Robbins looked around at me when he had finished, and I could see that not a single doubt occurred to him.
On my part, more suspicious, I had even wondered what sort of a mantrap might be back of this note, for the possession of wealth makes a man more cautious than when he was a penniless voyager on life’s ocean.
Robbins whistled his astonishment.
“Did you ever know such a thing?” he demanded of me.
“Yes; on the stage, an old story. Sometimes the poor fool escaped, but as often he was sandbagged and robbed.”
“You don’t believe it, then?”
“Oh, I won’t say that I’m willing to go as far as any man to test it,” carelessly.
“That’s more like your old self, Morgan, my boy,” he said, heartily; and I wondered whether he would continue to address me in that delightful old familiar way when he learned what a mighty nabob I had become since the hurricane that separated us at Samoa.
I looked at the girl.
She was still watching his face with an eagerness that baffled description.