"I mean a real fight. I won't settle for anything less."
"Tut, tut, Captain."
"Can you arrange it?"
"I could, yes," said Chumley, and put his toothpick back into its case and pocketed the case, "for a fee."
He looked at the ceiling.
"Why, uh, what I had in mind was an affair of honor."
"Quite."
Adam gawked. Chumley's eyes were opened very wide and a faint fond smile still touched the corners of his mouth.
"Damn me, Captain, the surgeon'll get a fee. Why shouldn't I? I'm as much a specialist as any surgeon. A thing like this needs expert handling. But cheerily, I come cheap. Twenty yellow-boys. Twenty golden guineas, coin of the realm, eh?"
"That's a lot of money."
"Damn me, it's a lot you're proposing to buy with it, sir. Jerve Johnston's no frippery fop, I can tell you. A rencontre with a blade like that, why it'll be talked about in every coffee house from St. James's to the Tower for quite three days. Every detail will be discussed. Such a matter needs careful handling."
"I see,"
"There'll be other expenses as well. The surgeon I just mentioned. Chair hire for both of us: it ain't thought genteel to go to the field mounted, don't ask me why. Other items. But first of all, a new coat for you. Captain. La, I say nothing against the one on your back now! Don't call me out! But we must get you something special and splendid. You lack friends, you must make it up with finery."
"That's the last thing I should have thought of."
"It's the first thing I thought of."
"Does so much depend on your coat, in this town?"
Chumley took snuff. He flicked a speck of it off his cravat. "A hell of a lot depends on your coat in this town," he said.
It has been said that the kind of person who always remembers everything seldom remembers anything worth remembering. Resolved Forbes was an exception. No man ever had a better mate. Adam Long signed the document he had written, sanded it, waved it, and then glanced up through the hatchway to where the Goodwill's second-in-command was supervising the unloading of the spars.
It had not taken Captain Long two hours to sell the spars. He reckoned it was because of the war that things cost so much. He could hardly believe it, the price he'd got. That was the last of the spars, being bumped out up there on deck right now. The schooner hands had been permitted to loaf at least half the time because the wharfworkers, though twice as numerous, couldn't keep up vdth them—or didn't want to. Adam was not paying for the wharfworkers, thank the Lord. They wouldn't be fiddlefaddling around like that if he was!
The reloading would not take long, in part because it wouldn't require any Londoners, in part because the cargo consisted of small items. Adam had been choosey. The average skipper who touched at Newport tended to fetch whatever gimcrackery he could lay hands on, assuming, as he did, that the Americans were glad to get anything at all. Adam Long knew better. He had, had had for years, his own ideas about what would constitute the ideal westbound cargo. First: well-built things, solid things that would last. Not fine furniture, for it occupied too much space and anyway might take too long to sell. Not fancy clothes, for folks were ashamed to buy those from somebody they knew; and then there was the matter of fit, and the further very important matter of fashion, which could veer crazily. But to Adam's knowledge there had never been enough iron nails in Newport, and from what he'd overheard the women say there had never been enough needles either. So he bought a lot of these, and a lot of knives. Axes, too. An axe always had a certain value in a place like Rhode Island, where you seldom saw any actual cash. It was almost like money; and a Newport man would take it instead of a coin, even though he already owned a perfectly good axe, for he'd know that he would never have any trouble selling or trading it. Adam had also bought some luxury notions like candle snuffers and sad irons, but not many such. All these things, again because of the war, were hard to get; and in America anything made of metal was a prize. In physical bulk, though not in value, the greater part of the cargo would consist of assorted cloths and dress materials—not silks, satins, or crepe de chine, but plain perpetuana and plenty of it, deerskin, felt, camlet, linen, sagathy, drugget.
In the profit from the sale of these articles, Adam as skipper would share. Additionally, he was filling personal commissions for fellow carpenters—augers, cleaving planes, molding planes, bench hook hammers, jointer planes, all sorts of saws, chisels, gouges, wimble bitts— There were never enough tools in Newport.
Adam's own flyer, a rare bargain, stumbled into by chance, was four gross of real wax candles. These wouldn't go bad or go out of fashion; their price would not grasshopper around; and they'd be easy to store. If it was necessary to raise money on them, they should serve at least as well as nails. Wax candles were a luxury in Newport, where most folks used tallow or just bayberry; but they were a sound luxury, a respectable one. Man or woman might hesitate to buy silk stockings in Newport, and hesitate even longer about wearing them in public. But wax candles, while symbols of a solid financial position, were not extravagant, not ostentatious.
There was another purchase that was personal to Adam, though it came out of the ship's fund—two suits of Dutch linen sails. Goodwill's canvas was dark, coarse, heavy, easily split. Dutch linen was not obtainable in America; and Goodwill deserved the best. Had Adam asked the Adventurers for permission to buy these, they'd raise their hands in horror. So he just said nothing—and went ahead and bought them.
Adam, however, was not thinking of this when he sanded the document. He was thinking that he'd properly ought to leave something to the faithful and efficient Resolved Forbes.
For this was Adam's will he had just written.
It had never previously occurred to him to make out a will, and that for at least two reasons: i) he hadn't had anything to leave to anybody; and 2) he hadn't had anybody to leave anything to. But now his duty was clear. After all, he could get killed. And he did own seven-sixteenths of one of the sweetest little sailing vessels in any man's ocean. Zeph's shares had been paid for only in part, but Adam's personal profits from this voyage would make up the rest. It was little enough that Maisie had, there far across the sea, lonesome on that hot, disagreeable island: a basketful of bills, bitter memories, some claim to part of a ruined plantation, and the sworn word of a lover. That word at least was going to be good.
So Adam had not needed the urging of John Chumley to make out a will, though Chumley had urged.
"Ain't challenged Johnston yet," Adam had grumped. "Tarnation, I ain't even seen him yet."
"You will, my chick, you will. Besides, 'tis fashionable. All the bloods have done it. So now—hie you to a lawyer."
Well, Adam had not gone to any lawyer. After all, expenses were bad enough in this besmudged Gomorrah without adding a solicitor's fee to 'em. Adam could write the Queen's English passing well; and the testament was simple—it merely stipulated that after his just debts had been settled, and his body, if available, had been given a decent Christian burial, all that was left of his estate should go to the Honorable Maisie de Lynn Treadway-Paul. Even a lawyer would have had a hard time finding something to get confused about in that.
But there was Resolved Forbes, up on deck there. And—Adam suddenly remembered it—there was the new coat.
The coat was kept at the Hearth Cricket, where Adam had a room, it being altogether too spectacular a garment to be worn down by the river here—it would invite stones and muddy sticks. The serious abstemious Forbes, Old Sobersides himself, could not have been forced at pistolpoint to don such a coat. But it would fetch a fine price. Resolved Forbes, though he might disapprove of such pieces of frippery, would hardly be likely to overlook their value.