Part 18 (2/2)

”No, but we are all ready. The captain wanted to, but I thought we'd better wait for you. You've got to go out there the first thing in the morning,--you can do that, can't you?”

”Yes, maybe--but don't you think we had better give it a pretty good try-out before we put anything more into her?--she might prove a flivver.”

”Never on your life--she's going to run like a wolf--but maybe you are right about giving her a good trial--suppose we bring her around into the river?--that ought to be trial enough,” he concluded, coming close and displaying a wonderfully well developed torso that with age would be as broad as his father's, which I had been admiring but a short time before. For a moment I speculated on how he would feel if he knew that his father was in New Orleans at that moment and that I had been talking with him.

”Wake up, Ben; you seem to be dreaming. Did you hear what I said?” he insisted, making me dodge to escape a whack on the back.

”I believe you said it was over two hundred miles through Ponchertrain around into the river?”

”Yes, over two hundred miles by water, but by land, right through the city, only about a mile. But we've got to get into the river.”

”Yes, if she will go two hundred miles she will go any distance.”

”All right; I'm going to pack up to-night and move aboard to stay until Becker and his crew are all in limbo headed for the penitentiary--do you hear me, Ben?”

I heard what he said, but was lost in considering plans which at that moment required radical change, and must be done with tact and judgment.

Hiram became thoughtful and remained so throughout dinner, and as soon as we returned he began, without further comment, to get his belongings together and ready for transfer to the _Fearsome_, fully convinced that his abode there would last for a long time.

I remained in the att.i.tude of the ”immortal,” who waited for something to turn up, and I did not have long to wait.

A messenger came with two rather startling bits of information; the _Sparticide_, the Swedish s.h.i.+p, had asked for her papers and wanted to clear at five the next morning, and the more mystifying knowledge--even to me--that my clerk, Miss Bascom, had arrived at that moment at the St.

Charles hotel and was dining there with a distinguished stranger. Would I also check up the stranger?

Both situations needed immediate attention and I could not be in two places at the same time. I called Hiram, Jr., from the room where he was busily packing.

”Hiram, come here and sit down long enough for me to funnel a bit of instruction into your think tank,” said I, recalling that I had not mentioned the _Sparticide_ matter to him.

He came and sat down in front of me, the corners of his mouth slightly elevated, folded his hands in front of him and waited in a slightly humorous and bored att.i.tude for some inkling of what he was about to draw.

”Hiram, a Swedish s.h.i.+p, bound for Stockholm, is in the stream on the other side, just below Algiers, and is asking to be cleared to-morrow morning at five. It is thought she has, or will have to-night, a considerable quant.i.ty of Becker & Co.'s product on board. Foodstuffs of any sort to Sweden are forbidden, and if taken are contraband. His clearance papers are blocked until we are satisfied. Princ.i.p.ally, what we want now is a liberal sample of what they take aboard from Becker.

You will be there in an unofficial capacity, so use discretion, but get the samples. Here is a copy of the captain's letter closing the deal.”

I had not half finished when his eyes began to glitter and dance as though they might jump from their sockets, and I had barely completed my instructions when he grabbed the letter, threw on his coat and bounded down the stairs three steps at a time.

CHAPTER XXII

THOSE who say that any man will naturally fall for a pretty young woman are pessimistic. Age, unspoiled, will crave a.s.sociation with youth, but a young man will quite adequately fill the bill.

When I reached the hotel I had no trouble in finding Hiram Strong, Sr., the Gold-Beater, in a forest of millinery and subdued lights of the hotel dining-room. He was the most prominent figure in the big room, and sitting opposite him was my clerk, Miss Bascom.

He was not a victim or an intended one--a lion who, with playful stroke, could crush the beautiful flower in front of him. His lids would narrow occasionally with intense interest or curiosity. I could not get close enough to hear what was said, but she was quite voluble. I had no immediate interest in him; he was fully able to care for himself, but my interest in her was intensified. It seemed to me that I could see on her beautiful shoulders, now bared in dinner garb, the mark of the huge, pudgy, filthy hand of Becker, in gross caress. The brand of suspicion was upon her the moment she had come into contact with him, when he pressed her to his vile self, and her lips were violated by contact with his lumpy, purple, filthy mouth as he kissed her. Could her ears ever be maidenly again after listening to his vile proposals?

I was not at all sure of her relations with Chief Clerk Burrell, but I felt sure there was an understanding; nor could I account for her anonymous notes to Hiram, Jr. But here she sat comfortably dining with his father after six or eight hours' acquaintance, all of which was most disconcerting.

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