“I’ll be quite satisfied if you excuse me from attending luncheon, and allow me to go back to my ship.”
“Oh, certainly, but I’d like you to take the money. Can’t you send the mate, and order him to come back and report to you? It’s a pity to miss a meal, you know.”
“I’d feel safer if I went myself.”
“Yes, I know exactly how anxious you must feel, and in your place I should do the same. Very well, captain, the only point between us is the hundred pounds or not. To tell the truth, I shall not object to pay full compensation to your owners for what I have done. I imagine, however, so stanch a ship as yours has come to no harm. She lies bow upstream, and the current is not so strong down there as it is up here. The timber, I think, if it struck at all, would glance off, carrying away nothing but a bit of paint; but if you must go, I shall insist on your taking the hundred pounds.”
“Take the money, captain,” said the manager, looking up at him with a smile. It was evident that his fears had once more been overcome, but the captain was not so easily cajoled.
“Very well,” he said, anxious to end the situation and learn whether he was to be let go or not.
“And now, Mr. Frowningshield,” continued Stranleigh, turning to the manager, “let us settle all our financial affairs before lunch, so that we may enjoy our meal without the thought of commercialism at the hoard. You have seen the damage I have caused in your forest, thinking all the while it was my own property. Of course, if you were acting for yourself alone, I am certain I could drive a very easy bargain with you, but you are responsible for the care of these lands to the European syndicate you spoke of, and so, on its behalf, you must be just, rather than generous. At how much coin of the realm do you place my depredations? I know it would cost me a pretty penny if I committed so unforgivable a trespass in England.”
“How many trees did you cut down, Mr. Stranleigh?”
“Oh, Lord knows! Twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, or a hundred perhaps. That can easily be discovered. We’ll send a man across in the motor boat to count the stumps.”
“Oh, it isn’t worth while. Would you be content to part with another hundred pounds?”