The other nodded.
Sherwen whistled.
“Better make ready to move, Mr. Brewster,” he advised. “You can’t get out of port after quarantine is on. At least, you couldn’t get into any other port, even if you sailed, because your sailing-master wouldn’t have clearance papers.”
The magnate smiled.
“I hardly think that any United States Consul, with a due regard for his future, would refuse papers to the yacht Polly,” he observed.
“Don’t be a fool!”
Thatcher Brewster all but jumped from his chair. That this adjuration should have come from the freakish spectacle-wearer seemed impossible. Yet Sherwen, the only other person in the room, was certainly not guilty.
“Did you address me, young man?”
“I did.”
“Do you know, sir, that since boyhood no person has dared or would dare to call me a fool?”