“You are too much for me,” he said, after a pause. “You that deal in politics and the like.”
“And the other man's name is Kosmaroff,” said Cartoner.
“That's it—a Russian,” answered Captain Cable, rising, and looking at the clock. His movements were energetic and very quick for his years. He carried with him the brisk atmosphere of the sea and the hardness of a life which tightens men's muscles and teaches them to observe the outward signs of man and nature.
“It beats me,” he said. “But I've told you all I can—all, perhaps, that you want to hear. For it seems that you are putting two and two together already. I think I've done right. At any rate, I'll stand by it. It makes me uneasy to think of that stuff having been below the Minnie's hatches.”
“It makes me uneasy, too,” said Cartoner. “Wait a minute till I put on another coat. I am going out. We may as well go down together.”
He came back a moment later, having changed his coat. He was attaching the small insignia of a foreign order to the lapel.
“Going to a swarree?” asked Cable, as between men of the world.
“I am going to look for a man I want to see to-night, and I think I shall find him, as you say, at a soiree,” answered Cartoner, gravely.
Out in the street he paused for a moment. A cab was already waiting, having dashed up from the club stand.
“By-the-way,” he said, “I shall not be able to come down and see the Minnie this time. I shall be off by the eight o'clock train to-morrow morning.”