He hummed, his mouth worked, he regarded me steadily with his grey eyes, but resolutely held his peace.
“I want to talk to you about the Flying Scud and Mr. Carthew,” I resumed. “Come, you must have expected this. I am sure you know all; you are shrewd, and must have a guess that I know much. How are we to stand to one another? and how am I to stand to Mr. Carthew?”
“I do not fully understand you,” he replied, after a pause; and then, after another: “It is the spirit I refer to, Mr. Dodd.”
“The spirit of my inquiries?” I asked.
He nodded.
“I think we are at cross-purposes,” said I. “The spirit is precisely what I came in quest of. I bought the Flying Scud at a ruinous figure, run up by Mr. Carthew through an agent; and I am, in consequence, a bankrupt. But if I have found no fortune in the wreck, I have found unmistakable evidences of foul play. Conceive my position: I am ruined through this man, whom I never saw; I might very well desire revenge or compensation; and I think you will admit I have the means to extort either.”
He made no sign in answer to this challenge.
“Can you not understand, then,” I resumed, “the spirit in which I come to one who is surely in the secret, and ask him, honestly and plainly, how do I stand to Mr. Carthew?”
“I must ask you to be more explicit,” said he.
“You do not help me much,” I retorted. “But see if you can understand: my conscience is not very fine-spun; still, I have one. Now, there are degrees of foul play, to some of which I have no particular objection. I am sure with Mr. Carthew, I am not at all the person to forego an advantage, and I have much curiosity. But, on the other hand, I have no taste for persecution; and I ask you to believe that I am not the man to make bad worse, or heap trouble on the unfortunate.”