Page:Cornelia Meigs--The island of Appledore.djvu/166

146 He reached into his breast pocket, but Captain Saulsby stopped him with a gesture. Cigars were a rare luxury with him, but not to be acquired in any such way as this.

“No, thank you,” he said drily. “I’ve always heard that Germans smoke the worst cigars in the world.”

Harvey Jarreth thrust the proffered gift back into his pocket.

“All right,” he answered briskly. “I’m not the fellow to force things on people that  don’t want them. As for Germans, how about that clock-maker that you’re so thick with? And it will be you that will be making me a present before long, Ned Saulsby, making me  a present of this land; for the price you’ll get  for it will bring it down to about that. You’ve been a careless man about your taxes, Ned, and nothing short of criminal about the  way you’ve looked after your title-deeds.”  He looked about the garden with an appraising eye, as though it were already his own. “You won’t be planting poppies next year,” he said, “unless you care to plant them on another man’s ground. Well, good morning.”

He walked off strutting jauntily, swinging his cane.