"No, you didn't hurt her. You didn't dare!" Mr. Pitts told him coldly. "You can go!"
Mr. Pracht did not wait to hear another word. He was glad to go, and he slid out of the door like a brown-and-green snake.
"Goodness gracious!" exclaimed Tessie, who was not at all sure that she liked to have Mr. Pitts issue orders and let a brown-and-green snake loose.
"His methods were clumsy," Mr. Pitts said flatly, "from the beginning when he stole the records from the Mifflin court house. And they were clumsy when he had his native servant ransack your house for the Tear of God. The fellow was knocked on the head by Ka-kee-ta who was prowling around to see you, Miss Gilfooly, and who was frightened at what he had done and ran away. It was clumsy of Pracht to think that he could steal the jewel from you at the Evergreen banquet, where he acted as a waiter. And clumsier still to threaten you as he did and to kidnap you. That must have been his servant at the window when you thought you saw Ka-kee-ta. Pracht should have used a little tact. Tact is far more necessary than force in negotiations of this sort." He looked at Tessie and nodded his head to assure her that he had no intention of using force. Tact was the weapon that he would always use.
There was a slight pause which Mr. Kingley broke with a cough. The cough might have been a signal for, as soon as he heard it, Mr. Marvin looked at Mr. Pitts.
"If you have brought information from the Sunshine Islands for Queen Teresa, you might give it to her now," he said. "We are all her friends." And he smiled at Her Majesty.
"Oh, yes!" breathed Queen Teresa on pins and needles to hear about the Sunshine Islands. She regarded her friends with shining eyes. They were friends to be very proud of, every one of them.
Mr. Pitts let his glance roam from one to another also, and his shaggy brows drew together until they made a black line above his keen penetrating eyes.
"I find," he began slowly, carefully weighing each word before he offered it to Tessie and her friends, "that you have no idea of what the Sunshine Islands actually are. You seem to regard them as you would England or any other European kingdom. Of course a king is a king, or in this case, I should say a queen is a queen, but there is a difference between a first-rate power and a group of Pacific islands. I understand from Ka-kee-ta that you have looked upon Miss Gilfooly as you would upon Queen Mary, for instance, and I am afraid that you have prepared her for nothing but disappointment."