‘I am truly sorry and ashamed,’ said Martin, ‘to have begged of you. But look at us. See what we are, and judge to what we are reduced!’
‘So far from claiming to have done you any service,’ returned the other, ‘I reproach myself with having been, unwittingly, the original cause of your misfortunes. I no more supposed you would go to Eden on such representations as you received; or, indeed, that you would do anything but be dispossessed, by the readiest means, of your idea that fortunes were so easily made here; than I thought of going to Eden myself.’
‘The fact is, I closed with the thing in a mad and sanguine manner,’ said Martin, ‘and the less said about it the better for me. Mark, here, hadn’t a voice in the matter.’
‘Well! but he hadn’t a voice in any other matter, had he?’ returned Mr Bevan; laughing with an air that showed his understanding of Mark and Martin too.
‘Not a very powerful one, I am afraid,’ said Martin with a blush. ‘But live and learn, Mr Bevan! Nearly die and learn; we learn the quicker.’
‘Now,’ said their friend, ‘about your plans. You mean to return home at once?’
‘Oh, I think so,’ returned Martin hastily, for he turned pale at the thought of any other suggestion. ‘That is your opinion too, I hope?’
‘Unquestionably. For I don’t know why you ever came here; though it’s not such an unusual case, I am sorry to say, that we need go any farther into that. You don’t know that the ship in which you came over with our friend General Fladdock, is in port, of course?’
‘Indeed!’ said Martin.
‘Yes. And is advertised to sail to-morrow.’