Chapter 34

After this climax the interview was not so long as it was interesting. Two men as far apart as the poles, as remote from each other in mind and body, in training and education or lack of it, in desires and intentions, in points of view and trend of being, as nature and circumstances could make them, talked in a language foreign to each other of a wildly strange thing. Palliser's arguments and points of aspect were less unknown to T. Tembarom than his own were to Palliser. He had seen something very like them before, though they had developed in different surroundings and had been differently expressed. The colloquialism "You're not doing that for your health" can be made to cover much ground in the way of the stripping bare of motives for action. This was what, in excellent and well-chosen English, Captain Palliser frankly said to his host. Of nothing which T. Tembarom said to him in his own statement did he believe one word or syllable. The statement in question was not long or detailed. It was, of course, Palliser saw, a ridiculously impudent flinging together of a farrago of nonsense, transparent in its effort beyond belief. Before he had listened five minutes with the distinctly "nasty" smile, he burst out laughing.

"That is a good 'spiel,' my dear chap," he said. "It's as good a 'spiel' as your typewriter friend used to rattle off when he thought he saw a customer; but I'm not a customer."

Tembarom looked at him interestedly for about ten seconds. His hands were thrust into his trousers pockets, as was his almost invariable custom. Absorption and speculation, even emotion and excitement, were usually expressed in this unconventional manner.

"You don't believe a darned word of it," was his sole observation.

"Not a darned word," Palliser smiled. "You are trying a 'bluff,' which doesn't do credit to your usual sharpness. It's a bluff that is actually silly. It makes you look like an ass."

"Well, it's true," said Tembarom; "it's true."

Palliser laughed again.

"I only said it made you look like an ass," he remarked. "I don't profess to understand you altogether, because you are a new species. Your combination of ignorance and sharpness isn't easy to calculate on. But there is one thing I have found out, and that is, that when you want to play a particular sharp trick you are willing to let people take you for a fool. I'll own you've deceived me once or twice, even when I suspected you. I've heard that's one of the most successful methods used in the American business world. That's why I only say you look like an ass. You are an ass in some respects; but you are letting yourself look like one now for some shrewd end. You either think you'll slip out of danger by it when I make this discovery public, or you think you'll somehow trick me into keeping my mouth shut."

"I needn't trick you into keeping your mouth shut," Tembarom suggested. "There's a straightway to