Page:'Twixt land and sea - tales (IA twixtlandseatale00conr).pdf/27

 behind me I thought to myself: “H’m. A lot of lies. Commercial diplomacy. That’s the sort of thing a man coming from sea has got to expect. They would try to charter the ship under the market rate.”

In the big, outer room, full of desks, the chief clerk, a tall, lean, shaved person in immaculate white clothes and with a shiny, closely-cropped black head on which silvery gleams came and went, rose from his place and detained me affably. Anything they could do for me, they would be most happy. Was I likely to call again in the afternoon? What? Going to a funeral? Oh, yes, poor Captain H.

He pulled a long, sympathetic face for a moment, then, dismissing from this workaday world the baby, which had got ill in a tempest and had died from too much calm at sea, he asked me with a dental, shark-like smileif sharks had false teethwhether I had yet made my little arrangements for the ship’s stay in port.

“Yes, with Jacobus,” I answered carelessly. “I understand he’s the brother of Mr. Ernest Jacobus to whom I have an introduction from my owners.”

I was not sorry to let him know I was not altogether helpless in the hands of his firm. He screwed his thin lips dubiously.

“Why,” I cried, “isn’t he the brother?”

“Oh, yes. They haven’t spoken to each other for eighteen years,” he added impressively after a pause.

“Indeed! What’s the quarrel about?”

“Oh, nothing! Nothing that one would care to mention,” he protested primly. “He's got quite a