Jefferson's eyes glowed. "I'm remembering it all the time. That's why I'm going. Would you take a refined and cultured girl and drag her through all the hard places men of my kind make money in up and down the world? Has she to give up everything and come down to me? No, sir! It seems to me, the man who wants to marry a girl of that kind has got to do something to show he knows her value before he gets her, and it would be way better for both of us that she should be sorry for me dead than that I should live to drag her down."
It seemed to Austin that there was a good deal to be said for this point of view, and it also occurred to him that there was in this latter-day American, who had still the grime of the coaling wharf upon him, something of the spirit which had sent the knight-errant out in the days of chivalry. Still, he naturally did not say so, for he was, after all, what Jefferson called a hide-bound Englishman.
"Well," he said, "you're taking a big risk, but perhaps you are right."
Jefferson rose with the abruptness which usually characterised his movements.
"You're not coming?"
"No. I haven't your inducement, and I'm afraid the contract's too big for me."
"You have a week to consider it in," said Jefferson, who opened the door. "In the meanwhile there's another fellow ready for his coal, and I'm going along."
CHAPTER V
THE TOMATO FINCA
Three weeks had passed since his interview with Austin before Jefferson was ready to sail, and he spent most of the time in strenuous activity. He had cabled to England for a big centrifugal pump and a second-hand locomotive-type boiler, while, when they arrived, Macallister said that five hundred pounds would not tempt him to raise full steam on the latter. He also purchased a broken-down launch, and, though she was cheap, the cost of her and the pump, with other necessaries, made a considerable hole in his remaining £2,000. It was for this reason he undertook to make the needful repairs himself, with the help of a steamer's donkey-man who had somehow got left behind, while Austin and Macallister spent most of the week during which the Estremedura lay at Las Palmas in the workshop he had extemporised. He appeared to know a little about machinery, and could, at least, handle hack-saw and file in a fashion which moved Macallister to approbation, while Austin noticed that the latter's sardonic smile became less frequent as he and the American worked together.