“You must help yourselves while we get sail upon the boat,” said Vane. “The saloon’s at your disposal, my partner and I have the fo’c’sle. You will notice there are blankets yonder, and as we’ll have smooth water most of the way you should get some sleep.”
He withdrew, closing the slide, and went forward with Carroll to shorten in the cable; but when they stopped beside the bitts his companion broke into a soft laugh.
“Is there anything to amuse you?” Vane asked curtly.
“Well,” said Carroll with an air of reflection, “it strikes me you’re making a rather unconventional use of your new prosperity, and it might be prudent to consider how your friends in Vancouver may regard the adventure.”
Vane sat down upon the bitts and took out his pipe. “One trouble in talking to you is that I never know whether you’re in earnest or not. You trot out your cold-blooded worldly wisdom, and then you grin at it.”
“I think that’s the only philosophic attitude,” replied Carroll. “It’s possible to grow furiously indignant with the restraints stereotyped people lay on one; but on the whole it’s wiser to bow to them and chuckle. After all, they’ve some foundation.”
Vane looked up at him sharply.
“You’ve been right in the advice you have given me more than once: you seem to know how prosperous and what you call stereotyped folks look at things. But you’ve never explained where you got the knowledge.”
“That,” said Carroll, “is quite another matter.”
“Anyway,” continued Vane, “there’s one remark of yours I’d like to answer. You would, no doubt, consider I made a legitimate use of my money when I entertained that crowd of city people—some of whom would have plundered me if they could have managed it—in Vancouver. I didn’t grudge it, but I was a little astonished when I saw the wine and cigar bill. It struck me that the best of them scarcely noticed what they got—I think they’d been up against it at one time, as we have; and it would have done the rest of the guzzlers good if they’d had to work all day with the shovel on pork and flapjacks. But we’ll let that go. What have you and I done that we should swill in champagne, while a girl with a face like that one below and a child who dances like a fairy haven’t enough to eat? You know what I paid for the last cigars. What confounded hogs we are!”