The man laughed heartily as if I had perpetrated a very amusing joke.
“Oh, yes, but that was years ago. We have both learned a good deal since.”
“I certainly have, Mr. Cammerford. I have learned so much that I will not part with a penny of the money; not a red cent of it, as we say out West. That sum is going to be safely salted down, and it’s not going to be salted in a corned-beef tub either. I don’t mind telling you that I intend to get married upon it at the American Consulate at Nagasaki before a week is past.”
“Really? Allow me to congratulate you, my boy. I surmised that was the way the land lay, and I quite envy you your charming young lady.”
“Thanks!”
“But you see, Mr. Tremorne, that makes your money doubly safe. I noticed that Mr. Hemster is as fond of Miss Stretton as he is of his own daughter, and if you give me the half million, he’ll see to it that you make a hundred per cent on it.”
“I don’t at all agree with you, Mr. Cammerford. To speak with brutal frankness, if I trusted you with the money which you once succeeded in detaching from me,—if I trusted you with it again,—he would merely look upon me as a hopeless fool, and I must say I think he would be right.”
John C. Cammerford was a man whom you couldn’t insult: it was not business to take offence, so he took none, but merely laughed again in his free-hearted way.
“The old man thinks I don’t see what his game is, but I do. He is playing for time. He expects to hold me out here in the East, dangling this bait before me, until it is too late for me to do anything with my options. Now, he is going to get left at that game. I have more cards up my sleeve than he imagines, but I don’t want to have any trouble with him: I want to deal with him in a friendly manner for our mutual benefit. I’ll play fair if he plays fair. It isn’t too much to ask a man to keep his word, is it!”
“No, the demand doesn’t appear excessive.”