The six, who had not heard it, listened attentively—even Will ceased to moan, in his eagerness to hear every word.
“What an extraordinary story!” cried Steve. “I hope he didn’t devise it for our amusement, as he devised his fiction about the small-pox!” he added grimly.
“Oh, he was very solemn about it,” Henry asserted.
“Didn’t Mr. Lawrence get back any of his lost fortune?” Marmaduke asked. “Surely he should have! Why, there is no moral at all in such a story as that!”
“Even so, Marmaduke; Hiram Monk made a grave mistake when he suffered the remainder of the fortune to be ingulfed in the ‘muddy waters’ of the Mississippi. He should have swelled it to millions, and then buried it near the first parallel of latitude, so many degrees northeast by southwest. When he confessed to Mr. Lawrence to-day, he should have given him a chart of the hiding-place, and in three months from this date we should have set out on the war-trail. After having annihilated several boat-loads of cannibals, and scuttled a pirate or so by way of recreation, we should have found the treasure just ten minutes after somebody else had lugged it off. But of course we should have come up with this somebody, had a sharp struggle, and lugged off the treasure in our turn. Then we should have returned, worth seven millions, a tame native, and an ugly monkey, apiece. But, alas! I don’t take kindly to that kind of romance any more, Marmaduke; I don’t pine to shed the blood of villains, cannibals, and pirates.”
So spoke Charles. A few hours before, and Steve would have said it, or something like it; but now Steve was looking very grave, and seemed already to pounce on Charles for speaking so.
“Charley,” he growled, “you talk as if we read Dime Novels; and I’m sure I don’t, if you do.”
Charley winced, but could not hit upon a cutting retort.
“What Charley says is very good,” Marmaduke, unmoved, replied; “but I don’t see why a whole fortune should be utterly lost, nor why Mr. Lawrence should spend ten years in idleness without some compensation. I hope you haven’t let Monk escape!” he cried, turning to Henry with such genuine alarm that the whole party broke into a laugh.
Even Steve forgot himself and joined in the laugh, Marmaduke’s expression of horror being so very ludicrous.