“He says you are a liar or crazy,” he translated cheerfully. “He puts it kinder easier, but that’s what it means all right. Say, that yarn you told me about hunting things at the bottom of the bay is straight, I suppose.”
“Of course it’s straight.”
“Well, I’ll try to sneeze it to him again, though I ain’t much on the Russian. It tastes too much like it sounds, and that’s enough. Say! I suppose you belong to the safety vault crowd and have barrels of simoleons at home!”
Caruth flushed; then laughed. The man’s impudence was refreshing. “Well,” he admitted, “I’ve got enough to keep me going.”
“I guessed so. Wait a minute. I must keep the old geezer satisfied.” He turned and for a moment the language of the Czar held the floor. Finally the man resumed.
“It’s that touch of yours about rising sea bottoms that gets him,” he explained. “He says he’s lived here all his life and never saw the sea-bottom rise yet, ’cept when the tide goes out. It’s a tough sort of a gag to spring on one of these two-by-four government officers what rank somewhere between jack high and a bobtail flush and is intelligenced according. Not but what I reckon it’s true enough. But about this here question of wealth. If you’ve got it to burn, I don’t reckon you’d care to pyramid it a million or so, would you?”
Caruth was startled, his unquiet conscience making him suspect that everything any one said to him had reference to his true errand.
“I don’t know,” he answered cautiously. “What have you got? A gold mine?”
The man laughed shortly. “A gold mine!” he echoed. “A gold mine! Well, I guess you might call it that. What I want to know is, do you care to go in on it? Or if you don’t, will you help out an American marooned on this durned holeski?”
Caruth nodded uneasily. “Oh, I suppose so,” he answered slowly. “I’m always willing to help a fellow countryman. But you’ll have to explain.” The man nodded. “I’ll explain all right,” he promised. “But you’ve got to answer all the questions on this sheet of paper first or you’ll have the Czarski in your hairski.”