“Yes--I suppose they do those things,” remarked Tavender, vaguely.
“Well--my point is that perhaps I can do something or other with this concession of yours here. I may even be able to get my money back on it. At any rate I'll take my chances on it--so that at least you shan't lose anything by it. Of course, if you'd rather try and put it on the market yourself, why go ahead!” There was a wistful pathos in the way Tavender shook his head. “Big money doesn't mean anything to me any more,” he said, wearily. “I'm too old and I'm too tired. Why--four--five--yes, half a dozen times I've had enough money to last me comfortably all my life--and every time I've used it as bait to catch bigger money with, and lost it all. I don't do that any more! I've got something the matter with me internally that takes the nerve all out of me. The doctors don't agree about it, but whatever its name is I've got it for keeps. Probably I shan't live very long”--Thorpe recalled that the old man had always taken a gloomy view of his health after the third glass--“and if you want to pay me the nineteen thousand dollars, or whatever it is, why I shall say 'God bless you,' and be more than contented.”
“Oh, there's something more to it than that,” observed Thorpe, with an added element of business-like briskness in his tone. “If I let you out in this way--something, of course, you could never have dreamed would happen--you must do some things for me. I should want you, for example, to go back to Mexico at once. Of course, I'd pay your expenses out. Or say, I'd give you a round four thousand pounds to cover that and some other things too. You wouldn't object to that, would you?”
The man who, two hours before, had confronted existence with the change of his last five-pound note in his pocket, did not hesitate now. “Oh no, that would be all right,” with reviving animation, he declared. He helped himself again from the cut-glass decanter. “What would you want me to do there?”
“Oh, a report on the concession for a starter,” Thorpe answered, with careful indifference. “I suppose they still know your name as an authority. I could make that all right anyway. But one thing I ought to speak of--it might be rather important--I wouldn't like to have you mention to anybody that the concession has at any time been yours. That might tend to weaken the value of your report, don't you see? Let it be supposed that the concession has been my property from the start. You catch my point, don't you? There never was any such thing as a transfer of it to you. It's always been mine!”