To her I knew exactly what to say, how to sympathise. But Edmund made me feel as if I had swallowed a bound volume of The Boy’s Own Paper.
I waited until his cigar was fairly under way.
“You have not yet told me what you are doing now,” I said.
“No. I must come to that. We’re all right now. Certainly I did old Welfare a good turn, but he has more than repaid it. We had both been stung, but we found we could put up about £500 between us. He said he had always kept this Levant business up his sleeve, and it was absolutely ‘It’ for people with a small capital, like us. He had a pal, a Dutchman, who kept a hotel in Alexandria. Well, we went down there. The Dutchman was all right but very cautious. Things hung fire a bit. I had to keep myself and I didn’t want to touch my capital. There wasn’t much left to touch. Well, the fact is I ‘managed’ a steam laundry there for three months. Made it pay, too.”
“That’s good,” I said.
“Yes—you should have seen the steam! and the natives blowing water from their mouths on the stuff while it was ironed! Nice clean women’s frocks! I couldn’t stick it.”
“It sounds very unpleasant.”
“Oh, it was rotten! Summer weather too. However, the luck turned then and we bought the Astarte with the help of the Dutchman. We’ve paid him off now and she’s all our own.”
“And what on earth is the Astarte?” I asked.
“I thought I had told you. She’s our boat of course. A rum-looking thing in these waters. But just what I’ve always dreamed of. I am master and part owner, and I told you years ago that was what I was setting out to be; only I didn’t think it would be in the Mediterranean.”