Ships ... ships ... house-flags ... brass-buttoned owners....
He waved Mr. Fred to a chair and wrote furiously. This frantic
pressure of work was a phenomenon which invariably coincided with the
arrival of a visitor. It was, I think, partly due to nervousness and
partly to his dislike of strangers. Presently he finished, blotted the
paper, stuck it in an envelope, addressed it, and placed it in his
drawer. Then he took up the card.
"Mr. Pole?" he said.
"Mr. Pole," repeated that gentleman.
"Mr. Fred Pole?" asked Bones, with an air of surprise.
"Mr. Fred Pole," admitted the other soberly.
Bones looked from the card to the visitor as though he could not
believe his eyes.
"We have a letter from you somewhere," he said, searching the desk.
"Ah, here it is!" (It was, in fact, the only document on the table.)
"Yes, yes, to be sure. I'm very glad to meet you."
He rose, solemnly shook hands, sat down again and coughed. Then he
took up the ivory paper-knife to chew, coughed again as he detected the
lapse, and put it down with a bang.
"I thought I'd like to come along and see you, Mr. Tibbetts," said Fred
in his gentle voice; "we are so to speak, associated in business."
"Indeed?" said Bones. "In-deed?"
"You see, Mr. Tibbetts," Fred went on, with a sad smile, "your lamented
uncle, before he went out of business, sold us his ships. He died a
month later."
He sighed and Bones sighed.
"Your uncle was a great man, Mr. Tibbetts," he said, "one of the
greatest business men in this little city. What a man!"
"Ah!" said Bones, shaking his head mournfully.
He had never met his uncle and had seldom heard of him. Saul Tibbetts
was reputedly a miser, and his language was of such violence that the
infant Augustus was invariably hurried to the nursery on such rare
occasions as old Saul paid a family visit. His inheritance had come to
Bones as in a dream, from the unreality of which he had not yet
awakened.
"I must confess, Mr. Tibbetts," said Fred, "that I have often had
qualms of conscience about your uncle, and I have been on the point of
coming round to see you several times. This morning I said to my
brother, 'Joe,' I said, 'I'm going round to see Tibbetts.' Forgive the
familiarity, but we talk of firms like the Rothschilds and the Morgans
without any formality."
"Naturally, naturally, naturally," murmured Bones gruffly.
"I said: 'I'll go and see Tibbetts and get it off my chest. If he
wants those ships back at the price we paid for them, or even less, he
shall have them.' 'Fred,' he said, 'you're too sensitive for
business.' 'Joe,' I said, 'my conscience works even in business
hours.'"