“He said that I might by chance come upon some further employment,” answered Scarlett, “if I frequented this place. He was not pleased with the way I had performed my first office; but, doubtless, he’s a person of some perception and knows a man of mettle when he sees one.”
“No doubt,” said Pennington, dryly.
He regarded the adventurer with attention and seemed endeavoring to properly weigh him. There was a bold, free air about Gilbert Scarlett that took the eye at once; but that he was wondrously boastful was evident, and boastful strangers are ever looked upon with distrust.
“A man,” declaimed Scarlett, twirling at his moustache, “cannot go through seven campaigns and not bear some stamp of his service. When I first offered my sword to the Elector of Hanover, he told me in his rough German way that I was but a boy. But later I proved to him that I could do the work of my elders, even then.”
“Abdallah said nothing specific, I suppose?” inquired Pennington.
“How specific?”
“He gave you no token to present to any one by name?”
“None.”
“And he did not say that he would employ you?”
“Not in so many words.”