Entering the small, hot office, he found a suave Spanish gentleman whom he had already met. The latter greeted him politely and gave him a cigar.
“It is not often you leave the works, but a change is good,” he said.
“We’re not quite so busy and I promised to pay Allen at the sugar mill a visit,” Dick replied. “Besides, I had an excuse for the trip. We’re short of some engine stores that I dare say you can let us have.”
He gave the manager a list, and the Spaniard nodded as he marked the items.
“We can send you most of the things. It pays us to stock goods that the engineers of the ships we coal often want; but there are some we have not got.”
“Very well,” said Dick. “I’ll fill up our form for what you have and you can put the things on board the tug the first time she goes to Santa Brigida.”
“She will go in three or four days.”
Dick decided that as the launch had probably been seen, he had better mention his voyage.
“That will be soon enough. If our storekeeper had told me earlier, I would have called here yesterday. I passed close by on my way to Orava.”
“One of the peons saw your boat. It is some distance to Orava.”