Part 2 (1/2)
”If it was the place where we were to make slaves of all the natives, and I was to be king, and you Grand Vizier,” he answered, as if it were a weighty matter, and he on the witness-stand, ”it was in the Pacific--the South Pacific, where the whale-oil comes from. A coral atoll, with a crystal lagoon in the middle for our s.h.i.+ps, and a fringe of palms along the margin--coco-palms, you remember; and the lagoon was green, sometimes, and sometimes blue; and the sharks never came over the bar, but the porpoises came in and played for us, and made fireworks in the phosph.o.r.escent waves....”
His eyes grew almost tender, as he gazed out of the window, and ceased to speak without finis.h.i.+ng the sentence,--which it took me some minutes to follow out to the end, in my mind. I was delighted and touched to find these foolish things so green in his memory.
”The plan involved,” said I soberly, ”capturing a Spanish galleon filled with treasure, finding two lovely ladies in the cabin, and offering them their liberty. And we sailed with them for a port; and, as I remember it, their tears at parting conquered us, and we married them; and lived richer than oil magnates, and grander than Monte Cristos forever after: do you remember?”
”Remember! Well, I should smile!”--he had been laughing like a boy, with his old frank laugh. ”Them's the things we don't forget.... Did you ever gather any information as to what a galleon really was? I never did.”
”I had no more idea than I now have of the Rosicrucian Mysteries; and I must confess,” said I, ”that I'm a little hazy on the galleon question yet. As to piracy, now, and robbers and robbery, actual life fills out the gaps in the imagination of boyhood, doesn't it, Jim?”
”Apt to,” he a.s.sented, ”but specifically? As to which, you know?”
”Well, I've had my share of experience with them,” I answered, ”though not so much in the line of rob-or, as we planned, but more as rob-ee.”
Jim looked at me quizzically.
”Board of Trade, faro, or ... what?” he ventured.
”General business,” I responded, ”and ... politics.”
”Local, state, or national?” he went on, craftily ignoring the general business.
”A little national, some state, but the bulk of it local. I've been elected County Treasurer, down where I live, for four successive terms.”
”Good for you!” he responded. ”But I don't see how that can be made to harmonize with your remark about rob-or and rob-ee. It's been your own fault, if you haven't been on the profitable side of the game, with the dear people on the other. And I judge from your looks that you eat three meals a day, right along, anyhow. Come, now, b'lay this rob-ee business (as Sir Henry Morgan used to say) till you get back to Buncombe County.
As a former partner in crime, I won't squeal; and the next election is some ways off, anyhow. No concealment among pals, now, Al, it's no fair, you know, and it destroys confidence and breeds discord. Many a good, honest, piratical enterprise has been busted up by concealment and lack of confidence. Always trust your fellow pirates,--especially in things they know all about by extrinsic evidence,--and keep concealment for the great world of the unsophisticated and gullible, and to catch the sucker vote with. But among ourselves, my beloved, fidelity to truth, and openness of heart is the first rule, right out of Hoyle. With dry powder, mutual confidence, and sharp cutla.s.ses, we are invincible; and as the poet saith,
”'Far as the tum-te-tum the billows foam Survey our empire and behold our home,'
or words to that effect. And to think of your trying to deceive me, your former chieftain, who doesn't even vote in your county or state, and moreover always forgets election! Rob-ee indeed! rats! Al, I'm ashamed of you, by George, I am!”
This speech he delivered with a ridiculous imitation of the tricks of the elocutionist. It was worthy of the burlesque stage. The conductor, pa.s.sing through, was attracted by it, and notified us that the solitude of the smoking-room had been invaded, by a slight burst of applause at Jim's peroration, followed by the vanis.h.i.+ng of the audience.
”No need for any further concealment on my part, so far as elections are concerned,” said I, when we had finished our laugh, ”for I go out of office January first, next.”
”Oh, well, that accounts for it, then,” said he. ”I notice, say, three kinds of retirement from office: voluntary (very rare), post-convention, and post-election. Which is yours?”
”Post-convention, I'm sorry to say. I wish it had been voluntary.”
”It _is_ the cheapest; but you're in great luck not to get licked at the polls. Altogether, you're in great luck. You've been betting on a game in which the percentage is mighty big in favor of the house, and you've won three or four consecutive turns out of the box. You've got no kick coming: you're in big luck. Don't you know you are?”
I did not feel called upon to commit myself; and we smoked on for some time in silence.
”It strikes me, Jim,” said I, at last, ”that you've done all the cross-examination, and that it is time to listen to your report. How about you and your conduct?”
”As for my conduct,” was the prompt answer, ”it's away up in the neighborhood of G. I've managed to hold the confounded world up for a living, ever since I left Pleasant Valley Towns.h.i.+p. Some of the time the picking has been better than at others; but my periods of starvation have been brief. By practicing on the 'Veterinarians' Guide' and other similar fakes, I learned how to talk to people so as to make them believe what I said about things, with the result, usually, of wooing the shrinking and cloistered dollar from its lair. When a fellow gets this trick down fine, he can always find a market for his services. I handled hotel registers, city directories, and like literature, including county histories--”
”Sh-h-h!” said I, ”somebody might hear you.”
”--and at last, after a conference with my present employers, the error of my way presented itself to me, and I felt called to a higher and holier profession. I yielded to my good angel, turned my better nature loose, and became a missionary.”
”A what!” I exclaimed.