“You wrong me!” said Sam. “You wrong me! I was only saying——”
“Well, don’t.”
“But this is absurd. Good heavens, use your intelligence! If my story wasn’t true, how could I know anything about Mr. Braddock?”
“You could easily have asked around. What I say is if you were all right you wouldn’t be going about in a suit of clothes like that. You look like a tramp.”
“Well, I’ve just come off a tramp steamer. You mustn’t go judging people by appearance. I should have thought they would have taught you that at school.”
“Never you mind what they taught me at school.”
“You have got me all wrong. I’m a millionaire—or rather my uncle is.”
“And a few weeks ago he sent me over to England, the idea being that I was to sail on the Mauretania. But that would have involved sharing a suite with a certain Lord Tilbury and the scheme didn’t appeal to me. So I missed the ship and came over on a cargo boat instead.”
He paused. He had an uncomfortable feeling that the story sounded thin. He passed it in a swift review before his mind. Yes, thin.