Dredge

“ Dredge, “and do not think so much of it as you, being a stranger; but he is without doubt an exceedingly vain man and brimful of egotism. I am sorry you were obliged to hear so much of him.”
“I am very pleased he is gone, and hope never to meet him in company again, excepting as a reformed character. He may be a good neighbour; he may be wealthy; he may be a little wise and educated; but none of these things justify the excessive vanity and self-setting-off which are so prominent in his conversation.”
[Pg 182] The views of the Professor were such as others entertained who knew Mr. Slack. ”

“ When a young fellow can get the big men fighting over him his future is pretty well assured. But Dredge was only thirty-four, and some people seemed to feel that there was a kind of deflected nepotism in Lanfear's choice.
“If he could choose Dredge he might as well have chosen his own son,” I've heard it said; and the irony was that Archie—will you believe it?—actually thought so himself! But Lanfear had Weyman behind him, and when the end came the Faculty at once appointed Galen Dredge to the chair of Experimental Evolution. ”

“ There was a silence between the two men; then Dredge continued in a lighter tone: “There's one thing, though, that we're both in danger of forgetting: and that is how little, in the long run, it all counts either way.” He smiled a little at Archie's outraged gesture. “The most we can any of us do—even by such a magnificent effort as your father's—is to turn the great marching army a hair's breadth nearer what seems to us the right direction; if one of us drops out, here and there, the loss of headway's hardly perceptible. ”

“ A DREDGE KING OF THE KLONDIKE Since I have come to western Canada I have acquired a contempt for Aladdin. At every step here I am meeting common, everyday men who are enslaving genii a million times mightier than those of the Arabian Nights. They rub their magic lamps and mechanical wonders spring up almost in a night. They give an order and change the course of a river. They lift a hand and valleys are turned upside down. Of all these conquerors of Nature in the Klondike none has come up to Joseph W. Boyle, the famous dredge king, who was once the most striking figure in this land of gold. ”

“ Vance, that you know much which you have not told me."
"I had my reasons, and very good ones," said I stiffly.
"No reasons should prevent your helping the police in the execution of their duty," said Dredge, with an official air. "However, as things have turned out for the best, we can let that pass. When Mr. Monk departed," he continued, taking up the thread of his narrative, "Striver told his aunt that he wanted to sleep, and returned to the bedroom. There he really did fall asleep, but before doing so he heard the voice of Miss Destiny." ”

“ Don’t they have to have scows alongside?”
“In the first place, it is n’t mud, at least not much of it. It is mostly sand and gravel, What a suction dredge devours goes into bins in her own hold, then it is taken out to sea and dumped. Do you see how low she is in the water? I guess they have just been waiting for us before putting out to sea to dump their load. I see the other dredge is over at Rockaway Inlet. I ’ll put you aboard this dredge, and by the time I get back from Rockaway, your boat will have dumped its load and returned.” ”

“ And there was a veil of reticence, of secrecy, about Dredge, that always kept his conduct in a half-light of uncertainty. Of some men one would have said off-hand: “It’s impossible!” But one couldn’t affirm it of him.
Archie hadn’t seen him as yet; and Mrs. Lanfear had sent for me because she wished me to be present at the interview between the two men. The Lanfear ladies had a touching belief in Archie’s violence: they thought him as terrible as a natural force. My own idea was that if there were any broken bones they wouldn’t be Dredge’s ”

“ I'm going to send the dredge back once more to make sure we aren't being misled."
"I think you're wrong," said Montresig. "All evidence does point to a race of giants, evil creatures at best, even if maybe they do have two eyes, a nose and a mouth like us. Not that I don't think it's a good idea to send the dredge back," he added hastily at the sight of Commander Losure's glowering countenance.
The Commander signaled to the dredge operator again and they waited while he returned the gun to wherever he got it and fished for something else from the surface of the green planet. ”

“ He comes from East Lethe, New York State, and was working his way through college—waiting at White Mountain hotels in summer—when Archie Lanfear ran across him. There were eight children in the family, and the mother was an invalid. Dredge never had a penny from his father after he was fourteen; but his mother wanted him to be a scholar, and “kept at him,” as he put it, in the hope of his going back to “teach school” at East Lethe. He developed slowly, as the scientific mind generally does, and was still adrift about himself and his tendencies when Archie took him down to Buzzard’s Bay. ”

“ Caldershaw attached such value to the eye?"
"I can't tell you that, Mr. Inspector, because I do not know. Anne was always very close and kept her business to herself."
"Who is the woman?" asked Dredge impatiently.
"Who was the woman, you mean, sir," corrected Miss Destiny smartly in her turn. "I can tell you that. She was my brother's housekeeper at Burwain for many years. When he died five years ago, more or less," added Miss Destiny precisely, "she retired with her savings to this place, which was her native village, and here set up this shop." ”

“ It is the man that makes the movement as much as the movement makes the man. There were a number of ready champions of the general cause, but when they came to take stock of the claims of each it was found there was only one man who could be followed with confidence. This was a young fellow named Dredge, known familiarly to most of the London letter-carriers as Tom Dredge. ”

“ The dredging operations of the British Association committee were carried on generally under the idea that at the 100-fathom line, by which amateur work in small boats was practically limited, the zero of animal life was approached—a notion which was destined to be gradually undermined, and finally overthrown. From time to time, however, there were not wanting men of great skill and experience to maintain, with Sir James Clark Ross, that “from however great a depth we may be enabled to bring up mud and stones of the bed of the ocean we shall find them teeming with animal life.” ”

“ These swabs were, however, always termed “hempen tangles”—so much does science dignify every object it touches! The dredges were afterwards set aside for the ordinary beam-trawls used in shallow water around our own coasts. Their open meshes allowed the mud and sand to filter through easily, and their adoption was a source of satisfaction to some of the officers who looked with horror on the state of their usually immaculate decks, when the dredges were emptied of their contents. ”

“ Drew tried to lift his head, tried to summon words to answer that demand. A sullen kind of pride made him release his hold and stand away from the bay, only to reel back and bring up hard against a rock, grating his arm painfully. He clung there for a moment and got out:
"Nothing a little sleep won't cure." He spoke into the dark outline of Hunt Rennie. "I'm all right."
Drew made a painful effort, pulled himself away from the rock to fumble at the cinches of the bay's saddle, only to be pushed aside. ”

“ The Dryad, receiving no reply, looked around and beheld Jones, net poised, advancing on tiptoe across the green.
"What is it—a snake?" inquired the Dryad in an unsteady voice.
"It is The White Devil!" whispered Jones.
The Dryad's skirts were short enough as it was, but she hastily picked them up. She had a right to. "Does it bite?" she whispered, looking carefully around in the grass. But all she could see was a strangely beautiful butterfly settled on a blue wild blossom which swayed gently in the wind on the edge of the jungle. So she dropped her skirts. She had a right to. ”

“ Day after day, guarding the long, white road, the Dryad saw the phantom pass—always flying north; day after day in the dim forest, the hurrying, pale-winged, tireless creatures fled away, darting always along some fixed yet invisible aërial path. Nothing lured them, neither the perfumed clusters of the China-berry, nor the white forest flowers; nothing checked them, neither the woven curtain of creepers across the forest barrier, nor the jungle walled with palms.
To the net of the Dryad and of Jones had fallen half a thousand jewelled victims ”

“ The gate was locked, and the wire had been put on by a farmer who combined with great ingenuity a fervent hatred of his fellow-men. To Miss Drewitt it seemed insurmountable, but, aided by Mr. Tredgold and a peal of thunder which came to his assistance at a critical moment, she managed to clamber over and reach the shed. Mr. Tredgold followed at his leisure with a strip of braid torn from the bottom of her dress. ”

“ Drew bowed with swift courtesy.
“Mr. Drew,” said the Magnate. “Mr. Drew, my daughter, Loris.”
Again the detective bowed. He met her level glance with a smile in his brown eyes. She answered it and leaned over her father’s shoulder. Drew wheeled and fell to studying the titles on the books. He moved to the magpie’s cage. He extended one finger. The bird fluttered and sprang from perch to perch.
Drew thrust his hands into his pockets. He heard Loris speaking in terse, throaty tones to her father. He could not well avoid catching the tenor of their conversation. ”

“ The fellow crashed to the deck—down and out without a murmur. Drew, panting and limping, leaving a trail of blood wherever he stepped, secured some lengths of spun yarn and tied both mutineers hand and foot before he gave any attention to the murmuring prisoners.
"Now, men," he said, turning to the five, "you know me. I'm Mr. Drew and I'm no ghost."
"You don't hit like no ghost," grinned Trent. "I'm mighty glad you come, Mr. Drew. It would have been all up with us when old Bug-eye come back if you hadn't."
"You're fine fellows and all right to stand up for your captain," replied Drew ”

“ Thus inelegantly had old Drew been described to me in China, and there was some truth in it, surely. Where was my hatred of a moment ago? Confound it, there was something likable about him after all.
I stared at him no longer, for now outside the curtains I could see Mary Will coming down the stairs. Many beautiful women had come down those stairs in the days when social history was making in that old house on Nob Hill—women whose loveliness was now but a fast-fading memory on peeling canvas. But none, I felt quite certain, was fairer than Mary Will. ”

“ From her manner during the rapid walk home Mr. Tredgold was enabled to see clearly that she was holding him responsible for the captain's awkward behaviour; the rain; her spoiled clothes; and a severe cold in the immediate future. He glanced at her ruined hat and the wet, straight locks of hair hanging about her face, and held his peace.
Never before on a Sunday afternoon had Miss Drewitt known the streets of Binchester to be so full of people. She hurried on with bent head, looking straight before her, trying to imagine what she looked like. ”

“ The life of the Drew household appeared to be at the moment centered in the great hall into which we came. Carlotta Drew was lying back on a big sofa at the left, indulging in the luxury of mild hysterics, and Mary Will bent over her, a bottle of smelling-salts in her hand. A little old woman with a kindly face, evidently a servant, was weeping silently near the stairs, and at the moment of our entrance Hung Chin-chung emerged from the dining-room with no sign of emotion on his inscrutable face. ”

“ He took her in his arms again and, kissing her forehead, winked delightedly in the direction of Mr. Tredgold, who was affecting to look out of the window.
"My man'll be in soon," he said, releasing the girl, "and then we'll see about some tea. He met me at the station and I sent him straight off for things to eat."
"Your man?" said Miss Drewitt.
"Yes; I thought a man would be easier to manage than a girl," said the captain, knowingly. "You can be freer with 'em in the matter of language, and then there's no followers or anything of that kind. ”

“ You mustn't act without thinking in these things. Lord Dreever is only a boy, as you say, but he will grow. You say you don't love him. Nonsense! You like him. You would go on liking him more and more. And why? Because you could make what you pleased of him. You've got character, my dear. With a girl like you to look after him, he would go a long way, a very long way. It's all there. It only wants bringing out. And think of it, Molly! Countess of Dreever! There's hardly a better title in England. ”

“ Delaney will be up from the office with his flying squad. I left it to him to arrange about tracing the call through a telephone official. No use telling the chief operator too much. The official will go right over her head and into the heart of the thing. Now,”—Drew pulled down the lapels of his black coat and leaned over the Magnate. “Now,” he said with vigor, “now, what about your servants? I had a good look at some of them. How about that English butler? How long have you had him?”
“Ten years! Brought him over, myself. Wife picked the other servants. They’re all old, tried and trusted. ”