“You and your jackanapes dressed up like naval officers, dare to come aboard o’ me.”
“That’s splendid, captain. I like that phrase, ‘aboard o’ me.’ I’m delighted to have Clark Russell corroborated from your mouth. Yes, I come aboard o’ you. What then?”
“What then? Why, then you try to browbeat me in my own cabin, on my own ship. Who the devil do you think you are, I’d like to know?”
“I am Earl Stranleigh of Wychwood.”
The captain now, without being told, slowly relapsed into his chair, and gazed across the table at the young man. That latent respect for the aristocracy which permeates even the most democratic of his Britannic Majesty’s subjects caused an instant collapse of the truculence which had threatened an abrupt conclusion to the conference. Curiously enough, the honest captain never thought of questioning the statement, which had been made in a quiet, but very convincing tone.
“Earl Stranleigh!” he gasped.
“Yes; of Wychwood. We always insist on the Wychwood, though I’m sure I don’t know why, for there isn’t another Lord Stranleigh, and Wychwood is far from being the most important of my estates. Still, there you have it, captain. English life is full of incongruities.”
“The rich Lord Stranleigh?” questioned the captain, with an accent on the adjective.
“I’ve just told you there’s only one.”
“Then why in the name of Neptune are you pirating on the high seas? Is that the way you made your money?”