"Stop!" Crawshay begged. "I have no sympathy with the weird compounds
produced by your bartenders. As a matter of fact, I take nothing at
all except with my meals. I am going to sit in this sunshine and try
and recover my normal temperature."

"There are a few of the boys on board," Brand continued insinuatingly,
"who would like to join in our little chat, if you wouldn't mind their
stepping round."

"I have no desire for a chat with any one," Crawshay objected. "I
came up on deck to rest. Kindly ask me what you want to know and leave
me alone for a time."

"Then what in thunder sent you here after an American liner on a
seaplane?" Brand demanded. "That's about the long and short of what
we're aching to know, I think."

"You've hit it, Ned, as usual," Mr. Clark, of the Minneapolis
_Record_, acquiesced. Crawshay drew his rug about him a little
peevishly.

"My name," he said, "is Charles Reginald Crawshay."

"We got that from the captain," Brand replied. "Very nice name, too."

"I have been attached," Crawshay went on, "to the British Embassy at
Washington."

"You don't say!" Brand murmured.