"Will you—er—say that again?" asked the collector most courteously.
"Oh, quite unnecessary," Tab returned, not to be trapped into an apology. "It was only a bit of a song."
He was filled with a pleasant feeling that he was bothering the collector, astute as that person was, and he determined, as the circumstances certainly were in his favor, to hold his own with him this time at least.
"I don't think you have a very clear view of the case," Wrenmarsh said, after a moment of silent musing with contracted brow. "If you had, you'd see that it isn't possible for me to go ashore now, after that beastly business of last night. I assure you, I'm awfully sorry for that mess. There's another thing,—I couldn't get those boxes ashore from the yacht without their being examined, and then there'd be the devil of a row."
"That must have occurred to you before you left Pæstum," Jerry remarked with coolness.
Mr. Wrenmarsh did not move a muscle.
"So it did," he said blandly; "but of course I knew it must have been evident to you also."
Jerry laughed in spite of himself at the cool impudence of this.
"I confess that it wasn't," he responded.
"Even if it wasn't," the other went on, as smoothly as ever, "I never for an instant supposed that when once you'd started out to help me, you'd funk. That is a contingency, I confess, never occurred to my mind. I thought you were made of different stuff. You were clear game last night."