“Quite useless, Mr. Sherwen,” smiled the magnate. “Polly would have it all out of me before I was an hour older. She may as well get it direct.”
“Very well, then. It’s this quarantine business. If Dr. Pruyn comes here and declares bubonic plague—”
“But how will he get in?” asked Carroll.
“So far as the blockade goes, the Dutch will help him all they can. But this Government will keep him out, if possible.”
“He is not persona grata?” asked Brewster.
“Not with any of the countries that play politics with pestilence. But if he’s sent here, he’ll get in some way. In fact, Stark, the public-health surgeon at Puerto del Norte, let fall a hint that makes me think he’s on his way now. Probably in some cockleshell of a small boat manned by Indian smugglers.”
“It sounds almost too adventurous for the scholarly Pruyn whom I recall,” observed Mr. Brewster.
“The man who went through the cholera anarchy on the lazar island off Camacho, with one case of medical supplies and two boxes of cartridges, may have been scholarly; he certainly didn’t exhibit any distaste for adventure. Well, I wish he’d arrive and get something settled. Only I’d like to have you out of the way first.”
“Oh, don’t send me away, Mr. Sherwen,” pleaded Miss Polly, with mischief in her eyes. “I’d make the cunningest little office assistant to busy old Dr. Pruyn. And he’s a friend of dad’s, and we surely ought to wait for him.”
“If only I could send you! The fact is, Americans won’t be very popular if matters turn out as I expect.”