The next day Mr. Whitley, the junior partner of Oaks, Ferguson & Whitley’s, was waiting on a couple of old regulars—joking with them in his undignified yet senile fashion, and laughing explosively as he wrapped some small purchases. Jerome presently became aware of the entry of another customer, and not unwillingly climbed down from the stool of his destiny.
The customer was peering into one of the dusty show-cases: a large man, about forty-five, perhaps, dressed in a Palm Beach suit and wide-brimmed hat. Both hands—and they lay conspicuously outspread on the showcase before him, almost as though they were in reality goods whose purchase he was considering—were amazingly encrusted with precious stones. On one finger alone were two massive rings set with diamonds and rubies of almost incredible magnitude, while on another finger was a curious constellation of tiny stones set into a golden cube which stood well out from the band itself. The man was, from head to foot, an exotic—with Italian blood, probably, though above all a cosmopolitan—and seemed so full of contradictions that at first one found it simply impossible[22] to make him out at all; yet regarding his amazing picturesqueness there could, at least, be no mistake. He had about him a gorgeous flavour of romance and mystery.
The customer began with some hesitation: “I wonder—could you give me any sort of idea what it would take to feed say about thirty-five people and a small crew during a voyage to Honolulu?”
Jerome stared. What else could he do? But the customer smiled and tried to be more coherent.
“The fact is,” he said, in a very friendly, confidential, optimistic manner, “I’m altogether a novice at this sort of thing, and just dropped in because I saw up over the door that you deal in ship supplies. I thought I might as well stop and enquire, even though I haven’t had time yet to draw up any lists or such things. Lord, isn’t it a busy life?”
His eyes—large and black and enthusiastic—swam with a vague yet enkindling glow as he gazed about. “You see,” he explained, in a voice peculiarly booming and rich, “I’ve just rented a schooner—taken it for a year—yes, a fine little fourmaster, with a brand new coat of paint!”
Jerome, of course, noticed that to the man across the counter ships were sexless objects, and that he spoke of chartering a vessel exactly as a real estate man might speak of letting or acquiring a piece of property. Yet, oddly enough, all this seemed but adding to his charm.
“To tell the truth,” confessed the glittering stranger, removing his hat and disclosing a black toupee which contrasted a little queerly with a greying fringe lower down, “I’ve not more than the remotest idea what you stock up with.”
“For the galley?” asked Jerome, desiring to be nautical, yet at the same time wishing to avoid an appearance of self-consciousness which he always more or less felt when he spoke of the sea or the things of the sea.
“That’s it!”
“But couldn’t all such be left to the steward, sir?”
“The steward?” For a moment the warm black eyes appeared a trifle blank. “Well, now I suppose so. Lord, yes, I suppose the steward would take all such loads off my mind. But you see,” he leaned across in a perplexed way, speaking very confidentially indeed, “the fact is I haven’t got any steward yet.”
“No steward, sir?”
“Well, no, I haven’t yet,” the other apologized. And then he broadened the confidence, his eyes petitioning and not a little wistful: “You see the fact is I haven’t got any crew at all yet.” His face relaxed into a smile of singular sweetness. “Lord, what a busy life! It seems to me as though I never more than get started!”
“The trouble is, sir,” said Jerome, “we deal only in ship’s hardware here.”
“Ah?” returned the customer, obviously a little dismayed; and he looked about in a helpless way, yet almost hopefully, too, as though half anticipating, out of the very abundance of his optimism, that he might discover displayed somewhere goods which would welcomely disprove the clerk’s assertion.