Meet Sir Thomas Drummond, Chairman Royal Barrata Bridge Commission,
arriving Cunard Liner _Campania_, thirteenth, stopping Waldorf.
Arrange personally Barrata contract. Caution.
The cablegram was unsigned, but its address, "Atwylie," betrayed not
only its destination, but also the identity of its sender. Mr. Jackson
Wylie, Sr., became tremendously excited. The last word conjured up
bewildering possibilities. He was about to consult his associates when
it struck him that the greatest caution he could possibly observe
would consist of holding his own tongue now and henceforth. They had
seen fit to criticize his handling of the matter thus far; he decided
he would play safe and say nothing until he had first seen Sir Thomas
Drummond and learned the lay of the land. He imagined he might then
have something electrifying to tell them. He had "dealt from the
bottom" too often, he had closed too many bridge contracts in his
time, to mistake the meaning of this visit, or of that last word
"caution."
During the next few days Mr. Jackson Wylie, Sr., had hard work to hold
himself in, and he was at a high state of nervous tension when, on
the morning of the fourteenth day of May, he strolled into the
Waldorf-Astoria and inquired at the desk for Sir Thomas Drummond.
There was no Sir Thomas stopping at the hotel, although a Mr. T.
Drummond from London had arrived on the _Campania_ the day before. Mr.
Jackson Wylie placed the heel of his right shoe upon the favorite corn
of his left foot and bore down upon it heavily. He must be
getting into his dotage, he reflected, or else the idea of a
five-million-dollar job had him rattled. Of course Sir Thomas would
not use his title.
At the rear desk he had his card blown up through the tube to "Mr. T.
Drummond," and a few moments later was invited to take the elevator.
Arriving at the sixth floor, he needed no page to guide him; boots
pointed his way to the apartment of the distinguished visitor as plainly
as a lettered sign-board; boots of all descriptions--hunting-boots,
riding-boots, street shoes, lowshoes, pumps, sandals--black ones and tan
ones--all in a row outside the door. It was a typically English display.
Evidently Sir Thomas Drummond was a personage of the most extreme
importance and traveled in befitting style, Mr. Wylie told himself.
Nothing was missing from the collection, unless perhaps a pair of rubber
hip-boots.
A stoop-shouldered old man with a marked accent and a port-wine nose
showed Mr. Wylie into a parlor where the first object upon which
his active eyes alighted was a mass of blue-prints. He knew these
drawings; he had figured on them himself. He likewise noted a hat-box
and a great, shapeless English bag, both plastered crazily with hotel
and steamship labels hailing from every quarter of the world. It was
plain to be seen that Sir Thomas was a globe-trotter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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