“On one condition. Give my vessel pratique—now.”
“I dare say we can risk that. But why do you ask it?”
“So that young Mr. Pritchard, of Casson and Pritchard, my owners, may be permitted to come aboard, with an attorney. I have some business details to attend to before I accompany you to the quarantine shed at Angel Island. There is the business of the Moorea, and the financial future of my Tamea must be provided for.”
“Do you wish me to return to the dock and telephone Mr. Pritchard?”
“If you will be so kind. And ask Mr. Pritchard to bring flowers—a great many beautiful flowers. We sons of Cush are childishly fond of flowers.”
The health officer nodded and went over the side into the Customs tug with a constricted feeling in his throat. Had he not gone then he would have remained to weep, with Tamea, for old Gaston of the Beard!
CHAPTER II
In his office in the suite of Casson and Pritchard, on the top floor of a building in the heart of San Francisco’s financial district, Daniel Pritchard, the junior partner, sat with his back to his desk and his feet on the sill of a window that gave a view, across the roofs of the city, to the bay beyond. He was watching the ferryboats ply backward and forward between the old gray town and Oakland; viewed from that height and distance their foamy wakes held for him a subconscious fascination. Indeed, whenever he desired to indulge a habit of day-dreaming, the view from his window on a clear, warm day could quickly lull him into that state of mind. This morning Dan Pritchard was day-dreaming.
A buzzer sounding at his elbow aroused him. He reached for the inter-office telephone and murmured “Yes?” in the low-pitched, kindly, reassuring voice that is inseparable from men of studious habits and placid dispositions.
“The Moorea is passing in, Mr. Pritchard. The Merchants’ Exchange lookout has just telephoned,” his secretary informed him.