It won't bring you much comfort to know that, half the time, I was
sucking education out of you, grinning inwardly and thinking,
'Now, my fine hater, the more you're taking the superior line with me
the more I'm your pupil all the time; the more you're giving me what
I'll find priceless, one of these days, if ever we get back upon
London pavements.' In the blindness of your hatred you never guessed
that Peter Farrell, all through life, might have had a long way with
him--a way of looking ahead--and all to better himself. You never
guessed _that_, all the time, I was letting you teach me.
"--But in practical matters--in all that counts first with a business
man--I saw pretty early that you were little better than a fool.
Yet I couldn't have believed you or any man such a fool as you showed
yourself on the _I'll Away_: and even you couldn't have missed
sensing it but for one thing--_you couldn't dare return to the
island_.
"--A place so rich as that, unknown, uncharted!--reeking with copra,
not to mention other wealth--fairly asking to be sold and turned over
to a government, to a syndicate, to develop it! Man! you and Hales
had a million safe between you when you boarded the schooner; and I
can see Hales's mind at work when he spotted your boat and sized up
the share he was losing by your turning up.
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