IV

Three weeks at Levua got the cargo out and the cargo in, and the

morning came when we were due to start. Sadie and Levenstein had been

getting thicker and thicker; she was one of those girls that take the

bit between the teeth, and it didn’t knock us down with surprise when,

coming on board with her trunks, she said she’d been married that

morning to Mr. Levenstein by the native parson and that Levenstein was

going to follow her on to ’Frisco by the next boat he could catch.

Did you ever hear of such a tomfool arrangement? For she could just as

well have waited till he got to ’Frisco, and then she’d have had time

to change her mind; that’s what Buck told her as we put out with

Levenstein waving to us from the shore.

Buck rubbed it into her proper, he being a relative and all that, but

I doubt if he wasn’t as glad as myself to think of the face Pat would

pull when he found his daughter had married herself to a small island

trader and a German at that. She took his lip without saying a word,

and a day or two after she made inquiries as to when we should reach

Palm Island.

“Oh, in a day or two,” says Buck.

Now we weren’t due to touch at that place for fourteen days if the

wind held good, and when I got him alone a few minutes later I asked

him why he had told her that lie.

“And what would you have had me say?” he asked.

“Why, that we wouldn’t be there for a fortnight,” I answered.

“Well,” said he, “that would have been as big a lie, for we aren’t

going to touch there at all. I’ve got extra water casks from that

cooper chap at Levua and an extra supply of bananas.”

“What’s your reason?” I asks.

“I’ll tell you when this deal is through,” he answers, and knowing it

was useless to ask any more, I didn’t.

A few days later. Buck told us that we’d passed the location of the

island and that it wasn’t there; must have sunk in the sea, he said,

same as these small islands sometimes do.

When he sprung this on us you might have thought by the way Sadie went

on she’d lost a relative; said that she wanted to see it more than the

New Jerusalem, owing to Buck’s description of it, and asked couldn’t

we poke round and make sure it was gone and that we weren’t being

deceived owing to some error of the compass.

Buck says: “All right,” and we spent the better part of two days

fooling about pretending to look for that damn island and then we lit

for ’Frisco.

No sooner had we got there and landed the cargo, Sadie included, than

Buck says to me one morning: “Clutch on here,” he says, “whilst I’m

away. I’m going to London.”

“London, Ontario?” I asks.

“No, London, England,” he says.

“And what are you going there for?” I questions.

“To see the Tower,” says he.

Off he goes and in two months he returns.

V

I was sitting at breakfast when he comes in, having arrived by the

early morning train.

Down he sits and has a cup of coffee.

“How’s Pat?” says he.

“You’re even with Pat,” I says. “Levenstein got here a week ago and

Pat don’t like his new son-in-law. There’s been the devil to pay.”

“I’m better even with him than that,” says Buck. “Brent, we’re

millionaires.”

“Spit yer meaning out,” I says.

“Do you remember,” says he, “my saying to you last time we touched at

Palm Island that the place seemed built of a sort of rock I’d never

seen before, and my bringing a chunk of it away in my pocket? Well,

what do you think that rock is but phosphate of lime.”

“What’s that?” I queries.

“Seagull guano mixed with the lime of coral,” he says, “the finest

fertiliser in the world and worth thirteen to fourteen dollars a ton.

How many tons would Palm Island weigh, do you think, and it’s most all

phosphate of lime?”

I begins to sweat in the palms of my hands, but I says nothing and he

goes on:

“Palm Island being a British possession, since an Irishman has

discovered it and it lies to eastward of the German British line, I

went to London, and I’ve got not only the fishing rights but the

mining rights for ninety-nine years. I didn’t say nothing about the

mining rights, said I wanted to start a cannery there since the

fishing was so good, and an old cockatoo in white whiskers did the

rest and dropped the mining rights in gratis like an extra strawberry.

Then, coming through N’ York I got a syndicate together that’ll buy

the proposition when they’ve inspected it. I’ll take a million or

nothing,” says he.

“But, look here,” I says, “how in the nation did it all happen; how

did you know?”

“Well,” says he, “it was this way. That chunk of rock I was telling

you of, I stuck in my sea chest, and unpacking when I got back I gave

it to little Micky Murphy who was in the room pretending to help me.

He used it for a play toy.

“Now do you remember Pat O’Brien that morning he left us, talking to

Micky outside and taking him off to buy candy? Well, next day Mrs.

Murphy said to me that the old gentleman was very free with his money,

but she didn’t think he was quite right as he’d offered Micky a dollar

for the stone he was playing with. I didn’t think anything of it at

the time, but later on, you remember that night on board ship, the

thing hit me like a belt on the head.

“Micky had told the old chap I’d given him the stone when I came back

from that trip and Pat had recognised it for what it was. The only

question that bothered him was where I’d picked it up. He knew I

traded regular with Levua, and when he found we stopped nowhere but

Levua and Palm Island he knew it was at one of those two places.

Phosphate of lime was to be found, enough maybe to double his fortune.

He sent the girl to prospect, and she’d have done me in only that

night I suddenly remembered a chap telling me about the phosphate

business and saying the stuff was like rock, striped in places; I’d

never thought of it till then, and what made me think of it was that

I’d been worrying a lot since I’d left ’Frisco over Pat and all his

doings. Seems to me the mind does a lot of thinking we don’t know of.”

“Well,” I says, “when he sent the girl to prospect he didn’t bargain

she was going to prospect Levenstein.”

“No,” says Buck, “seems to me we’ve got the double bulge on him.”

But we hadn’t.

Buck got a million for his phosphate rights and gave me a share, and,

as much will have more, we flew high and lost every buck in the Eagle

Consolidated Gold and Silver Mining Corporation, Inc.

Pat met us the day after the burst and we asked him how the

Levensteins were doing.

“Fine,” says he. “He asked me how to become a millionaire last night

and I told him it was quite easy, you only had to pick up a million

and stick to it, but mind you,” I said, “it’s not the picking it up’s

the bother, but the sticking to it. Now look at that Eagle

Consolidated business,” I says, “many’s the fine boy has put his money

in tripe stock like that, tumbling balmy after working for years like

a sensible man. You know the stock I mean,” he finishes. “The Eagle

Consolidated Gold and Silver Mining Corporation, Inc.”

“Yes, I know,” says Buck.

We didn’t want to have no last words or let the old boy rub it in any

more; we hiked off, Buck and me, resuming our way to the wharf and the

same old life we’d always been living but for the three months we’d

been million dollar men.

“Pat seemed to have the joke on us,” said Brent, “but looking back on

those three months and the worries and dyspepsias and late hours that

make a millionaire’s life, I’m not so sure we hadn’t the bulge on him

over the whole transaction, specially considering that Levenstein went

bust, forged cheques and let him in for forty thousand or so to save

the name of the family.

“That’s the last transaction we ever had with Pat,” finished Brent.

“He dropped calling on us to tell us how to become millionaires,

seeing we’d given instructions to Mrs. Murphy always to tell him we

were out.”