Byram stared at us. We had counted on Lorient to pull us through as far as the frontier.
“Now don’t take it so hard, governor,” said Kelly Eyre; “I was frightened myself, at first, but I’m ashamed of it now. We’ll pull through, anyhow.”
“Certainly,” said Speed, cheerily, “we’ll just lay up here for a few days and economize. Why can’t we try one performance here, Scarlett?”
“We can,” said I. “We’ll drum up the whole district from Pontivy to Auray and from Penmarch Point to Plouharnel! Why should the Breton peasantry not come? Don’t they walk miles to the Pardons?”
A gray pallor settled on Byram’s sunken face; with it came a certain dignity which sorrow sometimes brings even to men like him.
“Young gentlemen,” he said, “I’m obliged to you. These here reverses come to everybody, I guess. The Lord knows best; but if He’ll just lemme run my show a leetle longer, I’ll pay my debts an’ say, ‘Thy will be done, amen!’”
“We all must learn to say that, anyway,” said Speed.
“Mebbe,” muttered Byram, “but I must pay my debts.”
After a painful silence he rose, steadying himself with his hand on Eyre’s broad shoulder, and shambled 186 out across the square, muttering something about his elephant and his camuel.
Speed paid the insignificant bill, emptied his glass, and nodded at me.