One of the Britishers who came to Paradise was an Irishman, the son of
an archdeacon with a large family and a small income. He was a
strapping fellow, strong and sturdy as a camel--and quite as
obstinate. He always spoke affectionately of his people, but I fancy
they were not deeply grieved when he left England. I dare say he was
troublesome at home; you know what that means. However, he was warmly
welcomed in Paradise, for he brought with him two hundred pounds in
cash, and a disposition to spend it as quickly as possible. Ajax
christened him The Babe, because he had a milk-and-roses complexion,
and a babe's capacity for, and love of, liquid refreshment. Perhaps
the archdeacon thought that the West was a sort of kindergarten, where
children like The Babe are given, at small expense, object-lessons and
exercises peculiarly adapted to young and plastic minds. In Central
America certain tribes living by the seaboard throw their children
into the surf, wherein they sink or learn to swim, as the Fates
decree. Some sink.
When The Babe's two hundred pounds were spent, he came to us and asked
for a job. He said, I remember, that he was the son of an archdeacon,
and that he could trust us to bear that in mind. We were so impressed
by his guileless face and cock-a-hoop assurance, that we had not the
heart to turn him away.
At the end of a fortnight Ajax took pencil and paper, and computed
what The Babe had cost us. He had staked a valuable horse; he had
smashed a patent reaper; he had set fire to the ranch, and burnt up
five hundred acres of bunch grass; and he had turned some of our quiet
domestic cows into wild beasts, because--as he put it--he wished to
become a vaquero. He said that the billet of foreman would just suit
his father's son.
"The equivalent of what The Babe has destroyed," said my brother Ajax,
"if put out at compound interest, five per cent., would in a hundred
years amount to more than fifty thousand pounds."
"I'm awfully sorry," murmured The Babe.
"I fear," observed Ajax to me later, "that we cannot afford to nurse
this infant."
I was of the same opinion; so The Babe departed, and for a season we
saw his chubby face no more. Then one day, like a bolt from the blue,
came an unstamped letter from San Francisco. The Babe wrote to ask for
money. Such letters, as a rule, may be left unanswered, but not
always. Ajax and I read The Babe's ill-written lines, and filled in
the gaps in the text. Connoted and collated, it became a manuscript of
extraordinary interest and significance. We inferred that if the sum
demanded were not sent, the writer might be constrained to cast
himself as rubbish to the void. Now The Babe had his little failings,
but cowardice was not one of them. Indeed, his physical courage
redeemed in a sense his moral and intellectual weakness.
"There is only one thing to do," said Ajax; "we must rescue The Babe.
We'll spin a dollar to determine who goes to the city to-morrow
morning."