“I don’t think it can often,” replied Luke. He could not help liking this man, despite his first prejudice against him. Besides, they had stood shoulder to shoulder, with death around them, and such moments draw differing men together. It is the required touch of Nature, this same death, which frightens us before it comes and seems so gentle when it is here.
“I always wanted to see a cyclone,” went on Carr conversationally, “and now I’m satisfied. I have had enough. I shouldn’t have cared for more. Pass, cyclones!”
“It is not many men who have your laudable thirst for experience,” said Luke. “It is rather a strenuous form of pleasure.”
“Pleasure!” answered Carr, with one of his sharp glances. “Pleasure, be d--d! It’s business, sir, business. I mean to make money out of cyclones.”
“How? Bottle them up and make them turn a windmill?”
“No, sir.”
Carr turned round to make sure that he could not be overheard.
“No, sir. Your idea is not bad in the main, though hardly practicable. No. I know a dodge worth two of that! I told you before that I am in the marine insurance line. Now, the funny part of the marine insurance line is that the majority of the men engaged in it do not know their business. Now I propose to teach these gentlemen their business.”
“Will they thank you for it?” asked Luke.
“They’ll pay me for it, which is better, by a long chalk! Ha, ha! Butter, please.”