is
name, as I heered afterwards. Well enough for some tastes, but too much of
the God Almighty Englishman about him to suit me. A handsome chap he was,
this Remington, I'm bound to say--young and slim, wi' a pink face like a
girl's, not a hair on it, and lookin' as though he might a' turned out of
a bandbox. Him--Turold--had a moustache, and his face was a dark 'un, but
I liked him for all his black looks--though not so black in those days,
either. More eager like."

Charles Turold found himself trying to picture Robert Turold in the part
of a smart lively young fellow, and failing utterly. But Time took the
smartness out of a man in less than thirty years. It had also taken the
liveliness out of Robert Turold for good and all.

Thalassa went on with his story. The young men were served with their beer
at five shillings a bottle, and sat down in a corner to drink it. They
talked as they sipped, and Thalassa listened. His original idea that they
were young men of wealth (because of the Bass) was soon dispersed by the
trend of their conversation. They had gone out from England to make their
fortunes on the fields, but had come a cropper like himself, and were
discussing what they'd do next. The fair-haired one, Remington, was all
for getting back to England while they had any money left, but Turold was
dead against it. There were plenty of diamonds to be found, and he was
going to have some of them. He'd been talking to a man who was just back
from the interior with a story of a river beach full of diamonds, and he
was fitting up an expedition to go back and get them. Turold wanted to
join in, but Remington said he'd heard too many stories of diamonds to be
picked up for the asking. Had he forgotten about the cursed Jew who got a
hundred pounds out of them? Turold said this was different--the man had
brought back a little bottleful of diamonds. Remington replied with a
sneer about "salting." They argued. "Suppose we dropped the last of our
money?" Remington asked. "No worse than crawling back to England like
whipped curs, poorer than we set out," said the other. Remington said he
didn't want to go back to England like that, but he'd sooner face it than
run the risk of being stranded in that hell of a place. Turold answered he
was not going back till he'd made a fortune. He said (Thalassa remembered
his exact words): "I don't care how I do it, Remington, but I will do
it--mark my words." "Show me a more sensible plan than