A private secretary, and only one way out! If the girl had been kind
enough to stand her ground with him he would not have cared so much.
But there she was vanishing beyond the door. There was a suggestion of
feline cruelty in thus abandoning him. He dared not call her back.
What the devil should he say to the admiral? There was one thing he
knew absolutely nothing about, and this was the duties of a private
secretary to a retired admiral who had riches, a yacht, a hobby, and a
beautiful, though impulsive daughter. His thought became irrelevant,
as is frequent when one faces a crisis, humorous or tragic; here indeed
was the coveted opportunity to study at close range the habits of a man
who spent less than his income.

"Come, come; draw up your chair, Mr. Fitzgerald."

"I beg your pardon; I--that is, I was looking at those flags, sir,"
stuttered the self-made victim of circumstances.

"Oh, those? Good examples of their kind; early part of the nineteenth
century. Picked them up one cruise in the Indies. That faded one
belonged to Morgan, the bloodthirsty ruffian. I've always regretted
that I wasn't born a hundred years ago. Think of bottling them up in a
shallow channel and raking 'em fore and aft!" With a bang of his fist
on the desk, setting the ink-wells rattling like old bones, "That would
have been sport!"

The keen, blue, sailor's eye seemed to bore right through Fitzgerald,
who thought the best thing he could do was to sit down at once, which
he did. The ticket agent had said that the admiral was of a quiet
pattern, but this start wasn't much like it. The fire in the blue eyes
suddenly gave way to a twinkle, and the old man laughed.