but resolutely held his peace.


"I want to talk to you about the Flying Scud and Mr. Carthew," I
resumed. "Come: you must have expected this. I am sure you know all; you
are shrewd, and must have a guess that I know much. How are we to stand
to one another? and how am I to stand to Mr. Carthew?"

"I do not fully understand you," he replied, after a pause; and then,
after another: "It is the spirit I refer to, Mr. Dodd."

"The spirit of my inquiries?" I asked.

He nodded.


"I think we are at cross-purposes," said I. "The spirit is precisely
what I came in quest of. I bought the Flying Scud at a ruinous figure,
run up by Mr. Carthew through an agent; and I am, in consequence, a
bankrupt. But if I have found no fortune in the wreck, I have found
unmistakable evidences of foul play. Conceive my position: I am ruined
through this man, whom I never saw; I might very well desire revenge
or compensation; and I think you will admit I have the means to extort
either."

He made no sign in answer to this challenge.

"Can you not understand, then," I resumed, "the spirit in which I come
to one who is surely in the secret, and ask him, honestly and plainly:
How do I stand to Mr. Carthew?"