|WHEN Jerome returned to his seat, the serious look in Webster's
hitherto laughing eyes challenged his immediate attention. “Now what's
gone and broken loose?” he demanded.
“Neddy,” said John Stuart Webster gently, “do you remember my crossing
my fingers and saying, 'King's X' when you came at me with that
proposition of yours?”
“Yes. But I noticed you uncrossed them mighty quick when I told you the
details of the job. You'll never be offered another like it.”
“I know, Neddy, I know. It just breaks my heart to have to decline it,
but the fact of the matter is, I think you'd better give that job to
your brother after all. At any rate, I'm not going to take it.”
“Why?” the amazed Jerome demanded. “Johnny, you're crazy in the head. Of
course you'll take it.”
For answer Webster handed his friend the letter he had just received.
“Read that, old horse, and see if you can't work up a circulation,” he
suggested.
Jerome adjusted his spectacles and read:
Calle de Concordia 19, Buenaventura,
Sobrante, C. A.
Dear John:
I would address you as “dear friend John,” did I but possess sufficient
courage. In my heart of hearts you are still that, but after three years
of silence, due to my stupidity and hardness of heart, it is, perhaps,
better to make haste slowly.
To begin, I should like to be forgiven, on the broad general grounds
that I am most almighty sorry for what I went and done! Am I forgiven?
I seem to see your friendly old face and hear you answer “Aye,” and with
this load off my chest at last I believe I feel better already.
I did not know until very recently what had become of you, and that that
wretched Cripple Creek business had been cleared up at last. I met
a steam-shovel man a month or two ago on the Canal. He used to be a
machine-man in the Portland mine, and he told me the whole story.
Jack, you poor, deluded old piece of white meat, do you think for a
moment that I held against you your testimony for the operators in
Cripple Creek? You will never know how badly it broke me up when that
Canal digger sprung his story of how you went the limit for my measly
reputation after I had quit the company in disgrace. Still, it was not
that which hurt me particularly. I thought you believed the charges and
that you testified in a firm belief that I was the guilty man, as all of
the circumstantial evidence seemed to indicate. I thought this for three
long, meagre years, old friend, and I'm sorry. After that, I suppose
there isn't any need for me to say more, except that you are an old
fool for not saying you were going to spend your money and your time
and reputation trying to put my halo back on straight! I doubt if I was
worth it, and you knew that; but let it pass, for we have other fish to
fry.
The nubbin of the matter is this: There is only one good gold mine left
in this weary world--and I have it. It's the sweetest wildcat lever
struck, and we stand the finest show in the world of starving to death if
we tackle it without sufficient capital to go through. (You will notice
that I am already--and unconsciously--employing the plural pronoun. How
rapidly the old habits return with the old friendships rehabilitated!)
It will take at least thirty thousand dollars, and we ought to have
double that to play safe. I do not know whether you have, or can raise,
sixty cents, but at any rate I am going to put the buck up to you and
you can take a look.
Here are the specifications. Read them carefully and then see if there
is anybody in the U. S. A. whom you can interest to the tune mentioned
above. We could probably get by with thirty thousand, but I would not
jeopardize anybody's money by tackling it with less.
Jack, I have a mining concession. It is low-grade--a free-milling gold
vein--twelve feet of ore between good solid walls on a contact between
Andesite and Silurian limestone. The ore is oxidized, and we can
save ninety per cent, of the values on amalgamating plates without
concentrating or cyaniding machinery. I have had my own portable assay
outfit on the ground for a month, and you can take my opinion for
what it is worth when I assure you that this concession is a winner,
providing the money is forthcoming with which to handle it.
This is a pretty fair country, Jack--if you survive long enough to get
used to it. At first you think it's Paradise; then you grow to hate it
and know it for hell with the lid off; and finally all your early love
for it returns and you become what I am now--a tropical tramp! There
is only one social stratum lower than mine, and that's the tropical
beachcomber. I am not that--yet; and will not be if my landlady will
continue to listen to my blandishments. She is a sweet soul, with a
divine disposition, and I am duly grateful.
I would tell you all about the geography, topography, flora and fauna
of Sobrante, but you can ascertain that in detail by consulting any
standard encyclopedia. Governmentally the country is similar to its
sister republics. The poor we have always with us; also a first-class,
colorado-maduro despot in the political saddle, and it's a cold day
indeed when two patriots, two viva's and a couple of old Long Tom
Springfield rifles cannot upset the Sobrante apple cart. We have the
usual Governmental extravagance in the matter of statues to countless
departed “liberators” in all the public squares, and money is no
object. It is depreciated shin-plasters, and I had to use a discarded
sugar-barrel to hold mine when I arrived and changed four hundred pesos
oro into the national currency. If a waiter brings you a jolt of hooch,
you're stingy if you tip him less than a Sobrante dollar.
We have a Malicon along the bay shore and back again, with a municipal
bandstand in the middle thereof, upon which the fine city band of
Buenaventura plays nightly those languid Spanish melodies that must have
descended to us from the Inquisition. If you can spare the cash, send
me a bale of the latest New York rags and a banjo, and I'll start
something. I have nothing else to do until I hear from you, save shake
dice at The Frenchman's with the Présidente, who has nothing else to do
except lap up highballs and wait for the next drawing of the lottery.
I asked him for a job to tide me over temporarily, and he offered me a
portfolia! I could have been Minister of Finance!
I declined, from a constitutional inability, inherent in the Irish, to
assimilate a joke from a member of an inferior race.
We haven't had a revolution for nearly six months, but we have hopes.
There are some white men here, neither better nor worse. We tolerate
each other.
I am addressing you at the Engineers' Club, in the hope that my letter
may reach you there, or perhaps the secretary will know your address and
forward it to you. If you are foot-loose and still entertain a lingering
regard for your old pal, get busy on this mining concession P. D. Q.
Time is the essence of the contract, because I am holding on to the thin
edge of nothing, and if we have a change of government I may lose even
that. I need you, John Stuart Webster, worse than I need salvation. I
enclose you a list of equipment required.
If you receive this letter and can do anything for me, please cable. If
you cannot, please cable anyway. It is needless for me to state that
the terms of division are as you make them, although I think fifty-fifty
would place us both on Easy Street for the rest of our days. Do let me
hear from you, Jack, if only to tell me the old _entente cordiale_ still
exists. I know now that I was considerable of a heedless pup a few years
ago and overlooked my hand quite regularly, but now that I have a good
thing I do not know of anybody with whom I care to share it except your
own genial self. Please let me hear from you.
Affectionately,
Billy.
Jerome finished reading this remarkable communication; then with
infinite amusement he regarded John Stuart Webster over the tops of his
glasses as one who examines a new and interesting species of bug.
“So Billy loves that dear Sobrante, eh?” he said with abysmal sarcasm.
“Jack Webster, listen to a sane man and be guided accordingly. I was in
this same little Buenaventura once. I was there for three days, and I
wouldn't have been there three minutes if I could have caught a steamer
out sooner. Of all the miserable, squalid, worthless, ornery, stinking
holes on the face of God's green footstool, Sobrante is the worst--if
one may judge it by its capital city. Jack, there is an old bromide that
describes aptly the republic of Sobrante, and it's so trite I hesitate
to repeat it--but I will, for your benefit. Sobrante is a country where
the flowers are without fragrance, the men without honour, and the
women without virtue. It is hot and unhealthy, and the mosquitoes wear
breechclouts; and when they bite you, you die. You get mail three times
a month, and there isn't a white man in the whole Roman-candle republic
that a gentleman would associate with.”
“You forget Billy Geary,” Webster reminded him gently.
“He's a boy. What does his judgment amount to? Are you going to chase
off to this God-forsaken fever-hole at the behest of a lad scarcely out
of his swaddling clothes? Jack Webster, surely you aren't going to throw
yourself away--give up the sure thing I offer you--to join Billy Geary
in Sobrante and finance a wildcat prospect without a certificate of
title attached. Why, Jack, my dear boy, don't you know that if
you develop your mine to-morrow and get it paying well, the first
'liberator' may take it away from you or tax you for the entire output?”
“We'll have government protection, Neddy. This will be American capital,
and if they get fresh, our Uncle Sam can send a warship, can't he?”
“He can--but he won't. Are you and Billy Geary of sufficient importance
at home or abroad to warrant the vast consumption of coal necessary to
send a battleship to protect your dubious prospect-hole? Be reasonable.
What did you wire that confounded boy?”
“That I was coming.”
“Cable him you've changed, your mind. We'll send him some money to come
home, and you can give him a good job under you. I'll O. K. the voucher
and charge it to your personal expense account.”
“That's nice of you, old sport, and I thank you kindly. I'll talk to
Billy when I arrive in Buenaventura, and if the prospect doesn't look
good to me, I'll argue him out of it and we'll come home.”
“But I want you now. I don't want you to go away.”
“You promised me thirty days in which to have a good time----”
“So I did. But is this having a good time? How about that omelette
soufflé all blazing with blue fire, and that shower-bath and the opera
and mushing through the art centres, and Sousa's band----”
“They have a band down in Buenaventura. Billy says so.”
“It plays 'La Paloma' and 'Sobre las Olas' and 'La Golondrina' and all
the rest of them. Jack, you'll go crazy listening to it.”
“Oh, I don't want any omelette soufflé, and I had a bath before I left
the hotel. I was just hearing myself talk, Neddy,” the culprit protested
weakly. “Let me go. I might come back. But I must go. I want to see
Billy.”
“You just said a minute ago you'd turned the forty-year post,” Jerome
warned him. “And you're now going to lose a year or two more in which
you might better be engaged laying up a foundation of independence
for your old age. You will get out of Sobrante with the price of a
second-class ticket on a vile fruit boat, and you'll be back here
panhandling around for a job at a quarter of what I am offering you. For
Heaven's sake, man, don't be a fool.”
“Oh, but I will be a fool,” John Stuart Webster answered; and possibly,
by this time, the reader has begun to understand the potency of his
middle name--the Scotch are notoriously pig-headed, and Mr. Webster had
just enough oatmeal in his blood to have come by that centre-fire
name honestly. “And you, you poor old horse, you could not possibly
understand why, if you lived to be a million years old.”
He got up from his chair to the full height of his six-feet-one, and
stretched one hundred and ninety pounds of bone and muscle.
“And so I shall go to Sobrante and lose all of this all-important money,
shall I?” he jeered. “Then, by all the gods of the Open Country, I hope
I may! Old man, you have browsed through a heap of literature in your
day, but I doubt if it has done you any good. Permit me to map out a
course of reading for you. Get a copy of 'Paradise Lost' and another
of 'Cyrano de Bergerac.' In the former you will find a line running
somewhat thusly: 'What tho' the cause be lost, all is not lost!' And
in the immortal work of Monsieur Rostand, let me recommend one little
page--about fifteen lines. Read them, old money-grubber, and learn! On
second thought, do not read them. Those lines would only be wasted on
you, for you have become afflicted with hypertrophy of the acquisitive
sense, which thins the blood, dwarfs the understanding, stunts the
perception of relative values, and chills the feet..
“Let me foretell your future for the next twenty years, Neddy. You will
spend about forty per cent, of your time in this lounging-room, thirty
per cent, of it in piling up a bank-roll, out of which you will glean no
particular enjoyment, and the remaining thirty per cent, you will spend
in bed. And then some bright morning your heart-beat will slow down
almost imperceptibly, and the House Committee will order a wreath of
autumn leaves hung just above Number Four domino table, and it will
remain there until the next annual house-cleaning, when some swamper
'will say, 'What the devil is this stuff here for?' and forthwith he
will tear it down and consign it to the fireplace.”
“Ba-a-li,” growled Jerome.
“The truth hurts, I know,” Webster pursued relentlessly, “but hear me
to the bitter end. And then presently shall enter the club no less a
personage than young John Stuart Webster, even as he entered it to-day.
He will be smelling of country with the hair on, and he will glance
toward Table Number Four and murmur sympathetically: 'Poor old Jerome!
I knowed him good!' Did I hear you say 'Huh!' just then? I thank
thee for teaching me that word. Take careful note and see I use it
correctly--'_Huh!_' Dad burn you, Neddy, I'm not a Methuselah. I want
some fun in life. I want to fight and be broke and go hungry and then
make money for the love of making it and spending it, and I want to live
a long time yet. I have a constitutional weakness for foregathering with
real he-men, doing real he-things, and if I'm to be happy, I'll just
naturally have to be the he-est of the whole confounded pack! I want to
see the mirage across the sagebrush and hear it whisper: 'Hither, John
Stuart Webster! Hither, you fool, and I'll hornswaggle you again, as in
an elder day I horn,swaggled you before.'”
Jerome shook his white thatch hopelessly.
“I thought you were a great mining engineer, John,” he said sadly, “but
you're not. You're a poet. You do not seem to care for money.”
“Well,” Webster retorted humorously, “it isn't exactly what you might
term a ruling passion. I like to make it, but there's more fun spending
it. I've made a hundred thousand dollars, and now I want to go blow
it--and I'm going to. Do not try to argue with me. I'm a lunatic and I
will have my way. If I didn't go tearing off to Sobrante and join forces
with Billy Geary, there to play the game, red or black, I'd feel as if I
had done something low and mean and small. The boy's appealed to me, and
I have made my answer. If I come back alive but broke, you know in your
heart you'll give me the best job you have.”
“You win,” poor Jerome admitted.
“Hold the job open thirty days. At the end of that period I'll give you
a definite answer, Neddy.”
“There is no Balm in Gilead,” Jerome replied sadly. “Blessed are they
that expect nothing, for they shall not be disappointed.”
“It's six-thirty,” Webster suggested. “Let's eat. Last call for that
omelette soufflé, and we'll go to a show afterward. By the way, Neddy,
how do you like this suit? Fellow in Salt Lake built it for me--ninety
bucks!”
But Jerome was not interested in clothing and similar foolishness. He
only knew that he had lost the services of a mining engineer for whom he
had searched the country for a month. He rose, dusting the cigar ashes
from his vest, and followed sulkily.
Despite the evidences of “grouch” which Jerome brought to the dinner
table with John Stuart Webster, he was not proof against the latter's
amazing vitality and boundless good spirits. The sheer weight of the
Websterian optimism and power of enjoying simple things swept all of
Jerome's annoyance from him as a brisk breeze dissipates the low-lying
fog that hides a pleasant valley, and ere the second cocktail had
made its appearance, the president of the Colorado Consolidated Mines
Company, Limited, was doing his best to help Webster enjoy this one
perfect night snatched from the grim processional of sunrise and sunset
that had passed since last he had dallied with the fleshpots--that were
to pass ere he should dally with them again according to his peculiar
nature and inclination.
Lovingly, lingeringly, Mr. Webster picked his way through the _hors
d'ouvres_, declared against the soup as too filling, mixed the salad
after a recipe of his own, served it and consumed it prior to the advent
of the entrée, which if not the fashion in the West, at present, has not
as yet gone entirely out of fashion. He revelled in breast of pheasant,
with asparagus tips, and special baked potato; he thrilled with
champagne at twelve dollars the quart, and a tender light came into his
quizzical glance at sight of a brick of ice cream in four colours; he
cheered for the omelette soufflé. In the end he demanded a tiny cheese
fit for active service, cracked himself a peck of assorted nuts, and
with a pot of black coffee and the best cigars possible of purchase
in Denver, he leaned back at his ease and forgot the theatre in the
long-denied delight of yarning with his old friend.
At one o'clock next morning they were still seated in the cosy grill,
smoking and talking. Jerome looked at his watch.
“Great grief, Johnny!” he declared. “I must be trotting along. Haven't
been out this late in years.”
“It's the shank of the evening, Neddy,” Webster pleaded, “and I'm hungry
again. We'll have a nice broiled lobster, with drawn butter--eh, Ned?
And another quart of that '98?”
“My liver would never stand it. I'd be in bed for a week,” Jerome
protested. “See you at the club to-morrow afternoon before you leave, I
presume.”
“If I get through with my shopping in time,” Webster answered, and
reluctantly abandoning the lobster and accessories, he accompanied
Jerome to the door and saw him safely into a taxicab.
“Sure you won't think it over, Jack, and give up this crazy
proposition?” he pleaded at parting.
Webster shook his head. “I sniff excitement and adventure and profit in
Sobrante, Neddy, and I've just got to go look-see. I'm like an old burro
staked out knee-deep in alfalfa just now. I won't take kindly to the
pack---”
“And like an old burro, you won't be happy until you've sneaked through
a hole in the fence to get out into a stubble-field and starve.” Jerome
swore halfheartedly and promulgated the trite proverb that life is
just one blank thing after the other--an inchoate mass of liver and
disappointment!
“Do you find it so?” Webster queried sympathetically.
Suspecting that he was being twitted, Jerome looked up sharply, prepared
to wither Webster with that glance. But no, the man was absolutely
serious; whereupon Jerome realized the futility of further argument and
gave John Stuart Webster up for a total loss. Still, he could not
help smiling as he reflected how Webster had planned a year of quiet
enjoyment and Fate had granted him one brief evening. He marvelled that
Webster could be so light-hearted and contented under the circumstances.
Webster read his thoughts. “Good-bye, old man,” he said, and extended
his hand. “Don't worry about me. Allah is always kind to fools, my
friend; sorrow is never their portion. I've led rather a humdrum life.
I've worked hard and never had any fun or excitement to speak of, and in
answering Billy's call I have a feeling that I am answering the call of
a great adventure.”
He did not know how truly he spoke, of course, but if he had, that
knowledge would not have changed his answer.