Even to him the explanation was rather absurd. "The epithet 'humming' suggests the whirr of the turbines," muttered he. "There is no hammer, hammer, hammer, clank, clank, clank, about this yacht. She whirrs, hums, just like a top."
"Quite so," assented Madame drily. "Nevertheless, I do not think——"
"You are right," put in Toppys hastily—it was better to be frank in confession. "We should not have chosen this name had we not desired it to suggest a Family Possession."
"Toppys, pronounced Tops," whispered Madame wickedly. "Plural Tops, singular Top. Humming Top—the Top that Hums. What extraordinary worshippers of the Family gods you are. I fully expect to find that Willatopy is a faithful student of the Family Tree. He probably keeps it stuck up in his hut."
"God forbid!" cried the Baronet of Wigan.
He was not a Bad Baronet, and certainly not Bold in the presence of Madame. She, expecting to meet the typical fat-bellied profiteer of the popular cartoons, had at their first introduction been struck almost speechless with surprise. This the King of Coal and Iron, the Maker of Guns and Shells, the Wallower in unholy War Profits! She saw before her a small thin gentleman, whose careful dress and trimmed white moustache suggested a military club. When he spoke, Winchester and Oxford spoke. This a Baronet of Wigan! Madame rubbed her eyes. Further acquaintance revealed the explanation. John Toppys possessed the caste marks of his long line; he had been educated as the Toppyses—though in extremest poverty—had always been educated. He, almost alone in the records of his House, had taken to common business and shone in it. He was no higgler, he could not have run a draper's shop, but when representing a big firm doing big things in a big way he found that doors would open to the pukka sahib John Toppys which would remain obstinately closed to plebeian rivals. John Toppys had built his fortune on the secure basis of the essential snobbishness of the English people. To his firm he had been invaluable—for he knew how to use the entrée which was his by right of blood—he had brought to them business of the best. And when later on he became the senior partner, and the chief partaker in the profits, the war cloud burst and wealth showered upon him. In his position it would have required extraordinarily perverse skill not to have made money in car loads. Successive Governments did their utmost to stuff him, and his like, full of wealth. Thus, Sir John Toppys became a War Profiteer—almost against his own will—but though a Profiteer on a superlative scale, he remained a pukka sahib. Madame liked him.
"Now that I have seen the Humming Top," said Madame, "I know that I am blessed among women. At no cost to myself—though at very much to you, Sir John Toppys—I am going to have the time of my life. From May to September in the Torres Straits the climate is divine. A day temperature between 75 and 85, no rain, a perpetual trade wind from the cool south-east, nights in which one may sleep comfortably and days in which one may revel in the tropical winter. It must be like Khartoum without the dust and with the sea thrown in. I shall swim in the sun and devour bananas in the shade. I shall hunt dugong and turtle, and fish in the tumbled waters of the Great Barrier. You will observe from my local colour that I have been studying the subject. I have. For me this preposterous enterprise will be full of joy; for you it will be full of expense and will end in exasperation. Why not back out while there is yet time? Surely you are not like that thick-headed Roger Gatepath. You do not suppose that anything, except a pleasant holiday for Madame Gilbert, will spring from this cruise of mine?"
"The expense to me is nothing," said the Baronet. "I am smothered in ill-gotten wealth. And if some of my money can give you pleasure, it is well spent, Madame. I would do more than write cheques to give you pleasure. And as for your enterprise, is it destined to be empty of result? I think more highly of your resource than that. Dawson says that there is nothing which you dare not do if your interest be stimulated." He saw the angry flush spring out on Madame's forehead. "You mistake my meaning, Madame. It was not the stimulus of money that I had in mind. It was the overwhelming impulse of your artistic genius. When you confront a problem, however bleakly impossible it may be, you never fail of solution. Dawson says so. You have not concerned yourself with our family affairs because of any interest in our troubles. You laugh at them. It is because no man or woman alive, except Madame Gilbert, could resolve a skein so hopelessly entangled."
"I see no solution. Sir John. And though I sail at your expense, I am not on your side. I am free to help or to hinder, at my pleasure."