They seized their chance as the German boat stopped, twenty yards away from the Morning Glory, and the officer in command announced through a megaphone, in very good English, that he was in a great hurry. They were friends, he said; and there was no need for alarm, so long as the Morning Glory carried out all instructions. All they wanted was the confidential chart of the British mine fields, which the Morning Glory, of course, possessed, and all other confidential papers of a similar kind. If the Morning Glory did not carry out his instructions in every detail the guns of the cruiser would sink her. He was now coming aboard to secure the papers.
"I guess that's all right, captain!" bawled Matthew Hudson in an entirely new voice and the accent that Europe accepts as American, with about as much reason as America would have for accepting the Lancashire, Yorkshire and Glasgow dialects, all rolled into one, as English.
The quiet member of the Century Club had disappeared, and the golden, remote Wild Westerner, almost unknown in America itself, had risen. In half a minute more the German officer and half a dozen armed sailors were standing on the deck of the Morning Glory.
"So you see England does not completely rule the waves," was the opening remark of the officer, who had not yet received the full benefit of Hudson's adopted accent.
"Been finding it stormy in the canal, cap?" drawled Hudson. "Don't blame it on me, anyway. I'm a good Amurrican—Jefferson B. Thrash, of Buffalo."
"Is this an American ship? I much regret to find an American ship fighting her best friends."
"Well, cap, I confess I haven't much use for the British, myself; not since their press talked about my picture-postcard smile—an ill-considered phrase, by which they unconsciously meant that, among the effete aristocracies of Europe, they were not used to seeing good teeth. They lack humor, sir. To regard good teeth as abnormal shows a lack of humor on the part of the British press.
"However, as George Bernard Shaw says, President Wilson has put it up to the German people in this way: 'Become a republic and we'll let up on you. Go on Kaisering and we'll smash you!'"
"I am in a great hurry," the German officer replied. "I must ask you at once for your confidential papers."
"That's all right, admiral!" said Hudson. "I've sent a man down below to get them out of my steamer trunk. They'll be here right away."