“I wish you would.”
“When you get to St. Louis, deposit them with some safe deposit company, and carry about with you merely copies of them. Then, if they are stolen, there will be no harm done.”
“Your advice is good, Mr. Brooke, and I shall follow it.”
This conversation took place in their stateroom. Meanwhile, Bradley Wentworth was engaged in reflection.
“That boy means mischief, I fully believe,” he said to himself. “He is of a different nature from his father. He is firm and resolute, and if I read him aright, he will never forego his purpose of demanding from me the sum which I so foolishly promised his father. The worst of it is, the papers he carries will, if shown, injure my reputation and throw upon me the crime of which during all these years his father has been held guilty. Those papers I must have! My security requires it.”
It was easy to come to this conclusion but not so easy to decide how the papers could be obtained. He would gladly have paid a thousand dollars, but that offer had more than once been made, and always decidedly refused.
As Bradley Wentworth paced the deck with thoughtful brow, Samuel Standish, who was always drawn towards men whom he suspected to be wealthy, stepped up, and asked deferentially: “General, may I ask you for a light?” for Wentworth chanced to be smoking.
Bradley Wentworth paused and scanned the man who accosted him closely.
“Why do you call me General?” he asked.
“I beg your pardon, but I took you for General Borden, member of Congress from Kentucky.”