“May be as you can guess,” suggested the captain.
“Yes, I think I can guess,” admitted Cartoner, with his slow smile.
“But you won't tell me?”
“No. When do you expect them?”
“I'll answer that and ask you another,” said Captain Cable, getting a yellow decanter from a locker beneath the table. “That's port—ship-chandler's port. I won't say it's got a bokay, mind.”
For Captain Cable's hospitality was not showy or self-sufficient.
“I'll answer that and ask you another. I expected them last night. They'll likely come down with the tide, soon after midnight to-night. And now I'll ask you, what brought you aboard this ship, here in Dantzic River, Mr. Cartoner?”
“A letter from a Frenchman you know as well as I do—Paul Deulin. Like to read it?”
And Cartoner laid the letter before Captain Cable, who smiled contemptuously. He knew what was expected of a gentleman better than even to glance at it as it lay before him in its envelope.
“No, I wouldn't,” he answered. He scratched his head reflectively, and looked beneath his bushy brows at Cartoner as if he expected the ship-chandler's port to have an immediate effect of some sort.