A Man's Man

by Ian Hay · English · Gutenberg #41574 · 470,875 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: A Man's Man

Author: Ian Hay

Illustrator: James Montgomery Flagg

Release date: December 7, 2012 [eBook #41574]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

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A MAN'S MAN

IAN HAY

* * * * *

=By Ian Hay=

A SAFETY MATCH. With frontispiece.
A MAN'S MAN. With frontispiece.
THE RIGHT STUFF. With frontispiece.

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
BOSTON AND NEW YORK

* * * * *

A MAN'S MAN

[Illustration: "O, HUGHIE, DID YOU?" (p. 376)]

A MAN'S MAN

IAN HAY

Author of "The Right Stuff"

With Frontispiece by James Montgomery Flagg

[Illustration]

Boston and New York
Houghton Mifflin Company
The Riverside Press Cambridge

Published September 1910

TO
T. B.

_Partner_ (_after several collisions_). I should think you were more at
home in a boat than a ballroom, Mr. Rudderford!

_Little Bobbie Rudderford_ (_the famous Oxbridge coxswain_). Yes; and by
Jove, I'd sooner steer eight men than one woman, any day!--_Punch._

CONTENTS

BOOK ONE

DEALS WITH A STUFF THAT WILL NOT ENDURE

I. NAVAL MANOEUVRES 3

II. INTRODUCES THE HEROINE OF THIS NARRATIVE 22

III. JIMMY MARRABLE 28

IV. AN UNDERSTUDY 49

V. THE JOY OF BATTLE 61

BOOK TWO

_FORTITER IN RE_

VI. KNIGHT-ERRANTRY _À LA MODE_ 81

VII. THE ALTERNATIVE ROUTE 112

VIII. A BENEFIT PERFORMANCE 130

IX. _LITERA SCRIPTA MANET_ 146

X. THE END OF AN ODYSSEY 157

BOOK THREE

_SUAVITER IN MODO_

XI. SEALED ORDERS 179

XII. A CHANGE OF ATMOSPHERE 195

XIII. _VARIUM ET MUTABILE_ 223

XIV. BUSINESS ONLY 247

BOOK FOUR

THE UNJUST STEWARD

XV. DEPUTATIONS--WITH A DIFFERENCE 263

XVI. IN WHICH CHARITY SUFFERETH LONG, AND JOAN
MISSES HER CUE 292

XVII. IN WHICH CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME, AND HUGHIE
MISSES HIS TRAIN 320

XVIII. _EX MACHINA_ 339

XIX. IN WHICH LOVE FLIES OUT OF THE WINDOW 354

XX. SINFUL WASTE OF A PENNY STAMP 372

BOOK ONE

DEALS WITH A STUFF THAT WILL
NOT ENDURE

A MAN'S MAN

CHAPTER I

NAVAL MANOEUVRES

A University college varies its facial expression about as frequently as
The Sphinx and about as violently as a treacle-well.

This remark specially applies between the hours of breakfast and
luncheon. The courts, with their monastic cloisters and inviolable
grassplots, lie basking in a sunny obliviousness to the world outside.
Their stately exclusiveness is accentuated rather than diminished by the
glimpse of an occasional flying figure in a cap and gown, or the
spectacle of a middle-aged female of a discreet and chastened
appearance, who glides respectfully from one archway to another,
carrying a broom and a tin pail, or--alas for the goings-on that a
cloistered cell may conceal behind its art-muslin curtains!--a tankard
containing some gentleman's morning ale.

In one corner, close to the Buttery door, you may behold one of the
college cats, which appears to be combining a searching morning toilet
with a course of practical calisthenics; and inside the massive arch of
the gateway stands a majestic figure in a tall hat, whom appreciative
Americans usually mistake for the Master, but who in reality occupies
the far more onerous and responsible post of Head Porter.

Perhaps the greatest variation from the normal is to be observed on a
Saturday morning. Then the scene is brightened by the vision of an
occasional washerwoman, who totters bravely at one end of a heavy
basket, what time her lord and master (who has temporarily abandoned his
favourite street-corner and donned Sabbath attire for this, his weekly
contribution to the work of the world) sulkily supports the other.

Undergraduates, too, are more in evidence than on other days. On most
mornings they either stay indoors, to work or sleep, or else go outside
the college altogether. "Loitering" in the courts is not encouraged by
the authorities. Not that the undergraduate minds that; but it will
probably cost him half-a-crown every time he does so, not because he
loiters but because he smokes.

The Old Court of St. Benedict's College--it is hardly necessary to say
that we are in Cambridge and not in Oxford: otherwise we should have
said "Quad"--presents to us on the present occasion a very fair sample
of a Saturday morning crowd. The observant eye of the Dean, looking down
(like Jezebel) from an upper chamber, can discern--

1. Three washerwomen, with the appurtenances thereof.

2. One small boy delivering _The Granta_.

3. A solitary spectacled gentleman, of the type described by the
University Calendar in stately periphrasis as "A Native of Asia, not of
European Parentage" (but more tersely classified by the rest of the
community as "a nigger"), hurrying in cap and gown to secure a good
place at the feet of some out-of-college Gamaliel.

4. A kitchen-man in white jacket and apron, bearing upon his head a tray
containing a salmon mayonnaise, cutlets in aspic, and a special
Cambridge dainty known as "Grassy Corner Pudding"--a fearsome compound
of whipped cream and pistachio nuts.

5. A Buttery boy, walking close behind, with a basket containing
bottles. Evidently some young gentleman is about to entertain
angels--unawares so far as his bill-paying papa is concerned.

6. Four young men converging to a group in the centre of the court. Of
these, two are attired in the undergraduate mode of the moment--tweed
jackets with leather buttons, waistcoats of the Urim and Thummim
variety, grey flannel trousers well turned up, clamorous silk socks, and
heavy Highland shooting brogues. The third wears what the College
Regulations describe rather ingenuously as "Athletic Dress."
Pheidippides himself would have found it difficult to perform feats of
prowess in a costume composed of split pumps, white duck trousers, and a
blazer admirably qualified to serve as a model of the Solar Spectrum.

It may be mentioned in passing that, to the College Regulations,
"Athletic Dress" is not in itself a costume in which it is possible to
perform athletic feats, but one whose colour-scheme clashes with the
_sub-fusc_ standard which obtains in all college courts until one P.M.;
such, in fact, as would tend to distract the eye and sap the diligence
of those who traverse the courts on their way to lectures. In
consequence, he who would be matutinally athletic must either keep his
warpaint somewhere out of college, or drape himself like a stage
conspirator as he flits from his rooms to the river or Fenner's.

The fourth gentleman of the party was dressed, if not gorgeously,
sufficiently respectably to warrant the assumption that he was not a
member of the University.

All four were smoking.

The Dean, glancing in the direction of the gateway, and observing with
sardonic satisfaction that the watchful Cerberus there was taking a note
of the delinquency, returned to his work. Regardless of the prospective
loss of half-a-crown apiece, the undergraduates exchanged cheerful
greetings.

"Hallo, Dishy-Washy!"

"Hallo, Gussie!"

"Hallo, Towzer!"

There ensued an awkward pause, while Messrs. Gussie and Towzer,
nervously conscious of the presence of a stranger to whom they were
about to be presented, looked intently at their boots and waited for the
introduction to take place.

The gentleman previously addressed as Dishy-Washy, a diminutive youth
with wizened features,--his name was Dishart-Watson,--cleared his
throat.

"Introduce my brother," he said huskily. "Mr. Poltimore--Mr. Angus!"

The gentlemen indicated shook hands with the visitor, and Mr. Angus,
after a mental effort, inquired:--

"Come to see us go Head?"

He giggled deprecatingly, to show that he did not really mean this.

"Hope so," said Dishy-Washy's brother politely. "I hear you've got a
pretty hot crew," he added.

"First chop," said Mr. Poltimore. "You just arrived?"

"Yes; down from town this morning."

"Oh! live there?"

"Er--yes."

"Oxford man," interpolated Dishy-Washy swiftly. "Sent down," he added in
extenuation.

The other two nodded sympathetically, and the conversation proceeded
more briskly.

"_Are_ you going to catch those chaps to-night, Dishy?" inquired Mr.
Angus earnestly.

"Don't know," replied Dishy-Washy, who as coxswain of the St. Benedict's
boat enjoyed a position of authority and esteem in inverse ratio to his
inches. "Duncombe's a good enough little oar, but you can't expect a man
who weighs nine stone ten to stroke the boat and pull it along too. Of
course, if we had anything we could call a Six! As for old Puffin--"

"Fourteen stone of tripe!" interpolated Mr. Angus, the gentleman in
Athletic Dress. "Lord help the boat!" he added bitterly.

It may be mentioned in passing that Mr. Angus's athletic achievements
were rather overstated by his costume. His blazer was that of a college
club of twelve members, admission to which was strictly limited to
gentlemen who could absorb a gallon of beer at a draught, and whose
first rule stated that any member who committed the _bêtise_ of taking a
degree, however humble, should pay to the club a fine of five pounds.

"Still," said Towzer hopefully, "there's always Marrable."

Everybody--even the gentleman who had been sent down from
Oxford--cheered up at this reflection.

"By gum!" said the coxswain with sudden enthusiasm, "he's a wonder! You
should have seen him in the boat yesterday. He was rowing a blade that
simply lifted the whole of bow side along by itself; and besides that he
was coaching Stroke all the time--telling him when to swing out and when
to quicken, and bucking him up generally; and on the top of all that he
found time every now and then to turn round and curse old Six. I tell
you, he's a wonder. Did you hear about him last night?"

"I did hear some yarn," said Angus. "Went and smashed up The Owls,
didn't he?"

"Smashed up?" Dishy's saturnine features expanded into a smile that was
almost benevolent. "My lad, _have_ you seen Muggeridge's alabaster brow
this morning?"

Mr. Muggeridge was the president of "The Owls" Wine Club.

"No."

"Well, last night I was going round about half-past ten to see that all
the crew were in their beds. When I came to H, New Court, I found a
devil of a row going on in Muggeridge's rooms--directly under
Duncombe's, you know."

"Yes. Go on," said all, much interested.

"There was a meeting of The Owls on," continued Dishy, "and they'd had
the nerve to hold it on a staircase where there were actually two men of
the crew--Duncombe and Eversley--trying to get to sleep."

"What did you do?" inquired Poltimore.

"Went in and reminded them. I thought they might have forgotten."

"What did they say?"

"They told me to go to--"

"Good Lord!" said the audience, genuinely horrified at the employment of
such language by a non-athletic to an athletic man.

The Owls were a collection of rather dissipated young nobodies, while
Dishy wore a Leander tie, which in a rowing college entitles a man to
something like reverence.

"I soon found it was a put-up job," continued the coxswain. "They had
some grudge against Duncombe, and wanted to score him off. I could hear
him hammering on his bedroom floor above to make them dry up."

"What did you do then?"

"I explained to them exactly what I thought of them," replied the
coxswain simply.

"What did you say, exactly?"

Dishy told them. They smacked their lips appreciatively, and the next
question followed pat.

"And what did _they_ do?"

"Well, they were a bit far gone--"

"Drunken sweeps!" remarked the virtuous Gussie, who belonged to a rival
institution.

"Yes. They were a bit far gone," repeated the coxswain, with the air of
one endeavouring to explain an otherwise unaccountable circumstance,
"and they--well, they hove me out, in fact. There were nine of them," he
added, in the manner of one who is not quite sure if his excuse will be
accepted.

"And then?"

"Then I went straight off to old Hughie's rooms"--there was a respectful
intaking of breath by the company: most of the College were wont to
refer to the gentleman in question as Marrable--"and knocked him up. He
had just gone to bed."

"What did he do?" came the question, in lively anticipation of the
recital to come.

"Put on a few things over his pyjamas, and came along with me."

The audience sighed ecstatically.

"What happened?" said Poltimore.

"Well, things were getting a bit lively by the time we arrived. Just as
we got to the foot of the stair we were greeted by Muggeridge's oak,
which some playful fellow had taken off its hinges and thrown over the
banisters. However, we dodged that and raced up to the first floor.

"You could have heard a pin drop when we walked into the room. One or
two of them looked a bit green, though, when they saw what a towering
passion Hughie was in. Still, Muggeridge was sober enough, and tried to
talk it off. He stood up, and said, 'Hallo, Marrable! This is splendid!
You are just in time to drink to the success of the crew to-morrow.
We're all sportsmen here. Come on, you chaps--no heeltaps!'

"He stood waving his glass, but anybody could see that he was in a
putrid funk.

"Hughie shut the door behind him and leaned against it, and said:--

"'Muggeridge, I don't know you very intimately, but I know this, that
you always were a worm and a bounder. You can't altogether help that,
and personally I don't particularly mind, although you give the College
away a bit. Still, I think the College can bear that. You are quite at
liberty to get full and amuse yourself in any way you please, so long as
you and your pals don't interfere with other people. But when it comes
to disturbing my crew, who have to fight the battles of the College on
behalf of warriors like you and these gentlemen here, whose favourite
field-sport is probably billiards--well, that's just what I call a bit
_too_ thick!'

"All this time Muggeridge was looking pretty averagely uncomfortable.
The other chaps were gazing at him, evidently waiting for a lead. But
you could see he was pretty well up a stump as to what to do next.
However, next time old Hughie paused for breath, he said:--

"'Oh, get out!'

"It was a rotten thing to say. Hughie smiled at him.

"'All right,' he said, 'but I must put you to bed before I go.'

"Before anybody could do anything he was across the room and had a grip
of Muggeridge by the back of the neck and one wrist, which he twisted
round behind somehow. Then he turned him round, and kicked him all the
way across the room into his bedroom. He used Muggeridge's head as a
sort of battering-ram to open the door with. Oh, it was the most
gorgeous spectacle!"

There was a little sigh of rapture all round the group.

Muggeridge was a prominent member of that class of society which
undergraduates and other healthy and outspoken Philistines designate
simply and comprehensively as "Tishbites" or "Tishes."

"He shut him in and locked the door," continued the coxswain, "and then
he turned on the other eight. They were a pretty average lot of
worms--you know them?"

There was a murmur of assent, and Mr. Poltimore, with rather belated
presence of mind, hurriedly explained to the Oxford gentleman that the
band of heroes under discussion were not in any sense representative of
the rank and file of the College.

"--And they just sat round the table looking perfectly paralytic. (As a
matter of fact most of them were.) Hughie laid hold of the biggest of
them--Skeffington--and said:--

"'This meeting is adjourned, gentlemen. Just to show you that I'm
speaking the truth, I'll heave the senior member present downstairs!'"

"Did he?" asked everybody.

"No. He'd have killed him if he had. He picked Skeff up by the collar
and the seat of his bags and said to me, 'Watch 'em, Dishy!' Then he
carried Skeff downstairs, and slugged him into the middle of the grass
plot outside."

"Good egg!" murmured Mr. Angus.

"Didn't the others try to bolt?" inquired Towzer.

"The idea _was_ mooted," replied the coxswain loftily, "but I told them
to sit still or they'd get their silly heads knocked together."

"Did he cart them all downstairs?"

"No; it would have been too tame a job with such a set of mangy squirts.
He simply came back and said:--

"'Now, you miserable little snipes, I give you fifteen seconds to quit
these premises. The last man out will be personally assisted downstairs
by me. I'm sorry I've only got slippers on.' Still, he landed the
Honourable Hopton-Hattersley a very healthy root for all that,"
concluded Dishy, with a seraphic smile. "After that the porter arrived
with the Dean's compliments, and it was past the hour for music,
gentlemen; but Hughie slapped him on the back and told him that he had
arrived too late for the fair. Then he went home to bed as cool as a
cucumber. Oh, he's--Hallo, there he is! I must catch him. So long, you
men! See you at lunch, Reggie."

And Mr. Dishart-Watson, swelling with importance, hurried off to
overtake a figure which had swung out of a distant staircase in the
southwest corner of the court and was striding towards the gateway.

There was no undergraduate slouchiness discernible either in the dress
or in the appearance of the Captain of the St. Benedict's boat. He was a
strong-limbed, clean-run young man of about twenty-one; perhaps a trifle
too muscular to be a quick mover, but, with his broad back and sinewy
loins, an ideally built rowing-man. He was a youth of rather grave
countenance, with shrewd blue eyes which had a habit of disappearing
into his head when he laughed, and a mouth in which, during these same
periods of exhilaration, his friends confidently asserted that you could
post a letter. He was a born leader of men, and, as the discerning
reader will have gathered from Mr. Dishart-Watson's narrative, was still
strongly imbued with what may be called public-school principles of
justice. He entirely refused to suffer fools gladly or even resignedly,
but had a kindly nod for timorous freshmen, a friendly salute for those
Dons who regarded undergraduates as an integral part of the scheme of
college life and not merely as a necessary evil, and a courtly good-day
for fluttered and appreciative bedmakers. He never forgot the faces or
names of any of those over him or under him--Dons and college servants,
that is; and further, in his own walk of life (a society in which you
may recognise the existence of no man, even though he daily passes you
the salt or gathers you under his arm in the familiarity of a Rugby
scrummage, until you have been formally introduced to him), he never
pretended to do so.

While Mr. Dishy-Washy's short legs are endeavouring to bring him
alongside the striding Olympian in front, it will perhaps be well to
explain why it was so absolutely essential to the welfare of St.
Benedict's College that eight young men should enjoy a night's rest
untrammelled by revels on the floors below.

For the benefit of those who have never made a study of that refinement
of torture known as a "bumping" race, it may be mentioned that at Oxford
and Cambridge the various College crews, owing to the narrowness of
their rivers, race not abreast but in a long string, each boat being
separated from its pursuer and pursued by an equal space. Every crew
which succeeds in rowing over the course without being caught (or
"bumped") by the boat behind it is said to have "kept its place," and
starts in the same position for the next day's racing. But if it
contrives to touch the boat in front, it is said to have made a "bump,"
and both bumper and bumped get under the bank with all speed and allow
the rest of the procession to race past. Next day bumper and bumped
change places, and the victors of the day before endeavour to repeat
their performance at the expense of the next boat in front of them. The
crew at "the head of the river" have, of course, nothing to catch, and
can accordingly devote their attention to keeping away from Number Two,
which is usually in close attendance owing to the pressing attention of
Number Three. And so on.

The racing takes place during four successive evenings in the May Week,
so called for the somewhat inadequate reason that it occurs in June. It
was now Saturday, the last day of the races, and the men of St.
Benedict's knew that an enormous effort must be made that evening. So
far they had made two bumps, comparatively easily. Starting from fourth
place they were now second on the river, and only the All Saints boat
stood between them and the haven where they would be. They had tried
last night to bring their foe down, but had failed; they were going to
try again to-night, but All Saints were a terribly strong crew. They had
been Head for five years, and there were four Blues in the boat. Public
opinion admitted that St. Benedict's were about the fastest crew on the
river that year, but considered that a seasoned lot like All Saints
could keep on spurting away long enough to last out the course.

"Unless, of course," people said, "unless Marrable does something extra
special."

It was wonderful what a lot the world in general seemed to expect of
Marrable. Character counts for something even among the very young; and
there is no more youthful member of society than the undergraduate. The
sixth-form boy is a Nestor compared with him.

Meanwhile our diminutive friend Dishy, the coxswain, had succeeded in
overtaking his captain, just as that great man stepped into a hansom in
Trinity Street.

"Where are you off to, Hughie?" he panted.

"Station."

"People?"

"Yes."

"Well, I'm coming with you. I'll cut away before you meet her."

Dishy was one of the few who dared to address Marrable in this strain.

The two installed themselves in the hansom, and while the experienced
animal between the shafts proceeded down Trinity Street, butting its way
through sauntering pedestrians, pushing past country-parsonical
governess carts, taking dogs in its stride, and shrinking apprehensively
from motor-bicycles ridden by hatless youths in bedroom slippers, they
discussed affairs of state.

"There's only one way to do it, Dishy," said Marrable. "I'm going
stroke."

Dishy nodded approvingly.

"It's the only thing to do," he said. "But who is going to row
seven--Stroke?"

"Yes."

"Bow-side will go to pieces," said Dishy with conviction.

"Perhaps. But as things are at present stroke side will."

"That's true," admitted the coxswain. "Let's see now: there'll be you
stroke, Duncombe seven, Puffin six--it's worth trying anyhow. We're
bound to keep away from the James' people, so we might as well have a
shot."

"Clear out now," said Marrable, "and go round and tell the men to be at
the boathouse by four, and we'll have a ten minutes' outing in the new
order. Then, when you've done that, cut down to the boathouse and tell
Jerry to alter my stretcher and Duncombe's."

These commands involved a full hour's excessive activity in a hot sun on
the part of Mr. Dishart-Watson; but Marrable was not the man to spare
himself or his subordinates when occasion demanded.

The coxswain descended to the step of the hansom and clung to the
splash-board as he received his last instructions.

"And tell Jerry," added Marrable, "to get down a new stroke-side oar,
with a good six-inch blade. Duncombe's has been shaved down to a
tooth-pick."

Dishy nodded cheerfully and dropped off into the traffic.

"The old man means business. We shall go Head now," he murmured to
himself with simple confidence. "All right, sir, my fault entirely.
Don't apologise!"

And leaving an inverted motor-cyclist, who had run into him from behind,
to congest the traffic and endure laceration from his own still
faithfully revolving pedals, the coxswain of the St. Benedict's boat
proceeded at a brisk pace back to his College, there to inform a sorely
tried troupe of seven that, owing to an eleventh-hour change in the
cast, a full-dress rehearsal of their evening's performance had been
called for four o'clock sharp.

CHAPTER II

INTRODUCES THE HEROINE OF THIS NARRATIVE

It has been said by those who ought to know that, if the most painful
quarter of an hour in a man's life comes when he is screwing himself up
to proposing-point, the corresponding period in a woman's is that
immediately preceding her first dinner-party in her own house.

Granting the unpleasantness of both these chastening but necessary
experiences, a mere male may be excused for inquiring why the second
should be ear-marked as the exclusive prerogative of the opposite sex.
There is no more morbidly apprehensive creature under the sun than the
undergraduate about to give a state luncheon-party which is to be graced
by the presence of his beloved.

Hughie Marrable sat back in his hansom with knitted brow, and checked
some hieroglyphics on the back of an envelope.

"Let's see," he murmured to himself, "_Dressed crab_. Can't go wrong
there. Told the cook to be sure to send it up in the silver scallops
with the College crest on. After all, it's the trimmings that really
appeal to a woman. Not the food, but the way you serve it up. Rum
creatures!" he added parenthetically. "_Prawns in aspic_. That always
looks nice, anyway, though not very filling at the price. I remember
last year Kitty Devenish said it looked simply--"

Hughie checked his soliloquy rather suddenly, and, if any one else had
been present in the hansom, would probably have blushed a little. Miss
Kitty Devenish was what cycle-dealers term "a last year's model," and at
the present moment Hughie was driving to meet some one else. He
continued:--

"_Cutlets à la reform_. Quite the best thing the kitchens turn out, but
not so showy as they might be. Still, with old Huish's Crown Derby
plates--it was decent of the old man to lend them; I hope to goodness
Mrs. Gunn won't do anything rash with them--they ought to do. _Grassy
corner pudding_. That always creates excitement, though it tastes
rotten. _Fruit salad_; _crême brûlé_. That's safe enough. _Macaroni au
gratin_. She won't touch it, but it'll please Uncle Jimmy and Jack Ames.
Wish I could have some myself! Never mind; only about six hours more!"

Hughie smacked his lips. It is hard to sit among the flesh-pots and not
partake thereof. His fare at this feast would be cold beef and dry
toast.

He turned over the envelope.

"H'm--drink. Don't suppose she'll have anything, but I can't take that
for granted. There's a bottle of Berncastler Doctor and some Beaune. I
wonder if it would be best to have them open before I ask her what
she'll drink, or ask her what she'll drink before I open them. I'll have
'em open, I think. She might refuse if she saw the corks weren't drawn.
Anyhow Mrs. Ames will probably take some. But, great Scott! I must ask
Mrs. Ames first, mustn't I? That's settled anyway. She'll probably take
whatever Mrs. Ames takes.

"Then there are the table decorations. I wish to goodness I could
remember whether it _was_ wall-flower she said. I think it must have
been, because I remember making some putrid joke to her once about like
attracting unlike. Anyhow, it's too late to change it now. I've plumped
for wall-flower, and the room simply stinks of it.

"Then the seats. Me at the head, with Mrs. Ames on one hand and her on
the other. Uncle Jimmy at the end, with Ames on his left and Dicky Lunn
between Mrs. Ames and Uncle Jimmy. Yes, Ames _must_ sit there. Lord
knows, Dicky Lunn should be safe enough, but you never know what sort of
man a girl won't take a fancy to. And after all, Ames is married," added
the infatuated youth.

"Then Mrs. Gunn. I think I've told her everything." He feverishly ticked
off his admonitions on his fingers. "Let me see,--

"_One_: not to put used plates on the floor.

"_Two_: not to join in the conversation.

"_Three_: not to let that wobbly affair in her bonnet dip into the food.

"_Four_: not to breathe on things or polish them with her apron, except
out of sight.

"_Five_: not to attempt on any account to hand round the drink.

"_Six_: to go away directly after lunch and not trot in and out of the
gyp-room munching remains.

"The tea-hamper should be all right. Trust the kitchens for that! I must
remember to stick in a box of chocolates, though. And I don't think I
need bother about dinner, as they are going to send in Richards to wait.
Anyhow, I shall have the boat off my chest by that time. That will be
something, especially _if_--"

Hughie lapsed into silence, and for a moment a vision of love requited
gave place in his imagination to the spectacle of the Benedictine crew
going Head of the river.

His reflections were interrupted by the arrival of his equipage at that
combined masterpiece of imposing architecture and convenient
arrangement, Cambridge railway station. The platform was crowded with
young men, most of them in "athletic dress," waiting for the London
train. The brows of all were seamed with care, partaking in all
probability of the domestic and amorous variety which obsessed poor
Hughie.

The train as usual dashed into the station with a haughty
can't-stop-at-a-hole-like-this expression, only to clank across some
points and grind itself to an ignominious and asthmatic standstill at a
distant point beside the solitary and interminable platform which,
together with a ticket-office and a bookstall, prevents Cambridge
railway station from being mistaken for a rather out-of-date dock-shed.

Presently Hughie, running rapidly, observed his guests descending from a
carriage.

First came a pleasant-faced lady of between thirty and forty, followed
by a stout and easy-going husband. Next, an oldish gentleman with a
white moustache and a choleric blue eye. And finally--pretty, fresh, and
disturbing--appeared the _fons et origo_ of the entire expedition, on
whose account the disposition and incidents of Hughie's luncheon-party
had been so cunningly planned and so laboriously rehearsed--Miss Mildred
Freshwater.

The party greeted their host characteristically. His uncle, even as he
shook hands, let drop a few fervent anticipatory remarks on the subject
of lunch; Mr. Ames, who was an old college boat captain, coupled his
greeting with an anxious inquiry as to the club's prospects of success
that evening; Mrs. Ames' eyes plainly said, "Well, I've _brought_ her,
my boy; now wire in!" and Miss Freshwater, when it came to her turn,
shook hands with an unaffected pleasure and _camaraderie_ which would
have suited Hughie better if there had been discernible upon her face
what Yum-Yum once pithily summed up as "a trace of diffidence or
shyness."

Still, Hughie was so enraptured with the vision before him that he
failed to observe a small and shrinking figure which had coyly emerged
from the train, and was hanging back, as if doubtful about its
reception, behind Mrs. Ames' skirts. Presently it detached itself and
stood before Hughie in the form of a small girl with coppery brown hair
and wide grey-blue eyes.

"Joey!" shouted Hughie.

"She would come!" explained his uncle, in the resigned tones of a strong
man who knows his limits.

The lady indicated advanced to Hughie's side, and, taking his hand,
rubbed herself ingratiatingly against him in the inarticulate but
eloquent manner peculiar to dumb animals and young children.

CHAPTER III

JIMMY MARRABLE

Luncheon on the whole was a success, though Mrs. Gunn's behaviour
exceeded anything that Hughie had feared.

She began by keeping the ladies adjusting their hair in Hughie's bedroom
for something like ten minutes, while she recited to them a detailed and
revolting description of her most recent complaint. Later, she initiated
an impromptu and unseemly campaign--beginning with a skirmish of
whispers in the doorway, swelling uproariously to what sounded like a
duet between a cockatoo and a bloodhound on the landing outside, and
dying away to an irregular fire of personal innuendoes, which dropped
over the banisters one by one, like the gentle dew of heaven, on to the
head of the retreating foe beneath--with a kitchen-man over a thumb-mark
on a pudding-plate.

But fortunately for Hughie the company tacitly agreed to regard her as a
form of comic relief; and when she kept back the salad-dressing for the
express purpose--frustrated at the very last moment--of pouring it over
the sweets; yea, even when she suddenly plucked a hairpin from her head
with which to spear a wasp in the grassy corner pudding, the ladies
agreed that she was "an old pet." When Mrs. Ames went so far as to
follow her into the gyp-room after lunch and thank her for her trouble
in waiting upon them, Mrs. Gunn, divided between extreme gratification
and a desire to lose no time, unlimbered her batteries at once; and
Hughie's tingling ears, as he handed round the coffee, overheard the
portentous and mysterious fragment: "Well, mum, I put 'im straight to
bed, and laid a hot flannel on his--," just as the door of the gyp-room
swung to with a merciful bang.

It was now after two, and Hughie, in response to a generally expressed
desire, laid before his guests a detailed programme for the afternoon.
He proposed, first of all, to show them round the College. After that
the party would proceed to Ditton Paddock in charge of Mr. Richard
Lunn--who, it will be remembered, had been selected by Hughie as
cavalier on account of his exceptional qualifications for the post--in
company with a substantial tea-basket, the contents of which he hoped
would keep them fortified in body and spirit until the races began with
the Second Division, about five-thirty.

"How are you going to get us down to Ditton, Hughie?" inquired his
uncle.

"Well, there's a fly which will hold five of you, and I thought"--Hughie
cleared his throat--"I could take the other one down in a canoe."

There was a brief pause, while the company, glancing at one another with
varying expressions of solemnity, worked out mental problems in
Permutations and Combinations. Presently the tactless Ames inquired:--

"Which one are you going to take in the canoe?"

"Oh, anybody," said Hughie, in a voice which said as plainly as
possible: "Silly old ass!"

However, realising that it is no use to continue skirmishing after your
cover has been destroyed, he directed a gaze of invitation upon Miss
Freshwater, who was sitting beside him on the seat.

She turned to him before he could speak.

"Hughie," she said softly, "take that child. Just look at her!"

Hughie obediently swallowed something, and turned to the wide-eyed and
wistful picture on the sofa.

"Will you come, Joey?" he inquired.

The lady addressed signified, by a shudder of ecstasy, that the answer
to the invitation was in the affirmative.

"Meanwhile," said Mr. Marrable, "I am going to smoke a cigar before I
stir out of this room. And if you people will spare Hughie for ten
minutes, I'll keep him here and have a short talk with him. I must go
back to-night."

The accommodating Mr. Lunn suggested that this interval should be
bridged by a personally conducted expedition to his rooms downstairs,
where he would have great pleasure in exhibiting to the company a
"rather decent" collection of door-knockers and bell-handles, the
acquisition of which articles of _vertu_ (he being a youth of strong
wrist and fleet foot) was a special hobby of his.

Hughie was left alone with his uncle--the only relation he possessed in
the world, and the man who had been to him both father and mother for
nearly eighteen years.

Hughie had been born in India. His recollections of his parents were
vague in the extreme, but if he shut both eyes and pressed hard upon
them with his hands he could summon up various pictures of a beautiful
lady, whose arms were decked with glittering playthings that jingled
musically when she carved the chicken for Hughie's nursery dinner. He
particularly remembered these arms, for their owner had a pleasant habit
of coming up to kiss him good-night after his ayah had put him to bed.
On these occasions they were always bare; and Hughie remembered quite
distinctly how much more comfortable they were then than next morning at
tiffin, when they were enclosed in sleeves which sometimes scratched.

Of his father he remembered less, except that he was a very large person
who wore gorgeous raiment of scarlet. Also things on his heels which
clicked. He had a big voice, too, this man, and he used to amuse himself
by training Hughie to stand stiffly erect whenever he cried, "'Shun!"

Hughie also remembered a voyage on a big ship, where the passengers made
much of him, and a fascinating person in a blue jersey (which
unfortunately scratched) presented him with numerous string balls, which
smelt most gloriously of tar but always fell into the Indian Ocean or
some other inaccessible place.

Then he remembered arriving with his parents at a big bungalow in a
compound full of grassplots and flower-beds, where a person whom he
afterwards learned to call Uncle Jimmy greeted him gravely and asked him
to accept his hospitality for a time. After that--quite soon--he
remembered saying good-bye to his parents, or rather, his parents saying
good-bye to him. The big man shook him long and solemnly by the hand,
which hurt a good deal but impressed Hughie deeply, and the beautiful
lady's arms--with thick sleeves on, too!--clung round Hughie's neck till
he thought he would choke. But he stood stiffly at "'shun" all the time,
because his parents seemed thoroughly unhappy about something, and he
desired to please them. He had never had a woman's arms round his neck
since.

After his parents had gone, he settled down happily enough in the big
compound, which he soon learned to call "the garding." The name of the
bungalow he gathered from most of the people with whom he came in
contact was "The 'All," though there were some who called it "Manors,"
and Uncle Jimmy, who, too, apparently possessed more than one name, was
invariably referred to by Hughie's friends in the village as "Ole
Peppery."

Very shortly after his parents' departure Hughie overheard a
conversation between his uncle and Mrs. Capper, the lady who managed the
household, which puzzled him a good deal.

"Understand, Capper, I won't have it," said his uncle.

"Think what people will say, sir," urged Mrs. Capper respectfully but
insistently.

"I don't care a"--Capper coughed discreetly here--"what people say. The
boy is not going to be decked out in crape and hearse-plumes to please
you or any other old woman."

"Hearse-plumes would not be essential, sir," said the literal Capper.
"But I think the child should have a little black suit."

"The child will run about in his usual rags," replied Old Peppery, in a
voice of thunder; "and if I catch you or any one else stuffing him up
with yarns about canker-worms or hell-fire, or any trimmings of that
description, I tell you straight that there will be the father and
mother of a row."

"Yes, sir," said Capper meekly. "And I desire, sir," she added in the
same even tone, "to give warning."

Thereupon Uncle Jimmy had stamped his way downstairs to the hall, and
Hughie was left wondering what the warning could have been which Mrs.
Capper desired to utter. It must have been a weighty one, for she
continued to deliver it at intervals during the next ten years, long
indeed after Hughie's growing intelligence had discovered its meaning.
But her utterances received about as much attention from her employer as
Cassandra's from hers.

However, the immediate result of the conversation recorded above
was that Mrs. Capper made no attempt to deck Hughie in crape or
hearse-plumes; and later on, when he was old enough to understand the
meaning of death, his uncle told him how his parents had gone to their
God together--"the happiest fate, old man, that can fall on husband and
wife"--one stormy night in the Bay of Biscay, in company with every
other soul on board the troop-ship Helianthus, and that henceforth
Hughie must be prepared to regard the broken-down old buffer before him
as his father and mother.

Hughie had gravely accepted this arrangement, and for more than
seventeen years he and his uncle had treated one another as father and
son.

Jimmy Marrable was a little eccentric,--but so are most old
bachelors,--and like a good many eccentric men he rather prided himself
on his peculiarities. If anything, he rather cultivated them. One of his
most startling characteristics was a habit of thinking aloud. He would
emerge unexpectedly from a brown study, to comment to himself with
stunning suddenness and absolute candour on the appearance and manners
of those around him. It was credibly reported that he had once taken a
rather intense and voluble lady in to dinner, and after regarding her
for some time with a fixity of attention which had deluded the good soul
into the belief that he was hanging on her lips, had remarked to
himself, with appalling distinctness, during a lull in the conversation:
"Guinea set--misfit at the top--gutta-percha fixings--wonder they don't
drop into her soup!" and continued his meal without any apparent
consciousness of having said anything unusual.

He was eccentric, too, about other matters. Once Hughie, returning from
school for his holidays, discovered that there had been an addition to
the family in his absence.

Mrs. Capper's very face in the hall told him that something was wrong.
Its owner informed Hughie that though one should be prepared to take
life as one found it, and live and let live had been her motto from
infancy, her equilibrium ever since the thing had happened had lain at
the mercy of the first aggressively disposed feather that came along,
and what people in the neighbourhood would say she dared not think.

She ran on. Hughie waited patiently, and presently unearthed the facts.

A few weeks ago the master had returned from a protracted visit to
London, bringing with him two children. He had announced that the
pair were henceforth to be regarded as permanent inmates of the
establishment. Beyond the fact that one brat was fair and a boy and the
other darkish and a girl, and that Mrs. Capper had given warning on
sight, Hughie could elicit nothing, and waited composedly for his uncle
to come home from shooting.

Jimmy Marrable, when he arrived, was not communicative. He merely stated
that the little devils were the children of an old friend of his, called
Gaymer, who had died suddenly and left them to be brought up by him as
guardian.

"And Hughie, my son," he concluded, "if you don't want your head bitten
off you will refrain in this case from indulging in your propensity for
asking why and getting to the bottom of things. I'm not best pleased at
finding them on my hands, but here they are and there's an end of it.
The girl is five--ten years younger than you--and the boy's eight. She
is called Joan, and his idiotic name is Lancelot Wellesley. I wonder
they didn't christen him Galahad Napoleon! Come upstairs and see them."

All this had occurred seven years ago. During that time Lancelot
Wellesley Gaymer had grown up sufficiently to go to a public school, and
consequently Miss Joan Gaymer had been left very much in the company of
the curious old gentleman whom she had soon learned to call Unker Zimmy.
Of their relations it will be sufficient at present to mention that a
more curiously assorted and more thoroughly devoted couple it would be
difficult to find.

Jimmy Marrable reclined on the window seat and smoked his cigar. His
nephew, enviously eyeing the blue smoke, sprawled in an arm-chair.

"Hughie," said the elder man suddenly, "how old are you? Twenty-one,
isn't it?"

"Yes."

"And are you going down for good next week?"

"Yes." Hughie sighed.

"Got a degree?"

"Tell you on Tuesday."

"Tell me now."

"Well--yes, I should think."

"What in?"

"Mechanical Stinks--Engineering. Second Class, if I'm lucky."

"Um. Got any vices?"

"Not specially."

"Drink?"

"No."

"Not a teetotaller?" said Jimmy Marrable in some concern.

"No."

"That's good. Ever been drunk?"

"Yes."

"Badly, I mean. I'm not talking about bump-supper exhilaration."

"Only once."

"When?"

"My first term."

"What for?"

"To see what it was like."

"Perfectly sound proceeding," commented Jimmy Marrable. "What were your
impressions of the experiment?"

"I haven't got any," said Hughie frankly. "I only woke up next morning
in bed with my boots on."

"Who put you there?"

"Seven other devils."

"And you have not repeated the experiment?"

"No. There's no need. I know my capacity to a glass now."

"Then you know something really worth knowing," remarked Jimmy Marrable
with sincerity. "Now, what are you going to do with yourself? Why not go
and see the world a bit? You have always wanted to. And do it thoroughly
while you are about it. Take five years over it; ten if you like. You
_will_ like, you know. It's in the blood. That's why I think you are
wise not to want to enter the Service. You can always scrape in
somewhere if there _is_ a war, and barrack-life in time of peace
would corrode your very heart out. It nearly killed your dad at
five-and-twenty. That was why he exchanged and took to the Frontier, and
ended his days in command of a Goorkha regiment. Life at first hand;
that's what we Marrables thrive on! I never set foot in this country
myself between the ages of twenty and thirty-three. I would come with
you again if it wasn't for Anno Domini--and the nippers. But you'll find
a good many old friends of mine dotted about the world. They're not all
folk I could give you letters of introduction to--some of 'em don't
speak English and others can't read and write; but they'll show you the
ropes better than any courier. You take my advice, and go. England is no
place for a young man with money and no particular profession, until
he's over thirty and ready to marry. Will you go, Hughie?"

Hughie's expression showed that he was considering the point rather
reluctantly. His uncle continued:--

"Money all right, I suppose? You have eight hundred a-year now you are
of age. Got any debts, eh? I'll help you."

"None to speak of. Thanks all the same."

"Well; why not go?"

"I should like to go more than anything," said Hughie slowly, "but--"

"Well?"

"I don't know--that is--"

"I _do_," said Jimmy Marrable with characteristic frankness. "You are
struggling between an instinct which tells you to do the sensible thing
and an overpowering desire to do a dashed silly one."

Hughie grew very red.

His uncle continued:--

"You want to marry that girl."

Hughie blazed up.

"I do," he said, rather defiantly.

The cigar glowed undisturbedly.

"You think that life has no greater happiness to offer you?"

"I am sure of it," said Hughie, with an air of one stating a simple
truth.

"And you are twenty-one?"

"Ye--es," with less fire.

Jimmy Marrable smoked reflectively for a few minutes.

"I am an old bachelor," he said at last, "and old bachelors are supposed
to know nothing about love-affairs. The truth of course is that they
know far more than any one else."

Hughie was accustomed to these _obiter dicta_.

"Why?" he asked dutifully.

"Well, for the same reason that a broken swashbuckler knows a deal more
about soldiering than a duly enrolled private of the line. He has had a
more varied experience. The longer a man remains a bachelor the more he
learns about women; and the more he learns about women the better able
he will be to make his way in the world. Therefore, if he marries young
he reduces his chances of success in life to a minimum. The sad part
about it all is that, provided he gets the girl he wants, he doesn't
care. That, by the way, is the reason why nearly all the most famous men
in history have either been unhappily married or not married at all.
Happiness has no history. Happily married men are never ambitious. They
don't go toiling and panting after--"

"They have no need to," said Hughie. "A man doesn't go on running after
a tram-car after he has caught it."

"That begs the question, Hughie. It presumes that all the available
happiness in the world is contained in one particular tram-car. Besides,
the tram-cars you mean are intended for men over thirty. The young ought
to walk."

Hughie realised that the conversation was growing rather too subtle for
him, and reverted to plain cut and thrust.

"Then you think no man should marry before thirty?" he said.

"Nothing of the kind! It depends on the man. If he is a steady, decent,
average sort of fellow, who regards a ledger as a Bible and an
office-stool as a stepping-stone to the summit of the universe, and
possesses no particular aptitude for the rough-and-tumble of life, the
sooner he marries and settles down as a contented old pram-pusher the
better for him and the nation. Do you fancy yourself in that line,
Hughie?"

"No-o-o," said Hughie reluctantly. "But I might learn," he added
hopefully. "I'm a pretty adaptable bloke."

Jimmy Marrable threw his cigar-end out of the window, and sat up.

"Listen, Hughie," he said, "and I'll tell you what you _really_ are. You
are the son of a mother who climbed out of her bedroom window (and let
herself down a rain-pipe that I wouldn't have trusted a monkey on) in
order to elope with the man she loved. Your father was the commander of
as tough a native regiment as I have ever known. Your grandfather was an
explorer. I've been a bit of a rolling-stone myself. About one relation
of yours in three dies in his bed. You come of a stock which prefers to
go and see things for itself rather than read about them in the
newspaper, and which has acquired a considerable knowledge of the art of
handling men in the process. Those are rather rare assets. If you take a
woman in tow at the tender age of twenty-one, there will be a disaster.
Either you will sit at home and eat your heart out, or you will go
abroad and leave her to eat out hers. Am I talking sense?"

Hughie sighed like a furnace.

"Yes, confound you!" he said.

"Will you promise not to rush into matrimony, then?"

"Perhaps she'll wait for me," mused Hughie.

"How old is she?"

"Twenty-one, like me."

"H'm," remarked Jimmy Marrable drily. "That means that she is for all
practical purposes ten years your senior. However, perhaps she will.
Pigs might fly. But will you promise me to think the matter over very
carefully before deciding not to go abroad?"

"Yes," said Hughie.

"That being the case," continued his uncle briskly, "I want to tell you
one or two things. If you do go, I may never see you again."

"I say," said Hughie in alarm, "there's nothing wrong with your health,
is there, old man?"

"Bless you, no! But once a Marrable takes to the wilds Methuselah
himself couldn't reckon on living long enough to see him again. So I am
going to talk to you while I've got you. I am taking this opportunity of
being near town to see my solicitor and make my will. I am fit enough,
but I am fifty this year; and at that age a man ought to make some
disposition of his property. I may as well tell you that I have left you
nothing. Annoyed?"

"Not in the least."

"And I have left nothing to Master Lance."

Hughie looked a little surprised at this.

"I mean to start him on his own legs before my demise," explained Jimmy
Marrable. "Immediately, in fact. That is partly what I am going up to
town for. I am investing a sum for him which ought to bring him in about
two hundred a year for the rest of his life. He's nearly sixteen now,
and he'll have to administer his income himself--pay his own
school-bills and everything. Just as I made you do. Nothing like
accustoming a boy to handling money when he's young. Then he doesn't go
a mucker when he suddenly comes into a lot of it. I shan't give him
more, because it would prevent him from working. Two hundred won't. A
slug would perhaps live contentedly enough on it, but Lancelot Wellesley
Gaymer is a pretentious young sweep, and he'll work in order to gain the
means for making a splash. The two hundred will keep him going till he
finds his feet."

Jimmy Marrable paused, and surveyed his nephew rather irritably.

"Well," he inquired at length, "haven't you any contribution to make to
this conversation?"

"Can't say I have had much chance so far," replied the disrespectful
Hughie.

"Don't you want to know what I'm going to do with the rest of my money?
That's a question that a good many people are worrying themselves about.
Don't you want to join in the inquisition?"

"Can't say I do. No business of mine."

His uncle surveyed him curiously.

"You're infernally like your father, Hughie," he said. "Well, I'm going
to leave it to Joey."

"Good scheme," said Hughie.

"You think so?"

"Rather!"

"There's a lot of it," continued his uncle reflectively. "Some of it is
tied up rather queerly, too. My executors will have a bit of a job."

He surveyed the impassive Hughie again.

"Don't you want to know who my executors are?" he inquired quite
angrily.

"No," said Hughie, who was deep in other thoughts at the moment. "Not my
business," he repeated.

"Hughie," said Jimmy Marrable, "you are poor Arthur over again. He was a
cursedly irritating chap at times," he added explosively.

A babble of cheerful voices on the staircase announced the return of the
safe-looking Mr. Lunn and party. They flowed in, entranced with that
gentleman's door-knockers (the countenances of which, by the way, were
usually compared by undergraduate critics, not at all unfavourably, with
that of their owner), and declared themselves quite ready now to be
properly impressed by whatever features of the College Hughie should be
pleased to exhibit to them.

One tour round a College is very like another; and we need not therefore
follow our friends up and down winding staircases, or in and out of
chapels and libraries, while they gaze down on the resting-places of
the illustrious dead or gape up at the ephemeral abodes of the
undistinguished living.

The expedition was chiefly remarkable (to the observant eye of Mrs.
Ames) for the efforts made by its conductor to get lost in suitable
company--an enterprise which was invariably frustrated by the resolute
conduct of that small but determined hero-worshipper, Miss Joan Gaymer.
On one occasion, however, Hughie and Miss Freshwater were left together
for a moment. The party had finished surveying the prospect from the
roof of the College Chapel, and were painfully groping their way in
single file down a spiral staircase. Only Hughie, Miss Freshwater, and
the ubiquitous Miss Gaymer were left at the top.

"You go next, Joey," said Hughie; "then Miss Freshwater, then me."

The lady addressed plunged obediently into the gloomy chasm at her feet.
She observed with frank jealousy that the other two did not immediately
follow her, and accordingly waited for them in the belfry half-way down.

Presently she heard their footsteps descending; and Miss Freshwater's
voice said:--

"I wanted to tell you about it first of anybody, Hughie, because you and
I have always been such friends. Nobody else knows yet."

There was a silence, broken only by Hughie's footsteps, evidently
negotiating a difficult turn. Then Miss Freshwater's voice continued, a
little wistfully:--

"Aren't you going to congratulate me?"

And Hughie's voice, sounding strangely sepulchral in the echoing
darkness, replied:--

"Rather! I--I--hope you'll be very happy. Mind that step."

Miss Gaymer wondered what it was all about.

Hughie found an opportunity before the day was over of holding another
brief conversation with his uncle, in the course of which he expressed
an opinion on the advantages of immediate and extensive foreign travel
which sent that opponent of early marriages back to town in a thoroughly
satisfied frame of mind.

"There ought to be a statue," said Jimmy Marrable to his cigar, as he
leaned back reflectively in his railway carriage, "set up in the capital
of every British Colony, representing a female figure in an attitude of
aloofness, and inscribed: _Erected by a grateful Colony to its Principal
Emigration Agent--The Girl at Home Who Married Somebody Else_."

Then he sighed to himself--rather forlornly, a woman would have said.

CHAPTER IV

AN UNDERSTUDY

"_The indulgence of the audience is asked on behalf of Miss Joan
Gaymer, who, owing to the sudden indisposition of Miss Mildred
Freshwater, has taken up that lady's part at very short notice._"

A couple of hours later Hughie, roaring very gently for so great a lion,
was engaged in paddling a Canadian canoe down to Ditton Corner.

The canoe contained one passenger, who, with feminine indifference to
the inflexible laws of science, was endeavouring to assist its progress
by paddling in the wrong direction. Her small person, propped by
convenient cushions, was wedged into the bow of the vessel, and her
white frock and attenuated black legs were protected from the results of
her own efforts at navigation by a spare blazer of Hughie's. Her hat lay
on the floor of the canoe, half-full of cherries, and her long hair
rippled and glimmered in the afternoon sun. Miss Joan Gaymer would be a
beauty some day, but for the present all knowledge of that fact was
being tactfully withheld from her. To do her justice, the prospect would
have interested her but little. Like most small girls of eleven, she
desired nothing so much at present as to resemble a small boy as closely
as possible. She would rather have captured one bird's-nest than twenty
hearts, and appearances she counted as dross provided she could hold her
own in a catherine-wheel competition.

They were rather a silent couple. Joan was filled with that contentment
which is beyond words. She was wearing a new frock; she had escaped
under an escort almost exclusively male--if we except the benevolent
despotism of Mrs. Ames--from home, nurse, and governess, to attend a
series of purely grown-up functions; and to crown all, she was alone in
the canoe, a light-blue blazer spread over her knees, with one who
represented to her small experience the head and summit of all that a
man should--nay, could--be.

"I expect," she remarked, in a sudden burst of exultation, as the canoe
slid past two gorgeously arrayed young persons who were seated by the
water's edge, "that those two are pretty sorry they're not in this canoe
with us."

The ladies referred to arose and walked inland with some deliberation.
Hughie did not answer. His brow was knitted and his manner somewhat
absent.

"Hughie," announced Miss Gaymer reproachfully, "you are looking very
cross at me."

She had a curiously gruff and hoarse little voice, and suffered in
addition from inability to pronounce those elusive consonants _r_ and
_l_. So she did not say "very cross," but "ve'y c'oss," in a deep bass.

Hughie roused himself.

"Sorry, Joey!" he said; "I was thinking."

"Sec'ets?" inquired Miss Gaymer, all agog with femininity at once.

"No."

"Oh,"--rather disappointedly. "About your old boat, then?"

"Yes," said Hughie untruthfully. "Do you quite understand how we race?"

"I _think_ so," said the child. "Your boat is second, and it wants to
bump into the boat in f'ont--is that it?"

"Yes."

"Well, do it just when you pass us, will you?"

"I'll try," said Hughie, beginning to brighten up. "But it may take
longer than that. About the Railway Bridge, I should think."

"And after the race will _you_ take me home again?" inquired the lady
anxiously.

"Can't be done, I'm afraid. The race finishes miles from Ditton, where
you will be; and I shouldn't be able to get back in time. You had better
drive home with the others."

"When shall I see you again, then?" demanded Miss Gaymer, who was not of
an age to be reticent about the trend of her virgin affections.

"About seven. You are all coming to dine in my rooms."

"Ooh!" exclaimed his companion in a flutter of excitement. "How long can
I sit up?"

"Ask Mrs. Ames," replied the diplomatic Hughie.

"Till _ten_?" hazarded Joey, with the air of one initiating a Dutch
auction.

"Don't ask _me_, old lady."

"Supposing," suggested Miss Gaymer craftily, "that you was to say you
wanted me to sit up and keep you company?"

Hughie laughed. "Afraid that wouldn't work. I have to go out about nine
to a Bump Supper."

"What's that?"

"A College supper, in honour of the men who have been rowing."

"I like suppers," said Miss Gaymer tentatively.

Hughie smiled. "I don't think you'd like this one, Joey," he said.

"Why? Don't they have any sixpences or thimbles in the t'ifle?" said
Miss Gaymer, in whose infant mind the word supper merely conjured up a
vision of sticky children, wearing paper caps out of crackers,
distending themselves under adult supervision.

"I don't think they _have_ any trifle."

"Perfectly p'eposte'ous!" commented Miss Gaymer with heat. (I think it
has already been mentioned that she spent a good deal of her time in the
company of Jimmy Marrable.) "Ices?"

"Let me see. Yes--sometimes."

"Ah!" crooned Joey, with a happy little sigh. "_Can't_ I come?"

"Afraid not, madam. Bump Suppers are for gentlemen only."

"I should like that," said madam frankly.

"And they are rather noisy. You might get frightened."

"Not if I was sitting alongside of you," was the tender reply.

Joey's anxiety for his company renewed Hughie's depression of spirits.
Admiration and confidence are very desirable tributes to receive; but
when they come from every quarter save the right one the desirability of
that quarter is only intensified. Poor human nature! Hughie sighed again
in a manner which caused the entire canoe to vibrate. Miss Gaymer
suddenly turned the conversation.

"What was that person talking to you about, Hughie?" she inquired.

"Who?"

"That person that came with us in the t'ain. Miss--" Joey's mouth
twisted itself into a hopeless tangle.

"Freshwater?" said Hughie, reddening.

"Yes. When you were taking us round the Co'ege after lunch you and her
stayed behind on the top of the Chapel, while the rest of us were coming
down. When I was waiting for you, I heard her say: 'You're the first to
hear of it, Hughie.' To hear of what?"

Hughie looked genuinely disturbed.

"I don't know whether she wants it known yet, Joey," he said.

Miss Gaymer assumed an expression before which she knew that most
gentlemen of her acquaintance, from Uncle Jimmy down to the coachman at
home, were powerless.

"Hughie dear, you'll tell _me_, won't you?" she said.

Hughie, making a virtue of necessity, agreed.

"Well, promise you won't tell anybody," he said.

"All right," agreed Miss Gaymer, pleasantly intrigued.

"She's going to be married," said Hughie, in a voice which he
endeavoured to make as matter-of-fact as possible. It was not a very
successful effort. At twenty-one these things hurt quite as much, if not
so lastingly, as in later life.

"I'm ve'y g'ad to hear it," remarked Miss Gaymer with composure.

Hughie looked at the small flushed face before him rather curiously.

"Why, Joey?" he asked.

"Never mind!" replied Miss Gaymer primly.

After that the conversation languished, for they were approaching the
race-course, and boats of every size and rig were thronging round them.
There was the stately family gig, with an academic and myopic
paterfamilias at the helm and his numerous progeny at the oars, sweeping
the deep of surrounding craft like Van Tromp's broom. There was the
typical May Week argosy, consisting of a rowing-man's mother and
sisters, left in the care of two or three amorous but unnautical
cricketers, what time their relative performed prodigies of valour in
the Second Division. There was also a particularly noisome home-made
motor-boat,--known up and down the river from Grantchester to Ely as
"The Stinkpot,"--about the size of a coffin, at present occupied (in the
fullest sense of the word) by its designer, builder, and owner; who,
packed securely into his craft, with his feet in a pile of small coal,
the end of the boiler in the pit of his stomach, and the engines working
at fever heat between his legs, was combining the duties of stoker,
engineer, helmsman, and finally (with conspicuous success) director of
ramming operations.

Through these various obstacles Hughie, despite the assistance of his
passenger, directed his canoe with unerring precision, and finally
brought up with all standing beside the piles at Ditton. He experienced
no difficulty in making arrangements for the return journey of the
canoe, for a gentleman of his acquaintance begged to be allowed the
privilege of navigating it home, pleading internal pressure in his own
craft as the reason. Hughie granted the boon with alacrity, merely
wondering in his heart which of the three languishing damsels planted
round his friend's tea-urn he had to thank for the deliverance.

They found the fly in a good position close to the water, with the rest
of the party drinking tea, and meekly wondering when the heroes who
dotted the landscape in various attitudes of nervousness would
disencumber themselves of their gorgeous trappings and get to business.
Hughie deposited Joan beside a mountain of buns and a fountain of tea,
and, after expressing a hope that every one was getting on all right,
announced that the Second Division might be expected to paddle down at
any moment now.

This statement involved a chorus of questions regarding the
technicalities of rowing, which that model of utility, Mr. Lunn, had
confessed himself unable to answer, and which had accordingly been held
over till Hughie's arrival.

Hughie's rather diffident impersonation of Sir Oracle, and his intricate
explanation of the exact difference between bucketing and tubbing
(listened to with respectful interest by surrounding tea-parties), was
suddenly interrupted by a small but insistent voice, which besought him
to turn the tap off and look pretty for a moment.

There was a shout of laughter, and Hughie turned round, to find that one
of those privileged and all too inveterate attendants upon the modern
athlete, a photographer, was (with the assistance of a megaphone)
maintaining a reputation for humorous offensiveness, at his expense, on
the towpath opposite.

After this the Second Division paddled down to the start, arrayed in
colours which would have relegated such competitors as King Solomon and
the lilies of the field to that euphemistic but humiliating category
indicated by the formula "Highly Commended." Presently they returned,
unclothed to an alarming and increasing extent, and rowing forty to the
minute. One crew brought off a "gallery" bump right at Ditton Corner, to
the joy of the galaxy of beauty and fashion thereon assembled. The
bumped crew made the best of an inglorious situation by running into the
piles and doubling up the nose of the boat, which suddenly buckled and
assumed a sentry-box attitude over the head of the apoplectic gentleman
who was rowing bow. The good ship herself incontinently sank, all hands
going down with her like an octette of Casabiancas. Whereupon applause
for the victors was turned into cries of compassion for the vanquished.
However, as all concerned shook themselves clear of the wreck without
difficulty and paddled contentedly to the bank, the panic subsided, and
the rest of the procession raced past without further incident.

As the last boat, remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow, accompanied by a
coloured gentleman ringing a dinner-bell and a spectacled don who
trotted alongside chanting, "Well rowed, Non-Collegiate Students!"
creaked dismally past, Hughie arose and shook himself.

"Our turn now," he said. "So long, everybody!"

"Good luck, Hughie!" said Mrs. Ames. "Your health!"

She waved her cup and then took a sip of tea.

There was a chorus of good wishes from the party, and one or two
neighbouring enthusiasts raised a cry of "Benedict's!" which swelled to
a roar as Hughie, flushing red, elbowed his way out of the paddock and
steered a course for a ferry-boat a hundred yards down the Long Reach.
Popular feeling, which likes a peg upon which to hang its predilections,
was running high in favour of Hughie and his practically single-handed
endeavour to humble the pride of the All Saints men, with their four
Blues and five years' Headship.

Still, though many a man's--especially a young man's--heart would have
swelled excusably enough at such homage, Hughie cared very little
for these things. The notoriety of the sporting paper and the
picture-postcard attracted him not at all. He was doggedly determined to
take his boat to the Head of the river, not for the glory the
achievement would bring him, but for the very simple and sufficient
reason that he had made up his mind, four Blues notwithstanding, to
leave it there before he went down. A Cambridge man's pride in his
College is a very real thing. An Oxford man will tell you that he is an
Oxford man. A Cambridge man will say: "I was at such-and-such a College,
Cambridge." Which sentiment is the nobler need not be decided here, but
the fact remains.

However, there was a fly in the ointment. Amid the expressions of
goodwill that emanated from Hughie's own party one voice had been
silent. The omission was quite unintentional, for Miss Mildred
Freshwater's head had been buried in a hamper in search of spoons at the
moment of Hughie's departure. But to poor Hughie, who for all his
strength was no more reasonable where his affections were concerned than
other and weaker brethren, the circumstance bereft the ovation of the
one mitigating feature it might otherwise have possessed for him.

As he strode along the bank to where the ferry-boat was waiting, he
heard a pattering of feet behind. A small, hot, and rather grubby hand
was thrust into his, and Miss Gaymer remarked:--

"I'm coming as far as that boat with you, Hughie. Can I?"

"All right, Joey," he replied.

They had only a few yards farther to go. Miss Gaymer looked up into her
idol's troubled countenance.

"What's the matter, Hughie!" she inquired.

"Joey, I've got the hump."

Miss Gaymer squeezed his arm affectionately.

"Never mind, I'll marry you when I'm grown up," she announced rather
breathlessly.

Hughie felt a little awed, as a man must always when he realises that a
woman, however old or young, loves him. He smiled down on the slim
figure beside him.

"You're a good sort, Joey," he said. "One of the best!"

Miss Gaymer returned contentedly to her tea, utterly and absolutely
rewarded for the effort involved by the sacrifice of this, her maidenly
reserve.

CHAPTER V

THE JOY OF BATTLE

Hughie stepped out of the ferry-boat on to the towpath, which was
crowded with young men hastening to the places where the boats were
moored and young women who would have been much better employed on the
opposite bank.

The punctilious Hughie was looking about for a friendly hedge or other
protection behind which he might decorously slip off the white flannel
trousers which during the afternoon had been veiling the extreme brevity
of his rowing-shorts, when he was tapped on the shoulder. He turned and
found himself faced by a stout clean-shaven man, with eyes that twinkled
cheerfully behind round spectacles. He looked like what he was, a
country parson of the best type, burly, humorous, and shrewd, with
unmistakable traces of the schoolmaster about him.

"I beg your pardon, sir," he said, with a rather old-fashioned bow, "but
are you Mr. Marrable?"

Hughie admitted the fact.

"Well, I just want to say that I hope you are going Head to-night. You
are to row stroke yourself, I hear."

"Yes."

"Quite right, quite right! It's a desperate thing to change your crew
about between races, but it's our only chance. You could never have
caught them with the man you had last night. He's plucky, but he can't
pick a crew up and take them with him. Have you been out in the new
order?"

"Yes. We had a short spin a couple of hours ago."

"Satisfactory?"

"Yes, very fair."

"That's excellent. Now we shall see a race!"

The speaker turned and walked beside Hughie in the direction of the
Railway Bridge. Hughie wondered who he could be.

"I suppose you are an old member of the College, sir," he said.

"Yes. Haven't been able to come up for fifteen years, though."

"In the crew, perhaps?" continued Hughie, observing his companion's
mighty chest--it had slipped down a little in fifteen years--and
shoulders.

"Yes,"--rather diffidently.

"I thought so. About what year?"

The stranger told him.

Hughie grew interested.

"You must have been in D'Arcy's crew," he said,--"the great D'Arcy. My
father knew him well. _Were_ you?"

"Er--yes."

"My word!" Hughie's eyes blazed at the mention of the name, which,
uttered anywhere along the waterside between Putney Bridge and Henley,
still rouses young oarsmen to respectful dreams of distant emulation and
middle-aged coaches to floods of unreliable reminiscence. "He must have
been a wonder in his time. Did you know him well? What sort of chap was
he?"

"Well--you see--I _am_ D'Arcy," replied the stranger apologetically.

After that he gave Hughie advice about the coming race.

"I have watched the All Saints crew for three nights now," he said.
"They are a fine lot, and beautifully together; but it is my opinion
that they can't last."

"They're a bit too sure of themselves," said Hughie. "Too many Blues in
the boat."

"How many?"

"Four. Seven, Six, Five, and Bow."

"Good! They are probably labouring under the delusion that a boat with
four Blues in it is four times as good as a boat with one Blue in it.
Consequently they haven't trained very hard, especially those two fat
men in the middle of the boat. What about their Stroke?"

"Pretty enough, but a rotter when it comes to the pinch."

"Good again! Well, these fellows have not once been extended during the
races, for you gave them no sort of a run last night. You went to bits
at the start and never quite recovered. However, that will give All
Saints some false confidence, which is just what we want. Now what do
you propose to do to-night? Jump on to their tails at the start?"

"No good," said Hughie. "They are too old birds for that game. Besides,
my crew want very carefully working up to a fast stroke. I can't trust
Six at anything above thirty-four. He'll go on rowing that all day; but
if I quicken up to thirty-six or seven he gets flustered, and forty
sends him clean off his nut after about a minute. No, we must just wear
them down."

"Quite right," said D'Arcy. "If you are within a length at the Railway
Bridge you ought just to do it."

"The difficulty is," said Hughie ruefully, "that the crew are only good
for about one spurt. It's a good spurt, I must say, but if it fails we
are done. They can never slow down to a steady stroke again--especially
Six. So it simply has to be made at the right moment. The difficulty is
to know when."

"Have you got a reliable cox?"

"First-class."

"Can't he tell you?"

"Too much row going on," said Hughie. "The whole College will be on the
towpath to-night."

The Reverend Montague D'Arcy plunged his hand into the tail-pocket of
his clerical frock-coat, and produced therefrom a large-pattern service
revolver.

"Look here," he said. "You would be able to hear this lethal weapon on
the Day of Judgment itself. Will you consent to take your time from me?"

"Rather! Thank you, sir." There was no doubting the sincerity of
Hughie's gratitude.

"Well," continued the clergyman briskly, "I shall wait by the Railway
Bridge, on the Barnwell side, away from the towpath. If you have made
your bump before that you won't want me. Well and good. But I don't
think you _will_ have made it, and I don't advise you to try. For the
first half of the course those All Saints men will match you stroke for
stroke, and if you hustle your heavy man at Six he will probably lose
his head. As you pass under the Railway Bridge quicken slightly--not
more than two strokes a minute, though. I have six shots in this
revolver. When you hear two of them, that will mean that you are getting
within jumping distance and must be ready for the spurt. When you hear
the remaining four in quick succession you must simply swing out and put
the very last ounce of your blood and bones and bodies and souls into
it. And if you catch 'em," concluded the reverend gentleman, "by gad!
I'll dance the Cachuca on the bank!"

By this time they had reached the spot where their
racing-shell--sixty-two feet of flimsy cedar wood--was lying waiting for
them. The rest of the crew, already assembled, were standing about in
the attitudes of profound dejection or forced hilarity which appear to
be the only alternatives of deportment open to men who are suffering
from what is expressively termed "the needle." Some were whistling,
others were yawning, and all were wondering why on earth men took up
rowing as a pastime.

Hughie gathered his Argonauts into a knot, and at his request the
Reverend Montague D'Arcy outlined to them the plan of campaign. Then the
crew embarked, and the stout clergyman assisted the grizzled College
boatman--the only person present whose nerves appeared unaffected by the
prevailing tension--to push their craft clear of the bank, and set them
going on a half-minute dash as a preliminary to their long paddle down
the course to the starting point of the race.

In accordance with a picturesque but peculiar custom they wore in their
straw hats bunches of marigolds and corn-flowers--the College
colours--as an intimation that they had achieved bumps during the
preceding nights; and so bedecked they paddled majestically down the
Long Reach, feeling extremely valorous and looking slightly ridiculous,
to challenge a comparison (in which they were hopelessly outclassed from
the start) with the headgear of the assembled fair in Ditton Paddock.

The method of sending off a bumping race is the refinement of cruelty.

As each boat reaches its starting-post the crews disembark and stand
dismally about, listening to the last exhortations of coaches or
nervously eyeing the crew behind them. Presently an objectionably loud
piece of artillery, situated half-way down the long line of boats, goes
off with a roar. This is called "first gun," and means chiefly that
there will be another in three minutes. The crew mournfully denude
themselves of a few more articles of their already scanty wardrobe,
which they pile upon the shoulders of the perspiring menial whose duty
it is to convey the same to the finishing-post, and crawl one by one
into their places in the boat. Finally, the coxswain coils himself into
his seat and takes both rudder-lines in his left hand, leaving the right
free to grasp the end of the boat's last link with _terra firma_, her
starting-chain. Then the second gun goes, and the crew shudder and know
that in sixty seconds precisely they must start.

The ritual observed during the final minute is complicated in the
extreme, and varies directly with the nervous system of the coach, who
dances upon the bank with a stop-watch in his hand, to time the
ministrations of the College boatman, who stands by with a long
boat-hook ready to prod the vessel into midstream.

"Fifteen seconds gone," says the coach. "Push her out, Ben."

Ben complies, with a maddening but wise deliberation. If the boat is
pushed out too promptly the starting-chain will grow taut and tug the
stern of the boat inwards towards the bank, just when her nose should be
pointing straight upstream. But this elementary truth does not occur to
the frenzied octette in the boat. The gun will go, and bow-side will
find their oar-blades still resting on the towpath. They _know_ it.

"Thirty seconds gone," says the coach. "Paddle on gently, Bow and Two."

His object is to get the full advantage of the length of the chain, but
Bow and Two know better. They are convinced that he merely desires that
they shall be caught at a disadvantage when the gun fires. However, they
paddle on as requested, with a palsied stealthiness that suggests
musical chairs.

"Fifteen seconds left," says the coach. "Are you straight, Cox? Ten more
sec--"

Ah! As usual the chain has drawn tight, and the stern of the boat is
being dragged inwards again.

"Paddle on, Two!" yells the coxswain.

Two gives a couple of frenzied digs; the Dervish with the watch,
accompanied by a ragged and inaccurate chorus all down the bank, chants
"Five, four, three, two--"; there is a terrific roar from the gun; the
coxswain drops the chain; the boatman slips the point of his boat-hook
(which, between ourselves, has been doing the lion's share in keeping
the ship's head straight) from Five's rigger; and they are off.

The Benedictine crew got under way very unostentatiously. Their coach
was actually rowing in the All Saints boat,--and it would be difficult
to select a more glowing testimonial to the sterling sportsmanship of
English rowing,--so the starting operations were wisely left to the
College boatman, who had performed the office for something like half a
century. The flight of time was recorded by Hughie himself, from the
watch which hung on his stretcher beside his right foot. The experienced
Mr. Dishart-Watson kept those too-often fatally intimate acquaintances,
the rudder-lines and starting-chain, tactfully apart, and the St.
Benedict's boat got off the mark with a start that brought her within a
length of All Saints during the first half-minute.

After that their opponents drew away. As D'Arcy had said, they were a
seasoned crew, and nothing short of sheer superiority would wear them
down. The two boats swung round Grassy Corner and entered the Plough
Reach about their distance apart. All Saints were rowing the faster
stroke.

Hughie, who was keeping to a steady thirty-two, felt with satisfaction
that the men behind him were well together. Number Seven, small but
plucky, was setting bow-side a beautiful example in steady swing and
smart finish. Six--Mr. Puffin--was rowing a great blade. To look at him
now, you would ask why he had not been included in the University Crew.
If you saw him trying to row forty to the minute, you would marvel that
he should be included in any crew at all.

Five was not looking happy. He was lying back too far and tugging at the
finish. To him the boat seemed heavier than usual, for he was just
beginning to realise the difference between seconding the efforts of
Hughie Marrable and those of Mr. Duncombe. Still, he was plugging
gamely. Four, a painstaking person, was encouraging himself in a fashion
entirely his own. After every stroke, as he sat up and swung forward, he
gasped out some little _sotto voce_ remark to himself, such as, "Oh,
well _rowed_, Four!--Stick to it, Four!--Use your _legs_, old
man!--That's better!--That's a _beauty_!--Oh, well _rowed_, Four!" And
so on. Where he got the necessary breath for these exercises nobody
knew; but some folk possess these little peculiarities, and row none the
worse for them. Bow was another instance. He was a chirpy but eccentric
individual, and used to sing to himself some little ditty of the
moment--or possibly a hymn--all through a race, beginning with the first
stroke and ending exactly, if possible, with the last. He had been
known, when stroking a boat, to quicken up to a perfectly incredible
rate simply because he feared that the song would end before he
completed the course, a contingency which he regarded as unlucky in the
extreme. On the other hand, he would become quite depressed if he had to
stop in the middle of a verse, and he was quite capable of rowing
_rallentando_ if he desired to synchronise his two conclusions.

But few people have the time or inclination for these diversions while
oscillating upon a sixteen-inch slide, and the rest of the crew were
swinging at and plugging in grim silence.

The two boats swept into the roaring medley of Ditton Corner. They
flashed past the row of piles and tethered punts amid a hurricane of
shouts and waving handkerchiefs. Hughie, wrongfully exercising his
privilege as Stroke, allowed his eyes to slide to the right for a
moment. He had a fleeting glimpse of the crimson and excited countenance
of Miss Gaymer, as some man held her aloft in the crowd. Then the boat
gave a slight lurch, and Joey was swallowed up again. Hughie felt
guiltily responsible for the lurch, and recalling his gaze into the
proper channel--straight over the coxswain's right shoulder--swung out
again long and steadily.

"Are we straight yet?" he gasped to Dishy.

"Yes--just."

"Tell 'em to reach out a bit."

Mr. Watson complied, in tones that rose high above the tumult on the
bank and penetrated even into the harmonious soul of Bow, who was
grappling with a difficult cadenza at the moment.

"Six good ones!" said Hughie, next time his face swung up towards the
coxswain's.

"Now, you men, six good ones!" echoed Dishy. "_One! Two!_ Five, you're
late! _Three! Four! Five!_ Bow, get hold of it! _Six!_ Oh, well rowed!"

There was a delighted roar from the bank. The Benedictine crew were
together again after the unsteadiness round Ditton.

"How far?" signalled Hughie's lips.

"Length--and--a--half," replied Cox. "Less," he added, peering ahead.

They were half-way up the Long Reach now. In another minute or two they
would be at the Railway Bridge, beyond which hard-pressed boats are
popularly supposed to be safe.

"Tell 'em--going--quicken," gurgled Hughie, "if can."

Cox nodded, rather doubtfully, and Hughie ground his teeth. If only this
accursed noise on the bank would cease, even for five seconds, Dishy
would get a chance to make the crew hear. As it was, the ever-increasing
crowd, rolling up fresh adherents like a snowball, made that feat almost
an impossibility.

But the coxswain was a man of experience and resource. Just as the boat
passed under the Railway Bridge itself there was a momentary silence,
for the crew were shut off from their supporters by some intervening
balks of timber. Dishy seized the opportunity.

"Be ready to quicken," he yelled. "Now! Oh, well done!"

The crew had heard him, and what was more, they had obeyed him. Stroke
in the All Saints boat suddenly realised that the oncoming foe had
quickened to thirty-five or six, and that the interval between the two
boats had shrunk to something under a length. He spurted in his turn,
and his men spurted with him, but their length of stroke grew
proportionately shorter, and the pace of the boat did not increase. St.
Benedict's were holding their advantage.

"Half a length," said Dishy, in response to an agonised interrogation
from Hughie's right eyebrow.

Suddenly above the tumult there rang out two reverberating
revolver-shots. A stout clergyman, whooping like a Choctaw, was tearing
along the right bank of the river, which was practically clear of
spectators, with his weapon smoking in his hand. Dishy's voice rose to a
scream.

"Look out--be ready! _Only_ six feet!"

And now the musical gentleman who was rowing bow felt the boat lift
unsteadily under him. A wave rolled across the canvas decking behind
him, and he felt a splash of water on his back.

"Washing us off!" was his comment. "Glory, glory! Another verse'll do
it. Now then, all together,--

"_What though the spicy breezes
Blow soft, o'er Ceylon's--_"

Bang! bang! bang! bang!

The great service revolver rang out. The nose of the Benedictine boat,
half submerged in a boiling flood, suddenly sprang to within three feet
of the All Saints rudder.

"_Now_, you men!" Mr. Dishart-Watson's wizened and saturnine countenance
shrank suddenly and alarmingly to a mere rim surrounding his mouth.
"Just _ten_ more! _One--two--_"

Like St. Francis of Assisi, "Of all his body he made a tongue." He
counted the strokes in tones that overtopped all the roars of
encouragement and apprehension arising from the now hopelessly mixed-up
mob of Benedictine and All Saints men that raged alongside. Hughie
Marrable quickened and quickened, and his crew responded sturdily.
Faster and faster grew the stroke, and more and more pertinaciously did
the nose of the Benedictine boat plough its way through the turbid waves
emitted by the twitching rudder in front. Never had they travelled like
this. Six was rowing like a man possessed. Four had ceased to encourage
himself, and was plugging automatically with his chest open and his eyes
shut. Bow may or may not have been singing: he was certainly rowing.
There was a world of rolling and splashing, for the All Saints coxswain
was manipulating his rudder very skilfully, and ever and again the
aggressive nose of the Benedictine boat was sent staggering back by a
rolling buffeting wave. But there was no stopping the Benedictines.

Suddenly Dishy gave vent to a final cataclysmic bellow.

"You're overlapping!"

They were almost at Charon's Grind. The coxswain's lank body stiffened
in its little seat, and Hughie saw him lean hard over and haul on to the
right-hand rudder-line.

"Last three strokes! Now, you devils! _Plug! plug!
pl_--Aa--a--ee--ooh--ee--easy all! Oh, well rowed, well rowed, well
rowed!"

There was a lurch and a bump.

"Done it!--'_Bows down to wood and stone_,'" gasped Bow.

The eight men let go their oars and tumbled forward on to their
stretchers, and listened, with their heads and hearts bursting, to the
din that raged on the bank.

It was a fine confused moment.

In the boat itself Cox was vainly endeavouring to shake hands with
Stroke, who lay doubled up over his oar, with his head right down on the
bottom of the boat, oblivious to everything save the blessed fact that
he need not row any more. Consciousness that he had taken his crew to
the Head of the River was yet to come. At the other end Bow, with his
head clasped between his knees, was croaking half-hysterically to
himself, "Two bars too soon, Hughie! Oh, my aunt, we've gone Head! Two
bars too soon!"

On the towpath every one was shouting and shaking hands with
indiscriminate _bonhomie_,--this was one of those occasions upon which
even the ranks of Tuscany could scarce forbear to cheer,--and everybody,
with one exception, seemed to be ringing a bell or blowing a trumpet.
The exception was supplied by a trio of young gentlemen, two of whom
held an enormous Chinese gong suspended between them, while a third
smote the same unceasingly with a mallet, and cried aloud the name of
Marrable. It must be recorded here, to his honour, that the smiter bore
upon his forehead an enormous and highly coloured bruise, suggestive of
sudden contact with, say, a bedroom-door.

On the opposite bank of the river, a stout, middle-aged, and apparently
demented Clerk in Holy Orders was dancing the Cachuca.

BOOK TWO

_FORTITER IN RE_

CHAPTER VI

KNIGHT-ERRANTRY _À LA MODE_

If all good Americans go to Paris when they die, it may safely be
predicted that all the bad ones will be booked through to Coney Island.

So much may be inferred from the regularity and zeal with which the
Toughs, Hoboes, Bowery Boys, and other fearful wildfowl of the New York
proletariat, accompanied by the corresponding females of the species,
betake themselves every Sabbath by trolley-car or steamer to this haunt
of ancient peace (which, by the way, is not to all appearances an island
and harbours no conies).

Take Margate and Douglas and Blackpool, and pile them into an untidy
heap; throw in a dozen Fun-Cities from Olympia and half a score of
World's Fairs from the Agricultural Hall; add some of the less reputable
features of Earl's Court and Neuilly Fair; include a race-course of the
baser sort; case the whole in wood, and people it with sallow gentlemen
in striped jerseys and ladies answering exclusively to such names as
Hattie, Sadie, and Mamie, reared up apparently upon an exclusive diet of
peanuts and clam-chowder; keep the whole multitude duly controlled and
disciplined by a police force which, if appearances go for anything, has
been recruited entirely from the criminal classes; and you will be able
faintly to realise what Coney Island can do when it tries on a fine
Sunday in summer.

So thought Hughie Marrable. He had been wandering round the world for
nine years now; but not even a previous acquaintance with the Devil
Dancers of Ceylon, the unhallowed revels of Port Said, or the
refinements of a Central African Witch-Hunt (with full tom-tom
accompaniment), had quite prepared him for this. Still, it was part and
parcel of Life, and Life was what he had left England to see.

He had arrived in New York from San Francisco two days ago. But
let it not be imagined that he had been conveyed thither by any
Grand-Trunk-Ocean-to-Ocean-Limited, or other refinement of an effete
modernity. His transcontinental journey had occupied just three years.
Since the day on which he steamed through the Golden Gate on a
tramp-freighter from Yokohama he had been working his way eastward by
easy stages, acquiring experience (as Jimmy Marrable had directed) of
the manner in which the other half of the world lives. Incidentally he
had mixed cocktails behind a Nevada bar; learned to fire a revolver
without taking it out of his pocket; accompanied a freight train over
the Rockies in the capacity of assistant brakeman--his duties being
chiefly confined to standing by with a coupling-pin, to discourage the
enterprise of those gentlemen of the road who proposed to travel
without tickets; and once, in a Southern State, he had been privileged
to be present at that ennobling spectacle to which the brightest
nation on earth occasionally treats the representatives of an older
civilisation--the lynching of a negro.

In a few days Hughie would sail for England, on board the mighty Apulia.
It was not often that he travelled in such ostentatious luxury: the
primitive man in him leaned towards something damp and precarious on
board a sailing-ship or a collier; but he happened to know that the
Apulia intended going for the ocean record this trip; and since the
third engineer happened to be a friend of his, Hughie had decided that
four-and-a-half days and nights down among the humming turbines and the
spirits that controlled them would be cheap at the price of an
expensively upholstered state-room many decks above, in which he would
leave his baggage and occasionally sleep.

For all that he had cast a regretful eye only that very morning on a
battered little tramp-steamer which was loading up with cargo alongside
a wharf at Hoboken--due to sail for Europe, so a stevedore told him, in
about two days' time.

To-morrow he was to be taken yachting in New York harbour by an old P.
and O. acquaintance, whom he had faithfully "looked up," in accordance
with a two-year-old promise, at his city office that morning. In the
evening, at the invitation of an American actor to whom he had once been
of service in Calcutta, he was to dine at the Lambs' Club,--the New York
equivalent of the Garrick and Green Room, with a dash of the Eccentric
thrown in,--and the next day he was to pay a flying visit to Atlantic
City.

Meanwhile he was putting in a few off-hours at Coney Island. He had
watched the islanders bathing, had witnessed a display of highly--not to
say epileptically--Animated Pictures, had spent half-an-hour in an open
_café-chantant_, where a bevy of tired-looking girls in short skirts
pranced about with mechanical abandon at the back of the small stage,
shouting the chorus of a ditty which a wheezy lady (who looked like the
mother of all chorus-girls) was singing at the front; and had declined a
pressing invitation from the keeper of an Anatomical Museum to step
inside and "have a dollar's worth for a dime."

Finally he drifted into a small theatre, where a melodrama of distinctly
British flavour (seasoned to the Coney Island palate by a few distinctly
local interpolations) was unfolding itself to a closely packed and
hard-breathing audience.

To judge from the state of the atmosphere the entertainment had been in
progress for some time. As Hughie took his seat the curtain rose on a
moonlit military scene. Figures wrapped in great-coats sat round a
camp-fire on the audience's right hand, the only plainly recognisable
character being the Heroine, who, attired as a hospital nurse and
positively starred with red crosses, was sewing aloofly upon an erection
which looked like a sarcophagus, but was marked in plain figures
"Ambulence." A sentry, who from his gait Hughie took (rightly) to be the
Comic Man, was pacing up and down at the back.

Presently the guard was changed, with much saluting of a pattern unknown
at any War Office, and the Comic Man, released from duty, was called
upon to sing "that dear ole song you useter sing at 'ome." The cold
light of the moon having been temporarily replaced by broad daylight in
order to give the singer's facial expression full play, he obliged;
though why any one who had heard him sing the song before should have
asked him to sing it again passed Hughie's comprehension. Next a
drummer-boy (female) was called upon by the company, and after a great
exhibition of reluctance,--fully justified by her subsequent
performance,--gave vent to a patriotic ditty, in which the only
distinguishable rhymes were "Black Watch" and "Scotch."

These revels brought the Hero on to the stage. He was attired in
clerical dress and a cavalry helmet; and, sitting down beside the
Heroine upon the sarcophagus, he proceeded, oblivious of the presence of
the entire guard, who were huddled round the fire not more than five
feet away, to make her a proposal of marriage; quoting Scripture to some
purpose, and extorting a demure affirmative from the lady just before
the Comic Man, who had obviously been lamenting that the success of the
piece should be imperilled by such stuff as this, upset the soup-kettle,
and so gave a fresh turn to the proceedings.

All this time Hughie had been conscious of an increasing feeling of
curiosity as to the identity of the only member of the glee-party round
the fire who so far had made no contribution to the entertainment. He
darkly suspected him of being the Villain, though what the Villain
should be doing unrecognised at such a period of the play--it was about
the third act--was hard to understand. However, the mystery was now
cleared up by a French _vivandière_--by this time it was plain that the
scene was laid in the Crimea--who called upon the mysterious one, in the
accents of Stratford-atte-Bowe, for a song and dance. No reply being
forthcoming, the entire company (precipitately, but quite correctly, as
it happened) rose up and denounced the stranger as a Russian and a spy.
They had only themselves to blame for his presence, for apparently he
had strolled up and joined the party quite promiscuously; and no one had
thought, so far, of asking him who he was or even of addressing him.

The audience now sat up expectantly. But instead of taking the
spy prisoner and shooting him on sight, the guard hurried off
R.U.E.--possibly to bring up their big guns or find a policeman. These
deplorable tactics did not meet with the reward they deserved, for the
Villain, instead of bolting off L. as fast as he could, lingered upon
the stage to tell the audience that he had come back to have one more go
at the Hero. (Goodness knows how many he had had!) The Hero obligingly
appeared at that moment, and a section (whose numbers appeared to
increase as the play proceeded) of the audience shouted to the Villain
to cut in and do it _now_. But portentous trampings "off" announced the
return of the glee-party, and the Villain, finding that he could not
execute his perfectly justifiable design without considerable danger to
his own person, and was in fact in a particularly tight place himself,
suddenly appealed (with considerable "nerve," it seemed to Hughie) to
the Hero, as a Cleric, to save him. The Hero (who was evidently a fool
as well as a bore) immediately complied. "You must take upon you my
identity," he remarked. In a twinkling they had exchanged great-coats,
and the Villain was now by all the laws of Melodrama completely
disguised as the Hero. He dashed off L., just as a perfect avalanche of
people, who had been faithfully and increasingly marking time in the
wings, poured on to the stage R., and endeavoured almost to poke their
rifles into the Hero's breast. But just as a nervous female in the
audience, apprehensive about the sudden discharge of firearms,
convulsively gripped Hughie's left elbow, the Heroine dashed on from
nowhere, and taking her stand before the Hero--apparently she was the
only person upon the stage who recognised him--uttered these thrilling
but mysterious words: "You kennot far erpon ther Red Kerawss!"

Curtain, amid thunders of applause.

After a commendably short interval the curtain rose upon the next act.
The Hero was now discovered asleep (under what must have struck any
thoughtful member of the audience as highly compromising circumstances
for a clergyman) in the cottage of a stout lady in a very short skirt
and fur-topped boots; whom, from the fact that her opening soliloquy
commenced with the words, "Har, vell!" the audience rightly adjudged to
be a Russian. This lady, it was soon plain, was consumed by a secret
passion for the Hero. In fact she proclaimed it in such strident tones
that it was surprising that its object did not wake up.

This scene soon resolved itself into a series of determined efforts on
the part of the Villain to terminate the existence of the Hero--an
enterprise in which he by this time commanded the whole-hearted support
of the greater part of the audience. His first attempt was foiled by the
Comic Man, who entered singing "Keep the baby warm, Mother!" just as he
had crawled within striking distance of the unwakeable Hero. Muttering
curses, the unfortunate man announced his intention of retiring "to the
woods," pending another opportunity. But he had no luck. Just as the
Comic Man performed a humorous exit through the window, the stout
lady--most of the other characters, by the way, addressed her as
"Tinker": possibly her name was Katinka--came in through the door,
filled with the forebodings of what she called "loove." Her subsequent
course of action could certainly only have been condoned on the plea of
emotional insanity. She unceremoniously bundled the Hero out of
bed--fortunately he had gone there in his boots--and sent him off on a
transparent wild-goose chase to the "trenches." Then she got into bed
herself, and when the Villain came crawling back from "the woods,"
brandishing his knife in the limelight, the audience were treated to a
sort of up-to-date rendering of "Little Red Riding Hood," the part of
the Wolf being sustained by Katinka, and that of Red Riding Hood by the
now hopelessly demoralised Villain, who was once more chased back to his
arboreal lurking-place with the muzzle of a revolver in the small of his
back.

In the next and final act the Villain made a supreme effort. He began by
slaying the drummer-boy,--presumably to keep his hand in,--but on going
through his victim's pockets in search of certain "despatches" which
that youthful hero had undertaken to carry through the Russian
lines,--where to, heaven knows!--the unfortunate man discovered a
locket, which instantly revealed to him the surprising, but none the
less distressing, intelligence that he had slain his own son. His
anguish was pitiful to behold, and when the Hero came on and began to
rub it in by further excerpts from the Scriptures, the audience to a man
decided that if the Villain brought it off this time no jury would
convict, but that he would be bound over at the most. He certainly set
about the business with more gumption than usual. Waiting until the Hero
was well launched into "Secondly," with the limelight full in his eyes,
he once more produced the glittering knife. Suddenly the ubiquitous
Katinka dashed on, and in the most unsportsmanlike manner shot the
Villain in the small of the back, at a range of about eighteen inches.
He dropped dead across the body of his son (which must have hurt that
infant prodigy very much). All the other characters sidled on from the
wings and formed a grand concluding tableau, the Hero, egregious to the
last and entwined in a stained-glass attitude with the Hospital Nurse,
pronouncing a sort of benediction as the curtain fell.

"Doesn't this remind you of the Drama as it used to be dished up to the
undergraduates in the old Barn at Cambridge?" remarked a voice.

Hughie turned to the speaker. He found beside him a man of about thirty,
with a fair moustache, which half hid a weak but amiable mouth and a
receding chin. He was dressed in the thick blue shore-going garments of
the seaman, but he looked too slight for an A.B. and too clean for a
fireman.

"Deck-hand," said Hughie to himself. "Gentleman once--no, still!"

"Hallo!" he replied. "You seem to know me. Forgive me if I ought to know
you, but I can't fix you at present. Odd thing, too, because I don't
often forget a face."

"I was up at Cambridge in your time," said the man.

"Not Benedict's?"

"No--Trinity. I was sent down ultimately. But I knew you well by sight.
Often saw you in the boat, and so on. You're Marrable, aren't you?"

"Yes. Were you a rowing man?"

"No. I hunted with the Drag and rode at Cottenham--in those days." He
glanced philosophically at his present attire.

"Come and have something," said Hughie.

The man interested him. He might, of course, be a mere long-shore shark
on the make, or he might be what he looked--a good-hearted, well-born
waster--an incorrigible but contented failure. Anyhow, five minutes over
a friendly glass would probably settle the question.

"I wonder if it's possible to obtain a decent British drink in this
clam-ridden hole," Hughie continued.

"The nearest thing to a product of the British Empire that you'll get
here," said the man, "is Canadian whisky; and personally I would rather
drink nitric acid. We had better stick to lager. Come along: I know the
ropes."

Presently they found themselves in a German beer saloon, where a
stertorous Teuton supplied their needs.

"By the way," said the man, "I have the advantage of you. My name is
Allerton. Sorry I forgot!"

"Thanks," said Hughie, rather lamely. "Are you--living out here just
now?"

"No," said Allerton simply. "I'm a deck-hand on a tramp-steamer." He
spoke easily and freely, as one gentleman to another. He had realised at
a glance that he was not about to be made the victim of offensive
curiosity or misplaced charity. "She's lying at Hoboken, due out on
Tuesday, for Bordeaux."

"French boat?"

"No. American owned, under the British flag, by a fairly competent
rascal, too. This trip we are carrying a cargo of Californian wine of
sorts. We took it last week from a sailing barque that had brought it
round the Horn. She wanted to start back at once, so turned it over to
us cheap."

"And you're going to Bordeaux? What does your astute owner want to take
coals to Newcastle for?"

"Because everything that comes _out_ of Newcastle is labelled coal
whether it is coal or not. In other words, this poison will be carried
by us to Bordeaux, bottled and sealed, and shipped to England as fine
vintage Burgundy. John Bull will drink it and feel none the worse. I'm
told it's a paying trade."

"I wish I were going in your boat," said Hughie, rather regretfully.
"I'm booked by the Apulia."

"Well, look out for the Orinoco on your second day out."

"The Orinoco? I remember seeing her at Hoboken to-day, and wishing I
could make the trip on her."

"I doubt if you'd be of the same opinion after trying conclusions with
Mr. James Gates, our first 'greaser,'" replied Allerton. "Still, I don't
know," he continued, regarding Hughie's brawny form reflectively. "I
don't believe he could put the fear of death into you the way he does
into most of us. You've knocked about a bit in your time, I dare say,
only with more success than I. Perhaps you weren't born with holes in
_all_ your pockets."

"I say," said Hughie rather diffidently,--it is difficult to confer a
favour upon a man who is down without offending him,--"will you dine
with me? Or sup, as it's getting late?"

"I shall be charmed," said the deck-hand. "Shall I show you a place? I
know quite a comfortable establishment close by here."

Hughie said "Righto!" and presently they found themselves in the place
of entertainment selected by Allerton. Most of the room was occupied by
small tables, at which various couples were eating and drinking. At one
end was a platform, upon which an intermittent sort of variety
entertainment was in progress.

On the floor at the foot of the platform was a piano. At the piano sat a
girl, who accompanied the performers and bridged over the gaps in the
programme by selections from the less restrained works of American
Masters of Music. Not far from the stage an unhealthy-looking youth was
presiding over a bar. The atmosphere was something between that of a
smoking-concert, and Baker Street Station in the days of the old
Underground.

Allerton's lazy nonchalance lasted until the first course was set before
him by a smiling blackamoor, and then, with a half-apologetic aside to
his host on the subject of his last meal, he fell upon the fare in a
manner which brought very vividly home to Hughie's intelligence the
difference between an amateur casual like himself, with money enough in
his pocket to make it possible to knock off when he tired of the game,
and the genuine article. He was not hungry, having in fact dined a
couple of hours before; but he did his best by tactful pecking to
conceal the fact from his guest. Still, even after he had ordered some
wine and duly inspected the cork, he had a good deal of time to look
about him.

Presently his attention began to concentrate itself upon the girl at the
piano. She was sitting quite near him, and Hughie, always respectfully
appreciative where a pretty face was concerned,--his wanderings, though
they had made him more than ever a master of men, had done little to
eradicate his innate attitude of quiet, determined, and occasionally
quite undeserved reverence towards women,--had time to notice the
un-American freshness of her colouring, the regularity of her profile,
and the prettiness of her hair. He also observed that the foot which
rested upon the pedal of the piano was small and shapely. She was
quietly dressed, in a dark-blue serge skirt and a white silk blouse--or
"shirtwaist," to employ the mysterious local designation--with short
sleeves. She had round arms and good hands.

Hughie wondered what she was doing in a place like this, and,
young-man-like, felt vaguely unhappy on her behalf; but experienced a
truly British feeling of relief (mingled with slight disappointment) on
observing that she wore a wedding-ring. He waxed sentimental. Who was
her husband? he wondered. He hoped it was not the proprietor of the
establishment,--a greasy individual of Semitic appearance, who
occasionally found leisure, in the intervals between announcing the
"turns" and calling the attention of patrons to the exceptional
resources of the bar, to walk across the room and paw the girl
affectionately on the shoulder while giving her some direction as to the
music,--nor yet the scorbutic young man behind the bar.

His meditations were interrupted by Allerton.

"Marrable, eyes front! And fill up your glass. Hang it, drink fair!"

Hughie turned and regarded his guest. The greater part of a magnum of
vitriolic champagne had disappeared down that gentleman's throat. His
eye had brightened, and now twinkled facetiously as he surveyed first
Hughie and then the girl at the piano.

"_Une petite pièce de tout droit_--eh, what?" he remarked.

Hughie, beginning to understand why his companion was now swabbing decks
instead of ruling ancestral acres, nodded shortly.

Allerton noticed his host's momentary distance of manner, and leaned
across the table with an air of contrition.

"I'm afraid," he said apologetically, "that I'm getting most infernally
full. You see how it is with me, don't you? I'm that sort of bloke.
Always have been, from a nipper. Thash--That's why I'm here. It's a
pity. And the worst of it is," he added, in a sudden burst of candour,
"that I'm going to get much fuller. It's a long time since I tasted
this." He touched his glass. "It isn't served out on the Orinoco. Do
you--er--mind?"

Hughie, with a queer feeling of compassion, smiled reassuringly, and
ordered another bottle. If Allerton was about to get drunk, he should
get drunk like a gentleman for once in a way.

Then his attention reverted to the piano.

There had been a development. The girl was mechanically playing one of
the compositions of that delicate weaver of subtle harmonies, Mr. John
Philip Sousa; but she was not reading her music. Her eyelids were
resolutely lowered, as if she wished to avoid seeing something. The
reason resolved itself into a gentleman who was leaning over the front
of the piano, gazing amorously down upon the musician, and endeavouring,
with surprising success, to make himself heard above one of the
composer's most characteristic efforts.

Hughie looked him up and down. He was a big man, powerfully built,
with little pig's eyes set close together, and a ponderous and
vicious-looking lower jaw. Was _he_ her husband? wondered the deeply
interested Hughie. No: he was too obviously endeavouring to make himself
agreeable.

"Marrable, my son," suddenly interpolated the convivial but observant
Allerton, "you're cut out! No use bidding against that customer. Do you
know who he is?"

"No. Who?"

"That," replied the deck-hand with an air of almost proprietary pride,
"is Noddy Kinahan."

"Oh! And who may he be?"

"Gee! (Sorry! One picks up these rotten Yankee expressions somehow.) I
mean, I am surprised you haven't heard of him. He's rather a big man
here. In fact, to be explish--explicit,"--Mr. Allerton was fast arriving
at that stage of intoxication which cannot let well alone, but must
tempt Providence by dragging in unnecessarily hard words,--"he is my
employer."

"Anything else."

"Political boss of sorts. _Inter alia_--that's good! I'm glad I
remembered that. _Inter alia_ rhymes with Australia, doesn't it? We'll
make up a Limerick on it some time--let me see, where was I? Oh,
yesh--yes, I mean--_inter alia_, he owns the Orinoco and about a dozen
more mouldy old coffins; and very well he does out of them, too! Buys
them cheap, and--but excuse further details at present, ole man. To tell
you the truth I'm getting so screwed that I'm afraid of saying something
that in my calmer moments I shall subsequently regret. A cigar? I thank
you. You're a white man, Marrable. Chin chin!"

After this burst of discretion Mr. Allerton returned to the joint
worship of Bacchus and Vesta, the difficulty which he experienced in
keeping the lighted end of the cigar out of his mouth increasing as the
evening advanced, but leaving his cheerfulness unimpaired. His condition
was due not so much to the depths of his potations as to the shallowness
of his accommodation for the same; and strong-headed Hughie, as he
surveyed the weak chin and receding forehead on the other side of the
table, mused not altogether without envy upon the strange inequality of
that law of nature which decrees that what is a toothful for one man
shall be a skinful for another and an anæsthetic for a third.

He was recalled from these musings by the remembrance of the girl at the
piano, and turned to see what was happening now.

Mr. Noddy Kinahan was returning from an expedition to the bar, carrying
a bottle of champagne and a long tumbler. These accessories to
conviviality he placed on the top of the piano, and departed on a second
trip, returning shortly with a wine-glassful of brandy. The girl, though
she probably observed more of his movements than her low-drooping lashes
would seem to allow, made no sign, but continued to play the ragtime
tune with a mechanical precision which caused the tumbler on the top of
the piano to tread a lively and self-accompanied measure round its more
stolid and heavily weighted companion.

Mr. Kinahan next proceeded to pour himself out a tumblerful of
champagne, liberally lacing the foaming liquid with brandy. Then, with
an ingratiating gesture toward the shrinking girl, he proceeded to
swallow the mixture with every appearance of enjoyment.

"King's peg!" commented Hughie to himself. "Wonder how much of _that_ he
can stand? I'd back him against friend Allerton, though, if it
came--Hallo! The hound! This must stop!"

He half rose to his feet. Mr. Kinahan, having satisfied his present
needs, had refilled the tumbler with champagne, added the rest of the
brandy, and was now proffering the potion, in the self-same vessel which
he had just honoured with his own august lips, to the girl at the piano.

The girl turned crimson and shook her head, but kept on playing.

Noddy Kinahan was not accustomed to bestow favours in vain. He walked
round behind the piano, and, taking the girl firmly by the shoulders
with his left arm, held the sizzling tumbler to her lips. She uttered a
strangled cry, left off playing, and struggled frantically to seize the
glass with her hands.

Now Hughie Marrable had a healthy prejudice in favour of minding his own
business. He had witnessed scenes of this description before, and he
knew that, place and company considered, the girl at the piano was
probably not unaccustomed to accept refreshment at the hands of
gentlemen, even when the gentleman was half-drunk, the hands dirty, and
the refreshment (after allowing a generous discount for spillings)
sufficiently potent to deprive any ordinary woman, within ten minutes,
of any sort of control over her own actions or behaviour. Moreover,
Hughie had a truly British horror of a scene. _But_--

He was surprised to feel himself leap from his chair and bound toward
the piano. His surprise, however, was nothing to that experienced a
moment later by Mr. Noddy Kinahan, who, having succeeded in pinning the
desperately resisting girl's arms to her sides, was now endeavouring to
prise her lips open with the edge of the tumbler. But there are slips
even after the cup has reached the lip. Just as success appeared to be
about to crown Mr. Kinahan's hospitable efforts, a large and sinewy hand
shot over his right shoulder and snatched away the glass, which it threw
under the piano. Simultaneously an unseen force in the rear shook him
till his teeth rattled, and then, depressing his head to the level of
the keyboard, began to play a lively if staccato tune thereon with the
point of Mr. Kinahan's rubicund and fleshy nose.

These operations were more or less screened from the public view by the
body of the piano, which was an "upright" of the cottage variety. But
the sudden cessation of "The Washington Post" in favour of what sounded
like "The Cat's Polka" played by a baby with its feet, brought the
proprietor of the establishment hurrying across the room. He arrived
just in time to be present at the conclusion of a florid chromatic scale
of about four octaves, executed under the guidance of Hughie Marrable's
heavy hand by Mr. Kinahan's somewhat abraded nasal organ.

The instrumental part of the entertainment now terminated in favour of a
vocal interlude. Hughie released his grip of Mr. Noddy Kinahan's collar,
and stood back a pace waiting for a rush. He was confident that, given a
clear floor and no interference, he could offer his burly opponent a
lesson in manners which he would never forget.

But Mr. Kinahan, being a mover in high political altitudes, was not in
the habit of doing his own dirty work. He reviled his opponent, it is
true, in terms which an expert could not but have admitted were
masterly, but it was obvious to the unruffled Hughie that he was doing
so chiefly to keep his courage up and "save his face." There was a
cunning, calculating look in his piggy eyes which did not quite fit in
with the unrestrained _abandon_ of his utterances, and Hughie began to
realise that there are deeper schemes of retaliation than mere assault
and battery.

Once or twice Mr. Kinahan, in pausing for breath, turned and looked over
his shoulder toward the curious crowd which was gathering behind
him. Presently Hughie noticed a couple of "toughs" of the most
uncompromisingly villainous appearance advancing in a leisurely fashion
from a corner by the door, where they had been supping. They kept their
eyes on Kinahan, as if for an order. Evidently that great man never took
his walks abroad without his jackals.

Things were beginning to look serious. The Hebraic proprietor, half
crazy with fright at the gratuitous advertisement which the fracas was
conferring upon his establishment,--an advertisement which was receiving
a gratifying response from an influx of curious sightseers,--was
frantically begging people to go away. The girl, the source (as ever!)
of all the trouble, was still sitting on the music-stool, trembling like
a fluttered bird, with Hughie, feeling slightly self-conscious, standing
over her. In the middle distance, Mr. Allerton, gloriously oblivious to
the ephemeral and irrelevant disturbance around him, sat contentedly
before two empty bottles, endeavouring with erratic fingers to adorn the
lapel of his blue pea-jacket with a silver-plated fork (the property of
the establishment), upon which he had impaled a nodding banana of
pantomimic proportions.

Suddenly Hughie heard himself addressed in casual tones by some one
standing close behind him.

"Say, Johnny Bull, you'd best get out of here, right now. Skip! Those
two toughs of Noddy's won't touch you till they get the word, but when
they do you'll be sorry. Get out this way, by the side of the stage. It
leads around to the back door."

Having delivered himself of this undoubtedly sound piece of advice, the
unhealthy-looking young gentleman from behind the bar picked up the
champagne bottle and broken glass, and lounged back to his base of
operations.

Hughie, realising the wisdom of his words, and making a hasty note that
one should never judge even a mottle-faced bar-tender by his appearance,
reluctantly abandoned his half-projected scheme of hurling Noddy Kinahan
into the arms of his two sinister supporters and then knocking their
collective heads together, and turned to the small door behind him.
Suddenly he caught sight of the piano-girl. He paused and surveyed her
thoughtfully.

"You'd better come with me," he said.

Without a word, the girl rose and preceded him to the door. Hughie
opened it for her, and they both passed through and hurried down a
narrow passage, which gave direct into the alley at the back of the
establishment.

Once outside, Hughie took the girl's arm and fairly ran, never pausing
till they reached the brightly lighted sea-front. He had an idea that a
cheerful and crowded thoroughfare would prove more salubrious than
deserted and ill-lit byways.

Once clear of their late surroundings the two slackened pace, and Hughie
surveyed his charge with comical perplexity.

"Now what am I to do with _you_?" he inquired.

"Take me home," said the girl, sobbing.

Her pluck and fortitude, having brought her dry-eyed through the worst
of the conflict, had now taken their usual leave of absence, and she was
indulging very properly in a few reactionary and comforting tears.

"Where do you live?" asked Hughie.

"Brooklyn."

"That's a matter for a trolley-car. Come along."

He took her arm again, rather diffidently this time,--his old masculine
self-consciousness was returning,--and hurried off to what the Coney
Islanders call a "deepo." Here they ensconced themselves in the corner
of a fairly empty car, and started on their twenty-mile run, _viâ_
Sheepshead Bay and other delectable spots, to Brooklyn Bridge.

As soon as the car started, Hughie turned to his companion.

"Look here," he said bluntly. "I know a lady when I meet one. What were
you doing in that place at all? You are English, too."

"Yes. I can't blame you for wondering. I'll tell you. I come from
London. My father was a small schoolmaster in Sydenham. He--he was
unfortunate, and died three years ago, and I was left alone in the
world, with hardly two sixpences to rub together. Just as things were
looking none too promising for me, I met and married"--she flushed
proudly--"one of the best men that ever stepped--Dennis Maclear. He is
an electrical engineer. We came out here together to make our fortunes,
and settled in New York. We were beginning to do fairly well after a
long struggle, when one day Dennis crushed his left arm and leg in a
cog-wheel arrangement of some kind, and for three months he has not been
able even to get out of bed without help. Bad luck, wasn't it? He is
getting better slowly, and some day, the doctor says, he will be able to
get about again. But--well, savings don't last for ever, you know; so
I--"

"I see," said Hughie; "the upkeep of the establishment has devolved on
you in the meanwhile?"

"Yes. Piano-playing is about the only accomplishment I possess. A girl
friend of mine told me she was giving up her billet at old Bercotti's,
and asked if I would like it. She wouldn't recommend it to most girls,
she said, but perhaps it would suit me all right, being married. I took
it; but as you saw, my being married wasn't sufficient protection after
all."

She shuddered, for she was very young, and badly shaken; but presently
she smiled bravely.

"What did you get?" asked Hughie.

"Dollar a night."

"It's not much."

"It's better than starvation," said practical little Mrs. Maclear.

"And what are you going to do next?"

"I'm not going back to old Bercotti's again--that's flat."

"Can you get another berth?"

"Well, if there happens to be anybody in this simple and confiding
country who is willing to take on as accompanist or teacher a young
woman of shabby-genteel appearance, who is unable to mention a single
soul as a reference, and has no character to show from her former
employer--it ought to be easy!" said the girl.

Hughie regarded her reflectively.

"You take it well. I admire your pluck," he said.

"A married woman with a husband to keep has no time to worry about
pluck," replied Mrs. Maclear; "she just _has_ to do things. Besides, all
the pluck in the world can't save a woman when Noddy Kinahan is about.
If it hadn't been for you--by the way, would you mind telling me your
name? You know mine."

Hughie told her. Presently they left the trolley-car--_anglicè_,
electric-tram--and struck off down a street in Brooklyn. The girl turned
in at a doorway, and paused at the foot of a stair.

"Won't you come up and see my husband, Mr. Marrable?" she said. "It's
ten flights up, and we don't run to an elevator; but I know Dennis would
like to thank you himself."

Hughie had intended to refuse,--he hated being thanked as much as most
matter-of-fact people,--but, a flash of unusual insight revealing to him
the fact that the true object of the invitation was not to exhibit him
to the husband, but to enable this proud little lady to exhibit her
husband to him, he felt reassured, and allowed himself to be borne aloft
to the Maclear eyrie. Here a gigantic and impulsive son of Kerry, gaunt
and hollow-eyed through long bed-keeping, wrung his hand in a manner
which made him feel glad he was not a refractory terminal, what time
Mrs. Maclear, in a sort of up-to-date version of the song of Miriam,
described Hughie's glorious triumph over Noddy Kinahan, laying special
stress upon the ecstatic period during which Mr. Kinahan, at the
instance of Hughie, had enacted the part of a human pianola.

He left them at last, wondering in his heart, as he tramped home under
the stars to his hotel in West Forty-Second Street, what the plucky
couple were going to live on during the next two or three months. The
man was still practically a cripple,--he must have been badly
mangled,--and it is hard work fighting for time in a country whose
motto, as regards human as well as other machinery, is: "Never repair!
Scrap, and replace!"

Hughie had solved the problem to his satisfaction by the time he crossed
Brooklyn Bridge.

For the rest of the way home he thought of other things. A bachelor,
however ungregarious, is at heart a sentimental animal, and during his
walk Hughie was contemplating with his mind's eye the picture that he
had left behind him as he said good-night,--the picture of "a snug
little kingdom up ten pair of stairs," tenanted by a little community of
two, self-contained and self-sufficient, dauntless in the face of grim
want and utter friendlessness,--and, despite his own health and wealth,
he experienced a sudden feeling of envy for the crippled and impecunious
Dennis Maclear.

"I suppose," he mused to himself, "it doesn't really matter _how_ rotten
a time you have in this world so long as you have it in the right
company." Then he added, apparently as a sort of corollary: "By gad,
when I get home next week, I'll _stay_ there!"

But, however carefully (or carelessly) we handle the tiller on life's
voyage, it is the little casual currents and unexpected side winds that
really set our course for us. As Hughie rolled into bed that night he
reflected, rather regretfully, that the incident of that evening was
closed for ever. He had definitely cut himself off from the Maclears, at
any rate, for the very simple reason that he had just posted to them a
hundred one-dollar notes, as a temporary loan until their "ship came
in," carefully omitting to mention that his own was due to go out in
twenty-four hours, and giving no address for purposes of repayment.

But for all that, the incident had definitely altered his course for
him, or at any rate was destined to send him round by an alternative
route.

CHAPTER VII

THE ALTERNATIVE ROUTE

Her most ardent admirers--and they had never been very numerous--could
hardly have described the Orinoco as a rapid or up-to-date vessel. She
could average a fair eight knots in ordinary weather (except when the
Chief Engineer was not sober; and then she had been known to do as much
as eleven), and she had faced with tolerable credit seven strenuous
years of North Atlantic weather, winter and summer alike. But she was no
flier.

She had not always ploughed the ocean at the behests of Mr. Noddy
Kinahan, her present owner. As a matter of fact, she dated back to the
early sixties. She had been built on the Clyde, in days when people were
not in such a hurry as they are now, for steady and reliable
cross-channel service between Scotland and Ireland; and the crinolined
young lady who had blushingly performed the christening ceremony as the
brand-new steamer slipped down the ways had named her the Gareloch.

After fifteen years of honest buffeting between the Kish and the Cloch
the little Gareloch had been pronounced too slow, and sold to the
proprietor of a line of coasting steamers which plied between Cardiff
and London. In this capacity, with a different-coloured funnel and a
slightly decayed interior, she had served for nine years as the Annie S.
Holmes. After that an officious gentleman from the Board of Trade
happened to notice the state of her boilers, and unhesitatingly declined
to renew her certificate until various things were done which her
present owner was not in the habit of doing. Consequently she had
lain rusting in Southampton Water for six months, until an astute Scot,
who ran a sort of Dr. Barnardo's home for steamers which had been
abandoned by their original owners, stepped in and bought her, at the
rate of about a pound per ton; and having refitted her with some
convenient boilers which he had picked up at a sale, and checked her
fuel-consumption by reducing her grate-area, set her going again in a
humble but remunerative way as a pig-boat between Limerick and Glasgow.
During this period of her career she was known as the Blush Rose--and
probably smelt as sweet.

The maritime Dr. Barnardo sold her three years later (at a profit) to a
gentleman who required a ship for some shady and mysterious operations
amid certain islands in the Southern Pacific. The nature of the poor
Blush Rose's occupation may be gathered from the fact that in the space
of three months she made those already tropical regions too hot to hold
her; and, with her name painted out, a repaired shot-hole in her
counter, and a few pearl oyster-shells sticking out here and there in
the murky recesses of her hold, was knocked down for a song at Buenos
Ayres to a Spanish-American who desired her for the fulfilment of some
rather private contracts, into which he had entered with a Central
American State, for a consignment of small arms and ammunition delivered
immediately--terms, C. O. D. and no questions asked. Her captain on this
occasion was a Lowland Scot of disreputable character but inherent
piety, who endeavoured to confer a rather spurious sanctity upon a
nefarious enterprise by christening his nameless vessel the Jedburgh
Abbey. But, alas! the Jedburgh Abbey was confiscated a year later by the
United States government, and having disgorged a most uncanonical cargo,
was knocked down by Dutch auction, without benefit of clergy, to the
highest bidder. Competition for her possession was not keen, and she
ultimately became the property of Mr. Noddy Kinahan, who at that
time was beginning to pile up a considerable fortune by purchasing
old steamers on their way to the scrap-heap and running them as
tramp-freighters until they sank. The Jedburgh Abbey, with a new
propeller,--she had gone short of a blade for years,--her rusty carcase
tinkered into something like sea-worthiness, and her engines secured a
little more firmly to their bed-plates, had re-established her social
status by creeping once more into Lloyd's list--the Red Book of the
Mercantile Marine--and, disguised as the Orinoco, of the "River" Line of
freight-carrying steamships, had served Mr. Noddy Kinahan well for seven
years. This grey morning, with Sandy Hook well down below the western
horizon, she clambered wearily but perseveringly over the Atlantic
rollers, like a disillusioned and world-weary old cab-horse which,
having begun life between the shafts of a gentleman's brougham, is now
concluding a depressing existence by dragging a funereal "growler" up
and down the undulations of a London suburb.

Her redeeming feature was a certain purity of outline and symmetry of
form. She boasted a flush deck, unbroken by any unsightly waist
amid-ships; and not even her unscraped masts, her scarred sides, and her
flaked and salt-whitened funnel could altogether take away from her her
pride of race,--the right to boast, in common with many a human derelict
of the same sex and a very similar history, that she had "been a lady
once."

She had now been at sea for well over twenty-four hours, and her crew,
who had to a man been brought on board in what a sympathetic eyewitness
on a similar occasion once described as "a state of beastly but enviable
intoxication," were once more beginning to sit up and take notice. Their
efforts in this direction owed much to the kind assistance of Messrs.
Gates and Dingle, the first and second mates, who with cold douche and
unrelenting boot were sparing no pains to rouse to a sense of duty those
of their flock who had not yet found or recovered their sea-legs.

The crew consisted of two Englishmen and a Californian, together with a
handful of Scandinavians, Portuguese, and Germans, divided by sea-law
(which, like its big brother, _non curat de minimis_) into "Dagoes" and
"Dutchmen" respectively, representatives of the Romance races being
grouped under the former and of the Anglo-Saxon under the latter
designations. With one exception none of them had sailed on the ship
before, and in all probability would never do so again. They had been
purveyed to Captain Kingdom by a Tenderloin boarding-house keeper, and
had signed a contract for the voyage to Bordeaux and back, wages for
both trips to be paid at the end of the second. If sufficiently knocked
about, they would in all probability desert at Bordeaux, preferring to
forego their pay rather than stand a second dose of the home comforts of
the Orinoco. This was one of the ways in which Captain Kingdom saved his
employer money and in which Mr. Noddy Kinahan made the "River" Line a
profitable concern. There were also others, which shall be set forth in
due course.

Captain Kingdom had just appeared on the bridge. He was a furtive and
sinister-looking individual, resembling rather a pawnbroker's assistant
than one who occupied his business in great waters. But he was a useful
servant to Noddy Kinahan.

"Got all the hands to work, Mr. Gates?" he called down to the mate.

"Aye, aye, sir!" replied Mr. Gates, knocking the heel of his boot on the
deck to ease his aching toes.

The captain ran his eye over the crew, who were huddling together
forward of the bridge. He cleared his throat.

"Now, you scum," he began genially, "attend to me, while I tell you what
you've got to do on board this ship."

The scum, stagnant and unresponsive, listened stolidly to his harangue,
the substance of which did not differ materially, _mutatis mutandis_,
from one of Mr. Squeers's inaugural addresses to his pupils on the first
morning of term at Dotheboys Hall. Captain Kingdom's peroration laid
particular stress upon the fact that Messrs. Gates and Dingle had been
requested by him as a particular favour to adopt the policy of the thick
stick and the big boot in the case of those members of the crew who
refrained from looking slick in executing their orders.

The crew received his remarks with sheepish grins or sullen scowls; and
the orator concluded:

"Pick watches, Mr. Gates, and then we'll pipe down to dinner. Are all
hands on deck?"

"Aye, aye, sir," replied Mr. Gates, looking over his list.

"I saw _somebody_ down below a few minutes ago," drawled a voice,
proceeding from a figure seated upon a bollard.

It was Mr. Allerton, who, with characteristic contentment with (or
indifference to) his lot, had performed the unprecedented feat of
signing on for a second voyage in the Orinoco. He wore his usual air of
humorous tolerance of the cares of this world, and spoke in the composed
and unruffled fashion which stamps the high-caste Englishman all over
the globe. His lot on board the Orinoco had been lighter than that of
most, for his companions, finding him apparently impervious to ill-usage
and philosophically genial under all circumstances, had agreed to regard
him as a species of heavily decayed and slightly demented "dude," and
had half-affectionately christened him "Percy,"--a term which sums up
the typical Englishman for the New Yorker almost as vividly as "Rosbif"
and "Godam" perform that office for the Parisian.

The captain descended from the bridge, walked across the deck, and
dispassionately kicked Mr. Allerton off the bollard.

"Stand up, you swine, when you speak to me!" he shouted. "Where did you
see anybody?"

Mr. Allerton rose slowly and painfully from the scuppers. There are
moments when the _rôle_ of a Democritus is difficult to sustain.

"I'm sorry you did that, captain," he remarked, "because I know you
didn't mean it personally. You had to make some sort of demonstration,
of course, to put the fear of death into these new hands, but I regret
that you should have singled me out as the _corpus vile_,--you don't
know what that means, I daresay: never mind!--because you have shaken up
my wits so much, besides nearly breaking my hip-bone, that I shall have
to pause and consider a minute before I remember where I _did_ see the
gentleman."

If the captain had been Mr. Gates he would probably have felled Allerton
to the deck a second time. As it was, he shuffled his feet uncomfortably
and glared. The broken man before him, when all was said and done, was
his superior; and the captain, who was of sufficiently refined clay to
be sensitive to social distinctions, was angrily conscious of that sense
of sheepish uneasiness which obsesses the cad, however exalted, in the
presence of a gentleman, however degraded.

Allerton continued:--

"I remember now, captain. The man was lying in the alley-way leading to
the companion. I'll go and see how he is getting on. Keep your seats,
gentlemen."

He dived down the fore-hatchway, just in time to escape the itching boot
of the unimpressionable Mr. Gates, and proceeded between decks toward
the stern. Presently he came to the alley-way in question. The man was
still there, but had slightly shifted his position since Allerton had
last seen him. He was now reclining across the passage, with his head
sunk on his chest. His feet were bare, and he was attired in a blue
jumper and a pair of trousers which had once belonged to a suit of
orange-and-red pyjamas. His appearance was not impressive.

Allerton stirred him gently with his foot.

"Wake up, old man," he remarked, "or there'll be hell--Well, I'm
damned!"

For the man had drowsily lifted his heavy head and displayed the
features of Hughie Marrable.

They gazed at each other for a full minute. Then Allerton said feebly:--

"You've preferred the Orinoco to the Apulia after all, then?"

Hughie did not reply. He was running his tongue round his cracked and
blackened lips, and tentatively sucking his palate.

"I know that taste," he remarked. "It reminds me of a night I once spent
in Canton. I have it--opium!"

Then he tenderly fingered the back of his head, and nodded with the
interested air of one who is acquiring a new item of experience.

"I've been filled up with opium before," he said, "but this is the first
time I've been sand-bagged. I suppose I was sand-bagged first and
hocussed afterwards. Yes, that's it."

He looked almost pleased. He was a man who liked to get to the bottom of
things. Presently he continued:--

"Could you get me a drink of water? I've got a tongue like a stick of
glue."

Allerton departed as bidden, presently to return with a pannikin. Hughie
was standing up in the alley-way, swaying unsteadily and regarding his
attire.

"I say," he said, after gulping the water, "would you mind telling
me--you see, I'm a little bit wuzzy in the head at present--where the
devil I am, and whether I came on board in this kit or my own clothes?"

"Steamship Orinoco," replied Allerton precisely, "out of New York, for
Bordeaux."

"Let me think," said Hughie,--"Orinoco? Ah! now I'm beginning to see
daylight. What's the name of the owner, our friend from Coney Island?"

Allerton told him. "But he's more than your friend now," he added; "he's
your employer."

Hughie whistled long and low.

"I see," he said. "Shanghaied--eh? Well, I must say he owed me one: I
fairly barked his nose for him that night. But now that he has had me
knocked on the head and shipped on board this old ark, I think he has
overpaid me. I owe him one again; and, with any luck, he shall have it."

"Do you remember being slugged?" said Allerton.

"Can't say I do precisely. Let me see. I recollect coming along
Forty-second Street on my way to the Manhattan. I'd been dining at the
Lambs, and I stopped a minute on the sidewalk under an L railway-track
to light my pipe, when--yes, it must have happened then."

"I expect you had been shadowed all day," said Allerton. "But I'm
forgetting my duties. You are wanted on deck."

"Who wants me? Noddy Kinahan?"

"Not much! He doesn't travel by his own ships. It's the captain. I
understand that you are to be presented to the company as a little
stowaway, and great surprise and pain will be officially manifested at
your appearance on board."

"All right. Come along and introduce me."

Captain Kingdom's method of dealing with stowaways--natural and
artificial--was simple and unvarying. On presentation, he first of all
abused them with all the resources of an almost Esperantic vocabulary,
and then handed them over to Mr. Gates to be kicked into shape.

On Hughie Marrable's appearance on deck, the captain proceeded with
gusto to Part One of his syllabus. Hard words break no bones, and
Hughie, who was breathing in great draughts of sea-air and feeling less
dizzy and more collected each minute, set no particular store by the
oratorical display to which he was being treated. In fact, he was almost
guilty of the discourtesy of allowing his attention to wander. He set
the crown upon his offence by interrupting the captain's peroration.

"Look here, skipper," he said, brusquely breaking in upon a period, "you
can drop that. My name is Marrable. I am not a stowaway, and I have been
dumped on board this ship by order of--"

"Your name," said Captain Kingdom with relish, "is anything I choose to
call you; and as you stowed yourself away on board--"

"Look here," said Hughie, "I want a word with you--in your own cabin for
choice. All right," he continued with rising voice, as the captain broke
out again, "I'll have it here instead. First of all, what is Mr. Noddy
Kinahan paying you for this job?"

The captain turned to the mate.

"Sock him, Mr. Gates!" he roared.

Mr. Gates, whose curiosity--together with that of the rest of the
crew--had been roused, as Hughie meant it to be, by the latter's
reference to Mr. Noddy Kinahan's share in the present situation, moved
forward to his task with less alacrity than usual, and paused readily
enough when Hughie continued:--

"If you'll put back, captain, and land me anywhere within a hundred
miles of New York, I'll give you double what Kinahan is paying you for
this job."

"You _look_ like a man with money, I must say!" replied Kingdom. "Now
then, Mr. Gates!"

"It's to be no deal, then?" said Hughie composedly. "Very well. The next
question is, if I am coming with you, how am I going to be treated?
Cabin or steer--"

"I'll show you," roared the incensed skipper. "Knock him silly, Mr.
Gates!"

Mr. Gates came on with a rush. But Hughie, who all this time had been
taking his bearings, leapt back lightly in his bare feet and snatched a
capstan-bar from the rack behind him.

"Keep your distance for a moment, Mr. Gates," he commanded, "if you
don't want your head cracked. I haven't finished interviewing this
captain of yours yet. Happy to oblige _you_ later, for any period you
care to specify."

"'Nother Percy!" commented Mr. Dingle dejectedly, expectorating over the
side. He was a plain man, was Mr. Dingle, and loved straight hitting and
words of one syllable.

Mr. Gates paused, and Hughie, leaning back against the bulwarks and
toying with the capstan-bar, continued to address the fulminating
mariner on the bridge.

"Now, captain, I'm going to be brief with you--brief and business-like.
You've been paid by Kinahan to shanghai me and take me for a long
sea-voyage. Very good. I'm not kicking. I wanted to get to Europe
anyhow, and I rather like long sea-voyages, especially before the mast.
In fact, I'd rather sail before the mast on board this ship than in the
cuddy. (Keep still, Mr. Gates!) As I'm here, I've no particular
objection to working my passage, always reserving to myself the right to
make things hot for your employer when I get ashore. I'll work as an
A.B. or deck-hand if you like, though personally I would rather do
something in the engine-room. I'm pretty well qualified in that
direction. But I must be decently treated, and there must be no more
sand-bagging or knockabout variety business. Is it a deal?"

Captain Kingdom surveyed the sinewy stowaway before him thoughtfully. He
saw that until Hughie gave up the capstan-bar Mr. Gates would have
little chance of enforcing discipline. He must temporise.

"I can give you a job in the engine-room," he said, in what he imagined
was a more conciliatory tone. "Second engineer's down with something
this morning. You can take his watch. Drop that capstan-bar of yours,
and go and see Mr. Angus, the chief."

"That should suit me," replied Hughie. "But as a guarantee of good
faith, and to avoid disappointing the assembled company, I'm quite
willing to stand up and have a turn with Mr. Gates here, or that
gentleman over by the funnel-stay, or any one else you may appoint. But
I should _prefer_ Mr. Gates," he added, almost affectionately. "I'm not
in first-class form at present, as my head has got a dint in it behind;
but I'll do my best. Are you game, Mr. Gates?"

"Go on, Mr. Gates, learn him!" commanded the highly gratified skipper.

"Drop that bar," shouted the genial Mr. Gates, "and I'll kill you!"

"Half a minute, please," said Hughie, as unruffled as if he were putting
on the gloves for a ten-minute spar in a gymnasium. "I'm not going to
fight a man in sea-boots in my bare feet. Can any gentleman oblige me
with--Thank you, sir! You are a white man."

A pair of oily canvas tennis shoes, with list soles, pattered down on
the deck beside him. Their donor, the "white man,"--a coal-black
individual attired chiefly in cotton-waste,--was smiling affably from
the engine-room hatchway.

"They'll dae ye fine," he observed unexpectedly, and disappeared below.

In a moment Hughie had slipped on the shoes. Then, casting away the bar,
he hurled himself straight at the head of Mr. Gates.

In the brief but exhilarating exhibition which followed Mr. Gates
realised that a first mate on the defensive is a very different being
from a first mate on the rampage. He had become so accustomed to
breaking in unresisting dock-rats and bemused foreigners, taking his own
time and using his boots where necessary, that a high-pressure combat
with a man who seemed to be everywhere except at the end of his fist--to
his honour he never once thought of employing his foot--was an entire
novelty to him. He fought sullenly but ponderously, wasting his enormous
strength on murderous blows which never reached their mark, and stolidly
enduring a storm of smacks, bangs, and punches that would have knocked a
man of less enduring material into a pulp. But there is one blow which
no member of the human family can stand up to, glutton for punishment
though he be. Hughie made a sudden feint with his left at his opponent's
body, just below the heart. Gates dropped his guard, momentarily
throwing forward his head as he did so. Instantaneously a terrific
upper-cut from Hughie's right took him squarely under the chin. Mr.
Gates described a graceful parabola, and landed heavily on his back on
deck, striking his head against a ring-bolt as he fell. The whole fight
had lasted less than four minutes.

Hughie was about to assist his fallen opponent to rise, when he heard a
warning cry from half-a-dozen voices. He swung round, to find the
captain making for him, open-mouthed, with the capstan-bar. He sprang
lightly aside--a further blessing on those list shoes!--and his opponent
charged past him, bringing down the bar with a flail-like sweep upon the
drum of a steam windlass. Next moment Hughie, grasping the foremast
shrouds, leaped on the bulwarks and pulled himself up to the level of
the bridge, which was unoccupied save by the man at the wheel, who had
been an enthusiastic spectator of the scene below.

Having climbed upon the bridge, and so secured the upper ground in case
of any further attack, Hughie leaned over the rails and parleyed. In his
hand he held a pair of heavy binoculars, which he had taken out of a box
clamped to the back of the wind-screen.

"The first man who attempts to follow me up here," he announced, when he
had got his breath back, "will get this pair of glasses in the eye.
Captain, I don't think you are a great success as an employer of labour.
You haven't got the knack of conciliating your men. Can't we come to
terms? Mine are very simple. I want some clothes--my own, for choice. If
you haven't got them, anything quiet and unobtrusive will do. But I
decline to go about in orange-and-red pyjama trousers in mid-Atlantic to
please you or anybody else. For one thing they're not warm, and for
another they're not usual. If you will oblige me in this matter, I am
quite willing to live at peace with you. I don't see that you can really
suppress me except by killing me, and that is a thing which I don't
think you have either the authority or the pluck to do. Why not give me
a billet in the engine-room and cry quits?"

Captain Kingdom looked up at the obstreperous mutineer on the bridge,
and down at the recumbent Mr. Gates on the deck, and ground his teeth.
Then he looked up to the bridge again.

"All right," he growled. "Come down!"

CHAPTER VIII

A BENEFIT PERFORMANCE

Hughie, having been relieved to a slight extent from sartorial
humiliation, entered upon his engine-room duties forthwith.

The society in which he found himself consisted of Mr. Angus, the
chief,--engineers, like gardeners, editors, and Cabinet Ministers, are
practically all Scotsmen,--Mr. Goble, the acting-second (_vice_ Mr.
Walsh, sick), and a motley gang of undersized, half-mutinous, wholly
vile sweepings of humanity in the form of firemen. Mr. Walsh was
suffering from an intermittent form of malaria contracted years ago in
an up-river trip to the pestilential regions round Saigon. Mr. Angus, a
hoary-headed and bottle-nosed Dundonian, who could have charmed a
scrap-heap into activity, received Hughie with native politeness, and
paid him the compliment of working him uncommonly hard. He explained
(with perfect truth) that the only reason why he was not at that moment
driving a Cunarder was a habit of his, viewed by certain owners with
regrettable narrowness of vision, of "takin' a drap, whiles." The
concluding adverb Hughie correctly estimated to mean "whenever I can get
anything to drink."

"I canna see what for they should be sae partic'lar aboot it," mused Mr.
Angus in recounting the circumstance, "for I haundle her jist as weel
drunk as sober. However, here I am, and there's an end o't. Aiblins it's
jist as weel. I could rin the engines o' ony Cunarder afloat, but I ken
fine there's not hauf-a-dozen men in their hale fleet could knock eight
knots oot o' the auld Orinoco. There's a kin' o' divinity aboot it, I
doot. A man's pit whaur he's maist wantit."

John Alexander Goble, the acting-second, proved to be a man of greater
depth and more surprises than his superior. He it was who had thrown the
list shoes to Hughie before the battle with Mr. Gates, which showed that
he was at heart a Sportsman; he had taken the first opportunity of
asking for the return of the same, which showed that he was a Scotsman;
but he had found Hughie a better pair of shoes in their stead, together
with some garments more suitable than the blue jumper and the
orange-and-red pyjama trousers, which showed that he was a good
Samaritan: and a man who is a Sportsman and a Scot and a good Samaritan
all rolled into one is an addition to the society of any engine-room.

His face wore an expression of chastened gloom; and if washed and set
ashore in his native Caledonia, he would probably have received a
unanimous invitation to come and glower over the plate in the doorway of
the nearest Wee Free conventicle. His speech was slow and unctuous: one
could imagine him under happier circumstances conducting family worship,
and pausing to elucidate in approved fashion some specially obvious
passage in the evening's "portion," thus: "From the expression, 'a
michty man o' valour,' we may gather that the subject of this reference
was a person of considerable stature and undoubted physical courage."

He was habitually and painfully sober, for reasons which Hughie learned
from him at a period when they had more leisure to study each other's
characters. He was ignorant of the first principles of mechanics, but
could be trusted to keep the Orinoco's propeller-shaft revolving at a
steady seventy-two to the minute; and he had a gentle compelling way
with refractory firemen which made for sweet reasonableness and general
harmony below stairs, what time Mr. Angus was recovering from one of
those sudden and regrettable attacks of indisposition which usually
coincided with the forgetfulness of the steward to lock up the cabin
whisky-bottle.

Hughie berthed in the foc'sle, and was regarded by the Dagoes, Dutchmen,
_et hoc genus omne_, with mingled admiration for the manner in which he
had settled Mr. Gates, and mystified surprise that a man capable of such
a feat should be content to live on his own rations and sleep in his
allotted bunk, without desiring to make researches into the respective
succulence and comfort of his neighbours'.

On the whole Hughie found his life tolerable enough, as the Orinoco
butted and grunted her way across the Newfoundland Banks; and he
experienced no pang when the Apulia, spouting smoke from her four
funnels and carrying his luggage in one of her state-rooms, swept past
them on the rim of the southern horizon on their third day out. He was
accustomed to rough quarters, and any new experience of things as they
are was of interest to him. Moreover, he possessed the priceless
possession of a cast-iron digestion; and a man so blessed can afford to
snap his fingers at most of the sundry and manifold changes of this
world.

Captain Kingdom and Mr. Gates for the time being held him severely
aloof. The taciturn Mr. Dingle conveyed to him, by means of a
surprisingly ingenious code of grunts and expectorations, that provided
he, Hughie,--or Brown, as he was usually called,--was content to go his
way without hunting for trouble, he, Mr. Dingle, was content to go his
without endeavouring to supply it. Altogether there seemed to be no
reason for doubting that the Orinoco, provided she did not open up and
sink like a basket _en route_, would ultimately reach the port of
Bordeaux, bringing her sheaves, in the form of Hughie and some
unspeakable claret, with her.

But there is more than one way of making money out of the shipping
trade.

One night Hughie was leaning over the taffrail behind the wheel-house at
the stern. It was two o'clock, and the darkness was intensified by a
heavy mist. There was almost no wind, and the Orinoco, like a
draught-horse which feels the wheels of its equipage upon a tram-line,
slid gratefully up and down the lazy rollers with the nearest approach
to comfort that she had experienced that voyage.

Hughie was idly watching the phosphorescent wake of the propeller,
wondering whether Captain Kingdom had orders to land him in France in
his shirt and trousers or throw him overboard before they got there,
when a figure rose up out of the darkness beside him. It was the
easy-going Mr. Allerton.

"Hallo, Percy!" said Hughie. He had soon dropped into the nomenclature
of the foc'sle.

"Look here," said Allerton, in a more purposeful voice than usual; "come
along and look at this boat."

The largest of the three boats carried by the Orinoco lay close by them.
She was swung inboard and rested on deck-chocks below the davits. A
canvas cover, one end of which fluttered intermittently in the breeze,
roofed her over. Allerton lifted this flap and inserted his hand.
Presently there was a splutter and a glimmer, and it became plain that
he was holding a lighted match under the canvas.

"Look!" he whispered.

Hughie peered under the flap. He saw water-barrels, a spirit-keg, and
various bags and boxes. Then the match went out, and Allerton withdrew
his hand.

The pair retired once more to their shelter behind the wheel-house.

"You saw that?" said Allerton.

"I did. Do they usually keep the boats provisioned on this ship? If so,
I don't blame them."

"Not they. Somebody is going for a water-picnic shortly--that's all."

Hughie mused.

"Am _I_ the man, do you think?" he said at length.

"No, I don't think so. There's too much grub for one. Besides the other
boats are provisioned too. It looks as if the ship were to be
abandoned."

"But why? There's no reason why she should drop to bits for a long time
yet. Rust is very binding, you know. Probably they keep her provisioned
just in case--"

Allerton wagged his head sagaciously.

"There's more in this than meets the eye," he said. "It is my pleasure
and privilege, as you know, to act as steward at present during the
regretted retirement of the regular holder of that office, owing to
eczema of the hands. (Even Mr. Gates shies at eczema sea-pie!) Now
there's some mischief brewing in the cuddy, and they're all in
it--Kingdom, Gates, and Angus. I'm not quite sure about Dingle, because
he berths forward; but I think he is too. What's more: it's something
they can't afford to have given away. Kingdom, who usually keeps Angus
very short of drink at sea, now lets him have it whenever he wants it,
and generally speaking is going out of his way to keep him sweet. That
shows he can't afford to quarrel with him. And when a captain can't
afford to quarrel with a chief engineer whom he hates, it usually means
that he and the engineer are in together over some hanky-panky which has
its roots in the engine-room. You mark my words, one of these fine
nights that hoary-headed old Caledonian will open a sea-cock or two and
rush up on deck and say the ship is sinking. It'll be a case of all
hands to the boats; the Orinoco will go to her long-overdue and
thoroughly deserved rest at the bottom, and the insurance people will
pay up and look pleasant."

"H'm," said Hughie; "there seems to be something in what you say. I wish
I could keep an eye on the old sinner in the engine-room; but since
Walsh came back to duty I've no excuse for going there at all now. It
might almost be worth while to warn Goble. He's a decent chap."

"Who is on duty in the engine-room now?"

"Walsh, I should think. Angus usually makes way for him about eight
bells. But I'm not sure. Hark! Do you notice anything about the beat of
the engines?"

"Not being an expert, can't say I do. They sound a trifle more asthmatic
than usual, perhaps. What's up?"

"Somebody has got the donkey-pump at work," said Hughie. "It may be
Angus, after all, monkeying with the water-ballast. Hallo!" He leaned
over the stern-rail and peered down. "Do you notice anything unusual
about the propeller?"

"It seems to be kicking up a bit of a dust," said Allerton. "Is it going
round faster, or getting nearer the surface?"

"It's half out of the water," said Hughie. "That means that the old man
has pumped out the after double-bottom tank. Look, we're all down by the
head!"

The two stepped out from behind the wheelhouse and gazed forward. The
flush deck of the Orinoco was undoubtedly running downhill towards the
bows.

"What's the game?" inquired Allerton excitedly.

Hughie was thinking. Presently he said:--

"I'm not sure, but his next move should tell us. Either he is trying to
drive her nose under and sink her by manipulating the water-ballast,
which seems a hopeless job in a flat calm like this, and suicidal if it
comes off; or else he is working up for a scare of some kind, which will
frighten the crew into--Hallo? what's that?"

There was a warning cry from Mr. Dingle, who was standing right forward
in the bows.

"Something right ahead, sir! Looks like--"

There was an answering shout from the bridge, where the captain was
standing by the wheel, followed by a jangling of telegraph-bells. Next
moment the Orinoco gave a jar and a stagger, and Hughie and Allerton
pitched forward on to their noses.

There were shouts and cries all over the ship, and men came tumbling up
the hatchways.

"We've struck something," gasped Allerton.

"Struck your grandmother!" grunted Hughie, who was sitting up rubbing
his nose tenderly. "That jar came from directly underneath us. It was
caused by Angus reversing his engines without giving the ship time to
slow down. I daresay he never even shut off steam. Likely enough he's
lifted the engines off their beds. Well, perhaps he had finished with
them anyway. Come along forward."

By this time a frightened crowd had assembled on the deck of the
Orinoco, which, lying motionless on the silent sea, artistically tilted
up by the stern,--Hughie began to grasp the inwardness of Mr. Angus's
manoeuvres with the water-ballast,--presented a sufficiently alarming
appearance even on that calm night.

Mr. Dingle and the captain, the one hanging over the bows and the other
standing in an attitude of alertness on the bridge, were sustaining
between them a conversation which vaguely suggested to Hughie a
carefully rehearsed "cross-talk" duologue between two knockabout
artistes of the Variety firmament--say the Brothers Bimbo in one of
their renowned impromptu "patter scenes." The resemblance was enhanced
by the fact that the "patter" was delivered _fortissimo_ by both
performers, and each repeated the other's most telling phrases in tones
which made it impossible for the audience to avoid hearing them.

"What was it?" shouted Bimbo Senior (as represented by Captain Kingdom).

"Lump of wreckage!" roared Bimbo Junior, from a prolonged scrutiny of
the ship's forefoot.

"Lump of wreckage?" bellowed Bimbo Senior.

"Lump of wreckage!" corroborated Bimbo Junior.

"Of course it _might_ have been ice," suggested Number One, at the top
of his voice.

"Might have been ice," replied the conscientious echo.

"Pairsonally I'm inclined tae believe it was jist a wee bit coral
island," interpolated a third voice, with painful and stunning
distinctness. The Chief Engineer had suddenly made his appearance on the
bridge.

The captain was obviously much put out. In the first place, coral
islands are not plentiful in the North Atlantic, and there are limits
even to the gullibility of an audience composed of foreign deck-hands
and half-civilised firemen. Secondly, the axiom that two is company and
three none applies even to cross-talk duologues. Thirdly, Mr. Angus was
excessively drunk, and consequently the laboriously planned comedietta
at present in progress might, owing to his inartistic and uncalled-for
intrusion upon the scene, take a totally unrehearsed turn at any moment.

The captain lost no time.

"What report have you from the engine-room, Mr. Angus?" he inquired
loudly and pointedly.

Mr. Angus, suddenly recognising his cue, and realising almost with tears
that he had been imperilling the success of the entire piece by unseemly
"gagging," pulled himself together, returned to his text, and announced
that the ship was badly down by the head and the stokehold awash.

"There's nothing else for it," yelled the captain resignedly, "but to
leave her. Clear away the boats, Mr. Gates!"

Having thus established a good working explanation of the disaster, and
incidentally enlisted the entire audience--those members of it, that is,
who were not already doing service in the _claque_--as unbiassed
witnesses for the defence in case the insurance company turned nasty,
the intrepid commander descended from the bridge to his cabin, to
collect a few necessaries pending the abandonment of his beloved vessel.

Hughie and Allerton surveyed each other.

"Which boat are you going in?" inquired Allerton.

"None," said Hughie.

"Going to stay on board?"

Hughie nodded.

"But she'll sink under our feet."

"I don't believe she's as badly damaged as all that. There's some game
on here."

"I don't suppose she's damaged at all," said Allerton, "but you can be
sure they won't be such blamed fools as to leave the ship floating about
to be picked up. Old Angus will let water into her before he leaves, if
he hasn't started the process already."

"Well, I'm not going in any of those boats," said Hughie. "If the
Orinoco sinks, I'll float to Europe on a hen-coop."

"May I have half of it?" said Allerton.

"You may," said Hughie.

And so the S. S. Orinoco Salvage Company, Limited, was floated, and the
Board of Directors entered upon their new duties at once.

By this time the boats had been swung outboard and their provisioning
completed. They were now lowered from the davits, and the men began to
take their places. There was no panic, for the night was calm, and the
Orinoco showed no signs of settling deeper. Messrs. Gates and Dingle
were already at their respective tillers. Captain Kingdom and Mr. Angus
were standing by the davits to which the whale-boat was still shackled.
Mr. Goble, apparently in no hurry, was leaning over the bulwarks in the
darkness not far from Hughie and Allerton, dispassionately regarding the
crew's preparations for departure. He approached nearer.

"There's a wheen fowk in thae boats," he observed. "I doot we'd be safer
on board."

Hughie turned to him and nodded comprehendingly.

"That's my opinion too," he said, "and Percy's. We're thinking of
staying here."

Mr. Goble regarded him reflectively.

"Is that a fact?" he said. "Weel, I'll bide too."

And so a third member was co-opted on to the Board of Directors.

"We'd better get out of sight," said Hughie. "They won't like leaving us
behind. I think I know a good place to wait. Come along."

The trio slipped round behind the chart-house, passed along a deserted
stretch of the deck, and disappeared down the engine-room hatchway.

The engine-room was illuminated by a couple of swinging lanterns. A
black and greasy flood of water glistened on the iron floor below,
filling the crank-pits and covering the propeller-shaft. The doors
leading to the stokehold were standing open, and they could see that the
floors there too were flooded, though the water had not reached the
level of the fire-bars. Owing to the immobility of the ship, its oily
surface was almost unruffled, and the engine-room itself was curiously
quiet after the turmoil on deck. The fires were burning low, but
occasionally a glowing clinker slipped from between the bars into the
blood-red flood beneath, with a sizzling splash. The steam was hissing
discontentedly in the gauges.

The Salvage Board stood knee-deep in the water of the engine-room.

Hughie picked up a smoky inspection-lamp,--a teapot-like affair with a
wick in the spout,--lit it, and peered about.

"Now look here," he said, "I don't quite know where this water came
from, and it doesn't much matter, as no more is coming in at present. If
the old man means to sink the ship he will have to come down here to do
it. He has probably got some dodge arranged by which he can just turn a
wheel and open a valve and send her to the bottom. Isn't that the idea,
Goble? (I'll explain to you afterwards, Allerton.) My impression is that
he'll pop down and turn the valve on just before he leaves. In that case
one of us must stand by and turn it off again. You two go through into
the stokehold. He's not likely to come in there. If he does, you must
use your own discretion. I'll wait here, on the far side of the
cylinders, up against the condenser. He's not likely to see me, but I
shall be able to watch him and see which valve-wheel he turns on."

The other two obeyed, and Hughie, scrambling across the bed-plates of
the engines, ensconced himself behind a convenient cross-head, with his
feet in a flooded crank-pit and his body squeezed back as far as
possible into the shadow of the condenser.

He had not long to wait. Presently cautious feet were heard descending
the iron ladder, and Mr. Angus, comparatively sober, stepped heavily
into the flood on the floor.

His first proceeding was to wade to the stokehold end of the
engine-room,--Hughie thought at first that he was going right through
into the arms of Allerton and Goble, and wondered what they would do
with him,--where he began to manipulate the great valve-wheel which kept
the steam imprisoned in the boilers; and presently Hughie could hear the
roar of the escape far above his head. This was a purely precautionary
measure, and could do no harm to any one.

Then Mr. Angus splashed his way to the corner by the donkey-pump, where
the machinery for controlling the bilge and water-ballast valves was
situated, and began to twist over another wheel. Presently there was a
gurgling bubbling sound in the bowels of the ship, followed by a slight
hissing and whispering on the surface of the water on the engine-room
floor. The valve was open.

Mr. Angus turned and lurched heavily through the rising flood to the
iron ladder. Thirty seconds later a glistening figure crawled out of the
crank-pit and vigorously turned the wheel in the opposite direction. The
gurgling and hissing ceased. The valve was closed.

CHAPTER IX

_LITERA SCRIPTA MANET_

"Mr. Marrable, did ever ye see a drookit craw?"

"No."

"Well, see me!" announced Mr. Goble complacently.

He crawled out of the engine-room companionway and sat down on the deck.
Excessive spruceness had never been a foible of his, but now he was an
unrecognisable mass of coal-dust, oil, and rust. He was dripping wet,
for he had spent the last hour in an exhaustive examination of the
Orinoco's waterlogged internal economy. The morning sun was warm, and he
steamed comfortably as he detailed the result of his investigations to
Hughie, who in some imperceptible but inevitable manner had taken
command of the tiny ship's company.

Shorn of technicalities and irrelevant excursions into the regions of
pawky philosophy, Mr. Goble's report came to this.

Mr. Angus had pumped out the after ballast-tank during the night,
allowing the water, by means of a specially rigged return-pipe, to flow
into the bilges of the ship instead of escaping overboard. By this
device he had altered the Orinoco's centre of gravity in such a manner
as to produce the afore-mentioned down-hill slant of her decks--a
corroborative detail, as Pooh-Bah would have observed, which gave a
little much-needed artistic verisimilitude to the Bimbo Brothers' bald
and unconvincing narrative of disaster. Incidentally he had flooded the
forehold and engine-room with sufficient water to give those members of
the ship's company who were not in their employer's confidence the
impression that she was sinking, and to furnish those who were with a
_prima facie_ argument for deserting her.

But these thoughtful precautions, though sufficient to procure the
abandonment of the Orinoco, were by no means sufficient to send her to
the bottom, a consummation to be achieved at any cost; for to leave
your ship lying about in mid-ocean, to be picked up by the first
chance-comer, while you go hurrying home to extract a cheque from the
insurance company, savours of slipshod business methods; and Mr. Noddy
Kinahan was nothing if not thorough.

Now every steamer which plies under Lloyds' ægis is fitted, below the
water-line, with a set of what are called bilge-valves. Through these it
is possible to expel any water which may have found its way into the
body of the vessel. As it is even more desirable to prevent the entrance
of water into your ship than to assist its exit, these valves are of
a strictly "non-return" variety, and no amount of pressure from
the outside should ever prevail upon them to play the part of
Facing-Both-Ways. The very life of the ship depends upon them; and the
enterprising individual who tampers with their mechanism in such a
manner as to convert what is meant to be an Emergency Exit into a sort
of Early Door for the rolling deep, does so at the risk of coming into
immediate and painful collision with the criminal laws of his country.

Mr. Angus, it appeared, had been employing some of his spare time during
the voyage in reversing one of these bilge-valves, with such skill and
_finesse_ that, as we have seen, one had only to give a turn to a
worm-and-wheel gear in the engine-room to admit the Atlantic Ocean in
large quantities.

"Oh, he has a heid on him, has Angus!" commented Mr. Goble with
professional appreciation, "even when he's fou'. He made a rare job o't.
But how he managed to contrive that imitation o' a collision, merely
through some jookery-packery wi' the reverse-gear and throttle, wi'oot
tearin' the guts oot o' her, I div not ken. Man, it was a fair conjurin'
trick! By rights the link motion should be twisted intil a watch-chain
and the cross-heids jammit in the guides. But they're no. It's jist
Providence, I doot," he added rather apologetically, with the air of one
who should have thought of this sooner.

Then he uprose from his seat on an inverted bucket.

"Before I gang ben, sir," he concluded, "tae change ma feet and ma
breeks, I'll tak' the liberty tae inquire of you what you propose tae
dae next. Maircy me! Yon's Walsh."

Two figures had appeared round the corner of the chart-house, their
presence on the far side thereof having been advertised for some time by
the clanking of the deck-pumps. (Mr. Angus's precaution of blowing off
steam before leaving had put mechanical assistance in getting rid of the
water out of the question for the time being.)

"Yes, it's me," said Walsh, who, it will be remembered, was the second
engineer, to whom Hughie had recently been acting as deputy. "I should
have come on duty at eight bells to relieve Angus, but I slept right
through everything till Mr. Marrable found me in my bunk an hour or two
ago. I expect they put something in my grog last night."

"It's quite a hobby of theirs," said Allerton drily. "Mr. Marrable, I
have found something that may be useful to us."

He handed his superior officer a damp but undamaged little packet of
papers.

"Where did you find them?" asked Hughie. "I thought I had gone through
Kingdom's kit pretty thoroughly."

"They were sticking in the falls of the davits belonging to the boat
Kingdom went off in," replied Allerton. "I saw him hurrying along the
deck from his cabin just before his departure, carrying the log-book and
some papers and instruments. I expect he dropped these as he went over
the side."

"Sit down, everybody," said the commander, "we'll see this through. It
may concern us all."

The packet contained two letters, together with some invoices and bills
of lading referring chiefly to the Orinoco's cargo of astringent claret.

Hughie glanced through the letters. Then he re-read them with some
deliberation. Then he whistled low and expressively. Then he sat up and
sighed, gently and contentedly.

"Mr. Noddy Kinahan," he said, "is shortly going to wish, with all his
benevolent and philanthropic little heart, that he had never been born.
And we are the people that are going to make him wish. Listen!"

He read the two letters aloud. They were brief, but explicit. One
contained Kinahan's orders to Kingdom as to the disposal of the Orinoco.
The other was a sort of invoice, or consignment note, relating to the
person of one Marrable, who had apparently been shipped on board the
night before the ship sailed. Each of these documents, it may be added,
contained sufficient matter to ensure penal servitude for their author.

Hughie stopped reading, and there was a long and appreciative silence.
Then Allerton said:--

"What beats me is to understand how Kinahan could have been such a mug
as to commit these schemes to paper, and how Kingdom should have been
such a fool as to want to keep them. _I'd_ have let them go down in the
Orinoco."

"I expect one explanation covers both cases," said Hughie. "Kingdom
probably demanded his orders in black and white, as a guarantee that he
would get his money when he had done his job. Otherwise he had no claim
on Kinahan for a penny, beyond his ordinary wage as skipper. Kinahan
probably agreed, stipulating that the letters should be handed back to
him when they squared accounts. It was a risky thing to do, but when two
thieves can't trust each other, and go dropping about documentary
evidence to that effect--well, that's where poor but deserving people
like ourselves come in. No, I shouldn't think Kingdom _would_ want to
leave these behind; and I opine that he's a pretty sick man by this time
if he has missed them."

He folded the letters up, and put them away carefully.

"Now, gentlemen," he said briskly, "I propose that we go below and see
if there is sufficient steam on the Orinoco to pump the rest of the
water out of her and get the propeller revolving again. We'll have to
damp down most of the fires, because we can't run too many firemen, but
I think we ought to knock four or five knots out of her in ordinary
weather. Luckily, seventy-five _per cent_ of the ship's company are
competent engineers. After that we'll have some breakfast, and after
that we'll make tracks for home. We'll work"--he smacked his lips
cheerily, like an energetic pedagogue on the first morning of term--"in
shifts of three. Two men will run the engine-room and stokehold, and the
third will take the wheel. The fourth can sleep. That will give us each
eighteen hours on and six hours off. I don't know where we are, and I
have no means of finding out, as Captain Kingdom has walked off with the
chart and most of the proper instruments. But we must be near land, or
they would not have taken to the boats yet. If we keep steaming steadily
east (with a little north in it), at about a hundred miles a day,--which
I fancy is about our limit,--we should knock up against something sooner
or later. And when we do, we'll get hold of the proper authorities, and
I venture to think that with the help of these two letters and that
doctored bilge-valve down below we shall be able to prepare a welcome
for those three boat-loads of shipwrecked mariners, when they arrive,
that will surprise them. Also, I fancy there will be pickings for you in
the way of salvage. What a game!" Hughie stood up, and inhaled a great
breath. This was real life! "Are you _on_, boys?" he cried suddenly. "Is
the old Orinoco going to the bottom this journey?"

The crew rose at him and gave three cheers.

* * * * *

Later that afternoon, as the Orinoco pounded along at a strictly
processional pace through the ruffling waters,--the glass was falling
and a breeze getting up,--Deputy-Quartermaster Lionel Hinchcliffe
Welford-Welford Allerton, late scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge,
sometime Assistant Deck-Hand in the mercantile marine, descried from his
post on the bridge a small moving object upon the starboard bow.

It was the Orinoco's whale-boat, which was proceeding under two lugsails
on a course parallel with the steamer's.

Allerton, who in the excitement of salving the Orinoco had almost
forgotten the existence of the gang of buccaneers who had scuttled her,
excitedly rang the telegraph bell and summoned the rest of the ship's
company to his side.

The emotions, however, aroused in the Orinoco by the sight of the
whale-boat were mild in comparison with those excited in the undutiful
whale-boat by the spectacle of her resuscitated parent. Mr. Angus, on
beholding the steamer, kept discreetly silent. He had given himself away
by seeing things which were not there once or twice in his life before.
But Captain Kingdom turned a delicate apple-green.

"Look there!" he gasped, pointing.

"Yon bit cloud, ye mean?" said the cautious Angus.

"No, no, man--the Orinoco!" cried the frantic skipper.

"Oh--the shup! Aye, aye!" replied Mr. Angus, rather pleased than
otherwise.

"There's a crew on board her," continued Kingdom shakily. "And she's got
steam on her, too!"

"Aye," said Mr. Angus. "I doot somebody will have closed yon sea-cock
again."

"Who can it be?" demanded the captain feverishly. "Surely we left no one
on board. I told Dingle to take that fellow Marrable in his boat."

"Perhaps," suggested Mr. Angus, "yin of the other boats cam' back."

Kingdom pointed impatiently to two small specks upon the horizon.

"They're there," he said.

"Maybe some liner has come across her and left a bit crew on board her,"
continued the fertile Mr. Angus.

"If so, we'd have seen the liner," replied Kingdom irritably.

He took up his binoculars and began to scrutinise the Orinoco, which had
altered her course a few points in their direction.

Mr. Angus had a fresh inspiration.

"Did ye mind tae wauken Walsh?" he whispered. "If not, ye ken he micht
weel--"

The captain lowered his glasses, and nodded.

"He might be one," he agreed; "but there are four men on deck." He
raised his binoculars again. "Yes, there they are. Well, whoever they
are and whatever the game is, we must get on board again and do the job
properly this time.--Hallo, one of them is running below!--Here he is
again!--He's carrying something--flags, I reckon. They're going to
signal us."

He was right. Up to the topmost summit of the Orinoco's grimy foremast
travelled a signal--a banner with a strange device indeed, but conveying
a perfectly intelligible message for all that. It consisted of the
nether or unmentionable portion of a ragged suit of orange-and-red
striped pyjamas.

Having reached its destination, it inflated itself in the freshening
breeze and streamed out, defiant and derisive, in the rays of the
setting sun; flinging to the fermenting couple in the whale-boat the
simple but comprehensive intimation--"Sold!"

Then, with one single joyous toot from her siren, the Orinoco altered
her course a couple of points and wallowed off in a north-easterly
direction, leaving the crew of the whale-boat to listen in admiring
silence to a sulphurous antistrophe in two dialects proceeding from the
stern-sheets.

CHAPTER X

THE END OF AN ODYSSEY

Hughie reckoned that they might have to steam eastward for quite three
or four days before they sighted land.

This was an underestimate.

The history of the Orinoco's last voyage will never be written. In
the first place, those who took part in it were none of them men who
were addicted to the composition of travellers' tales; and in the
second, their recollections of the course of events when all was
over, were hopelessly and rather mercifully blurred. Not that they
minded. One derives no pleasure or profit from reconstructing a
nightmare--especially when it has lasted for sixteen days and nights.

Some events, of course, were focussed more sharply in their memories
than others. There was that eternity of thirty-six hours during which
the Orinoco, with every vulnerable orifice sealed up or battened down,
her asthmatic engines pulsing just vigorously enough to keep her head
before the wind, rode out a north-easterly gale which blew her many
miles out of her reckoning. ("Not that that matters much," said her
philosophic commander. "We don't know where we are now, it's true; but
then we didn't know where we were before, so what's the odds? We'll keep
on steering away about north-east, and as we are aiming at a target
eight hundred miles wide we ought to hit it somewhere.") Then there was
a palpitating night when the faithful engines, having wheezily but
unceasingly performed their allotted task for a period long enough to
lull all who depended upon them into an optimistic frame of mind, broke
down utterly and absolutely; and the fires had to be banked and the
Orinoco allowed to wallow unrestrainedly in the trough of the sea while
the entire ship's company, with cracking muscles and heart-breaking
gasps, released a jammed crosshead from the guides and took down a leaky
cylinder.

They were evidently out of the ordinary sea-lanes, for they sighted only
one steamer in ten days, and her they allowed to go by.

"None of us understand proper signalling," said Hughie, "so we can't
attract her attention without doing something absurdly theatrical, like
running up the ensign upside down; and I'm hanged if we'll do that--yet.
After all, we only want to know where we _are_. We may be just off the
coast of Ireland for all I can say, and it does seem feeble to bring a
liner out of her course to ask her footling questions. It would be like
stopping the Flying Scotsman to get a light for one's pipe."

"Or asking a policeman in Piccadilly Circus the nearest way to the
Criterion bar," added Allerton. "I'm with you all the time, captain."

And so these four mendicants allowed a potential Good Samaritan to pass
by and sink behind the horizon. It was an action typical of their race:
they had no particular objection to death, but they drew the line at
being smiled at. Still, there were moments during the next ten days when
they rather regretted their diffidence.

But events like these were mere excrescences in a plane of dead
monotony. The day's work was made up of endless hours in a Gehenna-like
stokehold, where with aching backs and bleeding hands they laboured to
feed the insatiable fires, or crawled along tunnel-like bunkers in
search of the gradually receding coal; spells at the wheel--sometimes
lashed to it--in biting wind or blinding fog; the whole sustained on a
diet of ship's biscuit, salt pork, and lukewarm coffee, tempered by
brief but merciful intervals of the slumber of utter exhaustion.

Still, one can get used to anything. They even enjoyed themselves after
a fashion. High endeavour counts for something, whether you have a wife
and family dependent upon you, like Walsh, or can extract _la joie de
vivre_ out of an eighteen-hour day and a workhouse diet, like Hughie.

And they got to know each other, thoroughly,--a privilege denied to most
in these days of restless activity and multifarious acquaintance.

It was a lasting wonder to Hughie how Allerton could ever have fallen to
his present estate; for he displayed an amount of energy, endurance, and
initiative during this manhood-testing voyage that was amazing. He
himself ascribed his virtue to want of opportunity to practise anything
else, but this was obviously too modest an explanation. Perhaps blood
always tells. At any rate, Allerton took unquestioned rank as second in
command over the heads of two men whose technical knowledge and physical
strength far exceeded his own. But in his hours of ease--few enough
now--he was as easy-going and flippant and casual as ever.

Walsh in a sense was the weakest of the quartet. He was a capable
engineer and an honest man, but he lacked the devil-may-care nonchalance
of the other three; for he had a wife and eight children waiting for him
in distant Limehouse, and a fact like that gives a man a distaste for
adventure. He was a disappointed man, too. He had held a chief
engineer's "ticket" for seven years, but he had never held a chief
engineer's billet. He could never afford to knock off work and wait
until the right berth should come his way: he must always take the first
that offered, for fear that the tale of boots and bread in Limehouse
should diminish. As a crowning stroke of ill-luck, he had been paid off
from his last job because his ship had collided with a New York lighter
and been compelled to go into dry dock for three months; and by shipping
in the Orinoco he was barely doing more than work his passage home. His
ten-year-old dream of delivering Mrs. Walsh from her wash-tub for all
time, and exalting her from the _res angustæ_ of Teak Street, Limehouse,
to a social environment reserved exclusively for the wives of chief
engineers, seemed as far from fulfilment as ever. Still, he maintained a
stiff upper lip and kept his watch like a man, which is more than most
of us would have done under the circumstances.

But it was Goble who interested Hughie most. In the long night-watches,
as they swung the heavy fire-shovels in the stokehold, or heaved the
ever-accumulating clinkers over the side, or took turn and turn about to
gulp tepid water out of a sooty bucket, or met over a collation of
coffee and ship's biscuit--the supper of one and the breakfast of the
other--in the galley, Goble would let fall dry pawky reflections on life
in general, with autobiographical illustrations, which enabled Hughie to
piece together a fairly comprehensive idea of his companion's previous
existence.

John Alexander Goble had played many parts in his time, like most
vagrants. He had been born a gamekeeper's son in Renfrewshire, and had
lost his father early, that devoted upholder of proprietary rights
having been shot through the head in a poaching affray. After this
catastrophe the widow, who had openly pined for her native Glasgow
during the whole of her husband's lifetime, had returned to that
municipal paradise; and the ripening youth of John Alexander Goble had
been passed in a delectable locality, known as "The Coocaddens," to
which he could never refer without a gleam of tender reminiscence in his
eyes.

Why John Alexander had ever deserted this Eden Hughie could never
rightly ascertain. His references to that particular epoch in his career
were invariably obscure; but since he darkly observed on one occasion
that "weemen can mak' a gowk o' the best man leevin'," Hughie gathered
that Mr. Goble's present course of life owed its origin to a tender but
unsatisfactory episode in the dim and distant days of his hot youth.

"After that," John would continue elliptically, "I went tae Motherwell.
D'ye ken Motherwell? A grand place! Miles and miles of blast-furnaces,
and the sky lit up day and nicht, like the Last Judgment. I did a wheen
odd jobs there. Whiles I would hurl a trolley wi' coke, whiles I would
sort coal wi' some lassies, and at last I got a job as a moulder."

"What's that?" inquired the ever-receptive Hughie.

"What else but a body that makes moulds?"

"Yes, but how does he do it?"

"Weel, there's a sort o' sandy place at the fit o' each
smelting-furnace--like a bit sea-shore, ye'll understand--and every
four-and-twenty hours they cast the furnace. They let oot the melted
ore, that is, and it rins doon intil moulds that hae been made in the
sand. (Ye dae it by just buryin' baulks o' timber in rows and then
pickin' them oot again, and the stuff rins intil the hollows that have
been left. When it's cauld they ca' it pig-iron.) Well, I stuck tae that
job for a matter o' sax months. But it was drouthy work, besides bein'
haird on the feet,--you go scratch-scratching in the sand wi' your bare
soles makin' the moulds,--and presently I gave it up and took tae daen'
odd jobs among the trucks and engines in the yairds. I liked that fine,
for machinery is the yin thing that really excites me. First I was a
coupler, then I was a fireman, then I got tae drivin' a wee shunting
engine, dunting trucks about the yaird. And at last I was set in charge
o' a winding-engine at a pit-heid. That was a grand job; but it didna
last long. I was drinkin' haird by this time--I'd stairtit after I left
the Coocaddens--and yin' day I was that fou' I let the cage gang doon
wi' a run tae the bottom o' the shaft."

"Was there anybody in the cage?" inquired Hughie, as Goble paused, as if
to contemplate some mental picture.

"There was not, thank God! But there _was_ a bit laddie doon ablow in
the pit, that was sittin' on his hutch--his truck, that is--at the fit
o' the shaft, waitin' on the cage. He wasna expectin' the thing tae fall
doon like a daud o' putty, so he was no' sittin' quite clear; and the
cage cam' doon and took off baith his feet. Man, I hae never forgotten
his mither's face when they brought him up. I lost ma job, and I hae
never touched a drop since. For seven-and-twenty years have I been on
the teetotal--seven-and-twenty years! It'll shorten ma life, I doot," he
added gloomily; "but I'll bide by it!"

"What became of the boy?" inquired Hughie.

"He's gotten twa wooden feet the noo," replied Goble more cheerfully,
"and he's been minding the lamp-room this twenty year. I've heard frae
him noo and again, and we've always been freens; but his auld mither has
never forgiven me. She's ower seventy the day, but Jeems tells me she
aye lets a curse every time he mentions ma name."

A further instalment of Mr. Goble's adventures explained how he took to
the sea.

"After I cleared oot o' Motherwell I went to the Clydeside. I was a fair
enough mechanic by this time, but I had tak'n a sort o' skunner at
machinery--no wi'oot some reason--and I tried for to get taken on as a
dock-hand. I had no luck there, and I was fair starvin' when yin day I
met a freend o' min' on the Dumbarton Road, and he asked me would I like
tae wash dishes and peel potaties on a passenger steamer. I would hae
been pleased tae soop the lums o' muckle Hell by that time, gin it was
for a wage, I was that thrawn wi' hunger; so I jist said, ''Deed ay!'

"For a hale summer I sat peelin' potaties and washin' dishes on board
the Electra, her that has done a trip doon the watter, roond about Arran
and Bute, and hame by Skelmorlie ilka day o' the summer season for
twenty-twa years. When the winter cam' on I dooted I would be oot o' a
job again; but bein' nowadays permanently on the teetotal, and varra
dependable, I was shifted tae the auld Stornoway, o' the same line,
carryin' goods, cattle, and passengers tae the West Highlands--Coll,
Tiree, Barra, Uist, Ullapool, and a wheen places in and oot o' sea-lochs
up and doon that coast. She loused frae the Broomielaw every Thursday at
three o'clock in the afternoon, and she was back there, week in week
out, summer and winter, by eleven in the forenoon o' the following
Wednesday. The folk along by Largs, where her cap'n lived, used tae set
their watches by her. She was a fine auld boat, the Stornoway: she piled
herself up on the rocks below the Scuir of Eig, where she had no call
tae be, in a snowstorm seven winters syne. I was a cabin steward
nowadays, ye'll unnerstand; and once we were roond the Mull and the
passengers had thrawn up what they'd had tae their tea off Gourock and
tak'n a dander ashore at Oban, appetites was big and I was busy. It was
the first time I had

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