"Her passengers?" The caller's thin lips compressed; a spark seemed to leap from his gaze, but not before he had dropped it. "Among them, if memory serves me, were a number of convicts?"
"A job lot of precious jailbirds that I was acting as escort of, your Lordship!"
"But who never reached Australia!" quickly.
"Drowned!--every mother's son of them!" observed Mr. Gillett, with a possible trace of complacency. "Not that I fancy the country they were going to mourned much about that. I understand a strong sentiment's growing out there against that sort of immigration."
The visitor's white hand held closer the head of his cane; the stick bent to his weight. "Were they all drowned, by the way?" he observed as if seeking casual information on some subject that had partly passed from his mind.
"No doubt of it. They were not released until the second boat got off, and then there was no time to get overboard the life rafts!"
"True." Lord Ronsdale gazed absently out of the window, through a film, as it were, at a venerable figure below; one of the species helluo librorum standing before a book-stall opposite. "Recall the day on that memorable voyage you were telling us about them--who they were, and so on?"
"Very well," replied Mr. Gillett, good-humoredly. If his caller cared to discuss generalities rather than come at once to the business at hand, whatever had brought him there, that was none of his concern. These titled gentry had a leisurely method, peculiar to themselves, of broaching a subject; but if they paid him well for his time he could afford to appear an amiable and interested listener. In this case, the thought also insinuated itself, that his visitor had something of the manner of a man who had been up late the night before; the glint of his eye was that of your fashionable gamester; Mr. Gillett smiled sympathetically.
"One, if I recall rightly," went on Lord Ronsdale, "was known as--let me see"--the elastic stick described a sharper curve--"the 'Frisco Pet? Remember?" He bent slightly nearer.
"That I do. Not likely to forget him. Unmanageable; one of the worst! Was transported for life, with death as a penalty for returning." A slight sound came from the nobleman's throat. "A needless precaution," laughed the speaker, "for he's gone to his reward. And so your lordship remembers--"