“Kilmorden Castle?”
“On the 17th from Southampton. Cape Town? First or second class?”
“How much is it?”
“First class, eighty-seven pounds——”
I interrupted him. The coincidence was too much for me. Exactly the amount of my legacy! I would put all my eggs in one basket.
“First class,” I said.
I was now definitely committed to the adventure.
CHAPTER VIII
(Extracts from the diary of Sir Eustace Pedler, M.P.)
It is an extraordinary thing that I never seem to get any peace. I am a man who likes a quiet life. I like my Club, my rubber of Bridge, a well-cooked meal, a sound wine. I like England in the summer, and the Riviera in the winter. I have no desire to participate in sensational happenings. Sometimes, in front of a good fire, I do not object to reading about them in the newspaper. But that is as far as I am willing to go. My object in life is to be thoroughly comfortable. I have devoted a certain amount of thought, and a considerable amount of money, to further that end. But I cannot say that I always succeed. If things do not actually happen to me, they happen round me, and frequently, in spite of myself, I become involved. I hate being involved.