“It all means capital, doesn’t it?”
“Oh, of course one must have some capital, very little to start. To people in the know it’s a first-rate investment.”
I said no more, and Edmund knew I meant to refuse to find the money for him. I can understand better now how exasperating I must have seemed. A country parson wrapping himself in a cloak of ignorance and taking it for superior wisdom!
However, he kept his temper perfectly, but this little root of bitterness between us grew and swelled.
He stopped with me during the weeks it took to obtain his certificate and satisfy the legal authorities of his having purged his early offence. Then he signed on as second officer on board an East-bound tramp. Beyond his necessary expenses and £50, for which he insisted on giving me an IOU, he would take nothing from me.
I know nothing of his Odyssey during the next two years, except that he told me that through friends in Hong-Kong he had secured a small interest in a trading venture and had both made and lost money. But he came home as poor as he went, though fuller than ever of confidence. As gay hearted at twenty-five as he had been at eighteen and delightful as ever to look upon.
I had good news for him. During his absence there had been an opportunity of realising the remnant of my mother’s estate, and acting under a Power of Attorney I had from him I had sold out on his behalf as well as my own.
There was thus a sum of nearly £2,000 awaiting Edmund. Had I known why the property came to have a value at all, and held on until the “Rubber Boom” developed, it would have been nearer £10,000. As it was, others made this money. But to do Edmund justice, he never reproached me with this.
He went back to the East with his fortune, his high spirits, and his confidence.
He wrote twice at long intervals, each time wanting money. He explained that this was for necessary current expenses, not for speculation; that his capital was practically intact but locked up in trade. Freights and markets had gone against him every time, but it was only a matter of holding on. He was bound to win out all right.