“Thanks.” Custer puffed at his cigar for a few moments. “That Sir James MacFen is a fine man.”
“He is.”
“A large, broad, all-round man. Knows everything and everybody, don't he?”
“I think so.”
“Big man in the church, I should say? No slouch at a party canvass, or ward politics, eh? As a board director, or president, just takes the cake, don't he?”
“I believe so.”
“Nothing mean about Jimmy as an advocate or an arbitrator, either, is there? Rings the bell every time, don't he? Financiers take a back seat when he's around? Owns half of Scotland by this time, I reckon.”
The consul believed that Sir James had the reputation of being exceedingly sagacious in financial and mercantile matters, and that he was a man of some wealth.
“Naturally. I wonder what he'd take to come over to America, and give the boys points,” continued Custer, in meditative admiration. “There were two or three men on Scott's River, and one Chinaman, that we used to think smart, but they were doddering ijuts to HIM. And as for me—I say, Jack, you didn't see any hayseed in my hair that day I walked inter your consulate, did you?”
The consul smilingly admitted that he had not noticed these signs of rustic innocence in his friend.