"Denver City is in the United States of America, in the land of the stars and bars, as every idiot knows! As I was saying, before that young gentleman wrote himself down donkey--and he looks it, every inch of him!--as I was saying, when I was going up from the coast to Kimberley, there was a boy who used to do odd jobs for me; he hadn't sixpenny-worth of clothes upon his back! I lost sight of him; five years afterwards I met him again. It was like a tale out of the Arabian Nights, I tell you! That ragged boy that was, when I saw him again five years afterwards, he reckoned to cover what any half-dozen men might have put down, and double it afterwards. And look at the life he'd led! It's no good my talking about it here, you'd hardly believe me if I told you half the things he'd done. Don't you believe any of your adventure books. There aren't half the adventures crowded into any book which that lad had seen. Yes, a life of adventure was the life for him, and he'd had it, too!"
Mr. Bankes returned to his post of vantage in front of the fire. In his excitement he had smoked his pipe to premature ashes; he refilled and lighted it. Then he addressed himself to Bailey, marking time as he went on by beating the palm of his right hand against his left.
"I say, don't let a day be wasted--days lost are not recovered; now's your time, and now's your opportunity; don't let the week's end find you huggermuggering in that old school. Go out into the world! learn to be a man! Try your courage! Put your powers to the test! Search for the golden land! Let a life of adventure be the life for you! As for you," Mr. Bankes turned with ominous suddenness towards Charlie Griffin, "I don't say that to you; what I say to you is this: write home to your mother for a good supply of flannel petticoats, and wrap yourself up warm, and let your hair grow long, and take care of your complexion. You're a beauty boy, one of the sort who didn't ought to be trusted out after dark alone, and who's sure to have a fit if he sees the moon!"
It is a question if this sudden change of subject made Griffin or his friends the more uncomfortable. Thinking that Mr. Bankes intended a joke, and that it would be ungrateful not to laugh, Ellis attempted a snigger; but a sudden gleam from his host's eyes in his direction brought his mirth to an untimely ending.
"What are you laughing at?" asked Mr. Bankes. Ellis kept silence, being most unwilling to confess that he did not know. Mr. Bankes addressed himself again to Bailey.
"It is you I am advising to do as I did, to try a fall with the world and to back yourself to win, not such things as those."
Under this heading he included Bertie's three friends, with an eloquent wave of his hand in their direction.
"It wants a boy to make a man, not a farthing sugar stick! You'll have cause to bless this evening all your life, and to bless me, too, if you take the tip I've given you. Don't you listen to those who talk to you about the hardships you will meet. What's life without hardships, I should like to know; it's hardships make the man! I'm not advising you to wrap yourself up in cotton-wool; leave cotton-wool to mutton-headed dummies;" this with a significant glance in the direction of Bailey's friends. "Rather I tell you this, you back yourself to fight, and fight it out, and fight to win, and win you will! Run away to-night, to-morrow, I don't care when, so long as it's within the week. There's nothing like striking the iron while it's hot, and set the clock a-going which will never stop until it strikes the hour of victory won and fortune made! A life of adventure's the life for me, and it's the life for you, and the sooner you begin it the longer it will last and the sweeter it will be."
There was something in Mr. Bankes' tone and manner, when he chose to put it there, which, in the eyes of his present audience, at any rate, had all the effect of natural eloquence. His excitement excited them, and almost he persuaded them to believe in the reality of his golden dreams. Bailey, indeed, sat silent, spellbound. Mr. Bankes, by no means a bad judge of character, had not mistaken the metal of which the boy was made, and every stroke he struck, struck home. As was not unnatural, Mr. Bankes' eloquence had a very much more mixed effect on Bailey's friends. Their host gave a sudden turn to their thoughts by taking out his watch.
"Eleven o'clock! whew-w-w!" This was a whistle. "They'll think you've run away already! Ha! ha! ha! I'm not going to have you boys sleep here, so the sooner you go the better. Now then, out you go!"