flora, full of her new theme, went straight to her brother about it that very evening. “oh, chris—such an interesting impresario—clear around the world in a schooner: the skimming duckie, or something like that—quite daring and original”—it was just a little breathless and sketchy at first. but her brother bantered, in his freezing way: “you make it all crystal clear, flora. a schooner?” and then he shouted. he did not laugh, he shouted. it was a little uncouth; but the[50] captain liked to be a little uncouth sometimes. it helped him with the sea captain atmosphere, which, after all, as has been suggested, wasn’t quite a native emanation. utterbourne had perhaps out of sheer perversity taken to the sea, and made a success of it; yet he had a meditative, quizzical trend of mind, and leaned a little to hesitancies, a great deal to analysis. he was an enigma of the first water; yet to those who knew him best it sometimes seemed as though he possessed the heart of a mystic—almost of a poet.
“oh, well,” was the upshot of the talk, “if you like. i’m busy—h’m? but tell him to phone in for an appointment.” the tone was one of cold generosity, which never failed more or less to frighten the listener—a stab of formality that not even his own sister could hope to escape.
but she didn’t mind in the least, even though she may have been a little frightened. she just arched her fine brows gratefully and said: “thank you so much, chris! you’ll never regret it, i know, and he’s really quite celebrated, in a way—though i presume the ‘world tour’ will add a great deal to his fame!” and her hand rested a moment upon her brother’s responseless arm.
well, in no time at all the excited impresario was phoning for an appointment. then he called at the smoky offices of the hyde packet company, which he brightened enormously with his glowing, optimistic enthusiasm. utterbourne, from the first, of course, looked upon flora’s new friend as a figure of comedy; nevertheless it only showed a little in the quivering of his lips; and he knew of a skipper, he said—a captain bearman—who might be prevailed upon to take hold, in case he happened to be without a ship just now.
luck was kind. captain bearman was very much without a ship, and, in his own rather acid fashion, seized almost avidly upon the opportunity at hand. his fashion, it developed, was full of snarls and shrouded in a rind of perpetual crustiness. but he was an authentic sea captain, notwithstanding, and the impresario rejoiced over him ardently.
[51]
a little dinner was arranged at the pavillon d’orient—an armenian resort famous for its skewered meats and imported cheeses. utterbourne actually came himself, and brought bearman along; while, out of the warm abundance of his generosity the impresario invited a certain young clerk of his acquaintance. (“he’s got such a shut-in, humdrum look.”) and there was champagne, which more or less went to the clerk’s head, and made him feel, for the time-being, a person of considerable consequence.
naturally utterbourne talked of everything under the sun except the subject that had brought them together. he spoke poisingly of fate and art and habit and flayed immortality within an inch of its life and said “h’m?” a great many times and hummed to a wild rose. and when, later on, curry referred to the merchandise which the skipping goone would carry by way of defraying expenses as a “sideline,” then utterbourne drawled over his shish kébab: “it’s to be presumed we all have our sidelines, of one sort and another—h’m? with some it’s gambling, with others art, literature, some branch of scientific research—h’m? with most of us, perhaps, it’s just women”—more sea captain atmosphere.
but curry staunchly defended his sideline—said it had come to him in oshkosh while he was directing the last act of the gondoliers one night—really an inspiration, nothing short of that! and utterbourne said “yes,” while the other captain, out of a flaming profusion of auburn whiskers, echoed it: “er—yes,” with a most curious, quick little side-glance of his narrow green eyes, which somehow instantly set him down as a satellite.
captain bearman was big and bluff-looking, with the sea quite oozing from his whole personality; there was even a little gold braid, and, in spite of some rather doubtful cuffs, he looked like an admiral; yet for all that it was only too plain he fawned on captain utterbourne—and fawned very acutely. he couldn’t seem to be obsequious and echoing enough—it was rather baffling. he would always echo: “er—yes,” or[52] “er—no,” as the case might be, and ordered all the dishes the other captain ordered, and, in brief, took the cue from him in everything.
at first utterbourne by no means went out of his way to avoid conveying the impression that the project of the skipping goone was unseaworthy; and captain bearman, simply because he possessed what the psychologists call an “inferiority complex,” and though it might mean a lapsing of his present opportunity, made his embittered lips curl in sympathetic disdain. but as the impresario climbed to higher and ever higher levels of honest zeal, gradually utterbourne thawed somewhat, leaning negligently back, his knife prying about the base of his goblet, often rather gravely menacing its equilibrium; and at once, of course, the other captain began to thaw too. from that time on the prospects were ever so much better.
of course xenophon curry was an enthusiast, and of course the champagne had made him exhort a good deal about the supreme virtue of his songbirds (“it’s not that they’ve all got million dollar voices, for i can’t keep that kind; but they’ve all got million dollar hearts!”) and of course he talked a little wildly about his great dream—new york and the capitals of europe.... yet the serene and glacial captain utterbourne felt in spite of himself a little touched, and merely thought it expedient at last to observe, his voice slipping out between reluctant lips like a thin ribbon of lazy ice: “you must take care, mr. curry—h’m?—not to let a possible material success ... i mean,” he cleared his throat with faint petulance, “you mustn’t let your sideline turn you into a rival of ours rather than of gatti cassazza’s.”
it was finally settled, and bearman became the master of the skipping goone, and the radiant impresario, as he hailed a taxi for the entire party by way of ending the evening in a blaze of style, cried: “the schooner will turn the trick—you’ll see!”
in a word, it was nothing short of a triumph.
