“Really, sir,” I stammered at last, “I’m afraid I must say I don’t exactly know what you mean.”
“I think I spoke plainly enough,” he answered. “I want you to be careful what you say, and if you come with me to my office, where we shall not be interrupted, I’ll give you a straight talking to, so that we may avoid trouble in the future.”
I was speechless with amazement, and also somewhat indignant. If he took this tone with me, my place was evidently going to be one of some difficulty. However, needs must when the devil drives, even if he comes from Chicago; and although his words were bitter to endure, I was in a manner helpless and forced to remember my subordinate position, which, in truth, I had perhaps forgotten during my shopping experiences with his impulsive daughter. Yet I had myself made her aware of my situation, and if our conversation at times had been a trifle free and easy I think the fault – but there – there – there – I’m at the Adam business again. The woman tempted me, and I did talk. I felt humiliated that even to myself I placed any blame upon her.
Mr. Hemster rose, nipped off the point of another cigar, and strode along the deck to the companion-way, I following him like a confessed culprit. He led me to what he called his office, a room not very much larger than my own, but without the bunk that took up part of the space in my cabin; in fact a door led out of it which, I afterward learned, communicated with his bedroom. The office was fitted up with an American roll-top desk fastened to the floor, a copying-press, a typewriter, filing-cases from floor to ceiling, and other paraphernalia of a completely equipped business establishment. There was a swivelled armchair before the desk, into which Mr. Hemster dropped and leaned back, the springs creaking as he did so. There was but one other chair in the room, and he motioned me into it.
“See here!” he began abruptly. “Did you tell my daughter yesterday that you were a friend of the Mikado’s?”
“God bless me, no!” I was surprised into replying. “I said nothing of the sort.”
“Well, you left her under that impression.”
“I cannot see, Mr. Hemster, how such can be the case. I told Miss Hemster that I had met the Mikado on several occasions, but I explained to her that these occasions were entirely official, and each time I merely accompanied a superior officer in the diplomatic service. Although I have spoken with His Majesty, it was merely because questions were addressed to me, and because I was the only person present sufficiently conversant with the Japanese language to make him a reply in his own tongue.”
“I see, I see,” mused the old gentleman; “but Gertie somehow got it into her head that you could introduce us personally to the Mikado. I told her it was not likely that a fellow I had picked up strapped from the streets of Nagasaki, as one might say, would be able to give us an introduction that would amount to anything.”
I felt myself getting red behind the ears as Mr. Hemster put my situation with, what seemed to me, such unnecessary brutality. Yet, after all, what he had said was the exact truth, and I had no right to complain of it, for if there was money in my pocket at that moment it was because he had placed it there; and then I saw intuitively that he meant no offence, but was merely repeating what he had said to his daughter, placing the case in a way that would be convincing to a man, whatever effect it might have on a woman’s mind.
“I am afraid,” I said, “that I must have expressed myself clumsily to Miss Hemster. I think I told her, – but I make the statement subject to correction, – that I had so long since severed my connection with diplomatic service in Tokio that even the slight power I then possessed no longer exists. If I still retained my former position I should scarcely be more helpless than I am now, so far as what you require is concerned.”
“That’s exactly what I told her,” growled the old man. “I suppose you haven’t any suggestion to make that would help me out at all?”
“The only suggestion I can make is this, and indeed I think the way seems perfectly clear. You no doubt know your own Ambassador, – perhaps have letters of introduction to him, – and he may very easily arrange for you to have an audience with His Majesty the Mikado.”
“Oh! our Ambassador!” growled Mr. Hemster in tones of great contempt; “he’s nothing but a one-horse politician.”
“Nevertheless,” said I, “his position is such that by merely exercising the prerogatives of his office he could get you what you wanted.”
“No, he can’t,” maintained the old gentleman stoutly. “Still, I shouldn’t say anything against him; he’s all right. He did his best for us, and if we could have waited long enough at Yokohama perhaps he might have fixed up an audience with the Mikado. But I’d had enough of hanging on around there, and so I sailed away. Now, my son, I said I was going to give you a talking to, and I am. I’ll tell you just how the land lies, so you can be of some help to me and not a drawback. I want you to be careful of what you say to Gertie about such people as the Mikado, because it excites her and makes her think certain things are easy when they’re not.”
“I am very sorry if I have said anything that led to a misapprehension. I certainly did not intend to.”
“No, no! I understand that. I am not blaming you a bit. I just want you to catch on to the situation, that’s all. Gertie likes you first rate; she told me so, and I’m ever so much obliged to you for the trouble you took yesterday afternoon in entertaining her. She told me everything you said and did, and it was all right. Now Gertie has always been accustomed to moving in the very highest society. She doesn’t care for anything else, and she took to you from the very first. I was glad of that, because I should have consulted her before I hired you. Nevertheless, I knew the moment you spoke that you were the man I wanted, and so I took the risk. I never cared for high society myself; my intercourse has been with business men. I understand them, and I like them; but I don’t cut any figure in high society, and I don’t care to, either. Now, with Gertie it’s different. She’s been educated at the finest schools, and I’ve taken her all over Europe, where we stayed at the very best hotels and met the very best people in both Europe and America. Why, we’ve met more Sirs and Lords and Barons and High Mightinesses than you can shake a stick at. Gertie, she’s right at home among those kind of people, and, if I do say it myself, she’s quite capable of taking her place among the best of them, and she knows it. There never was a time we came in to the best table d’hôte in Europe that every eye wasn’t turned toward her, and she’s been the life of the most noted hotels that exist, no matter where they are, and no matter what their price is.”
I ventured to remark that I could well believe this to have been the case.
“Yes, and you don’t need to take my word for it,” continued the old man with quite perceptible pride; “you may ask any one that was there. Whether it was a British Lord, or a French Count, or a German Baron, or an Italian Prince, it was just the same. I admit that it seemed to me that some of those nobles didn’t amount to much. But that’s neither here nor there; as I told you before, I’m no judge. I suppose they have their usefulness in creation, even though I’m not able to see it. But the result of it all was that Gertie got tired of them, and, as she is an ambitious girl and a real lady, she determined to strike higher, and so, when we bought this yacht and came abroad again, she determined to go in for Kings, so I’ve been on a King hunt ever since, and to tell the truth it has cost me a lot of money and I don’t like it. Not that I mind the money if it resulted in anything, but it hasn’t resulted in anything; that is, it hasn’t amounted to much. Gertie doesn’t care for the ordinary presentation at Court, for nearly anybody can have that. What she wants is to get a King or an Emperor right here on board this yacht at lunch or tea, or whatever he wants, and enjoy an intimate conversation with him, just like she’s had with them no-account Princes. Then she wants a column or two account of that written up for the Paris edition of the “New York Herald,” and she wants to have it cabled over to America. Now she’s the only chick or child I’ve got. Her mother’s been dead these fifteen years, and Gertie is all I have in the world, so I’m willing to do anything she wants done, no matter whether I like it