“Well, I didn’t lose everything, but darned nearly. You were right not to trust me about that Far Eastern Trade. I was very young and very cock-sure, and it was some time before I discovered there were too many sharks in those waters. Lord, what a young ass I was! Those Hong-Kong fellows had me weighed up to an ounce. I had a bad time kicking myself, but I managed to pull out my last £200. That annoyed them desperately. I got a little of my own back in some other ways too. But I don’t think you’d like that story. It was then I met Welfare.”
“Welfare? Who’s he? It’s rather a jolly name.”
“Yes. The name influenced me. He’s my partner. Captain Welfare he calls himself. You must meet him.”
I saw the look I didn’t quite understand become accentuated in Edmund’s face.
“I didn’t know you had a partner. Partner in what? What is your business? Let’s have the tale from the beginning.”
“It’s too long. We’re in the Levant fruit trade. Welfare’s a rum old chap. The sort one simply can’t explain to people at home. He’s always knocked about, mostly at sea. Calls himself Captain, but I don’t believe he’s ever commanded anything. He knows damn-all about navigation; but he can handle a ship all right.
“He’s admitted having been a steward on a liner. He got his start by collecting paper money from passengers—changing it, you know. Always getting hold of paper at a discount and unloading it at some port where it was up a few points. It’s extraordinary how paper money values fluctuate with latitude. Welfare had the whole thing worked out so that he was on velvet every time. As he says, it’s a nice safe line, but dull. And he didn’t like being a steward. The old boy has got his pride, and the tips went against the grain, I fancy. He was in the Pacific for a time and did pretty well with copra.
“Then he thought he was man enough for the Eastern coasting business. When I met him he had just been stung by some merchants in Shanghai. He was taking it badly—oh, rottenly! I found him in an opium shebeen and broke his collar bone getting him on a rickshaw. I got hold of a decent European doctor man. Old Welfare carried on frightfully about his collar bone while he was crazy, but the little doctor got him round all right. He used to come and stick a needle into him and squirt stuff into him—atropine and all sorts of poisons. Old Crippen’s stuff he told me he used when Welfare was rowdy. Anyhow, Welfare got all right, only beastly sentimental.”
Edmund paused to light another cigar, and I did not interrupt him. I find it is impossible in writing to convey any idea of the casual way in which his narrative dribbled out.
Only that morning one of my old ladies in the parish had been much more impressive about the quality of some dried peas she had bought from our local grocer—a relentless monopolist, but a sidesman and communicant.