These emotions still filled Pinney to the throat when at last he left
his cabin and went forward to the smoking-room, where he found a number
of veteran voyagers enjoying their cigars over the cards which they had
already drawn against the tedium of the ocean passage. Some were not
playing, but merely smoking and talking, with glasses of clear, pale
straw-colored liquid before them. In a group of these the principal
speaker seemed to be an American; the two men who chorused him were
Canadians; they laughed and applauded with enjoyment of what was
national as well as what was individual in his talk.
"Well, I never saw a man as mad as old Oiseau when he told about that
fellow, and how he tried to start him out every day to visit his
soap-mine in the 'ill, as he called it, and how the fellow would slip
out of it, day after day, week after week, till at last Oiseau got
tired, and gave him the bounce when the first boat came up in the
spring. He tried to make him believe it would be good for his health, to
go out prospecting with him, let alone making his everlasting fortune;
but it was no good; and all the time Oiseau was afraid he would fall
into my hands and invest with me. 'I make you a present of 'im, Mr.
Markham,' says he. 'I 'ave no more use for him, if you find him.'"
One of the Canadians said, "I don't suppose he really had anything to
invest."
"Why, yes, that was the curious thing about it; he had a belt full of
thousand-dollar bills round him. They found it when he was sick; and old
Oiseau was so afraid that something would happen to him, and _he_ would
be suspected of it, that he nursed him like a brother till he got well,
and as soon as he was able to get away he bounced him."
"And what do you suppose was the matter with him, that he wouldn't even
go to look at Oiseau's soap-mine?"
"Well," said the American, closing his eyes for the better enjoyment of
the analysis, and giving a long, slow pull at his cigar, "there might
have been any one of several things. My idea is that he was a defaulter,
and the thousand-dollar bills--there were forty or fifty of them, Oiseau
says--were part of the money he got away with. Then, very likely he had
no faith in Oiseau--knew it was probably a soap-mine, and was just
putting him off till he could get away himself. Or, maybe his fever left
him a little cracked, and he didn't know exactly what he was about.
Then, again, if my theory of what the man was is true, I think that kind
of fellow gets a twist simply from what he's done. A good many of them
must bring money away with them, and there are business openings
everywhere; but you never hear of their going into anything over here."
"That _is_ odd," said the Canadian.
"Or would be if it were not so common. It's the rule here, and I don't
know an exception. The defaulter never does anything with his money,
except live on it. Meigs, who built those railroads on the Andes, is the
only one who ever showed enterprise; and I never understood that it was
a private enterprise with him. Anyway, the American defaulter who goes
to Canada never makes any effort to grow up with the country. He simply
rests on his laurels, or else employs his little savings to negotiate a
safe return. No, sir; there's something in defalcation that saps a man's
business energies, and I don't suppose that old fellow would have been
able to invest in Oiseau's gold mine if it had opened at his feet, and
he could have seen the sovereigns ready coined in it. He just
_couldn't_. I can understand that state of mind, though I don't pretend
to respect it. I can imagine just how the man _trembled_ to go into some
speculation, and didn't dare to. Must have been an old hand at it, too.
But it seems as if the money he steals becomes sacred to a man when he
gets away with it, and he can't risk it."
"I rather think you could have overcome his scruples, Markham, if you
could have got at him," said the Canadian.
"Perhaps," Markham assented. "But I guess I can do better with our stock
in England."
Pinney had let his cigar go out, in his excitement. He asked Markham for
a light, though there were plenty of matches, and Markham accepted the
request as an overture to his acquaintance.
"Brother Yank?" he suggested.
"Boston."
"Going over?"
"Only to Rimouski. You don't happen to know the name of that defaulter,
do you?"
"No; I don't," said Markham.
"I had an idea I knew who it was," said Pinney.