The launch was again approaching the yacht, and a tiny figure with a despatch case on her lap sat smiling in the stern-sheets.
"She's come down by train," Charles explained.
Miss Winstock in her feminineness made a delicious spectacle on the spotless deck. She nearly laughed with delight as she acknowledged Mr. Prohack's grave salute and shook hands with him, but when Charlie said: "Anything urgent?" she grew grave and tense, becoming the faithful, urgent, confidential employé in an instant.
"Only this," she said, opening the despatch case and producing a telegram.
"Confound it!" remarked Charles, having read the telegram. "Here, you, Snow. Please see that Miss Winstock has something to eat at once. That'll do, Miss Winstock."
"Yes, Mr. Prohack," she said dutifully.
"And his mother thought he would be marrying her!" Mr. Prohack senior reflected. "He'll no more marry her than he'll marry Machin. Goodness knows whom he will marry. It might be a princess."
"You remember that paper concern—newsprint stuff—I've mentioned to you once or twice," said Charlie to his father, dropping into a basket-chair. "Sit down, will you, dad? I've had no luck with it yet." He flourished the telegram. "Here the new manager I appointed has gone and got rheumatic fever up in Aberdeen. No good for six months at least, if ever. It's a great thing if I could only really get it going. But no! The luck's wrong. And yet a sound fellow with brains could put that affair into such shape in a year that I could sell it at a profit of four hundred per cent to the Southern Combine. However—"
Soon afterwards he went below to talk to the chit, and the skipper took charge of Mr. Prohack and displayed to him the engine-room, the officers' quarters, the forecastle, the galley, and all manner of arcana that Charlie had grandiosely neglected.
"It's a world!" said Mr. Prohack, but the skipper did not quite comprehend the remark.