Then Samuel listened to Adams, for that worthy also started to blow his own trumpet. Samuel Biglow bent his giant form and roared with laughter as he listened. Then Adams said he was “a man of honour,” that he would “sooner die than do unto another that which he would not like to be done to him.”
“So, so!” murmured Samuel Biglow soothingly, as he gave Adams a kindly, mother-like look, which plainly told Clensy, who thoroughly enjoyed the play, that he, Samuel, didn’t believe one word that the sailorman said, and that he was doubtlessly as big a rogue as himself. “Ye’ve got honesty written on yer mug!” he said, and Adams felt pleased.
The fact is, that circumstances were running as near dire disaster as could possibly be when two men like Samuel Biglow and Adams met in Hayti, where catastrophes were of hourly occurrence. And it can only be put down to extraordinary good luck that Royal Clensy never got his head into at least a noose of difficulties through associating with such characters. However, let it be said, that all that happened afterwards was not the fault of either Samuel Biglow or Adams; if anything, Samuel Biglow was Royal Clensy’s saviour when the hour arrived, and they had to flee, the three of them, from Hayti.
SAMUEL BIGLOW was a blessing to Clensy and Adams.
As well as possessing enormous cheek, he possessed plenty of money. That which surprised Clensy most about Biglow was his refined demeanour when he entered Haytian society. It seemed to come natural to the man. He had certainly never been well educated or reared amongst courtly people, yet his self-possession and gallant manners outrivalled the polite deportment of men and women who moved in the best social circle of Port-au-Prince. It must be admitted that the highest Haytian social circle, in those days, was not easily shocked over moral lapses or by those acts which would be considered breaches of etiquette in European society; but still, the Mexican and Spanish-French element of gallant manners and pretty politenesses among the wealthy classes existed in a large degree. These classes were made up of Haytian chiefs, mulattoes and Mexicans, and lusty-looking men who appeared to have a large strain of negro blood in their veins. The government of Hayti was in form republican, the democratic element being especially noticeable when the court officials and lustrous-eyed Haytian maids of the lower classes came together. When Congress met at the chambers, the swarthy ministers discussed public matters with great deliberation, each member holding a drawn sword in his hand and a revolver lying fully loaded on the bench in front of him. In fact, the Haytian Government constitution was up to date, nothing to excel its laws—on paper! And the honest aspect of the officials _par excellence_. All that was really required was an honest Napoleonic Controller of Controllers to help responsible members of the Republic from falling before the lure of bribery and lustrous-eyed beauties of the Court.