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Updated: May 14, 2025
Tavender laughed to himself silently as he took a new cigar, and puffed at the match held by his companion. The air of innocence and long-suffering meekness was falling rapidly away from him. He put his shabby boots out confidently to the fender and made gestures with his glass as he talked.
That's it take the big chair, there so! And now let's have a look at you. Well, Tavender, my man, you haven't grown any younger. But I suppose none of us do. And what'll you have to drink? I take plain water in mine, but there's soda if you prefer it. And which shall it be Irish or Scotch?" Mr.
The soldier's richly-florid face and intent, bulging blue eyes expressed vivid comprehension. He nodded with eloquence as he slipped the notes into his trousers pocket. "Absolutely," he murmured with martial brevity, from under his white, tight moustache. With only a vague word or two of meaningless explanation to Tavender, Thorpe took his departure, and walked back to the hotel.
The telegram of the idiot Kervick would bring the police down upon him like a pack of beagles. The beliefs and surmises of the idiot Gafferson would furnish them with the key to everything. He would have his letter from Tavender to show to the detectives and the Government's smart lawyers would ferret out the rest.
I may even be able to get my money back on it. At any rate I'll take my chances on it so that at least you shan't lose anything by it. Of course, if you'd rather try and put it on the market yourself, why go ahead!" There was a wistful pathos in the way Tavender shook his head. "Big money doesn't mean anything to me any more," he said, wearily. "I'm too old and I'm too tired.
"But have you parted with the concession, then, that you bought from me?" Thorpe suddenly asked him. "Help yourself to some more whiskey!" Tavender sighed as he tipped the decanter. "It isn't any good," he answered, sadly. "The Government repudiates it that is, the Central Government at Mexico. Of course, I never blamed you. I bought it with my eyes open, and you sold it in perfect good faith.
Figuratively, too, as he walked with firmness to the door, he stepped over the body of old Tavender, upon the threshold, and bestowed upon it a downward mental glance, and passed on. By the time he reached the street, the memory of Tavender had become the merest shred of a myth.
"Aren't we old pals, man? You're plain Tavender, and I'm plain Thorpe." "You're very kind," murmured Tavender, still abashed. For some minutes he continued to reply dolefully, and with a kind of shamefaced reluctance, to the questions piled upon him.
His self-control was returning to him; his capable brain pushed forward now under something like disciplined direction. "Why I guess I owe it all to you," replied Tavender. Traces of the old Quaker effect which had been so characteristic of him still hung about his garb and mien, but there shone a new assurance on his benignant, rubicund face.
He could be glad now, unreservedly glad, that Tavender had come to London, that things had turned out as they had. In truth, he stood now for the first time on solid ground. When he thought of it, now, the risk he had been running all these months gave him a little sinking of the heart.
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