"A common thief!"
Schomberg bit his tongue just too late, and woke up completely as he saw
Ricardo retract his lips in a cat-like grin; but the companion of "plain
Mr. Jones" didn't alter his comfortable, gossiping attitude.
"Garn! What if he did want to see his money back, like any tame
shopkeeper, hash-seller, gin-slinger, or ink-spewer does? Fancy a mud
turtle like you trying to pass an opinion on a gentleman! A gentleman
isn't to be sized up so easily. Even I ain't up to it sometimes. For
instance, that night, all he did was to waggle his finger at me. The
skipper stops his silly chatter, surprised.
"'Eh? What's the matter?' asks he.
"The matter! It was his reprieve--that's what was the matter.
"'O, nothing, nothing,' says my gentleman. 'You are perfectly right. A
log--nothing but a log.'
"Ha, ha! Reprieve, I call it, because if the skipper had gone on with
his silly argument much longer he would have had to be knocked out
of the way. I could hardly hold myself in on account of the precious
minutes. However, his guardian angel put it into his head to shut up and
go back to his bed. I was ramping mad about the lost time."
"'Why didn't you let me give him one on his silly coconut sir?' I asks.
"'No ferocity, no ferocity,' he says, raising his finger at me as calm
as you please.
"You can't tell how a gentleman takes that sort of thing. They don't
lost their temper. It's bad form. You'll never see him lose his
temper--not for anybody to see anyhow. Ferocity ain't good form, either--that much I've learned by this time, and more, too. I've had that schooling that you couldn't tell by my face if I meant to rip you up the next minute--as of course I could do in less than a jiffy. I have a knife up the leg of my trousers."
"You haven't!" exclaimed Schomberg incredulously.
Mr Ricardo was as quick as lightning in changing his lounging, idle
attitude for a stooping position, and exhibiting the weapon with one
jerk at the left leg of his trousers. Schomberg had just a view of it, strapped to a very hairy limb, when Mr. Ricardo, jumping up, stamped his foot to get the trouser-leg down, and resumed his careless pose with one elbow on the table.
"It's a more handy way to carry a tool than you would think," he went
on, gazing abstractedly into Schomberg's wide-open eyes. "Suppose some
little difference comes up during a game. Well, you stoop to pick up a
dropped card, and when you come up--there you are ready to strike, or
with the thing up you sleeve ready to throw. Or you just dodge under the
table when there's some shooting coming. You wouldn't believe the damage
a fellow with a knife under the table can do to ill-conditioned skunks
that want to raise trouble, before they begin to understand what the
screaming's about, and make a bolt--those that can, that is."
The roses of Schomberg's cheek at the root of his chestnut beard faded
perceptibly. Ricardo chuckled faintly.
"But no ferocity--no ferocity! A gentleman knows. What's the good of
getting yourself into a state? And no shirking necessity, either. No
gentleman ever shirks. What I learn I don't forget. Why! We gambled
on the plains, with a damn lot of cattlemen in ranches; played fair, mind--and then had to fight for our winnings afterwards as often as not. We've gambled on the hills and in the valleys and on the sea-shore, and out of sight of land--mostly fair. Generally it's good enough. We began in Nicaragua first, after we left that schooner and her fool errand. There were one hundred and twenty-seven sovereigns and some Mexican dollars in that skipper's cash-box. Hardly enough to knock a man on the head for from behind, I must confess; but that the skipper had a narrow escape the governor himself could not deny afterwards.
"'Do you want me to understand, sir, that you mind there being one life
more or less on this earth?' I asked him, a few hours after we got away.
"'Certainly not,' says he.
"'Well, then, why did you stop me?'
"'There's a proper way of doing things. You'll have to learn to be
correct. There's also unnecessary exertion. That must be avoided, too--if only for the look of the thing.' A gentleman's way of putting things to you--and no mistake!