Chapter V

I was sitting at breakfast when he comes in, having arrived by the early morning train.

Down he sits and has a cup of coffee.

“How’s Pat?” says he.

“You’re even with Pat,” I says. “Levenstein got here a week ago and Pat don’t like his new son-in-law. There’s been the devil to pay.”

“I’m better even with him than that,” says Buck. “Brent, we’re millionaires.”

“Spit yer meaning out,” I says.

“Do you remember,” says he, “my saying to you last time we touched at Palm Island that the place seemed built of a sort of rock I’d never seen before, and my bringing a chunk of it away in my pocket? Well, what do you think that rock is but phosphate of lime.”

“What’s that?” I queries.

“Seagull guano mixed with the lime of coral,” he says, “the finest fertiliser in the world and worth thirteen to fourteen dollars a ton. How many tons would Palm Island weigh, do you think, and it’s most all phosphate of lime?”

I begins to sweat in the palms of my hands, but I says nothing and he goes on:

“Palm Island being a British possession, since an Irishman has discovered it and it lies to eastward of the German British line, I went to London, and I’ve got not only the fishing rights but the mining rights for ninety-nine years. I didn’t say nothing about the mining rights, said I wanted to start a cannery there since the fishing was so good, and an old cockatoo in white whiskers did the rest and dropped the mining rights in gratis like an extra strawberry. Then, coming through N’ York I got a syndicate together that’ll buy the proposition when they’ve inspected it. I’ll take a million or nothing,” says he.

“But, look here,” I says, “how in the nation did it all happen; how did you know?”

“Well,” says he, “it was this way. That chunk of rock I was telling you of, I stuck in my sea chest, and unpacking when I got back I gave it to little Micky Murphy who was in the room pretending to help me. He used it for a play toy.

“Now do you remember Pat O’Brien that morning he left us, talking to Micky outside and taking him off to buy candy? Well, next day Mrs. Murphy said to me that the old gentleman was very free with his money, but she didn’t think he was quite right as he’d offered Micky a dollar for the stone he was playing with. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but later on, you remember that night on board ship, the thing hit me like a belt on the head.

“Micky had told the old chap I’d given him the stone when I came back from that trip and Pat had recognised it for what it was. The only question that bothered him was where I’d picked it up. He knew I traded regular with Levua, and when he found we stopped nowhere but Levua and Palm Island he knew it was at one of those two places. Phosphate of lime was to be found, enough maybe to double his fortune. He sent the girl to prospect, and she’d have done me in only that night I suddenly remembered a chap telling me about the phosphate business and saying the stuff was like rock, striped in places; I’d never thought of it till then, and what made me think of it was that I’d been worrying a lot since I’d left ’Frisco over Pat and all his doings. Seems to me the mind does a lot of thinking we don’t know of.”

“Well,” I says, “when he sent the girl to prospect he didn’t bargain she was going to prospect Levenstein.”

“No,” says Buck, “seems to me we’ve got the double bulge on him.”

But we hadn’t.

Buck got a million for his phosphate rights and gave me a share, and, as much will have more, we flew high and lost every buck in the Eagle Consolidated Gold and Silver Mining Corporation, Inc.

Pat met us the day after the burst and we asked him how the Levensteins were doing.

“Fine,” says he. “He asked me how to become a millionaire last night and I told him it was quite easy, you only had to pick up a million and stick to it, but mind you,” I said, “it’s not the picking it up’s the bother, but the sticking to it. Now look at that Eagle Consolidated business,” I says, “many’s the fine boy has put his money in tripe stock like that, tumbling balmy after working for years like a sensible man. You know the stock I mean,” he finishes. “The Eagle Consolidated Gold and Silver Mining Corporation, Inc.”

“Yes, I know,” says Buck.

We didn’t want to have no last words or let the old boy rub it in any more; we hiked off, Buck and me, resuming our way to the wharf and the same old life we’d always been living but for the three months we’d been million dollar men.

“Pat seemed to have the joke on us,” said Brent, “but looking back on those three months and the worries and dyspepsias and late hours that make a millionaire’s life, I’m not so sure we hadn’t the bulge on him over the whole transaction, specially considering that Levenstein went bust, forged cheques and let him in for forty thousand or so to save the name of the family.

“That’s the last transaction we ever had with Pat,” finished Brent. “He dropped calling on us to tell us how to become millionaires, seeing we’d given instructions to Mrs. Murphy always to tell him we were out.”

XIII—KILIWAKEE