"Well, rather!" answered Torrence. "I've come all the way from America to see you: or I should say your partner, Mr. Wetherbee."
Hart coughed, and waved his hand a couple of times at an imaginary cloud of smoke.
"I must ask you to stop smoking. It is contrary to our rules," he observed querulously.
"Certainly!" answered Torrence, throwing his cigar stump upon the tiled floor and stepping on it. There was no receptacle provided for such things, and the floor looking as dirty as the street, I followed his example.
Hart called for the buttons, and directed him to pick up the stumps and throw them in the grate in the next room. The boy did as he was bid, and passed back into the sanctum.
"It was a matter of business," I began, observing that things looked squally, and dreading the consequences of an unfavorable impression, at the very beginning of our interview. "It was in relation to my brother's air ship that we came, and——"
"And what, pray, do you mean by an air ship?" demanded Hart, with a look of supercilious superiority that was more exasperating than withering.
"I supposed you must have heard of it," I ventured to observe.
"Heard of an air ship! The idea is preposterous!" he exclaimed.
"And yet," said Torrence, "I have one, which your partner, Mr. Wetherbee, is anxious to investigate, and perhaps to purchase, as I have been led to believe."