Page:MacGrath--The drums of jeopardy.djvu/299

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The Drums of Jeopardy
289

even if he fell down. The hull thing is this: Make a guy wanta get well an' he'll get well. If he's got any pride, dig it up. Go after 'em. He hasn't lost any blood. No serious body wound. A crack on the conk. It mighta killed him. It didn't. He didn't wabble an' fall down. So my dope is right. Drop in in a few days an' I'll show yuh."

Miss Frances held out her hand. "You've handled men," she said, with reluctant admiration.

"Oh, boy!—millions of 'em, an' each guy different. Believe me! Make 'em wanta."

Cutty attended his conferences. He learned immediately that he was booked to sail the first week in May. His itinerary began at Piræus, in Greece, and might end in Vladivostok. But they detained him in Washington overtime because he was a fount of information the departments found it necessary to draw upon constantly. The political and commercial aspects of the polyglot peoples, what they wanted, what they expected, what they needed; racial enmities. The bugaboo of the undesirable alien was no longer bothering official heads in Washington. Stringent immigration laws were in the making. What they wanted to know was an American's point of view, based upon long and intimate associations.

Washington reminded him of nothing so much as a big sheep dog. The hazardous day was over; the wolves had been driven off and the sheep into the