Landsman, Frenchman, though he was, Beaudésir’s eyes kindled, and he caught his friend’s enthusiasm like wildfire.
“I would give my right arm to be going with you,” said he. “Excitement, adventure, storms, seamanship, and all the wonders of the tropics! While for me, muddy beer, gloomy fogs, dirty streets, and clumsy English children learning to dance! Well! every man to his trade. Here’s a good voyage to you and my best wishes!”
Again he wet his lips with the punch, now grown cold and sticky in his glass. Captain George was so preoccupied, he forgot to acknowledge the courtesy.
“Can you keep accounts?” he asked abruptly, pointing to the papers on the table.
“Any schoolboy might keep such as these,” answered Eugène, running his eye over one of the columns, and adding, as he examined it, “Nevertheless, my Captain, here is an error that will falsify the whole sum.”
He pointed to a mistake in the numerals that had repeatedly escaped the other’s observation, and from which much of his labour had arisen. In a few minutes, he had gone through, and corrected as many pages of calculation. The figures came right now, as if by magic. Captain George had found what he wanted.
“Where did you learn all this?” he inquired in astonishment.
“At Avranches, in Normandy,” was the answer.
“Where they taught you to fence?”
“Precisely; and to shoot with musquetoon or pistol. I can pick the ace of diamonds off a card at fifteen paces with either weapon.”