“Well, what did he bring me aboard for?”
“Lord knows,” said Jude; “but he’s got something up his sleeve, sure. Mind you, Satan’s as straight as they make them unless he’s dealin’ with law chaps and such, and you’d be safe with him if you was blind and dumb and covered with diamonds only waitin’ to be picked off you. You see, you’re straight, and anyone that’s straight with Satan he’s straight with them. It’s different with lawyers, or guys like Cark and Sellers, who’d beat their own gran’mothers out of their store teeth. All the same, you look out with Satan. He’s got some plan about you, sure.”
“What sort of plan is it, do you think, Jude?”
“Lord knows. Nothing to harm you, anyway; maybe it’s to go shares in some deal—I dunno.”
“Well, I’m up for any deal he likes to propose that would benefit him—as much money as he wants.”
“Satan’s not set on money,” said Jude, “not in a big way. I reckon he’s something like Pap. Pap would take no end of trouble making a few dollars, but he was never really set on bein’ rich. I reckon he took up that old wreck business more for the fun of the thing than the dollars. He used to say great riches was only trouble to a man, an’ that he only wanted God’s good air and ’nough to live on.”
“Well, maybe he was right,” said Ratcliffe.
“I reckon Satan cottoned to you because he thought you was honest,” said Jude.
“Well, I hope I am.”
“He said to me, right off, after you’d gone back to the yacht, ‘I reckon that feller’s honest,’ he said.”