"To take yourself off somewhere, so as not to be seen, and therefore not suspected. Out of sight out of mind. In accordance with that understanding you went to a certain watering-place, and lived at my expense until you got into a drunken quarrel with your drunken mates, in which one of them received a cut across the face. The same night--being within a week of the present time--you thought it advisable to leave that district, and you accordingly did so, coming down here to Gravesend, and apprising me that you were in danger of arrest and in want of money."
"You talk like a book," said the admiring Lascar, with a laugh.
"I came down to see you, and to advise you"--
"Taking such an interest in me, master!" interrupted the Lascar, with another and a louder laugh.
"And I told you that as in England a man who is too free with his knife is likely to be deprived of his liberty for a longer time than he would probably consider pleasant, the best thing you could do--the police being on the lookout for you--would be to join a ship bound for a distant port, and so get clear of danger. Is that fairly stated?"
"Pretty fairly for you, master. It is for me to say, that so long as I am out of danger your safety is secured. But that's a matter, of course, that you don't think much of."
"It happening, as it does not often happen with such dogs as you," continued Solomon Fewster, taking no other notice of the Lascar's taunt than was indicated by a contemptuous emphasis on the word "dogs," "that you were for once open to reason, you agreed with me that it would be best for you to get out of the country. As luck would have it, Joshua Marvel's ship, the 'Merry Andrew,' was shortly to start for New South Wales, and as part of the crew was to be engaged at Gravesend, where you were skulking about, you set your mind very strangely upon going in the same ship with the whelp, and according to your own statement, have accomplished your desire to-day."
"I didn't find it a very difficult thing, master. Sailors are none so plentiful. Go on."
"When I found that you were determined to go in Joshua Marvel's ship, I bearing in mind that you have been as faithful as it is in the nature of such a dog as you to be, told you that the night before the ship sails, I would come down and give you a few necessaries which you said you required."
"Such as twenty-five pounds in gold," said the Lascar.