hed to the deck-house rail. For several minutes Cleigh and
Cunningham remained speechless and motionless.

"You get all the angles?" asked Cunningham, finally.

"Some of them," admitted Cleigh.

"At any rate, enough to make you accept a bad situation with good grace?"

"You're a foolhardy man, Cunningham. Do you expect me to lie down when
this play is over? I solemnly swear to you that I'll spend the rest of my
days hunting you down."

"And I solemnly swear that you shan't catch me. I'm through with the old
game of playing the genie in the bottle for predatory millionaires.
Henceforth I'm on my own. I'm romantic--yes, sir--I'm romantic from heel
to cowlick; and now I'm going to give rein to this stifled longing."

"You will come to a halter round your neck. I have always paid your price
on the nail, Cunningham."

"You had to. Hang it, passions are the very devil, aren't they? Sooner or
later one jumps upon your back and rides you like the Old Man of the
Sea."

Cleigh heard the rumble of steam.

"Objects of art!" went on Cunningham. "It eats into your vitals to hear
that some rival has picked up a Correggio or an ancient Kirman or a bit of
Persian plaque. You talk of halters. Lord lumme, how obliquely you look at
facts! Take that royal Persian there--the second-best animal rug on
earth--is there no murder behind the woof and warp of it? What? Talk
sense, Cleigh, talk sense! You cable me: Get such and such. I get it. What
the devil do you care how it was got, so long as it eventually becomes
yours? It's a case of the devil biting his own tail--pot calling kettle
black."

"How much do you want?"

"No, Cleigh, it's the romantic idea."

"I will give you fifty thousand for the rug."

"I'm sorry. No use now of telling you the plot; you wouldn't believe me,
as the song goes. Dinner at seven. Will you dine in the salon with me, or
will you dine in the solemn grandeur of your own cabin, in company with Da
Vinci, Teniers, and that Carlo Dolci the Italian Government has been
hunting high and low for?"

"I will risk the salon."

"To keep an eye on me as long as possible. That's fair enough. You heard
what I said to those boys. Well, every mother's son of 'em will toe the
mark. There will be no change at all in the routine. Simply we lay a new
course that will carry us outside and round Formosa, down to the South Sea
and across to the Catwick. I'll give you one clear idea. A million and
immunity would not stir me,