He seized Gaspard by the coat lapel as he brought the words out with emphasis.
“The boat is mine, you understand.”
“Oh the boat, she is yours and welcome.”
“She is worth five hundred francs, and a brush full of white paint will take the Rhone’s name off her. I found you on a raft—no, on a hencoop—no, on a spar—” he slipped his arm through Gaspard’s and was leading him aft to the deck-house on the poop. “You were floating on a spar. Here is the deck-house. Come in.” He opened the deck-house door disclosing a cabin comfortably, yet roughly furnished. A table stood in the middle, over the table hung a swinging lamp. Two doors opening aft gave entrance to the captain and mate’s cabins, tiny holes not much bigger than dog-kennels. The captain flung his panama on the table and Gaspard took a seat, and looked at his companion who was now opening a locker, and fetching out a bottle of rum and some glasses and a basket of ship biscuits. This roundfaced and contented looking personage had, in the first moment of their acquaintance, invented and asked him to assist in a microscopic felony. He placed his hand on the bag of gold at his side as, leaning on the table, he replied:
“But, see here, that boat doesn’t belong to the Rhone at all.”
The man in the panama had placed the things on the table, he turned.
“But you said—”
“Yes, but you have not heard all; I was wrecked from the Rhone right enough, on a spar too, away on an island down there, then the boat came floating along, she has no name on her that I have seen, I got into her and rowed away—that’s all.”
“Outre,” said Sagesse, pouring out two glasses of rum, whilst Gaspard took a biscuit. The little man almost seemed disappointed; one might have fancied that he regretted the lost chance of “doing” the Compagnie Transatlantique out of a boat, then he took a Martinique cigar from his pocket, lit it, and with his elbows on the table began to talk and ask questions.
He asked questions without waiting for an answer, nay, he sometimes answered them himself, as—