Charley told him, honestly enough, that he didn't know what could be done to prevent a war, although he said that the quieting of the Iranian situation and the British monetary announcement might go a long way toward keeping war from happening.
"You know," said Cooper Jackson, "I felt the same way, too. That is, after I read the news, I felt that those were two good things to happen."
AT this point, perhaps, a couple of things should be considered.
If Charley Porter had been a regular newspaperman instead of a copyreader, he might have mentioned the plane wreck and the little girl who hadn't died, and how it was a funny thing about that coon dog getting out of the cave and how he knew of a man who'd made a mint of money riding in on Midnight.
But Charley didn't say these things.
If Charley had been a regular newspaperman, he might have said to Cooper Jackson: "Look here, kid, I'm on to you. I know what you're doing. I got it figured out. Maybe you better straighten me out on a point or two, so I'll have the story right."
But Charley didn't say this. Instead he said that he had heard uptown the night before about Cooper's miraculous recovery, and he was Cooper Jackson, wasn't he?
Yes, Cooper answered, he was Cooper Jackson, and perhaps his recovery was miraculous. No, he said, he didn't have the least idea of how it came about and Doc Ames didn't either.
They parted after an hour or two of talk. Charley didn't say anything about seeing him again. But the next day Cooper came limping down to the beach and headed for the log, and Charley was waiting for him.
That was the day Cooper gave Charley his case history. He had been an invalid, he said, from as far back as he could remember, although his mother had told him it hadn't happened until he was three years old.