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Then Fitzwalker Tookey assumed a very long face. It is difficult to trace the workings of such a man's mind, or to calculate the meagre chances on which he is too often driven to base his hopes of success. He feared that he could not show his face in Kimberley, unless as the representative of the whole old Stick-in-the-Mud.
If I were to be asked my opinion, I should say that the transaction was hardly one in the gentleman's way of business." "I suppose an honest man may work at it," said Mr Whittlestaff. "It's the honestest business I know out," said Fitzwalker Tookey; "but it does require a gentleman to have his eyes about him." "Haven't I got my eyes?"
But John Gordon had in the course of things become owner of the other two shares, and when Fitzwalker Tookey determined to come home, he had done so with the object of buying his partner's interest. This he might have done at once, only that he suffered under the privation of an insufficiency of means.
The sort of acquaintance with whom a steady man becomes intimate in such a locality often surprises the steady man himself. Fitzwalker Tookey had the antecedents and education of a gentleman. Champagne and lobster suppers the lobster coming out of tin cases, diamonds and strange ladies, even with bloated cheeks and strong language, had not altogether destroyed the vestiges of the Temple.
Mr Fitzwalker Tookey looked very grave and high-minded as he made the assertion. "But there's nothing of that kind. It's all open sailing. Now, what are we to live upon, just for a beginning?" "You have means out there." "Not as things are at present, I am sorry to say. To tell the truth, my third share of the old Stick-in-the-Mud is gone.
I will give you for your share 10 per cent more than the price you offered me for each of my shares. If you do not like that, you need not accept the offer; but I don't mean to have any more words about it." Mr Fitzwalker Tookey's face became longer and longer, and he did in truth feel himself to be much aggrieved within his very soul. There were still two lines of conduct open to him.
With a fellow-passenger, whose husband has been your partner, you must quarrel bitterly or be warm friends. Upon the whole, he thought that he could not travel to South Africa with Mr and Mrs Fitzwalker Tookey. And then he understood what the man's tongue would do if he were there for a month in advance.
The fact is, I do not know whether I shall remain in England or return. If I do come back I am not likely to find anything better than the old Stick-in-the-Mud." To this Mr Tookey assented, but still he resolved that he would go home. Hence it came to pass that Mr Fitzwalker Tookey was now in London, and that John Gordon had to see him frequently.
Here travelled the diamonds of the Stick-in-the-Mud claim, the owner of one-third of which, Mr Fitzwalker Tookey, had come home with John Gordon. Taking a first general glance at affairs in the diamond-fields, I doubt whether we should have been inclined to suspect that John Gordon and Fitzwalker Tookey would have been likely to come together as partners in a diamond speculation.
I was a little tight one night, and the next morning she was off with Atkinson, who got away with his pocket full of diamonds. Poor girl! she went down to the Portuguese settlement, and he was nabbed. He's doing penal service now down at Cape Town. That's a kind of thing that does upset a fellow." And poor Fitzwalker began to cry.
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