WANTED, A PASSAGE.
It had been agreed that we were to start off next morning by the 7.10
train, and half an hour before that time saw me standing before the
Columbus statue in the Piazza Acquaverdi. Weems was such a mighty
squeamish little creature about the proprieties that I thought an old
dunnage-sack would scandalize him, and so had purchased a drab
portmanteau for my kit at the cost of half my remaining capital. I
intended to have no more breezes with him if it could be avoided.
The minute-hand of the clock above the central entrance of the station
crept up to the vertical, and began to droop. Cab after cab rolled up
over the flagstones and teemed out people and properties. Still my man
came not. He had distinctly said he would be in good time, as he had
baggage to be registered, and disliked being hurried. It began to look,
in spite of his bragging about never having overslept himself in his
life, as if he had been late in turning out.
The clock showed three minutes past the hour, and the big hand, being
on the down grade, began to race. I walked through the rank of waiting
cabs, and stood by the pillars of the central doorway. If we missed
this train we should lose a day. The 9.35 didn't go through, as we had
seen from the time-table overnight. It only landed one at Marseille.
The crowd of incoming people began to lessen, and finally ceased
altogether. The last passenger passed through on to the platform, and
the officials locked the waiting-room doors. We had missed that blessed
train.
I cursed Weems vigorously, and set off to Isotta's, where he was
staying, to beat him up, swinging the drab portmanteau in my fist, as I
didn't want to pay for leaving it, as somehow or other economy seemed
to me at that moment to be a strong line.
The Swiss day-porter was just coming down. He was a gorgeous personage
who could have saved the architect of Babel his great disappointment,
and at first he knew nothing of Mistaire Weem. Evidently the
schoolmaster had not been generous. So I inquired in the bureau for my
man's number, intending to beat up his room then and there, but was met
by the staggering announcement that the signor had cleared by the
Marseille train which left Genoa at 3.30 in the morning. But there was
a letter for me.
I tore the limp envelope, and read:--
"GRAND HOTEL ISOTTA, _Genova, Tuesday_.
"DEAR SIR,--Upon consideration I must return to my original
decision. I fear I shall have left Genoa before you receive this,
but do not trouble to give me any thanks. The balance of the
circular ticket is very much at your service.--Yours faithfully,
"R. E. WEEMS.
"--COSPATRIC, ESQ."
The little beast had done me brown.
It was getting on for eight o'clock then. I glanced at a time-table. He
was due to leave Marseille at 8.4. By Jove, if I could have trumped up
any charge that would have held water a minute I'd have had him
arrested by wire. Anything to delay him! I was just savage mad. And I
was as helpless as a figure-head.
I swung out into the Via Roma wondering what to do next. Common sense
said go and take up my berth on the American steamer, and quit crying
for the moon now that it had bounced out of reach again. But I was far
too wild to listen to any sane sober plan like that. I couldn't swim
out to Minorca, and I could not fly; but I told myself grimly that I
was going somehow, and if Weems had got there first and collared the
Recipe, he'd just have to hand over--or--well, it would be the worse
for Weems. I shouldn't buy lavender kid gloves to handle him with.
All that day I hunted about, trying to get a passage across to the
islands; needless to remark, without success. The mail steamers run
there from Valencia and Barcelona only, and though there are occasional
orange boats passing between Soller in North Mallorca and Marseille,
they aren't to be depended on. By a singular irony of fate, I did come
across an old white--painted barque which had just come out of Palma in
ballast; but her skipper only told what I knew full well in my own
heart, that I might very likely wait three years before I found a craft
going the other way.
There seemed nothing for it but to go like a sensible Christian by
train round the coast, and then across from one of the two Spanish
ports by the regular ramshackle mail steamer. And so I bowed to fate,
and converted the drab portmanteau and all its contents into the
compactest form. The lot didn't fetch much. By dint of tedious
haggling, I scraped together twenty-three lire thirty; and without
selling the clothes on my back, and one other item, which I had rather
sell the teeth out of my head than part with, I didn't see a
possibility of getting more by that sort of trade. However, I had only
collected this slender store in the hopes of increasing it, and as soon
as night came down and such places are open, I marched off to a
gambling hell which I knew of in the low part of the town near the
harbour side. The way lay through many passages and up many steps, and
it was by no means a place to which the general public were admitted.
In fact, in its style it was far more exclusive than the _salle de
jeu_ run by Monsieur Blanc's successors at Monte. But I had been
there before, and knew how to get the _entree_.
The whitewashed walls were grimy, the two naked gas-jets jumped and
hooted spasmodically, and those who knew said that the atmosphere was
reminiscent of a slaver's hold. The officials wore their shirt-sleeves
rolled up for greater ease in movement, and no gentleman was allowed to
enter the room till he had deposited his knife outside the door.
With the fluctuating population of a seaport, one might reasonably
expect to find most nationalities represented at such a seductive spot;
but, as a point of fact, the operators on that night were almost
exclusively Italians. The sailor, take him in the bulk, is a tolerable
fool all the world over; but the northerner has some grains of sense
though he is a sportsman, and roulette with twenty-six numbers and a
zero is a trifle too strong an order even for him.
I had fixed my desires at a hundred and twenty lire. Less would not see
me through; more I was not going to try for.
In that assembly a man who plunges half-lire pieces on every spin of
the ball is a man who means business; and the _dilettanti_ soon
let me press through to a stool at the table. Going on _pair_ and
_impair_ or the colour was not to my taste. Either luck was going
to stand by me that evening, or I was going to be broke; so I planked
my money haphazard on four numbers every time, and didn't handicap
myself with a system. I'd a distinct suspicion that the bank had even a
greater pull than was apparent on the surface; but there was no chance
of investigation, and I submitted to the fact that chances all-told
stood about two to one against me.
The play was slow, and for ordinary people unexciting, though you can
guess it did not send me to sleep. I won a little, and lost a little;
but on the whole was able to shove a ten-lire note every now and again
into my pocket. It doesn't do to leave such trifles about in some
places.
A clock outside chimed ten, and I could count up sixty-four lire fifty.
What with Italian tobacco and Italian garlic and Italian humanity, the
air had got something too awful for words. The arteries inside my skull
were playing some devil's tune of _Thumpetty Bump_ that caused me
to see mistily, and to wish for an earthquake which would rearrange
terrestrial economy. In short, I couldn't stand it any longer, and so
went out for a few minutes' spell in the open.
But I didn't luxuriate over-long. The thought occurred to me that Weems
was already at Cerbere, and in another hour and forty minutes would be
having his baggage examined by an individual in green cotton gloves at
Port Bou, previous to pursuing his career of conquest down into Spain.
And by this time my grudge against that schoolmaster person had grown
to be a very big one indeed. So I gave up parading the muddy
paving-stones, and turned back into the _biscazza_.
A new arrival had turned up during my absence, a long, lean Englishman
named Haigh, whom I had met casually once before. His nerves seemed in
a delicate condition, for when the water-logged gas jumped, he jumped
too, and, moreover, tried to do it as unobtrusively as possible, as if
conscious and not over-proud of the failing. But he was gambling keenly
and coolly enough, picking his notes one by one from a leather
pocket-book, blinking over them to make sure of their value, and
watching them unfailingly gathered up by the grimy paw of the croupier
without an outward sign of regret.
I looked on a minute, thinking what a queer fish he was, and then
elbowing in to the table started afresh on my own trading.
Fortune seemed to have improved by the rest. Three rattles of the pea
brought my total up to a hundred and fifteen francs in Greek, French,
and Italian money.
A hundred and twenty was certainly the original goal, but I had a
precious great mind then to let the other five slide. In fact, I drew
away from the table intending to stop. But instead of quitting the
place there and then, I was fool enough to argue the position out
solemnly to myself, with the result that I eventually decided the whole
affair from beginning to end to be entirely of the nature of a gamble,
and naturally felt bound to test whether the luck was going to hold any
longer.
Indecision's my strong point, and many's the time I've had to pay for
it. If I'd cleared out on the first impulse, I should have been
comparatively affluent. As it was, ten more minutes beside that greasy
baize cleared me down to the lining.
However, if I had made a donkey of myself, it wasn't an altogether
novel experience, and I was philosopher enough not to weep over it. So
I crammed my fists into my pockets by way of ballast, and sauntered to
the door for a trifle of property which the regulations had made me
leave there.
Whilst I was picking my own particular weapon from amongst the armoury
Haigh joined me, announcing that he also was cleaned out; and adding
that he was not altogether sorry, as those flickering gas-jets bothered
him.
The observation, if slightly illogical, was very explanatory; and so
thinking that he'd be none the worse for being looked after, I said I'd
stroll back up into the town with him. As we went up through the narrow
streets he imparted a long detail of woe; but he maundered over it
considerably, and whether the lady who was mostly in question was his
own wife, or some one else's wife, or no wife at all, was a point still
hidden from me when we sheered up in front of his hotel. Here he got
more mournful still, and quitted the tale of his past ill-treatment for
a more pressing question of the present.
"Yes, here we are, old chap, and I'm awfully sorry I can't ask you in
to have something. But the fact is, I'm not in very good odour there
just at present. My bill d'ye see's been galloping for the last three
weeks, and at lunch to-day the proprietor fellow said he couldn't wait
any longer for my remittances. He said that if they didn't come by
evening he'd rather I went, leaving my baggage behind by way of
souvenir. I'm afraid the two portmanteaus aren't worth very much, as
I've--er--disposed of most of the contents, and supplied the weight by
pieces of iron kentledge done up in one or other of the daily papers. I
had a notion that I should have raised funds this evening, but
circumstances intervened which--er--you understand, made me somewhat
worse off than before. Of course if I went in there they might put me
up again for to-night; but that proprietor fellow might be about, and I
shouldn't care to meet him. He's such a nasty way of looking at a chap.
So I think, on the whole, I shall just go down and sleep on my boat."
"Your boat?" I repeated in a dazed sort of way.
"Yes," said Haigh, blinking at me anxiously; "just a little cutter I've
got down there in the harbour. But I say, dear chappie, you aren't
taking it unkindly that I don't ask you in here, are you? 'Pon my
honour, if I weren't dead stony broke I'd give you a drink either in
this place or----"
"Damn your drinks, you lucky man. If your boat and my knowledge doesn't
transmogrify us from a pair of stone-brokes into a couple of bloated
millionaires, I'm a Dutchman. Come along, man. Come along now."