"'Ave a tiddly?" he inquired blandly.
Both Bulmer and the journalist believed that David was losing his
faculties. Never did shipowner behave more queerly when faced by a
disaster of like magnitude, involving, as did the _Andromeda's_ loss,
not only political issues of prime importance, but also the death of a
near relative. They refused the proffered refreshment, not without
some show of indignation. Verity swallowed a large dose of neat
spirit. He thought it would revive him, so, of course, the effect was
instantaneous. The same quantity of prussic acid could not have killed
him more rapidly than the brandy rallied his scattered forces, and, not
being a physiologist, he gave the brandy all the credit.
"Ah!" he said, smacking his lips with some of the old-time relish,
"that puts new life into one. An' now, let's get on with the knittin'.
I was a bit rattled when this young party steers in an' whacks 'is
cock-an'-bull yarn into me 'and. 'Oo ever 'eard of a respectable
British ship mixin' 'erself up with a South American revolution? The
story is all moonshine on the face of it."
"I think otherwise, Mr. Verity, and Mr. Bulmer, I take it, agrees with
me," said the reporter.
"Wot," blazed David, into whose mind had darted a notion that dazzled
him by its daring, "d'ye mean to insiniwate that I lent my ship to this
'ere Dom Wot's-'is-name? D'ye sit there an' tell me that Jimmie Coke,
a skipper who's bin in my employ for sixteen year, would carry on that
sort of fool's business behind 'is owner's back? Go into my clerk's
office, young man, an' ax Andrews to show up a copy of the ship's
manifest.
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