"I thought so. Well, to come to business. What can you do?"
"It would be better, perhaps, if you told me what you want me to do."
"Can you ride?"
"Yes."
"Have you ever been to sea?"
Royson pricked up his ears at this. "The sea!" suggested undreamed-of
possibilities. And von Kerber certainly had the actor's facial art of
conveying much more than the mere purport of his words. The map, the
charts, assumed a new meaning. Were they scenic accessories? Had this
foreigner taken the whim to send him abroad on some mission? He decided
to be less curt in his statements.
"If I simply answered your question I should be compelled to say 'No,'"
he replied. "So far as my actual sea-going is concerned, it has
consisted of trips across the Channel when I was a boy. Yet I am a fair
sailor. I can handle a small yacht better than most men of my age. My
experience is confined to a lake, but it is complete in that small way.
And I taught myself the rudiments of navigation as a pastime."
"Ah!"
The Baron expressed both surprise and gratification by the
monosyllable.
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