CARTER MAKES A PURCHASE
It was Captain Image returning red and wrathful from an unsuccessful
cargo foray amongst the southern and eastern factories that Carter met
the day after his arrival at the Coast. The mariner had heard of the
deal at Mokki, and felt personally affronted that a nest of cargo which
he had already looked upon as his own should have been handed over once
more to the Germans.
"So you're on the beach, are you," said he, looking Carter up and down
with vast disapproval. "I must say you look it. I've seen old
Swizzle-Stick Smith come down after a jaunt in the bush and I thought
he couldn't be beat for general shagginess and rags. But you give him
points. What did Miss Kate bounce you for?"
"I believe I resigned."
"Same thing. And now you've come to ask me to take you home as a
distressed British subject, I suppose. Well, Carter-me-lad, a deck
passage is your whack according to consular understanding, but you've
sat in my chart house and you've sent me cargo, and so I'm going to put
my hand in my own breeches pocket and take you home in the second
class. And I tell you what: Chips and the bo's'n have got a shop in
the foc's'le that I'm not supposed to know about, and if you care to go
in there and get enough rig out to see you home, I'll foot the bill."
"You're very good----"
"I know I am. It puts me about five weeks further off that hen farm
outside Cardiff that I want to retire onto, being good like this.
There, run away out of this chart house, me-lad, and tell the chief
steward to give you a square blow-out of white-man's chop one-time.
I'm sure you need it. I never saw a man with so much of the lard
stewed off him."
Carter laughed. "Will you let me slip a word in? I've cargo for you."
"What! You!"
"I'm afraid you won't hook much commission out of it, Cappie, as you'll
have to take it at ballast rates."
"Catch me."
"But there'll be about seventy tons of it as far as I can reckon."
"My Christian Aunt! do you tell me, Carter-me-lad, that you've
scratched up seventy tons of cargo? Here, sit down. No, sit down.
Don't talk. I'm not going to have you going away and calling the
_M'poso_ a dry ship."
Captain Image had no tariff rate for tin ore, but he invented one with
great readiness, and then knocked off ten per cent. by way of
encouraging a new industry. "Now, where is this mine of yours?" he
asked genially. "Tell me, and I warrant I'll find you an easier way to
bring your produce than paddling it in dugouts."
"Up the river."
"Well, let's look at your charts, me-lad."
Carter shook his head.
"Why, how's that? Haven't you made one?"
"Oh, I've made one right enough, but it's inside my skull and out of
public view."
"H'm," said Image. "Don't want any competitors, eh, Carter-me-lad?"
"Why should I?"
"Well, drink up, and let me fill your glass. Here, have another squirt
of bitters."
"No, thanks, Cappie, no more. I drank enough champagne with the King
of Okky to last me months. I've got a lot of big business ahead of me
and I want a clear head. Now, if you take this consignment of tin ore
home for me, and rob me as little as you can help over freight, what's
next? Swansea and a smelter, I suppose?"
"They're a bit Welsh down in Swansea," said Captain Image, who came
from Cardiff himself. "They'll do with a trifle of looking after.
What you want's a smart agent."
"The thing I want first and soonest is cash. Now, look here, Cappie,
you know Swansea, and you're fond, by the Coast account, of a bit of
commission. Well, here's a nice lump of it on offer. If you'll get
some smelter firm to buy this parcel of ore on assay, and pay cash for
it, I'll give you five per cent. on what you raise."
"It's a deal. You couldn't have come to a better man, Carter-me-lad.
I'll open you an account at the Bank of West Africa----"
"And get the whole balance cabled out here?"
"I was going to suggest that," said Captain Image, doubtfully, "if you
hadn't rushed me so. But you won't want the lot. Now, with fifty
pounds or so----"
"I want every sixpence. Man, do you think I'm going to nibble at my
cake now it's been given me? Kallee's straight, I firmly believe. But
what's his life worth?"
Captain Image shook his head. "Very heavy drinker even for a darky,
and of course he hasn't a white man's advantages in knowing the use of
drugs."
"Besides, there are the usual risks of kings and of Africa. He's put
down the local anarchist. He cooked the only two who tried to
assassinate him, and took a day about it over slow fire, and that
discouraged the breed in Okky. But still there are risks. So that
altogether he's not a good life, and if he was to go out, it's quite on
the cards his heirs, successors, and assigns might not recognize my
title."
"You're right, me-lad. What you've got to do is to rip the guts out of
that mine at the biggest pace possible, and I'll bring in the _M'poso_
round here to load every time I come along the Coast."
Carter nearly laughed. He knew the capacity of his mine--quarry, it
was, rather--and the hold space of the little _M'poso_. Tin was
wavering about just under £176 per ton just then; he had reckoned that
he could produce for £10 a ton; and the more profit he could get, the
more pleased he would be. But he was not afraid of bringing down the
price; he had plenty of margin for a cut. His only fear was that the
river road might be stopped before he had made his fortune. And he
intended to empty the veins of Tin Hill at the highest speed that all
the strained resources of Africa were capable of, and if necessary to
keep three steamers the size of the little _M'poso_ ferrying his riches
across to the markets. But he did not let out any word of this to
Image. If the locality and the enormous wealth of this mine were to
leak out, nothing could prevent a rush. At the existing moment he was
penniless, and in any great influx of capital and men must inevitably
be swamped. Secrecy was essentially his game for the present.
So he accepted Captain Image's proposal in the spirit in which it was
made, and then put forward feelers for a steam launch. Was there such
a thing already on the Coast that one could pick up cheap just then?
Captain Image lit a thoughtful pipe. "I don't know of any little
steamboat that you could buy just now out here, cheap or dear. There
are one or two in Sarry Leone, certainly, but they are all either too
big for your job or too tender to bring round the Coast."
"I'm a bit of mechanic, you know. I wouldn't mind nursing engines. My
boy, White-Man's-Trouble, too, would make, according to his own
account, a pretty decent second engineer."
"Oh, I know him. Used to be stand-by-at-crane boy on the _Secondee_,
and stole everything that wasn't nailed down. But you'd never get one
of those Sarry Leone wrecks round here without being drowned in the
process. I tell you what, though. D'ye know anything about motor
cars, me lad?"
"Why?" asked Carter, who had never handled one in his life.
"Because at Dutton and Maidson's factory at Copper River they've got an
old wreck of an oil launch, if she hasn't rotted and sunk at moorings,
that you could have cheap."
"Everything cheap is dear to me just now. I haven't a penny in my
pocket. But what do you mean by cheap?"
"Well, she certainly wasn't out in the river the last three times I
called, but I did hear they'd hauled her up a creek. But if she hasn't
sunk at moorings, and the ants haven't walked off with her, I should
think you could get the bits that rust couldn't eat for three ten-pound
notes."
"Does she burn gasolene?"
"No, ordinary canned paraffin. I know that was supposed to be the
great point about her when she was brought out. Only trouble was, she
didn't seem to be an amateurs' boat at all, and after the first week or
so there wasn't a soul in the factory that could get her to steam at
all. So they tied her up to a buoy and did their business in the old
dugouts and the surf boats as formerly."
"I wonder if the old chief has got an emery wheel down in your engine
room?"
Captain Image stared at this change of subject, and ran a finger round
inside his collar to shift the perspiration. "What do you want an
emery wheel for? Sharpen your wits on?"
"No, my razor. If I go and try and buy a motor launch with this red
wool on my chin, they'll take me for the wild man down from the back of
beyond and stick up the price."
"Quite right. You've a very sound business mind, Carter-me-lad. You
can, I believe, get a very sound thing in razors for a shilling at that
fo'c'sle shop if Chips is still keeping one, and whilst I was buying I
should get a bottle or two of Eno, if I were you. Capital thing to
keep your liver down to gauge."
"I want to get all these things," said Carter emphatically. "I
daresay, indeed, I should like to buy up practically the whole of
Chips' remaining stock, partly for my own use and partly to take up
country. But the fact still remains unaltered that until I can get an
advance against bills of lading, I am without a copper in my pocket. I
suppose that greedy hound Balgarnie is the man to see about finance,
though."
"He is a greedy hound, Carter-me-lad, between you and me. Let me fill
up your glass. No, don't put your hand across it. Well, I'll finish
the bottle if you won't. You're open, just as a matter of form, to
giving a lien on that cargo you're shipping? Just as a matter of form,
of course, in case you peg out before things can be squared up?"
"Certainly, and I'm willing to give five per cent. per month for the
accommodation."
"Oh, come now, me-lad, ten per cent.'s the usual. But I don't want to
be stiff with an old friend like you, so we'll call it seven and a
half." Captain Image went to the drawer under the chart table and
unlocked it. "Come, now, say what you want. Anywhere up to fifty
pounds."
"I couldn't possibly do with less than a hundred," said Carter
definitely, and with that they began openly to wrangle. But it turned
out that Captain Image, even with the help of his financial partner,
Mr. Balgarnie, could only raise seventy-four sovereigns, and with that
the other had to be content. He gave his bond, and stood at the head
of the _M'poso's_ ladder ready to go back to his boat. But Captain
Image with genuine hospitality dragged him back.
"I'm not going to let you go like this, me lad. I've one turkey left
in the refrigerator, and if you peg out afterwards up those beastly
rivers, I'd always like to think I'd stood you one good dinner when the
chance came in my way. Come now, Carter-me-lad; turkey-chop? There's
not another skipper on the Coast that would make you an offer like
that."
Carter laughed and gave in, and turned towards the flesh-pots. He did
not like turkey. Once in Upper Wharfedale his father had come home
from Skipton with thirty turkey poults, which the family reared with
very vast care, and thereafter had to eat. Turkey once per annum is a
luxury; twice cloys; but thirty times, when legs follow breast, and
wings are succeeded by side-bones, would weary any man living. But by
custom in West Africa, turkey from a steamer's refrigerator is the
height of luxury, and Carter recognized the hospitable motive.
Captain Image, when mellowed by food and wine that night, talked of
Miss Kate O'Neill, and Carter behind an elaborate indifference listened
with a hungry interest. She was floating rubber companies it appeared
with enormous success. She had very nearly been engaged to a law-sharp
named Austin, but had got out of it in time. She was reported in
Liverpool to be struck on some palm oil clerk on the Coast, but Captain
Image proclaimed that to be rot, and what did Carter-me-lad think?
"Well, of course, there was Cascaes," said Carter judicially, "but I
don't see there was anyone else. All the rest of the men she met out
here were either married or engaged."
But George Carter whistled cheerfully to the stars as his boat-boys
paddled him up through the steaming mangroves to his abiding place that
night, and Mr. Balgarnie and Captain Image nudged one another
delightedly as they listened to his music.
Button and Maidson's launch, that ought to have served the factory in
Copper River, turned out upon inspection to be even worse than Captain
Image had forecasted, and the agent in charge was most enthusiastic in
accepting the two five-pound notes that were offered for her. And
thereafter for Carter and White-Man's-Trouble began a period of savage
toil.
The white man was a mechanic born, but he had never seen an oil engine
in his life, knew nothing of clutch, water-jackets, or reversing gear,
and had to make his first acquaintanceship with a carburetor. The men
at the factory were frankly ignorant of the launch's mechanism; said so
indeed before they sold her.
"But I know we have got a plan-thing of the works stowed away
somewhere," the agent stated. "Can you understand a machine from
seeing a drawing?"
"Rather," said Carter.
"Well, we'll find it," said the agent, and they wasted two days in
turning over every scrap of paper the factory contained, but the blue
prints refused to discover themselves.
"Let you off your bargain if you like," said the agent ruefully, when
the place had been searched through without success.
"Not a bit," said Carter. "Lend me a couple of boys and I'll take
those engines down and learn 'em for myself."
Now, to anyone who does not know the hot, steamy climate of a West
African river from personal experience, the manner in which unguarded
ironwork can decay would sound beyond the borderland of fact. A nut
left long enough on a bolt in that moist stew of heat does not always
rust fast. As often as not, when one takes hold of it with a spanner,
the whole thing crumbles away into oxide.
The forty-five-foot launch, when Carter first took her over, lay half
water-logged in the middle of a slimy creek. She was an open boat with
her engines housed under a wooden hutch aft, which had been further
reinforced by some rotten tarpaulin. She had no in-board reversing
gear, but was fitted with a feathering propeller, which if all went
well would drive her astern.
As she lay there she was a perfect picture of what could be done by
neglect and ignorant handling, and there was not another man then
resident under that enervating West African climate who would have
thought her worthy of salvage. But Carter had got just that dogged
drop in him that brings men out to the front, and he proceeded to clean
up the launch's meagre tools and her spares, to borrow what others he
could from the factory, and then to attack the engines. It was here
that the prodigiousness of his job first displayed itself. The
brasswork was sound enough--even West Africa could not eat into
that--but everything iron was spongy with rust, and he had to set up a
forge, and weld and shape afresh, out of any scrap he could find about
the factory, each part as he destroyed it.
There was no such thing as a lathe about the place; there were not even
taps and dies. He had to punch slots through his bolts and tighten
them up with forged and filed wedges. For the out-board work on the
feathering propeller he put the launch on the bank and worked up to his
armpits in the stinking slime, fitting, drilling, and rivetting with
his imperfect tools.
The labor and the exposure very naturally brought its reward in a sharp
dose of fever, but White-Man's-Trouble attended to that after the
manner of the heathen, and he emerged from it little the worse, and
bore with composure the derision of the other Europeans at the factory
when they saw his whitened eyesockets.
The engines were not ornamental when he had finished with them, and
they were cumbered with a hundred make-shifts; but when he gave the
whole a final inspection, he told himself that no vital part had
escaped a satisfactory repair. By a merciful chance there was tube
ignition, and after a good deal of manipulation he got the burners to
light. Then when the bunsens roared and the tubes glowed hot in their
cage, he and the Krooboys ground at the starting handle and turned the
engines till the sweat ran from them in rivulets. In England Carter
had heard without understanding that internal combustion liked their
"right mixture." He was thoroughly practised in finding the right
mixture for that elderly oil engine before it coughed itself into any
continuous activity.
The heavy oil for lubricating that had originally been sent out,
Messrs. Dutton and Maidson's agent still had in stock because, as he
explained, he had found no possible means of disposing of it, and the
ordinary commercial square tins of paraffin were part of the wares they
always held in quantity. So Carter was able to buy fuel, in all
abundance, for his voyage. Food also he laid in, and a great roll of
canvas, and then turned to his host to say good-bye.
"Wait a bit, man," said the agent, "and we'll build you a cabin out of
that canvas that will keep at least the thick of the dew off you at
nights. There are sockets along the gunwales for awning stanchions
that will carry bamboo side-poles capitally, and we can lash duplicate
roof-plates across and rig you a double-roofed tent in style."
"Very much obliged," said Carter, "but I won't wait for that now. I
intend to do it as we go up river. You'll notice I have shipped a big
bundle of bamboos for the woodwork. Good-bye."
"You seem in the devil of a hurry."
"I am. Good-bye. Now then, Trouble, shove over that reversing lever
to make the boat go ahead. Confound you, that's astern, you bushman.
There, that's better. Good-bye all."
"Good-bye, and good luck," said the agent, and he told his subordinates
at supper that night that another good, keen man had gone off to
disappear in Africa.
But Carter was developing into one of those tough, tactful fellows that
people call lucky because they always seem to succeed in whatever they
set a hand to. When the flood tide was under her, the launch coughed
her way up the great beer-colored river at a rate that sometimes
touched ten knots to the hour. She added her own scents of half-burned
paraffin and scorched lubricating oil to the crushed-marigold odor of
the water, and disgusted all the crocodiles who pushed up their ugly
snouts to see what came between the wind and their nobility. On the
ebb she still hauled up past the mangroves at a good steady two miles
every hour.
The engine, with rational treatment, seemed a very decent sort of
machine, though the feathering propeller, even till its final days, was
always liable to moods of uncertainty, and after twenty-four hours of
sending the launch ahead, would without any warning suddenly begin to
pull her astern. Still these erratic moods always yielded to
treatment, and, considering that she had been bought without a rag of
reputation, Carter was always full of surprise at prolonged spells of
good behavior.
He did not go up direct as he had come down in the King of Okky's sixty
man-power war canoe. He prospected the labyrinth of waterways for
other channels, and charted them out with infinite care. He intended
to take every possible precaution for preserving the secrecy of his
mine. Even if he was followed, and he took it for granted that on some
future voyage he presently would be followed, he wanted to be able to
puzzle pursuit.
At a point agreed upon he put into a village which sprawled along the
bank, and presented the King's mandate, and demanded canoes. The
villagers gave them without enthusiasm and without demur. He took
these in tow, great cotton-wood dugouts that would hold a hundred men
apiece, and hauled them after him, winding through great tree-hedged
waterways where twilight reigned half the day, and then coming out
between vast park-like savannas where the sun scorched them unchecked
and grazing deer tempted the rifle.
When he arrived at Tin Hill again, the King's finger had left a visible
mark. Great heaps of picked ore lay along the waterside ready for
loading the flotilla. "Good man, Kallee!" said the Englishman
appreciatively. "I'll dash you a new state umbrella for that."
The water-bellows organ that he had set up at the foot of the waterfall
bellowed out its _boo-paa-bumm_, and against each of the great bamboo
pipes there fluttered a bunch of red-dyed feathers to show that that
other ju-ju man, his majesty of Okky, countersigned the warning not to
unduly trespass.
* * * * *
Cargo after cargo Carter rushed down to the Coast, and dumped on land
he had hired behind a factory. Ever and again he sent a tidy parcel of
ore to a smelter in England and in due time had more money put to his
credit at the Bank of West Africa. But he did not try any expensive
tricks with the home tin market just then. He had got out a new
launch, a more solid affair this time, driven by a sixty horse-power
gasolene engine that had low-tension magneto ignition, and so many
other improvements on its predecessor, that White-Man's-Trouble, who
had it in charge, tied a dried monkey's paw to the compression cock on
each cylinder head, as an extra special protective ju-ju.
He carried a cook and an oil-stove galley, and at last even bought two
tin plates and a knife and fork to assist his meals. He felt it was
pandering to luxury, but he did it all the same. When he made that
purchase he wondered how he would behave in a woman's society after so
long living as a savage. As an after-thought he told himself that
Laura was the woman he had in his mind, and hoped he would not shock
her with his crudities. By way of carrying out good intentions to the
full, he sat down there and then and wrote to her, and marvelled to
find how little he had to say.
Then one day he came across Slade.
A canoe drew in alongside as he was towing down river with his tenth
cargo, and brought off a note which said that there was a white man
ashore who had run out of everything and would be eternally grateful
for any European food that could be spared, and would gladly give him
I.O.U. for same, as he was out of hard cash at the moment of writing,
and had mislaid his check-book.
Carter had his misgivings, but sent off a goodly parcel of food and
tobacco, and continued his way down stream. But the channel was new to
him--he had a suspicion of being watched on his ordinary route--and he
ran on a sandbar on an ebbing tide, and the heavily laden dugouts were
soon perched high and dry. So White-Man's-Trouble switched off his
magneto and stopped the engines, and Carter put a hand under the gauze
net to greet his prospective father-in-law.
Slade looked curiously at both the launch and her tow. "You've been
getting hold of a gold mine of sorts, I hear. By the way, as you've
arranged to start work as my son-in-law, I suppose I ought to get more
familiar and call you Henry, or whatever it is."
"George, as a matter of fact."
"I believe you're right. George is what Laura did say. My mistake.
Where is your gold mine?"
"It's tin. And it's up the rivers."
"Oh, keep it dark, my dear fellow, if you like. Not that it makes the
smallest odds as far as I am concerned. You'd never catch me sweating
after a mine. Besides, as a point of fact, I'm doing pretty well at my
present job. Getting rubber properties, you know, for the mysterious
Kate."
"Miss O'Neill."
"Oh, certainly, Miss O'Neill, if you prefer it, though I don't see why
you need be a prig with me."
"My late employer, you know."
"Ah, of course. And you admired her more than a little, so I gathered
from Laura's letters, though she carefully refrained from saying so."
Carter pulled himself through the mosquito bar and hit the edge of the
bunk. "Now, look here, Slade, I've known you ever since I've been on
the Coast, but this is the first time we've met on the new footing. I
don't want to quarrel with my prospective father-in-law, but, by
Christopher, if you don't leave Miss O'Neill out of the tale as far as
I'm concerned, there's going to be a row. Kindly remember I'm engaged
to Laura, and intend to marry her whether you like it or whether you
don't."
Slade laughed. "Nice filial sort of statement, that; but don't mind
me. If you suit Laura's taste, I'll swallow you, too. I'm sure you'll
be pleased to hear that I'm making a goodish thing of it myself just
now. Kate--I beg your pardon--Miss O'Neill pays me my regular screw,
and in addition gives me a nice sum down on every property I've bought
for her, and a tidy block of shares when there's a company floated. I
shall be able to give you and Laura a decent wedding present--in
script. By the way, is she at Smooth River?"
"No, Grand Canary."
Slade stiffened. "How's that?"
"Africa wasn't safe for her. You ought to be dam' well ashamed of
yourself for leaving her here. You knew the danger from old Kallee a
big sight better than she did. And you left her without a cent to get
away with and not an ounce of credit."
"Then," said Slade stiffly, "do I understand that she's gone to the
islands at your expense?"
"You can understand what you please," said Carter truculently.
"Are you married to her?"
"I am not at present. I shall be as soon as it suits Laura's
convenience and my own."
"You will kindly understand that I resent your interference with my
finances and my daughter's."
"You may resent," said the prospective son-in-law, "till you're black
in the face, and I shan't lose sleep over it."
Bang went something outside, and Slade started. "Good Lord," he said,
"there's somebody firing at us. Sit down, man, on the floor."
"Nothing of the kind," said Carter testily. "My boy Trouble has got
the engines going to try to work us off this bank, and with his usual
cleverness he has contrived a back fire, that's all. There--you can
smell it. Now, I don't think you are a quarrelsome man as a general
thing?"
"Not I. Too much trouble to quarrel with people."
"Well, I'll just ask you to give Laura and myself your benediction, and
leave the rest to us."
Slade let off his limp laugh. "If a wedding present of such dubious
value will please you, I'm most pleased to give it. Especially as I
see you're inclined to stick to my little girl. To tell the truth, I'd
heard you were after somebody else and it made me rather mad. You know
how rumors float about in the bush."
Carter's lips tightened. "Who's the other person, please?"
"Oh, just my present employer--and your late one. But I've no doubt
it's all a mistake."
"If you'll apply to her, I've no doubt she'll endorse that sentiment
most thoroughly. I don't think Miss O'Neill's a person to throw
herself away on one of her own ex-servants."
Slade chuckled. "If you put it that way, I'm sure she isn't. By the
way, do you know who she is?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I suppose you've discovered by this time that the late Godfrey
O'Neill was a bachelor, and Kate's no relation to him at all. He and
his sister Jane, who married a hopeless blackguard called Craven,
adopted her between them and brought her up. I've never fagged myself
to find out how she was bred, but you're one of these energetic fellows
that like to dig into pedigrees, and I thought probably you'd know."
"I don't know, and I shan't inquire."
"All right, don't get excited about it, neither shall I. D'ye know I
think if you could soften that genial manner without straining
yourself, it would be an improvement. I'm led to believe that
fathers-in-law expect a civility and even at times a certain mild
amount of deference."
"Did you defer to your father-in-law?" asked Carter brutally.
The tone was insulting and the meaning plain, and ninety-nine men out
of a hundred in a similar place would have resented it fiercely. But
Slade merely yawned. His sallow face neither twitched nor changed its
tint. He got up and stretched himself lazily. "So that's the trouble,
is it? Well, you didn't ask me to consult you when I chose a wife, and
I didn't ask you to fall in love with my daughter." He turned his head
and eyed Carter thoughtfully--"You are in love with her, I suppose?"
"Can you suggest any other possible reason why I should ask her to
marry me?"
"Well, I can hardly imagine you did it for the honor of an alliance
with me. I suppose if I were an energetic man I should try and worry
out what it is you're so sore about. It must be something beyond the
detail that Laura's got a touch of color in her, because of course you
knew that from the first moment you met her. But I guess the something
else will show itself in its own good time. In the meanwhile if you'll
give me an account of what you advanced to Laura for this Grand Canary
trip, I'll give you an I.O.U. for it. I don't care to be indebted to
anyone for things like that."
"I'll perhaps send in the bill when I hear there's a possibility of
getting cash payment," said Carter dryly.
And then for the first time Slade lost his temper, and he cursed his
future son-in-law with all an old Coaster's point and fluency. Every
man has his tender point, and here was Owe-it Slade's. Throughout all
his life he had never paid a bill if he could help it, and he had
accepted the consequent remarks of injured parties with an easy
philosophy. But it seemed he owned a nice discrimination; some items
were "debts of honor," and these he had always sooner or later
contrived to settle. And the account which he decided he owed Carter
for Laura's maintenance in Grand Canary he set down as one which no
gentleman could leave unpaid without besmirching his gentility.