'You have something in hand?'
'Meaning some robbery? No; it is possible Solo has made a dramatic disappearance from contemporaneous history.'
You'll drop the game? Good! Good!'
'It all depends. I have the gold I need, but the sporting instinct may be too strong for me. Just now there is other work in view. Be assured, my intentions are not honourable, however. We shall meet again. My proposition may appeal to you later. You will not forget it.'
'Put it out of your head,' said Jim appealingly. 'Leave the country, take the gold if you must, live luxuriously if you care to, but dig out of your heart this devilish malice against people who have done you no conscious wrong. Do this for your own sake; the course you have decided upon is one of desolation and despair.'
'Least of all did I expect to find my brother a pulpiteer and a moralist with all the popular faith in the domestic virtues, and the quaint conviction that misery dogs the sinner,' said Ryder dryly.
'I have used no cant,' answered Jim, 'and I said nothing of sin or virtue. I don't ask you to trust God, but to trust man. Be at peace with your kind!'
'And this is the man they called the Hermit on board the Francis Cadman!'
'Yes; and I was wretched aboard simply because I met the free and hearty men around me in a spirit of sullenness and suspicion. But my sick misanthropy was not proof against the heart-quickening sunshine and the grand enthusiasm of those fine sane men.'
'Evidently your philosophy sprang from a disordered liver. The sea-voyage, in stimulating that, cured you of your cherished beliefs. Another trip would probably make a devout Wesleyan of you,' said Ryder banteringly. 'Now, my liver is a perfect instrument, and you couldn't alter a single opinion of mine with a long course of antibilious treatment. In defiance of all Sunday-school precedents, I can be cheerful though wicked, and, having attained the splendid isolation of perfect selfishness, my happiness is not dependent on the gaiety or gloom of the crowd, My boy, you might remember that your experience is not so wide as to justify you in asking mankind at large to accept you as the touchstone for all human emotions. Good-bye.'