A few mornings later Wentworth worked his way, with much balancing and
grasping of stanchions, along the deck, for the ship rolled fearfully,
but the person he sought was nowhere visible. He thought he would go into
the smoking-room, but changed his mind at the door, and turned down the
companion-way to the main saloon. The tables had been cleared of the
breakfast belongings, but on one of the small tables a white cloth had
been laid, and at this spot of purity in the general desert of red plush
sat Miss Brewster, who was complacently ordering what she wanted from a
steward, who did not seem at all pleased in serving one who had
disregarded the breakfast-hour, to the disarrangement of all saloon
rules. The chief steward stood by a door and looked disapprovingly at the
tardy guest. It was almost time to lay the tables for lunch, and the
young woman was as calmly ordering her breakfast as if she had been the
first person at table.
She looked up brightly at Wentworth, and smiled as he approached her.
'I suppose,' she began, 'I'm dreadfully late, and the steward looks as if
he would like to scold me. How awfully the ship is rolling! Is there a
storm?'
'No. She seems to be doing this sort of thing for amusement. Wants to
make it interesting for the unfortunate passengers who are not good
sailors, I suppose. She's doing it, too. There's scarcely anyone on
deck.'
'Dear me! I thought we were having a dreadful storm. Is it raining?'
'No. It's a beautiful sunshiny day; without much wind either, in spite of
all this row.'
'I suppose you have had your breakfast long ago?'
'So long since that I am beginning to look forward with pleasant
anticipation to lunch.'
'Oh dear! I had no idea I was so late as that. Perhaps _you_ had
better scold me. Somebody ought to do it, and the steward seems a
little afraid.'
'You over-estimate my courage. I am a little afraid, too.'
'Then you _do_ think I deserve it?'
'I didn't say that, nor do I think it. I confess, however, that up to
this moment I felt just a trifle lonely.'
'Just a trifle! Well, that _is_ flattery. How nicely you English do turn
a compliment! Just a trifle!'
'I believe, as a race, we do not venture much into compliment making at
all. We leave that for the polite foreigner. He would say what I tried
to say a great deal better than I did, of course, but he would not mean
half so much.'
'Oh, that's very nice, Mr. Wentworth. No foreigner could have put it
nearly so well. Now, what about going on deck?'
'Anywhere, if you let me accompany you.'
'I shall be most delighted to have you. I won't say merely a trifle
delighted.'
'Ah! Haven't you forgiven that remark yet?'
'There's nothing to forgive, and it is quite too delicious to forget. I
shall never forget it.'
'I believe that you are very cruel at heart, Miss Brewster.'
The young woman gave him a curious side-look, but did not answer. She
gathered the wraps she had taken from her cabin, and, handing them to him
before he had thought of offering to take them, she led the way to the
deck. He found their chairs side by side, and admired the intelligence of
the deck-steward, who seemed to understand which chairs to place
together. Miss Jennie sank gracefully into her own, and allowed him to
adjust the wraps around her.
'There,' she said, 'that's very nicely done; as well as the deck-steward
himself could do it, and I am sure it is impossible to pay you a more
graceful compliment than that. So few men know how to arrange one
comfortably in a steamer chair.'
'You speak as though you had vast experience in steamer life, and yet you
told me this was your first voyage.'
'It is. But it doesn't take a woman more than a day to see that the
average man attends to such little niceties very clumsily. Now just tuck
in the corner out of sight. There! Thank you, ever so much. And would you
be kind enough to--Yes, that's better. And this other wrap so. Oh, that
is perfect. What a patient man you are, Mr. Wentworth!'
'Yes, Miss Brewster. You _are_ a foreigner. I can see that now. Your
professed compliment was hollow. You said I did it perfectly, and then
immediately directed me how to do it.'
'Nothing of the kind. You did it well, and I think you ought not to
grudge me the pleasure of adding my own little improvements.'
'Oh, if you put it in that way, I will not. Now, before I sit down, tell
me what book I can get that will interest you. The library contains a
very good assortment.'
'I don't think I care about reading. Sit down and talk. I suppose I am
too indolent to-day. I thought, when I came on board, that I would do a
lot of reading, but I believe the sea-air makes one lazy. I must confess
I feel entirely indifferent to mental improvement.'
'You evidently do not think my conversation will be at all worth
listening to.'
'How quick you are to pervert my meaning! Don't you see that I think
your conversation better worth listening to than the most interesting or
improving book you can choose from the library? Really, in trying to
avoid giving you cause for making such a remark, I have apparently
stumbled into a worse error. I was just going to say I would like your
conversation much better than a book, when I thought you would take that
as a reflection on your reading. If you take me up so sharply I will sit
here and say nothing. Now then, talk!'
'What shall I say?'
'Oh, if I told you what to say I should be doing the talking. Tell me
about yourself. What do you do in London?'
'I work hard. I am an accountant.'
'And what is an accountant? What does he do? Keep accounts?'
'Some of them do; I do not. I see, rather, that accounts which other
people keep have been correctly kept.'
'Aren't they always correctly kept? I thought that was what book-keepers
were hired for.'
'If books were always correctly kept there would be little for us to do;
but it happens, unfortunately for some, but fortunately for us, that
people occasionally do not keep their accounts accurately.'
'And can you always find that out if you examine the books?'
'Always.'
'Can't a man make up his accounts so that no one can tell there is
anything wrong?'
'The belief that such a thing can be done has placed many a poor wretch
in prison. It has been tried often enough.'
'I am sure they can do it in the States. I have read of it being done and
continued for years. Men have made off with great sums of money by
falsifying the books, and no one found it out until the one who did it
died or ran away.'
'Nevertheless, if an expert accountant had been called in, he would have
found out very soon that something was wrong, and just where the wrong
was, and how much.'
'I didn't think such cleverness possible. Have you ever discovered
anything like that?'
'I have.'
'What is done when such a thing is discovered?'
'That depends upon circumstances. Usually a policeman is called in.'
'Why, it's like being a detective. I wish you would tell me about some of
the cases you have had. Don't make me ask so many questions. Talk.'
'I don't think my experiences would interest you in the least. There
was one case with which I had something to do in London, two years
ago, that----'
'Oh, London! I don't believe the book-keepers there are half so sharp as
ours. If you had to deal with American accountants, you would not find
out so easily what they had or had not done.'
'Well, Miss Brewster, I may say I have just had an experience of that
kind with some of your very sharpest American book-keepers. I found that
the books had been kept in the most ingenious way with the intent to
deceive. The system had been going on for years.'
'How interesting! And did you call in a policeman?'
'No. This was one of the cases where a policeman was not necessary. The
books were kept with the object of showing that the profits of the m--of
the business--had been much greater than they really were. I may say that
one of your American accountants had already looked over the books, and,
whether through ignorance or carelessness, or from a worse motive, he
reported them all right. They were not all right, and the fact that they
were not, will mean the loss of a fortune to some people on your side of
the water, and the saving of good money to others on my side.'
'Then I think your profession must be a very important one.'
'We think so, Miss Brewster. I would like to be paid a percentage on the
money saved because of my report.'
'And won't you?'
'Unfortunately, no.'
'I think that is too bad. I suppose the discrepancy must have been small,
or the American accountant would not have overlooked it?'
'I didn't say he overlooked it. Still, the size of a discrepancy does not
make any difference. A small error is as easily found as a large one.
This one was large. I suppose there is no harm in my saying that the
books, taking them together, showed a profit of forty thousand pounds,
when they should have shown a loss of nearly half that amount. I hope
nobody overhears me.'
'No; we are quite alone, and you may be sure I will not breathe a word
of what you have been telling me.'
'Don't breathe it to Kenyon, at least. He would think me insane if he
knew what I have said.'
'Is Mr. Kenyon an accountant, too?'
'Oh no. He is a mineralogist. He can go into a mine, and tell with
reasonable certainty whether it will pay the working or not. Of course,
as he says himself, any man can see six feet into the earth as well as he
can. But it is not every man that can gauge the value of a working mine
so well as John Kenyon.'
'Then, while you were delving among the figures, your companion was
delving among the minerals?'
'Precisely.'
'And did he make any such startling discovery as you did?'
'No; rather the other way. He finds the mines very good properties, and
he thinks that if they were managed intelligently they would be good
paying investments--that is, at a proper price, you know--not at what the
owners ask for them at present. But you can have no possible interest in
these dry details.'
'Indeed, you are mistaken. I think what you have told me intensely
interesting.'
For once in her life Miss Jennie Brewster told the exact truth. The
unfortunate man at her side was flattered.
'For what I have told you,' he said, 'we were offered twice what the
London people pay us for coming out here. In fact, even more than that:
we were asked to name our own price.'
'Really now! By the owners of the property, I suppose, if you wouldn't
tell on them?'
'No. By one of your famous New York newspaper men. He even went so far
as to steal the papers that Kenyon had in Ottawa. He was cleverly caught,
though, before he could make any use of what he had stolen. In fact,
unless his people in New York had the figures which were originally
placed before the London Board, I doubt if my statistics would have been
of much use to him even if he had been allowed to keep them. The full
significance of my report will not show until the figures I have given
are compared with those already in the hands of the London people, which
were vouched for as correct by your clever American accountant.'
'You shouldn't run down an accountant just because he is American.
Perhaps there will come a day, Mr. Wentworth, when you will admit that
there are Americans who are more clever than either that accountant or
that newspaper man. I don't think your specimens are typical.'
'I don't "run down," as you call it, the men because they are Americans.
I "run down" the accountant because he was either ignorant or corrupt. I
"run down" the newspaper man because he was a thief.'
Miss Brewster was silent for a few moments. She was impressing on her
memory what he had said to her, and was anxious to get away, so that she
could write out in her cabin exactly what had been told her. The sound of
the lunch-gong gave her the excuse she needed, so, bidding her victim a
pleasant and friendly farewell, she hurried from the deck to her
state-room.