“All these negroes are descendants of the ones my father brought North with him. There are about two hundred and fifty now. You notice that they’ve lived so long apart from the world that their original dialect has become an almost indistinguishable patois. We bring a few of them up to speak English—my secretary and two or three of the house servants.
“This is the golf course,” he continued, as they strolled along the velvet winter grass. “It’s all a green, you see—no fairway, no rough, no hazards.”
He smiled pleasantly at John.
“Many men in the cage, father?” asked Percy suddenly.
Braddock Washington stumbled, and let forth an involuntary curse.
“One less than there should be,” he ejaculated darkly—and then added after a moment, “We’ve had difficulties.”
“Mother was telling me,” exclaimed Percy, “that Italian teacher—”
“A ghastly error,” said Braddock Washington angrily. “But of course there’s a good chance that we may have got him. Perhaps he fell somewhere in the woods or stumbled over a cliff. And then there’s always the probability that if he did get away his story wouldn’t be believed. Nevertheless, I’ve had two dozen men looking for him in different towns around here.”
“And no luck?”
“Some. Fourteen of them reported to my agent they’d each killed a man answering to that description, but of course it was probably only the reward they were after—”