Part 6 (1/2)
”Well, Charlie,” said his friend, after a pause, ”it was very good of you, old boy, and I hope that I'll do credit to your recommendation.
The old man seems a decent sort of chap, though somewhat cross-grained.”
”He is kind-hearted, Shank; I feel quite sure of that, and hope sincerely that you will get on well with him.”
”`With him!'” repeated Leather; ”you don't seem to understand that the situation he is to get for me is _not_ in connection with his own business, whatever that may be. It is in some other City firm, the name of which he has not yet mentioned. I can't myself understand why he is so close!”
”Perhaps because he has been born with a secretive nature,” suggested Charlie.
”May be so. However, that's no business of mine, and it doesn't do to be too inquisitive when a man is offering you a situation of two hundred a year. It would be like looking a gift-horse in the mouth. All I care about is that I'm to go to London next week and begin work--Why, you don't seem pleased to hear of my good fortune,” continued Leather, turning a sharp look on his friend, who was gazing gravely at the sand, in which he was poking holes with his stick.
”I congratulate you, Shank, with all my heart, and you know it; but--I'm sorry to find that you are not to be in connection with Mr Crossley himself, for there is more good in him than appears on the surface. Did he then make no mention of the nature of his own business?”
”None whatever. To say truth, that mysteriousness or secrecy is the only point about the old fellow's character that I don't like,” said Leather, with a frown of virtuous disapproval. ”`All fair and above-board,' that's my motto. Speak out your mind and fear nothing!”
At these n.o.ble sentiments a faint smile, if we may say so, hovered somewhere in the recesses of Charlie Brooke's interior, but not the quiver of a muscle disturbed the solemnity of his face.
”The secrecy of his nature seems even to have infected that skipper with--or rather by--whom he was wrecked,” continued Leather, ”for when I asked him yesterday about the old gentleman, he became suddenly silent, and when I pressed him, he made me a rigmarole speech something like this: `Young man, I make it a rule to know nothin' whatever about my pa.s.sengers. As I said only two days past to my missus: ”Maggie,” says I, ”it's of no use your axin' me. My pa.s.sengers' business is _their_ business, and my business is mine. All I've got to do is to sail my s.h.i.+p, an' see to it that I land my pa.s.sengers in safety.”'
”`You made a pretty mess of your business, then, the last trip,' said I, for I was bothered with his obvious determination not to give me any information.
”`Right you are, young man,' said he, `and it would have been a still prettier mess if your friend Mr Brooke hadn't come off wi' that there line!'
”I laughed at this and recovered my temper, but I could pump nothing more out of him. Perhaps there was nothing to pump.--But now tell me, how is it--for I cannot understand--that you refused all offers to yourself? You are as much `out of work' just now as I am.”
”That's true, Shank, and really I feel almost as incapable of giving you an answer as Captain Stride himself. You see, during our conversation Mr Crossley attributed mean--at all events wrong--motives to me, and somehow I felt that I _could_ not accept any favour at his hands just then. I suspect I was too hasty. I fear it was false pride--”
”Ha! ha!” laughed Leather; ”`pride!' I wonder in what secret chamber of your big corpus your pride lies.”
”Well, I don't know. It must be pretty deep. Perhaps it is engrained, and cannot be easily recognised.”
”That last is true, Charlie. a.s.suredly it can't be recognised, for it's not there at all. Why, if you had been born with a sc.r.a.p of false pride you and I could never have been friends--for I hate it!”
Shank Leather, in saying this, had hit the nail fairly on the head, although he had not intelligently probed the truth to the bottom. In fact a great deal of the friends.h.i.+p which drew these young men together was the result of their great dissimilarity of character. They acted on each other somewhat after the fas.h.i.+on of a well-adjusted piece of mechanism, the ratchets of selfishness and cog-wheels of vanity in Shank fitting easily into the pinions of good-will and modesty which characterised his friend, so that there was no jarring in their intercourse. This alone would not, perhaps, have induced the strong friends.h.i.+p that existed if it had not been coupled with their intimacy from childhood, and if Brooke had not been particularly fond of Shank's invalid mother, and recognised a few of her good characteristics faintly reproduced in her son, while Shank fully appreciated in Charlie that amiable temperament which inclines its happy possessor to sympathise much with others, to talk little of self, to believe all things and to hope all things, to the verge almost of infantine credulity.
”Well, well,” resumed Charlie, with a laugh, ”however that may be, I _did_ decline Mr Crossley's offers, but it does not matter much now, for that same worthy captain who bothered you so much has told me of a situation of which he has the gift, and has offered it to me.”
”You don't say so! Is it a good one?”
”Yes, and well paid, I'm told, though I don't know the exact amount of the salary yet.”
”And have you accepted?”
”I have. Mother agreed, after some demur, that it is better than nothing, so, like you, I begin work in a few days.”
”Well now, how strangely things do happen sometimes!” said Leather, stopping and looking out seaward, where the remains of the brig could still be distinguished on the rocks that had fixed her doom. ”But for that fortunate wreck and our saving the people in her, you and I might still have been whistling in the ranks of the Great Unemployed--And what sort of a situation is it, Charlie?”
”You will smile, perhaps, when I tell you. It is to act as supercargo of the _Walrus_, which is commanded by Captain Stride himself.”
Young Leather's countenance fell. ”Why, Charlie,” he said, ”that means that you're going away to sea!”
”I fear it does.”