"Pulling off this pussyfoot return of the prodigal."
"It is true," Lanyard thoughtfully considered: "by what appears, you did know of my return."
"If we hadn't, there wouldn't have been any sense in our staging this swell reception in your honour."
"I presume it seems stupid of me to be surprised—"
"Dear man!" Pagan benignly advised him—"we brought you back."
"I am afraid I am incurably stupid . . ."
"It was one of my boats you came north on from Rum Cay," Morphew brusquely explained. "If I hadn't given the boys down there the word by wireless, when they reported you'd turned up, you'd be there still, high and dry on the beach."
"Stupid," Lanyard insisted, "is too weak a term for my imbecility. And I never guessed—!"
"Never struck you it was funny," Morphew enquired in ponderous contempt, "a bootlegging outfit would let a total stranger get the low-down on the way the game was worked, and then give him free transportation North and turn him loose to tell all he knew to the enforcement gang?"
"One must confess one thought those fine fellows strangely trustful."