"None at all. It is my business to hold myself subject to orders."
"What is your name?" queried Mr. Burrage.
"At present—John Wray, very much at your service," Julius replied glibly; then with a sudden recollection of the vicissitudes of "Mr. Poet" and "Mr. Goat," he burst into his irresistible laugh, that cleared the frown from the brow of the actual Mr. John Wray and his colleagues, and caused the officers pacing along the esplanade, their shadows long now in the sun, to glance in the direction of the sound, sympathetic with the unknown jest.
Mr. Burrage pressed the matter no farther, but as he took up his cigar again, filliping off the ash with a delicate gesture, and placed it between his teeth once more, no physiognomist would have been required to discern in his resolute facial expression a firm determination to have full advices on this subject before he should ever lose sight of the very prepossessing young man introduced by Mr. John Wray.
"He goes out with the little steamboat down the river. I think a packet leaves to-morrow." Mr. Wray began to explain the simplicity of the duties devolving upon Julius in order to demonstrate his own perspicacity and regard for precaution. "At her stoppages he visits the plantations on his list, notifies the men in charge of the cotton to get it out on the rafts and flatboats and to be ready to float down—there's a full sufficiency of water on the shoals now—to where the steamer we have chartered, bought, in fact, can pick it up. Then he returns on the next packet. It is a trip of a hundred miles or so."
Julius felt his heart beat tumultuously in the prospect of escape—to be out of the town once more! But to-morrow! what in the interval might betide!
"The point is to have our own steamboat clear fairly with the upper-country consignment. The rest she picks up as she goes. She is known as a packet to the river pickets; they won't be aware she has changed her trade till she has gone. But meantime to get the cotton collected it is necessary to have a man familiar with the country. On the way down or the return trip, in the distracted state of the region, politically, and its physical aspect as a nearly unexplored wilderness, it would be simply impossible for a stranger to cope with any disasters or difficulties, if one could be found to undertake the trip."
Julius was astonished at himself when he heard his own voice blandly suggest—"Come with me, Mr. Burrage! You would enjoy the trip—beautiful scenery! I should have the benefit of your long experience in matters of business, and you could avail yourself of my knowledge of the country and the people—the methods and the manners."
He was in admiration of his own astuteness. His intuition had captured the emergency. He had perceived in Mr. Burrage's face unmistakable indications that he would play the obstructive. He would detain the supposed agent here, and would not intrust him with the necessary instructions in this difficult and most compromising business, until the fullest advices could be had from the distant promoters of the enterprise, who were presumed to have sent hither "John Wray, Junior."
The suggestion of Julius met with instantaneous favor among the group, except, indeed, that Mr. Burrage himself looked disconcerted, surprised, definitely at a loss. It removed all possible objections to the employment of this agent with no other credentials than the name on the register—but at this moment Mr. Burrage thought that perhaps the coincidence would have struck him with more force had the name been his own and the registry anticipated his arrival. Time was of importance. No one more than the experienced man of business realizes the Protean capacity for change appertaining to that combination of cause and effect called opportunity. What is possible to-day may be relegated to the regions of everlasting regret to-morrow. Everything was favorable at the moment, feasible. The future stood with the boon of success in an outstretched hand. Delay was hardly to be contemplated. The proposition that Mr. Burrage should accompany the agent of his own company on a tour of important negotiation, and at no sacrifice of personal ease, was at once so reasonable and so indicative of the fairest intentions that he was ashamed of the cautionary doubt he had entertained. All at once the journey seemed too much trouble. The matter had already been adjusted, he said. The plan might well stand as Mr. Wray had arranged it.