“Please tell Miss Stretton, Mr. Hemster, that the good and useful cash bore the ugly name of bribe, and tell her further that you would have refused it yourself.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. I don’t want the girl to think me quite in my dotage yet. Such a sum is not picked up so easily every day on the streets of Nagasaki, as I think you found out a while ago.”
“It may be picked up on board a yacht,” said Hilda archly, smiling up at him.
“Ah, you’re getting beyond me now. I don’t know what you mean, Hilda,” and he pinched her cheek again.
“And now, Mr. Tremorne, I am sorry to send you away again without lunch, but business must be attended to even if we have to subsist on sandwiches. How old a man is this Cammerford?”
“About forty, I should think.”
“Does he strike you as a capable individual?”
“Naturally he does. He has proved himself to be much more capable than I am.”
“Oh, that’s no recommendation. Well, I want you to take this letter to him; it is my ultimatum, and you may tell him so. He must either accept or refuse. I shall not dicker or modify my terms. If he accepts, then bring him right over to the yacht with you; if he refuses, you tell him I will have him wiped out before he can set foot in San Francisco.” He handed me the sealed envelope.
“You see you were in at the beginning of this business, so I’d like you to be on hand at the finish. I’m sorry to make an errand-boy of you, Tremorne, but we are a little distant from the excellent messenger service of Chicago.”