, Captain Kirkup," said the latter.  "And don't blame
+a man for too much caution; no offence intended; and these
+China rivers shake a fellow's nerve.  All I want is just to see
+you're what you say you are; it's only my duty, sir, and what
+you would do yourself in the circumstances.  I've not always
+been a ship-captain:  I was a banker once, and I tell you that's
+the trade to learn caution in.  You have to keep your weather-
+eye lifting Saturday nights."  And with a dry, business-like
+cordiality, he produced a bottle of gin.
+
+The captains pledged each other; the papers were overhauled;
+the tale of Topelius and the trade was told in appreciative ears
+and cemented their acquaintance.  Trent's suspicions, thus
+finally disposed of, were succeeded by a fit of profound
+thought, during which he sat lethargic and stern, looking at and
+drumming on the table.
+
+"Anything more?" asked Wicks.
+
+"What sort of a place is it inside?" inquired Trent, sudden as
+though Wicks had touched a spring.
+
+"It's a good enough lagoon--a few horses' heads, but nothing to
+mention," answered Wicks.
+
+"I've a good mind to go in," said Trent.  "I was new rigged in
+China; it's given very bad, and I'm getting frightened for my
+sticks.  We could set it up as good as new in a day.  For I
+daresay your lot would turn to and give us a hand?"
+
+"You see if we don't!" said Wicks.
+
+"So be it, then," concluded Trent.  "A stitch in time saves nine."
+
+They returned on deck; Wicks cried the news to the Currency
+Lasses; the foretopsail was filled again, and the brig ran into
+the lagoon lively, the whaleboat dancing in her wake, and came
+to single anchor off Middle Brooks Island before eight.  She
+was boarded by the castaways, breakfast was served, the
+baggage slung on board and piled in the waist, and all hands
+turned to upon the rigging.  All day the work continued, the
+two crews rivalling each other in expense of strength.  Dinner
+was served on deck, the officers messing aft under the slack of
+the spanker, the men fraternising forward.  Trent appeared in
+excellent spirits, served out grog to all hands, opened a bottle of
+Cape wine for the after-table, and obliged his guests with many
+details of the life of a financier in Cardiff.  He had been forty
+years at sea, had five times suffered shipwreck, was once nine
+months the prisoner of a pepper rajah, and had seen service
+under fire in Chinese rivers; but the only thing he cared to talk
+of, the only thing of which he was vain, or with which he
+thought it possible to interest a stranger, was his career as a
+money-lender in the slums of a seaport town.
+
+The afternoon spell told cruelly on the Currency Lasses. 
+Already exhausted as they were with sleeplessness and
+excitement, they did the last hours of this violent employment
+on bare nerves; and when Trent was at last satisfied with the
+condition of his rigging, expected eagerly the word to put to
+sea.  But the captain seemed in no hurry.  He went and walked
+by himself softly, like a man in thought.  Presently he hailed
+Wicks.
+
+"You're a kind of company, ain't you, Captain Kirkup?" he
+inquired.
+
+"Yes, we're all on board on lays," was the reply.
+
+"Well, then, you won't mind if I ask the lot of you down to tea
+in the cabin?" asked Trent.
+
+Wicks was amazed, but he naturally ventured no remark; and a
+little after, the six Currency Lasses sat down with Trent and
+Goddedaal to a spread of marmalade, butter, toast, sardines,
+tinned tongue, and steaming tea.  The food was not very good,
+and I have no doubt Nares would have reviled it, but it was
+manna to the castaways.  Goddedaal waited on them with a
+kindness far before courtesy, a kindness like that of some old,
+honest countrywoman in her farm.  It was remembered
+afterwards that Trent took little share in these attentions, but sat
+much absorbed in thought, and seemed to remember and forget
+the presence of his guests alternately.
+
+Presently he addressed the Chinaman.
+
+"Clear out!" said he, and watched him till he had disappeared
+in the stair.  "Now, gentlemen," he went on, "I understand
+you're a joint-stock sort of crew, and that's why I've had you all
+down; for there's a point I want made clear.  You see what sort
+of a ship this is--a good ship, though I say it, and you see what
+the rations are--good enough for sailor-men."
+
+There was a hurried murmur of approval, but curiosity for what
+was coming next prevented an articulate reply.
+
+"Well," continued Trent, making bread pills and looking hard
+at the middle of the table, "I'm glad of course to be able to give
+you a passage to 'Frisco; one sailor-man should help another,
+that's my motto.  But when you want a thing in this world, you
+generally always have to pay for it."  He laughed a brief, joyless
+laugh.  "I have no idea of losing by my kindness."
+
+"We have no idea you should, captain," said Wicks.
+
+"We are ready to pay anything in reason," added Carthew.
+
+
+At the words, Goddedaal, who sat next to him, touched him
+with his elbow, and the two mates exchanged a significant
+look.  The character of Captain Trent was given and taken in
+that silent second.
+
+"In reason?" repeated the captain of the brig.  "I was waiting for
+that.  Reason's between two people, and there's only one here. 
+I'm the judge; I'm reason.  If you want an advance you have to
+pay for it"--he hastily corrected himself--"If you want a passage
+in my ship, you have to pay my price," he substituted.  "That's
+business, I believe.  I don't want you; you want me."
+
+"Well, sir," said Carthew, "and what IS your price?"
+
+The captain made bread pills.  "If I were like you," he said,
+"when you got hold of that merchant in the Gilberts, I might
+surprise you.  You had your chance then; seems to me it's mine
+now.  Turn about's fair play.  What kind of mercy did you have
+on that Gilbert merchant?" he cried, with a sudden stridency. 
+"Not that I blame you.  All's fair in love and business," and he
+laughed again, a little frosty giggle.
+
+"Well, sir?" said Carthew, gravely.
+
+"Well, this ship's mine, I think?" he asked sharply.
+
+"Well, I'm of that way of thinking meself," observed Mac.
+
+"I say it's mine, sir!" reiterated Trent, like a man trying to be
+angry.  "And I tell you all, if I was a driver like what you are, I
+would take the lot.  But there's two thousand pounds there that
+don't belong to you, and I'm an honest man.  Give me the two
+thousand that's yours, and I'll give you a passage to the coast,
+and land every man-jack of you in 'Frisco with fifteen pounds
+in his pocket, and the captain here with twenty-five."
+
+Goddedaal laid down his head on the table like a man
+ashamed.
+
+"You're joking," said Wicks, purple in the face.
+
+"Am I?" said Trent.  "Please yourselves.  You're under no
+compulsion.  This ship's mine, but there's that Brooks Island
+don't belong to me, and you can lay there till you die for what I
+care."
+
+
+"It's more than your blooming brig's worth!" cried Wicks.
+
+"It's my price anyway," returned Trent.
+
+"And do you mean to say you would land us there to starve?"
+cried Tommy.
+
+Captain Trent laughed the third time.  "Starve? I defy you to,"
+said he.  "I'll sell you all the provisions you want at a fair
+profit."
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir," said Mac, "but my case is by itself I'm
+working me passage; I got no share in that two thousand
+pounds nor nothing in my pockut; and I'll be glad to know what
+you have to say to me?"
+
+"I ain't a hard man," said Trent.  "That shall make no
+difference.  I'll take you with the rest, only of course you get no
+fifteen pound."
+
+The impudence was so extreme and startling, that all breathed
+deep, and Goddedaal raised up his face and looked his superior
+sternly in the eye.
+
+But Mac was more articulate.  "And you're what ye call a
+British sayman, I suppose? the sorrow in your guts!" he cried.
+
+"One more such word, and I clap you in irons!" said Trent,
+rising gleefully at the face of opposition.
+
+"And where would I be the while you were doin' ut?" asked
+Mac.  "After you and your rigging, too!  Ye ould puggy, ye
+haven't the civility of a bug, and I'll learn ye some."
+
+His voice did not even rise as he uttered the threat; no man
+present, Trent least of all, expected that which followed.  The
+Irishman's hand rose suddenly from below the table, an open
+clasp-knife balanced on the palm; there was a movement swift
+as conjuring; Trent started half to his feet, turning a little as he
+rose so as to escape the table, and the movement was his bane. 
+The missile struck him in the jugular; he fell forward, and his
+blood flowed among the dishes on the cloth.
+
+The suddenness of the attack and the catastrophe, the instant
+change from peace to war and from life to death, held all men
+spellbound.  Yet a moment they sat about the table staring
+open-mouthed upon the prostrate captain and the flowing
+blood.  The next, Goddedaal had leaped to his feet, caught up
+the stool on which he had been sitting, and swung it high in air,
+a man transfigured, roaring (as he stood) so that men's ears
+were stunned with it.  There was no thought of battle in the
+Currency Lasses; none drew his weapon; all huddled helplessly
+from before the face of the baresark Scandinavian.  His first
+blow sent Mac to ground with a broken arm.  His second
+bashed out the brains of Hemstead.  He turned from one to
+another, menacing and trumpeting like a wounded elephant,
+exulting in his rage.  But there was no counsel, no light of
+reason, in that ecstasy of battle; and he shied from the pursuit
+of victory to hail fresh blows upon the supine Hemstead, so that
+the stool was shattered and the cabin rang with their violence.
+The sight of that post-mortem cruelty recalled Carthew to the
+life of instinct, and his revolver was in hand and he had aimed
+and fired before he knew.  The ear-bursting sound of the report
+was accompanied by a yell of pain; the colossus paused,
+swayed, tottered, and fell headlong on the body of his victim. 
+
+In the instant silence that succeeded, the sound of feet
+pounding on the deck and in the companion leaped into
+hearing; and a face, that of the sailor Holdorsen, appeared
+below the bulkheads in the cabin doorway.  Carthew shattered
+it with a second shot, for he was a marksman.
+
+"Pistols!" he cried, and charged at the companion, Wicks at his
+heels, Tommy and Amalu following.  They trod the body of
+Holdorsen underfoot, and flew up-stairs and forth into the
+dusky blaze of a sunset red as blood.  The numbers were still
+equal, but the Flying Scuds dreamed not of defence, and fled
+with one accord for the forecastle scuttle.  Brown was first in
+flight; he disappeared below unscathed; the Chinaman
+followed head-foremost with a ball in his side; and the others
+shinned into the rigging.
+
+A fierce composure settled upon Wicks and Carthew, their
+fighting second wind.  They posted Tommy at the fore and
+Amalu at the main to guard the masts and shrouds, and going
+themselves into the waist, poured out a box of cartridges on
+deck and filled the chambers.  The poor devils aloft bleated
+aloud for mercy.  But the hour of any mercy was gone by; the
+cup was brewed and must be drunken to the dregs; since so
+many had fallen all must fall.  The light was bad, the cheap
+revolvers fouled and carried wild, the screaming wretches were
+swift to flatten themselves against the masts and yards or find a
+momentary refuge in the hanging sails.  The fell business took
+long, but it was done at last.  Hardy the Londoner was shot on
+the foreroyal yard, and hung horribly suspended in the brails. 
+Wallen, the other, had his jaw broken on the maintop-gallant
+crosstrees, and exposed himself, shrieking, till a second shot
+dropped him on the deck.
+
+This had been bad enough, but worse remained behind.  There
+was still Brown in the forepeak.  Tommy, with a sudden
+clamour of weeping, begged for his life.  "One man can't hurt
+us," he sobbed.  "We can't go on with this.  I spoke to him at
+dinner.  He's an awful decent little cad.  It can't be done. 
+Nobody can go into that place and murder him.  It's too
+damned wicked."
+
+The sound of his supplications was perhaps audible to the
+unfortunate below.
+
+"One left, and we all hang," said Wicks.  "Brown must go the
+same road."  The big man was deadly white and trembled like
+an aspen; and he had no sooner finished speaking, than he went
+to the ship's side and vomited.
+
+"We can never do it if we wait," said Carthew.  "Now or
+never," and he marched towards the scuttle.
+
+"No, no, no!" wailed Tommy, clutching at his jacket.
+
+But Carthew flung him off, and stepped down the ladder, his
+heart rising with disgust and shame.  The Chinaman lay on the
+floor, still groaning; the place was pitch dark.
+
+"Brown!" cried Carthew, "Brown, where are you?"
+
+His heart smote him for the treacherous apostrophe, but no
+answer came.
+
+He groped in the bunks:  they were all empty.  Then he moved
+towards the forepeak, which was hampered with coils of rope
+and spare chandlery in general.
+
+"Brown!" he said again.
+
+"Here, sir," answered a shaking voice; and the poor invisible
+caitiff called on him by name, and poured forth out of the
+darkness an endless, garrulous appeal for mercy.  A sense of
+danger, of daring, had alone nerved Carthew to enter the
+forecastle; and here was the enemy crying and pleading like a
+frightened child.  His obsequious "Here, sir," his horrid fluency 
+of obtestation, made the murder tenfold more revolting.  Twice
+Carthew raised the pistol, once he pressed the trigger (or
+thought he did) with all his might, but no explosion followed;
+and with that the lees of his courage ran quite out, and he
+turned and fled from before his victim.
+
+Wicks sat on the fore hatch, raised the face of a man of seventy,
+and looked a wordless question.  Carthew shook his head. 
+With such composure as a man displays marching towards the
+gallows, Wicks arose, walked to the scuttle, and went down. 
+Brown thought it was Carthew returning, and discovered
+himself, half crawling from his shelter, with another incoherent
+burst of pleading.  Wicks emptied his revolver at the voice,
+which broke into mouse-like whimperings and groans.  Silence
+succeeded, and the murderer ran on deck like one possessed.
+
+The other three were now all gathered on the fore hatch, and
+Wicks took his place beside them without question asked or
+answered.  They sat close, like children in the dark, and shook
+each other with their shaking.  The dusk continued to fall; and
+there was no sound but the beating of the surf and the
+occasional hiccup of a sob from Tommy Hadden.
+
+"God, if there was another ship!" cried Carthew of a sudden.
+
+Wicks started and looked aloft with the trick of all seamen, and
+shuddered as he saw the hanging figure on the royal yard.
+
+"If I went aloft, I'd fall," he said simply.  "I'm done up."
+
+It was Amalu who volunteered, climbed to the very truck,
+swept the fading horizon, and announced nothing within sight.
+
+"No odds," said Wicks.  "We can't sleep ..."
+
+"Sleep!" echoed Carthew; and it seemed as if the whole of
+Shakespeare's _Macbeth_ thundered at the gallop through his
+mind.
+
+"Well, then, we can't sit and chitter here," said Wicks, "till
+we've cleaned ship; and I can't turn to till I've had gin, and the
+gin's in the cabin, and who's to fetch it?"
+
+
+"I will," said Carthew, "if any one has matches."
+
+Amalu passed him a box, and he went aft and down the
+companion and into the cabin, stumbling upon bodies.  Then he
+struck a match, and his looks fell upon two living eyes.
+
+"Well?" asked Mac, for it was he who still survived in that
+shambles of a cabin.
+
+"It's done; they're all dead," answered Carthew.
+
+"Christ!" said the Irishman, and fainted.
+
+The gin was found in the dead captain's cabin; it was brought
+on deck, and all hands had a dram, and attacked their farther
+task.  The night was come, the moon would not be up for
+hours; a lamp was set on the main hatch to light Amalu as he
+washed down decks; and the galley lantern was taken to guide
+the others in their graveyard business.  Holdorsen, Hemstead,
+Trent, and Goddedaal were first disposed of, the last still
+breathing as he went over the side; Wallen followed; and then
+Wicks, steadied by the gin, went aloft with a boathook and
+succeeded in dislodging Hardy.  The Chinaman was their last
+task; he seemed to be light-headed, talked aloud in his
+unknown language as they brought him up, and it was only
+with the splash of his sinking body that the gibberish ceased. 
+Brown, by common consent, was left alone.  Flesh and blood
+could go no further.
+
+All this time they had been drinking undiluted gin like water;
+three bottles stood broached in different quarters; and none
+passed without a gulp.  Tommy collapsed against the
+mainmast; Wicks fell on his face on the poop ladder and moved
+no more; Amalu had vanished unobserved.  Carthew was the
+last afoot:  he stood swaying at the break of the poop, and the
+lantern, which he still carried, swung with his movement.  His
+head hummed; it swarmed with broken thoughts; memory of
+that day's abominations flared up and died down within him
+like the light of a lamp in a strong draught.  And then he had a
+drunkard's inspiration.
+
+"There must be no more of this," he thought, and stumbled once
+more below.
+
+The absence of Holdorsen's body brought him to a stand.  He
+stood and stared at the empty floor, and then remembered and
+smiled.  From the captain's room he took the open case with
+one dozen and three bottles of gin, put the lantern inside, and
+walked precariously forth.  Mac was once more conscious, his
+eyes haggard, his face drawn with pain and flushed with fever;
+and Carthew remembered he had never been seen to, had lain
+there helpless, and was so to lie all night, injured, perhaps
+dying.  But it was now too late; reason had now fled from that
+silent ship.  If Carthew could get on deck again, it was as much
+as he could hope; and casting on the unfortunate a glance of
+pity, the tragic drunkard shouldered his way up the companion,
+dropped the case overboard, and fell in the scuppers helpless.
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXV.
+
+ A BAD BARGAIN.
+
+
+With the first colour in the east, Carthew awoke and sat up.  A
+while he gazed at the scroll of the morning bank and the spars
+and hanging canvas of the brig, like a man who wakes in a
+strange bed, with a child's simplicity of wonder.  He wondered
+above all what ailed him, what he had lost, what disfavour had
+been done him, which he knew he should resent, yet had
+forgotten.  And then, like a river bursting through a dam, the
+truth rolled on him its instantaneous volume:  his memory
+teemed with speech and pictures that he should never again
+forget; and he sprang to his feet, stood a moment hand to brow,
+and began to walk violently to and fro by the companion.  As
+he walked, he wrung his hands.  "God--God--God," he kept
+saying, with no thought of prayer, uttering a mere voice of
+agony.
+
+The time may have been long or short, it was perhaps minutes,
+perhaps only seconds, ere he awoke to find himself observed,
+and saw the captain sitting up and watching him over the break
+of the poop, a strange blindness as of fever in his eyes, a
+haggard knot of corrugations on his brow.  Cain saw himself in
+a mirror.  For a flash they looked upon each other, and then
+glanced guiltily aside; and Carthew fled from the eye of his
+accomplice, and stood leaning on the taffrail.
+
+An hour went by, while the day came brighter, and the sun rose
+and drank up the clouds:  an hour of silence in the ship, an hour
+of agony beyond narration for the sufferers.  Brown's gabbling
+prayers, the cries of the sailors in the rigging, strains of the
+dead Hemstead's minstrelsy, ran together in Carthew's mind,
+with sickening iteration.  He neither acquitted nor condemned
+himself:  he did not think, he suffered.  In the bright water into
+which he stared, the pictures changed and were repeated:  the
+baresark rage of Goddedaal; the blood-red light of the sunset
+into which they had run forth; the face of the babbling
+Chinaman as they cast him over; the face of the captain, seen a
+moment since, as he awoke from drunkenness into remorse. 
+And time passed, and the sun swam higher, and his torment
+was not abated.
+
+Then were fulfilled many sayings, and the weakest of these
+condemned brought relief and healing to the others.  Amalu the
+drudge awoke (like the rest) to sickness of body and distress of
+mind; but the habit of obedience ruled in that simple spirit, and
+appalled to be so late, he went direct into the galley, kindled the
+fire, and began to get breakfast.  At the rattle of dishes, the
+snapping of the fire, and the thin smoke that went up straight
+into the air, the spell was lifted.  The condemned felt once more
+the good dry land of habit under foot; they touched again the
+familiar guide-ropes of sanity; they were restored to a sense of
+the blessed revolution and return of all things earthly.  The
+captain drew a bucket of water and began to bathe.  Tommy sat
+up, watched him awhile, and slowly followed his example; and
+Carthew, remembering his last thoughts of the night before,
+hastened to the cabin.
+
+Mac was awake; perhaps had not slept.  Over his head
+Goddedaal's canary twittered shrilly from its cage.
+
+"How are you?" asked Carthew.
+
+"Me arrum's broke," returned Mac; "but I can stand that.  It's
+this place I can't abide.  I was coming on deck anyway."
+
+"Stay where you are, though," said Carthew.  "It's deadly hot
+above, and there's no wind.  I'll wash out this----" and he
+paused, seeking a word and not finding one for the grisly
+foulness of the cabin.
+
+"Faith, I'll be obliged to ye, then," replied the Irishman.  He
+spoke mild and meek, like a sick child with its mother.  There
+was now no violence in the violent man; and as Carthew
+fetched a bucket and swab and the steward's sponge, and began
+to cleanse the field of battle, he alternately watched him or shut
+his eyes and sighed like a man near fainting.  "I have to ask all
+your pardons," he began again presently, "and the more shame
+to me as I got ye into trouble and couldn't do nothing when it
+came.  Ye saved me life, sir; ye're a clane shot."
+
+"For God's sake, don't talk of it!" cried Carthew.  "It can't be
+talked of; you don't know what it was.  It was nothing down
+here; they fought.  On deck--O, my God!"  And Carthew, with
+the bloody sponge pressed to his face, struggled a moment with
+hysteria.
+
+"Kape cool, Mr. Cart'ew.  It's done now," said Mac; "and ye
+may bless God ye're not in pain and helpless in the bargain."
+
+There was no more said by one or other, and the cabin was
+pretty well cleansed when a stroke on the ship's bell summoned
+Carthew to breakfast.  Tommy had been busy in the
+meanwhile; he had hauled the whaleboat close aboard, and
+already lowered into it a small keg of beef that he found ready
+broached beside the galley door; it was plain he had but the one
+idea--to escape. 
+
+"We have a shipful of stores to draw upon," he said.  "Well,
+what are we staying for?  Let's get off at once for Hawaii.  I've
+begun preparing already."
+
+"Mac has his arm broken," observed Carthew; "how would he
+stand the voyage?"
+
+"A broken arm?" repeated the captain.  "That all?  I'll set it after
+breakfast.  I thought he was dead like the rest.  That madman
+hit out like----" and there, at the evocation of the battle, his
+voice ceased and the talk died with it.
+
+After breakfast, the three white men went down into the cabin. 
+
+"I've come to set your arm," said the captain.
+
+"I beg your pardon, captain," replied Mac; "but the firrst thing
+ye got to do is to get this ship to sea.  We'll talk of me arrum
+after that."
+
+"O, there's no such blooming hurry," returned Wicks.
+
+"When the next ship sails in, ye'll tell me stories!" retorted Mac. 
+
+"But there's nothing so unlikely in the world," objected
+Carthew.
+
+"Don't be deceivin' yourself," said Mac.  "If ye want a ship,
+divil a one'll look near ye in six year; but if ye don't, ye may
+take my word for ut, we'll have a squadron layin' here."
+
+"That's what I say," cried Tommy; "that's what I call sense!
+Let's stock that whaleboat and be off."
+
+"And what will Captain Wicks be thinking of the whaleboat?"
+asked the Irishman.
+
+"I don't think of it at all," said Wicks.  "We've a smart-looking
+brig under foot; that's all the whaleboat I want."
+
+"Excuse me!" cried Tommy.  "That's childish talk.  You've got a
+brig, to be sure, and what use is she?  You daren't go anywhere
+in her.  What port are you to sail for?"
+
+"For the port of Davy Jones's Locker, my son," replied the
+captain.  "This brig's going to be lost at sea.  I'll tell you where,
+too, and that's about forty miles to windward of Kauai.  We're
+going to stay by her till she's down; and once the masts are
+under, she's the Flying Scud no more, and we never heard of
+such a brig; and it's the crew of the schooner Currency Lass
+that comes ashore in the boat, and takes the first chance to
+Sydney."
+
+"Captain dear, that's the first Christian word I've heard of ut!"
+cried Mac.  "And now, just let me arrum be, jewel, and get the
+brig outside."
+
+"I'm as anxious as yourself, Mac," returned Wicks; "but there's
+not wind enough to swear by.  So let's see your arm, and no
+more talk."
+
+The arm was set and splinted; the body of Brown fetched from
+the forepeak, where it lay still and cold, and committed to the
+waters of the lagoon; and the washing of the cabin rudely
+finished.  All these were done ere midday; and it was past three
+when the first cat's-paw ruffled the lagoon, and the wind came
+in a dry squall, which presently sobered to a steady breeze.
+
+The interval was passed by all in feverish impatience, and by
+one of the party in secret and extreme concern of mind. 
+Captain Wicks was a fore-and-aft sailor; he could take a
+schooner through a Scotch reel, felt her mouth and divined her
+temper like a rider with a horse; she, on her side, recognising
+her master and following his wishes like a dog.  But by a not
+very unusual train of circumstance, the man's dexterity was
+partial and circumscribed.  On a schooner's deck he was
+Rembrandt or (at the least) Mr. Whistler; on board a brig he
+was Pierre Grassou.  Again and again in the course of the
+morning, he had reasoned out his policy and rehearsed his
+orders; and ever with the same depression and weariness.  It
+was guess-work; it was chance; the ship might behave as he
+expected, and might not; suppose she failed him, he stood there
+helpless, beggared of all the proved resources of experience. 
+Had not all hands been so weary, had he not feared to
+communicate his own misgivings, he could have towed her out. 
+But these reasons sufficed, and the most he could do was to
+take all possible precautions.  Accordingly he had Carthew aft,
+explained what was to be done with anxious patience, and
+visited along with him the various sheets and braces. 
+
+"I hope I'll remember," said Carthew.  "It seems awfully
+muddled."
+
+"It's the rottenest kind of rig," the captain admitted: "all
+blooming pocket handkerchiefs!  And not one sailor-man on
+deck!  Ah, if she'd only been a brigantine, now!  But it's lucky
+the passage is so plain; there's no manoeuvring to mention.  We
+get under way before the wind, and run right so till we begin to
+get foul of the island; then we haul our wind and lie as near
+south-east as may be till we're on that line; 'bout ship there and
+stand straight out on the port tack.  Catch the idea?"
+
+"Yes, I see the idea," replied Carthew, rather dismally, and the
+two incompetents studied for a long time in silence the
+complicated gear above their heads.
+
+But the time came when these rehearsals must be put in
+practice.  The sails were lowered, and all hands heaved the
+anchor short.  The whaleboat was then cut adrift, the upper
+topsails and the spanker set, the yards braced up, and the
+spanker sheet hauled out to starboard.
+
+"Heave away on your anchor, Mr. Carthew."
+
+"Anchor's gone, sir."
+
+"Set jibs."
+
+It was done, and the brig still hung enchanted.  Wicks, his head
+full of a schooner's mainsail, turned his mind to the spanker. 
+First he hauled in the sheet, and then he hauled it out, with no
+result.
+
+"Brail the damned thing up!" he bawled at last, with a red face. 
+"There ain't no sense in it."
+
+It was the last stroke of bewilderment for the poor captain, that
+he had no sooner brailed up the spanker than the vessel came
+before the wind.  The laws of nature seemed to him to be
+suspended; he was like a man in a world of pantomime tricks;
+the cause of any result, and the probable result of any action,
+equally concealed from him.  He was the more careful not to
+shake the nerve of his amateur assistants.  He stood there with
+a face like a torch; but he gave his orders with aplomb; and
+indeed, now the ship was under weigh, supposed his
+difficulties over.
+
+The lower topsails and courses were then set, and the brig
+began to walk the water like a thing of life, her forefoot
+discoursing music, the birds flying and crying over her spars. 
+Bit by bit the passage began to open and the blue sea to show
+between the flanking breakers on the reef; bit by bit, on the
+starboard bow, the low land of the islet began to heave closer
+aboard.  The yards were braced up, the spanker sheet hauled aft
+again; the brig was close hauled, lay down to her work like a
+thing in earnest, and had soon drawn near to the point of
+advantage, where she might stay and lie out of the lagoon in a
+single tack.
+
+Wicks took the wheel himself, swelling with success.  He kept
+the brig full to give her heels, and began to bark his orders:
+"Ready about.  Helm's a-lee.  Tacks and sheets.  Mainsail
+haul."  And then the fatal words: "That'll do your mainsail;
+jump forrard and haul round your foreyards."
+
+To stay a square-rigged ship is an affair of knowledge and swift
+sight; and a man used to the succinct evolutions of a schooner
+will always tend to be too hasty with a brig.  It was so now. 
+The order came too soon; the topsails set flat aback; the ship
+was in irons.  Even yet, had the helm been reversed, they might
+have saved her.  But to think of a stern-board at all, far more to
+think of profiting by one, were foreign to the schooner-sailor's
+mind.  Wicks made haste instead to wear ship, a manoeuvre for
+which room was wanting, and the Flying Scud took ground on
+a bank of sand and coral about twenty minutes before five.
+
+Wicks was no hand with a square-rigger, and he had shown it. 
+But he was a sailor and a born captain of men for all homely
+purposes, where intellect is not required and an eye in a man's
+head and a heart under his jacket will suffice.  Before the others
+had time to understand the misfortune, he was bawling fresh
+orders, and had the sails clewed up, and took soundings round
+the ship.
+
+"She lies lovely," he remarked, and ordered out a boat with the
+starboard anchor.
+
+"Here! steady!" cried Tommy.  "You ain't going to turn us to, to
+warp her off?"
+
+"I am though," replied Wicks.
+
+"I won't set a hand to such tomfoolery for one," replied Tommy. 
+"I'm dead beat." He went and sat down doggedly on the main
+hatch.  "You got us on; get us off again," he added.
+
+Carthew and Wicks turned to each other.
+
+"Perhaps you don't know how tired we are," said Carthew.
+
+"The tide's flowing!" cried the captain.  "You wouldn't have me
+miss a rising tide?"
+
+"O, gammon! there's tides to-morrow!" retorted Tommy.
+
+"And I'll tell you what," added Carthew, "the breeze is failing
+fast, and the sun will soon be down.  We may get into all kinds
+of fresh mess in the dark and with nothing but light airs."
+
+"I don't deny it," answered Wicks, and stood awhile as if in
+thought.  "But what I can't make out," he began again, with
+agitation, "what I can't make out is what you're made of!  To
+stay in this place is beyond me.  There's the bloody sun going
+down--and to stay here is beyond me!"
+
+The others looked upon him with horrified surprise.  This fall
+of their chief pillar--this irrational passion in the practical man,
+suddenly barred out of his true sphere, the sphere of action--
+shocked and daunted them.  But it gave to another and unseen
+hearer the chance for which he had been waiting.  Mac, on the
+striking of the brig, had crawled up the companion, and he now
+showed himself and spoke up.
+
+"Captain Wicks," said he, "it's me that brought this trouble on
+the lot of ye.  I'm sorry for ut, I ask all your pardons, and if
+there's any one can say 'I forgive ye,' it'll make my soul the
+lighter."
+
+Wicks stared upon the man in amaze; then his self-control
+returned to him.  "We're all in glass houses here," he said; "we
+ain't going to turn to and throw stones.  I forgive you, sure
+enough; and much good may it do you!"
+
+The others spoke to the same purpose.
+
+"I thank ye for ut, and 'tis done like gentlemen," said Mac. 
+"But there's another thing I have upon my mind.  I hope we're
+all Prodestan's here?"
+
+It appeared they were; it seemed a small thing for the Protestant
+religion to rejoice in!
+
+"Well, that's as it should be," continued Mac.  "And why
+shouldn't we say the Lord's Prayer?  There can't be no hurt in
+ut."
+
+He had the same quiet, pleading, childlike way with him as in
+the morning; and the others accepted his proposal, and knelt
+down without a word.
+
+"Knale if ye like!" said he.  "I'll stand."  And he covered his
+eyes.
+
+So the prayer was said to the accompaniment of the surf and
+seabirds, and all rose refreshed and felt lightened of a load.  Up
+to then, they had cherished their guilty memories in private, or
+only referred to them in the heat of a moment and fallen
+immediately silent.  Now they had faced their remorse in
+company, and the worst seemed over.  Nor was it only that. 
+But the petition "Forgive us our trespasses," falling in so
+apposite after they had themselves forgiven the immediate
+author of their miseries, sounded like an absolution.
+
+Tea was taken on deck in the time of the sunset, and not long
+after the five castaways--castaways once more--lay down to
+sleep.
+
+Day dawned windless and hot.  Their slumbers had been too
+profound to be refreshing, and they woke listless, and sat up,
+and stared about them with dull eyes.  Only Wicks, smelling a
+hard day's work ahead, was more alert.  He went first to the
+well, sounded it once and then a second time, and stood awhile
+with a grim look, so that all could see he was dissatisfied. 
+Then he shook himself, stripped to the buff, clambered on the
+rail, drew himself up and raised his arms to plunge.  The dive
+was never taken.  He stood instead transfixed, his eyes on the
+horizon.
+
+"Hand up that glass," he said.
+
+In a trice they were all swarming aloft, the nude captain leading
+with the glass.
+
+On the northern horizon was a finger of grey smoke, straight in
+the windless air like a point of admiration.
+
+"What do you make it?" they asked of Wicks.
+
+"She's truck down," he replied; "no telling yet.  By the way the
+smoke builds, she must be heading right here."
+
+"What can she be?"
+
+"She might be a China mail," returned Wicks, "and she might
+be a blooming man-of-war, come to look for castaways.  Here! 
+This ain't the time to stand staring.  On deck, boys!"
+
+He was the first on deck, as he had been the first aloft, handed
+down the ensign, bent it again to the signal halliards, and ran it
+up union down.
+
+"Now hear me," he said, jumping into his trousers, "and
+everything I say you grip on to.  If that's a man-of-war, she'll be
+in a tearing hurry; all these ships are what don't do nothing and
+have their expenses paid.  That's our chance; for we'll go with
+them, and they won't take the time to look twice or to ask a
+question.  I'm Captain Trent; Carthew, you're Goddedaal;
+Tommy, you're Hardy; Mac's Brown; Amalu--  Hold hard! we
+can't make a Chinaman of him!  Ah Wing must have deserted;
+Amalu stowed away; and I turned him to as cook, and was
+never at the bother to sign him.  Catch the idea?  Say your
+names."
+
+And that pale company recited their lesson earnestly.
+
+"What were the names of the other two?" he asked.  "Him
+Carthew shot in the companion, and the one I caught in the jaw
+on the main top-gallant?"
+
+"Holdorsen and Wallen," said some one.
+
+"Well, they're drowned," continued Wicks; "drowned alongside
+trying to lower a boat.  We had a bit of a squall last night: 
+that's how we got ashore."  He ran and squinted at the compass. 
+"Squall out of nor'-nor'-west-half-west; blew hard; every one in
+a mess, falls jammed, and Holdorsen and Wallen spilt
+overboard.  See?  Clear your blooming heads!"  He was in his
+jacket now, and spoke with a feverish impatience and
+contention that rang like anger.
+
+"But is it safe?" asked Tommy.
+
+"Safe?" bellowed the captain.  "We're standing on the drop, you
+moon-calf!  If that ship's bound for China (which she don't look
+to be), we're lost as soon as we arrive; if she's bound the other
+way, she comes from China, don't she?  Well, if there's a man
+on board of her that ever clapped eyes on Trent or any
+blooming hand out of this brig, we'll all be in irons in two
+hours.  Safe! no, it ain't safe; it's a beggarly last chance to shave
+the gallows, and that's what it is."
+
+At this convincing picture, fear took hold on all.
+
+"Hadn't we a hundred times better stay by the brig?" cried
+Carthew.  "They would give us a hand to float her off."
+
+"You'll make me waste this holy day in chattering!" cried
+Wicks.  "Look here, when I sounded the well this morning,
+there was two foot of water there against eight inches last
+night.  What's wrong?  I don't know; might be nothing; might
+be the worst kind of smash.  And then, there we are in for a
+thousand miles in an open boat, if that's your taste!"
+
+"But it may be nothing, and anyway their carpenters are bound
+to help us repair her," argued Carthew.
+
+"Moses Murphy!" cried the captain.  "How did she strike? 
+Bows on, I believe.  And she's down by the head now.  If any
+carpenter comes tinkering here, where'll he go first?  Down in
+the forepeak, I suppose!  And then, how about all that blood
+among the chandlery?  You would think you were a lot of
+members of Parliament discussing Plimsoll; and you're just a
+pack of murderers with the halter round your neck.  Any other
+ass got any time to waste?  No?  Thank God for that!  Now, all
+hands!  I'm going below, and I leave you here on deck.  You get
+the boat cover off that boat; then you turn to and open the
+specie chest.  There are five of us; get five chests, and divide
+the specie equal among the five--put it at the bottom--and go at
+it like tigers.  Get blankets, or canvas, or clothes, so it won't
+rattle.  It'll make five pretty heavy chests, but we can't help that. 
+You, Carthew--dash me!--You, Mr. Goddedaal, come below. 
+We've our share before us."
+
+And he cast another glance at the smoke, and hurried below
+with Carthew at his heels.
+
+The logs were found in the main cabin behind the canary's
+cage; two of them, one kept by Trent, one by Goddedaal. 
+Wicks looked first at one, then at the other, and his lip stuck
+out.
+
+"Can you forge hand of write?" he asked.
+
+"No," said Carthew.
+
+"There's luck for you--no more can I!" cried the captain. 
+"Hullo! here's worse yet, here's this Goddedaal up to date; he
+must have filled it in before supper.  See for yourself: 'Smoke
+observed.--Captain Kirkup and five hands of the schooner
+Currency Lass.'  Ah! this is better," he added, turning to the
+other log.  "The old man ain't written anything for a clear
+fortnight.  We'll dispose of your log altogether, Mr. Goddedaal,
+and stick to the old man's--to mine, I mean; only I ain't going to
+write it up, for reasons of my own.  You are.  You're going to
+sit down right here and fill it in the way I tell you."
+
+"How to explain the loss of mine?" asked Carthew.
+
+"You never kept one," replied the captain.  "Gross neglect of
+duty.  You'll catch it."
+
+"And the change of writing?" resumed Carthew.  "You began;
+why do you stop and why do I come in?  And you'll have to
+sign anyway."
+
+"O! I've met with an accident and can't write," replied Wicks.
+
+"An accident?" repeated Carthew.  "It don't sound natural. 
+What kind of an accident?"
+
+Wicks spread his hand face-up on the table, and drove a knife
+through his palm.
+
+"That kind of an accident," said he.  "There's a way to draw to
+windward of most difficulties, if you've a head on your
+shoulders."  He began to bind up his hand with a handkerchief,
+glancing the while over Goddedaal's log.  "Hullo!" he said,
+"this'll never do for us--this is an impossible kind of a yarn. 
+Here, to begin with, is this Captain Trent trying some fancy
+course, leastways he's a thousand miles to south'ard of the great
+circle.  And here, it seems, he was close up with this island on
+the sixth, sails all these days, and is close up with it again by
+daylight on the eleventh."
+
+"Goddedaal said they had the deuce's luck," said Carthew.
+
+"Well, it don't look like real life--that's all I can say," returned
+Wicks.
+
+"It's the way it was, though," argued Carthew.
+
+"So it is; and what the better are we for that, if it don't look so?"
+cried the captain, sounding unwonted depths of art criticism. 
+"Here! try and see if you can't tie this bandage; I'm bleeding
+like a pig."
+
+As Carthew sought to adjust the handkerchief, his patient
+seemed sunk in a deep muse, his eye veiled, his mouth partly
+open.  The job was yet scarce done, when he sprang to his feet.
+
+"I have it," he broke out, and ran on deck.  "Here, boys!" he
+cried, "we didn't come here on the eleventh; we came in here on
+the evening of the sixth, and lay here ever since becalmed.  As
+soon as you've done with these chests," he added, "you can turn
+to and roll out beef and water breakers; it'll look more
+shipshape--like as if we were getting ready for the boat
+voyage."
+
+And he was back again in a moment, cooking the new log. 
+Goddedaal's was then carefully destroyed, and a hunt began for
+the ship's papers.  Of all the agonies of that breathless morning,
+this was perhaps the most poignant.  Here and there the two
+men searched, cursing, cannoning together, streaming with
+heat, freezing with terror.  News was bawled down to them that
+the ship was indeed a man-of-war, that she was close up, that
+she was lowering a boat; and still they sought in vain.  By what
+accident they missed the iron box with the money and accounts,
+is hard to fancy; but they did.  And the vital documents were
+found at last in the pocket of Trent's shore-going coat, where he
+had left them when last he came on board.
+
+Wicks smiled for the first time that morning.  "None too soon,"
+said he.  "And now for it!  Take these others for me; I'm afraid
+I'll get them mixed if I keep both."
+
+"What are they?" Carthew asked.
+
+"They're the Kirkup and Currency Lass papers," he replied. 
+"Pray God we need 'em again!"
+
+
+"Boat's inside the lagoon, sir," hailed down Mac, who sat by
+the skylight doing sentry while the others worked.
+
+"Time we were on deck, then, Mr. Goddedaal," said Wicks.
+
+As they turned to leave the cabin, the canary burst into piercing
+song.
+
+"My God!" cried Carthew, with a gulp, "we can't leave that
+wretched bird to starve.  It was poor Goddedaal's."
+
+"Bring the bally thing along!" cried the captain.
+
+And they went on deck.
+
+An ugly brute of a modern man-of-war lay just without the reef,
+now quite inert, now giving a flap or two with her propeller. 
+Nearer hand, and just within, a big white boat came skimming
+to the stroke of many oars, her ensign blowing at the stern. 
+
+"One word more," said Wicks, after he had taken in the scene. 
+"Mac, you've been in China ports?  All right; then you can
+speak for yourself.  The rest of you I kept on board all the time
+we were in Hongkong, hoping you would desert; but you fooled
+me and stuck to the brig. That'll make your lying come easier."
+
+The boat was now close at hand; a boy in the stern sheets was
+the only officer, and a poor one plainly, for the men were
+talking as they pulled.
+
+"Thank God, they've only sent a kind of a middy!" ejaculated
+Wicks.  "Here you, Hardy, stand for'ard!  I'll have no deck
+hands on my quarter-deck," he cried, and the reproof braced the
+whole crew like a cold douche.
+
+The boat came alongside with perfect neatness, and the boy
+officer stepped on board, where he was respectfully greeted by
+Wicks.
+
+"You the master of this ship?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, sir," said Wicks.  "Trent is my name, and this is the
+Flying Scud of Hull."
+
+"You seem to have got into a mess," said the officer.
+
+"If you'll step aft with me here, I'll tell you all there is of it,"
+said Wicks.
+
+"Why, man, you're shaking!" cried the officer.
+
+"So would you, perhaps, if you had been in the same berth,"
+returned Wicks; and he told the whole story of the rotten water,
+the long calm, the squall, the seamen drowned; glibly and
+hotly; talking, with his head in the lion's mouth, like one
+pleading in the dock.  I heard the same tale from the same
+narrator in the saloon in San Francisco; and even then his
+bearing filled me with suspicion.  But the officer was no
+observer.
+
+"Well, the captain is in no end of a hurry," said he; "but I was
+instructed to give you all the assistance in my power, and
+signal back for another boat if more hands were necessary. 
+What can I do for you?"
+
+"O, we won't keep you no time," replied Wicks cheerily. 
+"We're all ready, bless you--men's chests, chronometer, papers
+and all."
+
+"Do you mean to leave her?" cried the officer.  "She seems to
+me to lie nicely; can't we get your ship off?"
+
+"So we could, and no mistake; but how we're to keep her
+afloat's another question.  Her bows is stove in," replied Wicks.
+
+The officer coloured to the eyes.  He was incompetent and
+knew he was; thought he was already detected, and feared to
+expose himself again.  There was nothing further from his mind
+than that the captain should deceive him; if the captain was
+pleased, why, so was he.  "All right," he said.  "Tell your men
+to get their chests aboard."
+
+"Mr. Goddedaal, turn the hands to to get the chests aboard,"
+said Wicks.
+
+The four Currency Lasses had waited the while on tenter-
+hooks.  This welcome news broke upon them like the sun at
+midnight; and Hadden burst into a storm of tears, sobbing
+aloud as he heaved upon the tackle.  But the work went none
+the less briskly forward; chests, men, and bundles were got
+over the side with alacrity; the boat was shoved off; it moved
+out of the long shadow of the Flying Scud, and its bows were
+pointed at the passage.
+
+So much, then, was accomplished.  The sham wreck had
+passed muster; they were clear of her, they were safe away; and
+the water widened between them and her damning evidences. 
+On the other hand, they were drawing nearer to the ship of war,
+which might very well prove to be their prison and a hangman's
+cart to bear them to the gallows--of which they had not yet
+learned either whence she came or whither she was bound; and
+the doubt weighed upon their heart like mountains.
+
+It was Wicks who did the talking.  The sound was small in
+Carthew's ears, like the voices of men miles away, but the
+meaning of each word struck home to him like a bullet.  "What
+did you say your ship was?" inquired Wicks.
+
+"Tempest, don't you know?" returned the officer.
+
+Don't you know?  What could that mean?  Perhaps nothing:
+perhaps that the ships had met already.  Wicks took his
+courage in both hands.  "Where is she bound?" he asked.
+
+"O, we're just looking in at all these miserable islands here,"
+said the officer.  "Then we bear up for San Francisco."
+
+"O, yes, you're from China ways, like us?" pursued Wicks.
+
+"Hong Kong," said the officer, and spat over the side.
+
+Hong Kong.  Then the game was up; as soon as they set foot on
+board, they would be seized; the wreck would be examined, the
+blood found, the lagoon perhaps dredged, and the bodies of the
+dead would reappear to testify.  An impulse almost
+incontrollable bade Carthew rise from the thwart, shriek out
+aloud, and leap overboard; it seemed so vain a thing to
+dissemble longer, to dally with the inevitable, to spin out some
+hundred seconds more of agonised suspense, with shame and
+death thus visibly approaching.  But the indomitable Wicks
+persevered.  His face was like a skull, his voice scarce
+recognisable; the dullest of men and officers (it seemed) must
+have remarked that telltale countenance and broken utterance. 
+And still he persevered, bent upon certitude.
+
+"Nice place, Hong Kong?" he said.
+
+"I'm sure I don't know," said the officer.  "Only a day and a half
+there; called for orders and came straight on here.  Never heard
+of such a beastly cruise."  And he went on describing and
+lamenting the untoward fortunes of the Tempest.
+
+But Wicks and Carthew heeded him no longer.  They lay back
+on the gunnel, breathing deep, sunk in a stupor of the body:  the
+mind within still nimbly and agreeably at work, measuring the
+past danger, exulting in the present relief, numbering with
+ecstasy their ultimate chances of escape.  For the voyage in the
+man-of-war they were now safe; yet a few more days of peril,
+activity, and presence of mind in San Francisco, and the whole
+horrid tale was blotted out; and Wicks again became Kirkup,
+and Goddedaal became Carthew--men beyond all shot of
+possible suspicion, men who had never heard of the Flying
+Scud, who had never been in sight of Midway Reef.
+
+So they came alongside, under many craning heads of seamen
+and projecting mouths of guns; so they climbed on board
+somnambulous, and looked blindly about them at the tall spars,
+the white decks, and the crowding ship's company, and heard
+men as from far away, and answered them at random.
+
+And then a hand fell softly on Carthew's shoulder.
+
+
+"Why, Norrie, old chappie, where have you dropped from?  All
+the world's been looking for you.  Don't you know you've come
+into your kingdom?"
+
+He turned, beheld the face of his old schoolmate Sebright, and
+fell unconscious at his feet.
+
+The doctor was attending him, a while later, in Lieutenant
+Sebright's cabin, when he came to himself.  He opened his
+eyes, looked hard in the strange face, and spoke with a kind of
+solemn vigour.
+
+"Brown must go the same road," he said; "now or never."  And
+then paused, and his reason coming to him with more
+clearness, spoke again: "What was I saying?  Where am I?
+Who are you?"
+
+"I am the doctor of the Tempest," was the reply.  "You are in
+Lieutenant Sebright's berth, and you may dismiss all concern
+from your mind.  Your troubles are over, Mr. Carthew."
+
+"Why do you call me that?" he asked.  "Ah, I remember--
+Sebright knew me!  O!" and he groaned and shook.  "Send
+down Wicks to me; I must see Wicks at once!" he cried, and
+seized the doctor's wrist with unconscious violence.
+
+"All right," said the doctor.  "Let's make a bargain.  You
+swallow down this draught, and I'll go and fetch Wicks."
+
+And he gave the wretched man an opiate that laid him out
+within ten minutes and in all likelihood preserved his reason.
+
+It was the doctor's next business to attend to Mac; and he found
+occasion, while engaged upon his arm, to make the man repeat
+the names of the rescued crew.  It was now the turn of the
+captain, and there is no doubt he was no longer the man that
+we have seen; sudden relief, the sense of perfect safety, a
+square meal and a good glass of grog, had all combined to
+relax his vigilance and depress his energy.
+
+"When was this done?" asked the doctor, looking at the wound.
+
+"More than a week ago," replied Wicks, thinking singly of his
+log.
+
+"Hey?" cried the doctor, and he raised his hand and looked the
+captain in the eyes.
+
+"I don't remember exactly," faltered Wicks.
+
+And at this remarkable falsehood, the suspicions of the doctor
+were at once quadrupled.
+
+"By the way, which of you is called Wicks?" he asked easily.
+
+"What's that?" snapped the captain, falling white as paper.
+
+"Wicks," repeated the doctor; "which of you is he? that's surely
+a plain question."
+
+Wicks stared upon his questioner in silence.
+
+"Which is Brown, then?" pursued the doctor.
+
+"What are you talking of? what do you mean by this?" cried
+Wicks, snatching his half-bandaged hand away, so that the
+blood sprinkled in the surgeon's face.
+
+He did not trouble to remove it.  Looking straight at his victim,
+he pursued his questions.  "Why must Brown go the same
+way?" he asked.
+
+Wicks fell trembling on a locker.  "Carthew's told you," he
+cried.
+
+"No," replied the doctor, "he has not.  But he and you between
+you have set me thinking, and I think there's something
+wrong."
+
+"Give me some grog," said Wicks.  "I'd rather tell than have
+you find out.  I'm damned if it's half as bad as what any one
+would think."
+
+And with the help of a couple of strong grogs, the tragedy of
+the Flying Scud was told for the first time.
+
+It was a fortunate series of accidents that brought the story to
+the doctor.  He understood and pitied the position of these
+wretched men, and came whole-heartedly to their assistance. 
+He and Wicks and Carthew (so soon as he was recovered) held
+a hundred councils and prepared a policy for San Francisco.  It
+was he who certified "Goddedaal" unfit to be moved and
+smuggled Carthew ashore under cloud of night; it was he who
+kept Wicks's wound open that he might sign with his left hand;
+he who took all their Chile silver and (in the course of the first
+day) got it converted for them into portable gold.  He used his
+influence in the wardroom to keep the tongues of the young
+officers in order, so that Carthew's identification was kept out
+of the papers.  And he rendered another service yet more
+important.  He had a friend in San Francisco, a millionaire; to
+this man he privately presented Carthew as a young gentleman
+come newly into a huge estate, but troubled with Jew debts
+which he was trying to settle on the quiet.  The millionaire
+came readily to help; and it was with his money that the
+wrecker gang was to be fought.  What was his name, out of a
+thousand guesses?  It was Douglas Longhurst.
+
+As long as the Currency Lasses could all disappear under fresh
+names, it did not greatly matter if the brig were bought, or any
+small discrepancies should be discovered in the wrecking.  The
+identification of one of their number had changed all that.  The
+smallest scandal must now direct attention to the movements of
+Norris.  It would be asked how he who had sailed in a schooner
+from Sydney, had turned up so shortly after in a brig out of
+Hong Kong; and from one question to another all his original
+shipmates were pretty sure to be involved.  Hence arose
+naturally the idea of preventing danger, profiting by Carthew's
+new-found wealth, and buying the brig under an alias; and it
+was put in hand with equal energy and caution.  Carthew took
+lodgings alone under a false name, picked up Bellairs at
+random, and commissioned him to buy the wreck.
+
+"What figure, if you please?" the lawyer asked.
+
+"I want it bought," replied Carthew.  "I don't mind about the
+price."
+
+"Any price is no price," said Bellairs.  "Put a name upon it."
+
+"Call it ten thousand pounds then, if you like!" said Carthew.
+
+In the meanwhile, the captain had to walk the streets, appear in
+the consulate, be cross-examined by Lloyd's agent, be badgered
+about his lost accounts, sign papers with his left hand, and
+repeat his lies to every skipper in San Francisco:  not knowing
+at what moment he might run into the arms of some old friend
+who should hail him by the name of Wicks, or some new
+enemy who should be in a position to deny him that of Trent. 
+And the latter incident did actually befall him, but was
+transformed by his stout countenance into an element of
+strength.  It was in the consulate (of all untoward places) that
+he suddenly heard a big voice inquiring for Captain Trent.  He
+turned with the customary sinking at his heart.
+
+"YOU ain't Captain Trent!" said the stranger, falling back. 
+"Why, what's all this?  They tell me you're passing off as
+Captain Trent--Captain Jacob Trent--a man I knew since I was
+that high."
+
+"O, you're thinking of my uncle as had the bank in Cardiff,"
+replied Wicks, with desperate aplomb.
+
+"I declare I never knew he had a nevvy!" said the stranger.
+
+"Well, you see he has!" says Wicks.
+
+"And how is the old man?" asked the other.
+
+"Fit as a fiddle," answered Wicks, and was opportunely
+summoned by the clerk.
+
+This alert was the only one until the morning of the sale, when
+he was once more alarmed by his interview with Jim; and it
+was with some anxiety that he attended the sale, knowing only
+that Carthew was to be represented, but neither who was to
+represent him nor what were the instructions given.  I suppose
+Captain Wicks is a good life.  In spite of his personal
+appearance and his own known uneasiness, I suppose he is
+secure from apoplexy, or it must have struck him there and
+then, as he looked on at the stages of that insane sale and saw
+the old brig and her not very valuable cargo knocked down at
+last to a total stranger for ten thousand pounds.
+
+It had been agreed that he was to avoid Carthew, and above all
+Carthew's lodging, so that no connexion might be traced
+between the crew and the pseudonymous purchaser.  But the
+hour for caution was gone by, and he caught a tram and made
+all speed to Mission Street.
+
+Carthew met him in the door.
+
+"Come away, come away from here," said Carthew; and when
+they were clear of the house, "All's up!" he added.
+
+
+"O, you've heard of the sale, then?" said Wicks.
+
+"The sale!" cried Carthew.  "I declare I had forgotten it."  And
+he told of the voice in the telephone, and the maddening
+question: "Why did you want to buy the Flying Scud?"
+
+This circumstance, coming on the back of the monstrous
+improbabilities of the sale, was enough to have shaken the
+reason of Immanuel Kant.  The earth seemed banded together
+to defeat them; the stones and the boys on the street appeared to
+be in possession of their guilty secret.  Flight was their one
+thought.  The treasure of the Currency Lass they packed in
+waist-belts, expressed their chests to an imaginary address in
+British Columbia, and left San Francisco the same afternoon,
+booked for Los Angeles.
+
+The next day they pursued their retreat by the Southern Pacific
+route, which Carthew followed on his way to England; but the
+other three branched off for Mexico.
+
+
+
+                       EPILOGUE:
+
+                    TO WILL H. LOW.
+
+DEAR LOW:  The other day (at Manihiki of all places) I had
+the pleasure to meet Dodd.  We sat some two hours in the neat,
+little, toy-like church, set with pews after the manner of Europe,
+and inlaid with mother-of-pearl in the style (I suppose) of the
+New Jerusalem.  The natives, who are decidedly the most
+attractive inhabitants of this planet, crowded round us in the
+pew, and fawned upon and patted us; and here it was I put my
+questions, and Dodd answered me.
+
+I first carried him back to the night in Barbizon when Carthew
+told his story, and asked him what was done about Bellairs.  It
+seemed he had put the matter to his friend at once, and that
+Carthew took it with an inimitable lightness.  "He's poor, and
+I'm rich," he had said.  "I can afford to smile at him.  I go
+somewhere else, that's all--somewhere that's far away and dear
+to get to.  Persia would be found to answer, I fancy.  No end of
+a place, Persia.  Why not come with me?"  And they had left
+the next afternoon for Constantinople, on their way to Teheran. 
+Of the shyster, it is only known (by a newspaper paragraph)
+that he returned somehow to San Francisco and died in the
+hospital.
+
+"Now there's another point," said I.  "There you are off to Persia
+with a millionaire, and rich yourself.  How come you here in
+the South Seas, running a trader?"
+
+He said, with a smile, that I had not yet heard of Jim's last
+bankruptcy.  "I was about cleaned out once more," he said;
+"and then it was that Carthew had this schooner built, and put
+me in as supercargo.  It's his yacht and it's my trader; and as
+nearly all the expenses go to the yacht, I do pretty well.  As for
+Jim, he's right again:  one of the best businesses, they say, in
+the West, fruit, cereals, and real estate; and he has a Tartar of a
+partner now--Nares, no less.  Nares will keep him straight,
+Nares has a big head.  They have their country-places next door
+at Saucelito, and I stayed with them time about, the last time I
+was on the coast.  Jim had a paper of his own--I think he has a
+notion of being senator one of these days--and he wanted me to
+throw up the schooner and come and write his editorials.  He
+holds strong views on the State Constitution, and so does
+Mamie."
+
+"And what became of the other three Currency Lasses after they
+left Carthew?" I inquired.
+
+"Well, it seems they had a huge spree in the city of Mexico,"
+said Dodd; "and then Hadden and the Irishman took a turn at
+the gold fields in Venezuela, and Wicks went on alone to
+Valparaiso.  There's a Kirkup in the Chilean navy to this day, I
+saw the name in the papers about the Balmaceda war.  Hadden
+soon wearied of the mines, and I met him the other day in
+Sydney.  The last news he had from Venezuela, Mac had been
+knocked over in an attack on the gold train.  So there's only the
+three of them left, for Amalu scarcely counts.  He lives on his
+own land in Maui, at the side of Hale-a-ka-la, where he keeps
+Goddedaal's canary; and they say he sticks to his dollars, which
+is a wonder in a Kanaka.  He had a considerable pile to start
+with, for not only Hemstead's share but Carthew's was divided
+equally among the other four--Mac being counted."
+
+"What did that make for him altogether?" I could not help
+asking, for I had been diverted by the number of calculations in
+his narrative.
+
+"One hundred and twenty-eight pounds nineteen shillings and
+eleven pence halfpenny," he replied with composure.  "That's
+leaving out what little he won at Van John.  It's something for a
+Kanaka, you know."
+
+And about that time we were at last obliged to yield to the
+solicitations of our native admirers, and go to the pastor's house
+to drink green cocoanuts.  The ship I was in was sailing the
+same night, for Dodd had been beforehand and got all the shell
+in the island; and though he pressed me to desert and return
+with him to Auckland (whither he was now bound to pick up
+Carthew) I was firm in my refusal. 
+
+The truth is, since I have been mixed up with Havens and Dodd
+in the design to publish the latter's narrative, I seem to feel no
+want for Carthew's society.  Of course I am wholly modern in
+sentiment, and think nothing more noble than to publish
+people's private affairs at so much a line.  They like it, and if
+they don't, they ought to.  But a still small voice keeps telling
+me they will not like it always, and perhaps not always stand it. 
+Memory besides supplies me with the face of a pressman (in
+the sacred phrase) who proved altogether too modern for one of
+his neighbours, and 
+
+     Qui nunc it per iter tenebricosum
+
+as it were, marshalling us our way.  I am in no haste to 
+
+     --nos proecedens--
+
+be that man's successor.  Carthew has a record as "a clane
+shot," and for some years Samoa will be good enough for me. 
+
+We agreed to separate, accordingly; but he took me on board in
+his own boat with the hard-wood fittings, and entertained me
+on the way with an account of his late visit to Butaritari,
+whither he had gone on an errand for Carthew, to see how
+Topelius was getting along, and, if necessary, to give him a
+helping hand.  But Topelius was in great force, and had
+patronised and-- well --out-manoeuvred him.
+
+"Carthew will be pleased," said Dodd; "for there's no doubt
+they oppressed the man abominably when they were in the
+Currency Lass.  It's diamond cut diamond now."
+
+
+
+This, I think, was the most of the news I got from my friend
+Loudon; and I hope I was well inspired, and have put all the
+questions to which you would be curious to hear an answer.
+
+But there is one more that I daresay you are burning to put to
+myself; and that is, what your own name is doing in this place,
+cropping up (as it were uncalled-for) on the stern of our poor
+ship?  If you were not born in Arcadia, you linger in fancy on
+its margin; your thoughts are busied with the flutes of antiquity,
+with daffodils, and the classic poplar, and the footsteps of the
+nymphs, and the elegant and moving aridity of ancient art. 
+Why dedicate to you a tale of a caste so modern;--full of details
+of our barbaric manners and unstable morals;--full of the need
+and the lust of money, so that there is scarce a page in which
+the dollars do not jingle;--full of the unrest and movement of
+our century, so that the reader is hurried from place to place
+and sea to sea, and the book is less a romance than a
+panorama--in the end, as blood-bespattered as an epic?
+
+Well, you are a man interested in all problems of art, even the
+most vulgar; and it may amuse you to hear the genesis and
+growth of _The Wrecker_.  On board the schooner Equator,
+almost within sight of the Johnstone Islands (if anybody knows
+where these are) and on a moonlit night when it was a joy to be
+alive, the authors were amused with several stories of the sale
+of wrecks.  The subject tempted them; and they sat apart in the
+alley-way to discuss its possibilities.  "What a tangle it would
+make," suggested one, "if the wrong crew were aboard.  But
+how to get the wrong crew there?"--"I have it!" cried the other;
+"the so-and-so affair!"  For not so many months before, and not
+so many hundred miles from where we were then sailing, a
+proposition almost tantamount to that of Captain Trent had
+been made by a British skipper to some British castaways.
+
+Before we turned in, the scaffolding of the tale had been put
+together.  But the question of treatment was as usual more
+obscure.  We had long been at once attracted and repelled by
+that very modern form of the police novel or mystery story,
+which consists in beginning your yarn anywhere but at the
+beginning, and finishing it anywhere but at the end; attracted
+by its peculiar interest when done, and the peculiar difficulties
+that attend its execution; repelled by that appearance of
+insincerity and shallowness of tone, which seems its inevitable
+drawback.  For the mind of the reader, always bent to pick up
+clews, receives no impression of reality or life, rather of an
+airless, elaborate mechanism; and the book remains
+enthralling, but insignificant, like a game of chess, not a work
+of human art.  It seemed the cause might lie partly in the abrupt
+attack; and that if the tale were gradually approached, some of
+the characters introduced (as it were) beforehand, and the book
+started in the tone of a novel of manners and experience briefly
+treated, this defect might be lessened and our mystery seem to
+inhere in life.  The tone of the age, its movement, the mingling
+of races and classes in the dollar hunt, the fiery and not quite
+unromantic struggle for existence with its changing trades and
+scenery, and two types in particular, that of the American
+handy-man of business and that of the Yankee merchant sailor
+--we agreed to dwell upon at some length, and make the woof
+to our not very precious warp.  Hence Dodd's father, and
+Pinkerton, and Nares, and the Dromedary picnics, and the
+railway work in New South Wales--the last an unsolicited
+testimonial from the powers that be, for the tale was half
+written before I saw Carthew's squad toil in the rainy cutting at
+South Clifton, or heard from the engineer of his "young swell." 
+After we had invented at some expense of time this method of
+approaching and fortifying our police novel, it occurred to us it
+had been invented previously by some one else, and was in
+fact--however painfully different the results may seem--the
+method of Charles Dickens in his later work.
+
+I see you staring.  Here, you will say, is a prodigious quantity
+of theory to our halfpenny worth of police novel; and withal not
+a shadow of an answer to your question.
+
+Well, some of us like theory.  After so long a piece of practice,
+these may be indulged for a few pages.  And the answer is at
+hand.  It was plainly desirable, from every point of view of
+convenience and contrast, that our hero and narrator should
+partly stand aside from those with whom he mingles, and be
+but a pressed-man in the dollar hunt.  Thus it was that Loudon
+Dodd became a student of the plastic arts, and that our globe-
+trotting story came to visit Paris and look in at Barbizon.  And
+thus it is, dear Low, that your name appears in the address of
+this epilogue.
+
+For sure, if any person can here appreciate and read between
+the lines, it must be you--and one other, our friend.  All the
+dominos will be transparent to your better knowledge; the
+statuary contract will be to you a piece of ancient history; and
+you will not have now heard for the first time of the dangers of
+Roussillon.  Dead leaves from the Bas Breau, echoes from
+Lavenue's and the Rue Racine, memories of a common past, let
+these be your bookmarkers as you read.  And if you care for
+naught else in the story, be a little pleased to breathe once more
+for a moment the airs of our youth.
+
+The End.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Wrecker, Stevenson & Osbourne
+
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