Indeed, Admiral Sir John Pendergest
seems to have sprung, fully uniformed and forbidding, from the earth,
like those soldiers of mythology. I was so taken aback at confronting
such a man that I never noticed my old friend, Billy Richardson,
seated at the table as one of the minor officials of the Committee.
Billy tells me I looked rather white about the lips when I realized
what was ahead of me, and I daresay he was right. My consolation is
that I didn't get red, as is my disconcerting habit. I was
accommodated with a chair, and then a ferrety-faced little man began
asking me questions, consulting every now and then a foolscap sheet of
paper which was before him. Others were ready to note down the
answers.
"'When did you fire the new gun from the "Consternation" in the
Baltic?'
"Dear Miss Amhurst, I have confessed to you that I am not brilliant,
and, indeed, such confession was quite unnecessary, for you must
speedily have recognized the fact, but here let me boast for a line or
two of my one accomplishment, which is mathematical accuracy. When I
make experiments I don't note the result by rule of thumb. My answer
to the ferret-faced man was prompt and complete.
"'At twenty-three minutes, seventeen seconds past ten, A.M., on May
the third of this year,' was my reply.
"The five high officials remained perfectly impassive, but the two
stenographers seemed somewhat taken by surprise, and one of them
whispered, 'Did you say fifteen seconds, sir?'
"'He said seventeen,' growled Sir John Pendergest, in a voice that
seemed to come out of a sepulchre.
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