One fat Frenchman, indeed, kissed him on both
cheeks, crying, "Vive le rosbif! vive le rosbif!" before he could ward
him off.
At the bottom of the tower Mr. Blumenruth, radiant and triumphant,
burst through the throng, flung himself upon them, and dragged them to
a smart victoria which awaited them. He told them joyously that he had
cleared eighty-seven thousand pounds, and protested that they should be
his guests at his hotel as long as they stayed in Paris. On the way to
it Sir Tancred got down to buy some cigars, and he was barely in the
shop when the financier said in a jerky way to Tinker, "I saw a very
neat little motor-car, which I should like to make you a present of.
But I say--I don't want you to tell anyone--how--how ill I was up
there. My spirit was all right, of course; but that rarefied
air--acting on business worries--produced a state of nervous
prostration. I--I wasn't quite myself, in fact."
Tinker looked at him with intelligent interest, and, closing one of his
sunny blue eyes, said thoughtfully, "Nervous prostration? Is the motor
a Panhard?"
"Yes," said Mr. Blumenruth.
"If you hadn't been so--so--upset, I've no doubt you'd have sailed the
machine yourself," said Tinker warmly.
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