"Well," said Macallister, reflectively, "I'm thinking she will never see the rest. There are men, though they're no exactly plentiful, who can hide them, and it's scarcely likely that Jefferson will rive a steamboat out of the African swamps again."
"Once is quite enough in a lifetime, but it's when the work is done, and he has to quiet down, I foresee trouble for Jefferson. I'm not sure Miss Gascoyne's English friends would altogether appreciate him."
Again Macallister nodded. "Still," he said, "what yon man does not know he will learn. I would back him to do anything now he has made that boiler steam. Then ye will mind it's no the clever women who are the easiest to live with when ye have married them, and there's a good deal to be said for girls like Miss Gascoyne, who do not see too much. It is convenient that a wife should be content with her husband, and not be wanting to change him into somebody else, which is a thing I would not stand at any price myself."
Austin grinned, for it was known that Macallister had, at least now and then, found it advisable to entertain his friends on board the Estremedura by stealth. The engineer however, did not appear to notice his smile.
"Ye will go back when ye get the money?" he said.
"Of course. I have to see the thing out now, though I don't quite understand how I ever came to trouble myself about it in the first place."
This time it was Macallister who grinned. "I have been in this world a weary while, and would ye pull the wool over my eyes? Ye are aware that the notion was driven into ye."
Austin was astonished, and a trifle annoyed, as he remembered a certain very similar conversation he had had with Jefferson. It was disconcerting to find that Macallister was as conversant with his affairs as his partner had shown himself to be, especially as they had both apparently drawn the same inference.
"I wonder what made you say that?" he asked, with lifted brows.
Macallister laughed. "Well," he said drily, "I'm thinking Miss Brown knows, as well as I do, that ye would not have gone of your own accord."