“Will that do?” he asked appealingly.
“I’m afraid not,” I replied, “but if it is going to inconvenience you, perhaps the Greek banker will.”
He held up his hand more in sorrow than in anger, and asked if I could use silver. I agreed, and he began to count it out into piles, first five franc pieces, then two franc and at last ones, and still he was short a few pounds. But he was thoroughly aroused now, and put on his hat and in a few minutes returned with sufficient gold to make up my £100, and I signed a sight draft on the Chicago News, shook him warmly by the hand and walked across the street to the France, that lay almost at his door.
Without any exaggeration, there were three or four hundred people crowding about the gangway. Morris had hurried ahead, and had Stomati and two of the crew on deck to salute as I came aboard through a narrow lane of humanity. In two minutes we had cast off and our engines were slowly pulling the France, stern first, into the stream. As her head came slowly around, and her nose pointed seaward, Morris dipped the flag on account of our poor old Rodwaner left with his empty purse.
“What interests me,” I told Morris that night, as I sat smoking after my dinner, “is where the old man got the balance of that gold.”
“He sure was up against it,” replied my chief of staff. “Yes, sir, old man Rodwaner had to scratch. It’s my opinion, sir, that old man Rodwaner is all in.”
“How’s that?” I asked.
“You took all he had and then he puts on his hat and goes and pawns Rachel’s sealskin sacque and diamonds, and that, sir, is where your last £5 came from. Yes, sir, I believe it. That’s just what old man Rodwaner done.”
With $1000 gold in my belt, we shaped our course for the Crimea.