y dear boy," said the admiral, as soon as the party had been comfortably stowed at a hotel, of which officers of the united service are very fond, and after luncheon had been ordered, "don't you want to make your fortune by a few strokes of your pen—or pencil?"
"admiral," replied jermyn, "my heart never before warned me so savagely of the condition of my pocket. fire away."
"good! do you remember a conversation we had a few nights ago at the fort with a certain semi-public character about business?"
"a few nights ago?" repeated jermyn dreamily. "i remember such a talk, but it seems that it was a few months ago."
"tut, tut! wake up! this is business—not moonshine."
"i beg your pardon," said jermyn, quietly rallying himself. "you mean the affair of that gold placer on the pacific coast? do you suppose i ever can forget it, after the misery that came of it, and the trouble you were put to?"
"never mind me, at present, except to give me your close attention. my dear boy, our suggestions did the business, and blogsham has more sense of honor than i usually attribute to a business man. our plans were of so much promise that he has already organized a company to develop the property. the capital is a million dollars, with permission to increase to three millions, and there are at present ten thousand shares of the par value of one hundred dollars each."
"hem! that sounds business-like, but i don't see how it implies the sense of honor of which you spoke a moment ago."
"what? oh, to be sure; i've not reached the most important part of the story. well, the projector writes me that he hasn't forgotten his promise, and that there are five hundred shares of the stock waiting for me, and five hundred for you, which we can have if——"
"no, i've fooled away enough of my hard earnings upon projects of that kind. excitement of that sort may do for you, on the pay of a rear admiral, retired, but i——"
"do let me finish, won't you? i wouldn't put a cent into gold-mining, unless i myself were the manager of the concern, if i were a dozen times as well off as i am. but don't you remember blogsham's promise? we're to have this stock for nothing but the services we have already rendered. blogsham asks only that the transactions and his assertions to the company may be entirely business-like, that we shall send him for the company's archives, the sketches which gave him his new ideas as to how to make the placer a working success."
"whew-w-w-w-!" whistled jermyn. "will you kindly remember where those sketches are [pg 197]—or where there is every reason to believe they are?"
"perfectly; nevertheless they must be obtained. fifty thousand dollars is too much money for either of us to throw away—blogsham says the stock can already be sold at par. i'm sure that mrs. highwood is too much interested in your future welfare to make any objection to giving up the original document."
"you forget that she sent it to her husband."
"well, he and she are one, aren't they? i should imagine so, from madam trif's manner of talking about her lord and master."
"but there was a private letter on the same sheet of paper, which——"
"which can easily be erased."
"i can't ask it—really i can't," said jermyn. "i'd rather lose fifty thousand dollars than remind mrs. highwood of something that would be embarrassing to think of, in my presence."
"then ask her by letter, from as far away as you like. it ought to be done at once though, for offers like blogsham's are too much in air when made only verbally. we must have the sketches. if you won't ask for them i must. my conscience won't let me see a woman like miss trewman marry a subaltern with less than two thousand a year. the income of fifty thousand dollars, added to your own salary, will enable you to marry, and support your wife in a manner that she is accustomed to."
jermyn was in an unpleasant quandary, but he soon got out of it by saying that to ask for the letter would be ungentlemanly of him, so he couldn't do it.
"then, you stupid fellow," said the admiral, "i myself shall ask for them—for my own sketch, at least. she already knows that i know the contents of the letter."
"you won't dare remind her of it," exclaimed jermyn.
"won't i, though! indeed i will. i have sufficient excuse. i shall tell her frankly why i want it—that an estimable though obstinate friend of mine is about to marry on an insufficient income, and that i'm so sorry for his wife that i'm going to settle fifty thousand dollars upon her, and that i can't do it unless i regain the sketch which was on the blank half of that letter sheet; your sketch, you'll remember, was on the back of the written portion. then, if she gives me the entire letter——"
"which you know she wouldn't do."
"i don't see why not, if i first ask her to erase the writing. now, my dear boy, i have you at my mercy. you're on your way back to the fort; i will accompany the ladies back to new york, and——"
"aha! you will, will you?" exclaimed the younger man, with a soldier's instinctive delight at getting an enemy at a disadvantage. "i'm going back to new york with them myself. i've been ordered back, on duty."
"hem! for how long, may i ask?"
"well, as you can learn by inquiry at the department, i may as well tell you that it will be for a week, at the least."
"suppose, then," said the admiral, after a moment of thought, "that we agree upon an armistice. you go to new york; so shall i. i shan't annoy you in your special business—never fear—and i'll give you a full week in which to make up your mind, but if by that time you haven't procured those sketches i shall charge myself with the getting of them, no matter how much begging and arguing may be required. is it agreed?"
"i suppose it must be," said jermyn. "you well know that i couldn't willingly deprive you of the chance to make fifty thousand dollars, after all you have done for me, you great-hearted old rascal!"
"not even if i were to give the money to your wife?" said the admiral, with a world of shrewdness in the sidelong look with which he regarded his companion.
"you know very well that i wouldn't allow you to do such a thing!" replied jermyn angrily.
"hurrah!" shouted the admiral.
by that time the luncheon was ready, and the admiral made himself delightfully companionable to the ladies, but jermyn was so silent and abstracted that even kate rallied him, asking him if the new york duties which the war department had imposed, compelled such hard thinking? jermyn replied that they weren't, but that the admiral had just given him the most provoking lot of orders that one man ever received from another, so both ladies insisted at once upon knowing what the orders were, and both men maintained silence to a degree that was simply maddening, so kate quizzed jermyn privately, and he told her, privately, that she [pg 200]mustn't say another word about it. kate afterward told trif, in confidence, that she must have been right in supposing that the business upon which the two men had gone north, a few days before, must have been of great importance to the government, as well as of an extremely secret nature; but that, nevertheless, it was a burning shame that older officers had such despotic control of their juniors, and that if women had charge of government affairs, there would not be any of such manifest injustice.
they all went to new york that night. while jermyn visited the department for his order, the admiral scoured washington for the projector of the gold mine, who had been in the city the day before, but as the man had already returned to the metropolis, the admiral intended to be at his elbow, to keep the promise of stock alive until the sketches could be obtained. should there seem to be any danger, he would promptly break the armistice and ask trif for the fateful letter.
suddenly, however, while the two officers were smoking together on the train, jermyn struck terror to the admiral's heart by saying:
"your plan for reclaiming those pictures may be of no good. 'tis more than likely that highwood has destroyed that letter."
"my dear boy!" exclaimed the old man. "please don't imagine anything so dreadful! destroyed one hundred thousand dollars? horrors!"
"i think it likely," continued jermyn, "for at old point i chanced to hear mrs. highwood say that after carefully reading her husband's [pg 201]letters she always destroyed them, so that no one else by any chance could see them. like husband, like wife—you know the old saying."
"but you saw the letter in highwood's own hands," said the admiral.
"true; but at that time his wife was away, and i suppose he kept all of her letters to look at again and again—i am sure i should do so, if i were married and my wife was away from me."
"good boy! i'm glad to see that you already know the feeling. still—if he should have destroyed them!"
it was the admiral's turn to be strangely silent during the evening, and the ladies marvelled greatly at the change in a man who had seemed to them the life of whatever company he chanced to be in, and kate found opportunity to whisper to trif that jermyn did not seem to be entirely under the admiral's thumb after all, for he seemed to be in remarkably good spirits—commanding spirits, indeed, she could say.
at a part of the road over which the train passed early in the night, jermyn begged the ladies to go with him to the rear platform to observe a beautiful moonlight landscape which he knew of old. the admiral, who remained behind with trixy, soon began to sketch on the back of a letter. the shrewd old chap had argued to himself that if the letter had really been destroyed there could be nothing dishonorable in duplicating his own sketch on the back of another letter, and offering it in evidence. it would be virtually the same picture, for he would draw it from memory, as before.
he worked so long that trixy, wishing to do something new, began to look over his shoulder, and soon she exclaimed:
"why-y-y! i've got a picture just like that."
"you have?" replied the admiral, carelessly. "that's strange; where did you get it?"
"i tore it off a letter—the back of that letter that came from the fort one day, for you, don't you know, and i opened it by mistake while i was——"
the admiral dropped pencil and paper, placed his hands upon trixy's shoulders, and exclaimed:
"you have that picture? where?"
"why, in my scrap-book, at home."
"fifty thousand dollars saved!" shouted the admiral. he was anything but silent when the ladies returned; indeed, he talked so incessantly that trif had to break in upon one of his best stories by pleading that she must remove some of the dust of travel before leaving the train at new york.
