Upon reflection, the performance of having sold the same property first to Tavender in Mexico and then to the Rubber Consols Company in London might be subject to injurious comment, or worse. The fact that it was not a real property to begin with had no place in his thoughts.
It was a concession--and concessions were immemorially worth what they would fetch. But the other thing might have been so awkward--and now it was all right!
For an hour and more, till the fire burnt itself out and the guest's snoring became too active a nuisance, Thorpe sat lost in this congratulatory reverie.
Then he rose, and sharply shaking Tavender into a semblance of consciousness, led him upstairs and put him to bed.
Three days later he personally saw Tavender off at Waterloo station by the steamer-train, en route for Southampton and New York. The old man was in childlike good spirits, looking more ecclesiastical than ever in the new clothes he had been enabled to buy. He visibly purred with content whenever his dim eyes caught sight of the new valise and steamer trunk, which belonged to him, on the busy platform.
"You've been very kind to me, Thorpe," he said more than once, as they stood together beside the open door of the compartment. "I was never so hospitably treated before in my life. Your attention to me has been wonderful.
I call you a true friend."
"Oh, that's all right! Glad to do it," replied the other, lightly. In truth he had not let Tavender stray once out of his sight during those three days.
He had dragged him tirelessly about London, showing him the sights from South Kensington Museum to the Tower, shopping with him, resting in old taverns with him, breakfasting, lunching, aud dining with him--in the indefatigable resolution that he should strike up no dangerous gossiping acquaintance with strangers.
The task had been tiresome in the extreme-- but it had been very well worth while.
"One thing I'm rather sorry about," Tavender remarked, in apologetic parenthesis--"I ought to have gone down and seen that brother-in-law of mine in Kent. He's been very good to me, and I'm not treating him very well.
I wrote to tell him I was coming--but since then I haven't had a minute to myself. However, I can write to him and explain how it happened. And probably I'll be over again sometime.""Why, of course," said Thorpe, absently. The allusion to the brother-in-law in Kent had escaped his notice, so intent was he upon a new congeries of projects taking vague shape in his mind.
"Think of yourself as my man out there," he said now, slowly, following the clue of his thoughts. "There may be big things to do. Write to me as often as you can.
Tell me everything that's going on. Money will be no object to me--you can have as much as you like--if things turn up out there that are worth taking up. But mind you say nothing about me--or any connection you've ever had with me.
You'll get a letter from the Secretary of a Company and the Chairman asking for a report on a certain property, and naming a fee. You simply make a good report--on its merits. You say nothing about anything else--about me, or the history of the concession, or its validity, or anything. I mustn't be alluded to in any way.
You quite understand that?"
"Trust me!" said the old man, and wrung his benefactor's hand.
It was indeed with a trustful eye that Thorpe watched the train draw out of the station.
