Wrecker — Chapter 22 - The Remittance Man, part 2
They were soon at table in the corner room up-stairs, and paying due attention to the best fare in Sydney.
The odd similarity of their positions drew them together, and they began soon to exchange confidences.
Carthew related his privations in the Domain and his toils as a navvy; Hadden gave his experience as an amateur copra merchant in the South Seas, and drew a humorous picture of life in a coral island.
Of the two plans of retirement, Carthew gathered that his own had been vastly the more lucrative; but Hadden's trading outfit had consisted largely of bottled stout and brown sherry for his own consumption.
“I had champagne too,” said Hadden, “but I kept that in case of sickness, until I didn't seem to be going to be sick, and then I opened a pint every Sunday.
Used to sleep all morning, then breakfast with my pint of fizz, and lie in a hammock and read Hallam's _Middle Ages_.
Have you read that?
I always take something solid to the islands.
There's no doubt I did the thing in rather a fine style; but if it was gone about a little cheaper, or there were two of us to bear the expense, it ought to pay hand over fist.
I've got the influence, you see.
I'm a chief now, and sit in the speak-house under my own strip of roof.
I'd like to see them taboo ME!
They daren't try it; I've a strong party, I can tell you.
Why, I've had upwards of thirty cowtops sitting in my front verandah eating tins of salmon.
” “Cowtops?
” asked Carthew, “what are they?
” “That's what Hallam would call feudal retainers,” explained Hadden, not without vainglory.
“They're My Followers.
They belong to My Family.
I tell you, they come expensive, though; you can't fill up all these retainers on tinned salmon for nothing; but whenever I could get it, I would give 'em squid.
Squid's good for natives, but I don't care for it, do you?
--or shark either.
It's like the working classes at home.
With copra at the price it is, they ought to be willing to bear their share of the loss; and so I've told them again and again.
I think it's a man's duty to open their minds, and I try to, but you can't get political economy into them; it doesn't seem to reach their intelligence.
” There was an expression still sticking in Carthew's memory, and he returned upon it with a smile.
“Talking of political economy,” said he, “you said if there were two of us to bear the expense, the profits would increase.
How do you make out that?
” “I'll show you!
I'll figure it out for you!
” cried Hadden, and with a pencil on the back of the bill of fare proceeded to perform miracles.
He was a man, or let us rather say a lad, of unusual projective power.
Give him the faintest hint of any speculation, and the figures flowed from him by the page.
A lively imagination and a ready though inaccurate memory supplied his data; he delivered himself with an inimitable heat that made him seem the picture of pugnacity; lavished contradiction;
had a form of words, with or without significance, for every form of criticism; and the looker-on alternately smiled at his simplicity and fervour, or was amazed by his unexpected shrewdness.
He was a kind of Pinkerton in play.
I have called Jim's the romance of business; this was its Arabian tale.
“Have you any idea what this would cost?
” he asked, pausing at an item.
“Not I,” said Carthew.
“Ten pounds ought to be ample,” concluded the projector.
“O, nonsense!
” cried Carthew.
“Fifty at the very least.
” “You told me yourself this moment you knew nothing about it!
” cried Tommy.
“How can I make a calculation, if you blow hot and cold?
You don't seem able to be serious!
” But he consented to raise his estimate to twenty; and a little after, the calculation coming out with a deficit, cut it down again to five pounds ten, with the remark, “I told you it was nonsense.
This sort of thing has to be done strictly, or where's the use?
” Some of these processes struck Carthew as unsound; and he was at times altogether thrown out by the capricious startings of the prophet's mind.
These plunges seemed to be gone into for exercise and by the way, like the curvets of a willing horse.
Gradually the thing took shape; the glittering if baseless edifice arose; and the hare still ran on the mountains, but the soup was already served in silver plate.
Carthew in a few days could command a hundred and fifty pounds; Hadden was ready with five hundred; why should they not recruit a fellow or two more, charter an old ship, and go cruising on their own account?
Carthew was an experienced yachtsman; Hadden professed himself able to “work an approximate sight.
” Money was undoubtedly to be made, or why should so many vessels cruise about the islands?
they, who worked their own ship, were sure of a still higher profit.
“And whatever else comes of it, you see,” cried Hadden, “we get our keep for nothing.
Come, buy some togs, that's the first thing you have to do of course; and then we'll take a hansom and go to the Currency Lass.
” “I'm going to stick to the togs I have,” said Norris.
“Are you?
” cried Hadden.
“Well, I must say I admire you.
You're a regular sage.
It's what you call Pythagoreanism, isn't it?
if I haven't forgotten my philosophy.
” “Well, I call it economy,” returned Carthew.
“If we are going to try this thing on, I shall want every sixpence.
” “You'll see if we're going to try it!
” cried Tommy, rising radiant from table.
“Only, mark you, Carthew, it must be all in your name.
I have capital, you see; but you're all right.
You can play vacuus viator, if the thing goes wrong.
” “I thought we had just proved it was quite safe,” said Carthew.
“There's nothing safe in business, my boy,” replied the sage; “not even bookmaking.
” The public house and tea garden called the Currency Lass represented a moderate fortune gained by its proprietor, Captain Bostock, during a long, active, and occasionally historic career among the islands.
Anywhere from Tonga to the Admiralty Isles, he knew the ropes and could lie in the native dialect.
He had seen the end of sandal wood, the end of oil, and the beginning of copra; and he was himself a commercial pioneer, the first that ever carried human teeth into the Gilberts.
He was tried for his life in Fiji in Sir Arthur Gordon's time; and if ever he prayed at all, the name of Sir Arthur was certainly not forgotten.
He was speared in seven places in New Ireland--the same time his mate was killed--the famous “outrage on the brig Jolly Roger”; but the treacherous savages made little by their wickedness, and Bostock, in spite of their teeth, got seventy-five head of volunteer labour on board, of whom not more than a dozen died of injuries.
He had a hand, besides, in the amiable pleasantry which cost the life of Patteson; and when the sham bishop landed, prayed, and gave his benediction to the natives, Bostock, arrayed in a female chemise out of the traderoom, had stood at his right hand and boomed amens.
This, when he was sure he was among good fellows, was his favourite yarn.
“Two hundred head of labour for a hatful of amens,” he used to name the tale; and its sequel, the death of the real bishop, struck him as a circumstance of extraordinary humour.
Many of these details were communicated in the hansom, to the surprise of Carthew.
“Why do we want to visit this old ruffian?
” he asked.
“You wait till you hear him,” replied Tommy.
“That man knows everything.
” On descending from the hansom at the Currency Lass, Hadden was struck with the appearance of the cabman, a gross, salt-looking man, red-faced, blue-eyed, short-handed and short-winded, perhaps nearing forty.
“Surely I know you?
” said he.
“Have you driven me before?
” “Many's the time, Mr. Hadden,” returned the driver.
“The last time you was back from the islands, it was me that drove you to the races, sir.
” “All right: jump down and have a drink then,” said Tom, and he turned and led the way into the garden.
Captain Bostock met the party: he was a slow, sour old man, with fishy eyes; greeted Tommy offhand, and (as was afterwards remembered) exchanged winks with the driver.
“A bottle of beer for the cabman there at that table,” said Tom.
“Whatever you please from shandygaff to champagne at this one here; and you sit down with us.
Let me make you acquainted with my friend, Mr. Carthew.
I've come on business, Billy; I want to consult you as a friend; I'm going into the island trade upon my own account.
” Doubtless the captain was a mine of counsel, but opportunity was denied him.
He could not venture on a statement, he was scarce allowed to finish a phrase, before Hadden swept him from the field with a volley of protest and correction.
That projector, his face blazing with inspiration, first laid before him at inordinate length a question, and as soon as he attempted to reply, leaped at his throat, called his facts in question, derided his policy, and at times thundered on him from the heights of moral indignation.
“I beg your pardon,” he said once.
“I am a gentleman, Mr. Carthew here is a gentleman, and we don't mean to do that class of business.
Can't you see who you are talking to?
Can't you talk sense?
Can't you give us 'a dead bird' for a good traderoom?
” “No, I don't suppose I can,” returned old Bostock; “not when I can't hear my own voice for two seconds together.
It was gin and guns I did it with.
” “Take your gin and guns to Putney!
” cried Hadden.
“It was the thing in your times, that's right enough; but you're old now, and the game's up.
I'll tell you what's wanted now-a-days, Bill Bostock,” said he; and did, and took ten minutes to it.
Carthew could not refrain from smiling.
He began to think less seriously of the scheme, Hadden appearing too irresponsible a guide; but on the other hand, he enjoyed himself amazingly.
It was far from being the same with Captain Bostock.
“You know a sight, don't you?
” remarked that gentleman, bitterly, when Tommy paused.
“I know a sight more than you, if that's what you mean,” retorted Tom.
“It stands to reason I do.
You're not a man of any education; you've been all your life at sea or in the islands; you don't suppose you can give points to a man like me?
” “Here's your health, Tommy,” returned Bostock.
“You'll make an A-one bake in the New Hebrides.
” “That's what I call talking,” cried Tom, not perhaps grasping the spirit of this doubtful compliment.
“Now you give me your attention.
We have the money and the enterprise, and I have the experience: what we want is a cheap, smart boat, a good captain, and an introduction to some house that will give us credit for the trade.
” “Well, I'll tell you,” said Captain Bostock.
“I have seen men like you baked and eaten, and complained of afterwards.
Some was tough, and some hadn't no flaviour,” he added grimly.
“What do you mean by that?
” cried Tom.
“I mean I don't care,” cried Bostock.
“It ain't any of my interests.
I
haven't underwrote your life.
Only I'm blest if I'm not sorry for the cannibal as tries to eat your head.
And what I recommend is a cheap, smart coffin and a good undertaker.
See if you can find a house to give you credit for a coffin!
Look at your friend there; HE'S got some sense;
he's laughing at you so as he can't stand.
” The exact degree of ill-feeling in Mr. Bostock's mind was difficult to gauge; perhaps there was not much, perhaps he regarded his remarks as a form of courtly badinage.
But there is little doubt that Hadden resented them.
He had even risen from his place, and the conference was on the point of breaking up, when a new voice joined suddenly in the conversation.
The cabman sat with his back turned upon the party, smoking a meerschaum pipe.
Not a word of Tommy's eloquence had missed him, and he now faced suddenly about with these amazing words:-- “Excuse me, gentlemen; if you'll buy me the ship I want, I'll get you the trade on credit.
” There was a pause.
“Well, what do YOU, mean?
” gasped Tommy.
“Better tell 'em who I am, Billy,” said the cabman.
“Think it safe, Joe?
” inquired Mr. Bostock.
“I'll take my risk of it,” returned the cabman.
“Gentlemen,” said Bostock, rising solemnly, “let me make you acquainted with Captain Wicks of the Grace Darling.
” “Yes, gentlemen, that is what I am,” said the cabman.
“You know I've been in trouble; and I don't deny but what I struck the blow, and where was I to get evidence of my provocation?
So I turned to and took a cab, and I've driven one for three year now and nobody the wiser.
” “I beg your pardon,” said Carthew, joining almost for the first time;
“I'm a new chum.
What was the charge?
” “Murder,” said Captain Wicks, “and I don't deny but what I struck the blow.
And there's no sense in my trying to deny I was afraid to go to trial, or why would I be here?
But it's a fact it was flat mutiny.
Ask Billy here.
He knows how it was.
” Carthew breathed long; he had a strange, half-pleasurable sense of wading deeper in the tide of life.
“Well,” said he, “you were going on to say?
” “I was going on to say this,” said the captain sturdily.
“I've overheard what Mr. Hadden has been saying, and I think he talks good sense.
I like some of his ideas first chop.
He's sound on traderooms; he's all there on the traderoom, and I see that he and I would pull together.
Then you're both gentlemen, and I like that,” observed Captain Wicks.
“And then I'll tell you I'm tired of this cabbing cruise, and I want to get to work again.
Now, here's my offer.
I've a little money I can stake up,--all of a hundred anyway.
Then my old firm will give me trade, and jump at the chance; they never lost by me; they know what I'm worth as supercargo.
And, last of all, you want a good captain to sail your ship for you.
Well, here I am.
I've sailed schooners for ten years.
Ask Billy if I can handle a schooner.
” “No man better,” said Billy.
“And as for my character as a shipmate,” concluded Wicks, “go and ask my old firm.
” “But look here!
” cried Hadden, “how do you mean to manage?
You can whisk round in a hansom, and no questions asked.
But if you try to come on a quarter-deck, my boy, you'll get nabbed.
” “I'll have to keep back till the last,” replied Wicks, “and take another name.
” “But how about clearing?
what other name?
” asked Tommy, a little bewildered.
“I don't know yet,” returned the captain, with a grin.
“I'll see what the name is on my new certificate, and that'll be good enough for me.
If I can't get one to buy, though I never heard of such a thing, there's old Kirkup, he's turned some sort of farmer down Bondi way; he'll hire me his.
” “You seemed to speak as if you had a ship in view,” said Carthew.
“So I have, too,” said Captain Wicks, “and a beauty.
Schooner yacht Dream; got lines you never saw the beat of; and a witch to go.
She passed me once off Thursday Island, doing two knots to my one and laying a point and a half better; and the Grace Darling was a ship that I was proud of.
I took and tore my hair.
The Dream's been MY dream ever since.
That was in her old days, when she carried a blue ens'n. Grant Sanderson was the party as owned her; he was rich and mad, and got a fever at last somewhere about the Fly River, and took and died.
The captain brought the body back to Sydney, and paid off.
Well, it turned out Grant Sanderson had left any quantity of wills and any quantity of widows, and no fellow could make out which was the genuine article.
All the widows brought lawsuits against all the rest, and every will had a firm of lawyers on the quarterdeck as long as your arm.
They tell me it was one of the biggest turns-to that ever was seen, bar Tichborne; the Lord Chamberlain himself was floored, and so was the Lord Chancellor; and all that time the Dream lay rotting up by Glebe Point.
Well, it's done now;
they've picked out a widow and a will; tossed up for it, as like as not;
and the Dream's for sale.
She'll go cheap; she's had a long turn-to at rotting.
” “What size is she?
” “Well, big enough.
We don't want her bigger.
A hundred and ninety, going two hundred,” replied the captain.
“She's fully big for us three; it would be all the better if we had another hand, though it's a pity too, when you can pick up natives for half nothing.
Then we must have a cook.
I can fix raw sailor-men, but there's no going to sea with a new-chum cook.
I can lay hands on the man we want for that: a Highway boy, an old shipmate of mine, of the name of Amalu.
Cooks first rate, and it's always better to have a native; he aint fly, you can turn him to as you please, and he don't know enough to stand out for his rights.
” From the moment that Captain Wicks joined in the conversation, Carthew recovered interest and confidence; the man (whatever he might have done) was plainly good-natured, and plainly capable; if he thought well of the enterprise, offered to contribute money, brought experience, and could thus solve at a word the problem of the trade, Carthew was content to go ahead.
As for Hadden, his cup was full; he and Bostock forgave each other in champagne; toast followed toast; it was proposed and carried amid acclamation to change the name of the schooner (when she should be bought) to the Currency Lass; and the Currency Lass Island Trading Company was practically founded before dusk.
Three days later, Carthew stood before the lawyer, still in his jean suit, received his hundred and fifty pounds, and proceeded rather timidly to ask for more indulgence.
“I have a chance to get on in the world,” he said.
“By to-morrow evening I expect to be part owner of a ship.
” “Dangerous property, Mr. Carthew,” said the lawyer.
“Not if the partners work her themselves and stand to go down along with her,” was the reply.
“I conceive it possible you might make something of it in that way,” returned the other.
“But are you a seaman?
I thought you had been in the diplomatic service.
” “I am an old yachtsman,” said Norris.
“And I must do the best I can.
A fellow can't live in New South Wales upon diplomacy.
But the point I wish to prepare you for is this.
It will be impossible I should present myself here next quarter-day; we expect to make a six months' cruise of it among the islands.
” “Sorry, Mr. Carthew: I can't hear of that,” replied the lawyer.
“I mean upon the same conditions as the last,” said Carthew.
“The conditions are exactly opposite,” said the lawyer.
“Last time I had reason to know you were in the colony; and even then I stretched a point.
This time, by your own confession, you are contemplating a breach of the agreement; and I give you warning if you carry it out and I receive proof of it (for I will agree to regard this conversation as confidential) I shall have no choice but to do my duty.
Be here on quarter-day, or your allowance ceases.
” “This is very hard and, I think, rather silly,” returned Carthew.
“It is not of my doing.
I have my instructions,” said the lawyer.
“And you so read these instructions, that I am to be prohibited from making an honest livelihood?
” asked Carthew.
“Let us be frank,” said the lawyer.
“I find nothing in these instructions about an honest livelihood.
I have no reason to suppose my clients care anything about that.
I have reason to suppose only one thing,--that they mean you shall stay in this colony, and to guess another, Mr. Carthew.
And to guess another.
” “What do you mean by that?
” asked Norris.
“I mean that I imagine, on very strong grounds, that your family desire to see no more of you,” said the lawyer.
“O, they may be very wrong;
but that is the impression conveyed, that is what I suppose I am paid to bring about, and I have no choice but to try and earn my hire.
” “I would scorn to deceive you,” said Norris, with a strong flush, “you have guessed rightly.
My family refuse to see me; but I am not going to England, I am going to the islands.
How does that affect the islands?
” “Ah, but I don't know that you are going to the islands,” said the lawyer, looking down, and spearing the blotting-paper with a pencil.
“I beg your pardon.
I have the pleasure of informing you,” said Norris.
“I am afraid, Mr. Carthew, that I cannot regard that communication as official,” was the slow reply.
“I am not accustomed to have my word doubted!
” cried Norris.
“Hush!
I allow no one to raise his voice in my office,” said the lawyer.
“And for that matter--you seem to be a young gentleman of sense--consider what I know of you.
You are a discarded son; your family pays money to be shut of you.
What have you done?
I don't know.
But do you not see how foolish I should be, if I exposed my business reputation on the safeguard of the honour of a gentleman of whom I know just so much and no more?
This interview is very disagreeable.
Why prolong it?
Write home, get my instructions changed, and I will change my behaviour.
Not otherwise.
” “I am very fond of three hundred a year,” said Norris, “but I cannot pay the price required.
I shall not have the pleasure of seeing you again.
” “You must please yourself,” said the lawyer.
“Fail to be here next quarter-day, and the thing stops.
But I warn you, and I mean the warning in a friendly spirit.
Three months later you will be here begging, and I shall have no choice but to show you in the street.
” “I wish you a good-evening,” said Norris.
“The same to you, Mr. Carthew,” retorted the lawyer, and rang for his clerk.
So it befell that Norris during what remained to him of arduous days in Sydney, saw not again the face of his legal adviser; and he was already at sea, and land was out of sight, when Hadden brought him a Sydney paper, over which he had been dozing in the shadow of the galley, and showed him an advertisement.
“Mr. Norris Carthew is earnestly entreated to call without delay at the office of Mr. ----, where important intelligence awaits him.
” “It must manage to wait for me six months,” said Norris, lightly enough, but yet conscious of a pang of curiosity.
