“Well—er—why, well, you wouldn't be aground, would you, if you hadn't lost your way?”
“I didn't lose my way, Mr. Fogg.”
“What did happen, then?”
“That's for me to find out.”
“I'm not going to say anything to you yet, Captain Mayo. It's too sudden—too big a blow. It's going to paralyze the Vose line.” Mr. Fogg said this briskly, as if he were passing small talk on the weather.
“I'm thankful that you're taking the thing so calmly, sir. I've been dreading to meet you.”
“Oh—a business man in these days can't allow himself to fly to pieces over setbacks. Optimism is half the battle.”
But Mayo, sitting there in that dark pilot-house for the rest of the night, staring out into the blank wall of the fog and surveying the wreck of his hopes, was decidedly not optimistic.