“Of course I will, doctor. But what’s his name?”
“He has no name. We call him the Mysterious Man.”
“Old Mister Mystery the girls will call him, I expect. But it don’t matter what they nickname him if he’s wrong in his head.”
I laughed and, leaving her, returned to my sitting-room, where the old castaway was engaged in examining all the objects in the room. He had opened the back of my small American timepiece and was watching the movement as though he had never hitherto seen any such mechanical contrivance.
The day had been a busy one for me. I had arranged with Seal that the old fellow should remain with me while the mystery of the Seahorse was solved, and as regards the gold we had placed the whole of it in a big sea chest, sealed it, and that afternoon had deposited it in the care of the manager of the Tottenham Court Road branch of the London and South-Western Bank, where I had a small account.
The documents, manuscripts, armour, and silver tankard which I had secured from the ancient vessel I had carried to Keppel Street. The skipper was, of course, busy on the first day of landing, but his chagrin was intense that he had lost the Seahorse. That we had really discovered it could, of course, be proved by those vessels that had spoken us in the Channel, but proof of that sort was not like towing the remarkable relic up the Thames.
His owners, it appeared, were extremely angry at his being nearly a fortnight overdue, and that he had wasted time and fuel upon what they declared was a worthless derelict. According to what he afterwards told me, he had a bad half-hour with the senior partner of his firm, and very nearly got his notice of dismissal. He pointed out to the smug, go-to-meeting old gentleman, who was a churchwarden down at Chislehurst, that the boilers of the Thrush were in such a state that he dare not steam at any pressure, whereupon the senior partner replied: —
“That matters nothing whatever to us, Seal. The boat’s insured, and we should lose nothing.”
“No; but myself and the crew may lose our lives,” observed the skipper.
“If your berth does not suit you, Seal, there are many other men quite ready to sail in your place,” was the calm rejoinder.