“With all the good will in the world,” said the other, rising. “I’m glad you’re feeling better. I’m Doctor Norman Woolf of New York, and this,” indicating the red-bearded man, “is Captain Weckerly of the Pinta. Captain Weckerly—Mr. Fehrenbach.”
Geltman started at the repetition of the name, but he gave no other sign.
“Would you mind,” said the brewer, “telling me how I came aboard your boat?”
“Not at all,” said Woolf, easily. “You see, when I cruise on the Pinta I make it a point to leave all thought of my cases behind. But sometimes I break my rule, and when they told me of yours I made up my mind I should like to study you under intimate and extraordinary conditions and so——”
“Really, I don’t quite follow——”
“And so I had to bring you out to the yacht on which I was just starting for a little run over to the Azores.”
“The Azores!”
Dr. Woolf was smiling benignly at the unhappy brewer.
“You know,” he continued, “these cases of aphasia have a peculiar interest for me. It seems such a little slipping of the cogs. What’s in a name, after all? Yours is an old and honored one. The Fehrenbachs have made beer for fifty years——”