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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson -
+Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25), by Robert Louis Stevenson
+
+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 Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25)
+
+Author: Robert Louis Stevenson
+
+Release Date: January 13, 2010 [EBook #30954]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS OF STEVENSON ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Marius Masi, Jonathan Ingram and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's notes:
+
+  Fixed typographical error: In page 427 "that he returned somehow to
+  San Francisco and died in the hosiptal." was changed to "that he
+  returned somehow to San Francisco and died in the HOSPITAL."
+
+  Text following a carat character (^) was superscript in the original
+  (example: a^2).
+
+
+
+
+       THE WORKS OF
+
+  ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
+
+     SWANSTON EDITION
+       VOLUME XIII
+
+
+  _Of this SWANSTON EDITION in Twenty-five
+  Volumes of the Works of ROBERT LOUIS
+  STEVENSON Two Thousand and Sixty Copies
+  have been printed, of which only Two Thousand
+  Copies are for sale._
+
+  _This is No._ ...........
+
+
+[Illustration: THE BACK VERANDAH AT VAILIMA]
+
+  THE WORKS OF
+
+  ROBERT LOUIS
+   STEVENSON
+
+
+  VOLUME THIRTEEN
+
+  LONDON: PUBLISHED BY CHATTO AND
+  WINDUS: IN ASSOCIATION WITH CASSELL
+  AND COMPANY LIMITED: WILLIAM
+  HEINEMANN: AND LONGMANS GREEN
+  AND COMPANY         MDCCCCXII
+
+
+  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+THE WRECKER
+
+
+  PROLOGUE
+
+                                                           PAGE
+    IN THE MARQUESAS                                          5
+
+
+  THE YARN
+
+    CHAPTER
+        I. A SOUND COMMERCIAL EDUCATION                      19
+
+      II. ROUSSILLON WINE                                    32
+
+     III. TO INTRODUCE MR. PINKERTON                         43
+
+      IV. IN WHICH I EXPERIENCE EXTREMES OF FORTUNE          58
+
+       V. IN WHICH I AM DOWN ON MY LUCK IN PARIS             71
+
+      VI. IN WHICH I GO WEST                                 86
+
+    VII. IRONS IN THE FIRE: _Opes Strepitumque_             102
+
+   VIII. FACES ON THE CITY FRONT                            126
+
+     IX. THE WRECK OF THE _FLYING SCUD_                     139
+
+      X. IN WHICH THE CREW VANISH                           154
+
+     XI. IN WHICH JIM AND I TAKE DIFFERENT WAYS             179
+
+    XII. THE _NORAH CREINA_                                 194
+
+   XIII. THE ISLAND AND THE WRECK                           210
+
+    XIV. THE CABIN OF THE _FLYING SCUD_                     222
+
+     XV. THE CARGO OF THE _FLYING SCUD_                     237
+
+    XVI. IN WHICH I TURN SMUGGLER, AND THE CAPTAIN CASUIST  251
+
+   XVII. LIGHT FROM THE MAN OF WAR                          264
+
+  XVIII. CROSS-QUESTIONS AND CROOKED ANSWERS                278
+
+    XIX. TRAVELS WITH A SHYSTER                             294
+
+     XX. STALLBRIDGE-LE-CARTHEW                             317
+
+    XXI. FACE TO FACE                                       330
+
+   XXII. THE REMITTANCE MAN                                 338
+
+  XXIII. THE BUDGET OF THE _CURRENCY LASS_                  363
+
+   XXIV. A HARD BARGAIN                                     388
+
+    XXV. A BAD BARGAIN                                      402
+
+
+  EPILOGUE
+
+    TO WILL H. LOW                                          427
+
+
+
+
+THE WRECKER
+
+WRITTEN IN COLLABORATION WITH
+
+LLOYD OSBOURNE
+
+
+
+
+PROLOGUE
+
+THE WRECKER
+
+
+
+
+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 bi�re?_"
+
+But Prince Stanila Moanatini, the only reasonably busy human creature on
+the island, was riding hotspur 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 and 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 hardwood 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) had cracked from the war-schooner, and the colours had been
+handed down. Dusk was deepening as they came ashore; and the _Cercle
+International_(as the club is officially and significantly named) began
+to shine, from under its low verandahs, 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
+centrepiece 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 vers�_) he had brought
+with him from further south the end of some story which had begun in
+Tai-o-hae. Among other matters 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 clubmen.
+
+"O, the usual parties!" returned Loudon, "Capsicum and 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 after 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 find 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
+bread-fruit, 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
+honoured 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 black-mailing, 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 civilised; 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 C�sar 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-bye; 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 realise 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 Charles 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 halfpenny 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 pre-occupations. 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
+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 and Son, eh?" and
+he patted my shoulder and repeated, "Dodd and Son, Dodd and 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
+re-casting 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 Scottish, 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 millionaire 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 whisky, 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 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 brick 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 addeetion 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 chield."
+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
+_Com�die 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'�toile 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 Boh�me_ (a dreary, snivelling piece) had been
+produced at the Od�on, 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 a while, 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
+side-walk 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 Caf� 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 caf� 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 pre-occupation--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 downstairs 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 business-like, 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 contra-ordinary 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
+fallen 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 Fouch� 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 for ever. 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 recognised 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 favourable 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 grey
+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
+civilisation 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
+_d�butant_, 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 an 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 downstairs?" 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 am 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.
+
+"_Monsieur se sent mal au coeur d'avoir trop regard� votre cro�te_,"[2]
+said I, and made my escape, scarce with dignity, at Pinkerton's heels.
+
+"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 St. 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 carcass; 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.
+
+"Oh!" 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 St. Jo. The
+editor did no more than glance his eye down the head-lines. '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 peep-hole 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.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+  [1] "What's the matter with him?"
+
+  [2] "The gentleman is sick at his stomach from having looked too long
+    at your daub."
+
+
+
+
+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 shot-gun 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 dog-like 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-_a�n�_, and Stennis-_fr�re_, 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.
+
+"_H�! quoi?_" cried he, relapsing into French. "_Qu'est-ce que vous me
+chantez l�?_ O, in Am�rica," he added, on further information being
+hastily furnished. "That is anozer sing. O, v�ry good--v�ry 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 "F�nnimore 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 already 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 caf�, 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 great-coats 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 eyeglass 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 for ever. 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 and 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 _r�le_ 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 civilisation; 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 caf�,
+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 Lousteau 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 lee-shore, 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 shot-gun.
+"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 Ch�lons 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 a while 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 faz�r 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--y�s!" he cried; "�nough for a son of a reech
+man--not �nough 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 warhoofs 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 St. 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 lace 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 to sleep.
+
+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 d�ne_," 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.
+
+"Oh," 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 Caf� 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 Caf� 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 Caf�
+Cluny!
+
+In the midst of these lamentations the famous registered letter came to
+my door, with healing under its seal. 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 night-shirt 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 St. Lazare; all
+alone, though in a carriage full of people, that I watched the moon
+shine on the Seine flood with its tufted isles, 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-cosy. 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 Scots 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 the 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 whipped 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 drily; "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 dune 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 a'thegether. _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 millionaires, 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 a while 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 millionaire. 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
+millionaires.
+
+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, an
+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
+red-wood 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 business-man 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 fly-paper
+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 scatheless? 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 designed 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 C�sar! 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^2 + 2ab + b^2._"
+
+"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 typewriting 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, towards 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 frockcoat, 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 the hour of duty and glory; see
+me circulate amid the crowd, radiating affability and laughter, liberal
+with my sweetmeats and cigars. I say unblushing things to hobble-dehoy
+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 alongside 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 up on 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
+agonised 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 f�tes. "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 eagles' 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 hobble-dehoy 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 reopened. Among my purchasers was a working man 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 guardacostas; 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 water-side 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 millionaire, 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-�-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. China-town by a thousand
+eccentricities drew and held me; I could never have enough of its
+ambiguous, inter-racial 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 whisky 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 millionaire. 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 craft 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 civilisation), each of us gazing onwards 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 entrenchments, 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, cocoa-nut bowls, snowy
+cocoa-nut 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 especially 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't 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, and 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, mountainous 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, thick-set 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 foremast 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 whisky 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 Admiralty 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, headlines, 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.
+
+   _Further 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 grey and blotched; he spoke in a kind of broken song, with much
+variety of key; his gestures seemed (as in the disease called St.
+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 _Com�die 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-bye, 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[3] 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.
+
+"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 auctioneer 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. "Hallo," 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"
+passed 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_.
+
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+  [3] A low lawyer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+IN WHICH THE CREW VANISH
+
+
+At the door of the exchange I found myself alongside 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 fogey 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 fervour 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 look-out for him as soon's you make the
+islands; for it's on the cards he might pick you up at sea in a
+whale-boat 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 _Norah
+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
+China-boy 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 side-walk 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 Wing) 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 wagon,
+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 find
+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 wish 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 shook 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 over-vaulting
+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 that 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 intimate, 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 _Norah 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
+business-like 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 small 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 carcass."
+
+"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 barquantine."
+
+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 distingu�-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 abroad 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 dockside 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 whisky-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 dare say 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'sle 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
+pain-killer 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 over-long, 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, Madame 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, that 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 machin�,_ 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 look-out," 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 laid 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 the
+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
+dilettante 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 north-east. 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 whisky-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 wellbeing
+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[4] 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 state-room, 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."
+
+"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
+look-out, 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 fore-arm 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-bye 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 downstairs 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 pan-jammers, 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 man 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
+south-westerly 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 top-sail
+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.
+
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+  [4] In sea-lingo (Pacific) _Dutchman_ includes all Teutons and folk
+    from the basin of the Baltic; _Scattermouch_, all Latins and
+    Levantines.
+
+
+
+
+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, and screamed 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 of so many
+lives of men, whose tall spars had been mirrored in the remotest corners
+of the sea--lay stationary at last and for ever, 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 gasketed 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 seabirds 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-butt, 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, 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,
+bottles of scent, 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 food,
+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-butt. "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 shoulders 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 Brooks 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--ciphering 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 state-room 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 Wales, 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 navigations, 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 Braddon's--of course, "Aurora Floyd," which has
+penetrated to every island of the Pacific, a good many cheap detective
+books, "Rob Roy," Auerbach's "Auf der H�he," 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, wizened 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 confr�res 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 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
+believe 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-boat, 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 millionaire 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 a while 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 headlined, 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 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 look-out was stationed on the bowsprit end, another
+in the cross-trees; 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 flat
+   has gone forth; our firm went bust at a quarter before twelve. It
+   was a bill of Bradley's (for two hundred dollars) 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_; 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 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 has 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
+   cipher_. 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
+   don't 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 raising 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 yow 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 ciphers. 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 I
+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 dare say 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. Elaine; 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 thirty 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 bookmakers, 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 (of 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 grey,
+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 grey 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 forego 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
+have 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."
+
+"S-s-h!" returned Jim. "I was crazy when I 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 kerb-stone 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 muracle 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 never 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 C�sar'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. 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-bye, my best of friends. Good-bye, 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 wharf-side 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 blazing 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 Vapor
+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 M'Bride 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 seabirds about Midway Island.
+The bruises on our hands were not yet healed; and there we sat, waited
+on by elaborate darkies, eating pompino 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's 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 leave 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 C�sar 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 more admired or more 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
+this 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
+millstone 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 zig-zags, 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 black-mailer, 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 in 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 Whitaker's Almanack, 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-laced 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 chalkdown, 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 fa�ade 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 bygone 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
+archdeaconry; 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 goodwill;
+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-fleld,
+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 drily.
+
+"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 fa�ade 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 call 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, on 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 "ch�teau," 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 gentleman
+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 almost
+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-Bi�re, 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 well on for 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 [Pi], and the side-board, and the aphasic piano,
+and the panels on the wall. There were Romeo and Juliet, Antwerp from
+the river, Enfleld'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 ditchwater."
+
+"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'h�te. 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 Ch�teau
+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 Dr. 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 post-mark. 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 nutshell. 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 nurserymaids 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 black-guards"--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 gallows-birds; 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 that 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 dilettante, 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 heard 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 button-hole. 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 upstairs, 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 starlings 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 sandalwood, 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 trade-room, 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 shandy-gaff 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
+into 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 nowadays, 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 A1 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 suddenly, "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 lying
+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 the 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 quarter-deck 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 ain't 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 for 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. Chickencoops 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 unrecognisable; 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 woke 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 am 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 Macneill'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 and 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
+recognisable, 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 stayed 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 to 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� 20' N., long. 177� 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 (7.30 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 sang 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 after-thwart in case of a capsize. Then a piece of the bulwarks 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 sea-fowl 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 look-out 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 craytur, and here's me hand to'm, if he'll
+condescend 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 7s. 7-1/4d. The figures were admittedly
+incorrect; the sum of the shares came not to �2,000, but to �1,996
+6s.--�3 14s. 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, and stood to draw captain's wages for two months; his
+taking was �333 3s. 6-3/4d. Carthew put in �150; he was to take out �401
+18s. 6-1/2d. Tommy's �500 had grown to be �1,213 12s. 9-3/4d.; and Amalu
+and Hemstead, ranking for wages only, had �22 16s. 0-1/2d. 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 lump 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 of
+February, and they played with varying chances for twelve hours, slept
+heavily, and rose late on the morrow to resume the game. All day on 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 lamp-lit
+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 lawsuit, 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 pawn-shop"; 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; and 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, thick-set 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 myself," 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," cried 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 dashed 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
+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 under foot,
+and flew upstairs 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 fore-royal 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 the 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 further 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 the 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 a while, 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 aboide. 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 obloiged to ye, then," replied the Irishman. He spoke
+mild and meek, like a sick child with its mother. There was 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 stiff and cold, and committed to the waters of
+the lagoon; and the washing of the cabin rudely finished. All these were
+done ere mid-day; 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 weigh 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 for'ard 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 sternboard
+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.
+
+Garthew 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 a while 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 Prodestans
+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 sea-birds,
+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 a while 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 feet 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 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 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 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 ship-shape--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 Hong Kong,
+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 tell-tale 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
+gunwale, 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 head 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 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 anyone 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
+ward-room 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 connection 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 waistbelts, 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
+
+
+
+
+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 had taken to 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
+elevenpence-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_
+  --_nos pr�cedens_--
+
+as it were, marshalling us our way. I am in no haste to 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 hardwood 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 cast 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 sales of wrecks. The subject tempted them; and
+they sat apart in the alleyway 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 clues,
+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 and 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.
+
+
+
+
+END OF VOL. XIII
+
+
+PRINTED BY CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED, LA BELLE SAUVAGE, LONDON, E.C.
+
+
+
+
+
+
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+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content=
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+    <title>
+     The Project Gutenberg eBook of the Works of Robert Louis Stevenson Volume XIII, by Robert Louis Stevenson.
+    </title>
+
+    <style type="text/css">
+
+    body     { text-align: justify; line-height: 1.4em; margin-left: 12%; margin-right: 12%; }
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson -
+Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25), by Robert Louis Stevenson
+
+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 Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25)
+
+Author: Robert Louis Stevenson
+
+Release Date: January 13, 2010 [EBook #30954]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS OF STEVENSON ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Marius Masi, Jonathan Ingram and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="10" style="background-color: #dcdcdc; color: #696969; " summary="TN">
+<tr>
+<td style="width:25%; vertical-align:top">
+Transcriber's note:
+</td>
+<td class="norm">
+One typographical error has been corrected. It
+appears in the text <span class="correction" title="explanation will pop up">like this</span>, and the
+explanation will appear when the mouse pointer is moved over the marked
+passage.
+<br /><br />
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<div class="pt3">&nbsp;</div>
+<h4>THE WORKS OF</h4>
+
+<h3>ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON</h3>
+
+<h4>SWANSTON EDITION</h4>
+
+<h5>VOLUME XIII</h5>
+<div class="pt3">&nbsp;</div>
+
+<p class="noind center"><i>Of this SWANSTON EDITION in Twenty-five<br />
+Volumes of the Works of ROBERT LOUIS<br />
+STEVENSON Two Thousand and Sixty Copies<br />
+have been printed, of which only Two Thousand<br />
+Copies are for sale.</i></p>
+
+<p class="noind center"><i>This is No. <span style="font-size: 60%;">............</span></i></p>
+<div class="pt05">&nbsp;</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img style="border:0; width:620px; height:379px"
+     src="images/image1.jpg"
+     alt="" />
+<p class="f80">THE BACK VERANDAH AT VAILIMA</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+<h3>THE WORKS OF</h3>
+<h2>ROBERT LOUIS</h2>
+<h2>STEVENSON</h2>
+
+<div class="pt3">&nbsp;</div>
+<h5>VOLUME THIRTEEN</h5>
+<div class="pt3">&nbsp;</div>
+
+<h5>LONDON: PUBLISHED BY CHATTO AND<br />
+WINDUS: IN ASSOCIATION WITH CASSELL<br />
+AND COMPANY LIMITED: WILLIAM<br />
+HEINEMANN: AND LONGMANS GREEN<br />
+AND COMPANY MDCCCCXII</h5>
+
+<div class="pt3">&nbsp;</div>
+<h6>ALL RIGHTS RESERVED</h6>
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<h3>CONTENTS</h3>
+
+<table class="nobctr" width="90%" summary="Contents">
+
+<tr><td class="tc5b" colspan="3"><h4>THE WRECKER</h4></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc5b" colspan="3"><h5>PROLOGUE</h5></td></tr>
+
+<tr style="font-size: 70%; "> <td class="tc2">&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="tc2">PAGE</td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3 scs" colspan="2">In the Marquesas</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page5">5</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc5b" colspan="3"><h5>THE YARN</h5></td></tr>
+
+<tr style="font-size: 70%; "> <td class="tc2">CHAPTER</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="tc2">&nbsp;</td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc2">I.</td>
+     <td class="scs tc3">A Sound Commercial Education</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page19">19</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc2">II.</td>
+     <td class="scs tc3">Roussillon Wine</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page32">32</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc2">III.</td>
+     <td class="scs tc3">To Introduce Mr. Pinkerton</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page43">43</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc2">IV.</td>
+     <td class="scs tc3">In which I experience Extremes of Fortune</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page58">58</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc2">V.</td>
+     <td class="scs tc3">In which I am down on my Luck in Paris</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page71">71</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc2">VI.</td>
+     <td class="scs tc3">In which I go West</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page86">86</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc2">VII.</td>
+     <td class="tc3"><span class="scs">Irons in the Fire:</span> <i>Opes Strepitumque</i></td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page102">102</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc2">VIII.</td>
+     <td class="scs tc3">Faces on the City Front</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page126">126</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc2">IX.</td>
+     <td class="scs tc3">The Wreck of the <i>flying Scud</i></td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page139">139</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc2">X.</td>
+     <td class="scs tc3">In which the Crew vanish</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page154">154</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc2">XI.</td>
+     <td class="scs tc3">In which Jim and I take Different Ways</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page179">179</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc2">XII.</td>
+     <td class="scs tc3">The <i>Norah Creina</i></td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page194">194</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc2">XIII.</td>
+     <td class="scs tc3">The Island and the Wreck</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page210">210</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc2">XIV.</td>
+     <td class="scs tc3">The Cabin of the <i>Flying Scud</i></td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page222">222</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc2">XV.</td>
+     <td class="scs tc3">The Cargo of the <i>Flying Scud</i></td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page237">237</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc2">XVI.</td>
+     <td class="scs tc3">In which I turn Smuggler, and the Captain Casuist</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page251">251</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc2">XVII.</td>
+     <td class="scs tc3">Light from the Man of War</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page264">264</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc2">XVIII.</td>
+     <td class="scs tc3">Cross-questions and Crooked Answers</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page278">278</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc2">XIX.</td>
+     <td class="scs tc3">Travels with a Shyster</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page294">294</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc2">XX.</td>
+     <td class="scs tc3">Stallbridge-le-Carthew</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page317">317</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc2">XXI.</td>
+     <td class="scs tc3">Face to Face</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page330">330</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc2">XXII.</td>
+     <td class="scs tc3">The Remittance Man</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page338">338</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc2">XXIII.</td>
+     <td class="scs tc3">The Budget of the <i>Currency Lass</i></td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page363">363</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc2">XXIV.</td>
+     <td class="scs tc3">A Hard Bargain</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page388">388</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc2">XXV.</td>
+     <td class="scs tc3">A Bad Bargain</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page402">402</a></td> </tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc5b" colspan="3"><h5>EPILOGUE</h5></td></tr>
+
+<tr> <td class="tc3 scs" colspan="2">To Will H. Low</td>
+     <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page427">427</a></td> </tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<div class="pt3">&nbsp;</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page1" id="page1"></a>1</span></p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<h2>THE WRECKER</h2>
+<h5>WRITTEN IN COLLABORATION WITH</h5>
+<h3>LLOYD OSBOURNE</h3>
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page2" id="page2"></a>2</span></p>
+<div class="pt3">&nbsp;</div>
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page3" id="page3"></a>3</span></p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<h2>PROLOGUE</h2>
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page4" id="page4"></a>4</span></p>
+<div class="pt3">&nbsp;</div>
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page5" id="page5"></a>5</span></p>
+<h2>THE WRECKER</h2>
+
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<h3>PROLOGUE</h3>
+
+<h5>IN THE MARQUESAS</h5>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="sc">It</span> was about three o&rsquo;clock of a winter&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page6" id="page6"></a>6</span>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page7" id="page7"></a>7</span>
+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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s my belief she&rsquo;s a
+yacht.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;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&rsquo;t!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You can close the store, anyway, Tom,&rdquo; observed a
+gentlemanly German. &ldquo;<i>Bon jour, mon Prince!</i>&rdquo; he added,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page8" id="page8"></a>8</span>
+as a dark, intelligent native cantered by on a neat chestnut.
+&ldquo;<i>Vous allez boire un verre de bi�re?</i>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But Prince Stanila Moanatini, the only reasonably busy
+human creature on the island, was riding hotspur to view
+this morning&rsquo;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&rsquo;s only eight bottles in the club! Here&rsquo;s
+the first time I&rsquo;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.&mdash;&ldquo;What do you think of her, Havens?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;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&rsquo;s consigned to me from Auckland by Donald
+and Edenborough. I am on my way aboard.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What ship is she?&rdquo; asked the ancient mariner.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Haven&rsquo;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.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page9" id="page9"></a>9</span></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.&mdash;&ldquo;Why,&rdquo;
+he cried, &ldquo;it isn&rsquo;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&rsquo;s no change in you; still the same
+placid, fresh-looking Britisher.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I can&rsquo;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&rsquo;s my partner&rsquo;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&rsquo;s a good fellow,&rdquo; said Dodd. &ldquo;He runs
+me now. It&rsquo;s all his money.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He doesn&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page10" id="page10"></a>10</span></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&rsquo;s some fool in
+&rsquo;Frisco who insures us, and comes down like a wolf on
+the fold on the profits; but we&rsquo;ll get even with him
+some day.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, I suppose it&rsquo;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&rsquo;ll have all to-morrow, you know,&rdquo; said Havens;
+&ldquo;and they&rsquo;ll be rather expecting you at the club. <i>C&rsquo;est
+l&rsquo;heure de l&rsquo;absinthe</i>. Of course, Loudon, you&rsquo;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&rsquo;s waist.</p>
+
+<p>The stern, boat was waiting alongside&mdash;a boat of an
+elegant model, with cushions and polished hardwood 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&rsquo;s boat,&rdquo; replied
+Havens.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page11" id="page11"></a>11</span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Call it my partner&rsquo;s, and cry quits,&rdquo; returned Loudon,
+getting nonchalantly down the side.</p>
+
+<p>Havens followed and took the yoke lines without
+further protest.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am sure I don&rsquo;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&rsquo;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) had cracked from the war-schooner,
+and the colours had been handed down. Dusk was deepening
+as they came ashore; and the <i>Cercle International</i>(as
+the club is officially and significantly named) began to
+shine, from under its low verandahs, 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&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page12" id="page12"></a>12</span>
+presently, with one of the last eight bottles of beer on a
+table at his elbow, found himself the rather silent centrepiece
+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&rsquo;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 (<i>vice vers�</i>) he had
+brought with him from further south the end of some
+story which had begun in Tai-o-hae. Among other matters
+of interest, like other arrivals in the South Seas, he had
+a wreck to announce. The <i>John T. Richards</i>, 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 clubmen.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page13" id="page13"></a>13</span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;O, the usual parties!&rdquo; returned Loudon, &ldquo;Capsicum
+and 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&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&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&rsquo;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&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; said another; &ldquo;there&rsquo;s a good deal
+in opium.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a good job to strike a tabooed pearl-island&mdash;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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 after the ship.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, there&rsquo;s something in wrecks sometimes,&rdquo; said
+the Glasgow voice; &ldquo;but not often.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;As a general rule, there&rsquo;s deuced little in anything,&rdquo;
+said Havens.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, I believe that&rsquo;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&rsquo;s not thought to be the
+ticket,&rdquo; returned Havens.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t care for that; it&rsquo;s good enough for me,&rdquo;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page14" id="page14"></a>14</span>
+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&rsquo;Gibbon&rsquo;s been reading some dime novel, I suppose,&rdquo;
+said one club-man.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He&rsquo;s been reading &lsquo;Aurora Floyd,&rsquo;&rdquo; remarked
+another.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And what if I have?&rdquo; cried M&rsquo;Gibbon. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s all
+true. Look at the newspapers! It&rsquo;s just your confounded
+ignorance that sets you snickering. I tell you, it&rsquo;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&rsquo;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 find 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&rsquo;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.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page15" id="page15"></a>15</span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Good business?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, I&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s bosom friend.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The deuce you did!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He couldn&rsquo;t have been particular, you mean?&rdquo; asked
+Dodd pleasantly. &ldquo;Well, no; he&rsquo;s a man of rather large
+sympathies.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If you&rsquo;re done talking nonsense, Loudon,&rdquo; said
+Havens, &ldquo;let&rsquo;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&rsquo;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 bread-fruit,
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page16" id="page16"></a>16</span>
+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 honoured 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 black-mailing,
+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&rsquo;s a queer yarn,&rdquo; said his friend; &ldquo;if you
+think you would like, I&rsquo;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>
+
+
+
+<div class="pt3">&nbsp;</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page17" id="page17"></a>17</span></p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<h2>THE YARN</h2>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page18" id="page18"></a>18</span></p>
+
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page19" id="page19"></a>19</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER I</h3>
+
+
+<h5>A SOUND COMMERCIAL EDUCATION</h5>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="sc">The</span> beginning of this yarn is my poor father&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page20" id="page20"></a>20</span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>&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 civilised; 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 C�sar 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page21" id="page21"></a>21</span>
+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-bye; 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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page22" id="page22"></a>22</span>
+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 realise 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
+Charles 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 halfpenny 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&rsquo;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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page23" id="page23"></a>23</span>
+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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s Billson, our most prominent undergraduate. We
+build confidently on Billson&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s your name?
+What? Son of Big Head Dodd? What&rsquo;s your figure?
+Ten thousand! O, you&rsquo;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.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page24" id="page24"></a>24</span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why, you galoot, you get a clerk!&rdquo; cries he. &ldquo;One
+of our dead beats&mdash;that&rsquo;s all they&rsquo;re here for. If you&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s novels, which were then my two pre-occupations.
+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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page25" id="page25"></a>25</span>
+&ldquo;Heads I win; tails you lose.&rdquo; Mindful of my father&rsquo;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 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page26" id="page26"></a>26</span>
+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&rsquo;t like it,&rdquo; I pleaded. &ldquo;It hasn&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;t) I&rsquo;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&rsquo;s capacity to be a painter. I ventured even
+to comment on this.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page27" id="page27"></a>27</span></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&rsquo;s scarcely fair. The
+other boys are helped by their people, who telegraph and
+give them pointers. There&rsquo;s Jim Costello, who never
+budges without a word from his father in New York.
+And then, don&rsquo;t you see, if anybody is to win, somebody
+must lose?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll keep you posted,&rdquo; cried my father, with unusual
+animation; &ldquo;I did not know it was allowed. I&rsquo;ll wire
+you in the office cipher, and we&rsquo;ll make it a kind of partnership
+business, Loudon:&mdash;Dodd and Son, eh?&rdquo; and he
+patted my shoulder and repeated, &ldquo;Dodd and Son, Dodd
+and 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page28" id="page28"></a>28</span>
+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&rsquo;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 re-casting 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page29" id="page29"></a>29</span>
+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&rsquo; 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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page30" id="page30"></a>30</span>
+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&mdash;&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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page31" id="page31"></a>31</span>
+keep it in the family. It meets your idea; there&rsquo;s considerable
+money in the thing; and it&rsquo;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&rsquo;s a big chance for you, Loudon; and I&rsquo;ll tell you what&mdash;every
+dollar you earn, I&rsquo;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&rsquo;t in a line
+with public taste in Muskegon, there will be trouble.&rdquo;</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page32" id="page32"></a>32</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER II</h3>
+
+<h5>ROUSSILLON WINE</h5>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="sc">My</span> mother&rsquo;s family was Scottish, 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 <i>colour</i> without
+the <i>u</i>. 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page33" id="page33"></a>33</span>
+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&rsquo;s man, James K. Dodd, the well-known millionaire
+of Muskegon,&rdquo; was calculated to enlarge the heart
+of a proud son.</p>
+
+<p>An aged assistant of my grandfather&rsquo;s, a pleasant,
+humble creature with a taste for whisky, was at first
+deputed to be my guide about the city. With this harmless
+but hardly aristocratic companion I went to Arthur&rsquo;s
+Seat and the Calton Hill, heard the band play in 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&mdash;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&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page34" id="page34"></a>34</span>
+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&rsquo;s yin,&rdquo; he would say. &ldquo;He&rsquo;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&rsquo;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 brick 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&rsquo;s an idee of mine&rsquo;s; it&rsquo;s cheap and
+tasty, and had a graand run; the idee was soon stole,
+and there&rsquo;s whole deestricts near Glesgie with the goathic
+addeetion and that plunth,&rdquo; 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page35" id="page35"></a>35</span>
+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 chield.&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>Com�die 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&rsquo;�toile 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&rsquo;s successor, living in flesh and blood the
+life of one of those romances I had loved to read, to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page36" id="page36"></a>36</span>
+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 Boh�me</i> (a dreary,
+snivelling piece) had been produced at the Od�on, had
+run an unconscionable time&mdash;for Paris&mdash;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 a while, and now forgotten: so remain,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page37" id="page37"></a>37</span>
+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 side-walk than I found myself unaccountably
+alone. The circumstance scarce surprised me
+at the time, much less now; but I was somewhat chagrined
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page38" id="page38"></a>38</span>
+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
+Caf� 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 caf� was extraordinarily
+hot and bright, with every detail of a conspicuous clearness&mdash;from
+the faces of the guests, to the type of the
+newspapers on the tables&mdash;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 pre-occupation&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 downstairs 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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s lodge without
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page39" id="page39"></a>39</span>
+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 business-like,
+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 <i>got</i> 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&mdash;or the
+other way about, if you prefer.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I hope you will pardon this intrusion,&rdquo; said I; &ldquo;but
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page40" id="page40"></a>40</span>
+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 contra-ordinary 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 fallen 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
+Fouch� 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 for ever. 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page41" id="page41"></a>41</span>
+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 recognised 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 favourable
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page42" id="page42"></a>42</span>
+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&mdash;an
+excellent example of the Blind Man&rsquo;s Buff that we call
+life.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page43" id="page43"></a>43</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER III</h3>
+
+<h5>TO INTRODUCE MR. PINKERTON</h5>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="sc">The</span> 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 grey eye as active as a fowl&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page44" id="page44"></a>44</span>
+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 civilisation 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&rsquo;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 <i>d�butant</i>, 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page45" id="page45"></a>45</span>
+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&rsquo;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&rsquo; 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&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page46" id="page46"></a>46</span>
+his own recent biography, of which his mind was still very
+full, and which, he seemed to fancy, represented him in
+an 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 downstairs?&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&rsquo;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&rsquo;t speak this language, though
+I understand a little; I never had any proper education&mdash;tell
+him I am going to punch his head.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;For God&rsquo;s sake do nothing of the sort!&rdquo; I cried;
+&ldquo;they don&rsquo;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;<i>Qu&rsquo;est-ce qu&rsquo;il a</i>?&rdquo;<a name="FnAnchor_1" href="#Footnote_1"><span class="sp">1</span></a> inquired the student.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<i>Monsieur se sent mal au c&oelig;ur d&rsquo;avoir trop regard�
+votre cro�te</i>,&rdquo;<a name="FnAnchor_2" href="#Footnote_2"><span class="sp">2</span></a> said I, and made my escape, scarce with
+dignity, at Pinkerton&rsquo;s heels.</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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page47" id="page47"></a>47</span>
+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&rsquo;s history and character, like terriers after
+rabbits, according to the approved fashion of youth.</p>
+
+<p>Pinkerton&rsquo;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&rsquo;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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page48" id="page48"></a>48</span>
+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&rsquo;re all committed to that;
+we&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s interest in it, too. It&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s not the man&rsquo;s superior,
+I brand it as mere sensuality. There was my idea, at
+least. That was what I was saving for; and enough, too!
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page49" id="page49"></a>49</span>
+But it isn&rsquo;t every man, I know that&mdash;it&rsquo;s far from every
+man&mdash;could do what I did: close up the livest agency in
+St. 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&rsquo;t that. I just said to
+myself, &lsquo;What is most wanted in my age and country?
+More culture and more art,&rsquo; 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 carcass; 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)
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page50" id="page50"></a>50</span>
+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;Oh!&rdquo; he groaned, breaking the long silence, &ldquo;it&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;t know that
+I&rsquo;m surprised. But I&rsquo;ll go on with the course; and throw
+my whole soul into it too. You mustn&rsquo;t think the time
+is lost. It&rsquo;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&rsquo;s all experience, besides,&rdquo; he
+continued; &ldquo;and it seems to me there&rsquo;s a tendency to
+underrate experience, both as net profit and investment.
+Never mind. That&rsquo;s done with. But it took courage for
+you to say what you did, and I&rsquo;ll never forget it. Here&rsquo;s
+my hand, Mr. Dodd. I&rsquo;m not your equal in culture or
+talent.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You know nothing about that,&rdquo; I interrupted. &ldquo;I
+have seen your work, but you haven&rsquo;t seen mine.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No more I have,&rdquo; he cried; &ldquo;and let&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page51" id="page51"></a>51</span>
+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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s not a
+bad <i>bonne femme</i> for a beginner. I don&rsquo;t think it&rsquo;s entirely
+bad myself. Here is the best point; it builds up best
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page52" id="page52"></a>52</span>
+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&rsquo;s the word!&rdquo; cried Pinkerton. &ldquo;There&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;re going to be fulsome,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I&rsquo;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&rsquo;t be in a hurry. Give me
+a point or two. Show me what&rsquo;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&rsquo;ve never turned my
+attention to sculpture&mdash;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&mdash;all of which, if you don&rsquo;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&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page53" id="page53"></a>53</span>
+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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page54" id="page54"></a>54</span>
+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&rsquo;s too
+late; it&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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 St. Jo. The editor did no more than glance
+his eye down the head-lines. &lsquo;You&rsquo;re the man for us,&rsquo;
+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>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center">ANOTHER OF PINKERTON&rsquo;S SPICY CHATS.</p>
+
+<p class="center f90">ART PRACTITIONERS IN PARIS.</p>
+
+<p class="center f90">MUSKEGON&rsquo;S COLUMNED CAPITOL.</p>
+
+<p class="center f90">SON OF MILLIONAIRE DODD,<br />
+PATRIOT AND ARTIST.</p>
+
+<p class="center f90">&ldquo;HE MEANS TO DO BETTER.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page55" id="page55"></a>55</span></p>
+
+<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;&lsquo;Now, Mr. Dodd,&rsquo; resumed the reporter,
+&rsquo;what would be your idea of a distinctively
+American quality in sculpture?&rsquo;&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&mdash;my
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page56" id="page56"></a>56</span>
+birth, perhaps, excepted&mdash;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&rsquo;ve hurt you.
+You can&rsquo;t deceive me, Loudon. It&rsquo;s the want of tact,
+and it&rsquo;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&rsquo;t tell
+them how I said it! There&rsquo;s that phrase, now: &lsquo;With
+a proud, glad smile.&rsquo; Who cares whether I smiled or
+not?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, there now, Loudon, you&rsquo;re entirely wrong,&rdquo; he
+broke in. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s what the public likes; that&rsquo;s the
+merit of the thing, the literary value. It&rsquo;s to call up
+the scene before them; it&rsquo;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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page57" id="page57"></a>57</span>
+sooner or later, happen to myself; why, Loudon, it would
+have been like a peep-hole into heaven!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, if it gives so much pleasure,&rdquo; I admitted,
+&ldquo;the sufferers shouldn&rsquo;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 <i>if</i> 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>
+
+
+<hr class="foot" />
+<div class="note">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_1" href="#FnAnchor_1"><span class="fn">1</span></a> &ldquo;What&rsquo;s the matter with him?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_2" href="#FnAnchor_2"><span class="fn">2</span></a> &ldquo;The gentleman is sick at his stomach from having looked
+too long at your daub.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page58" id="page58"></a>58</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER IV</h3>
+
+<h5>IN WHICH I EXPERIENCE EXTREMES OF FORTUNE</h5>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="sc">Whether</span> 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.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page59" id="page59"></a>59</span></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 shot-gun 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&rsquo;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&mdash;for I am
+beginning to grow old, and I long to see my dear boy,&mdash;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&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page60" id="page60"></a>60</span>
+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&rsquo;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 dog-like 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&rsquo; 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-<i>a�n�</i>, and Stennis-<i>fr�re</i>,
+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.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page61" id="page61"></a>61</span></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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<i>H�! quoi?</i>&rdquo; cried he, relapsing into French.
+&ldquo;<i>Qu&rsquo;est-ce que vous me chantez l�?</i> O, in Am�rica,&rdquo;
+he added, on further information being hastily furnished.
+&ldquo;That is anozer sing. O, v�ry good&mdash;v�ry 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;F�nnimore 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 already 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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page62" id="page62"></a>62</span>
+States; my health followed; and then my father&rsquo;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&rsquo;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;<i>C&rsquo;est
+barbare!</i>&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;<i>Je trove que pore oon sontimong de
+delicacy, Corot</i>...,&rdquo; or some &ldquo;<i>Pour moi Corot est le
+plou</i>...,&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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page63" id="page63"></a>63</span>
+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 caf�, there to finish the
+afternoon on beer; the elder Stennis revolted at the
+thought, moved for the country&mdash;a forest, if possible&mdash;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 great-coats 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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page64" id="page64"></a>64</span>
+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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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 eyeglass
+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&mdash;meanly proud, if you like&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page65" id="page65"></a>65</span>
+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&rsquo;re a much better
+fellow than ever I supposed. I&rsquo;ll write to-night.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;O, you&rsquo;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
+for ever. 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&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page66" id="page66"></a>66</span>
+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&mdash;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?
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page67" id="page67"></a>67</span></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&rsquo;s throw our
+whole soul into business. I have the capital; you bring
+the culture. <i>Dodd and Pinkerton</i>&mdash;I never saw a better
+name for an advertisement; and you can&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s not possible,&rdquo; he would cry; &ldquo;it can&rsquo;t be; you
+couldn&rsquo;t live in the midst of it and not feel the charm;
+with all your poetry of soul you couldn&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page68" id="page68"></a>68</span>
+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 <i>r�le</i> of Apollo is illustrated&mdash;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&rsquo;t a cent; and
+if you offered him to-morrow the command of an army,
+or the presidentship of the United States, he wouldn&rsquo;t
+take it, and you know he wouldn&rsquo;t.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I suppose not,&rdquo; Pinkerton would cry, scouring his
+hair with both his hands; &ldquo;and I can&rsquo;t see why; I can&rsquo;t
+see what in fits he would be after, not to; I don&rsquo;t seem
+to rise to these views. Of course it&rsquo;s the fault of not
+having had advantages in early life; but, Loudon, I&rsquo;m so
+miserably low that it seems to me silly. The fact is,&rdquo; he
+might add, with a smile, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t seem to have the least
+use for a frame of mind without square meals; and you
+can&rsquo;t get it out of my head that it&rsquo;s a man&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page69" id="page69"></a>69</span>
+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&rsquo;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&rsquo;t know what a boon it is to be taken up by a
+man that stands on the pinnacle of civilisation; you can&rsquo;t
+think how it&rsquo;s refined and purified me, how it&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;t rise to it, but
+there&rsquo;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.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page70" id="page70"></a>70</span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now don&rsquo;t get mad, Loudon; this is a plain piece
+of business,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;it&rsquo;s done every day; it&rsquo;s even
+typical. How are all those fellows over here in Paris,
+Henderson, Sumner, Long?&mdash;it&rsquo;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&rsquo;t know
+what to do with his dollars&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But, you fool, you&rsquo;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&rsquo;m bound to be rich; and I tell you I mean
+to have some of the fun as I go along. Here&rsquo;s your first
+allowance; take it at the hand of a friend; I&rsquo;m one that
+holds friendship sacred, as you do yourself. It&rsquo;s only a
+hundred francs; you&rsquo;ll get the same every month, and as
+soon as my business begins to expand we&rsquo;ll increase it to
+something fitting. And so far from it&rsquo;s being a favour,
+just let me handle your statuary for the American market,
+and I&rsquo;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&rsquo;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>
+
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page71" id="page71"></a>71</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER V</h3>
+
+<h5>IN WHICH I AM DOWN ON MY LUCK IN PARIS</h5>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="sc">In</span> 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 caf�, the <i>queue</i>
+at theatre-doors, Sunday cabfuls of second-rate pleasure-seekers,
+the bedizened ladies of the pavement, the show
+in the jewellers&rsquo; 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. &ldquo;This is
+life at last,&rdquo; he may tell himself; &ldquo;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 Lousteau or Lucien, Rodolphe
+or Schaunard.&rdquo;</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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page72" id="page72"></a>72</span>
+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 lee-shore,
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page73" id="page73"></a>73</span>
+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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s diet, the
+more sharply is he set on dainties. The last of my ready
+cash, about thirty francs, was deliberately squandered on
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page74" id="page74"></a>74</span>
+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 shot-gun. &ldquo;The whole world knows it,&rdquo; he would
+say; &ldquo;you are alone, <i>mon petit</i> Loudon&mdash;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, &lsquo;Le Touriste dans le Far-West&rsquo;;
+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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page75" id="page75"></a>75</span>
+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 <i>suisse</i>(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&rsquo;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&mdash;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&rsquo;s prosperity, her
+sister&rsquo;s lamented decline from the paths of virtue, and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page76" id="page76"></a>76</span>
+the consequent wrath of her father, a peasant of stern
+principles, in the vicinity of Ch�lons 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&rsquo;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 a while in silence.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s not disagreeable to me,
+you&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page77" id="page77"></a>77</span></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&rsquo;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&rsquo;t see where <i>we</i> come in; I can&rsquo;t see that it&rsquo;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&rsquo;m not proposing to skip,&rdquo; I objected.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Exactly,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;And shouldn&rsquo;t you? There&rsquo;s
+the problem. You seem to me to have a lack of sympathy
+for the proprietors of cabmen&rsquo;s eating-houses. By your
+own account, you&rsquo;re not getting on; the longer you stay,
+it&rsquo;ll only be the more out of the pocket of the dear old
+lady at your lodgings. Now, I&rsquo;ll tell you what I&rsquo;ll do:
+if you consent to go, I&rsquo;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&rsquo;ll find an
+opening. I don&rsquo;t seek any gratitude, for of course you&rsquo;ll
+think me a beast; but I do ask you to pay it back when
+you are able. At any rate, that&rsquo;s all I can do. It might
+be different if I thought you a genius, Dodd; but I don&rsquo;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&rsquo;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;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page78" id="page78"></a>78</span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;All right,&rdquo; says Myner; &ldquo;be sure it&rsquo;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&rsquo;t, if you don&rsquo;t like it,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;You
+seem to think honesty as easy as Blind Man&rsquo;s Buff: I
+don&rsquo;t. It&rsquo;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&rsquo;s tunic.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<i>Tiens</i>, 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&mdash;but this time as a workman?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I sought your faz�r 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.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You used to think something of my work, sir,&rdquo; I
+pleaded.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Somesing, somesing&mdash;y�s!&rdquo; he cried; &ldquo;�nough for
+a son of a reech man&mdash;not �nough 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&mdash;a bench shaded at that date
+by a shabby tree, and commanding a view of muddy
+roadway and blank wall&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page79" id="page79"></a>79</span>
+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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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
+warhoofs 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&mdash;first a rocket, then a stick! I, Loudon Dodd,
+who had refused all other livelihoods with scorn, and been
+advertised in the St. 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&rsquo;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.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page80" id="page80"></a>80</span></p>
+
+<p>Meantime, if my courage was still undiminished, I
+was none the nearer to a meal. At no great distance my
+cabman&rsquo;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 lace 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&rsquo;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 to sleep.</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&rsquo;s eating-house, and again
+recoiled from the possibility of insult. &ldquo;<i>Qui dort d�ne</i>,&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;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page81" id="page81"></a>81</span></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 form any conscious plan of dishonesty: the lies
+flowed from me like a natural secretion.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh,&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 Caf� 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 Caf� Cluny, exquisite first glass of old Pomard
+tingling to my wet feet, indescribable first olive culled
+from the <i>hors d&rsquo;&oelig;uvre</i>&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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page82" id="page82"></a>82</span>
+Flood; the day before I had sold the roof over my head,
+my future, and my self-respect, for a dinner at the Caf�
+Cluny!</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of these lamentations the famous registered
+letter came to my door, with healing under its seal.
+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 &ldquo;Standard
+Bearer&rdquo; 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page83" id="page83"></a>83</span>
+Leda with the swan; nay!&mdash;and God forgive me for a
+man that knew better!&mdash;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 night-shirt 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 <i>do</i> tire of it, there&rsquo;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&rsquo;t say what a pleasure it would be to me
+if we were going at it <i>shoulder to shoulder</i>.&rdquo; I marvel,
+looking back, that I could so long have resisted these
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page84" id="page84"></a>84</span>
+appeals, and continue to sink my friend&rsquo;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 St. Lazare; all alone, though in a carriage full of
+people, that I watched the moon shine on the Seine flood
+with its tufted isles, 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&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page85" id="page85"></a>85</span>
+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>
+
+
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page86" id="page86"></a>86</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER VI</h3>
+
+<h5>IN WHICH I GO WEST</h5>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="sc">I reached</span> my uncle&rsquo;s door next morning in time to sit
+down with the family to breakfast. More than three
+years had intervened&mdash;almost without mutation in that
+stationary household&mdash;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-cosy. If there were any change
+at all, it seemed that I had risen in the family esteem.
+My father&rsquo;s death once fittingly referred to with a ceremonial
+lengthening of Scots 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&rsquo;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 the 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 whipped schoolboy.</p>
+
+<p>At length, the meal and family prayers being both
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page87" id="page87"></a>87</span>
+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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page88" id="page88"></a>88</span>
+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&rsquo;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 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.&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.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page89" id="page89"></a>89</span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Aadam,&rdquo; said my grandfather.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;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&rsquo;re makin&rsquo; an awfu&rsquo; poor appearance, Aadam,&rdquo;
+said he.</p>
+
+<p>My uncle visibly reared at the affront. &ldquo;I&rsquo;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 drily; &ldquo;and the curiis thing is, I&rsquo;m no very
+carin&rsquo;.&mdash;See here, ma man,&rdquo; he continued, addressing himself
+to me. &ldquo;A&rsquo;m your grandfaither, amn&rsquo;t I not? Never
+you mind what Aadam says. A&rsquo;ll see justice dune ye.
+A&rsquo;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&rsquo;s me that has the money here; and,
+by Gravy! I&rsquo;m goin&rsquo; 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&rsquo;s yin!&rdquo; resumed my grandfather.
+&ldquo;A&rsquo;m goin&rsquo; to give ye a set-off. Your mither
+was always my fav&rsquo;rite, for A never could agree with
+Aadam. A like ye fine yoursel&rsquo;; there&rsquo;s nae noansense
+aboot ye; ye&rsquo;ve a fine nayteral idee of builder&rsquo;s work;
+ye&rsquo;ve been to France, where, they tell me, they&rsquo;re grand
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page90" id="page90"></a>90</span>
+at the stuccy. A splendid thing for ceilin&rsquo;s, the stuccy!
+and it&rsquo;s a vailyable disguise, too; A don&rsquo;t believe there&rsquo;s
+a builder in Scotland has used more stuccy than me. But,
+as A was sayin&rsquo;, if ye&rsquo;ll follie that trade, with the capital
+that A&rsquo;m goin&rsquo; to give ye, ye may live yet to be as rich
+as mysel&rsquo;. Ye see, ye would have always had a share
+of it when A was gone; it appears ye&rsquo;re needin&rsquo; it now;
+well, ye&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s takin&rsquo; 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page91" id="page91"></a>91</span>
+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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s
+will, it was supposed, hung trembling in the
+balance.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Look here, grandfather,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;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;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The old man waved me down. &ldquo;It&rsquo;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&rsquo;m afraid I don&rsquo;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&rsquo;s, or is it Aadam&rsquo;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.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page92" id="page92"></a>92</span></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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page93" id="page93"></a>93</span>
+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 &lsquo;hadden doun&rsquo;&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&rsquo;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&mdash;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;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page94" id="page94"></a>94</span>
+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&rsquo;s the
+stane. <i>Euphemia Ross</i>: that was my goodwife, your
+grandmither&mdash;hoots! I&rsquo;m wrong; that was my first yin;
+I had no bairns by her;&mdash;yours is the second, <i>Mary Murray,
+Born</i> 1819, <i>Died</i> 1850; that&rsquo;s her&mdash;a fine, plain, decent
+sort of a creature, tak&rsquo; her a&rsquo;thegether. <i>Alexander Loudon,
+Born Seventeen Ninety-Twa, Died</i>&mdash;and then a hole in the
+ballant: that&rsquo;s me. Alexander&rsquo;s my name. They ca&rsquo;d
+me Ecky when I was a boy. Eh, Ecky! ye&rsquo;re an awfu&rsquo;
+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&rsquo;s eating-house,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page95" id="page95"></a>95</span>
+brought tears to my eyes. The whole monotonous Babel
+had grown&mdash;or, I should rather say, swelled&mdash;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 millionaires, and past the plain
+black crosses of Hungarian labourers, till chance or instinct
+led me to the place that was my father&rsquo;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;<i>James K. Dodd</i>. &ldquo;What a singular thing is a
+name!&rdquo; I thought; &ldquo;how it clings to a man, and continually
+misrepresents, and then survives him!&rdquo; 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 <i>K</i> 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&rsquo;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 a while 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:
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page96" id="page96"></a>96</span>
+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&mdash;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 <i>London</i> 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page97" id="page97"></a>97</span>
+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&rsquo;ve pined for
+you! And you haven&rsquo;t come an hour too soon. You&rsquo;re
+known here and waited for; I&rsquo;ve been booming you
+already: you&rsquo;re billed for a lecture to-morrow night:
+&rsquo;Student Life in Paris, Grave and Gay&rsquo;: twelve hundred
+places booked at the last stock! Tut, man, you&rsquo;re looking
+thin! Here, try a drop of this.&rdquo; And he produced a
+case bottle, staringly labelled <span class="sc">Pinkerton&rsquo;s Thirteen
+Star Golden State Brandy, Warranted Entire</span>.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;God bless me!&rdquo; said I, gasping and winking after
+my first plunge into this fiery fluid; &ldquo;and what does
+&rsquo;Warranted Entire&rsquo; mean?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why, Loudon, you ought to know that!&rdquo; cried
+Pinkerton. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s real, copper-bottomed English; you see
+it on all the old-time wayside hostelries over there.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But if I&rsquo;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&rsquo;s very possible,&rdquo; said Jim, quite unabashed. &ldquo;It&rsquo;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&rsquo;t mind; I&rsquo;ve got your portrait all
+over San Francisco for the lecture, enlarged from that
+carte de visite: &lsquo;H. Loudon Dodd, the Americo-Parisienne
+Sculptor.&rsquo; Here&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page98" id="page98"></a>98</span>
+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&rsquo;m dreadfully and truly
+sorry, my dear fellow: I see now it&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page99" id="page99"></a>99</span>
+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&rsquo;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 &ldquo;Poodle Dog&rdquo;
+dining with my agent&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page100" id="page100"></a>100</span>
+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&rsquo;t suppose anybody
+wants to hear, and I can&rsquo;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&mdash;&ldquo;You see, I
+am leaving out as much as I possibly can&rdquo;&mdash;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&rsquo;s literature or the series of my emotions as I faced
+the audience. The lads vowed I was the soul of good
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page101" id="page101"></a>101</span>
+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&rsquo;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&rsquo;t catch on to the idea of the lecture,
+I should have given it myself!&rdquo;</p>
+
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page102" id="page102"></a>102</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER VII</h3>
+
+<h5>IRONS IN THE FIRE</h5>
+
+<p class="center f90"><i>Opes Strepitumque</i></p>
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="sc">The</span> 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&rsquo;s performance,
+and happy for hours if he should have chanced to
+brush against a millionaire. 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&rsquo;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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page103" id="page103"></a>103</span>
+to labour in far countries, and set the gold twitching in
+the drawers of millionaires.</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 <i>Thirteen Star Golden
+State Brandy, Warranted Entire</i> (a very flagrant distillation)
+filled a great part of his thoughts, and was kept
+before the public in an eloquent but misleading treatise,
+&ldquo;Why Drink French Brandy? A Word to the Wise.&rdquo;
+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, &ldquo;How, When, and Where; or, The
+Advertiser&rsquo;s Vade-Mecum.&rdquo; 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&rsquo; 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page104" id="page104"></a>104</span>
+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. &ldquo;Investment&rdquo; 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&rsquo;s investments!
+One which I succeeded in tracking home, an instance
+for a specimen, was a seventh share in the charter of a
+certain ill-starred schooner bound for Mexico&mdash;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&rsquo;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&mdash;a high and spacious room, with many plate-glass
+windows. A glazed cabinet of polished red-wood
+offered to the eye a regiment of some two hundred bottles
+conspicuously labelled. These were all charged with
+Pinkerton&rsquo;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,
+&ldquo;Why Drink French Brandy, When We give You the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page105" id="page105"></a>105</span>
+same Labels?&rdquo; 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&rsquo;t seem to catch on to business principles!
+The prime cost of the spirit is literally nothing. I couldn&rsquo;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 business-man fleeing for the ferry-boat, to the
+lady waiting at the corner for her car, sheltered itself
+under umbrellas with this strange device: <i>Are you wet?
+Try Thirteen Star.</i> &ldquo;It was a mammoth boom,&rdquo; said
+Pinkerton, with a sigh of delighted recollection. &ldquo;There
+wasn&rsquo;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 &ldquo;Why Drink French Brandy?&rdquo; and &ldquo;The
+Advertiser&rsquo;s Vade-Mecum.&rdquo; 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 <i>James L. Moody</i>
+on a bold and broken coast, the other the Saturday tug
+alive with amateur fishers&mdash;almost disappeared under
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page106" id="page106"></a>106</span>
+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,&mdash;&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 &rsquo;em. You&rsquo;ll
+find it&rsquo;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;; &ldquo;six-inch caps&rdquo;;
+&ldquo;bold spacing here&rdquo;; or sometimes terms more fervid&mdash;as,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page107" id="page107"></a>107</span>
+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&rsquo;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&mdash;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 fly-paper
+for these busybodies. I have seen them blankly
+turn the crank of it for five minutes at a time, simulating
+(to nobody&rsquo;s deception) business interest: &ldquo;Good thing
+this, Pinkerton? Sell much of it? Ha! Couldn&rsquo;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&rsquo;s
+illusion? Where else would bankers and merchants have
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page108" id="page108"></a>108</span>
+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&rsquo;s green earth,
+have taken his pick of restaurants, ransacked the bill
+of fare, and departed scatheless? 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&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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page109" id="page109"></a>109</span>
+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&rsquo;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 designed to curtailment.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, it&rsquo;s smart enough,&rdquo; I once observed. &ldquo;But,
+Pinkerton, do you think it&rsquo;s honest?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t think it&rsquo;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&rsquo;s Buff,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;It&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page110" id="page110"></a>110</span>
+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&rsquo;s profitable.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;This ship has been condemned by Lloyd&rsquo;s agent,&rdquo;
+said I.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But I tell you it&rsquo;s a deal. The ship&rsquo;s in splendid
+condition; there&rsquo;s next to nothing wrong with her but
+the garboard streak and the sternpost. I tell you, Lloyd&rsquo;s
+is a ring, like everybody else; only it&rsquo;s an English ring,
+and that&rsquo;s what deceives you. If it was American, you
+would be crying it down all day. It&rsquo;s Anglomania&mdash;common
+Anglomania,&rdquo; he cried, with growing irritation.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I will not make money by risking men&rsquo;s lives,&rdquo; was
+my ultimatum.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Great C�sar! isn&rsquo;t all speculation a risk? Isn&rsquo;t
+the fairest kind of shipowning to risk men&rsquo;s lives? And
+mining&mdash;how&rsquo;s that for risk? And look at the elevator
+business&mdash;there&rsquo;s danger if you like! Didn&rsquo;t I take my
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page111" id="page111"></a>111</span>
+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&rsquo;re too full of refinement
+for this world!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I condemn you out of your own lips,&rdquo; I replied.
+&ldquo;&lsquo;The fairest kind of shipowning,&rsquo; 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&rsquo;s true, Loudon,&rdquo; he cried striding up and down
+the room, and wildly scouring at his hair. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re
+perfectly right. I&rsquo;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&rsquo;ve been a loyal friend to me once more; give me
+your hand&mdash;you&rsquo;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&rsquo;s algebra?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s dry and tough enough,&rdquo; said I; &ldquo;<i>a<span class="sp">2</span> + 2ab + b<span class="sp">2</span>.</i>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;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&rsquo;s the thing for me. I&rsquo;ll study algebra,&rdquo;
+he concluded.</p>
+
+<p>The next day, by application to one of his typewriting
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page112" id="page112"></a>112</span>
+art; an hour&rsquo;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&rsquo;ll be falling in love with
+the algebraist,&rdquo; said I.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t say it, even in jest,&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;She&rsquo;s a lady
+I revere. I could no more lay a hand upon her than
+I could upon a spirit. Loudon, I don&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;ve got to find me some
+employment, or I&rsquo;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,
+towards the arts, little dreaming what destiny was to
+provide.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got it, Loudon,&rdquo; Pinkerton at last replied.
+&ldquo;Got the idea on the Potrero cars. Found I hadn&rsquo;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&rsquo;s a sketch advertisement.
+Just run your eye over it. &lsquo;<i>Sun, Ozone and
+Music!</i> PINKERTON&rsquo;S HEBDOMADARY PICNICS!&rsquo;
+(That&rsquo;s a good, catching phrase, &lsquo;hebdomadary,&rsquo; though
+it&rsquo;s hard to say. I made a note of it when I was looking
+in the dictionary how to spell <i>hectagonal</i>. &lsquo;Well, you&rsquo;re
+a boss word,&rsquo; I said. &lsquo;Before you&rsquo;re very much older,
+I&rsquo;ll have you in type as long as yourself.&rsquo; And here it
+is, you see.) &lsquo;<i>Five dollars a head, and ladies free</i>. MONSTER
+OLIO OF ATTRACTIONS.&rsquo; (How does that strike you?)
+&rsquo;<i>Free luncheon under the greenwood tree. Dance on the
+elastic sward. Home again in the Bright Evening Hours</i>.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page113" id="page113"></a>113</span>
+<i>Manager and Honorary Steward, H. Loudon Dodd, Esq.,
+the well-known connoisseur.</i>&rsquo;&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&rsquo;s Hebdomadary Picnics, soon shortened
+by popular consent, to The Dromedary.</p>
+
+<p>By eight o&rsquo;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 frockcoat,
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page114" id="page114"></a>114</span>
+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 the hour
+of duty and glory; see me circulate amid the crowd,
+radiating affability and laughter, liberal with my sweetmeats
+and cigars. I say unblushing things to hobble-dehoy
+girls, tell shy young persons this is the married
+people&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&mdash;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&rsquo;t Mr. Dodd a funny gentleman?&rdquo;
+and &ldquo;O, I think he&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page115" id="page115"></a>115</span>
+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&rsquo; ship? Ain&rsquo;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&mdash;two of them already packed with the
+materials of an impromptu bar&mdash;and the Pioneer Band,
+accompanied by the resplendent asses, fill the other,
+and move shoreward to the inviting strains of &ldquo;Buffalo
+Gals, won&rsquo;t you come out to-night?&rdquo; 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 alongside
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page116" id="page116"></a>116</span>
+hampers, which are piled up on 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&mdash;cold provender, plates, glasses, knives, forks,
+and spoons. An agonised 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&mdash;Pioneers,
+corrugated iron bar, empty bottles, and all; while the
+honorary steward, free at last, subsides into the captain&rsquo;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&rsquo;s
+office with two policemen and the day&rsquo;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 f�tes. &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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page117" id="page117"></a>117</span>
+by the prevalence of &ldquo;Royal Stewart&rdquo; and the number
+of eagles&rsquo; 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&rsquo; Blend, Warranted
+Old and Vatted&rdquo;; 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&rsquo;s incognito was strict, I had
+little opportunity to cultivate the lady&rsquo;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&rsquo;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 hobble-dehoy
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page118" id="page118"></a>118</span>
+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&mdash;at my
+mother&rsquo;s knee, as a man may say&mdash;I had acquired the
+unenviable accomplishment (which I have never since
+been able to lose) of singing &ldquo;Just before the Battle.&rdquo;
+I have what the French call a fillet of voice&mdash;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 &ldquo;Just before the Battle&rdquo;
+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 &ldquo;Just before the Battle&rdquo;; and, finally,
+that now was the time when Mr. Dodd sang &ldquo;Just before
+the Battle.&rdquo; 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
+reopened. Among my purchasers was a working man
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page119" id="page119"></a>119</span>
+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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;t have the heart to ut, Mr.
+Dodd&mdash;you, that&rsquo;s so well known to be a pleasant gentleman;
+and it&rsquo;s a pleasant face ye have, and the picture
+of me own brother that&rsquo;s dead and gone. It&rsquo;s a truth
+that he&rsquo;s been drinking. Ye can smell it off of him,
+more blame to him. But, indade, and there&rsquo;s nothing
+in the house beyont the furnicher, and Thim Stock. It&rsquo;s
+the stock that ye&rsquo;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 &ldquo;wild-cat stock,&rdquo; 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page120" id="page120"></a>120</span>
+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&rsquo;ve been at ut,&rdquo; she was lamenting as I entered, &ldquo;and
+grudging the babes the very milk&mdash;more shame to me!&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page121" id="page121"></a>121</span>
+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&rsquo;m sure we all dhrink
+to his health&mdash;Mr. Dodd of the picnics, no gentleman
+better known than him; and it&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;re
+froze out, me darlin&rsquo;! All the money we had, dear, and
+the sewing-machine, and Jim&rsquo;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>
+
+<div class="f90">
+<table class="nobctr" width="80%" summary="Contents">
+
+<tr><td class="tc3">By Catamount Silver Mine</td>
+    <td class="tc2b">$5,000</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc3">By the picnics</td>
+    <td class="tc2b">3,000</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc3">By the lecture</td>
+    <td class="tc2b">600</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc3">By profit and loss on capital in Pinkerton&rsquo;s business</td>
+    <td class="tc2b">1,350</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc3">&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="tc2b">&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc3">&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="tc2b">$9,950</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p class="noind">to which must be added</p>
+
+<div class="f90">
+<table class="nobctr" width="80%" summary="Contents">
+
+<tr><td class="tc3">What remained of my grandfather&rsquo;s donation</td>
+    <td class="tc2b">8,500</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc3">&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="tc2b">&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc3">&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="tc2b">$18,450</td></tr>
+
+</table></div>
+
+<p class="noind">It appears, on the other hand, that</p>
+
+<div class="f90">
+<table class="nobctr" width="80%" summary="Contents">
+
+<tr><td class="tc3">I had spent</td>
+    <td class="tc2b">4,000</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc3">&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class="tc2b">&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tc3">Which thus left me to the good</td>
+    <td class="tc2b">$14,450</td></tr>
+
+</table></div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page122" id="page122"></a>122</span></p>
+
+<p class="noind">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 guardacostas;
+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&rsquo;s crank. But here, there,
+or everywhere I could still tell myself it was all mine,
+and&mdash;what was more convincing&mdash;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&mdash;where,
+methought, Mamie waited on him with her limpid eyes&mdash;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;t describe how I
+admire you,&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;Not that she will ever need
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page123" id="page123"></a>123</span>
+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&mdash;brace up!&rdquo; said I.</p>
+
+<p>But when we reached Mamie&rsquo;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&mdash;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;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page124" id="page124"></a>124</span>
+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.
+&ldquo;O no, Loudon; I feel you are wrong there,&rdquo; he interjected
+warmly; &ldquo;she <i>does</i> appreciate your nature.&rdquo;
+&ldquo;So much the better, then,&rdquo; 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&mdash;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&rsquo;s the fact&mdash;I&rsquo;m so miserably
+selfish. And I believe it&rsquo;s a death-blow to the picnics;
+for it&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page125" id="page125"></a>125</span>
+society atmosphere about the thing. But, for all that,
+you&rsquo;re right, and you ought to go. You may count on
+forty dollars a week; and if Depew City&mdash;one of nature&rsquo;s
+centres for this State&mdash;pan out the least as I expect, it
+may be double. But it&rsquo;s forty dollars anyway; and to
+think that two years ago you were almost reduced to
+beggary!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I <i>was</i> reduced to it,&rdquo; said I.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, the brutes gave you nothing, and I&rsquo;m glad
+of it now!&rdquo; cried Jim. &ldquo;It&rsquo;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&rsquo;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>
+
+
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page126" id="page126"></a>126</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER VIII</h3>
+
+<h5>FACES ON THE CITY FRONT</h5>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="sc">It</span> is very much the custom to view life as if it were
+exactly ruled in two, like sleep and waking&mdash;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, &ldquo;The Amateur Parisian,&rdquo; I grew
+(or declined) into a water-side 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&rsquo; 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page127" id="page127"></a>127</span>
+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 millionaire,
+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><i>Minora canamus</i>. This historic figure stalks silently
+through a corner of the San Francisco of my memory.
+The rest is bric-�-brac, the reminiscences of a vagrant
+sketcher. My delight was much in slums. &ldquo;Little
+Italy,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;Little Mexico,&rdquo; with its crazy wooden
+houses, endless crazy wooden stairs, and perilous mountain-goat
+paths in the sand. China-town by a thousand
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page128" id="page128"></a>128</span>
+eccentricities drew and held me; I could never have
+enough of its ambiguous, inter-racial 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 whisky 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 millionaire. There they dwell upon the hill-top,
+high raised above man&rsquo;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&rsquo;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 craft of deep-sea giants, another
+class of craft, the Island schooner, circulates&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page129" id="page129"></a>129</span>
+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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s heir and analogue:
+each of us standing on the verge of the Roman Empire
+(or, as we now call it, Western civilisation), each of us
+gazing onwards 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page130" id="page130"></a>130</span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+entrenchments, praised my sketch, and with the <i>impromptu</i>
+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, cocoa-nut
+bowls, snowy cocoa-nut 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 &ldquo;Omoo&rdquo;
+under one arm, and my friend&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page131" id="page131"></a>131</span>
+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 especially 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&rsquo;s wrong? What ship is
+that?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s the <i>Gleaner</i>,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;I am chief officer,
+this gentleman&rsquo;s third, and we&rsquo;ve to get in our depositions
+before the crew. You see, they might corral us with
+the captain, and that&rsquo;s no kind of berth for me. I&rsquo;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&rsquo;s head in; but they
+looked sick enough when the captain started in with his
+fancy shooting.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;O, he&rsquo;s done up,&rdquo; observed the other. &ldquo;He won&rsquo;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&rsquo;t lynched in the next
+ten minutes, he&rsquo;ll do yet. The owners have a longer
+memory than the public, they&rsquo;ll stand by him; they don&rsquo;t
+find as smart a captain every day in the year.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;O, he&rsquo;s a son of a gun of a fine captain; there ain&rsquo;t
+no doubt of that,&rdquo; concurred the other heartily. &ldquo;Why,
+I don&rsquo;t suppose there&rsquo;s been no wages paid aboard that
+<i>Gleaner</i> for three trips.&rdquo;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page132" id="page132"></a>132</span></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&rsquo;t the soft job they
+maybe took it for. She isn&rsquo;t 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&mdash;some
+with savage passion, some with cold brutality&mdash;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, and 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,&mdash;and above all, brutality to sailors&mdash;shook
+their fists at heaven. If hands could have been
+laid on the captain of the <i>Gleaner</i>, 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page133" id="page133"></a>133</span>
+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&mdash;nor, indeed, on any that concerned the voyage
+of the <i>Gleaner</i>. 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&rsquo;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&mdash;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&rsquo;c&rsquo;s&rsquo;le Jack that came rolling toward you, crab-like;
+let him but open his lips, and it was Fo&rsquo;c&rsquo;s&rsquo;le Jack
+that piped and drawled his ungrammatical gibberish.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page134" id="page134"></a>134</span>
+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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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 <i>impromptu</i> 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page135" id="page135"></a>135</span>
+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&mdash;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&rsquo;s inarticulate speech, his &ldquo;O yes, there
+ain&rsquo;t no harm in them Kanakas,&rdquo; or &ldquo;O yes, that&rsquo;s a
+son of a gun of a fine island, mountainous right down;
+I didn&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page136" id="page136"></a>136</span>
+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 <i>Flying Scud</i>, 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, thick-set
+man of five-and-forty&mdash;wore a bandage on his right hand.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page137" id="page137"></a>137</span>
+The incident struck me; I was struck particularly to see
+captain, cook, and foremast 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 whisky 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&rsquo;-nor&rsquo;-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 Admiralty Charts, and that&rsquo;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&mdash;or, rather,
+the captain&rsquo;s face&mdash;lingered for some time in my memory.
+I was no prophet, as I say; but I was something else&mdash;I
+was an observer; and one thing I knew&mdash;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?
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page138" id="page138"></a>138</span>
+In my judgment it was some livelier kind of fear that
+thrilled in the man&rsquo;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 <i>Flying Scud</i> had none of the appearance of a nervous
+man, I told myself, with incomplete conviction, that his
+must be a similar case.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page139" id="page139"></a>139</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER IX</h3>
+
+<h5>THE WRECK OF THE <i>FLYING SCUD</i></h5>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="sc">The</span> 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, headlines,
+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&mdash;which
+endeared it to me&mdash;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&rsquo;ve tumbled over a whole
+pile of &rsquo;em on a reef in the middle of the Pacific.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why, Jim, you miserable fellow!&rdquo; I exclaimed;
+&ldquo;haven&rsquo;t we Depew City, one of God&rsquo;s green centres for
+this State? haven&rsquo;t we&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Just listen to this,&rdquo; interrupted Jim. &ldquo;It&rsquo;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>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p class="center"><span class="sc">Wreck of the British Brig</span> <i>FLYING SCUD</i></p>
+
+<p>H.B.M.S. <i>Tempest</i>, which arrived yesterday at this port, brings
+Captain Trent and four men of the British brig <i>Flying Scud</i>, cast
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page140" id="page140"></a>140</span>
+away February 12th on Midway Island, and most providentially
+rescued the next day. The <i>Flying Scud</i> 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&rsquo;s &ldquo;North Pacific Directory,&rdquo; 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&rsquo;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
+<i>Occidental</i> 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 <i>Tempest</i>, 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 <i>Flying Scud</i> is ten years old, and this morning
+will be sold as she stands, by order of Lloyd&rsquo;s agent, at public
+auction, for the benefit of the underwriters. The auction will take
+place in the Merchants&rsquo; Exchange at ten o&rsquo;clock.</p>
+
+<p><i>Further Particulars.</i>&mdash;Later in the afternoon the <i>Occidental</i> reporter
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page141" id="page141"></a>141</span>
+found Lieutenant Sebright, first officer of H.B.M.S. <i>Tempest</i>
+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 <i>Flying Scud</i> is in an excellent
+berth, and, except in the highly improbable event of a heavy N.W.
+gale, might last until next winter.</p>
+</div>
+
+<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&rsquo;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&rsquo;t you see what this British officer says about the
+safety? Don&rsquo;t you see the cargo&rsquo;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&rsquo;s a point, I know,&rdquo; admitted Jim. &ldquo;But the
+rice is the sluggish article, anyway; it&rsquo;s little more account
+than ballast; it&rsquo;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&rsquo;ve rung up Lloyd&rsquo;s on purpose;
+the captain is to meet me there in an hour, and
+then I&rsquo;ll be as posted on that brig as if I built her.
+Besides, you&rsquo;ve no idea what pickings there are about a
+wreck&mdash;copper, lead, rigging, anchors, chains, even the
+crockery, Loudon.&rdquo;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page142" id="page142"></a>142</span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You seem to me to forget one trifle,&rdquo; said I.
+&ldquo;Before you pick that wreck, you&rsquo;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&rsquo;t guess; I know it,&rdquo; answered the Commercial
+Force. &ldquo;My dear boy, I may be a galoot about literature,
+but you&rsquo;ll always be an outsider in business. How
+do you suppose I bought the <i>James L. Moody</i> 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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s
+been tried before now, and once was enough. We hold
+the plant; we&rsquo;ve got the connection; we can afford to
+go higher than any outsider: there&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page143" id="page143"></a>143</span>
+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: &lsquo;Do you want me in this ring? or shall
+I start another?&rsquo; He took half an hour, and when I
+came back, &lsquo;Pink,&rsquo; says he, &lsquo;I&rsquo;ve put your name on.&rsquo;
+The first time I came to the top it was that <i>Moody</i> racket;
+now it&rsquo;s the <i>Flying Scud</i>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Whereupon Pinkerton, looking at his watch, uttered
+an exclamation, made a hasty appointment with myself
+for the doors of the Merchants&rsquo; 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&rsquo;s thirty mats of it
+saved, it&rsquo;s an outside figure. However, the manifest was
+cheerier. There&rsquo;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&rsquo;s upwards
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page144" id="page144"></a>144</span>
+of a hundred and fifty fathom away-up chain. It&rsquo;s not
+a bonanza, but there&rsquo;s boodle in it; and we&rsquo;ll try it
+on.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>It was by that time hard on ten o&rsquo;clock, and we turned
+at once into the place of sale. The <i>Flying Scud</i>, 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&mdash;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&rsquo;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.
+&ldquo;Fine brig&mdash;new copper&mdash;valuable fittings&mdash;three fine
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page145" id="page145"></a>145</span>
+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.&rdquo; At this modest computation the
+roof immediately above the speaker&rsquo;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&rsquo;s skin was grey and
+blotched; he spoke in a kind of broken song, with much
+variety of key; his gestures seemed (as in the disease
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page146" id="page146"></a>146</span>
+called St. Vitus&rsquo;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>Com�die 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&rsquo;ll have to have a lesson.
+Wait till I see Longhurst.&mdash;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s some blame&rsquo; 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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page147" id="page147"></a>147</span>
+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&rsquo;s welcome to the bargain.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;By-the-bye, who is he?&rdquo; asked Pinkerton. &ldquo;He
+looks away down.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;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<a name="FnAnchor_3" href="#Footnote_3"><span class="sp">3</span></a> like that? Nobody
+with money, that&rsquo;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>&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 auctioneer had stood transparently
+arrested&mdash;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.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page148" id="page148"></a>148</span></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&mdash;what
+was of more importance&mdash;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 <i>kudos</i> 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&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page149" id="page149"></a>149</span>
+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&rsquo;m in
+for all I&rsquo;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&rsquo;t imagine, but
+there&rsquo;s something. Watch Bellairs; he&rsquo;ll go up to the
+ten thousand, see if he don&rsquo;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&rsquo;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>&ldquo;To be sure,&rdquo; thought I, &ldquo;this must be the secret.&rdquo;
+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 <i>Flying
+Scud</i>. 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page150" id="page150"></a>150</span>
+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&mdash;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&rsquo;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&mdash;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;Hallo,&rdquo; he plainly
+thought, &ldquo;this is not the ring I&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&mdash;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;
+passed 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 <i>Flying Scud</i> with four fat bids of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page151" id="page151"></a>151</span>
+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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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;<i>He&rsquo;s sending for instructions</i>,&rdquo; I wrote to Pinkerton.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<i>For money,</i>&rdquo; he wrote back. &ldquo;<i>Shall I strike out? I
+think this is the time</i>.&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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page152" id="page152"></a>152</span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I&mdash;I have a difficulty in speaking,&rdquo; gasped Jim.
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;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;&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;O, nonsense!&rdquo; said the auctioneer. &ldquo;If you make
+no advance I&rsquo;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&rsquo;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 <i>Flying Scud</i>
+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.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page153" id="page153"></a>153</span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s got to be raised,&rdquo; said he, white as a sheet. &ldquo;It&rsquo;ll
+be a hell of a strain, Loudon. The credit&rsquo;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 <i>Flying Scud</i>.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="foot" />
+<div class="note">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_3" href="#FnAnchor_3"><span class="fn">3</span></a> A low lawyer.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page154" id="page154"></a>154</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER X</h3>
+
+<h5>IN WHICH THE CREW VANISH</h5>
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="sc">At</span> the door of the exchange I found myself alongside 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&rsquo;ll walk along with you. It&rsquo;s
+pleasant for an old fogey like myself to see the young
+bloods in the ring; I&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;re a pioneer,&rdquo; cried I, &ldquo;come to me, and
+I&rsquo;ll provide you with an axe.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page155" id="page155"></a>155</span>
+violent wrecking to do before you find that&mdash;opium, do
+you call it?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, it&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&mdash;above all, after having
+laid out so much to buy the stuff in China?&mdash;unless,
+indeed, he were acting for some one in &rsquo;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&rsquo;t that the captain with the red face and
+coloured handkerchief? He seemed to me to follow
+Bellairs&rsquo;s game with the most thrilling interest,&rdquo; objected
+Mr. Morgan.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Perfectly true,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;Trent is deeply interested;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page156" id="page156"></a>156</span>
+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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s advice, and get to Midway Island as fast as you
+can. There&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s you!&rdquo; he cried; and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page157" id="page157"></a>157</span>
+then, somewhat recovered, &ldquo;Mr. Pinkerton&rsquo;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. &ldquo;Why should not I
+dash (vocally) into the presence of this mysterious person,
+and have some fun for my money?&rdquo; 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&rsquo;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 <i>Flying Scud</i>?&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&mdash;fled from an
+impertinent question. It scarce seemed natural to me&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page158" id="page158"></a>158</span>
+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&rsquo;s up?&rdquo; said I, with an incredible
+sinking.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; he replied; &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve pulled it through, Loudon&mdash;just
+pulled it through. I couldn&rsquo;t have raised another
+cent in all &rsquo;Frisco. People don&rsquo;t like it; Longhurst even
+went back on me; said he wasn&rsquo;t a three-card-monte
+man.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, what&rsquo;s the odds?&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s all we
+wanted, isn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Loudon, I tell you I&rsquo;ve had to pay blood for that
+money,&rdquo; cried my friend, with almost savage energy and
+gloom. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s all on ninety days, too; I couldn&rsquo;t get
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page159" id="page159"></a>159</span>
+another day&mdash;not another day. If we go ahead with
+this affair, Loudon, you&rsquo;ll have to go yourself and make
+the fur fly. I&rsquo;ll stay, of course&mdash;I&rsquo;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&rsquo;ll do your level best, Loudon; I depend
+on you for that. You must be all fire and grit and dash
+from the word &lsquo;go.&rsquo; That schooner, and the boodle on
+board of her, are bound to be here before three months,
+or it&rsquo;s B U S T&mdash;bust.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll swear I&rsquo;ll do my best, Jim; I&rsquo;ll work double
+tides,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;It is my fault that you are in this thing,
+and I&rsquo;ll get you out again, or kill myself. But what is
+that you say? &lsquo;If we go ahead?&rsquo; Have we any choice,
+then?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m coming to that,&rdquo; said Jim. &ldquo;It isn&rsquo;t that I
+doubt the investment. Don&rsquo;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&rsquo;s
+profit in the deal; it&rsquo;s not that; it&rsquo;s these ninety-day
+bills, and the strain I&rsquo;ve given the credit&mdash;for I&rsquo;ve been
+up and down borrowing, and begging and bribing to
+borrow. I don&rsquo;t believe there&rsquo;s another man but me in
+&rsquo;Frisco,&rdquo; he cried, with a sudden fervour of self-admiration,
+&ldquo;who could have raised that last ten thousand!
+Then there&rsquo;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&rsquo;ll try to put up something for
+you there; I&rsquo;ll have a man spoken to who&rsquo;s posted on
+that line of biz. Keep a bright look-out for him as soon&rsquo;s
+you make the islands; for it&rsquo;s on the cards he might
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page160" id="page160"></a>160</span>
+pick you up at sea in a whale-boat 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&mdash;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;ve gone
+into it head-first, as if it was our bottom dollar. Why,
+the first thing I did before I&rsquo;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 <i>Norah Creina</i> she is,
+sixty-four tons&mdash;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;t he?&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;Is that the line?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s the line, Loudon Dodd,&rdquo; assented Jim. &ldquo;If
+Bellairs and his principal have any desire to go me
+better, I&rsquo;m their man.&rdquo;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page161" id="page161"></a>161</span></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&rsquo;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 <i>Flying Scud</i> 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&rsquo;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&rsquo;t the man breathing could have done as
+well. It was a miracle, Loudon. I couldn&rsquo;t but admire
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page162" id="page162"></a>162</span>
+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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page163" id="page163"></a>163</span>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page164" id="page164"></a>164</span>
+stand. This is business, Mr. Bellairs. This morning, as
+you know, I bought the wreck <i>Flying Scud</i>.&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&mdash;&rdquo;
+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&rsquo;s a little too thin,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;I have the
+wreck. I know there&rsquo;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&rsquo;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 &lsquo;money down,&rsquo; I mean bills
+payable when the ship returns, and if the information
+proves reliable. I don&rsquo;t buy pigs in pokes.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>I had seen the lawyer&rsquo;s face light up for a moment,
+and then, at the sound of Jim&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s
+name and address.&rdquo;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page165" id="page165"></a>165</span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;On consideration,&rdquo; replied the lawyer, with indescribable
+furtivity, &ldquo;I cannot see that I am entitled to
+communicate my client&rsquo;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&rsquo;t it?&rdquo; (Between every sentence was
+a clear pause.) &ldquo;Not think better of it? Well, come,
+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&mdash;we&rsquo;re both busy men, and I&rsquo;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&rsquo;t you say so, Loudon?&rdquo; cried
+my friend.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You didn&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s first question, and prepared to blurt
+out&mdash;I believe, almost with tears&mdash;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&rsquo;s
+commission.&rdquo;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page166" id="page166"></a>166</span></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&rsquo;s all done; I&rsquo;m
+convinced it&rsquo;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&rsquo;s gone,&rdquo; said the landlady.</p>
+
+<p>Where had he gone?</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m sure I can&rsquo;t tell you,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;He was
+quite a stranger to me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Did he express his baggage, ma&rsquo;am?&rdquo; asked
+Pinkerton.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Hadn&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page167" id="page167"></a>167</span>
+driven him away; and again I asked myself, &ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
+and whirled for a moment in a vortex of untenable
+hypotheses.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What was he like, ma&rsquo;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&rsquo;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 <i>City of Pekin</i>; she cast off the dock to-day,
+at half-past one,&rdquo; came the reply.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a clear case of bolt,&rdquo; said Jim. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s skipped,
+or my name&rsquo;s not Pinkerton. He&rsquo;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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Shouldn&rsquo;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&rsquo;s door as we were coming
+down, of muddy roadway, passing drays, matted telegraph
+wires, a China-boy 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&rsquo;t believe it was his name at all;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page168" id="page168"></a>168</span>
+I believe he took it from a corner grocery beside
+Bellairs&rsquo;s.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;As like as not,&rdquo; said Jim, still standing on the side-walk
+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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s getting around. I
+believe, Loudon, we&rsquo;ll give Trent a chance. Trent was
+in it; he was in it up to the neck; even if he couldn&rsquo;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&rsquo;s
+another reason for taking him first. We can hustle that
+schooner up all evening; but when the consulate&rsquo;s shut,
+it&rsquo;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&rsquo;t say,&rdquo; said the clerk.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;When did he go?&rdquo; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;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&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page169" id="page169"></a>169</span>
+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 &ldquo;Just before
+the Battle, Mother,&rdquo; 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 <i>City of Pekin</i>; I know that;
+I remember expressing his chest. Captain Trent? I&rsquo;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&mdash;rather a big,
+and rather a bad one: Trent, Brown, Hardy, and (instead
+of Ah Wing) 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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Here,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;here&rsquo;s the name. &lsquo;Elias Goddedaal,
+mate.&rsquo; Why do we never come across Elias Goddedaal?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s so,&rdquo; said Jim. &ldquo;Was he with the rest in
+that saloon when you saw them?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;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 wagon, 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 <i>City of Pekin</i>,&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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page170" id="page170"></a>170</span>
+can&rsquo;t somehow find out about the third, but he&rsquo;s gone
+too.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Mr. Goddedaal, the mate, wasn&rsquo;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 wish 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&rsquo;t be gone,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s
+main sick; never left the sick-bay aboard the <i>Tempest</i>;
+so they tell <i>me</i>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Jim shook 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 <i>Tempest</i> 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 <i>Tempest</i>?&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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page171" id="page171"></a>171</span>
+don&rsquo;t. But we paid the Kanaka&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s not Pinkerton.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;How have you managed?&rdquo; I inquired.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;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&rsquo;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 <i>Norah Creina</i>. Pinkerton&rsquo;s face grew pale and
+his mouth straightened as he leaped on board.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Where&rsquo;s the captain of this&mdash;&mdash;?&rdquo; and he left the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page172" id="page172"></a>172</span>
+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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s some of it out. We&rsquo;ll get at the rest of it
+livelier to-morrow, I guess.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I guess there&rsquo;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&rsquo;m Pinkerton!&rdquo; retorted Jim, as though the
+name had been a talisman.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;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&rsquo;s your mate?&rdquo; snapped Jim.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He&rsquo;s up town,&rdquo; returned the other.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Up town!&rdquo; sneered Pinkerton. &ldquo;Now, I&rsquo;ll tell you
+what you are&mdash;you&rsquo;re a Fraud; and if I wasn&rsquo;t afraid of
+dirtying my boot, I would kick you and your dinner into
+that dock.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll tell you something, too,&rdquo; retorted the captain,
+duskily flushing. &ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t sail this ship for the man
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page173" id="page173"></a>173</span>
+you are, if you went upon your knees. I&rsquo;ve dealt with
+gentlemen up to now.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I can tell you the names of a number of gentlemen
+you&rsquo;ll never deal with any more, and that&rsquo;s the whole of
+Longhurst&rsquo;s gang,&rdquo; said Jim. &ldquo;I&rsquo;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&rsquo;ll have a captain in, this very night, that&rsquo;s a
+sailor, and some sailors to work for him.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll go when I please, and that&rsquo;s to-morrow morning,&rdquo;
+cried the captain after us, as we departed for the
+shore.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;There&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page174" id="page174"></a>174</span>
+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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;t
+catch me shipping noways else. But I&rsquo;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&rsquo;s trousers
+on! Why, Loudon, he&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page175" id="page175"></a>175</span>
+Tom&rsquo;s: street after street sparkling with gas or electricity,
+line after line of distant luminaries climbing the
+steep sides of hills towards the over-vaulting 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&rsquo;s life and business it was
+clear and chill. By silent consent we paid the hack off,
+and proceeded arm-in-arm towards the &ldquo;Poodle Dog&rdquo;
+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>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div style="border: 2px solid black; font-family: 'Courier New';">
+<h4>TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS REWARD.</h4>
+
+<p class="center f80">OFFICERS AND MEN OF THE</p>
+
+<h2>WRECKED BRIG &ldquo;FLYING SCUD&rdquo;</h2>
+
+<p class="center f80">APPLYING,<br />
+
+PERSONALLY OR BY LETTER<br />
+
+AT THE OFFICE OF JAMES PINKERTON, MONTANA BLOCK,</p>
+
+<p class="center">BEFORE NOON TO-MORROW, TUESDAY, 12TH,</p>
+
+<p class="center f80">WILL RECEIVE</p>
+
+<h4>TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS REWARD.</h4>
+</div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;This is your idea, Pinkerton!&rdquo; I cried.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes. They&rsquo;ve lost no time; I&rsquo;ll say that for them&mdash;not
+like the Fraud,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;But mind you, Loudon,
+that&rsquo;s not half of it. The cream of the idea&rsquo;s here: we
+know our man&rsquo;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 that kind at a figure extremely
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page176" id="page176"></a>176</span>
+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&rsquo;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 &ldquo;Poodle Dog&rdquo; 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&rsquo;t
+wish to be referred to. I only want to do so indirectly.
+It wasn&rsquo;t&rdquo;&mdash;he faltered&mdash;&ldquo;it wasn&rsquo;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&rsquo;t
+intimate, 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&rsquo;t know you had done wonders! All day
+I&rsquo;ve been admiring your energy and resource. And as
+for that affair&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No, Loudon, no more&mdash;not a word more! I don&rsquo;t
+want to hear,&rdquo; cried Jim.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, to tell you the truth, I don&rsquo;t want to tell you,&rdquo;
+said I; &ldquo;for it&rsquo;s a thing I&rsquo;m ashamed of.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ashamed, Loudon? O, don&rsquo;t say that; don&rsquo;t
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page177" id="page177"></a>177</span>
+use such an expression, even in jest!&rdquo; protested
+Pinkerton.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Do you never do anything you&rsquo;re ashamed of?&rdquo; I
+inquired.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; says he, rolling his eyes; &ldquo;why? I&rsquo;m sometimes
+sorry afterwards, when it pans out different from
+what I figured. But I can&rsquo;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&rsquo;s character. Then I sighed. &ldquo;Do
+you know, Jim, what I&rsquo;m sorriest for?&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;At
+this rate I can&rsquo;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&rsquo;m going right down to-night to
+break it to her. I think that&rsquo;s what&rsquo;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&rsquo;ve
+myself to thank for it; but it&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page178" id="page178"></a>178</span>
+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
+<i>pro rata</i>, and are therefore certain to impoverish the poor:
+to smuggle opium is an offence particularly dark, since
+it stands related&mdash;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>
+
+
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page179" id="page179"></a>179</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XI</h3>
+
+<h5>IN WHICH JIM AND I TAKE DIFFERENT WAYS</h5>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="sc">I was</span> 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 <i>Norah Creina</i>,
+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.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page180" id="page180"></a>180</span></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&rsquo;re to take the <i>Norah
+Creina</i> to Midway Island, break up a wreck, call at
+Honolulu, and back to this port? I suppose that&rsquo;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&rsquo;s a point or two to settle. We
+shall have to talk, Mr. Pinkerton. But whether I go or
+not, somebody will. There&rsquo;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&rsquo;re alone and can talk,&rdquo; said he.
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s this thing about? It&rsquo;s been advertised like
+Barnum&rsquo;s museum; that poster of yours has set the
+Front talking. That&rsquo;s an objection in itself, for I&rsquo;m laying
+a little dark just now; and, anyway, before I take
+the ship, I require to know what I&rsquo;m going after.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Thereupon Pinkerton gave him the whole tale, beginning
+with a business-like 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page181" id="page181"></a>181</span>
+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&rsquo;s every last chance that Trent has skipped to
+Honolulu, and it won&rsquo;t take much of that fifty thousand
+dollars to charter a small schooner down to Midway.
+Here&rsquo;s where I want a man!&rdquo; cried Jim, with contagious
+energy. &ldquo;That wreck&rsquo;s mine; I&rsquo;ve paid for it, money
+down; and if it&rsquo;s got to be fought for, I want to see it
+fought for lively. If you&rsquo;re not back in ninety days, I
+tell you plainly I&rsquo;ll make one of the biggest busts ever
+seen upon this coast. It&rsquo;s life or death for Mr. Dodd and
+me. As like as not it&rsquo;ll come to grapples on the island;
+and when I heard your name last night&mdash;and a blame&rsquo;
+sight more this morning when I saw the eye you&rsquo;ve got
+in your head&mdash;I said, &lsquo;Nares is good enough for me!&rsquo;&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&rsquo;ll be pleased.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;re the man I dreamed of!&rdquo; cried Jim, bouncing
+on the bed. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s not five per cent. of fraud in
+all your carcass.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Just hold on,&rdquo; said Nares. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s another point.
+I heard some talk about a supercargo.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s Mr. Dodd here, my partner,&rdquo; said Jim.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see it,&rdquo; returned the captain drily. &ldquo;One
+captain&rsquo;s enough for any ship that ever I was aboard.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now, don&rsquo;t you start disappointing me,&rdquo; said Pinkerton,
+&ldquo;for you&rsquo;re talking without thought. I&rsquo;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&rsquo;s a
+business operation, and that&rsquo;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&rsquo;ll find
+your hands about full. Only, no mistake about one
+thing; it has to be done to Mr. Dodd&rsquo;s satisfaction, for
+it&rsquo;s Mr. Dodd that&rsquo;s paying.&rdquo;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page182" id="page182"></a>182</span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;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&rsquo;re prickly to handle, but you&rsquo;re straight
+all through.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The position&rsquo;s got to be understood, though,&rdquo; returned
+Nares, perhaps a trifle mollified. &ldquo;My position, I
+mean. I&rsquo;m not going to ship sailing-master; it&rsquo;s enough
+out of my way already, to set a foot on this mosquito
+schooner.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, I&rsquo;ll tell you,&rdquo; retorted Jim, with an indescribable
+twinkle: &ldquo;you just meet me on the ballast, and we&rsquo;ll
+make it a barquantine.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Nares laughed a little; tactless Pinkerton had once
+more gained a victory in tact. &ldquo;Then there&rsquo;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&rsquo;m one of Longhurst&rsquo;s
+crowd, you know,&rdquo; said Jim, with sudden bristling vanity.
+&ldquo;Any man that&rsquo;s good enough for me, is good enough for
+them.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Who are they?&rdquo; asked Nares.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;M&rsquo;Intyre and Spittal,&rdquo; said Jim.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;O well, give me a card of yours,&rdquo; said the captain;
+&ldquo;you needn&rsquo;t bother to write; I keep M&rsquo;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&rsquo;t like that man.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;ve just got to, Loudon,&rdquo; returned Jim. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s
+a typical American seaman&mdash;brave as a lion, full of resource,
+and stands high with his owners. He&rsquo;s a man with
+a record.&rdquo;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page183" id="page183"></a>183</span></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&rsquo;d trust Mamie&rsquo;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&rsquo;s the
+gallantest little soul God ever made!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;Loudon,
+I&rsquo;d meant to knock you up last night, and I hope
+you won&rsquo;t take it unfriendly that I didn&rsquo;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&rsquo;t feel it the same way as I
+did.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What news?&rdquo; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s this way,&rdquo; says Jim. &ldquo;I told her how we stood,
+and that I backed down from marrying. &lsquo;Are you tired
+of me?&rsquo; 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. &lsquo;If you&rsquo;re not tired of me, I think I see
+one way to manage,&rsquo; says she. &lsquo;Let&rsquo;s get married to-morrow,
+and Mr. Loudon can be best man before he goes
+to sea.&rsquo; That&rsquo;s how she said it, crisp and bright, like
+one of Dickens&rsquo;s characters. It was no good for me to
+talk about the smash. &lsquo;You&rsquo;ll want me all the more,&rsquo; 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&rsquo;t
+know if you quite believe in prayer, I&rsquo;m a bit Ingersollian
+myself&mdash;but a kind of sweetness came over me, and I
+couldn&rsquo;t help but think it was an answer. Never was a
+man so lucky! You and me and Mamie; it&rsquo;s a triple
+cord, Loudon. If either of you were to die! And she
+likes you so much, and thinks you so accomplished and
+distingu�-looking, and was just as set as I was to have
+you for best man. &lsquo;Mr. Loudon,&rsquo; she calls you; seems to
+me so friendly! And she sat up till three in the morning
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page184" id="page184"></a>184</span>
+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 &lsquo;All this hurry, Jim, is just to marry you!&rsquo; I
+couldn&rsquo;t believe it; it was so like some blame&rsquo; 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&rsquo;m blamed if
+I can see what I&rsquo;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&rsquo;s; the evening to be passed in a visit of God-speed
+abroad the <i>Norah Creina</i>; and then we were to
+part, Jim and I&mdash;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 dockside 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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s about the cares
+of marriage, and I hurry to John Smith&rsquo;s upon the account
+of stores, and thence, on a visit of certification, to the
+<i>Norah Creina</i>. 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page185" id="page185"></a>185</span>
+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 whisky-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 dare say 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page186" id="page186"></a>186</span>
+other parties to the contract rogues and ruffians. A long
+and wordy paper of precautions, a fo&rsquo;c&rsquo;sle 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 <i>tempo prestissimo</i>, 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&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page187" id="page187"></a>187</span>
+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&rsquo;s sixty pounds of
+niggerhead on the quay, isn&rsquo;t there? and twenty pounds
+of salts; and I never travel without some pain-killer
+in my gripsack.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>As a matter of fact, we were richer. The captain had
+the usual sailor&rsquo;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&rsquo;s Red Discovery to Kennedy&rsquo;s White, and
+from Hood&rsquo;s Sarsaparilla to Mother Seigel&rsquo;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
+diarrh&oelig;a stuff,&rdquo; he would remark. &ldquo;I wish&rsquo;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 over-long,
+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&rsquo;s, and at every second corner
+were reminded (by our own huge posters) of our desperate
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page188" id="page188"></a>188</span>
+estate. Between-whiles I had found the time to hover
+at some half a dozen jewellers&rsquo; 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, Madame 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, that 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, <i>ex machin�,</i>
+the card of Douglas B. Longhurst, with congratulations
+and four dozen Perrier-Jouet. A bottle was opened, and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page189" id="page189"></a>189</span>
+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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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 <i>Norah Creina</i>.</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&rsquo;s estimation.</p>
+
+<p>The &ldquo;dear little ship&rdquo; 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&rsquo;ll be sorry you
+came. We can&rsquo;t stop work if we&rsquo;re to get away to-morrow.
+A ship getting ready for sea is no place for
+people, anyway. You&rsquo;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&rsquo;re a nuisance here,
+and that you&rsquo;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&rsquo;s&mdash;Mr. Dodd&rsquo;s&mdash;departure.&rdquo;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page190" id="page190"></a>190</span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, it&rsquo;s your look-out,&rdquo; said Nares. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;ve had,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;Half the
+stores were wrong; I&rsquo;ll wring John Smith&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&mdash;&ldquo;That man,&rdquo;
+says he, &ldquo;will carry sail till your hair grows white; but
+never you let on&mdash;never breathe a word. I know his
+line: he&rsquo;ll die before he&rsquo;ll take advice; and if you get
+his back up, he&rsquo;ll run you right under. I don&rsquo;t often
+jam in my advice, Loudon; and when I do, it means I&rsquo;m
+thoroughly posted.&rdquo;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page191" id="page191"></a>191</span></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&rsquo;s just as lovely as
+he&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page192" id="page192"></a>192</span>
+would have welcomed the asylum of the grave. And all at
+once, as I thus stood, the <i>City of Pekin</i> 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 laid 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&rsquo;t be long behind.&rdquo; And from that
+moment I date myself a man of a rounded experience:
+nothing had lacked but this&mdash;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 the 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page193" id="page193"></a>193</span>
+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 dilettante
+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 north-east. 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 <i>Norah Creina</i>, lying
+over under all plain sail, began her long and lonely voyage
+to the wreck.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page194" id="page194"></a>194</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XII</h3>
+
+<h5>THE <i>NORAH CREINA</i></h5>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="sc">I love</span> 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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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 whisky-dealer&rsquo;s thermometer stood at
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page195" id="page195"></a>195</span>
+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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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 <i>Norah
+Creina</i> 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&rsquo;s deck.</p>
+
+<p>But for the tugging anxiety as to the journey&rsquo;s end,
+the journey itself must thus have counted for the best
+of holidays. My physical wellbeing 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;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page196" id="page196"></a>196</span>
+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&rsquo;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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page197" id="page197"></a>197</span>
+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 <i>pasear</i> 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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s money had fallen in during the voyage of
+the <i>Gleaner</i>, 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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page198" id="page198"></a>198</span>
+oblige me by stepping clear of that main-sheet?&rdquo; the
+captain might begin, with truculent courtesy. &ldquo;Thank
+you. And perhaps you&rsquo;ll be so kind as to tell me what
+the hell you&rsquo;re doing on my quarter-deck? I want no
+dirt of your sort here. Is there nothing for you to do?
+Where&rsquo;s the mate? Don&rsquo;t you set <i>me</i> to find work for
+you, or I&rsquo;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&rsquo;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<a name="FnAnchor_4" href="#Footnote_4"><span class="sp">4</span></a> Americans? I&rsquo;ve been
+fourteen years to sea, all but one trip under American
+colours, and I&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page199" id="page199"></a>199</span>
+Boston; and then you could see ships handled and run
+the way they want to be. But that&rsquo;s all past and gone,
+and nowadays the only thing that flies in an American
+ship is a belaying-pin. You don&rsquo;t know, you haven&rsquo;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&rsquo;s life depending on you, and
+expect to get a knife ripped into you as you come out of
+your state-room, 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&rsquo;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>&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&rsquo;t for the high wage and
+the good food, there&rsquo;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&rsquo;s plenty
+booting in lime-juicers, I guess; though I don&rsquo;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&rsquo;ll give myself away. It was in 1874 I shipped
+mate in the British ship <i>Maria</i>, from &rsquo;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&rsquo;s dinners, and sorry to see my
+own. The old man was good enough, I guess. Green
+was his name&mdash;a mild, fatherly old galoot. But the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page200" id="page200"></a>200</span>
+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&rsquo;t let any man dictate to me.
+&rsquo;You give me your orders, Captain Green,&rsquo; I said, &lsquo;and
+you&rsquo;ll find I&rsquo;ll carry them out; that&rsquo;s all you&rsquo;ve got to
+say. You&rsquo;ll find I do my duty,&rsquo; I said; &lsquo;how I do it is
+my look-out, and there&rsquo;s no man born that&rsquo;s going to
+give me lessons.&rsquo; Well, there was plenty dirt on board
+that <i>Maria</i> first and last. Of course the old man put my
+back up, and of course he put up the crew&rsquo;s, and I had
+to regular fight my way through every watch. The men
+got to hate me, so&rsquo;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&rsquo;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. &lsquo;Now,&rsquo; I said,
+&rsquo;if there&rsquo;s a kick left in you, just mention it, and I&rsquo;ll
+stamp your ribs in like a packing-case.&rsquo; 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 fore-arm
+and stuck there. I put my other hand up, and, by
+George, it was the grain; the beasts had speared me
+like a porpoise. &lsquo;Cap&rsquo;n!&rsquo; I cried. &lsquo;What&rsquo;s wrong?&rsquo;
+says he. &lsquo;They&rsquo;ve grained me,&rsquo; says I. &lsquo;Grained you?&rsquo;
+says he. &lsquo;Well, I&rsquo;ve been looking for that.&rsquo; &lsquo;And by
+God,&rsquo; I cried, &lsquo;I want to have some of these beasts murdered
+for it!&rsquo; &lsquo;Now, Mr. Nares,&rsquo; says he, &lsquo;you better
+go below. If I had been one of the men, you&rsquo;d have got
+more than this. And I want no more of your language
+on deck. You&rsquo;ve cost me my fore-royal already,&rsquo; says
+he; &lsquo;and if you carry on, you&rsquo;ll have the three sticks
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page201" id="page201"></a>201</span>
+out of her.&rsquo; That was old man Green&rsquo;s idea of supporting
+officers. But you wait a bit; the cream&rsquo;s coming.
+We made Melbourne right enough, and the old man said:
+&rsquo;Mr. Nares, you and me don&rsquo;t draw together. You&rsquo;re a
+first-rate seaman, no mistake of that; but you&rsquo;re the
+most disagreeable man I ever sailed with, and your
+language and your conduct to the crew I cannot stomach.
+I guess we&rsquo;ll separate.&rsquo; I didn&rsquo;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. &lsquo;Are you getting your traps together, Mr.
+Nares?&rsquo; says the old man. &lsquo;No,&rsquo; says I, &lsquo;I don&rsquo;t know
+as we&rsquo;ll separate much before &rsquo;Frisco&mdash;at least,&rsquo; I said,
+&rsquo;it&rsquo;s a point for your consideration. I&rsquo;m very willing to
+say good-bye to the <i>Maria</i>, but I don&rsquo;t know whether
+you&rsquo;ll care to start me out with three months&rsquo; wages.&rsquo;
+He got his money-box right away. &lsquo;My son,&rsquo; says he,
+&rsquo;I think it cheap at the money.&rsquo; 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&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page202" id="page202"></a>202</span>
+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&rsquo;s not a man on board would have hung on as long
+as I did that time: they&rsquo;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&rsquo;t much matter. I can&rsquo;t see what any
+one wants to live for, anyway. If I could get into some
+one else&rsquo;s apple-tree, and be about twelve years old, and
+just stick the way I was, eating stolen apples, I won&rsquo;t
+say. But there&rsquo;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&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page203" id="page203"></a>203</span>
+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&rsquo;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&mdash;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&rsquo;s been
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page204" id="page204"></a>204</span>
+running up for the last two days, and now it&rsquo;s too high
+for comfort. The glass is falling, the wind is breezing
+up, and I won&rsquo;t say but what there&rsquo;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&rsquo;ll make that island
+to-morrow afternoon, and have the lee of it to lie under,
+if we can&rsquo;t make out to run in. The point you have to
+figure on, is whether you&rsquo;ll take the big chances of that
+Captain Trent making the place before you, or take the
+risk of something happening. I&rsquo;m to run this ship to
+your satisfaction,&rdquo; he added, with an ugly sneer. &ldquo;Well,
+here&rsquo;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&rsquo;s one thing: it&rsquo;s now or never; in half an hour
+Archdeacon Gabriel couldn&rsquo;t lay her to, if he came downstairs
+on purpose.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;All right,&rdquo; said I; &ldquo;let&rsquo;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&rsquo;s dollars!&rdquo;
+the captain suddenly exclaimed. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s many
+a fine fellow gone under, Mr. Dodd, because of drivers
+like your friend. What do they care for a ship or two?
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page205" id="page205"></a>205</span>
+Insured, I guess. What do they care for sailors&rsquo; lives
+alongside of a few thousand dollars? What they want
+is speed between ports, and a damned fool of a captain
+that&rsquo;ll drive a ship under as I&rsquo;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&rsquo;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 <i>Norah Creina</i>, 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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s name, and that
+his wings were black. It seemed incredible that any
+creature of man&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page206" id="page206"></a>206</span>
+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&rsquo;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&rsquo;t no night for pan-jammers, 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&rsquo;re one hundred and four miles&rdquo;
+(or whatever it was) &ldquo;off the island, and scudding for all
+we&rsquo;re worth. We&rsquo;ll make it to-morrow about four, or
+not, as the case may be. That&rsquo;s the news. And now,
+Mr. Dodd, I&rsquo;ve stretched a point for you; you can see I&rsquo;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.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page207" id="page207"></a>207</span>
+&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&rsquo;s always something sublime about a big deal like
+that; and it kind of raises a man in his own liking. We&rsquo;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&mdash;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;clock came, then two; the
+captain gloomed and chafed, as he held to the coaming
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page208" id="page208"></a>208</span>
+of the house, and if ever I saw dormant murder in man&rsquo;s
+eye, it was in his. God help the man 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&rsquo;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 south-westerly 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&rsquo;s swiftness&mdash;one
+glimpse of what we had come so far and paid so dear to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page209" id="page209"></a>209</span>
+see; the masts and rigging of a brig pencilled on heaven,
+with an ensign streaming at the main, and the ragged
+ribbons of a top-sail 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&rsquo;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>
+
+
+<hr class="foot" />
+<div class="note">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_4" href="#FnAnchor_4"><span class="fn">4</span></a> In sea-lingo (Pacific) <i>Dutchman</i> includes all Teutons and folk
+from the basin of the Baltic; <i>Scattermouch</i>, all Latins and Levantines.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page210" id="page210"></a>210</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XIII</h3>
+
+<h5>THE ISLAND AND THE WRECK</h5>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="sc">All</span> 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, and screamed 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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page211" id="page211"></a>211</span>
+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 <i>Flying Scud</i>, the fruit of so many
+toilers, a recollection of so many lives of men, whose tall
+spars had been mirrored in the remotest corners of the
+sea&mdash;lay stationary at last and for ever, in the first stage
+of naval dissolution. Towards her the taut <i>Norah Creina</i>,
+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&rsquo;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 gasketed and covered, the boats emptied of the
+miscellaneous stores and odds and ends of sea-furniture,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page212" id="page212"></a>212</span>
+that accumulate in the course of a voyage, the kedge sent
+ashore, and the decks tidied down: a good three-quarters
+of an hour&rsquo;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 seabirds 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
+<i>Flying Scud</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;She looks kind of pitiful, don&rsquo;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&rsquo;t
+like her berth, and Captain Trent had used her badly.&mdash;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 <i>Flying
+Scud</i> would have seemed small enough beside the
+wharves of San Francisco, but she was some thrice the
+size of the <i>Norah Creina</i>, 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&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center">FLYING SCUD</p>
+
+<p class="center f80">HULL</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<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.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page213" id="page213"></a>213</span></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&rsquo;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-butt, 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 <i>Tempest</i> 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&rsquo;s
+berth and water-closet. Into these we did but glance,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page214" id="page214"></a>214</span>
+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&rsquo;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, 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, bottles of scent, 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&rsquo;s crockery
+and the remains of food&mdash;a pot of marmalade, dregs of
+coffee in the mugs, unrecognisable remains of food, 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&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page215" id="page215"></a>215</span>
+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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s go on deck and
+breathe.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The captain nodded. &ldquo;It is kind of lonely, isn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo;
+he said; &ldquo;but I can&rsquo;t go up till I get the code signals.
+I want to run up &lsquo;Got Left&rsquo; or something, just to brighten
+up this island home. Captain Trent hasn&rsquo;t been here
+yet, but he&rsquo;ll drop in before long; and it&rsquo;ll cheer him up to
+see a signal on the brig.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t there some official expression we could use?&rdquo;
+I asked, vastly taken by the fancy. &ldquo;&lsquo;Sold for the
+benefit of the underwriters: for further particulars apply
+to J. Pinkerton, Montana Block, S.F.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; returned Nares, &ldquo;I won&rsquo;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&rsquo;s above my register. I must try something
+short and sweet: KB, urgent signal, &lsquo;Heave all
+aback&rsquo;; or LM, urgent, &lsquo;The berth you&rsquo;re now in is
+not safe&rsquo;; or what do you say to PQH?&mdash;&lsquo;Tell my
+owners the ship answers remarkably well.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page216" id="page216"></a>216</span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;t touch that, you fool!&rdquo; shouted the
+captain to one of the hands, who was drinking from the
+scuttle-butt. &ldquo;That water&rsquo;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&rsquo;s all right,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;Must have rotted and come sweet again.&mdash;Queer, isn&rsquo;t
+it, Mr. Dodd? Though I&rsquo;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&rsquo;t believe what you&rsquo;re saying!&rdquo; I broke
+out.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;O, I don&rsquo;t know but what I do!&rdquo; he replied, laying
+a hand upon me soothingly. &ldquo;The thing&rsquo;s very possible.
+Only, I&rsquo;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&rsquo;s see what water there is in the lagoon.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The bars were shoved home; the barbarous cacophony
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page217" id="page217"></a>217</span>
+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&rsquo;ll tell you one thing shortly,&rdquo; he replied.
+&ldquo;But here&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;t deny,&rdquo; admitted Nares, &ldquo;but I can&rsquo;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&rsquo;t much matter, anyway,&rdquo; I reflected.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;O, I don&rsquo;t suppose it does,&rdquo; said he, glancing over
+his shoulders at the spouting of the scuppers.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And how long are we to keep up this racket?&rdquo; I
+asked. &ldquo;We&rsquo;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&rsquo;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 <i>Norah Creina</i>. I had a guess of it
+before we came aboard, and now I know.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s not possible!&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;What do you make
+of Trent?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t make anything of Trent; I don&rsquo;t know
+whether he&rsquo;s a liar or only an old wife; I simply tell you
+what&rsquo;s the fact,&rdquo; said Nares. &ldquo;And I&rsquo;ll tell you something
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page218" id="page218"></a>218</span>
+more,&rdquo; he added: &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve taken the ground myself
+in deep-water vessels; I know what I&rsquo;m saying; and I
+say that, when she first struck and before she bedded
+down, seven or eight hours&rsquo; work would have got this
+hooker off, and there&rsquo;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&rsquo;t let <i>them</i>
+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&rsquo;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&rsquo;t Trent get her off?&rdquo; inquired the captain.
+&ldquo;Why did he want to buy her back in &rsquo;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&rsquo;t want to depress you; I&rsquo;m sorry for
+you, Mr. Dodd; I know how bothering it must be to you,
+and the best I can say&rsquo;s this: I haven&rsquo;t taken much
+time getting down, and now I&rsquo;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&rsquo;ll do, old fellow,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve shaken down
+into pretty good friends, you and me; and you won&rsquo;t find
+me working the business any the less hard for that. And
+now let&rsquo;s scoot for supper.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>After supper, with the idle curiosity of the seafarer,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page219" id="page219"></a>219</span>
+we pulled ashore in a fine moonlight, and landed on Middle
+Brooks 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&rsquo;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&rsquo; 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&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page220" id="page220"></a>220</span>
+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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s the boat,&rdquo; said I; &ldquo;here&rsquo;s one of your
+difficulties cleared away.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;H&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s this way,&rdquo; he condescended to explain.
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve no use for a fourth boat at all; but a boat of this
+model tops the business. I don&rsquo;t say the type&rsquo;s not
+common in these waters; it&rsquo;s as common as dirt; the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page221" id="page221"></a>221</span>
+traders carry them for surf-boats. But the <i>Flying Scud?</i>
+a deep-water tramp, who was lime-juicing around between
+big ports, Calcutta and Rangoon and &rsquo;Frisco and the
+Canton River. No, I don&rsquo;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&rsquo;s been cut? A sailor always seizes a rope&rsquo;s
+end, but this is sliced short off with the cold steel. This
+won&rsquo;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 <i>Flying Scud</i>
+was a sight more picturesque than he gave out.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Half an hour later the whaleboat was lying astern of
+the <i>Norah Creina</i>; and Nares and I sought our bunks,
+silent and half-bewildered by our late discoveries.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page222" id="page222"></a>222</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XIV</h3>
+
+<h5>THE CABIN OF THE <i>FLYING SCUD</i></h5>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="sc">The</span> 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 <i>Flying Scud</i>: 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;&mdash;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&rsquo;s
+work, or (for that matter) any of the rest, in order and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page223" id="page223"></a>223</span>
+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&rsquo;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 <i>cache</i> of opium encouraged me to continue.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I guess I&rsquo;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.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page224" id="page224"></a>224</span></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&rsquo;s see what&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s the ship&rsquo;s money,&rdquo; he returned, doggedly continuing
+his work.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The ship&rsquo;s money?&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the
+money Trent tramped and traded with? And there&rsquo;s
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page225" id="page225"></a>225</span>
+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&rsquo;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&rsquo;ve known men drown
+to save them&mdash;bad men, too; but this is the shipmaster&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&mdash;ciphering
+with pictures. In the course of this tense mental exercise
+I recalled and studied the faces of one memorial masterpiece,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page226" id="page226"></a>226</span>
+the scene of the saloon; and here I found myself,
+on a sudden, looking in the eyes of the Kanaka.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;There&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s and captain&rsquo;s quarters lay piled about
+the wheel; but in the forward state-room 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&rsquo;s; no
+Chinaman would have possessed any, and the most
+literate Kanaka conceivable in a ship&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page227" id="page227"></a>227</span>
+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 <i>you</i> 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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s chest in the galley,&rdquo;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page228" id="page228"></a>228</span>
+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&rsquo;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&rsquo;t you look at them?&rdquo; And he ran a dirty thumb
+along the title. &ldquo;&lsquo;<i>Sydney Morning Herald</i>, November
+26th,&rsquo; can&rsquo;t you make that out?&rdquo; he cried, with rising
+energy. &ldquo;And don&rsquo;t you know, sir, that not thirteen
+days after this paper appeared in New South Wales, this
+ship we&rsquo;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&rsquo;t fool with it.
+There&rsquo;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&rsquo;re
+a sailor, and you&rsquo;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&rsquo;s against
+the laws of Nature.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It would sicken a dog, wouldn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo; said Nares.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I continued; &ldquo;it&rsquo;s been used by an artist,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page229" id="page229"></a>229</span>
+too: see how it&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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 <i>about</i>?
+what can it be <i>for</i>?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Mr. Dodd,&rdquo; returned Nares, &ldquo;you&rsquo;re right about me
+having been to sea the bigger part of my life. And you&rsquo;re
+right again when you think I know a good many ways in
+which a dishonest captain mayn&rsquo;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&rsquo;s a good many ways, but not so many as you&rsquo;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&rsquo;s the bed-rock fact; there&rsquo;s no sense
+to it, and no use in it, and no story to it&mdash;it&rsquo;s a beastly
+dream. And don&rsquo;t you run away with that notion that
+landsmen take about ships. A society actress don&rsquo;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&rsquo;s capital,
+and the actress only character&mdash;if she&rsquo;s that. The ports
+of the world are thick with people ready to kick a captain
+into the penitentiary if he&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page230" id="page230"></a>230</span>
+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&rsquo;s
+the use&mdash;at sea? Everything&rsquo;s got to come to bearings
+at some port, hasn&rsquo;t it? You can&rsquo;t stop at sea for ever,
+can you?&mdash;No; the <i>Flying Scud</i> is rubbish; if it meant
+anything, it would have to mean something so almighty
+intricate that James G. Blaine hasn&rsquo;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 <i>Flying Scud</i>, who had quite a
+library, both literary and professional. There were Findlay&rsquo;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 navigations,
+a signal-code, and an Admiralty book of a sort of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page231" id="page231"></a>231</span>
+orange hue, called &ldquo;Islands of the Eastern Pacific Ocean,&rdquo;
+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&mdash;Brooks or
+Midway. A volume of Macaulay&rsquo;s &ldquo;Essays&rdquo; and a
+shilling Shakespeare led the van of the <i>belles lettres</i>; the
+rest were novels. Several Miss Braddon&rsquo;s&mdash;of course,
+&ldquo;Aurora Floyd,&rdquo; which has penetrated to every island
+of the Pacific, a good many cheap detective books, &ldquo;Rob
+Roy,&rdquo; Auerbach&rsquo;s &ldquo;Auf der H�he,&rdquo; 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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s &lsquo;Pacific Directory&rsquo;? Where&rsquo;s Hoyt?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Let&rsquo;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&rsquo;s your Hoyt, and a
+fine, tall copy. But what I want to know is, where is
+Trent&rsquo;s Hoyt?&rdquo;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page232" id="page232"></a>232</span></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 <i>Tempest</i>. &lsquo;Happy thought,&rsquo; says he,
+&rsquo;let&rsquo;s take Hoyt.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And has it not occurred to you,&rdquo; I went on, &ldquo;that
+all the Hoyts in creation couldn&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;t it? But then that&rsquo;s inconsistent with the
+steam-crusher of the sale. That&rsquo;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&rsquo;re made,
+there&rsquo;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 <i>true colours</i>; and if you will not be softened
+by this last appeal, I can&rsquo;t think what is to become of
+your affectionate&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; and then the signature. This
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page233" id="page233"></a>233</span>
+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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s lade upon his bed, made me sit by him.
+Let&rsquo;s be a&rsquo; 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 <i>auld Kelvinside</i>.
+Sooth the tune to me, he said, though it was the
+Sabbath, and I had to sooth him &lsquo;Kelvin Grove,&rsquo; and he
+looked at his fiddle, the dear man. I cannae bear the
+sight of it, he&rsquo;ll never play it mair. O my lamb, come
+home to me, I&rsquo;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&rsquo;s touching, isn&rsquo;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&rsquo;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
+&rsquo;Martyrdom,&rsquo; 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&rsquo;re all
+beasts.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;All sons are, I guess,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;I have the same
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page234" id="page234"></a>234</span>
+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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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 <i>Flying Scud</i>,
+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, wizened 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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page235" id="page235"></a>235</span>
+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 <i>Flying Scud</i> in the San
+Francisco bar-room.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Nares,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve told you how I first saw Captain
+Trent in that saloon in &rsquo;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&rsquo;s the man
+I saw&rdquo;&mdash;and I laid the sketch before him&mdash;&ldquo;there&rsquo;s
+Trent of &rsquo;Frisco and there are his three hands. Find one
+of them in the photograph, and I&rsquo;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.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page236" id="page236"></a>236</span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It would explain everything,&rdquo; Nares replied, &ldquo;but
+for the steam-crusher. It&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;t you deceive yourself; neither your head nor mine
+is big enough to put a name on this business.&rdquo;</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page237" id="page237"></a>237</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XV</h3>
+
+<h5>THE CARGO OF THE <i>FLYING SCUD</i></h5>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="sc">In</span> 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
+<i>bourgeois</i>&mdash;the implicit or exclusive artist. That was a
+home word of Pinkerton&rsquo;s, deserving to be writ in letters
+of gold on the portico of every school of art: &ldquo;What I
+can&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page238" id="page238"></a>238</span>
+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&rsquo;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 confr�res
+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&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page239" id="page239"></a>239</span>
+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&rsquo;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 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 <i>Flying Scud</i>&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&rsquo;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 believe 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page240" id="page240"></a>240</span>
+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 <i>Flying Scud</i>. 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&rsquo;re getting your month&rsquo;s wages out
+of them the way it is, I don&rsquo;t,&rdquo; was his reply. &ldquo;However,
+they are all the men you&rsquo;ve got, and you&rsquo;re the
+supercargo.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>This, from a person of the captain&rsquo;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&rsquo;s two ways of making a donkey go&mdash;both
+good, I guess: the one&rsquo;s kicks and the other&rsquo;s carrots. Mr.
+Dodd&rsquo;s going to try the carrots. Well, my sons&rdquo;&mdash;and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page241" id="page241"></a>241</span>
+here he faced the men for the first time with his hands
+behind him&mdash;&ldquo;if that opium&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s seen this trick in the mail-boat, 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&rsquo;t say fairer than that,&rdquo; the captain
+admitted; &ldquo;and now the reward&rsquo;s offered you&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page242" id="page242"></a>242</span>
+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&rsquo;s
+likely to be right, for if he isn&rsquo;t where can the stuff be?
+On the other hand, if he&rsquo;s wrong we destroy a hundred
+and fifty tons of good rice for nothing. It&rsquo;s a point to be
+considered.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t hesitate,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;Let&rsquo;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&rsquo;s how I expected you to see it,&rdquo; returned Nares.
+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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page243" id="page243"></a>243</span>
+gawking creatures that struggled and died among their
+feet. We made a singular picture&mdash;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;ll
+make Mr. Dodd a millionaire 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page244" id="page244"></a>244</span>
+were slashed and disembowelled, the rice flowed to our
+knees in the ship&rsquo;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
+<i>Flying Scud</i>, 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 <i>Flying Scud</i> 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 <i>cache</i>; 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&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page245" id="page245"></a>245</span>
+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&mdash;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 a while 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&rsquo;t require to tell you the game&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;ve been pretty good friends, you and me, Mr.
+Dodd,&rdquo; he resumed. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve been going through the
+kind of thing that tries a man. We&rsquo;ve had the hardest
+kind of work, we&rsquo;ve been badly backed, and now we&rsquo;re
+badly beaten. And we&rsquo;ve fetched through without a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page246" id="page246"></a>246</span>
+word of disagreement. I don&rsquo;t say this to praise myself:
+it&rsquo;s my trade; it&rsquo;s what I&rsquo;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&mdash;day in, day out.
+And then see how you&rsquo;ve taken this disappointment,
+when everybody knows you must have been tautened
+up to shying-point! I wish you&rsquo;d let me tell you, Mr.
+Dodd, that you&rsquo;ve stood out mighty manly and handsomely
+in all this business, and made every one like you
+and admire you. And I wish you&rsquo;d let me tell you,
+besides, that I&rsquo;ve taken this wreck business as much to
+heart as you have; something kind of rises in my throat
+when I think we&rsquo;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&rsquo;t bring you ashore to sound my praises,&rdquo; he
+interrupted. &ldquo;We understand one another now, that&rsquo;s
+all; and I guess you can trust me. What I wished to
+speak about is more important, and it&rsquo;s got to be faced.
+What are we to do about the <i>Flying Scud</i> 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&rsquo;s
+surface, I guess I mean to find him.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;All you&rsquo;ve got to do is talk,&rdquo; said Nares; &ldquo;you can
+make the biggest kind of boom; it isn&rsquo;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&rsquo;ll
+be telegraphed by the column, and headlined, and frothed
+up, and denied by authority, and it&rsquo;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&rsquo; music-halls round
+Greenock. O, there&rsquo;s no doubt you can have a regular
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page247" id="page247"></a>247</span>
+domestic Judgment Day. The only point is whether you
+deliberately want to.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I deliberately don&rsquo;t want one thing:
+I deliberately don&rsquo;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 &lsquo;dead
+horse&rsquo;!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No doubt it might damage you in a business sense,&rdquo;
+the captain agreed; &ldquo;and I&rsquo;m pleased you take that
+view, for I&rsquo;ve turned kind of soft upon the job. There&rsquo;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&rsquo;d only collar a lot of old mutton-headed
+shell-backs that didn&rsquo;t know the back of the business
+from the front. I don&rsquo;t take much stock in mercantile
+Jack, you know that, but, poor devil, he&rsquo;s got to go where
+he&rsquo;s told; and if you make trouble, ten to one it&rsquo;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&rsquo;t, you see: there&rsquo;s a lot of queer corners in
+life, and my vote is to let the blame&rsquo; 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&rsquo;t keep them from talking.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Can&rsquo;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&rsquo;t keep them from talking, can&rsquo;t I? Well, I
+can make &rsquo;em talk separate, leastways. If a whole crew
+came talking, parties would listen; but if it&rsquo;s only one
+lone old shell-back, it&rsquo;s the usual yarn. And at least,
+they needn&rsquo;t talk before six months, or&mdash;if we have luck,
+and there&rsquo;s a whaler handy&mdash;three years. And by that
+time, Mr. Dodd, it&rsquo;s ancient history.&rdquo;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page248" id="page248"></a>248</span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s what they call Shanghaiing, isn&rsquo;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&rsquo;s one other person that might blab,&rdquo; said the
+captain. &ldquo;Though I don&rsquo;t believe she has anything left
+to tell.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And who is <i>she</i>?&rdquo; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The old girl there,&rdquo; he answered, pointing to the
+wreck; &ldquo;I know there&rsquo;s nothing in her; but somehow
+I&rsquo;m afraid of some one else&mdash;it&rsquo;s the last thing you&rsquo;d
+expect, so it&rsquo;s just the first that&rsquo;ll happen&mdash;some one
+dropping into this God-forgotten island where nobody
+drops in, waltzing into that wreck that we&rsquo;ve grown old
+with searching, stooping straight down, and picking right
+up the very thing that tells the story. What&rsquo;s that to
+me? you may ask, and why am I gone Soft Tommy on
+this Museum of Crooks? They&rsquo;ve smashed up you and
+Mr. Pinkerton; they&rsquo;ve turned my hair grey with conundrums
+they&rsquo;ve been up to larks, no doubt; and that&rsquo;s
+all I know of them&mdash;you say. Well, and that&rsquo;s just where
+it is. I don&rsquo;t know enough; I don&rsquo;t know what&rsquo;s uppermost
+it&rsquo;s just such a lot of miscellaneous eventualities as
+I don&rsquo;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&rsquo;s end. And
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page249" id="page249"></a>249</span>
+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&rsquo;t say so;
+but they&rsquo;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&mdash;the proper sailor&rsquo;s end.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Something bitter in the thought and in the speaker&rsquo;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&rsquo;t&mdash;don&rsquo;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&rsquo;s in the brig annexing chandlery
+and canvas, and there&rsquo;s some things in the <i>Norah</i>
+that want fixing against we go to sea. Would you like
+to be left here in the chicken-ranch? I&rsquo;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 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page250" id="page250"></a>250</span>
+a wide view of the lagoon, the bounding reef, the round
+horizon. Nearer hand I saw the sister islet, the wreck,
+the <i>Norah Creina</i>, and the <i>Norah&rsquo;s</i> boat already moving
+shoreward. For the sun was now low, flaming on the
+sea&rsquo;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>
+
+
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page251" id="page251"></a>251</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XVI</h3>
+
+<h5>IN WHICH I TURN SMUGGLER,
+AND THE CAPTAIN CASUIST</h5>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="sc">The</span> 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 <i>Flying Scud</i> 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 <i>Norah Creina</i> 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
+<i>Flying Scud</i>; 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page252" id="page252"></a>252</span>
+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 <i>Flying Scud</i> 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 look-out
+was stationed on the bowsprit end, another in the
+cross-trees; and the whole ship&rsquo;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;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page253" id="page253"></a>253</span>
+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&rsquo;s
+speech came to us across the water; and then a voice
+hailed us&mdash;</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&rsquo;s one of his
+crowd here, name of Speedy.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;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&rsquo;ve rather bad news for you, Mr. Dodd,&rdquo; said
+Fowler. &ldquo;Your firm&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page254" id="page254"></a>254</span>
+little capital, and when the strain came, you were bound
+to go. Pinkerton&rsquo;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 <i>Flying Scud</i> affair got in
+the papers with the rest; everybody&rsquo;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:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>&ldquo;<span class="sc">My dear Loudon</span>,&rdquo; ran the first, &ldquo;this will be handed you
+by your friend Speedy of the <i>Catamount</i>. 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&rsquo;t touch the ground; I kind of swim. Mamie is like
+Moses and Aaron that held up the other individual&rsquo;s arms. She
+carries me along like a horse and buggy. I am beating the record.</p>
+
+<p style="text-align: right; padding-right: 4em;">&ldquo;Your true partner,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">&ldquo;J. Pinkerton.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Number two was in a different style:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>&ldquo;<span class="sc">My dearest Loudon</span>,&mdash;How am I to prepare you for this
+dire intelligence? O, dear me, it will strike you to the earth.
+The flat has gone forth; our firm went bust at a quarter before
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page255" id="page255"></a>255</span>
+twelve. It was a bill of Bradley&rsquo;s (for two hundred dollars) 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&rsquo;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 <i>melted</i>. I give the liabilities&mdash;it&rsquo;s supposed they&rsquo;re all in&mdash;for
+the cowards were waiting, and the claims were filed like taking
+tickets to hear Patti. I don&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s all you have to do.</p>
+
+<p style="text-align: right; padding-right: 4em;">&ldquo;Yours ever,</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">&ldquo;J. Pinkerton.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The third was yet more altered:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>&ldquo;<span class="sc">My poor Loudon</span>,&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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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 <i>jeering</i>
+comments; it would make your blood boil, it was literally <i>inhumane</i>;
+wouldn&rsquo;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&rsquo;s
+personal appearance! The fellow said &mdash;&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&rsquo;t show up. Even <i>Thirteen Star</i>, 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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;t seem to see
+my way as plain as I could wish to. Or else my brain is gone soft.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page256" id="page256"></a>256</span>
+Loudon, if there should be any unpleasantness you can trust me
+to do the right thing and keep you clear. I&rsquo;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 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 <i>Flying
+Scud</i> 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 style="text-align: right; padding-right: 4em;">&ldquo;Your broken-hearted</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">&ldquo;Jim.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The last began without formality:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>&ldquo;This is the end of me commercially. I give up; my nerve
+has gone. I suppose I ought to be glad, for we&rsquo;re through the
+court. I don&rsquo;t know as ever I knew how, and I&rsquo;m sure I don&rsquo;t
+remember. If it pans out&mdash;the wreck, I mean&mdash;we&rsquo;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&rsquo;t suppose it&rsquo;s cowardice, Loudon. I&rsquo;m a
+sick man. Rest is what I must have. I&rsquo;ve worked hard all my
+life; I never spared myself, every dollar I ever made I&rsquo;ve coined
+my brains for it. I&rsquo;ve never done a mean thing; I&rsquo;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&rsquo;t I shall lie right down here in my tracks, and die of worry
+and brain trouble. Don&rsquo;t mistake, that&rsquo;s so. If there are any
+pickings at all, <i>trust Speedy</i>; don&rsquo;t let the creditors get wind of
+what there is. I helped you when you were down, help me now.
+Don&rsquo;t deceive yourself; you&rsquo;ve got to help me right now or never.
+I am clerking, and <i>not fit to cipher</i>. Mamie&rsquo;s typewriting at the
+Phoenix Guano Exchange, down town. The light is right out of
+my life. I know you&rsquo;ll not like to do what I propose. Think only
+of this, that it&rsquo;s life or death for</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">&ldquo;Jim Pinkerton.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<i>P.S.</i>&mdash;Our figure was seven per cent. O, what a fall was
+there! Well, well, it&rsquo;s past mending; I don&rsquo;t want to whine.
+But, Loudon, I don&rsquo;t 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 <i>useless at that</i>. I know I would have fired such a clerk inside
+of forty minutes in <i>my</i> time. But <i>my</i> time&rsquo;s over. I can only
+cling on to you. Don&rsquo;t fail</p>
+
+<p class="rt sc">&ldquo;Jim Pinkerton.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>There was yet one more postscript, yet one more outburst
+of self-pity and pathetic adjuration; and a doctor&rsquo;s
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page257" id="page257"></a>257</span>
+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
+raising 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page258" id="page258"></a>258</span>
+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 yow 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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s large enough text,&rdquo; replied the captain. &ldquo;It
+means you&rsquo;re to stake your pile on Speedy, hand him over
+all you can, and hold your tongue. I almost wish you
+hadn&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s San Quentin, to start in with,&rdquo; said the
+captain; &ldquo;and suppose you clear the penitentiary, there&rsquo;s
+the nasty taste in the mouth. The figure&rsquo;s big enough to
+make bad trouble, but it&rsquo;s not big enough to be picturesque
+and I should guess a man always feels kind
+of small who has sold himself under six ciphers. That
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page259" id="page259"></a>259</span>
+would be my way at least; there&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;t I can&rsquo;t see but what you&rsquo;ve got to support and
+bed and board with him to the end of time. I guess it
+would weary me. Then there&rsquo;s Mr. Pinkerton, of course.
+He&rsquo;s been a good friend to you, hasn&rsquo;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&rsquo;s a consideration,&rdquo; said the captain.
+&ldquo;As a matter of principle, I wouldn&rsquo;t look at this business
+at the money. &lsquo;Not good enough,&rsquo; 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&rsquo;t seem to
+care a cent about his state of health; and you&rsquo;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&rsquo;s no sort
+of risk to Mr. Pinkerton. Well, you&rsquo;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&rsquo;s an ugly way to put it,&rdquo; I objected, &ldquo;and
+perhaps hardly fair. There&rsquo;s right and wrong to be
+considered.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t know the parties,&rdquo; replied Nares; &ldquo;and I&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page260" id="page260"></a>260</span>
+opium-smuggling with your head down; and a good deal
+of fussing I&rsquo;ve listened to, that you hadn&rsquo;t more of it to
+smuggle. Now, maybe your partner&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;t see it!&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t know Jim.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, you <i>will</i> see,&rdquo; said Nares. &ldquo;And now, here&rsquo;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&rsquo;t see that it amounts to a
+hill of beans&mdash;I don&rsquo;t believe it&rsquo;ll pay their car-fares all
+round. And don&rsquo;t you think you&rsquo;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&rsquo;ll have to own up you
+made by smuggling; and, mind I you&rsquo;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&rsquo;s out of your character; so there&rsquo;s one
+thing less to be considered.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I dare say you&rsquo;ll scarce believe me,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;but I
+feel that a positive relief.&rdquo;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page261" id="page261"></a>261</span></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&rsquo;ll have no trouble from
+me&mdash;you&rsquo;ve trouble enough of your own; and I&rsquo;m friend
+enough, when a friend&rsquo;s in need, to shut my eyes and go
+right where he tells me. All the same, I&rsquo;m rather queerly
+fixed. My owners&rsquo;ll have to rank with the rest on their
+charter-party. Here am I, their representative! and I
+have to look over the ship&rsquo;s side while the bankrupt walks
+his assets ashore in Mr. Speedy&rsquo;s hat-box. It&rsquo;s a thing
+I wouldn&rsquo;t do for James G. Elaine; but I&rsquo;ll do it for you,
+Mr. Dodd, and only sorry I can&rsquo;t do more.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Thank you, captain; my mind is made up,&rdquo; said I.
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll go straight, <i>ruat c&oelig;lum</i>! I never understood that
+old tag before to-night.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I hope it isn&rsquo;t my business that decides you?&rdquo; asked
+the captain.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll never deny it was an element,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;I hope,
+I hope I&rsquo;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&rsquo;s an end. I&rsquo;ll try and work for him when I get to
+&rsquo;Frisco, I suppose; and I suppose I&rsquo;ll fail, and look on at
+his death, and kick myself: it can&rsquo;t be helped&mdash;I&rsquo;ll fight
+it on this line.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t say as you&rsquo;re wrong,&rdquo; replied Nares, &ldquo;and
+I&rsquo;ll be hanged if I know if you&rsquo;re right. It suits me, anyway.
+And look here&mdash;hadn&rsquo;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&rsquo;t think of the creditors,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;But I&rsquo;ve
+kept this pair so long I haven&rsquo;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.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page262" id="page262"></a>262</span>
+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 thirty 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 <i>Norah
+Creina</i>; 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page263" id="page263"></a>263</span>
+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>
+
+
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page264" id="page264"></a>264</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XVII</h3>
+
+<h5>LIGHT FROM THE MAN OF WAR</h5>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="sc">In</span> 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&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page265" id="page265"></a>265</span>
+cocktails, a dinner, a <i>hula-hula</i>, 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&rsquo;) and put down Fowler&rsquo;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&rsquo;s excitement. The young
+bloods, many of whom were still far from sober, had taken
+the kitchen into their own hands, <i>vice</i> the Chinaman
+deposed; and since each was engaged upon a dish of his
+own, and none had the least scruple in demolishing his
+neighbour&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page266" id="page266"></a>266</span>
+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&rsquo;s
+eyes, and that brand on his countenance that comes of
+solitary living; and a visitor, an oldish, oratorical fellow,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page267" id="page267"></a>267</span>
+in the smart tropical array of the British man-o&rsquo;-war&rsquo;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&rsquo;t have been born an Englishman,&rdquo;
+was one of his sentiments, &ldquo;damn me! I&rsquo;d rather &lsquo;a&rsquo;
+been born a Frenchy! I&rsquo;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&rsquo;d
+rather be a brute beast than what I&rsquo;d be a Liberal,&rdquo; he
+said; &ldquo;carrying banners and that! a pig&rsquo;s got more
+sense. Why, look at our chief engineer&mdash;they do say he
+carried a banner with his own &rsquo;ands: &lsquo;Hooroar for
+Gladstone!&rsquo; I suppose, or &lsquo;Down with the Aristocracy!&rsquo;
+What &rsquo;arm does the aristocracy do? Show me a country
+any good without one! Not the States; why, it&rsquo;s the
+&rsquo;ome of corruption! I knew a man&mdash;he was a good man,
+&rsquo;ome-born&mdash;who was signal-quartermaster in the <i>Wyandotte</i>.
+He told me he could never have got there if he
+hadn&rsquo;t have &lsquo;run with the boys&rsquo;&mdash;told it me as I&rsquo;m
+telling you. Now, we&rsquo;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&rsquo;t say
+so!&rdquo; he exclaimed; &ldquo;well, I give you my word of honour
+I&rsquo;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&rsquo;re ahead of us in lacing
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page268" id="page268"></a>268</span>
+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
+<i>Flying Scud</i>, wasn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You may say so,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;And a blessed good
+job for the Flying-Scuds. It&rsquo;s a God-forsaken spot that
+Midway Island.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;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&rsquo;lem&rsquo;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, the captain&mdash;was precious scared
+of the place at night. Well, there&rsquo;s nasty filthy currents
+round that Midway; <i>you</i> know, as has been there; and
+one on &rsquo;em must have set us down. Leastways, about
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page269" id="page269"></a>269</span>
+six bells, when we had ought to been miles away, some
+one sees a sail, and lo and be&rsquo;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&rsquo;n flying, union down.
+It was breaking &rsquo;igh on the reef, and we laid well out, and
+sent a couple of boats. I didn&rsquo;t go in neither; only stood
+and looked on: but it seems they was all badly scared
+and muddled, and didn&rsquo;t know which end was uppermost.
+One on &rsquo;em kep&rsquo; snivelling and wringing of his
+&rsquo;ands; he come on board, all of a sop like a monthly
+nurse. That Trent, he come first, with his &rsquo;and in a
+bloody rag. I was near &rsquo;em as I am to you; and I could
+make out he was all to bits&mdash;&rsquo;eard his breath rattle in his
+blooming lungs as he come down the ladder. Yes, they
+was a scared lot, small blame to &rsquo;em, <i>I</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&rsquo;-war&rsquo;s
+man, who probably confounded the word with a
+familiar oath. &ldquo;A good name too; only it weren&rsquo;t his.
+He was a gen&rsquo;lem&rsquo;n born, sir, as had gone maskewerading.
+One of our officers knowed him at &rsquo;ome, reckonises him,
+steps up, &rsquo;olds out his &rsquo;and right off, and says he, &lsquo;&rsquo;Ullo,
+Norrie, old chappie!&rsquo; he says. The other was coming
+up, as bold as look at it; didn&rsquo;t seem put out&mdash;that&rsquo;s
+where blood tells, sir! Well, no sooner does he &rsquo;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. &lsquo;Take him
+down to my berth,&rsquo; says Mr. Sebright. &lsquo;&rsquo;Tis poor old
+Norrie Carthew,&rsquo; 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&rsquo;s reply:
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page270" id="page270"></a>270</span>
+&ldquo;Eton and &rsquo;Arrow bred; and might have been a
+bar&rsquo;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>I</i> didn&rsquo;t know he was
+a gen&rsquo;lem&rsquo;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 &rsquo;Frisco, was he not?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Sick, or sorry, or something,&rdquo; returned my informant.
+&ldquo;My belief, he didn&rsquo;t hanker after showing up.
+He kep&rsquo; close; the ward-room steward, what took his
+meals in, told me he ate nex&rsquo; to nothing; and he was
+fetched ashore at &rsquo;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 &rsquo;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&rsquo;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 &rsquo;arm in them from what
+I see. There was one &rsquo;Ardy there: colonial born he
+was, and had been through a power of money. There
+was no nonsense about &rsquo;Ardy; he had been up, and he
+had come down, and took it so. His &rsquo;eart was in the
+right place; and he was well-informed, and knew French;
+and Latin, I believe, like a native! I liked that &rsquo;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&rsquo;t much to say, I reckon,&rdquo; replied the
+man-o&rsquo;-war&rsquo;s man. &ldquo;It was all in the papers. &rsquo;Ardy
+used to yarn most about the coins he had gone through;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page271" id="page271"></a>271</span>
+he had lived with bookmakers, and jockeys, and pugs,
+and actors, and all that&mdash;a precious low lot,&rdquo; added this
+judicious person. &ldquo;But it&rsquo;s about here my &rsquo;orse is
+moored, and by your leave I&rsquo;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&rsquo;s ashore to-day,&rdquo; said the sailor. &ldquo;I
+took up a bag for him to the &rsquo;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&rsquo;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 <i>Flying Scud</i>;
+just such a man, I reasoned, would be capable of just
+such starts and crises, and I inclined to think that
+Goddedaal (of Carthew) was the mainspring of the
+mystery.</p>
+
+<p>One thing was plain: as long as the <i>Tempest</i> 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page272" id="page272"></a>272</span>
+the hotel. It was near nine o&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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 <i>Flying Scud</i> was burned.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know&mdash;I&mdash;I don&rsquo;t understand you,&rdquo; stammered
+my victim. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t have any friends in Honolulu,
+don&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page273" id="page273"></a>273</span>
+make; and have to trouble you for Mr. Carthew&rsquo;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>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+
+<p><i>Norris Carthew,</i></p>
+          <p style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>Stallbridge-le-Carthew,</i></p>
+                                  <p style="margin-left: 12em;"><i>Dorset.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>I might have cried victory, the field of battle and
+some of the enemy&rsquo;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 <i>Tempest</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Dear Sir,&rdquo; it began, &ldquo;we are all naturally very much
+interested in the wreck of the <i>Flying Scud</i>, and as soon
+as I mentioned that I had the pleasure of making your
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page274" id="page274"></a>274</span>
+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&rsquo;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 <i>Flying Scud</i>, but to
+undergo the scrutiny of some one interested in Carthew&mdash;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&rsquo;s crew from the <i>Norah Creina</i> conveyed
+me under the guns of the <i>Tempest</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The ward-room appeared pleased to see me; Sebright&rsquo;s
+brother officers, in contrast to himself, took a boyish
+interest in my cruise; and much was talked of the <i>Flying
+Scud</i>; 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page275" id="page275"></a>275</span>
+troubled me. This was a tall, rugged, plain man, on the
+wrong side of fifty, already grey, 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 grey eyes, but resolutely held his peace.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I want to talk to you about the <i>Flying Scud</i> 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.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page276" id="page276"></a>276</span></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
+<i>Flying Scud</i> 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
+forego 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&rsquo;s a grave question what we might have
+done&mdash;it&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page277" id="page277"></a>277</span>
+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&rsquo;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&mdash;</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 <i>Flying Scud</i>;
+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>
+
+
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page278" id="page278"></a>278</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XVIII</h3>
+
+<h5>CROSS-QUESTIONS AND CROOKED ANSWERS</h5>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="sc">I have</span> 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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page279" id="page279"></a>279</span>
+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&rsquo;re home at last!&rdquo; he gulped, and
+kept patting my shoulder with his hand.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve no good news for you, Jim,&rdquo; said I.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;ve come&mdash;that&rsquo;s the good news that I want,&rdquo; he
+replied. &ldquo;O how I have longed for you, Loudon!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I couldn&rsquo;t do what you wrote me,&rdquo; I said, lowering
+my voice. &ldquo;The creditors have it all. I couldn&rsquo;t
+do it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;S-s-h!&rdquo; returned Jim. &ldquo;I was crazy when I 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&rsquo;t
+know anything. It&rsquo;s the <i>goodness</i> of the woman, it&rsquo;s a
+revelation!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s all right,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s how I hoped to
+hear you, Jim.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And so the <i>Flying Scud</i> was a fraud,&rdquo; he resumed.
+&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;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.&mdash;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 kerb-stone broker
+with water on the brain; another said I was a tree-frog
+that had got into the same meadow with Longhurst, and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page280" id="page280"></a>280</span>
+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 <i>Flying Scud</i>.&mdash;How did it
+exactly figure out, anyway? I don&rsquo;t seem to catch on to
+that story, Loudon.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The devil you don&rsquo;t!&rdquo; thinks I to myself; and then
+aloud, &ldquo;You see, we had neither one of us good luck. I
+didn&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s at Speedy&rsquo;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 <i>Flying Scud</i>. I
+hastened accordingly to Bush Street. Mrs. Speedy,
+already rejoicing in the return of a spouse, hailed me with
+acclamation. &ldquo;And it&rsquo;s beautiful you&rsquo;re looking, Mr.
+Dodd, my dear,&rdquo; she was kind enough to say. &ldquo;And a
+muracle 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 never 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page281" id="page281"></a>281</span>
+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 &lsquo;crack on&rsquo; (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&rsquo;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&rsquo;ve done our best, and that&rsquo;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&rsquo;t take your money, Mr. Loudon,&rdquo; said
+Mamie.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Jim?&rdquo; cried I. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s got to. Didn&rsquo;t I take his?&rdquo;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page282" id="page282"></a>282</span></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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s all past and
+done with, anyway; and what I want to get at is the
+facts about the wreck. I don&rsquo;t seem to understand it;
+appears to me like as there was something underneath.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;There was nothing <i>in</i> it, anyway,&rdquo; I said, with a
+forced laugh.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s all,&rdquo; said I.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page283" id="page283"></a>283</span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But how do you explain it?&rdquo; he asked.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t explain it,&rdquo; said I.</p>
+
+<p>Mamie wagged her head ominously.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But, Great C�sar&rsquo;s ghost, the money was offered!&rdquo;
+cried Jim. &ldquo;It won&rsquo;t do, Loudon; it&rsquo;s nonsense on the
+face of it! I don&rsquo;t say but what you and Nares did your
+best; I&rsquo;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&rsquo;ll see,&rdquo; said Jim. &ldquo;Next time I go myself.
+I&rsquo;ll take Mamie for the trip: Longhurst won&rsquo;t refuse
+me the expense of a schooner. You wait till I get the
+searching of her.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But you can&rsquo;t search her!&rdquo; cried I. &ldquo;She&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;t know; it didn&rsquo;t seem to matter; we had
+got all there was to get,&rdquo; said I.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s the very point,&rdquo; cried Jim. &ldquo;It was quite
+plain you hadn&rsquo;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 <i>were</i> sure; that&rsquo;s all that I can
+say.&rdquo;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page284" id="page284"></a>284</span></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&rsquo;t quite make
+out, Loudon, is, that you don&rsquo;t seem to appreciate the
+peculiarities of the thing,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;It doesn&rsquo;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&rsquo;s just a sort of a shadow of an excuse;
+for it <i>is</i> bewildering&mdash;even to me, Loudon, with my
+trained business intelligence. For God&rsquo;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.
+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&rsquo;s representative and
+with my husband&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page285" id="page285"></a>285</span>
+to us with nothing. You ask that we should trust you;
+you do not seem to understand&mdash;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s me you&rsquo;re
+striking; it&rsquo;s only me you hurt. You don&rsquo;t know, you
+cannot understand these things. Why, to-day, if it hadn&rsquo;t
+been for Loudon, I couldn&rsquo;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&rsquo;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 <i>Flying
+Scud</i>&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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page286" id="page286"></a>286</span>
+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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;t think hard of Mamie,&rdquo; he pleaded. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s the
+way she&rsquo;s made; it&rsquo;s her high-toned loyalty. And of
+course I know it&rsquo;s all right. I know your sterling character;
+but you didn&rsquo;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&rsquo;s a gallant little woman and a loyal wife: and I
+thought her splendid. My story was as fishy as the devil.
+I&rsquo;ll never think the less of either her or you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;ll blow over; it must blow over,&rdquo; said he.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It never can,&rdquo; I returned, sighing: &ldquo;and don&rsquo;t you
+try to make it! Don&rsquo;t name me, unless it&rsquo;s with an
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page287" id="page287"></a>287</span>
+oath. And get home to her right away. Good-bye, my
+best of friends. Good-bye, 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&rsquo; I had no means of guessing;
+and, the &ldquo;Poodle Dog&rdquo; 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&rsquo;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>
+
+<div class="quote">
+<p>&ldquo;<span class="sc">Dear Sir</span>,&mdash;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&rsquo;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
+&rsquo;by&rsquo; with him now; &lsquo;and high time too,&rsquo; 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 &lsquo;Jeannie&rsquo;s yin,&rsquo; with
+strong expressions of regard. &lsquo;He was the only one I ever liket
+of the hale jing-bang,&rsquo; 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;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page288" id="page288"></a>288</span>
+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 style="text-align: right; padding-right: 6em;">&ldquo;I am, dear sir, yours truly,</p>
+<p class="rt sc">&ldquo;W. Rutherford Gregg.&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+
+<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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page289" id="page289"></a>289</span>
+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>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center f80">On no condition is extradition<br />
+      Allowed in Callao!</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="noind">&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 wharf-side
+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.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page290" id="page290"></a>290</span>
+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.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page291" id="page291"></a>291</span></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&rsquo;ve
+been playing fast and loose with you, Loudon; I&rsquo;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&rsquo;s the point, that&rsquo;s my shame;
+that&rsquo;s what killed me this afternoon when Mamie was
+treating you so, and my conscience was telling me all
+the time, &lsquo;Thou art the man.&rsquo;&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&rsquo;t know how I&rsquo;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&rsquo;t? Can&rsquo;t you see we&rsquo;re doomed?
+And anyway, that&rsquo;s not my point. It&rsquo;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&rsquo;t think what hangs
+by it!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s the worst of all,&rdquo; said Jim, like a man in a
+dream; &ldquo;I can&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;ll shock your delicate self-respect,&rdquo; he
+said; &ldquo;but what was I to do? Things looked so bad.
+The receiver&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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page292" id="page292"></a>292</span>
+right out, and I guess I lost my head. You weren&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rdquo;&mdash;as I spoke I slung
+the cold mutton in the empty grate&mdash;&ldquo;and let&rsquo;s all go
+and have a champagne supper. I&rsquo;ve dined&mdash;I&rsquo;m sure I
+don&rsquo;t remember what I had; I&rsquo;d dine again ten scores of
+times upon a night like this. Read it, you blazing ass!
+I&rsquo;m not insane.&mdash;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&rsquo;ll tell you what, after
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page293" id="page293"></a>293</span>
+the supper, let&rsquo;s go to some place where there&rsquo;s a band,
+and I&rsquo;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 Vapor Valley or to Monterey to-morrow,&rdquo; said I.
+&mdash;&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.&mdash;Mamie, you were right,
+my dear; I was rich all the time, and didn&rsquo;t know it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page294" id="page294"></a>294</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XIX</h3>
+
+<h5>TRAVELS WITH A SHYSTER</h5>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="sc">The</span> absorbing and disastrous adventure of the <i>Flying
+Scud</i> 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 <i>Te Deum</i>, 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&rsquo;ll find there&rsquo;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&rsquo;s a kind of a hold for an idle
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page295" id="page295"></a>295</span>
+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 M&rsquo;Bride 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 &ldquo;ha-ha&rdquo;
+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 seabirds
+about Midway Island. The bruises on our hands
+were not yet healed; and there we sat, waited on by
+elaborate darkies, eating pompino and drinking iced
+champagne.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Think of our dinners on the <i>Norah</i>, 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, &lsquo;Eight bells!&rsquo;&mdash;and the whole thing vanish.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, it&rsquo;s the other thing that has done that,&rdquo; I
+replied. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s all bygone now, all dead and buried.
+Amen! say I.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know that, Mr. Dodd; and to tell you the
+fact, I don&rsquo;t believe it,&rdquo; said Nares. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s more
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page296" id="page296"></a>296</span>
+<i>Flying Scud</i> in the oven; and the baker&rsquo;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&rsquo;t know, a good deal that we do, and
+suspects the balance. There&rsquo;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&rsquo;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 <i>you</i> 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page297" id="page297"></a>297</span>
+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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page298" id="page298"></a>298</span>
+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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&mdash;rich, terrified, practically
+in hiding&mdash;who had been willing to pay ten thousand
+pounds for the bones of the <i>Flying Scud</i>. 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&rsquo;s
+name is still a mystery; perhaps some sailor on the
+<i>Tempest</i>, 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page299" id="page299"></a>299</span>
+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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;m really awfully sorry,&rdquo; said Sebright. &ldquo;I&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page300" id="page300"></a>300</span>
+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 <i>Flying Scud</i> 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 <i>Flying Scud</i>. 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 <i>City
+of Denver</i>. 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.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page301" id="page301"></a>301</span></p>
+
+<p>And for all that, I was close on the heels of an absurd
+adventure. My neighbour at table that evening was a
+&rsquo;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! &lsquo;Harry D. Bellairs?&rsquo; That&rsquo;s
+the name? He&rsquo;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 leave 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;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page302" id="page302"></a>302</span></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;&lsquo;<i>And the tall cataract haunted me like a passion</i>,&rsquo;&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;<i>Roll
+on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll!</i>&rsquo;&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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page303" id="page303"></a>303</span>
+the &ldquo;Sorrows of Werther&rdquo;; &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, 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 <i>Go-eath</i>? I am interested in that, because upon
+the title-page the usual initials are omitted, and it runs
+simply &lsquo;by <i>Go-eath</i>.&rsquo; 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 C�sar 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&rsquo;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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page304" id="page304"></a>304</span>
+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&mdash;necessity
+stalking at his back, famine (his old pursuer)
+talking in his ear; and I used to wonder whether I more
+admired or more 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&rsquo;s Christian Association
+and in all his early years was the model for a
+good story-book. His landlady&rsquo;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&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page305" id="page305"></a>305</span>
+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 this 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&rsquo;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.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page306" id="page306"></a>306</span>
+&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 millstone 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&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page307" id="page307"></a>307</span>
+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 zig-zags,
+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?
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page308" id="page308"></a>308</span>
+Who was to guess that one was a black-mailer,
+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 <i>ism</i> 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 in 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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page309" id="page309"></a>309</span>
+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&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page310" id="page310"></a>310</span>
+delight of the American rambler; to which he seems
+guided by an instinct not less surprising than the setter&rsquo;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 <i>impromptu</i>
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page311" id="page311"></a>311</span>
+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&rsquo;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 Whitaker&rsquo;s Almanack, 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-laced
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page312" id="page312"></a>312</span>
+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;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page313" id="page313"></a>313</span></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&rsquo;t sound encouraging,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;It may
+be worth while to apply to the police, but it doesn&rsquo;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&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page314" id="page314"></a>314</span>
+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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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 &rsquo;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.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page315" id="page315"></a>315</span></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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;m on the trail,
+his trail or yours; I smell blood, I&rsquo;ll follow it on my
+hands and knees, I&rsquo;ll starve to follow it! I&rsquo;ll hunt you
+down, hunt you, hunt you down! If I were strong, I&rsquo;d
+tear your vitals out, here in this room&mdash;tear them out&mdash;I&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page316" id="page316"></a>316</span>
+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&rsquo;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&mdash;that of his latent and essential
+madness.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page317" id="page317"></a>317</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XX</h3>
+
+<h5>STALLBRIDGE-LE-CARTHEW</h5>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="sc">Long</span> 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 chalkdown,
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page318" id="page318"></a>318</span>
+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 fa�ade 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&rsquo;s anteroom.</p>
+
+<p>The &ldquo;Carthew Arms,&rdquo; the small, but very comfortable
+inn, was a mere appendage and outpost of the family
+whose name it bore. Engraved portraits of bygone
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page319" id="page319"></a>319</span>
+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&rsquo;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 archdeaconry; 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 goodwill;
+and two pieces of news fell in which changed my resignation
+to alacrity. It appeared, in the first place, that Mr.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page320" id="page320"></a>320</span>
+Norris was from home &ldquo;travelling&rdquo;; 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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s
+sire.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He told me, sir,&rdquo; continued the gratified under-gardener,
+&ldquo;that he had often read of the &lsquo;stately &rsquo;omes of
+England,&rsquo; but ours was the first he had the chance to
+see. When he came to the &rsquo;ead of the long alley, he
+fetched his breath. &lsquo;This is indeed a lordly domain!&rsquo;
+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&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page321" id="page321"></a>321</span>
+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&rsquo;t&mdash;no, that&rsquo;s impossible, he could never have had
+the impudence. His name was not Bellairs?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t &rsquo;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&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page322" id="page322"></a>322</span>
+mean&mdash;died less than a year ago; Lord Tillibody, her
+ladyship&rsquo;s brother, two months after; and then there
+was the sad business about the young gentleman. Killed
+in the &rsquo;unting-fleld, sir; and her ladyship&rsquo;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&rsquo;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 <i>did</i> seem glad to see
+him,&rdquo; he pursued, &ldquo;and we were all pleased, I&rsquo;m sure;
+for no one knows the young gentleman but what likes him.
+Ah, sir, it didn&rsquo;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.
+&rsquo;Denman,&rsquo; he said to Mr. Denman, &lsquo;Denman, I&rsquo;ll never
+come back,&rsquo; he said, and shook him by the &rsquo;and. I
+wouldn&rsquo;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
+<i>Flying Scud</i>.</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;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page323" id="page323"></a>323</span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;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.&mdash;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
+drily.</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
+&rsquo;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
+<i>Flying Scud</i>.</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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page324" id="page324"></a>324</span>
+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
+fa�ade 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&rsquo;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 &rsquo;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&rsquo;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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page325" id="page325"></a>325</span>
+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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s ears the turn-up
+was &rsquo;orrible,&rdquo; continued Mr. Higgs. &ldquo;I remember it
+as if it was yesterday. The bell was rung after her la&rsquo;ship
+was gone, which I answered it myself, supposing it were
+the coffee. There was Mr. Carthew on his feet. &lsquo;&rsquo;Iggs,&rsquo;
+he says, pointing with his stick, for he had a turn of the
+gout, &lsquo;order the dog-cart instantly for this son of mine
+which has disgraced hisself.&rsquo; Mr. Norris say nothink:
+he sit there with his &rsquo;ead down, making belief to be looking
+at a walnut. You might have bowled me over with
+a straw,&rdquo; said Mr. Higgs.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page326" id="page326"></a>326</span></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 call really wrong in his poor life. The &rsquo;ole affair was
+a disgrace. It was all rank favouritising.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Mrs. &rsquo;Iggs! Mrs. &rsquo;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. &rsquo;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&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page327" id="page327"></a>327</span>
+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, on 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;ch�teau,&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.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Naughty man, to &rsquo;teal my &rsquo;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&rsquo;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 &rsquo;All, tell Mr. Denman there&rsquo;s
+a connaisseer in the &rsquo;ouse, and ask him if one of the young
+gentleman 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;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page328" id="page328"></a>328</span></p>
+
+<p>Half an hour later Mr. Denman arrived himself with
+a most unconscionable volume under his arm.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ah, sir,&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;when I &rsquo;eard you was a collector
+I dropped all. It&rsquo;s a saying of mine, Mr. Dodsley,
+that collecting stamps makes all collectors kin. It&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s exchanges, as in those of little
+Agnes, the same peculiarity was to be remarked,&mdash;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 almost the whole name spelt out to me; it seemed
+familiar too; and yet for some time I could not bridge
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page329" id="page329"></a>329</span>
+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-Bi�re, 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 <i>Flying
+Scud</i>. 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>
+
+
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page330" id="page330"></a>330</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXI</h3>
+
+<h5>FACE TO FACE</h5>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="sc">I fell</span> from the skies on Barbizon about two o&rsquo;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&rsquo;re the last man I
+expected to find here.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You won&rsquo;t find me here long,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;&lsquo;<i>King
+Pandion he is dead; all his friends are lapped in lead.</i>&rsquo;
+For men of our antiquity, the poor old shop is played
+out.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;<i>I have had playmates, I have had companions</i>,&rsquo;&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;&lsquo;<i>All, all are
+gone, the old familiar faces.</i>&rsquo; 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;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page331" id="page331"></a>331</span></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&rsquo;t sweep us from his
+premises.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Perhaps we weren&rsquo;t so bad,&rdquo; I suggested.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;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&rsquo;s a very pleasing creature, rather dim, and dull, and
+genteel, but really pleasing. He is very British, though,
+the artless Briton! Perhaps you&rsquo;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&rsquo;s one of his weaknesses; another is to be
+incalculably rich. He has taken Masson&rsquo;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 <i>vins fins</i> 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page332" id="page332"></a>332</span>
+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&rsquo;s well on for 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&rsquo;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 &Pi;, and the side-board,
+and the aphasic piano, and the panels on the wall.
+There were Romeo and Juliet, Antwerp from the river,
+Enfleld&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page333" id="page333"></a>333</span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Madden,&rdquo; he repeated.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Has he travelled much?&rdquo; I inquired.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I haven&rsquo;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&rsquo;ll never suit you, Dodd; you like more head on
+your liquor. You&rsquo;ll find him as dull as ditchwater.&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.&mdash;&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&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page334" id="page334"></a>334</span>
+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&mdash;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&rsquo;h�te. 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 Ch�teau Siron, a vintage from
+which I had been long estranged, startled me into speech.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;O, this&rsquo;ll never do!&rdquo; I cried, in English.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Dreadful stuff, isn&rsquo;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&rsquo;t; but it&rsquo;s fairly palatable,
+and there&rsquo;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.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page335" id="page335"></a>335</span></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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;t
+you?&rdquo; he resumed.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; cried I, &ldquo;you have heard from Dr. 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&rsquo;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&rsquo;ll be more comfortable over at my
+place.&mdash;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page336" id="page336"></a>336</span>
+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&rsquo;t be explained.
+They were a crowd of small dealers at Lloyd&rsquo;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&rsquo;re all hopelessly
+muddled; and when they meet each other they don&rsquo;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&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page337" id="page337"></a>337</span>
+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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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 post-mark.
+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&rsquo;ll wonder how I can sleep. I&rsquo;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&rsquo;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>
+
+
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page338" id="page338"></a>338</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXII</h3>
+
+<h5>THE REMITTANCE MAN</h5>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="sc">Singleton Carthew</span>, 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&rsquo;s intolerance of stupidity in others; the
+vain man&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s promises awoke no echo in his
+bosom, the world&rsquo;s activities and the world&rsquo;s distinctions
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page339" id="page339"></a>339</span>
+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&rsquo;t really matter, don&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page340" id="page340"></a>340</span>
+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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;ll tell you what, father,&rdquo; said Norris at last, &ldquo;I
+don&rsquo;t think this is going to do. I think you had better
+let me take to painting. It&rsquo;s the only thing I take a spark
+of interest in. I shall never be steady as long as I&rsquo;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&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page341" id="page341"></a>341</span>
+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>I told you so</i>&rdquo;: he was content
+with thinking, &ldquo;<i>Just as I expected</i>.&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&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page342" id="page342"></a>342</span>
+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. <i>Remittance men</i>, 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&mdash;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.&mdash;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&rsquo;s memory. &ldquo;That three minutes&rsquo;
+talk was all the education I ever had worth talking of,&rdquo;
+says he. &ldquo;It was all life in a nutshell. Confound it,&rdquo; I
+thought, &ldquo;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&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page343" id="page343"></a>343</span>
+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 nurserymaids
+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 black-guards&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&mdash;the
+loitering women, the lurking men, the sudden outburst
+of screams, the sound of flying feet. &ldquo;You mayn&rsquo;t believe
+it,&rdquo; says Carthew, &ldquo;but I got to that pitch that I didn&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page344" id="page344"></a>344</span>
+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 gallows-birds; 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&rsquo;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 that he might not always be so
+fortunate.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;They&rsquo;re a dyngerous lot of people about this park.
+My word! it doesn&rsquo;t do to ply with them!&rdquo; he observed,
+in that <i>rycy Austrylian</i> English, which (as it has received
+the imprimatur of Mr. Froude) we should all make haste
+to imitate.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why, I&rsquo;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&rsquo;m out of a plyce myself,&rdquo; said Hemstead.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page345" id="page345"></a>345</span></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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;t pass the doctors.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, what do <i>you</i> think of the ryleways, then?&rdquo;
+asked Hemstead.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What do <i>you</i> think of them, if you come to that?&rdquo;
+asked Carthew.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;O, <i>I</i> don&rsquo;t think of them; I don&rsquo;t go in for manual
+labour,&rdquo; said the little man proudly. &ldquo;But if a man don&rsquo;t
+mind that, he&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page346" id="page346"></a>346</span>
+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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page347" id="page347"></a>347</span>
+plenty of physical exertion, a continual instancy of toil&mdash;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 dilettante, was
+soon remarked, praised, and advanced. The engineer
+swore by him and pointed him out for an example. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve
+a new chum, up here,&rdquo; Norris heard him saying, &ldquo;a young
+swell. He&rsquo;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&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page348" id="page348"></a>348</span>
+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&rsquo;ve had luck
+yourself.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;My word, no!&rdquo; replied the little man. &ldquo;I just sit
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page349" id="page349"></a>349</span>
+here and read the <i>Dead Bird</i>. It&rsquo;s the depression in
+tryde, you see. There&rsquo;s no positions goin&rsquo; 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&rsquo; a
+billiard-marker. It&rsquo;s no account; these lyte hours are
+no use for a man&rsquo;s health. I won&rsquo;t be no man&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s
+worth of flowers in his button-hole. 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 <i>Tommy</i>) 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page350" id="page350"></a>350</span>
+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&rsquo;m just going to have lunch at the Paris House,&rdquo;
+returned Carthew. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a long time since I have had a
+decent meal.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Splendid scheme!&rdquo; said Hadden. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve only had
+breakfast half an hour ago; but we&rsquo;ll have a private room,
+and I&rsquo;ll manage to pick something. It&rsquo;ll brace me up.
+I was on an awful tear last night, and I&rsquo;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 upstairs,
+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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s &lsquo;Middle Ages.&rsquo;
+Have you read that? I always take something solid to
+the islands. There&rsquo;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&rsquo;ve got the influence, you see. I&rsquo;m
+a chief now, and sit in the speak-house under my own
+strip of roof. I&rsquo;d like to see them taboo <i>me!</i> They
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page351" id="page351"></a>351</span>
+daren&rsquo;t try it; I&rsquo;ve a strong party, I can tell you. Why
+I&rsquo;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&rsquo;s what Hallam would call feudal retainers,&rdquo;
+explained Hadden, not without vainglory. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re My
+Followers. They belong to My Family. I tell you, they
+come expensive, though; you can&rsquo;t fill up all these
+retainers on tinned salmon for nothing; but whenever
+I could get it, I would give &rsquo;em squid. Squid&rsquo;s good for
+natives, but I don&rsquo;t care for it, do you?&mdash;or shark either.
+It&rsquo;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&rsquo;ve told them again and again. I think
+it&rsquo;s a man&rsquo;s duty to open their minds, and I try to, but
+you can&rsquo;t get political economy into them; it doesn&rsquo;t
+seem to reach their intelligence.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>There was an expression still sticking in Carthew&rsquo;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&rsquo;ll show you! I&rsquo;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&rsquo;s the romance
+of business; this was its Arabian tale.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page352" id="page352"></a>352</span></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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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
+starlings of the prophet&rsquo;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.&mdash;Come, buy some
+togs, that&rsquo;s the first thing you have to do of course; and
+then we&rsquo;ll take a hansom and go to the &lsquo;Currency Lass.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page353" id="page353"></a>353</span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;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&rsquo;re a regular sage. It&rsquo;s what you call
+Pythagoreanism, isn&rsquo;t it? if I haven&rsquo;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&rsquo;ll see if we&rsquo;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&rsquo;re all right. You can play <i>vacuus viator</i> 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&rsquo;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 &ldquo;Currency
+Lass&rdquo; 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 sandalwood, 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&rsquo;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 <i>Jolly Roger</i>&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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page354" id="page354"></a>354</span>
+to the natives, Bostock, arrayed in a female
+chemise out of the trade-room, 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 &ldquo;Currency
+Lass,&rdquo; 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&rsquo;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 shandy-gaff to
+champagne at this one here; and you sit down with us.
+Let me make you acquainted with my friend Mr. Carthew.
+I&rsquo;ve come on business, Billy; I want to consult you as
+a friend; I&rsquo;m going into the island trade upon my own
+account.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Doubtless the captain was a mine of counsel, but opportunity
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page355" id="page355"></a>355</span>
+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 into 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&rsquo;t
+mean to do that class of business. Can&rsquo;t you see who
+you are talking to? Can&rsquo;t you talk sense? Can&rsquo;t you
+give us &lsquo;a dead bird&rsquo; for a good traderoom?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No, I don&rsquo;t suppose I can,&rdquo; returned old Bostock;
+&ldquo;not when I can&rsquo;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&rsquo;s right enough;
+but you&rsquo;re old now, and the game&rsquo;s up. I&rsquo;ll tell you
+what&rsquo;s wanted nowadays, 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&rsquo;t you?&rdquo; remarked that
+gentleman bitterly, when Tommy paused.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I know a sight more than you, if that&rsquo;s what you
+mean,&rdquo; retorted Tom. &ldquo;It stands to reason I do. You&rsquo;re
+not a man of any education; you&rsquo;ve been all your life
+at sea, or in the islands; you don&rsquo;t suppose you can give
+points to a man like me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Here&rsquo;s your health, Tommy,&rdquo; returned Bostock.
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ll make an A1 bake in the New Hebrides.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s what I call talking,&rdquo; cried Tom, not perhaps
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page356" id="page356"></a>356</span>
+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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;t care,&rdquo; cried Bostock. &ldquo;It ain&rsquo;t any
+of my interests. I haven&rsquo;t underwrote your life. Only
+I&rsquo;m blest if I&rsquo;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:
+<i>he&rsquo;s</i> got some sense; he&rsquo;s laughing at you so as he can&rsquo;t
+stand.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The exact degree of ill-feeling in Mr. Bostock&rsquo;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&rsquo;s
+eloquence had missed him, and he now faced suddenly
+about with these amazing words&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Excuse me, gentlemen; if you&rsquo;ll buy me the ship I
+want, I&rsquo;ll get you the trade on credit.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>There was a pause.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, what do <i>you</i> mean?&rdquo; gasped Tommy.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Better tell &rsquo;em who I am, Billy,&rdquo; said the cabman.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Think it safe, Joe?&rdquo; inquired Mr. Bostock.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll take my risk of it,&rdquo; returned the cabman.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Gentlemen,&rdquo; said Bostock, rising suddenly, &ldquo;let me
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page357" id="page357"></a>357</span>
+make you acquainted with Captain Wicks of the <i>Grace
+Darling</i>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, gentlemen, that is what I am,&rdquo; said the cabman.
+&ldquo;You know I&rsquo;ve been in trouble, and I don&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;m a new chum. What was the
+charge?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Murder,&rdquo; said Captain Wicks, &ldquo;and I don&rsquo;t deny
+but what I struck the blow. And there&rsquo;s no sense in
+my trying to deny I was afraid to go to trial, or why would
+I be here? But it&rsquo;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&rsquo;ve overheard what Mr. Hadden has been saying, and
+I think he talks good sense. I like some of his ideas first
+chop. He&rsquo;s sound on traderooms; he&rsquo;s all there on the
+traderoom, and I see that he and I would pull together.
+Then you&rsquo;re both gentlemen, and I like that,&rdquo; observed
+Captain Wicks. &ldquo;And then I&rsquo;ll tell you I&rsquo;m tired of this
+cabbing cruise, and I want to get to work again. Now,
+here&rsquo;s my offer. I&rsquo;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&rsquo;m worth as supercargo. And, last of
+all, you want a good captain to sail your ship for you.
+Well, here I am. I&rsquo;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;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page358" id="page358"></a>358</span></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&rsquo;ll get nabbed.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;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&rsquo;t know yet,&rdquo; returned the captain, with a
+grin. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll see what the name is on my new certificate,
+and that&rsquo;ll be good enough for me. If I can&rsquo;t get one to
+buy, though I never heard of such a thing, there&rsquo;s old
+Kirkup, he&rsquo;s turned some sort of farmer down Bondi way;
+he&rsquo;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 <i>Dream</i>&mdash;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 lying a point and
+a half better, and the <i>Grace Darling</i> was a ship that I
+was proud of. I took and tore my hair. The <i>Dream&rsquo;s</i>
+been <i>my</i> dream ever since. That was in the old days,
+when she carried a blue ens&rsquo;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 quarter-deck 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 <i>Dream</i> lay rotting up
+by Glebe Point. Well, it&rsquo;s done now; they&rsquo;ve picked
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page359" id="page359"></a>359</span>
+out a widow and a will&mdash;tossed up for it, as like as not&mdash;and
+the <i>Dream</i>&rsquo;s for sale. She&rsquo;ll go cheap; she&rsquo;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&rsquo;t want her bigger. A
+hundred and ninety, going two hundred,&rdquo; replied the
+captain. &ldquo;She&rsquo;s fully big for us three; it would be all
+the better if we had another hand, though it&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s always better to have a native; he ain&rsquo;t
+fly, you can turn him to as you please, and he don&rsquo;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
+<i>Currency Lass</i>; and the &ldquo;Currency Lass Island Trading
+Company&rdquo; 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.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page360" id="page360"></a>360</span></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&rsquo;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&rsquo;
+cruise of it among the islands.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Sorry, Mr. Carthew: I can&rsquo;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;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page361" id="page361"></a>361</span></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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page362" id="page362"></a>362</span>
+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 for six months,&rdquo;
+said Norris lightly enough, but yet conscious of a pang
+of curiosity.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page363" id="page363"></a>363</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXIII</h3>
+
+<h5>THE BUDGET OF THE <i>CURRENCY LASS</i></h5>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="sc">Before</span> noon, on the 26th November, there cleared from
+the port of Sydney the schooner <i>Currency Lass</i>. The
+owner, Norris Carthew, was on board in the somewhat
+unusual position of mate; the master&rsquo;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&rsquo;s handiness with tools.
+The <i>Currency Lass</i> 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 <i>Dream</i>; and the Lloyd&rsquo;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&rsquo; inaction, had eaten
+deep into the <i>Dream</i> 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&rsquo;s
+old canvas had been patched together into one decently
+serviceable suit of sails; Grant Sanderson&rsquo;s masts still
+stood, and might have wondered at themselves. &ldquo;I
+haven&rsquo;t the heart to tap them,&rdquo; Captain Wicks used to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page364" id="page364"></a>364</span>
+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&rsquo;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&rsquo;t going to sea without the one or the other. Chickencoops
+are good enough, no doubt, and so is a dinghy; but
+they ain&rsquo;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 <i>Currency Lass</i> 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&rsquo;s engaging eccentricities. The ship, besides, had
+been a yacht before: and it came the more natural to
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page365" id="page365"></a>365</span>
+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&rsquo;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 <i>Currency Lass</i> may be
+said to have gone to sea without stores. She carried two
+thousand pounds&rsquo; 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&rsquo;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 unrecognisable;
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page366" id="page366"></a>366</span>
+Buckle&rsquo;s &ldquo;History of Civilisation,&rdquo; 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 woke 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 <i>Currency Lass</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Hemstead&rsquo;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&rsquo;t make me laugh so much, Tommy,&rdquo; he would
+say. &ldquo;I am afraid I&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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
+<i>Currency Lass</i> 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&rsquo;s
+work after dinner on the smoking-room table, and take
+in kites at night&mdash;such was the easy routine of their life.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page367" id="page367"></a>367</span>
+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 &ldquo;My
+Boy Tammie&rdquo; in Austrylian; and the words (some of
+the worst of the ruffian Macneill&rsquo;s) were hailed in his
+version with inextinguishable mirth.</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+
+<p>&ldquo;Where hye ye been a&rsquo; dye?&rdquo;</p>
+
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p class="noind">he would ask, and answer himself:&mdash;</p>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been by burn and flowery brye,</p>
+<p>Meadow green and mountain grye,</p>
+<p>Courtin&rsquo; o&rsquo; this young thing,</p>
+    <p class="i2">Just come frye her mammie.&rdquo;</p>
+
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p class="noind">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&rsquo;s wing. But he had his revenge with
+&ldquo;Home, Sweet Home,&rdquo; and &ldquo;Where is my Wandering
+Boy To-night?&rdquo;&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 <i>Currency Lass</i>, 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&rsquo;s
+company, so strangely assembled, so Britishly chuckle-headed,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page368" id="page368"></a>368</span>
+filling their days with chaff in place of conversation;
+no human book on board with them except Hadden&rsquo;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&rsquo;, cap&rsquo;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&rsquo;lemen all, here&rsquo;s wishing you a merry Christmas and
+a happy New Year,&rdquo; he added, and lurched against a
+stay.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why, you&rsquo;re never the pilot?&rdquo; exclaimed Wicks,
+studying him with a profound disfavour. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve never
+taken a ship in&mdash;don&rsquo;t tell me!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, I should guess I have,&rdquo; returned the pilot.
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;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&rsquo;re drunk, man!&rdquo; cried the
+captain.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Drunk!&rdquo; repeated Dobbs. &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t have seen
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page369" id="page369"></a>369</span>
+much life if you call me drunk. I&rsquo;m only just beginning.
+Come night, I won&rsquo;t say; I guess I&rsquo;ll be properly full by
+then. But now I&rsquo;m the soberest man in all Big Muggin.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It won&rsquo;t do,&rdquo; retorted Wicks. &ldquo;Not for Joseph, sir.
+I can&rsquo;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 <i>Leslie</i>. That&rsquo;s business, I guess; grudged
+me twenty dollars&rsquo; 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&rsquo;s all this?&rdquo; cried Wicks. &ldquo;Trade? What
+vessel was this <i>Leslie</i>, anyhow?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Consigned to Cohen and Co., from &rsquo;Frisco,&rdquo; returned
+the pilot, &ldquo;and badly wanted. There&rsquo;s a barque inside
+filling up for Hamburg&mdash;you see her spars over there;
+and there&rsquo;s two more ships due, all the way from Germany,
+one in two months, they say, and one in three; Cohen
+and Co.&rsquo;s agent (that&rsquo;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&rsquo;ve any copra
+on board, cap&rsquo;n, here&rsquo;s your chance. Topelius will buy,
+gold down, and give three cents. It&rsquo;s all found money to
+him, the way it is, whatever he pays for it. And that&rsquo;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.&mdash;&ldquo;You couldn&rsquo;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&rsquo;ll talk about that after the anchor&rsquo;s down,&rdquo; returned
+Wicks, and he drew Carthew forward.&mdash;&ldquo;I say,&rdquo;
+he whispered, &ldquo;here&rsquo;s a fortune.&rdquo;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page370" id="page370"></a>370</span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;How much do you call that?&rdquo; asked Carthew.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t put a figure on it yet&mdash;I daren&rsquo;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&rsquo;s possible! And the difficulty is this
+Dobbs. He&rsquo;s as drunk as a marine. How can we trust
+him? We ain&rsquo;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&rsquo;t fall out of the rigging,
+perhaps we might risk it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, all&rsquo;s risk here,&rdquo; returned the captain. &ldquo;Take
+the wheel yourself, and stand by. Mind, if there&rsquo;s two
+orders, follow mine, not his. Set the cook for&rsquo;ard with
+the heads&rsquo;ls, and the two others at the main sheet, and see
+they don&rsquo;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&rsquo;clock on Christmas morning
+the anchor was let go.</p>
+
+<p>The first cruise of the <i>Currency Lass</i> had thus ended
+in a stroke of fortune almost beyond hope. She had
+brought two thousand pounds&rsquo; 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 &ldquo;Sans Souci,&rdquo; 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page371" id="page371"></a>371</span>
+added in a voice scarcely recognisable, and doubtless
+referring to the venerable game of cribbage.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What do you mean?&rdquo; asked Tommy.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve sold the trade,&rdquo; answered Wicks; &ldquo;or, rather,
+I&rsquo;ve sold only some of it, for I&rsquo;ve kept back all the mess
+beef, and half the flour and biscuit, and, by God, we&rsquo;re
+still provisioned for four months! By God, it&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;ll explode. I&rsquo;ve
+not only sold it, boys, I&rsquo;ve wrung out a charter on my
+own terms to &rsquo;Frisco and back,&mdash;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&rsquo;t hear
+of&mdash;couldn&rsquo;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&rsquo;ve got the blooming
+lot in specie&mdash;all but two short bills on &rsquo;Frisco. And the
+sum? Well, this whole adventure, including two thousand
+pounds of credit, cost us two thousand seven hundred
+and some odd. That&rsquo;s all paid back; in thirty days&rsquo;
+cruise we&rsquo;ve paid for the schooner and the trade. Heard
+ever any man the match of that? And it&rsquo;s not all! For
+besides that,&rdquo; said the captain, hammering his words,
+&ldquo;we&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;ve got to get drunk.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You must please excuse me, boys,&rdquo; said the captain
+earnestly. &ldquo;I daren&rsquo;t taste nothing. If I was to drink
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page372" id="page372"></a>372</span>
+one glass of beer it&rsquo;s my belief I&rsquo;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&rsquo;m like this, just fancy what
+Topelius is. If he heard us singing out, he&rsquo;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 <i>Leslie</i>, 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&rsquo;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 stayed by day in the
+narrow isle gaping like Cockney tourists, and on the first
+of the new year the <i>Currency Lass</i> weighed anchor for the
+second time and set sail for &rsquo;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&rsquo;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
+<i>Leslie</i>. He had been on bad terms with his own captain,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page373" id="page373"></a>373</span>
+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 <i>Currency Lass</i>, 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&rsquo;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&rsquo;t you get looking at these sticks,&rdquo; the captain
+said, &ldquo;or you&rsquo;ll have a fit and fall overboard.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Mac turned to 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&rsquo;t
+it?&rdquo; returned Wicks. &ldquo;But there&rsquo;s no good prying into
+things that can&rsquo;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&rsquo;t know that it&rsquo;s
+dry rot; I kind of sometimes hope it isn&rsquo;t.&mdash;Here; turn
+to and heave the log; that&rsquo;ll cheer you up.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, there&rsquo;s no denying it, you&rsquo;re a holy captain,&rdquo;
+said Mac.</p>
+
+<p>And from that day on he made but the one reference
+to the ship&rsquo;s condition; and that was whenever Tommy
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page374" id="page374"></a>374</span>
+drew upon his cellar. &ldquo;Here&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s a different story!&mdash;What
+made you do it, you tomfool? You ain&rsquo;t big
+enough to call any man that.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;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&rsquo;s have no more of it,&rdquo; said Wicks.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But you <i>are</i> Irish, ain&rsquo;t you?&rdquo; Carthew asked of his
+new shipmate shortly after.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I may be,&rdquo; replied Mac, &ldquo;but I&rsquo;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&rsquo;re a young swell, aren&rsquo;t you?
+Suppose I called you that! &lsquo;I&rsquo;ll show you,&rsquo; 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� 20&prime; N., long.
+177� W., the wind chopped suddenly into the west, not
+very strong, but puffy and with flaws of rain. The captain,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page375" id="page375"></a>375</span>
+eager for easting, made a fair wind of it, and guyed the
+booms out wing and wing. It was Tommy&rsquo;s trick at the
+wheel, and as it was within half an hour of the relief (7.30
+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&rsquo;s invisible approach.
+There is no help but in the boats, and what a
+help is that! There heaved the <i>Currency Lass</i>, 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page376" id="page376"></a>376</span>
+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&rsquo;re done with this <i>Currency Lass</i> 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&rsquo;ve got six lives to save, and a pot of money;
+and the point is, where are we to take &rsquo;em?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;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&rsquo;s bad enough; rather better&rsquo;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&rsquo;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 &rsquo;em from fishing-boats, and sang out it
+couldn&rsquo;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&rsquo;s a fact,&rdquo; admitted Wicks. &ldquo;You see there&rsquo;s a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page377" id="page377"></a>377</span>
+raft of little bally reefs about here, kind of chicken-pox
+on the chart. Well, I looked &rsquo;em all up, and there&rsquo;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&rsquo;s a coaling station of the Pacific Mail,&rdquo; he said
+simply.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, and I know it ain&rsquo;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&rsquo;s the book.
+Read what Hoyt says&mdash;read it aloud and let the others
+hear.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Hoyt&rsquo;s falsehood (as readers know) was explicit;
+incredulity was impossible, and the news itself delightful
+beyond hope. Each saw in his mind&rsquo;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 after-thwart
+in case of a capsize. Then a piece of the bulwarks
+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,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page378" id="page378"></a>378</span>
+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&rsquo;ve got the guts out of <i>you</i>!&rdquo; was the captain&rsquo;s nodded
+farewell to the hulk of the <i>Currency Lass</i>, 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&rsquo;s your station?&rdquo; cried Mac.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;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 sea-fowl 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page379" id="page379"></a>379</span>
+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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s in the course from Honolulu.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Deuce it is!&rdquo; cried Carthew. &ldquo;That settles it, then.
+Let&rsquo;s stay. We must keep good fires going; and there&rsquo;s
+plenty wreck.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Lashings of wreck!&rdquo; said the Irishman. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s
+nothing here but wreck and coffin-boards.&rdquo;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page380" id="page380"></a>380</span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But we&rsquo;ll have to make a proper blyze,&rdquo; objected
+Hemstead. &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t see a fire like this, not any wye
+awye, I mean.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Can&rsquo;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&rsquo;s dreary!&rdquo; whispered Hemstead.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Dreary?&rdquo; cried Mac, and fell suddenly silent.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s better than a boat, anyway,&rdquo; said Hadden.
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;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&rsquo;ll tell you one thing,&rdquo; said Tommy. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t like
+it being in the boat&mdash;I don&rsquo;t care to have it so far away.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why, who&rsquo;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&rsquo;s my beauty!&rdquo; cried Wicks, viewing it with
+a cocked head; &ldquo;that&rsquo;s better than a bonfire. What!
+we have a chest here, and bills for close upon two thousand
+pounds; there&rsquo;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&rsquo;t that good enough to
+fetch a fleet? Do you mean to say that won&rsquo;t affect a
+ship&rsquo;s compass? Do you mean to tell me that the look-out
+won&rsquo;t turn to and <i>smell</i> 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page381" id="page381"></a>381</span>
+this with impatience, and fell into a bitter, choking
+laughter. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll see!&rdquo; he said harshly. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll be
+glad to feed them bills into the fire before you&rsquo;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
+&ldquo;Home, Sweet Home&rdquo; fell under his fingers; and when
+he had played the symphony, he instinctively raised up
+his voice, &ldquo;Be it never so &rsquo;umble, there&rsquo;s no plyce like
+&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;t he give me a chance then?
+Haven&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s,
+who is a harmless craytur, and here&rsquo;s me hand to&rsquo;m, if
+he&rsquo;ll condescend to take me by&rsquo;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&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page382" id="page382"></a>382</span>
+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&rsquo;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&rsquo;; 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page383" id="page383"></a>383</span>
+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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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 7s. 7&frac14;d.
+The figures were admittedly incorrect; the sum of the
+shares came not to �2,000, but to �1,996 6s.&mdash;�3 14s. being
+thus left unclaimed. But it was the nearest they had
+yet found, and the highest as well, so that the partners
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page384" id="page384"></a>384</span>
+were made the less critical by the contemplation of their
+splendid dividends. Wicks put in �100, and stood to
+draw captain&rsquo;s wages for two months; his taking was
+�333 3s. 6&frac34;d. Carthew put in �150; he was to take
+out �401 18s. 6&frac12;d. Tommy&rsquo;s �500 had grown to be
+�1,213 12s. 9&frac34;d.; and Amalu and Hemstead, ranking for
+wages only, had �22 16s. 0&frac12;d. 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&rsquo;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&rsquo;ll tell you now, it&rsquo;s not worth splitting,&rdquo; broke in
+Mac. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve cards in my chest. Why don&rsquo;t you play
+for the lump 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.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page385" id="page385"></a>385</span>
+After a hasty meal they fell again immediately to cards,
+this time (on Carthew&rsquo;s proposal) to Van John. It was
+then probably two P.M. of the 9th of February, and they
+played with varying chances for twelve hours, slept
+heavily, and rose late on the morrow to resume the game.
+All day on 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&rsquo;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
+lamp-lit 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&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page386" id="page386"></a>386</span>
+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&mdash;twelve pounds in gold and a
+few dollars,&mdash;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;ve had enough of it, I do believe,&rdquo; said he.
+&ldquo;But of course it was all fun, and here&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;ve both wan, ye see.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s true!&rdquo; said Carthew aloud.&mdash;&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&rsquo;m sure ye mean well,&rdquo;
+returned the Irishman, &ldquo;but you&rsquo;d better shut your face,
+for I&rsquo;m not that kind of a man. If I t&rsquo;ought I had wan that
+money fair, there&rsquo;s never a soul here could get it from me.
+But I t&rsquo;ought it was in fun; that was my mistake, ye
+see; and there&rsquo;s no man big enough upon this island
+to give a present to my mother&rsquo;s son. So there&rsquo;s my
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page387" id="page387"></a>387</span>
+opinion to ye, plumber, and you can put it in your pockut
+till required.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, I will say, Mac, you&rsquo;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 <i>Flying Scud</i> of Hull.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page388" id="page388"></a>388</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXIV</h3>
+
+<h5>A HARD BARGAIN</h5>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="sc">The</span> 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&rsquo;s duty
+to dash in his gig on Saturday evenings from one small
+retailer&rsquo;s to another, and to annex in each the bulk of the
+week&rsquo;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 lawsuit, 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 <i>v.</i> 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 pawn-shop&rdquo;;
+and he wound up with this appalling allocution:
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page389" id="page389"></a>389</span>
+&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 <i>Flying Scud</i>, 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&rsquo; 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; and
+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, thick-set creature, with dog&rsquo;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&rsquo;s the more shame to me because
+I&rsquo;m come of very good people at Bowling, down the
+wa&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page390" id="page390"></a>390</span>
+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 &ldquo;Marching Through Georgia,&rdquo; 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&rsquo;re going aboard of
+a ship of which we don&rsquo;t know nothing; we&rsquo;ve got a chest
+of specie, and seeing the weight, we can&rsquo;t turn to and
+deny it. Now, suppose she was fishy; suppose it was
+some kind of a Bully Hayes business! It&rsquo;s my opinion
+we&rsquo;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&rsquo;s faces. They saw the
+Union Jack blow abroad from the <i>Flying Scud</i>, 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&rsquo;m Captain Kirkup, and this is the crew of
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page391" id="page391"></a>391</span>
+the Sydney schooner <i>Currency Lass</i>, dismasted at sea
+January 28th.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ay, ay,&rdquo; said Trent. &ldquo;Well, you&rsquo;re all right now.
+Lucky for you I saw your signal. I didn&rsquo;t know I was
+so near this beastly island, there must be a drift to the
+south&rsquo;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;&lsquo;Vast heaving!&rdquo; he cried sharply; and then to
+Wicks: &ldquo;What&rsquo;s that? I don&rsquo;t ever remember to have
+seen a chest weigh like that.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s money,&rdquo; said Wicks.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;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&rsquo;s wrong?&rdquo; asked Wicks.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Nothing, I daresay,&rdquo; returned Trent. &ldquo;But you&rsquo;ll
+allow it&rsquo;s a queer thing when a boat turns up in mid-ocean
+with half a ton of specie and everybody armed,&rdquo; he
+added, pointing to Wicks&rsquo;s pocket. &ldquo;Your boat will
+lay comfortably astern, while you come below and make
+yourself satisfactory.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;O, if that&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page392" id="page392"></a>392</span>
+don&rsquo;t blame a man for too much caution; no offence
+intended; and these China rivers shake a fellow&rsquo;s nerve.
+All I want is just to see you&rsquo;re what you say you are;
+it&rsquo;s only my duty, sir, and what you would do yourself
+in the circumstances. I&rsquo;ve not always been a ship-captain:
+I was a banker once, and I tell you that&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s a good enough lagoon&mdash;a few horses&rsquo; heads, but
+nothing to mention,&rdquo; answered Wicks.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve a good mind to go in,&rdquo; said Trent. &ldquo;I was new
+rigged in China; it&rsquo;s given very bad, and I&rsquo;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&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page393" id="page393"></a>393</span>
+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&rsquo;re a kind of company, ain&rsquo;t you, Captain
+Kirkup?&rdquo; he inquired.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, we&rsquo;re all on board on lays,&rdquo; was the reply.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, then, you won&rsquo;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.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page394" id="page394"></a>394</span></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.&mdash;&ldquo;Now, gentlemen,&rdquo; he went on,
+&ldquo;I understand you&rsquo;re a joint-stock sort of crew, and that&rsquo;s
+why I&rsquo;ve had you all down; for there&rsquo;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&rsquo;m glad of
+course to be able to give you a passage to &rsquo;Frisco; one
+sailor-man should help another, that&rsquo;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&rsquo;s between two people, and
+there&rsquo;s only one here. I&rsquo;m the judge; I&rsquo;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&rsquo;s
+business, I believe. I don&rsquo;t want you; you want me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, sir,&rdquo; said Carthew, &ldquo;and what <i>is</i> 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&rsquo;s mine now. Turn about&rsquo;s fair
+play. What kind of mercy did you have on that Gilbert
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page395" id="page395"></a>395</span>
+merchant?&rdquo; he cried, with a sudden stridency. &ldquo;Not
+that I blame you. All&rsquo;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&rsquo;s mine, I think?&rdquo; he asked sharply.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, I&rsquo;m of that way of thinking myself,&rdquo; observed
+Mac.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I say it&rsquo;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&rsquo;s two
+thousand pounds there that don&rsquo;t belong to you, and I&rsquo;m
+an honest man. Give me the two thousand that&rsquo;s yours,
+and I&rsquo;ll give you a passage to the coast, and land every
+man-jack of you in &rsquo;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&rsquo;re joking,&rdquo; cried Wicks, purple in the face.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Am I?&rdquo; said Trent. &ldquo;Please yourselves. You&rsquo;re
+under no compulsion. This ship&rsquo;s mine, but there&rsquo;s that
+Brooks Island don&rsquo;t belong to me, and you can lay there
+till you die for what I care.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s more than your blooming brig&rsquo;s worth!&rdquo; cried
+Wicks.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;m working me passage; I got no share in
+that two thousand pounds, nor nothing in my pockut;
+and I&rsquo;ll be glad to know what you have to say to me?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I ain&rsquo;t a hard man,&rdquo; said Trent; &ldquo;that shall make
+no difference. I&rsquo;ll take you with the rest, only of course
+you get no fifteen pound.&rdquo;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page396" id="page396"></a>396</span></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&rsquo;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&rsquo; ut?&rdquo;
+asked Mac. &ldquo;After you and your rigging, too! Ye ould
+puggy, ye haven&rsquo;t the civility of a bug, and I&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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 dashed 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page397" id="page397"></a>397</span>
+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 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 under foot, and flew upstairs
+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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page398" id="page398"></a>398</span>
+Londoner was shot on the fore-royal 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&rsquo;t hurt us,&rdquo; he sobbed. &ldquo;We can&rsquo;t go on with
+this. I spoke to him at dinner. He&rsquo;s an awful decent
+little cad. It can&rsquo;t be done. Nobody can go into that
+place and murder him. It&rsquo;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&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page399" id="page399"></a>399</span>
+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&rsquo;d fall,&rdquo; he said simply. &ldquo;I&rsquo;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&rsquo;t sleep....&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Sleep!&rdquo; echoed Carthew; and it seemed as if the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page400" id="page400"></a>400</span>
+whole of Shakespeare&rsquo;s <i>Macbeth</i> thundered at the gallop
+through his mind.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, then, we can&rsquo;t sit and chitter here,&rdquo; said Wicks,
+&ldquo;till we&rsquo;ve cleaned the ship; and I can&rsquo;t turn to till I&rsquo;ve
+had gin, and the gin&rsquo;s in the cabin, and who&rsquo;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&rsquo;s done; they&rsquo;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&rsquo;s cabin; it
+was brought on deck, and all hands had a dram, and
+attacked their further 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 the 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page401" id="page401"></a>401</span>
+with his movement. His head hummed; it swarmed
+with broken thoughts; memory of that day&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s body brought him to a
+stand. He stood and stared at the empty floor, and then
+remembered and smiled. From the captain&rsquo;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>
+
+
+
+<hr class="art" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page402" id="page402"></a>402</span></p>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXV</h3>
+
+<h5>A BAD BARGAIN</h5>
+
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="sc">With</span> 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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s gabbling prayers, the cries of the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page403" id="page403"></a>403</span>
+sailors in the rigging, strains of the dead Hemstead&rsquo;s
+minstrelsy, ran together in Carthew&rsquo;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
+a while, 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&rsquo;s canary twittered shrilly from its cage.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;How are you?&rdquo; asked Carthew.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Me arrum&rsquo;s broke,&rdquo; returned Mac; &ldquo;but I can stand
+that. It&rsquo;s this place I can&rsquo;t aboide. I was coming on
+deck anyway.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Stay where you are, though,&rdquo; said Carthew. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s
+deadly hot above, and there&rsquo;s no wind. I&rsquo;ll wash out
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page404" id="page404"></a>404</span>
+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&rsquo;ll be obloiged to ye, then,&rdquo; replied the Irishman.
+He spoke mild and meek, like a sick child with
+its mother. There was no violence in the violent man;
+and as Carthew fetched a bucket and swab and the
+steward&rsquo;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&rsquo;t do nothing when
+it came. Ye saved me life, sir; ye&rsquo;re a clane shot.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;For God&rsquo;s sake, don&rsquo;t talk of it!&rdquo; cried Carthew.
+&ldquo;It can&rsquo;t be talked of; you don&rsquo;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&rsquo;ew. It&rsquo;s done now,&rdquo; said
+Mac; &ldquo;and ye may bless God ye&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s get off at once
+for Hawaii. I&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page405" id="page405"></a>405</span></p>
+
+<p>After breakfast the three white men went down into
+the cabin.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;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&rsquo;ll talk of me arrum after that.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;O, there&rsquo;s no such blooming hurry,&rdquo; returned Wicks.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;When the next ship sails in ye&rsquo;ll tell me stories!&rdquo;
+retorted Mac.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But there&rsquo;s nothing so unlikely in the world,&rdquo; objected
+Carthew.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be deceivin&rsquo; yourself,&rdquo; said Mac. &ldquo;If ye
+want a ship, divil a one&rsquo;ll look near ye in six year; but
+if ye don&rsquo;t, ye may take my word for ut, we&rsquo;ll have a
+squadron layin&rsquo; here.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s what I say,&rdquo; cried Tommy; &ldquo;that&rsquo;s what I
+call sense! Let&rsquo;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&rsquo;t think of it at all,&rdquo; said Wicks. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve a
+smart-looking brig under foot; that&rsquo;s all the whaleboat I
+want.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Excuse me!&rdquo; cried Tommy. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s childish talk.
+You&rsquo;ve got a brig, to be sure, and what use is she? You
+daren&rsquo;t go anywhere in her. What port are you to sail
+for?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;For the port of Davy Jones&rsquo;s Locker, my son,&rdquo;
+replied the captain. &ldquo;This brig&rsquo;s going to be lost at sea.
+I&rsquo;ll tell you where, too, and that&rsquo;s about forty miles to
+windward of Kauai. We&rsquo;re going to stay by her till she&rsquo;s
+down; and once the masts are under, she&rsquo;s the <i>Flying
+Scud</i> no more, and we never heard of such a brig; and it&rsquo;s
+the crew of the schooner <i>Currency Lass</i> that comes ashore
+in the boat, and takes the first chance to Sydney.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Captain, dear, that&rsquo;s the first Christian word I&rsquo;ve
+heard of ut!&rdquo; cried Mac. &ldquo;And now, just let me arrum
+be, jewel, and get the brig outside.&rdquo;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page406" id="page406"></a>406</span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m as anxious as yourself, Mac,&rdquo; returned Wicks;
+&ldquo;but there&rsquo;s not wind enough to swear by. So let&rsquo;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 stiff and cold,
+and committed to the waters of the lagoon; and the
+washing of the cabin rudely finished. All these were done
+ere mid-day; and it was past three when the first cat&rsquo;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&rsquo;s dexterity was partial and circumscribed.
+On a schooner&rsquo;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&rsquo;ll remember,&rdquo; said Carthew. &ldquo;It seems
+awfully muddled.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s the rottenest kind of rig,&rdquo; the captain admitted:
+&ldquo;all blooming pocket-handkerchiefs! and not one sailor-man
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page407" id="page407"></a>407</span>
+on deck! Ah, if she&rsquo;d only been a brigantine now!
+But it&rsquo;s lucky the passage is so plain; there&rsquo;s no man&oelig;uvring
+to mention. We get under weigh 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&rsquo;re on that line; &rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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 <i>aplomb</i>, 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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page408" id="page408"></a>408</span>
+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&rsquo;s a-lee. Tacks and
+sheets. Mainsail haul.&rdquo; And then the fatal words:
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;ll do your mainsail; jump for&rsquo;ard 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 sternboard at all, far more to think of
+profiting by one, were foreign to the schooner-sailor&rsquo;s
+mind. Wicks made haste instead to wear ship, a
+man&oelig;uvre for which room was wanting, and the <i>Flying
+Scud</i> 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&rsquo;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.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page409" id="page409"></a>409</span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Here! steady!&rdquo; cried Tommy. &ldquo;You ain&rsquo;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&rsquo;t set a hand to such tomfoolery for one,&rdquo;
+replied Tommy. &ldquo;I&rsquo;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>Garthew and Wicks turned to each other.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Perhaps you don&rsquo;t know how tired we are,&rdquo; said
+Carthew.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The tide&rsquo;s flowing!&rdquo; cried the captain. &ldquo;You
+wouldn&rsquo;t have me miss a rising tide?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;O, gammon! there&rsquo;s tides to-morrow!&rdquo; retorted
+Tommy.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And I&rsquo;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&rsquo;t deny it,&rdquo; answered Wicks, and stood a while
+as if in thought. &ldquo;But what I can&rsquo;t make out,&rdquo; he began
+again, with agitation, &ldquo;what I can&rsquo;t make out is what
+you&rsquo;re made of! To stay in this place is beyond me.
+There&rsquo;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&mdash;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&rsquo;s me that brought this
+trouble on the lot of ye. I&rsquo;m sorry for ut, I ask all your
+pardons, and if there&rsquo;s any one can say &lsquo;I forgive ye,&rsquo; it&rsquo;ll
+make my soul the lighter.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Wicks stared upon the man in amaze; then his self-control
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page410" id="page410"></a>410</span>
+returned to him. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re all in glass houses
+here,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;we ain&rsquo;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 &rsquo;tis done like gentlemen,&rdquo;
+said Mac. &ldquo;But there&rsquo;s another thing I have upon my
+mind. I hope we&rsquo;re all Prodestans 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&rsquo;s as it should be,&rdquo; continued Mac. &ldquo;And
+why shouldn&rsquo;t we say the Lord&rsquo;s Prayer? There can&rsquo;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&rsquo;ll stand.&rdquo; And he
+covered his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>So the prayer was said to the accompaniment of the
+surf and sea-birds, 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&rsquo;s work ahead, was more
+alert. He went first to the well, sounded it once and then
+a second time, and stood a while with a grim look, so that
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page411" id="page411"></a>411</span>
+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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s a man-of-war,
+she&rsquo;ll be in a tearing hurry; all these ships are
+what don&rsquo;t do nothing and have their expenses paid.
+That&rsquo;s our chance; for we&rsquo;ll go with them, and they
+won&rsquo;t take the time to look twice or to ask a question.
+I&rsquo;m Captain Trent; Carthew, you&rsquo;re Goddedaal; Tommy,
+you&rsquo;re Hardy; Mac&rsquo;s Brown; Amalu&mdash;hold hard! we
+can&rsquo;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;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page412" id="page412"></a>412</span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Holdorsen and Wallen,&rdquo; said some one.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, they&rsquo;re drowned,&rdquo; continued Wicks; &ldquo;drowned
+alongside trying to lower a boat. We had a bit of a
+squall last night; that&rsquo;s how we got ashore.&rdquo; He ran
+and squinted at the compass. &ldquo;Squall out of nor&rsquo;-nor&rsquo;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&rsquo;re standing
+on the drop, you moon-calf! If that ship&rsquo;s bound for
+China (which she don&rsquo;t look to be), we&rsquo;re lost as soon as
+we arrive; if she&rsquo;s bound the other way, she comes from
+China, don&rsquo;t she? Well, if there&rsquo;s a man on board of
+her that ever clapped eyes on Trent or any blooming hand
+out of this brig, we&rsquo;ll all be in irons in two hours. Safe!
+no, it ain&rsquo;t safe; it&rsquo;s a beggarly last chance to shave the
+gallows, and that&rsquo;s what it is.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>At this convincing picture fear took hold on all.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Hadn&rsquo;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&rsquo;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 feet of water there against eight
+inches last night. What&rsquo;s wrong? I don&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s down by the
+head now. If any carpenter comes tinkering here where&rsquo;ll
+he go first? Down in the forepeak, I suppose! And
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page413" id="page413"></a>413</span>
+then, how about all that blood among the chandlery?
+You would think you were a lot of members of Parliament
+discussing Plimsoll; and you&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;t rattle. It&rsquo;ll
+make five pretty heavy chests, but we can&rsquo;t help that.
+You, Carthew&mdash;dash me!&mdash;You, Mr. Goddedaal, come
+below. We&rsquo;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 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&rsquo;s luck for you&mdash;no more can I!&rdquo; cried the
+captain. &ldquo;Hullo! here&rsquo;s worse yet&mdash;here&rsquo;s this Goddedaal
+up to date; he must have filled it in before supper.
+See for yourself: &lsquo;Smoke observed.&mdash;Captain Kirkup
+and five hands of the schooner <i>Currency Lass</i>.&rsquo; Ah! this
+is better,&rdquo; he added, turning to the other log, &ldquo;The old
+man ain&rsquo;t written anything for a clear fortnight. We&rsquo;ll
+dispose of your log altogether, Mr. Goddedaal, and stick
+to the old man&rsquo;s&mdash;to mine, I mean; only I ain&rsquo;t going to
+write it up for reasons of my own. You are. You&rsquo;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&rsquo;ll catch it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And the change of writing?&rdquo; resumed Carthew.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page414" id="page414"></a>414</span>
+&ldquo;You began; why do you stop and why do I come in?
+And you&rsquo;ll have to sign anyway.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;O! I&rsquo;ve met with an accident and can&rsquo;t write,&rdquo;
+replied Wicks.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;An accident,&rdquo; repeated Carthew. &ldquo;It don&rsquo;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&rsquo;s a way
+to draw to windward of most difficulties if you&rsquo;ve a head
+on your shoulders.&rdquo; He began to bind up his hand with
+a handkerchief, glancing the while over Goddedaal&rsquo;s log.
+&ldquo;Hullo!&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;this&rsquo;ll never do for us&mdash;this is an
+impossible kind of yarn. Here, to begin with, is this
+Captain Trent, trying some fancy course, leastways he&rsquo;s
+a thousand miles to south&rsquo;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&rsquo;s luck,&rdquo; said
+Carthew.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, it don&rsquo;t look like real life&mdash;that&rsquo;s all I can
+say,&rdquo; returned Wicks.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;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&rsquo;t look so?&rdquo; cried the captain, sounding unwonted
+depths of art criticism. &ldquo;Here! try and see if you can
+tie this bandage; I&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;ve done with these
+chests,&rdquo; he added, &ldquo;you can turn to and roll out beef and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page415" id="page415"></a>415</span>
+water-breakers; it&rsquo;ll look more ship-shape&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&rsquo;s was then carefully destroyed, and a
+hunt began for the ship&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;m afraid I&rsquo;ll get them mixed if I keep both.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What are they?&rdquo; Carthew asked.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;They&rsquo;re the Kirkup and <i>Currency Lass</i> papers,&rdquo; he
+replied. &ldquo;Pray God we need &rsquo;em again!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Boat&rsquo;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&rsquo;t
+leave that wretched bird to starve. It was poor Goddedaal&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page416" id="page416"></a>416</span>
+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&rsquo;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 Hong Kong,
+hoping you would desert; but you fooled me and stuck to
+the brig. That&rsquo;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&rsquo;ve only sent a kind of a middy!&rdquo;
+ejaculated Wicks.&mdash;&ldquo;Here you, Hardy, stand for&rsquo;ard!
+I&rsquo;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 <i>Flying Scud</i> of Hull.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You seem to have got into a mess,&rdquo; said the officer.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If you&rsquo;ll step aft with me here, I&rsquo;ll tell you all there
+is of it,&rdquo; said Wicks.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why, man, you&rsquo;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&rsquo;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;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page417" id="page417"></a>417</span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;O, we won&rsquo;t keep you no time,&rdquo; replied Wicks
+cheerily. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re all ready, bless you&mdash;men&rsquo;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&rsquo;t we get your ship off?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;So we could, and no mistake; but how we&rsquo;re to
+keep her afloat&rsquo;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 <i>Flying Scud</i>, 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&rsquo;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.</p>
+
+<p>It was Wicks who did the talking. The sound was
+small in Carthew&rsquo;s ears, like the voices of men miles away,
+but the meaning of each word struck home to him like
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page418" id="page418"></a>418</span>
+a bullet. &ldquo;What did you say your ship was?&rdquo; inquired
+Wicks.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<i>Tempest</i>, don&rsquo;t you know?&rdquo; returned the officer.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you know?&rdquo; 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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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 tell-tale 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&rsquo;m sure I don&rsquo;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 <i>Tempest</i>.</p>
+
+<p>But Wicks and Carthew heeded him no longer. They
+lay back on the gunwale, breathing deep, sunk in a stupor
+of the body; the mind within still nimbly and agreeably
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page419" id="page419"></a>419</span>
+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 <i>Flying Scud</i>, 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&rsquo;s
+company, and heard men as from far away, and answered
+them at random.</p>
+
+<p>And then a hand fell softly on Carthew&rsquo;s shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why, Norrie, old chappie, where have you dropped
+from? All the world&rsquo;s been looking for you. Don&rsquo;t you
+know you&rsquo;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&rsquo;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 <i>Tempest</i>,&rdquo; was the reply.
+&ldquo;You are in Lieutenant Sebright&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page420" id="page420"></a>420</span>
+Wicks at once!&rdquo; he cried, and seized the doctor&rsquo;s wrist
+with unconscious violence.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;All right,&rdquo; said the doctor. &ldquo;Let&rsquo;s make a bargain.
+You swallow down this draught, and I&rsquo;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&rsquo;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 head
+and looked the captain in the eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s face.</p>
+
+<p>He did not trouble to remove it; looking straight at
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page421" id="page421"></a>421</span>
+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 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&rsquo;s
+something wrong.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Give me some grog,&rdquo; said Wicks. &ldquo;I&rsquo;d rather tell
+than have you find out. I&rsquo;m damned if it&rsquo;s half as bad
+as what anyone would think.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And with the help of a couple of strong grogs, the
+tragedy of the <i>Flying Scud</i> 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&rsquo;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 ward-room to keep the
+tongues of the young officers in order, so that Carthew&rsquo;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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page422" id="page422"></a>422</span>
+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&rsquo;s new-found wealth, and buying the brig
+under an <i>alias</i>; 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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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;<i>You</i> ain&rsquo;t Captain Trent!&rdquo; said the stranger, falling
+back. &ldquo;Why, what&rsquo;s all this? They tell me you&rsquo;re
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page423" id="page423"></a>423</span>
+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&rsquo;re thinking of my uncle as had the bank in
+Cardiff,&rdquo; replied Wicks, with desperate <i>aplomb</i>.</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&rsquo;s lodging, so that no connection 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&rsquo;s up!&rdquo; he
+added.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;O, you&rsquo;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 <i>Flying Scud</i>?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>This circumstance, coming on the back of the monstrous
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page424" id="page424"></a>424</span>
+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 <i>Currency Lass</i> they packed in waistbelts, 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>
+
+
+<div class="pt3">&nbsp;</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page425" id="page425"></a>425</span></p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<h2>EPILOGUE</h2>
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page426" id="page426"></a>426</span></p>
+<hr class="art" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page427" id="page427"></a>427</span></p>
+<h3>EPILOGUE</h3>
+
+<h5>TO WILL H. LOW</h5>
+
+<p class="noind"><span class="sc">Dear Low</span>,&mdash;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 had taken to it with
+an inimitable lightness. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s poor and I&rsquo;m rich,&rdquo; he
+had said. &ldquo;I can afford to smile at him. I go somewhere
+else, that&rsquo;s all&mdash;somewhere that&rsquo;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 <span class="correction" title="amended from hosiptal">hospital</span>.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now there&rsquo;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&rsquo;s last bankruptcy. &ldquo;I was about cleaned out once
+more,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;and then it was that Carthew had this
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page428" id="page428"></a>428</span>
+schooner built and put me in as supercargo. It&rsquo;s his
+yacht and it&rsquo;s my trader; and as nearly all the expenses
+go to the yacht, I do pretty well. As for Jim, he&rsquo;s right
+again; one of the best businesses, they say, in the West&mdash;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s share but Carthew&rsquo;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 elevenpence-halfpenny,&rdquo; he replied with
+composure; &ldquo;that&rsquo;s leaving out what little he won
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page429" id="page429"></a>429</span>
+at Van John. It&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s narrative,
+I seem to feel no want for Carthew&rsquo;s society. Of course,
+I am wholly modern in sentiment, and think nothing
+more noble than to publish people&rsquo;s private affairs at so
+much a line. They like it, and if they don&rsquo;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>
+
+<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td>
+<div class="poemr">
+
+<p><i>Qui nunc it per iter tenebricosum</i></p>
+<p>&mdash;<i>nos pr�cedens</i>&mdash;</p>
+
+</div>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>as it were, marshalling us our way. I am in no haste
+to be that man&rsquo;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 hardwood 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-man&oelig;uvred
+him.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page430" id="page430"></a>430</span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Carthew will be pleased,&rdquo; said Dodd; &ldquo;for there&rsquo;s
+no doubt they oppressed the man abominably when they
+were in the <i>Currency Lass</i>. It&rsquo;s diamond cut diamond
+now.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</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 cast so modern:&mdash;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&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 &ldquo;The Wrecker.&rdquo; On board the
+schooner <i>Equator</i>, 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 sales of wrecks.
+The subject tempted them; and they sat apart in the
+alleyway 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;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page431" id="page431"></a>431</span>
+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 clues, 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&rsquo;s father, and Pinkerton, and
+Nares, and the Dromedary picnics, and the railway work
+in New South Wales&mdash;the last and unsolicited testimonial
+from the powers that be, for the tale was half written
+before I saw Carthew&rsquo;s squad toil in the rainy cutting at
+South Clifton, or heard from the engineer of his &ldquo;young
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page432" id="page432"></a>432</span>
+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&rsquo;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>
+
+<hr class="art" />
+
+<h5>END OF VOL. XIII</h5>
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p class="center noind sc" style="font-size: 65%;">
+Printed by Cassell &amp; Company, Limited, La Belle Sauvage, London, E.C.</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<div class="pt2">&nbsp;</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson -
+Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25), by Robert Louis Stevenson
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS OF STEVENSON ***
+
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+</pre>
+
+</body>
+</html>
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@@ -0,0 +1,14933 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson -
+Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25), by Robert Louis Stevenson
+
+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 Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25)
+
+Author: Robert Louis Stevenson
+
+Release Date: January 13, 2010 [EBook #30954]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS OF STEVENSON ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Marius Masi, Jonathan Ingram and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's notes:
+
+  Fixed typographical error: In page 427 "that he returned somehow to
+  San Francisco and died in the hosiptal." was changed to "that he
+  returned somehow to San Francisco and died in the HOSPITAL."
+
+  Text following a carat character (^) was superscript in the original
+  (example: a^2).
+
+
+
+
+       THE WORKS OF
+
+  ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
+
+     SWANSTON EDITION
+       VOLUME XIII
+
+
+  _Of this SWANSTON EDITION in Twenty-five
+  Volumes of the Works of ROBERT LOUIS
+  STEVENSON Two Thousand and Sixty Copies
+  have been printed, of which only Two Thousand
+  Copies are for sale._
+
+  _This is No._ ...........
+
+
+[Illustration: THE BACK VERANDAH AT VAILIMA]
+
+  THE WORKS OF
+
+  ROBERT LOUIS
+   STEVENSON
+
+
+  VOLUME THIRTEEN
+
+  LONDON: PUBLISHED BY CHATTO AND
+  WINDUS: IN ASSOCIATION WITH CASSELL
+  AND COMPANY LIMITED: WILLIAM
+  HEINEMANN: AND LONGMANS GREEN
+  AND COMPANY         MDCCCCXII
+
+
+  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+THE WRECKER
+
+
+  PROLOGUE
+
+                                                           PAGE
+    IN THE MARQUESAS                                          5
+
+
+  THE YARN
+
+    CHAPTER
+        I. A SOUND COMMERCIAL EDUCATION                      19
+
+      II. ROUSSILLON WINE                                    32
+
+     III. TO INTRODUCE MR. PINKERTON                         43
+
+      IV. IN WHICH I EXPERIENCE EXTREMES OF FORTUNE          58
+
+       V. IN WHICH I AM DOWN ON MY LUCK IN PARIS             71
+
+      VI. IN WHICH I GO WEST                                 86
+
+    VII. IRONS IN THE FIRE: _Opes Strepitumque_             102
+
+   VIII. FACES ON THE CITY FRONT                            126
+
+     IX. THE WRECK OF THE _FLYING SCUD_                     139
+
+      X. IN WHICH THE CREW VANISH                           154
+
+     XI. IN WHICH JIM AND I TAKE DIFFERENT WAYS             179
+
+    XII. THE _NORAH CREINA_                                 194
+
+   XIII. THE ISLAND AND THE WRECK                           210
+
+    XIV. THE CABIN OF THE _FLYING SCUD_                     222
+
+     XV. THE CARGO OF THE _FLYING SCUD_                     237
+
+    XVI. IN WHICH I TURN SMUGGLER, AND THE CAPTAIN CASUIST  251
+
+   XVII. LIGHT FROM THE MAN OF WAR                          264
+
+  XVIII. CROSS-QUESTIONS AND CROOKED ANSWERS                278
+
+    XIX. TRAVELS WITH A SHYSTER                             294
+
+     XX. STALLBRIDGE-LE-CARTHEW                             317
+
+    XXI. FACE TO FACE                                       330
+
+   XXII. THE REMITTANCE MAN                                 338
+
+  XXIII. THE BUDGET OF THE _CURRENCY LASS_                  363
+
+   XXIV. A HARD BARGAIN                                     388
+
+    XXV. A BAD BARGAIN                                      402
+
+
+  EPILOGUE
+
+    TO WILL H. LOW                                          427
+
+
+
+
+THE WRECKER
+
+WRITTEN IN COLLABORATION WITH
+
+LLOYD OSBOURNE
+
+
+
+
+PROLOGUE
+
+THE WRECKER
+
+
+
+
+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 Stanila Moanatini, the only reasonably busy human creature on
+the island, was riding hotspur 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 and 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 hardwood 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) had cracked from the war-schooner, and the colours had been
+handed down. Dusk was deepening as they came ashore; and the _Cercle
+International_(as the club is officially and significantly named) began
+to shine, from under its low verandahs, 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
+centrepiece 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 matters 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 clubmen.
+
+"O, the usual parties!" returned Loudon, "Capsicum and 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 after 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 find 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
+bread-fruit, 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
+honoured 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 black-mailing, 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 civilised; 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-bye; 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 realise 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 Charles 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 halfpenny 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 pre-occupations. 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
+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 and Son, eh?" and
+he patted my shoulder and repeated, "Dodd and Son, Dodd and 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
+re-casting 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 Scottish, 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 millionaire 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 whisky, 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 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 brick 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 addeetion 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 chield."
+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 a while, 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
+side-walk 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 pre-occupation--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 downstairs 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 business-like, 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 contra-ordinary 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
+fallen 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 for ever. 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 recognised 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 favourable 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 grey
+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
+civilisation 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 an 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 downstairs?" 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 am 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.
+
+"_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.
+
+"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 St. 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 carcass; 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.
+
+"Oh!" 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 St. Jo. The
+editor did no more than glance his eye down the head-lines. '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 peep-hole 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.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+  [1] "What's the matter with him?"
+
+  [2] "The gentleman is sick at his stomach from having looked too long
+    at your daub."
+
+
+
+
+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 shot-gun 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 dog-like 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 already 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 great-coats 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 eyeglass 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 for ever. 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 and 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 civilisation; 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 Lousteau 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 lee-shore, 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 shot-gun.
+"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 a while 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 warhoofs 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 St. 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 lace 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 to sleep.
+
+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.
+
+"Oh," 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 seal. 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 night-shirt 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 St. Lazare; all
+alone, though in a carriage full of people, that I watched the moon
+shine on the Seine flood with its tufted isles, 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-cosy. 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 Scots 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 the 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 whipped 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 drily; "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 dune 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 a'thegether. _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 millionaires, 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 a while 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 millionaire. 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
+millionaires.
+
+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, an
+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
+red-wood 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 business-man 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 fly-paper
+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 scatheless? 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 designed 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^2 + 2ab + b^2._"
+
+"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 typewriting 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, towards 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 frockcoat, 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 the hour of duty and glory; see
+me circulate amid the crowd, radiating affability and laughter, liberal
+with my sweetmeats and cigars. I say unblushing things to hobble-dehoy
+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 alongside 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 up on 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
+agonised 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 eagles' 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 hobble-dehoy 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 reopened. Among my purchasers was a working man 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 guardacostas; 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 water-side 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 millionaire, 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. China-town by a thousand
+eccentricities drew and held me; I could never have enough of its
+ambiguous, inter-racial 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 whisky 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 millionaire. 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 craft 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 civilisation), each of us gazing onwards 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 entrenchments, 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, cocoa-nut bowls, snowy
+cocoa-nut 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 especially 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't 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, and 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, mountainous 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, thick-set 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 foremast 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 whisky 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 Admiralty 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, headlines, 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.
+
+   _Further 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 grey and blotched; he spoke in a kind of broken song, with much
+variety of key; his gestures seemed (as in the disease called St.
+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-bye, 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[3] 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.
+
+"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 auctioneer 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. "Hallo," 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"
+passed 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_.
+
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+  [3] A low lawyer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+IN WHICH THE CREW VANISH
+
+
+At the door of the exchange I found myself alongside 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 fogey 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 fervour 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 look-out for him as soon's you make the
+islands; for it's on the cards he might pick you up at sea in a
+whale-boat 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 _Norah
+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
+China-boy 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 side-walk 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 Wing) 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 wagon,
+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 find
+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 wish 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 shook 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 over-vaulting
+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 that 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 intimate, 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 _Norah 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
+business-like 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 small 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 carcass."
+
+"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 barquantine."
+
+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 abroad 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 dockside 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 whisky-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 dare say 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'sle 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
+pain-killer 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 over-long, 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, Madame 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, that 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 look-out," 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 laid 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 the
+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
+dilettante 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 north-east. 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 whisky-dealer's
+thermometer stood at 84 deg.. 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 wellbeing
+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[4] 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 state-room, 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."
+
+"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
+look-out, 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 fore-arm 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-bye 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 downstairs 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 pan-jammers, 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 man 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
+south-westerly 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 top-sail
+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.
+
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+  [4] In sea-lingo (Pacific) _Dutchman_ includes all Teutons and folk
+    from the basin of the Baltic; _Scattermouch_, all Latins and
+    Levantines.
+
+
+
+
+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, and screamed 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 of so many
+lives of men, whose tall spars had been mirrored in the remotest corners
+of the sea--lay stationary at last and for ever, 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 gasketed 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 seabirds 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-butt, 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, 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,
+bottles of scent, 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 food,
+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-butt. "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 shoulders 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 Brooks 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--ciphering 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 state-room 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 Wales, 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 navigations, 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 Braddon's--of course, "Aurora Floyd," which has
+penetrated to every island of the Pacific, a good many cheap detective
+books, "Rob Roy," Auerbach's "Auf der Hoehe," 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, wizened 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 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
+believe 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-boat, 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 millionaire 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 a while 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 headlined, 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 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 look-out was stationed on the bowsprit end, another
+in the cross-trees; 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 flat
+   has gone forth; our firm went bust at a quarter before twelve. It
+   was a bill of Bradley's (for two hundred dollars) 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_; 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 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 has 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
+   cipher_. 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
+   don't 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 raising 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 yow 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 ciphers. 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 I
+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 dare say 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. Elaine; 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 thirty 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 bookmakers, 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 (of 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 grey,
+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 grey 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 forego 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
+have 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."
+
+"S-s-h!" returned Jim. "I was crazy when I 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 kerb-stone 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 muracle 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 never 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. 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-bye, my best of friends. Good-bye, 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 wharf-side 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 blazing 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 Vapor
+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 M'Bride 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 seabirds about Midway Island.
+The bruises on our hands were not yet healed; and there we sat, waited
+on by elaborate darkies, eating pompino 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's 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 leave 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 more admired or more 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
+this 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
+millstone 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 zig-zags, 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 black-mailer, 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 in 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 Whitaker's Almanack, 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-laced 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 chalkdown, 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 bygone 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
+archdeaconry; 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 goodwill;
+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-fleld,
+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 drily.
+
+"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 call 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, on 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 gentleman
+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 almost
+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 well on for 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 [Pi], and the side-board, and the aphasic piano,
+and the panels on the wall. There were Romeo and Juliet, Antwerp from
+the river, Enfleld'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 ditchwater."
+
+"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 Dr. 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 post-mark. 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 nutshell. 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 nurserymaids 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 black-guards"--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 gallows-birds; 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 that 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 dilettante, 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 heard 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 button-hole. 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 upstairs, 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 starlings 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 sandalwood, 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 trade-room, 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 shandy-gaff 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
+into 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 nowadays, 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 A1 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 suddenly, "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 lying
+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 the 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 quarter-deck 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 ain't 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 for 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. Chickencoops 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 unrecognisable; 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 woke 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 am 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 Macneill'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 and 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
+recognisable, 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 stayed 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 to 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 deg. 20' N., long. 177 deg. 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 (7.30 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 sang 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 after-thwart in case of a capsize. Then a piece of the bulwarks 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 sea-fowl 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 look-out 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 craytur, and here's me hand to'm, if he'll
+condescend 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 L2 7s. 7-1/4d. The figures were admittedly
+incorrect; the sum of the shares came not to L2,000, but to L1,996
+6s.--L3 14s. 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 L100, and stood to draw captain's wages for two months; his
+taking was L333 3s. 6-3/4d. Carthew put in L150; he was to take out L401
+18s. 6-1/2d. Tommy's L500 had grown to be L1,213 12s. 9-3/4d.; and Amalu
+and Hemstead, ranking for wages only, had L22 16s. 0-1/2d. 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 lump 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 of
+February, and they played with varying chances for twelve hours, slept
+heavily, and rose late on the morrow to resume the game. All day on 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 lamp-lit
+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 lawsuit, 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 pawn-shop"; 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; and 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, thick-set 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 myself," 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," cried 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 dashed 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
+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 under foot,
+and flew upstairs 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 fore-royal 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 the 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 further 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 the 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 a while, 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 aboide. 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 obloiged to ye, then," replied the Irishman. He spoke
+mild and meek, like a sick child with its mother. There was 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 stiff and cold, and committed to the waters of
+the lagoon; and the washing of the cabin rudely finished. All these were
+done ere mid-day; 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 weigh 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 for'ard 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 sternboard
+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.
+
+Garthew 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 a while 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 Prodestans
+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 sea-birds,
+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 a while 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 feet 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 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 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 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 ship-shape--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 Hong Kong,
+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 tell-tale 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
+gunwale, 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 head 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 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 anyone 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
+ward-room 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 connection 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 waistbelts, 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
+
+
+
+
+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 had taken to 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
+elevenpence-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_
+  --_nos praecedens_--
+
+as it were, marshalling us our way. I am in no haste to 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 hardwood 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 cast 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 sales of wrecks. The subject tempted them; and
+they sat apart in the alleyway 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 clues,
+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 and 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.
+
+
+
+
+END OF VOL. XIII
+
+
+PRINTED BY CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED, LA BELLE SAUVAGE, LONDON, E.C.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson -
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