“Eighty thousand by Eisenfeldt. I don’t know what crazy fool he’s dealing for, but he offers me eighty thousand.”

Cleigh got up and pressed a wall button. Presently a man stepped into the salon from the starboard passage. He was lank, with a lean, wind-bitten face and a hard blue eye.

“Dodge,” announced Cleigh, smiling, “this is Mr. Cunningham. I want you to remember him.”

Dodge agreed with a curt nod.

“If ever you see him in this cabin when I’m absent, you know what to do.”

“Yes, sir,” replied Dodge, with a wintry smile.

Cunningham laughed.

“So you carry a Texas gunman round with you 34 now? After all, why not? You never can tell. But don’t worry, Cleigh. If ever I make up my mind to accept Eisenfeldt’s offer, I’ll lift the yacht first.”

34

Cleigh laughed amusedly.

“How would you go about to steal a yacht like this?”

“That’s telling. Now I’ve got to get back to town. My advice for you is to come in to-morrow and put up at the Astor, where I can get in touch with you easily.”

“Agreed. That’s all, Dodge.”

The Texan departed, and Cunningham burst into laughter again.

“You’re an interesting man, Cleigh. On my word, you do need a guardian—gallivanting round the world with all these treasures. Queer what things we do when we try to forget. Is there any desperate plunge we wouldn’t take if we thought we could leave the Old Man of the Sea behind? You think you’re forgetting when you fly across half the world for a string of glass beads. I think I’m forgetting when I risk my neck getting hold of some half-forgotten Rembrandt. But there it is, always at our shoulder when we turn. One of the richest men in the world! Doesn’t that tingle you when you hear people whisper it as you pass? Just as I tingle when some woman gasps, 35 ‘What a beautiful face!’ We both have our withered leg—only yours is invisible.”

35

The mockery on the face and the irony on the tongue of the 

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