But these Dutchmen aren't
any good. They never seem to get warmed up properly, win or lose. I've
tried them both ways, too. Hang them for a beggarly, bloodless lot of
animated cucumbers!"
"And if anything out of the way was to happen, they would be just
as cool in locking you and your gentleman up," Schomberg snarled
unpleasantly.
"Indeed!" said Ricardo slowly, taking Schomberg's measure with his eyes.
"And what about you?"
"You talk mighty big," burst out the hotel-keeper. "You talk of ranging
all over the world, and doing great things, and taking fortune by the
scruff of the neck, but here you stick at this miserable business!"
"It isn't much of a lay--that's a fact," admitted Ricardo unexpectedly.
Schomberg was red in the face with audacity.
"I call it paltry," he spluttered.
"That's how it looks. Can't call it anything else." Ricardo seemed to
be in an accommodating mood. "I should be ashamed of it myself, only you
see the governor is subject to fits--"
"Fits!" Schomberg cried out, but in a low tone. "You don't say so!" He
exulted inwardly, as if this disclosure had in some way diminished the
difficulty of the situation. "Fits! That's a serious thing, isn't it?
You ought to take him to the civil hospital--a lovely place."
Ricardo nodded slightly, with a faint grin.
"Serious enough. Regular fits of laziness, I call them.
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