"He-isn't-dead?"
"No. Last report is that he's better this forenoon. But that's the way
some of these crazy attendants mix things up when anybody inquires at a
hospital. Now, of course, seeing that the registered copy is on its way
and Franklin is getting better, that's all the more reason why you don't
care to hang around these diggings and be annoyed. I've got a scheme. It
will take you out of town in a very quiet style. I have telephoned down
to the docks, and there's a Vose freighter in here discharging rails. Do
you live at home or at a boarding-place?"
"I board," said Boyne, still wrestling with the sickening information
that he had betrayed an employer who was alive; somehow the sentiment
that it was equally base to betray a deceased employer had not impressed
itself on his benumbed conscience. He was now keenly aware that he
feared to meet up with a living and indignant Lawyer Franklin. Fogg
questioned, and Boyne gave his boarding-house address.
"We'll drive there, and I'll wait outside in the cab until you can
scratch together a gripful of your things. Don't load yourself down too
much. Remember, you've got plenty of cash in your pockets."
A little later Fogg escorted the young man up the gang-plank of the
Nequasset, from whose hold the last of her load of clanging rails was
being derricked by panting windlass engines. To Captain Zoradus Wass,
who was lounging against the rail just outside the pilot-house, Mr. Fogg
marched with business promptitude, and spoke with assurance.
"Captain, my name is Fletcher Fogg. Within forty-eight hours the
directors of the Vose line will elect me president and general manager.
That news may be rather astonishing, but it's true."
The veteran skipper did not reply. He shifted a certain bulge from one
cheek to the other.
"Well?" queried Fogg, a bit sharply.
"I ain't saying anything"
"You believe what I tell you, don't you?"
"I don't know you."
"This young man is David Boyne, acting clerk of the Vose line
corporation. The annual meeting has just been held in this city. He made
the official records. He will tell you that a new board of directors has
been chosen--the old crowd is out."
"That is so," stated Boyne, obeying the prompting of Fogg's quick
glance.
"I don't know you, either."
Mr. Fogg was not abashed. "It isn't especially necessary that you know
us. How soon do you leave?"
"We're going out light as soon as them rails are on the wharf."