As if the Excelsior wouldn't have
gone into Mazatlan if it had been her! I tell you what it is, Brimmer:
it's mighty rough on you and me, and it ain't the square thing at
all--after all we've done, and the money we've spent, and the nights
we've sat up over the Excelsior--to have this young fellow Keene always
putting up the bluff of his lost sister on us! His lost sister, indeed!
as if WE hadn't any feelings."
The two men looked at each other, and each felt it incumbent to look
down and sigh deeply--not hypocritically, but perfunctorily, as over
a past grief, although anger had been the dominant expression of the
speaker.
"I was about to remark," said Brimmer practically, "that the insurance
on the Excelsior having been paid, her loss is a matter of commercial
record; and that, in a business point of view, this plan of Keene's
ain't worth looking at. As a private matter of our own feelings--purely
domestic--there's no question but that we must sympathize with him,
although he refuses to let us join in the expenses."
"Oh, as to that," said Markham hurriedly, "I told him to draw on me for
a thousand dollars last time I saw him. No, sir; it ain't that.
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