Charlie to the Rescue. Robert Michael Ballantyne
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walk.”
“Well, tell him to be punctual. Punctuality is the soul of business. Hope I won’t find your friend as independent as you seem to be! You are quite sure, are you, that I can do nothing for you? I have both money and influence.”
The more determined that our hero became to decline all offers of assistance from the man who had misconstrued his motives, the more of urbanity marked his manner, and it was with a smile of ineffable good-nature on his masculine features that he repeated, “Nothing, thank you—quite sure. You will have done me the greatest possible service when you help my friend. Yet—stay. You mentioned money. There is an institution in which I am much interested, and which you might appropriately remember just now.”
“What is that?”
“The Lifeboat Institution.”
“But it was not the Lifeboat Institution that saved me. It was the Rocket apparatus.”
“True, but it might have been a lifeboat that saved you. The rockets are in charge of the Coast-Guard and need no assistance, whereas the Lifeboat Service depends on voluntary contributions, and the fact that it did not happen to save Mr Crossley from a grave in the sea does not affect its claim to the nation’s gratitude for the hundreds of lives saved by its boats every year.”
“Admitted, my young friend, your reasoning is just,” said the old gentleman, sitting down at a writing table and taking a cheque-book from a drawer; “what shall I put down?”
“You know your circumstances best,” said Charlie, somewhat amused by the question.
“Most people in ordinary circumstances,” returned the old man slowly as he wrote, “contribute a guinea to such charities.”
“Many people,” remarked Charlie, with a feeling of pity rather than contempt, “contribute five, or even fifteen.”
“Ah, indeed—yes, well, Mr Brooke, will you condescend to be the bearer of my contribution? Fourteen Saint John Street, Adelphi, is not far from this, and it will save a penny of postage, you know!”
Mr Crossley rose and handed the cheque to his visitor, who felt half disposed—on the strength of the postage remark—to refuse it and speak his mind somewhat freely on the subject, but, his eye happening to fall on the cheque at the moment, he paused.
“You have made a mistake, I think,” he said. “This is for five hundred pounds.”
“I make no mistakes, Mr Brooke,” returned the old man sternly. “You said something about five or fifteen. I could not well manage fifteen hundred just now, for it is bad times in the city at present. Indeed, according to some people, it is always bad times there, and, to say truth, some people are not far wrong—at least as regards their own experiences. Now, I must be off to business. Good-bye. Don’t forget to impress on your friend the importance of punctuality.”
Jacob Crossley held out his hand with an expression of affability which was for him quite marvellous.
“You’re a much better man than I thought!” exclaimed Charlie, grasping the proffered hand with a fervour that caused the other to wince.
“Young sir,” returned Crossley, regarding the fingers of his right hand somewhat pitifully, “people whose physique is moulded on the pattern of Samson ought to bear in mind that rheumatism is not altogether unknown to elderly men. Your opinion of me was probably erroneous to begin with, and it is certainly false to end with. Let me advise you to remember that the gift of money does not necessarily prove anything except that a man has money to give—nay, it does not always prove even that, for many people are notoriously prone to give away money that belongs to somebody else. Five hundred pounds is to some men not of much more importance than five pence is to others. Everything is relative. Good-bye.”
While he was speaking Mr Crossley rang the bell and politely opened the dining-room door, so that our hero found himself in the street before he had quite recovered from his astonishment.
“Please, sir,” said Mrs Bland to her master after Charlie was gone, “Cap’en Stride is awaitin’ in the library.”
“Send him here,” said Crossley, once more consulting his watch.
“Well, Captain Stride, I’ve had a talk with him,” he said, as an exceedingly broad, heavy, short-legged man entered, with a bald head and a general air of salt water, tar, and whiskers about him. “Sit down. Have you made up your mind to take command of the Walrus?”
“Well, Mr Crossley, since you’re so very good,” said the sea-captain with a modest look, “I had feared that the loss o’—”
“Never mind the loss of the brig, Captain. It was no fault of yours that she came to grief. Other ship-owners may do as they please. I shall take the liberty of doing as I please. So, if you are ready, the ship is ready. I have seen Captain Stuart, and I find that he is down with typhoid fever, poor fellow, and won’t be fit for duty again for many weeks. The Walrus must sail not later than a week or ten days hence. She can’t sail without a captain, and I know of no better man than yourself; so, if you agree to take command, there she is, if not I’ll find another man.”
“I’m agreeable, sir,” said Captain Stride, with a gratified, meek look on his large bronzed face—a look so very different from the leonine glare with which he was wont to regard tempestuous weather or turbulent men. “Of course it’ll come rather sudden on the missus, but w’en it blows hard what’s a man got to do but make all snug and stand by?”
“Quite true, Stride, I have no doubt that you are nautically as well as morally correct, so I leave it to you to bring round the mistress, and consider that matter as settled. By the way, I hope that she and your little girl have not suffered from the wetting and rough handling experienced when being rescued.”
“Not in the least, sir, thankee. In fact I incline to the belief that they are rather more frisky than usual in consekince. Leastwise little Maggie is.”
“Glad to hear it. Now, about that young fellow.”
“By which I s’pose you mean Mr Brooke, sir?”
“The same. He has just left me, and upon my word, he’s about the coolest young fellow I ever met with.”
“That’s just what I said to the missus, sir, the very night arter we was rescued. ‘The way that young feller come off, Maggie,’ says I, ‘is most extraor’nar’. No fish that—’”
“Yes, yes, Stride, I know, but that’s not exactly what I mean: it’s his being so amazingly independent that—”
“’Zactly what I said, sir. ‘Maggie,’ says I, ‘that young feller seemed to be quite independent of fin or tail, for he came right off in the teeth o’ wind and tide—’”
“That’s not what I mean either, Captain,” interrupted the old gentleman, with slight impatience. “It’s his independent spirit I refer to.”
“Oh! I ax your pardon, sir.”
“Well, now, listen, and don’t interrupt me. But first let me ask, does he know that I am the owner of the brig that was lost?”
“Yes; he knows that.”
“Does he know that I also own the Walrus.”
“No, I’m pretty sure he don’t. Leastwise I didn’t tell him, an’ there’s nobody else down there as knows anything about you.”
“So far, good. Now, Stride, I want you to help me. The young goose is so proud, or I know not what, that he won’t accept any favours or rewards from me, and I find that he is out of work just now, so I’m determined to give him something to do in spite of himself. The present supercargo of the Walrus is a young man who will be pleased to fall in with anything I propose to him. I mean, therefore, to put him in another ship and appoint young Brooke to the Walrus. Fortunately the firm of Withers and Company does not reveal my name—I having been Company originally, though I’m the firm now, so that he won’t suspect anything, and what I want is, that you