The atmosphere was heavy. It was a day
singularly appropriate to the evil tidings that had shocked him into a
fury against the man who had so willfully deceived him. David picked
up the proof slips and reread them. He compared them with the
paragraphs in the newspaper brought by Bulmer, and thrown by him on the
table after his first outburst of helpless wrath. They were identical
in wording, of course, but, somehow, their meaning was clearer in the
printed page: and David, despite his uncouth diction, was a clever man.
He wrinkled his forehead now in analysis of each line. Soon he hit on
something that puzzled him.
"Dickey," he said.
There was no answer. The old man peering through the window seemed to
have bent and whitened even since he came into the room.
"Look 'ere, Dickey," went on David, "this dashed fairy-tale won't hold
water. _You_ know Coke. Is 'e the kind o' man to go bumpin' round
like a stage 'ero, an' hoisting Union Jacks as the ship sinks? I ax
you, is 'e? It's nonsense, stuff an' nonsense. An', if the Andromeeda
was scrapped at Fernando Noronha, 'oo were the freebooters that
collared the island, an' 'ow did this 'ere De Sylva get to Maceio? Are
you listenin'?"
"Yes," said Bulmer, turning at last, and devouring Verity with his
deep-set eyes.
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