“Well,” he said to the woman, “what’s he want?”
“You’re his brother?” I said.
“Yes,” he replied, “I’m his brother, and who might you be?”
“Met him abroad,” I replied, “and he asked me to call in and see how you were doing.” I was clean cut off from the business I had in mind, some instinct told me to halt right there and show nothing that was in my hand. The man repulsed me.
“Well, you see how I am doing,” replied he, “hasn’t he sent me anything but his kind inquiries?”
“Yes,” I said, “he asked me to give you a sovereign from him.”
I brought out the money and he took it and laid it on the chair by the collar and tie, then he filled his pipe again and we talked. I had taken a chair which the woman had dusted. I talked but I could get nothing much out of him, to ask questions I would have had to explain, and to explain might have meant bringing this unshaven waster on top of me to help him to prosecute his claims. If I did anything further in the matter, I would do it through an agent, but upon my word I felt I had paid any debt I might owe to the master of the Shanghai by the trouble I had taken already and the sovereign I had handed over in his name.
As we talked a pretty little girl of ten or twelve ran into the room; she was dirty and neglected, and as she stood at the end of the bed with her great eyes fixed on me, I could have kicked the loafer lying there, his pipe in his mouth and his sporting paper by his side.
It seemed that he had four children altogether, and as I took my leave and the woman showed me out, I put another sovereign into her hand for the children.
There I was in the West India Dock Road again feeling that I could have kicked myself. It was not so much the trouble I had taken over the business that worried me as the wind up. I’d put into Shanghai, sent cables from Japan, altered my plans, spent no end of money to bring news to that rotten chap, news of a fortune that if secured would certainly be burst on racing and drink.