PAGE 7
The Partner
by
“And Cloete always funny about it. He couldn’t talk about anything without it seeming there was a great joke in it somewhere. . . Now, says he, I know you are a moral citizen, George. Morality is mostly funk, and I think you’re the funkiest man I ever came across in my travels. Why, you are afraid to speak to your brother. Afraid to open your mouth to him with a fortune for us all in sight. . . George flares up at this: no, he ain’t afraid; he will speak; bangs fist on the desk. And Cloete pats him on the back. . . We’ll be made men presently, he says.
“But the first time George attempts to speak to Captain Harry his heart slides down into his boots. Captain Harry only laughs at the notion of staying ashore. He wants no holiday, not he. But Jane thinks of remaining in England this trip. Go about a bit and see some of her people. Jane was the Captain’s wife; round-faced, pleasant lady. George gives up that time; but Cloete won’t let him rest. So he tries again; and the Captain frowns. He frowns because he’s puzzled. He can’t make it out. He has no notion of living away from his Sagamore. . .
“Ah!” I cried. “Now I understand.”
“No, you don’t,” he growled, his black, contemptuous stare turning on me crushingly.
“I beg your pardon,” I murmured.
“H’m! Very well, then. Captain Harry looks very stern, and George crumples all up inside. . . He sees through me, he thinks. . . Of course it could not be; but George, by that time, was scared at his own shadow. He is shirking it with Cloete, too. Gives his partner to understand that his brother has half a mind to try a spell on shore, and so on. Cloete waits, gnawing his fingers; so anxious. Cloete really had found a man for the job. Believe it or not, he had found him inside the very boarding-house he lodged in– somewhere about Tottenham Court Road. He had noticed down-stairs a fellow–a boarder and not a boarder–hanging about the dark–part of the passage mostly; sort of ‘man of the house,’ a slinking chap. Black eyes. White face. The woman of the house–a widow lady, she called herself–very full of Mr. Stafford; Mr. Stafford this and Mr. Stafford that. . . Anyhow, Cloete one evening takes him out to have a drink. Cloete mostly passed away his evenings in saloon bars. No drunkard, though, Cloete; for company; liked to talk to all sorts there; just habit; American fashion.
“So Cloete takes that chap out more than once. Not very good company, though. Little to say for himself. Sits quiet and drinks what’s given to him, eyes always half closed, speaks sort of demure. . . I’ve had misfortunes, he says. The truth was they had kicked him out of a big steam-ship company for disgraceful conduct; nothing to affect his certificate, you understand; and he had gone down quite easily. Liked it, I expect. Anything’s better than work. Lived on the widow lady who kept that boarding-house.”
“That’s almost incredible,” I ventured to interrupt. “A man with a master’s certificate, do you mean?”
“I do; I’ve known them ‘bus cads,” he growled, contemptuously. “Yes. Swing on the tail-board by the strap and yell, ‘tuppence all the way.’ Through drink. But this Stafford was of another kind. Hell’s full of such Staffords; Cloete would make fun of him, and then there would be a nasty gleam in the fellow’s half-shut eye. But Cloete was generally kind to him. Cloete was a fellow that would be kind to a mangy dog. Anyhow, he used to stand drinks to that object, and now and then gave him half a crown–because the widow lady kept Mr. Stafford short of pocket-money. They had rows almost every day down in the basement. . .