He lapsed into silence. The train rolled on. I looked at my watch. London was not far off now.
‘The present arrangement of equal division,’ said Sam, breaking a long silence, ‘holds good, of course, only in the event of your quitting this fool game and doing the square thing by me. Let me put it plainly. We are either partners or competitors. It is for you to decide. If you will be sensible and tell me that address, I will pledge my word–‘
‘Your word!’ I said scornfully.
‘Honour among thieves!’ replied Sam, with unruffled geniality. ‘I wouldn’t double-cross you for worlds. If, however, you think you can manage without my assistance, it will then be my melancholy duty to beat you to the kid, and collect him and the money entirely on my own account. Am I to take it,’ he said, as I was silent, ‘that you prefer war to an alliance?’
I turned a page of my book and went on reading.
‘If Youth but knew!’ he sighed. ‘Young man, I am nearly twice your age, and I have, at a modest estimate, about ten times as much sense. Yet, in your overweening self-confidence, with your ungovernable gall, you fancy you can hand me a lemon. -Me!- I should smile!’
‘Do,’ I said. ‘Do, while you can.’
He shook his head reprovingly.
‘You will not be so fresh, sonny, in a few hours. You will be biting pieces out of yourself, I fear. And later on, when my automobile splashes you with mud in Piccadilly, you will taste the full bitterness of remorse. Well, Youth must buy its experience, I suppose!’
I looked across at him as he sat, plump and rosy and complacent, puffing at his cigarette, and my heart warmed to the old ruffian. It was impossible to maintain an attitude of righteous iciness with him. I might loathe his mode of life, and hate him as a representative–and a leading representative–of one of the most contemptible trades on earth, but there was a sunny charm about the man himself which made it hard to feel hostile to him as an individual.
I closed my book with a bang and burst out laughing.
‘You’re a wonder!’ I said.
He beamed at what he took to be evidence that I was coming round to the friendly and sensible view of the matter.
‘Then you think, on consideration–‘ he said. ‘Excellent! Now, my dear young man, all joking aside, you will take me with you to that address, will you not? You observe that I do not ask you to give it to me. Let there be not so much as the faintest odour of the double-cross about this business. All I ask is that you allow me to accompany you to where the Nugget is hidden, and then rely on my wider experience of this sort of game to get him safely away and open negotiations with the dad.’
‘I suppose your experience has been wide?’ I said.
‘Quite tolerably–quite tolerably.’
‘Doesn’t it ever worry you the anxiety and misery you cause?’
‘Purely temporary, both. And then, look at it in another way. Think of the joy and relief of the bereaved parents when sonny comes toddling home again! Surely it is worth some temporary distress to taste that supreme happiness? In a sense, you might call me a human benefactor. I teach parents to appreciate their children. You know what parents are. Father gets caught short in steel rails one morning. When he reaches home, what does he do? He eases his mind by snapping at little Willie. Mrs Van First-Family forgets to invite mother to her freak-dinner. What happens? Mother takes it out of William. They love him, maybe, but they are too used to him. They do not realize all he is to them. And then, one afternoon, he disappears. The agony! The remorse! “How could I ever have told our lost angel to stop his darned noise!” moans father. “I struck him!” sobs mother. “With this jewelled hand I spanked our vanished darling!” “We were not worthy to have him,” they wail together. “But oh, if we could but get him back!” Well they do. They get him back as soon as ever they care to come across in unmarked hundred-dollar bills. And after that they think twice before working off their grouches on the poor kid. So I bring universal happiness into the home. I don’t say father doesn’t get a twinge every now and then when he catches sight of the hole in his bank balance, but, darn it, what’s money for if it’s not to spend?’