We once kept a whole angry town at bay for two days, and
then we got away with our plunder. It was in Venezuela. Ask Martin
here--he can tell you."
Instinctively Schomberg looked at Ricardo, who only passed the tip of
his tongue over his lips with an uncanny sort of gusto, but did not
offer to begin.
"Well, perhaps it would be a rather long story," Mr. Jones conceded
after a short silence.
"I have no desire to hear it, I am sure," said Schomberg. "This isn't
Venezuela. You wouldn't get away from here like that. But all this is
silly talk of the worst sort. Do you mean to say you would make deadly
trouble for the sake of a few guilders that you and that other"--eyeing
Ricardo suspiciously, as one would look at a strange animal--"gentleman
can win of an evening? Isn't as if my customers were a lot of rich men
with pockets full of cash. I wonder you take so much trouble and risk
for so little money."
Schomberg's argument was met by Mr. Jones's statement that one must do
something to kill time. Killing time was not forbidden. For the rest,
being in a communicative mood, Mr. Jones said languidly and in a voice
indifferent, as if issuing from a tomb, that he depended on himself, as
if the world were still one great, wild jungle without law. Martin was
something like that, too--for reasons of his own.
All these statements Ricardo confirmed by short, inhuman grins.
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