“Go away! Please go away!” came the petulant response.
“Mr. Pitt, sir,” said Simmons.
“Oh!” There was the sound of a desk being closed. “Show him in. Hello, Gardy! Glad to see you! I’m fairly dying for somebody to talk to!”
Chanler was sprawled gracefully over a chair before a writing-desk built into the forward wall of the stateroom. He was wearing a mauve dressing-gown of padded silk and smoking one of his phenomenally long cigarets in a phenomenally long amber holder. It had been long since I had seen him and he had changed deplorably; but so rapid and eager was his greeting that I had no time to note just where the change had come.
“You’re a good fellow to come, Gardy,” said he with a genuine note of gratitude in his tones. “I knew you’d help me, though. Simmons—bring a couple of green ones, please.”
“Not for me,” I hastened to interpose. “You know I never touch anything before dinner.”
“That’s so; I forgot. You’ve got yourself disciplined. Well, bring one green one, Simmons. I don’t usually do this sort of thing so early, either,” he continued as Simmons vanished, “but I sat up late with Captain Brack last night, and I’m a little off. Wonderful chap, the captain; head on him like a piece of steel. Well, Gardy, what do you think of the trip?”
“When you have told me something about it I may have an opinion,” I replied. “You know all the knowledge of it that I have was what came in your message.”
“That’s so. Well, what did you think when you got the wire? You must have thought something; you think about everything. What did you think when you heard that I was planning a stunt like this—something useful, you know? Eh?”
“Well, it was something of a shock,” I admitted.