CHAPTER II.

GALLANT RESCUE BY WELL-DRESSED YOUNG MAN

§ 1

The White Star liner “Atlantic” lay at her pier with steam up and

gangway down, ready for her trip to Southampton. The hour of departure

was near, and there was a good deal of mixed activity going on. Sailors

fiddled about with ropes. Junior officers flitted to and fro.

White-jacketed stewards wrestled with trunks. Probably the captain,

though not visible, was also employed on some useful work of a nautical

nature and not wasting his time. Men, women, boxes, rugs, dogs,

flowers, and baskets of fruits were flowing on board in a steady

stream.

The usual drove of citizens had come to see the travellers off. There

were men on the passenger-list who were being seen off by fathers, by

mothers, by sisters, by cousins, and by aunts. In the steerage, there

was an elderly Jewish lady who was being seen off by exactly

thirty-seven of her late neighbours in Rivington Street. And two men in

the second cabin were being seen off by detectives, surely the crowning

compliment a great nation can bestow. The cavernous Customs sheds were

congested with friends and relatives, and Sam Marlowe, heading for the

gang-plank, was only able to make progress by employing all the muscle

and energy which Nature had bestowed upon him, and which during the

greater part of his life he had developed by athletic exercise.

However, after some minutes of silent endeavour, now driving his

shoulder into the midriff of some obstructing male, now courteously

lifting some stout female off his feet, he had succeeded in struggling

to within a few yards of his goal, when suddenly a sharp pain shot

through his right arm, and he spun round with a cry.

It seemed to Sam that he had been bitten, and this puzzled him, for New

York crowds, though they may shove and jostle, rarely bite.

He found himself face to face with an extraordinarily pretty girl.

She was a red-haired girl, with the beautiful ivory skin which goes

with red hair. Her eyes, though they were under the shadow of her hat,

and he could not be certain, he diagnosed as green, or may be blue, or

possibly grey. Not that it mattered, for he had a catholic taste in

feminine eyes. So long as they were large and bright, as were the

specimens under his immediate notice, he was not the man to quibble

about a point of colour. Her nose was small, and on the very tip of it

there was a tiny freckle. Her mouth was nice and wide, her chin soft

and round. She was just about the height which every girl ought to be.

Her figure was trim, her feet tiny, and she wore one of those dresses

of which a man can say no more than that they look pretty well all

right.

Nature abhors a vacuum. Samuel Marlowe was a susceptible young man, and

for many a long month his heart had been lying empty, all swept and

garnished, with “Welcome” on the mat. This girl seemed to rush in and

fill it. She was not the prettiest girl he had ever seen. She was the

third prettiest. He had an orderly mind, one capable of classifying and

docketing girls. But there was a subtle something about her, a sort of

how-shall-one-put-it, which he had never encountered before. He

swallowed convulsively. His well-developed chest swelled beneath its

covering of blue flannel and invisible stripe. At last, he told

himself, he was in love, really in love, and at first sight, too, which

made it all the more impressive. He doubted whether in the whole course

of history anything like this had ever happened before to anybody. Oh,

to clasp this girl to him and....

But she had bitten him in the arm. That was hardly the right spirit.

That, he felt, constituted an obstacle.

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” she cried.

Well, of course, if she regretted her rash act.... After all, an

impulsive girl might bite a man in the arm in the excitement of the

moment and still have a sweet, womanly nature....

“The crowd seems to make Pinky-Boodles so nervous.”

Sam might have remained mystified, but at this juncture there proceeded

from a bundle of rugs in the neighbourhood of the girl’s lower ribs, a

sharp yapping sound, of such a calibre as to be plainly audible over

the confused noise of Mamies who were telling Sadies to be sure and

write, of Bills who were instructing Dicks to look up old Joe in Paris

and give him their best, and of all the fruit-boys, candy-boys,

magazine-boys, American-flag-boys, and telegraph boys who were honking

their wares on every side.

“I hope he didn’t hurt you much. You’re the third person he’s bitten

to-day.” She kissed the animal in a loving and congratulatory way on

the tip of his black nose. “Not counting waiters at the hotel, of

course,” she added. And then she was swept from him in the crowd, and

he was left thinking of all the things he might have said—all those

graceful, witty, ingratiating things which just make a bit of

difference on these occasions.

He had said nothing. Not a sound, exclusive of the first sharp yowl of

pain, had proceeded from him. He had just goggled. A rotten exhibition!

Perhaps he would never see this girl again. She looked the sort of girl

who comes to see friends off and doesn’t sail herself. And what memory

of him would she retain? She would mix him up with the time when she

went to visit the deaf-and-dumb hospital.

§ 2

Sam reached the gang-plank, showed his ticket, and made his way through

the crowd of passengers, passengers’ friends, stewards, junior

officers, and sailors who infested the deck. He proceeded down the main

companion-way, through a rich smell of india-rubber and mixed pickles,

as far as the dining saloon; then turned down the narrow passage

leading to his state-room.

State-rooms on ocean liners are curious things. When you see them on

the chart in the passenger-office, with the gentlemanly clerk drawing

rings round them in pencil, they seem so vast that you get the

impression that, after stowing away all your trunks, you will have room

left over to do a bit of entertaining—possibly an informal dance or

something. When you go on board, you find that the place has shrunk to

the dimensions of an undersized cupboard in which it would be

impossible to swing a cat. And then, about the second day out, it

suddenly expands again. For one reason or another the necessity for

swinging cats does not arise, and you find yourself quite comfortable.

Sam, balancing himself on the narrow, projecting ledge which the chart

in the passenger-office had grandiloquently described as a lounge,

began to feel the depression which marks the second phase. He almost

wished now that he had not been so energetic in having his room changed

in order to enjoy the company of his cousin Eustace. It was going to be

a tight fit. Eustace’s bag was already in the cabin, and it seemed to

take up the entire fairway. Still, after all, Eustace was a good sort,

and would be a cheerful companion. And Sam realised that if the girl

with the red hair was not a passenger on the boat, he was going to have

need of diverting society.

A footstep sounded in the passage outside. The door opened.

“Hullo, Eustace!” said Sam.

Eustace Hignett nodded listlessly, sat down on his bag, and emitted a

deep sigh. He was a small, fragile-looking young man with a pale,

intellectual face. Dark hair fell in a sweep over his forehead. He

looked like a man who would write _vers libre_, as indeed he did.

“Hullo!” he said, in a hollow voice.

Sam regarded him blankly. He had not seen him for some years, but,

going by his recollections of him at the University, he had expected

something cheerier than this. In fact, he had rather been relying on

Eustace to be the life and soul of the party. The man sitting on the

bag before him could hardly have filled that role at a gathering of

Russian novelists.

“What on earth’s the matter?” said Sam.

“The matter?” Eustace Hignett laughed mirthlessly. “Oh, nothing.

Nothing much. Nothing to signify. Only my heart’s broken.” He eyed with

considerable malignity the bottle of water in the rack above his head,

a harmless object provided by the White Star Company for clients who

might desire to clean their teeth during the voyage.

“If you would care to hear the story...?” he said.

“Go ahead.”

“It is quite short.”

“That’s good.”

“Soon after I arrived in America, I met a girl....”

“Talking of girls,” said Sam with enthusiasm, “I’ve just seen the only

one in the world that really amounts to anything. It was like this. I

was shoving my way through the mob on the dock, when suddenly....”

“Shall I tell you my story, or will you tell yours?”

“Oh, sorry! Go ahead.”

Eustace Hignett scowled at the printed notice on the wall, informing

occupants of the state-room that the name of their steward was J. B.

Midgeley.

“She was an extraordinarily pretty girl....”

“So was mine! I give you my honest word I never in all my life saw

such....”

“Of course, if you prefer that I postponed my narrative?” said Eustace

coldly.

“Oh, sorry! Carry on.”

“She was an extraordinarily pretty girl....”

“What was her name?”

“Wilhelmina Bennett. She was an extraordinarily pretty girl, and highly

intelligent. I read her all my poems, and she appreciated them

immensely. She enjoyed my singing. My conversation appeared to interest

her. She admired my....”

“I see. You made a hit. Now get on with the story.”

“Don’t bustle me,” said Eustace querulously.

“Well, you know, the voyage only takes eight days.”

“I’ve forgotten where I was.”

“You were saying what a devil of a chap she thought you. What happened?

I suppose, when you actually came to propose, you found she was engaged

to some other johnny?”

“Not at all! I asked her to be my wife and she consented. We both

agreed that a quiet wedding was what we wanted—she thought her father

might stop the thing if he knew, and I was dashed sure my mother

would—so we decided to get married without telling anybody. By now,”

said Eustace, with a morose glance at the porthole, “I ought to have

been on my honeymoon. Everything was settled. I had the licence and the

parson’s fee. I had been breaking in a new tie for the wedding.”

“And then you quarrelled?”

“Nothing of the kind. I wish you would stop trying to tell me the

story. I’m telling _you_. What happened was this: somehow—I can’t make

out how—mother found out. And then, of course, it was all over. She

stopped the thing.”

Sam was indignant. He thoroughly disliked his Aunt Adeline, and his

cousin’s meek subservience to her revolted him.

“Stopped it? I suppose she said ‘Now, Eustace, you mustn’t!’ and you

said ‘Very well, mother!’ and scratched the fixture?”

“She didn’t say a word. She never has said a word. As far as that goes,

she might never have heard anything about the marriage.”

“Then how do you mean she stopped it?”

“She pinched my trousers!”

“Pinched your trousers!”

Eustace groaned. “All of them! The whole bally lot! She gets up long

before I do, and she must have come into my room and cleaned it out

while I was asleep. When I woke up and started to dress, I couldn’t

find a single damned pair of bags in the whole place. I looked

everywhere. Finally, I went into the sitting-room where she was writing

letters and asked if she had happened to see any anywhere. She said she

had sent them all to be pressed. She said she knew I never went out in

the mornings—I don’t as a rule—and they would be back at lunch-time. A

fat lot of use that was! I had to be at the church at eleven. Well, I

told her I had a most important engagement with a man at eleven, and

she wanted to know what it was, and I tried to think of something, but

it sounded pretty feeble, and she said I had better telephone to the

man and put it off. I did it, too. Rang up the first number in the book

and told some fellow I had never seen in my life that I couldn’t meet

him because I hadn’t any trousers! He was pretty peeved, judging from

what he said about my being on the wrong number. And mother, listening

all the time, and I knowing that she knew—something told me that she

knew—and she knowing that I knew she knew.... I tell you, it was

awful!”

“And the girl?”

“She broke off the engagement. Apparently she waited at the church from

eleven till one-thirty, and then began to get impatient. She wouldn’t

see me when I called in the afternoon, but I got a letter from her

saying that what had happened was all for the best, as she had been

thinking it over and had come to the conclusion that she had made a

mistake. She said something about my not being as dynamic as she had

thought I was. She said that what she wanted was something more like

Lancelot or Sir Galahad, and would I look on the episode as closed.”

“Did you explain about the trousers?”

“Yes. It seemed to make things worse. She said that she could forgive a

man anything except being ridiculous.”

“I think you’re well out of it,” said Sam, judicially. “She can’t have

been much of a girl.”

“I feel that now. But it doesn’t alter the fact that my life is ruined.

I have become a woman-hater. It’s an infernal nuisance, because

practically all the poetry I have ever written rather went out of its

way to boost women, and now I’ll have to start all over again and

approach the subject from another angle. Women! When I think how mother

behaved and how Wilhelmina treated me, I wonder there isn’t a law

against them. ‘What mighty ills have not been done by Woman! Who was’t

betrayed the Capitol....’”

“In Washington?” said Sam, puzzled. He had heard nothing of this. But

then he generally confined his reading of the papers to the sporting

page.

“In Rome, you ass! Ancient Rome.”

“Oh, as long ago as that?”

“I was quoting from Thomas Otway’s ‘Orphan.’ I wish I could write like

Otway. He knew what he was talking about. ‘Who was’t betrayed the

Capitol? A woman. Who lost Marc Anthony the world? A woman. Who was the

cause of a long ten years’ war and laid at last old Troy in ashes?

Woman! Destructive, damnable, deceitful woman!’”

“Well, of course, he may be right in a way. As regards some women, I

mean. But the girl I met on the dock....”

“Don’t!” said Eustace Hignett. “If you have anything bitter and

derogatory to say about women, say it and I will listen eagerly. But if

you merely wish to gibber about the ornamental exterior of some dashed

girl you have been fool enough to get attracted by, go and tell it to

the captain or the ship’s cat or J. B. Midgeley. Do try to realise that

I am a soul in torment. I am a ruin, a spent force, a man without a

future. What does life hold for me? Love? I shall never love again. My

work? I haven’t any. I think I shall take to drink.”

“Talking of that,” said Sam, “I suppose they open the bar directly we

pass the three-mile limit. How about a small one?”

Eustace shook his head gloomily.

“Do you suppose I pass my time on board ship in gadding about and

feasting? Directly the vessel begins to move, I go to bed and stay

there. As a matter of fact, I think it would be wisest to go to bed

now. Don’t let me keep you if you want to go on deck.”

“It looks to me,” said Sam, “as if I had been mistaken in thinking that

you were going to be a ray of sunshine on the voyage.”

“Ray of sunshine!” said Eustace Hignett, pulling a pair of mauve

pyjamas out of the kit-bag. “I’m going to be a volcano!”

Sam left the state-room and headed for the companion. He wanted to get

on deck and ascertain if that girl was still on board. About now, the

sheep would be separating from the goats; the passengers would be on

deck and their friends returning to the shore. A slight tremor in the

boards on which he trod told him that this separation must have already

taken place. The ship was moving. He ran lightly up the companion. Was

she on board or was she not? The next few minutes would decide. He

reached the top of the stairs, and passed out on to the crowded deck.

And, as he did so, a scream, followed by confused shouting, came from

the rail nearest the shore. He perceived that the rail was black with

people hanging over it. They were all looking into the water.

Samuel Marlowe was not one of those who pass aloofly by when there is

excitement toward. If a horse fell down in the street, he was always

among those present: and he was never too busy to stop and stare at a

blank window on which were inscribed the words, “Watch this space!” In

short, he was one of Nature’s rubbernecks, and to dash to the rail and

shove a fat man in a tweed cap to one side was with him the work of a

moment. He had thus an excellent view of what was going on—a view which

he improved the next instant by climbing up and kneeling on the rail.

There was a man in the water, a man whose upper section, the only one

visible, was clad in a blue jersey. He wore a bowler hat, and from time

to time, as he battled with the waves, he would put up a hand and

adjust this more firmly on his head. A dressy swimmer.

Scarcely had he taken in this spectacle when Marlowe became aware of

the girl he had met on the dock. She was standing a few feet away,

leaning out over the rail with wide eyes and parted lips. Like

everybody else, she was staring into the water.

As Sam looked at her, the thought crossed his mind that here was a

wonderful chance of making the most tremendous impression on this girl.

What would she not think of a man who, reckless of his own safety,

dived in and went boldly to the rescue? And there were men, no doubt,

who would be chumps enough to do it, he thought, as he prepared to

shift back to a position of greater safety.

At this moment, the fat man in the tweed cap, incensed at having been

jostled out of the front row, made his charge. He had but been

crouching, the better to spring. Now he sprang. His full weight took

Sam squarely in the spine. There was an instant in which that young man

hung, as it were, between sea and sky: then he shot down over the rail

to join the man in the blue jersey, who had just discovered that his

hat was not on straight and had paused to adjust it once more with a

few skilful touches of the finger.

§ 3

In the brief interval of time which Marlowe had spent in the state-room

chatting with Eustace about the latter’s bruised soul, some rather

curious things had been happening above. Not extraordinary, perhaps,

but curious. These must now be related. A story, if it is to grip the

reader, should, I am aware, go always forward. It should march. It

should leap from crag to crag like the chamois of the Alps. If there is

one thing I hate, it is a novel which gets you interested in the hero

in chapter one and then cuts back in chapter two to tell you all about

his grandfather. Nevertheless, at this point we must go back a space.

We must return to the moment when, having deposited her Pekinese dog in

her state-room, the girl with the red hair came out again on deck. This

happened just about the time when Eustace Hignett was beginning his

narrative.

The girl went to the rail and gazed earnestly at the shore. There was a

rattle, as the gang-plank moved in-board and was deposited on the deck.

The girl uttered a little cry of dismay. Then suddenly her face

brightened, and she began to wave her arm to attract the attention of

an elderly man with a red face made redder by exertion, who had just

forced his way to the edge of the dock and was peering up at the

passenger-lined rail.

The boat had now begun to move slowly out of its slip, backing into the

river. It was now that the man on the dock sighted the girl. She

gesticulated at him. He gesticulated at her. He produced a

handkerchief, swiftly tied up a bundle of currency bills in it, backed

to give himself room, and then, with all the strength of his arm,

hurled the bills in the direction of the deck. The handkerchief with

its precious contents shot in a graceful arc towards the deck, fell

short by a good six feet, and dropped into the water, where it unfolded

like a lily, sending twenty-dollar bills, ten-dollar bills, five-dollar

bills, and an assortment of ones floating out over the wavelets.

It was at this moment that Mr. Oscar Swenson, one of the thriftiest

souls who ever came out of Sweden, perceived that the chance of a

lifetime had arrived for adding substantially to his little savings. By

profession he was one of those men who eke out a precarious livelihood

by rowing dreamily about the water-front in skiffs. He was doing so

now: and, as he sat meditatively in his skiff, having done his best to

give the liner a good send off by paddling round her in circles, the

pleading face of a twenty-dollar bill peered up at him. Mr. Swenson was

not the man to resist the appeal. He uttered a sharp bark of ecstasy,

pressed his bowler hat firmly upon his brow, and dived in. A moment

later he had risen to the surface, and was gathering up money with both

hands.

He was still busy with this congenial task when a tremendous splash at

his side sent him under again: and, rising for a second time, he

observed with not a little chagrin that he had been joined by a young

man in a blue flannel suit with an invisible stripe.

“Svensk!” exclaimed Mr. Swenson, or whatever it is that natives of

Sweden exclaim in moments of justifiable annoyance. He resented the

advent of this newcomer. He had been getting along fine and had had the

situation well in hand. To him Sam Marlowe represented Competition, and

Mr. Swenson desired no competitors in his treasure-seeking enterprise.

He travels, thought Mr. Swenson, the fastest who travels alone.

Sam Marlowe had a touch of the philosopher in him. He had the ability

to adapt himself to circumstances. It had been no part of his plans to

come whizzing down off the rail into this singularly soup-like water

which tasted in equal parts of oil and dead rats; but, now that he was

here he was prepared to make the best of the situation. Swimming, it

happened, was one of the things he did best, and somewhere among his

belongings at home was a tarnished pewter cup which he had won at

school in the “Saving Life” competition. He knew exactly what to do.

You get behind the victim and grab him firmly under his arms, and then

you start swimming on your back. A moment later, the astonished Mr.

Swenson who, being practically amphibious, had not anticipated that

anyone would have the cool impertinence to try to save him from

drowning, found himself seized from behind and towed vigorously away

from a ten-dollar bill which he had almost succeeded in grasping. The

spiritual agony caused by this assault rendered him mercifully dumb;

though, even had he contrived to utter the rich Swedish oaths which

occurred to him, his remarks could scarcely have been heard, for the

crowd on the dock was cheering as one man. They had often paid good

money to see far less gripping sights in the movies. They roared

applause. The liner, meanwhile, continued to move stodgily out into

mid-river.

The only drawback to these life-saving competitions at school,

considered from the standpoint of fitting the competitors for the

problems of afterlife, is that the object saved on such occasions is a

leather dummy, and of all things in this world a leather dummy is

perhaps the most placid and phlegmatic. It differs in many respects

from an emotional Swedish gentleman, six foot high and constructed

throughout of steel and india-rubber, who is being lugged away from

cash which he has been regarding in the light of a legacy. Indeed, it

would be hard to find a respect in which it does not differ. So far

from lying inert in Sam’s arms and allowing himself to be saved in a

quiet and orderly manner, Mr. Swenson betrayed all the symptoms of one

who feels that he has fallen among murderers. Mr. Swenson, much as he

disliked competition, was ready to put up with it, provided that it was

fair competition. This pulling your rival away from the loot so that

you could grab it yourself—thus shockingly had the man misinterpreted

Sam’s motives—was another thing altogether, and his stout soul would

have none of it. He began immediately to struggle with all the violence

at his disposal. His large, hairy hands came out of the water and swung

hopefully in the direction where he assumed his assailant’s face to be.

Sam was not unprepared for this display. His researches in the art of

life-saving had taught him that your drowning man frequently struggles

against his best interests. In which case, cruel to be kind, one simply

stunned the blighter. He decided to stun Mr. Swenson, though, if he had

known that gentleman more intimately and had been aware that he had the

reputation of possessing the thickest head on the water-front, he would

have realised the magnitude of the task. Friends of Mr. Swenson, in

convivial moments, had frequently endeavoured to stun him with bottles,

boots and bits of lead piping and had gone away depressed by failure.

Sam, ignorant of this, attempted to do the job with clenched fist,

which he brought down as smartly as possible on the crown of the

other’s bowler hat.

It was the worst thing he could have done. Mr. Swenson thought highly

of his hat and this brutal attack upon it confirmed his gloomiest

apprehensions. Now thoroughly convinced that the only thing to do was

to sell his life dearly, he wrenched himself round, seized his

assailant by the neck, twined his arms about his middle, and

accompanied him below the surface.

By the time he had swallowed his first pint and was beginning his

second, Sam was reluctantly compelled to come to the conclusion that

this was the end. The thought irritated him unspeakably. This, he felt,

was just the silly, contrary way things always happened. Why should it

be he who was perishing like this? Why not Eustace Hignett? Now there

was a fellow whom this sort of thing would just have suited.

Broken-hearted Eustace Hignett would have looked on all this as a

merciful release.

He paused in his reflections to try to disentangle the more prominent

of Mr. Swenson’s limbs from about him. By this time he was sure that he

had never met anyone he disliked so intensely as Mr. Swenson—not even

his Aunt Adeline. The man was a human octopus. Sam could count seven

distinct legs twined round him and at least as many arms. It seemed to

him that he was being done to death in his prime by a solid platoon of

Swedes. He put his whole soul into one last effort ... something seemed

to give ... he was free. Pausing only to try to kick Mr. Swenson in the

face, Sam shot to the surface. Something hard and sharp prodded him in

the head. Then something caught the collar of his coat; and, finally,

spouting like a whale, he found himself dragged upwards and over the

side of a boat.

The time which Sam had spent with Mr. Swenson below the surface had

been brief, but it had been long enough to enable the whole floating

population of the North River to converge on the scene in scows,

skiffs, launches, tugs, and other vessels. The fact that the water in

that vicinity was crested with currency had not escaped the notice of

these navigators, and they had gone to it as one man. First in the race

came the tug “Reuben S. Watson,” the skipper of which, following a

famous precedent, had taken his little daughter to bear him company. It

was to this fact that Marlowe really owed his rescue. Women often have

a vein of sentiment in them where men can only see the hard business

side of a situation; and it was the skipper’s daughter who insisted

that the family boat-hook, then in use as a harpoon for spearing dollar

bills, should be devoted to the less profitable but humaner end of

extricating the young man from a watery grave.

The skipper had grumbled a bit at first but had given way—he always

spoiled the girl—with the result that Sam found himself sitting on the

deck of the tug, engaged in the complicated process of restoring his

faculties to the normal. In a sort of dream he perceived Mr. Swenson

rise to the surface some feet away, adjust his bowler hat, and, after

one long look of dislike in his direction, swim off rapidly to

intercept a five which was floating under the stern of a near-by skiff.

Sam sat on the deck and panted. He played on the boards like a public

fountain. At the back of his mind there was a flickering thought that

he wanted to do something, a vague feeling that he had some sort of an

appointment which he must keep; but he was unable to think what it was.

Meanwhile, he conducted tentative experiments with his breath. It was

so long since he had last breathed that he had lost the knack of it.

“Well, aincher wet?” said a voice.

The skipper’s daughter was standing beside him, looking down

commiseratingly. Of the rest of the family all he could see was the

broad blue seats of their trousers as they leaned hopefully over the

side in the quest for wealth.

“Yes, sir! You sure are wet! Gee! I never seen anyone so wet! I seen

wet guys but I never seen anyone so wet as you. Yessir, you’re

certainly _wet!_”

“I _am_ wet,” admitted Sam.

“Yessir, you’re wet! Wet’s the word all right. Good and wet, that’s

what you are!”

“It’s the water,” said Sam. His brain was still clouded; he wished he

could remember what that appointment was. “That’s what has made me

wet.”

“It’s sure made you wet all right,” agreed the girl. She looked at him

interestedly. “Wotcha do it for?” she asked.

“Do it for?”

“Yes, wotcha do it for? Wotcha do a Brodie for off’n that ship? I

didn’t see it myself, but pa says you come walloping down off’n the

deck like a sack of potatoes.”

Sam uttered a sharp cry. He had remembered.

“Where is she?”

“Where’s who?”

“The liner.”

“She’s off down the river, I guess. She was swinging round, the last I

seen of her.”

“She’s not gone!”

“Sure she’s gone. Wotcha expect her to do? She’s gotta get over to the

other side, ain’t she? Cert’nly she’s gone.” She looked at him

interested. “Do you want to be on board her?”

“Of course I do.”

“Then, for the love of Pete, wotcha doin’ walloping off’n her like a

sack of potatoes?”

“I slipped. I was pushed or something.” Sam sprang to his feet and

looked wildly about him. “I must get back. Isn’t there any way of

getting back?”

“Well, you could ketch up with her at quarantine out in the bay. She’ll

stop to let the pilot off.”

“Can you take me to quarantine?”

The girl glanced doubtfully at the seat of the nearest pair of

trousers.

“Well, we _could_,” she said. “But pa’s kind of set in his ways, and

right now he’s fishing for dollar bills with the boat hook. He’s apt to

get sorta mad if he’s interrupted.”

“I’ll give him fifty dollars if he’ll put me on board.”

“Got it on you?” inquired the nymph coyly. She had her share of

sentiment, but she was her father’s daughter and inherited from him the

business sense.

“Here it is.” He pulled out his pocket book. The book was dripping, but

the contents were only fairly moist.

“Pa!” said the girl.

The trouser-seat remained where it was, deaf to its child’s cry.

“Pa! Cummere! Wantcha!”

The trousers did not even quiver. But this girl was a girl of decision.

There was some nautical implement resting in a rack convenient to her

hand. It was long, solid, and constructed of one of the harder forms of

wood. Deftly extracting this from its place, she smote her inattentive

parent on the only visible portion of him. He turned sharply,

exhibiting a red, bearded face.

“Pa, this gen’man wants to be took aboard the boat at quarantine. He’ll

give you fifty berries.”

The wrath died out of the skipper’s face like the slow turning down of

a lamp. The fishing had been poor, and so far he had only managed to

secure a single two-dollar bill. In a crisis like the one which had so

suddenly arisen you cannot do yourself justice with a boat-hook.

“Fifty berries!”

“Fifty seeds!” the girl assured him. “Are you on?”

“Queen,” said the skipper simply, “you said a mouthful!”

Twenty minutes later Sam was climbing up the side of the liner as it

lay towering over the tug like a mountain. His clothes hung about him

clammily. He squelched as he walked.

A kindly-looking old gentleman who was smoking a cigar by the rail

regarded him with open eyes.

“My dear sir, you’re very wet,” he said.

Sam passed him with a cold face and hurried through the door leading to

the companion way.

“Mummie, why is that man wet?” cried the clear voice of a little child.

Sam whizzed by, leaping down the stairs.

“Good Lord, sir! You’re very wet!” said a steward in the doorway of the

dining saloon.

“You _are_ wet,” said a stewardess in the passage.

Sam raced for his state-room. He bolted in and sank on the lounge. In

the lower berth Eustace Hignett was lying with closed eyes. He opened

them languidly, then stared.

“Hullo!” he said. “I say! You’re wet!”

§ 4

Sam removed his clinging garments and hurried into a new suit. He was

in no mood for conversation and Eustace Hignett’s frank curiosity

jarred upon him. Happily, at this point, a sudden shivering of the

floor and a creaking of woodwork proclaimed the fact that the vessel

was under way again, and his cousin, turning pea-green, rolled over on

his side with a hollow moan. Sam finished buttoning his waistcoat and

went out.

He was passing the inquiry bureau on the C-deck, striding along with

bent head and scowling brow, when a sudden exclamation caused him to

look up, and the scowl was wiped from his brow as with a sponge. For

there stood the girl he had met on the dock. With her was a superfluous

young man who looked like a parrot.

“Oh, _how_ are you?” asked the girl breathlessly.

“Splendid, thanks,” said Sam.

“Didn’t you get very wet?”

“I did get a little damp.”

“I thought you would,” said the young man who looked like a parrot.

“Directly I saw you go over the side I said to myself: ‘That fellow’s

going to get wet!’”

There was a pause.

“Oh!” said the girl. “May I—Mr.——?”

“Marlowe.”

“Mr. Marlowe. Mr. Bream Mortimer.”

Sam smirked at the young man. The young man smirked at Sam.

“Nearly got left behind,” said Bream Mortimer.

“Yes, nearly.”

“No joke getting left behind.”

“No.”

“Have to take the next boat. Lose a lot of time,” said Mr. Mortimer,

driving home his point.

The girl had listened to these intellectual exchanges with impatience.

She now spoke again.

“Oh, Bream!”

“Hello?”

“Do be a dear and run down to the saloon and see if it’s all right

about our places for lunch.”

“It is all right. The table steward said so.”

“Yes, but go and make certain.”

“All right.”

He hopped away and the girl turned to Sam with shining eyes.

“Oh, Mr. Marlowe, you oughtn’t to have done it! Really, you oughtn’t!

You might have been drowned! But I never saw anything so wonderful. It

was like the stories of knights who used to jump into lions’ dens after

gloves!”

“Yes?” said Sam a little vaguely. The resemblance had not struck him.

It seemed a silly hobby, and rough on the lions, too.

“It was the sort of thing Sir Lancelot or Sir Galahad would have done!

But you shouldn’t have bothered, really! It’s all right, now.”

“Oh, it’s all right now?”

“Yes. I’d quite forgotten that Mr. Mortimer was to be on board. He has

given me all the money I shall need. You see it was this way. I had to

sail on this boat in rather a hurry. Father’s head clerk was to have

gone to the bank and got some money and met me on board and given it to

me, but the silly old man was late and when he got to the dock they had

just pulled in the gang-plank. So he tried to throw the money to me in

a handkerchief and it fell into the water. But you shouldn’t have dived

in after it.”

“Oh, well!” said Sam, straightening his tie, with a quiet, brave smile.

He had never expected to feel grateful to that obese bounder who had

shoved him off the rail, but now he would have liked to seek him out

and shake him by the hand.

“You really are the bravest man I ever met!”

“Oh, no!”

“How modest you are! But I suppose all brave men are modest!”

“I was only too delighted at what looked like a chance of doing you a

service.”

“It was the extraordinary quickness of it that was so wonderful. I do

admire presence of mind. You didn’t hesitate for a second. You just

shot over the side as though propelled by some irresistible force!”

“It was nothing, nothing really. One just happens to have the knack of

keeping one’s head and acting quickly on the spur of the moment. Some

people have it, some haven’t.”

“And just think! As Bream was saying....”

“It _is_ all right,” said Mr. Mortimer, reappearing suddenly. “I saw a

couple of the stewards and they both said it was all right. So it’s all

right.”

“Splendid,” said the girl. “Oh, Bream!”

“Hello?”

“Do be an angel and run along to my state-room and see if Pinky-Boodles

is quite comfortable.”

“Bound to be.”

“Yes. But do go. He may be feeling lonely. Chirrup to him a little.”

“Chirrup?”

“Yes, to cheer him up.”

“Oh, all right.”

“Run along!”

Mr. Mortimer ran along. He had the air of one who feels that he only

needs a peaked cap and a uniform two sizes too small for him to be a

properly equipped messenger boy.

“And, as Bream was saying,” resumed the girl, “you might have been left

behind.”

“That,” said Sam, edging a step closer, “was the thought that tortured

me, the thought that a friendship so delightfully begun....”

“But it hadn’t begun. We have never spoken to each other before now.”

“Have you forgotten? On the dock....”

Sudden enlightenment came into her eyes.

“Oh, you are the man poor Pinky-Boodles bit!”

“The lucky man!”

Her face clouded.

“Poor Pinky is feeling the motion of the boat a little. It’s his first

voyage.”

“I shall always remember that it was Pinky who first brought us

together. Would you care for a stroll on deck?”

“Not just now, thanks. I must be getting back to my room to finish

unpacking. After lunch, perhaps.”

“I will be there. By the way, you know my name, but....”

“Oh, mine?” She smiled brightly. “It’s funny that a person’s name is

the last thing one thinks of asking. Mine is Bennett.”

“Bennett!”

“Wilhelmina Bennett. My friends,” she said softly as she turned away,

“call me Billie!”