Tavender sighed as he tipped the decanter. “It isn't any good,” he answered, sadly. “The Government repudiates it—that is, the Central Government at Mexico. Of course, I never blamed you. I bought it with my eyes open, and you sold it in perfect good faith. I never doubted that at all. But it's not worth the paper it's written on—that's certain. It's that that busted me—that, and some other things.”
“Well—well!” said Thorpe, blankly. His astonishment was obviously genuine, and for a little it kept him silent, while he pondered the novel aspects of the situation thus disclosed. Then his eyes brightened, as a new path outlined itself.
“I suppose you've got the papers?—the concession and my transfer to you and all that?” he asked, casually.
“Oh, yes,” replied Tavender. He added, with a gleam of returning self-command—“That's all I have got.”
“Let's see—what was it you paid me?—Three thousand eight hundred pounds, wasn't it?”
Tavender made a calculation in mental arithmetic. “Yes, something like that. Just under nineteen thousand dollars,” he said.
“Well,” remarked Thorpe, with slow emphasis, “I won't allow you to suffer that way by me. I'll buy it back from you at the same price you paid for it.”
Tavender, beginning to tremble, jerked himself upright in his chair, and stared through his spectacles at his astounding host. “You say”—he gasped—“you say you'll buy it back!”
“Certainly,” said Thorpe. “That's what I said.”
“I—I never heard of such a thing!” the other faltered with increasing agitation. “No—you can't mean it. It isn't common sense!”