“Don't have it out, then,—that 's all,” broke in Beecher, hastily. “I 'd just as soon go into a cage and dispute a bone with one of Van Amburgh's tigers, as I 'd 'bring him to book.'”
“Make your mind easy about that,” said Conway. “I never go in search of old scores. I would only say, don't leave yourself more in his power than you can easily escape from. As for myself, it's very unlikely I shall ever see him again.”
“I wish you'd given up the Crimea,” said Beecher, who, by one of the strange caprices of his strange nature, began to feel a sort of liking for Conway.
“Why should I give it up? It's the only career I 'm fit for,—if I even be fit for that, which, indeed, the Horse Guards don't seem to think. But I 've got an old friend in the Piedmontese service who is going out in command of the cavalry, and I 'm on my way now to Turin to see whether he cannot make me something,—anything, in short, from an aide-de-camp to an orderly. Once before the enemy, it matters wonderfully little what rank a man holds.”
“The chances of his being knocked over are pretty much alike,” said Beecher, “if that's what you mean.”
“Not exactly,” said Conway, laughing, “not exactly, though even in that respect the calculation is equal.”
They now walked the deck step for step together in silence. The conversation had arrived at that point whence, if not actually confidential, it could proceed no further without becoming so, and so each appeared to feel it, and yet neither was disposed to lead the way. Beecher was one of those men who regard the chance persons they meet with in life just as they would accidental spots where they halt when on a journey,—little localities to be enjoyed at the time, and never, in all likelihood, revisited. In this way they obtained far more of his confidence than if he was sure to be in constant habits of intercourse with them. He felt they were safe depositaries, just as he would have felt a lonely spot in a wood a secure hiding-place for whatever he wanted to conceal. Now he was already—we are unable to say why—disposed to like Conway, and he would gladly have revealed to him much that lay heavily at his heart,—many a weighty care, many a sore misgiving. There was yet remaining in his nature that reverence and respect for honesty of character which survives very often a long course of personal debasement, and he felt that Conway was a man of honor. Such men he very well knew were usually duped and done,—they were the victims of the sharp set he himself fraternized with; but, with all that, there was something about them that he still clung to, just as he might have clung to a reminiscence of his boy-days.
“I take it,” said he, at last, “that each of us have caught it as heavily as most fellows going. You, to be sure, worse than myself,—for I was only a younger son.”
“My misfortunes,” said Conway, “were all of my own making. I squandered a very good fortune in a few years, without ever so much as suspecting I was in any difficulty; and, after all, the worst recollection of the past is, how few kindnesses, how very few good-natured things a fellow does when he leads a life of mere extravagance. I have enriched many a money-lender, I have started half a dozen rascally servants into smart hotel-keepers, but I can scarcely recall five cases of assistance given to personal friends. The truth is, the most selfish fellow in the world is the spendthrift.”
“That 's something new to me, I must own,” said Beecher, thoughtfully; but Conway paid no attention to the remark. “My notion is this,” said Beecher, after a pause,—“do what you will, say what you will, the world won't play fair with you!”