“Jim,” I said, “you must speak right out.  I’ve got all that I can carry.”

“Well,” he said—­“I know it was a liberty—­I made it out you were no business man, only a stone-broke painter; that half the time you didn’t know anything anyway, particularly money and accounts.  I said you never could be got to understand whose was whose.  I had to say that because of some entries in the books——­”

“For God’s sake,” I cried, “put me out of this agony!  What did you accuse me of?”

“Accuse you of?” repeated Jim.  “Of what I’m telling you.  And there being no deed of partnership, I made out you were only a kind of clerk that I called a partner just to give you taffy; and so I got you ranked a creditor on the estate for your wages and the money you had lent.  And——­”

I believe I reeled.  “A creditor!” I roared; “a creditor!  I’m not in the bankruptcy at all?”

“No,” said Jim.  “I know it was a liberty——­”

“O, damn your liberty! read that,” I cried, dashing the letter before him on the table, “and call in your wife, and be done with eating this truck “—­as I spoke, I slung the cold mutton in the empty grate—­“and let’s all go and have a champagne supper.  I’ve dined—­I’m sure I don’t remember what I had; I’d dine again ten scores of times upon a night like this.  Read it, you blaying ass!  I’m not insane.  Here, Mamie,” I continued, opening the bedroom door, “come out and make it up with me, and go and kiss your husband; and I’ll tell you what, after the supper, let’s go to some place where there’s a band, and I’ll waltz with you till sunrise.”

“What does it all mean?” cried Jim.

“It means we have a champagne supper to-night, and all go to Napa Valley or to Monterey to-morrow,” said I.  “Mamie, go and get your things on; and you, Jim, sit down right where you are, take a sheet of paper, and tell Franklin Dodge to go to Texas.  Mamie, you were right, my dear; I was rich all the time, and didn’t know it.”

CHAPTER XIX.  TRAVELS WITH A SHYSTER.

The absorbing and disastrous adventure of the Flying Scud was now quite ended; we had dashed into these deep waters and we had escaped again to starve, we had been ruined and were saved, had quarrelled and made up; there remained nothing but to sing Te Deum, draw a line, and begin on a fresh page of my unwritten diary.  I do not pretend that I recovered all I had lost with Mamie; it would have been more than I had merited; and I had certainly been more uncommunicative than became either the partner or the friend.  But she accepted the position handsomely; and during the week that I now passed with them, both she and Jim had the grace to spare me questions.  It was to Calistoga that we went; there was some rumour of a Napa land-boom at the moment, the possibility of stir attracted Jim, and he informed me he would find a certain joy in looking on, much as Napoleon on St.