“Yes, the foc’sle of some wind-jammer, fine time and fine prospects. Well, I’ve made different plans for you, made them long ago, dropped them when that beastly business happened, but I’ve picked them up again, right now.”
“I reckon a dive into the harbour would be the best plan for me,” said Candon. He was seated with his arms folded, wilted, miserable. He was thinking of Tommie and what Bud had said about her.
“It would,” said Bud, “if you are an ass and don’t fall in with what I want to do.”
“Yes?”
“You’ve got to take my money, work and pay me back—fruit farm or ranch. Quit the sea, the sea’s no use to you, B. C., and I tell you that straight.”
“It’s good of you,” said the other shaking his head. “It’s darn good of you, Bud du Cane—you said that before. It’s not my pride. I reckon I’ve no pride left, but where’s the good? I guess I’m too far gone for any man to help me. I’ve lost clutch of myself in the last two days. I tell you it’s as if I’d been boiled and my back-bone taken out of me. I’m changed, that’s a fact. All my life I’ve never lost confidence in myself till now. You remember how I took the Wear Jack out of harbour that night? I could no more do that now than I could fly—I’ve lost confidence in myself.
“And maybe a good thing, too,” said George.
“I don’t know,” said Candon, “maybe it’s good or bad, but there’s the fact. A while ago I was a man who could lead things, now I feel all I want is to take orders.”
“Good,” said George, “and now you’re talking like a man. What do you think a man is, anyway? Why, till he learns to take orders, he hasn’t got the makings of a man in him. And now I’m going to give you your orders, B. C. You’ve got to make a home for a girl that cares for you. She’s got money enough of her own, but you can’t take a woman’s money, but you can take mine as a loan, and if you don’t make good, why you aren’t the man I think you are.”
“Cares for me?” said Candon, as though he were a bit deaf and not sure that he had caught the other’s words.