Then I felt better. If the keeper's income
kept up that way it was clear he could go back to Spain by-and-by
with stateliness pretty respectable, and I says to myself:
"Why, the Injuns are happy, and the keeper's going to be, and I'm a
sinner, and Craney can look after his own conscience. Shucks! He
hasn't got any."
It made me feel virtuous to think how Craney had no conscience.
Maybe he hadn't. He was the busiest man in South America for a while.
I never knew of another to make a business asset out of earthquakes
nor his equal for seeing an opening for enterprise. He was a singular
man, Craney, a shrewd one, and yet romantic and given to ingenious
visions. And yet again, when he talked his wildest, you'd find he had
his feet on some rocky facts, and his one good eye would be hard and
bright as a new tack. We used to sit in front of the shed sometimes,
looking down on the sea that was blue and shining like rumpled silk,
Craney smoking cigars and I with my pipe.
"Tommy," he'd say, "the world lies open before us. Everywhere is
chances for a soaring ambition, everywhere is harvests for the man
that's got talents. There's diamonds in rocks, and there's pearls in
oysters.
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