THE LUCKY MAN.
No one ever accused Mr. Reginald Lossing of having brains; no one ever
denied that he had a luck which was monumental. He had a name for luck
which was looked up to and marveled at, even in the society papers.
Mr. Lossing had no settled trade or profession; he was like unto a lily
in the matter of toil and dress, and he made a very comfortable income
at it. He dabbled in outsiders on the turf, in shares of uncharted gold
mines, in the fascinating game of unlimited loo; and was able to look
complacently on the results. He went into all these and other operations
with a genial, childish simplicity; and, like the banker at roulette,
there always seemed a steady pull in his favor. How it was done no one
knew; he did not know himself; and he and all his world marveled, and
prophesied that his luck would some day turn with a rush and a sweeping
tide.
When he got mixed up with the Shelf affair it seemed as if this would be
the case.
There was something very near akin to a panic in Lloyds’ when the total
loss of the _Port Edes_ was reported, and those unfortunates who had
underwritten her were anxious to dispose of their risks at remarkable
prices to any credulous man who believed that this first report was a
_canard_. Consequently there was some pretty steep gambling gone through
in the space of minutes, and more than one small man got broke with
surprising rapidity.
Now, Master Lossing happened to be in the room as an idle spectator, and
was hit with the excitement, and asked a friend who was a member to act
for him. “I’m going to play a hand in this,” quoth Master Lossing.
“At what price?” asked his friend.
“When they get to ninety-eight guineas.”
“I suppose you know that makes you liable for about £10,800. There’s
£540,000 underwritten.”
“I’m good for that,” said Lossing; and an hour afterwards proved himself
so, as he had to pay. To this day many Lloyds’ men, who were interested
in that scene, congratulate themselves on having made £10,800 salvage by
a fluke out of a ship that was totally lost.
It began to dawn on Lossing after the event that he had made a fool of
himself, and that his luck was through; but he had the sense not to
whine aloud, and so his friends forgot the matter in the excitement of
other interests. Lossing did not forget, because the bank had written to
him that his account was overdrawn, and he had several bills which much
wanted paying. Unostentatiously he began to look about him for a means of
making a more regular and steady livelihood.
As after several months of search this last did not seem any appreciably
nearer, he was able to give full attention to a letter he received
concerning the _Port Edes_ and her cargo. It was unsigned, and bore an
American postmark. It ran as follows:—
“Sir. I hear that you are now legitimate owner of the _Port Edes_ and
her cargo. She was picked up at sea, and is now in the Everglades of
Florida in (here followed the exact latitude and longitude). The specie
is taken out of her, and you will find it by digging (here came elaborate
cross-bearings and directions). If you are a wise man, and wish to enjoy
what is now legally your own, you will say as little about the matter to
any one as possible.”
The communication was, to say the least of it, mysterious; but, because
Lossing was a fool, he did not see so many possibilities in it as a man
of more imagination might have done. Moreover, having failed to discover
the suitable occupation, the before-mentioned, he was feeling that the
end of his tether approached, and appreciated the loneliness of the
void which lay beyond. So, with all before him, and nothing behind, he
determined to find out how the matter lay with his own eyes, and with
that purpose journeyed to the hotel at Point Sebastian, now rebuilt with
new magnificence.
It was the Floridan winter season, and the place was crowded, and amongst
the crowd was Lossing’s old friend, Kent-Williams, again at the end of
a new quarter’s allowance. Mr. Reginald Lossing stayed a week at Point
Sebastian, and, by the kindly offices of Kent-Williams (who remained on
as his guest), he learnt much about the manners and customs of Floridan
society.
Knowing Patrick Onslow, he heard with interest about his marriage to Miss
Elsie Kildare, and with amusement the details of the send-off.
“There wasn’t much money throwing about,” Kent-Williams explained, “but
we did the thing in style for all that. She was married from here, and
old Van Liew did the heavy father to perfection. I was best man in a
two-dollar alpaca coat (I’ll trouble you) by way of purple and fine
linen; and a singer-fellow, who was down here for D. T., howled ‘The
voice that breathed o’er Eden’ as good as you could have got it done in
Milan. There was a regular A1 feed to follow, and then the pair of them
went off to the depôt behind the best trotting team in this section.
They’re going to settle out west, but where exactly I don’t know, though
I suppose we shall hear one of these days. We’d high jinks after they’d
gone. Some of the boys got a bit full, and there was a trifle of a row,
and a Balliol man and a Cracker from round here got laid out; but they
were both regular toughs, and nobody missed them; and, besides, a thing
like that lent local color to the wedding.”
“Yes,” said Lossing, “but touching this other matter I’ve been speaking
about,” and went on to discourse about a certain steamer and some specie,
which was a topic he had very much at heart just then. Kent-Williams
picked up the subject with interest. There seemed to be money in it, and
money was a commodity which he most ardently desired.
That was not the first conference they had had by any means, nor was it
the last, for some projects take much pre-arranging, especially if the
projectors are not gentlemen of any marked ability or experience. But, at
the end of a week from Mr. Lossing’s first appearance at Point Sebastian,
a definite plan had grown in their heads, and with a small equipment they
set out in a 10-ton schooner for a down-coast river said to lead into the
Everglades—they and five others, whereof two were disrated nautical men,
and one an engineer.
The saga of their doings for the next six months does not appear, but
it is known that the schooner returned twice, and took back with her
provisions and digging implements (which were paid for in yellow English
gold), and each time gathered two or three more recruits of varied tints.
There must have been quite a colony of them out there, and legends
floated out from the ’Glades of strife amongst themselves and of a fracas
with Seminole Indians. But nothing definite transpired, and, in fact,
the exact location of the colony itself was quite unknown. That part of
Florida does not attract the explorer for many reasons.
It was not, I may say, till some seven months later that Messrs.
Kent-Williams and Lossing deigned to reappear before the eyes of polite
society, and then (for some reason which may not be very comfortably
explained) it was on one of the Royal Mail Company’s steamboats bound
homewards from a port of Eastern South America. It might have been
remarked that Lossing carried a newly healed scar above his right eyebrow.
The pair of them sat in cool cane chairs under the shade of the awning,
watching in silence the low shores dip under the sea, and smoking
Brazilian cigars with massive contentment.
It was Kent-Williams who, when the last palm-tree had disappeared beneath
the waters, first made speech. “So that’s done with,” he said. “I feel
ten years older, but it’s done with, and we’ve got what we wanted.”
“Done with it is, thank my precious luck,” said Lossing. “I’m glad as
a man can be; but I tell you I’m bubbling with surprise still that the
thing should ever have come in my way. It’s a bigger puzzle than I shall
ever make out in this life. Think of it! First a steamer—my steamer, that
I draw out of a gamble, which is supposed to be sunk—gets up, and goes
overland, and plants herself firmly in the middle of a solid forest,
as though she wanted to grow there like a tree. We have it on the most
reliable accounts that the crew deserted her out in the Mexican Gulf; but
some unknown somebody comes up and paints a different color on one of her
smoke-stacks, and leaves the other as it was, and screws new cast-brass
name-plates on all her engines and fittings, and leaves the lifebuoys
labeled ‘_Port Edes_ of Liverpool.’ But then the gold in her flies two
miles further up-country, and dives twenty feet under the ground, without
disturbing the mangrove roots. And you will please to remember that that
same network of wood cost us two days of hard cutting with an ax before
we got through it. Now, if a man can ravel all that out, I swear he
ought to be burnt for sorcery.”
“It was the fishiness of the whole thing that impressed me most,” said
Kent-Williams, thoughtfully. “I think, dear boy, we’ve been very wise
chaps in selling your blessed steamer with a brand-new set of names on
her to a Spanish man who gave a low price and asked no questions. It was
quite honest on our part, seeing that the steamer and her cargo were
legally yours; but I shouldn’t be surprised if, by keeping dark, we’ve
saved a lot of trouble for somebody else.”
“It’s very probable,” said Lossing. “But I wonder who? D’you know, old
man, I’d give a couple of thousand, out of sheer curiosity, just to know
how all this racket has been fixed up. It seems to me some way that Pat
Onslow must have had a finger in it.”
“Do you think,” retorted Kent-Williams, “that if Patrick Onslow had his
finger on half a million, which no one else knew about, it wouldn’t have
been his half-million? No, sir. That cock won’t fight. Besides, Onslow
was spooning the Kildare girl, and that took up all his time, I guess.
Heigh-ho!” said Kent-Williams.
“What’s that for?”
“Which?”
“The sigh.”
“Did I sigh? Well, I was thinking about Mrs. Duvernay, the Kildare
girl’s sister, that Onslow was spoons on himself one time. She’s a deuced
nice-looking woman.”
“So you’ve said before.”
“I know. Between ourselves, Lossing, dear boy, I went up to her place one
evening and proposed to her; and—this is in confidence, mind—d’you know,
by Jove! she actually refused me. She’s got that fellow Onslow still in
her head, I suppose. But I shall go out and have a look at her again.
Honestly, I was after her £500 a year at first; but now that (thanks to
you) I’m better off, it won’t look so bad; and, really, I like her better
than I thought. She’s a most awfully charming woman.”
“Whatever did she marry that brute Duvernay for?” asked Lossing.
“Ah, that,” replied Kent-Williams, “is more than I can tell you.”
THE END.