"Get out!" responded Jack. "I think I can settle him."
He got out the President's most elaborate stationery, and after some meditation and the destruction of one or two epistles which would not go quite to suit him, he handed to Jerry the following:—
Sch. Yt. Merle, E. Y. C.
Captain John Castleport and Mr. Jerrold Taberman present their compliments to Lord Merryfield and regret that, owing to a previous engagement, it is impossible for them to accept the invitation so kindly tendered to them. Captain Castleport further desires earnestly to express his opinion in regard to having been forced about by the Y. Yt. Isis this afternoon when he had the right of way; and to say that he considers such a manœuvre so unsportsmanlike and insulting that it should be impossible in a gentleman's race. As the injured party, he ventures to remind Lord Merryfield that the only reparation that can be made is the severest reprimanding of the sailing-master, or whoever was responsible for this inexcusable expedient.
Nice, July 17, 1902.
"You see," Jack explained, "we let him know what we think of that caddish trick without being in the least rude ourselves. Of course the chances are that he was responsible for the thing himself, and there we have him on the hip."
"I suppose it's all right," grumbled Jerry. "You know best; but if I 'd written it, I should have told him straight out that I thought him a damned cad!"
Chapter Eight A CHANGE OF TACTICS
As they sat that evening in the garden of the hotel drinking their after-dinner coffee, which the gentlemen accompanied with cigarettes, they discussed the news from home contained in a batch of letters Mrs. Fairhew and her niece had found awaiting them on their return from the yacht. The announcement of an engagement, rumors of flirtations which might end in others, the latest gossip about people they all knew, were mingled with chat about an extraordinary yacht race at Northeast Harbor, a Russian princess at Nahant, an automobile accident at Lenox, and a fresh divorce at Newport.