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to lull his suspicions, was a decent, honest man. So I encouraged him to run on, hanging on his tales, of the fortunes made in Mexico, racked up in just a few months, and the private armies that guarded them. He mentioned one Paddy Milmo, “me partner, who abused me confidence shamefully—though I came off with at least me share, a hundred thousand in gold, in spite of his damned soldados , looking for me all night, to clap me in the picota for the chinch bugs to eat out me neck.” It occurred to me that partners “abusing me confidence” might be one of the mirages he saw all the time, kind of a chronic illusion. But after he’d told a few tall ones and I had made proper mirations, I did some bragging myself. I told of the thousand dollars I’d made at Chestertown one day, on a hurry-up job of dredging for some peach farmers on Chester River whose wharf had got silted up so the steamers couldn’t get in to haul their crop to market. They were ruined unless something was done, “and so,” I said, “as soon as the papers were drawn and the money put in escrow, I told them, ‘Gentlemen, gauge. The agreement says seven feet, and I think you’ll find you have it.’ So, with the witnesses, they all piled into rowboats, with a red rag tied at seven feet on a bamboo fishing pole. And wherever they put down the pole the red rag went under, so they had no choice but to pay. Because what they didn’t know was that while they were up at the bank signing papers with me, Sandy Gregg, my tugboat skipper, was turning his screw at the wharf. The screw churned up the silt and the tide floated it out. We picked up a thousand neat for two hours’ work by a boat.”
    “But you saved the day for your friends?”
    “Who were sore as a boil, however.”
    He burst out laughing and roared: “You’re a man iv me own kind—let the buggers pay, and if they don’t like’t, lump ’ t! ”
    “They paid, but because they had to.”
    “... Aye, you mentioned escrow?”
    “That’s right. I like my money guaranteed.”
    He had a small, gray eye, kind of rheumy, and it looked me over now, very close. In a moment, he said: “If it’s your fee you’re talking about, for acting as counsel to Adolphe, there’ll be no trouble about it, if I accept your ideas. Could I hear them, if you have any?”
    It seemed to me that, starting out to be hostile, he had now made a switch and would fall into my trap if I talked the right way. So I decided to bring up the thing, going by what she’d told me, that had to be the nub of his crooked scheme. I said: “Well, Mr. Burke, I don’t know what you’ll accept, but for my part, having read that informer’s note, having talked with Mr. Landry, and having had some experience with such things, I would say he’s innocent, and doesn’t have a leg to stand on. I mean he may not have done it, but how does he go about proving it? So the only idea I have is: Plead, and get the thing over with.”
    The rheum in his eye took on a glitter. “Do you mean it, lad?” he asked, very excited. “Are you serious in what you say?”
    “Why string it out, Mr. Burke?”
    “I’ve been thinking the same thing meself!”
    “They may confiscate—but they would anyway.”
    “And he’ll not have to sit in prison!”
    “That’s the main thing, isn’t it?”
    “And another thing, me boy—what does he have to lose? The store in Alexandria, which they’ll take when the Army arrives there. But these invaded towns have a way of being burned as the invaders leave—so what would he have, assuming he made a defense? A pile of ashes. ’Tis better to get it over with, so he’s out! And another thing: He still will have his cotton, through his partnership with me. But ’twill be worth nothing at all unless we’re on the spot to pick up our seizure receipt, the one the Army gives when the stuff is taken in. But how can he be there, me boy, and also be here awaiting trial? Perhaps I could swing it alone—after