Читать книгу The Doomington Wanderer - Louis Golding - Страница 7

Table of Contents

It was about a week later. Algernon Molyneux was striding furiously up and down the verandah of the big house, up and down, up and down. Sailor Mason sat dumped in a cane chair like a sack of potatoes.

“You and your damned Bristol methods!” Algernon shouted. “What the devil’s come over him, eh? Tell me that!”

Sailor Mason’s eyes rolled ingenuously. He shook his head and sighed. “Strikes me,” he said, “as if the heart’s gone out of him!”

“Heart!” roared Algernon. “What right’s a black nigger to a heart?”

Sailor Mason shrugged his shoulders. “You can’t get anywhere in the prize-fighting line without a heart. I’ve seen a youngster in Bristol—like a girl he was! But he had so much heart he knocked out Coalheaver Evans——”

“Oh, to hell with your Bristol! A whole week’s gone by and he gets more loggish hour by hour. What are we to do about it? A hundred thousand dollars!” moaned the young gentleman. “A hundred thousand dollars!”

“A hundred thousand dollars!” repeated Mason mournfully.

“I will, yes, I will! I don’t care what you say! I will! Where’s my whip? I’ll thrash him till his flesh hangs in tatters!”

“Please, please, Mr. Molyneux, I beg you!” There were positively tears in Mason’s eyes. “What good will that do, sir? It’ll make him fifty times as stupid! I’ve got an idea, Mr. Molyneux! It occurred to me this very morning, when I saw him looking up the road and away, so lonely and longing like, it fair twisted me double!”

“Yes—and?” snorted Algernon unpleasantly.

“ ‘We’ve got to find a way to put heart in him,’ says I.” He paused. Then: “Sir!” cried Mason impetuously. “Promise him his liberty if he knocks Carolina Abe through his back ribs—and, belly and brains, if that hundred thousand dollars isn’t yours, sir, safe as a hen in the roost——”

Algernon stopped in his striding up and down. He thought hard for a full minute. Then the colour mounted up into his cheeks. His eyes shone. He rushed forward and seized Mason’s rough hand in his own two hands. “By God!” he cried. “You’re right! Of course you’re right! By God!”

“And perhaps five hundred dollars into the bargain?” whispered Mason softly. “Or perhaps even a thousand?”

“Come!” cried Algernon. “Where have you left him? Tom!” he roared. “Tom! Where are you, you black lump of sin?”