One Day's Courtship, and The Heralds of Fame

The steward placed Buel’s portmanteau beside the other, and backed out of the overflowing cabin. All doubt as to the identity of the other occupant was put at rest by the appearance down the passage of a man whom Buel instantly recognised by the portraits he had seen of him in the illustrated papers. He was older than the pictures made him appear, and there was a certain querulous expression on his face which was also absent in the portraits. He glanced into the state-room, looked for a moment through Buel, and then turned to the steward.

“What do you mean by putting that portmanteau into my room?”

“This gentleman has the upper berth, sir.”

“Nonsense. The entire room is mine. Take the portmanteau out.”

The steward hesitated, looking from one to the other.

“The ticket is for 159, sir,” he said at last.

“Then there is some mistake. The room is mine. Don’t have me ask you again to remove the portmanteau.”

“Perhaps you would like to see the purser, sir.”

“I have nothing to do with the purser. Do as I tell you.”

All this time he had utterly ignored Buel, whose colour was rising. The young man said quietly to the steward, “Take out the portmanteau, please.”

When it was placed in the passage, Hodden entered the room, shut and bolted the door.

“Will you see the purser, sir?” said the steward in an awed whisper.

“I think so. There is doubtless some mistake, as he says.”

The purser was busy allotting seats at the tables, and Buel waited patiently. He had no friends on board, and did not care where he was placed.

When the purser was at liberty, the steward explained to him the difficulty which had arisen. The official looked at his list.

“159—Buel. Is that your name, sir? Very good; 160—Hodden. That is the gentleman now in the room. Well, what is the trouble?”

“Mr. Hodden says, sir, that the room belongs to him.”

“Have you seen his ticket?”

“No, sir.”

“Then bring it to me.”

“Mistakes sometimes happen, Mr. Buel,” said the purser, when the steward vanished. “But as a general thing I find that people simply claim what they have no right to claim. Often the agents promise that if possible a passenger shall have a room to himself, and when we can do so we let him have it. I try to please everybody; but all the steamers crossing to America are full at this season of the year, and it is not practicable to give every one the whole ship to himself. As the Americans say, some people want the earth for £12 or £15, and we can’t always give it to them. Ah, here is the ticket. It is just as I thought. Mr. Hodden is entitled merely to berth 160.”

The arrival of the ticket was quickly followed by the advent of Mr. Hodden himself. He still ignored Buel.

“Your people in London,” he said to the purser, “guaranteed me a room to myself. Otherwise I would not have come on this line. Now it seems that another person has been put in with me. I must protest against this kind of usage.”

“Have you any letter from them guaranteeing the room?” asked the purser blandly.

“No. I supposed until now that their word was sufficient.”

“Well, you see, I am helpless in this case. These two tickets are exactly the same with the exception of the numbers. Mr. Buel has just as much right to insist on being alone in the room as far as the tickets go, and I have had no instructions in the matter.”

“But it is an outrage that they should promise me one thing in London, and then refuse to perform it, when I am helpless on the ocean.”

“If they have done so—”

“If they have done so? Do you doubt my word, sir?”

“Oh, not at all, sir, not at all,” answered the purser in his most conciliatory tone. “But in that case your ticket should have been marked 159-160.”

“I am not to suffer for their blunders.”

“I see by this list that you paid £12 for your ticket. Am I right?”

“That was the amount, I believe. I paid what I was asked to pay.”

“Quite so, sir. Well, you see, that is the price of one berth only. Mr. Buel, here, paid the same amount.”

“Come to the point. Do I understand you to refuse to remedy the mistake (to put the matter in its mildest form) of your London people?”

“I do not refuse. I would be only too glad to give you the room to yourself, if it were possible. Unfortunately, it is not possible. I assure you there is not an unoccupied state-room on the ship.”

“Then I will see the captain. Where shall I find him?”

“Very good, sir. Steward, take Mr. Hodden to the captain’s room.”

When they were alone again Buel very contritely expressed his sorrow at having been the innocent cause of so much trouble to the purser.

“Bless you, sir, I don’t mind it in the least. This is a very simple case. Where both occupants of a room claim it all to themselves, and where both are angry and abuse me at the same time, then it gets a bit lively. I don’t envy him his talk with the captain. If the old man happens to be feeling a little grumpy today, and he most generally does at the beginning of the voyage, Mr. Hodden will have a bad ten minutes. Don’t you bother a bit about it, sir, but go down to your room and make yourself at home. It will be all right.”

Mr. Hodden quickly found that the appeal to Cæsar was not well timed. The captain had not the suave politeness of the purser. There may be greater and more powerful men on earth than the captain of an ocean liner, but you can’t get any seafaring man to believe it, and the captains themselves are rarely without a due sense of their own dignity. The man who tries to bluff the captain of a steamship like the Geranium has a hard row to hoe. Mr. Hodden descended to his state-room in a more subdued frame of mind than when he went on the upper deck. However, he still felt able to crush his unfortunate room-mate.

“You insist, then,” he said, speaking to Buel for the first time, “on occupying this room?”

“I have no choice in the matter.”

“I thought perhaps you might feel some hesitation in forcing yourself in where you were so evidently not wanted?”

The hero-worshipper in Buel withered, and the natural Englishman asserted itself.

“I have exactly the same right in this room that you have. I claim no privilege which I have not paid for.”

“Do you wish to suggest that I have made such a claim?”

“I suggest nothing; I state it. You have made such a claim, and in a most offensive manner.”

“Do you understand the meaning of the language you are using, sir? You are calling me a liar.”

“You put it very tersely, Mr. Hodden. Thank you. Now, if you venture to address me again during this voyage, I shall be obliged if you keep a civil tongue in your head.”

“Good heavens! You talk of civility?” cried the astonished man, aghast.

His room-mate went to the upper deck. In the next state-room pretty Miss Carrie Jessop clapped her small hands silently together. The construction of staterooms is such that every word uttered in one above the breath is audible in the next room; Miss Jessop could not help hearing the whole controversy, from the time the steward was ordered so curtly to remove the portmanteau, until the culmination of the discussion and the evident defeat of Mr. Hodden. Her sympathy was all with the other fellow, at that moment unknown, but a sly peep past the edge of the scarcely opened door told her that the unnamed party in the quarrel was the awkward young man who had found her book. She wondered if the Hodden mentioned could possibly be the author, and, with a woman’s inconsistency, felt sure that she would detest the story, as if the personality of the writer had anything whatever to do with his work. She took down the parcel from the shelf and undid the string. Her eyes opened wide as she looked at the title.

“Well I never!” she gasped. “If I haven’t robbed that poor, innocent young man of a book he bought for himself! Attempted eviction by his room-mate, and bold highway robbery by an unknown woman! No, it’s worse than that; it’s piracy, for it happened on the high seas.” And the girl laughed softly to herself.

Chapter III

Kenan Buel walked the deck alone in the evening light, and felt that he ought to be enjoying the calmness and serenity of the ocean expanse around him after the noise and squalor of London; but now that the excitement of the recent quarrel was over, he felt the reaction, and his natural diffidence led him to blame himself. Most of the passengers were below, preparing for dinner, and he had the deck to himself. As he turned on one of his rounds, he saw approaching him the girl of Euston Station, as he mentally termed her. She had his book in her hand.

“I have come to beg your pardon,” she said. “I see it was your own book I took from you to-day.”

“My own book!” cried Buel, fearing she had somehow discovered his guilty secret.

“Yes. Didn’t you buy this for yourself?” She held up the volume.

“Oh, certainly. But you are quite welcome to it, I am sure.”

“I couldn’t think of taking it away from you before you have read it.”

“But I have read it,” replied Buel, eagerly: “and I shall be very pleased to lend it to you.”

“Indeed? And how did you manage to read it without undoing the parcel?”

“That is to say I—I skimmed over it before it was done up,” he said in confusion. The clear eyes of the girl disconcerted him, and, whatever his place in fiction is now, he was at that time a most unskilful liar.

“You see, I bought it because it is written by a namesake of mine. My name is Buel, and I happened to notice that was the name on the book; in fact, if you remember, when you were looking over it at the stall, the clerk mentioned the author’s name, and that naturally caught my attention.”

The girl glanced with renewed interest at the volume.

“Was this the book I was looking at? The story I bought was Hodden’s latest. I found it a moment ago down in my state-room, so it was not lost after all.”

They were now walking together as if they were old acquaintances, the girl still holding the volume in her hand.

“By the way,” she said innocently, “I see on the passenger list that there is a Mr. Hodden on board. Do you think he can be the novelist?”

“I believe he is,” answered Buel, stiffly.

“Oh, that will be too jolly for anything. I would so like to meet him. I am sure he must be a most charming man. His books show such insight into human nature, such sympathy and noble purpose. There could be nothing petty or mean about such a man.”

“I—I—suppose not.”

“Why, of course there couldn’t. You have read his books, have you not?”

“All of them except his latest.”

“Well, I’ll lend you that, as you have been so kind as to offer me the reading of this one.”

“Thank you. After you have read it yourself.”

“And when you have become acquainted with Mr. Hodden, I want you to introduce him to me.”

“With pleasure. And—and when I do so, who shall I tell him the young lady is?”

The audacious girl laughed lightly, and, stepping back, made him a saucy bow.

“You will introduce me as Miss Caroline Jessop, of New York. Be sure that you say ‘New York,’ for that will account to Mr. Hodden for any eccentricities of conduct or conversation he may be good enough to notice. I suppose you think American girls are very forward? All Englishmen do.”

“On the contrary, I have always understood that they are very charming.”

“Indeed? And so you are going over to see?”

Buel laughed. All the depression he felt a short time before had vanished.

“I had no such intention when I began the voyage, but even if I should quit the steamer at Queenstown, I could bear personal testimony to the truth of the statement.”

“Oh, Mr. Buel, that is very nicely put. I don’t think you can improve on it, so I shall run down and dress for dinner. There is the first gong. Thanks for the book.”

The young man said to himself, “Buel, my boy, you’re getting on;” and he smiled as he leaned over the bulwark and looked at the rushing water. He sobered instantly as he remembered that he would have to go to his state-room and perhaps meet Hodden. It is an awkward thing to quarrel with your room-mate at the beginning of a long voyage. He hoped Hodden had taken his departure to the saloon, and he lingered until the second gong rang. Entering the stateroom, he found Hodden still there. Buel gave him no greeting. The other cleared his throat several times and then said—

“I have not the pleasure of knowing your name.”

“My name is Buel.”

“Well, Mr. Buel, I am sorry that I spoke to you in the manner I did, and I hope you will allow me to apologise for doing so. Various little matters had combined to irritate me, and—Of course, that is no excuse. But—”

“Don’t say anything more. I unreservedly retract what I was heated enough to say, and so we may consider the episode ended. I may add that if the purser has a vacant berth anywhere, I shall be very glad to take it, if the occupants of the room make no objection.”

“You are very kind,” said Hodden, but he did not make any show of declining the offer.

“Very well, then, let us settle the matter while we are at it.” And Buel pressed the electric button.

The steward looked in, saying,—

“Dinner is ready, gentlemen.”

“Yes, I know. Just ask the purser if he can step here for a moment.”

The purser came promptly, and if he was disturbed at being called at such a moment he did not show it. Pursers are very diplomatic persons.

“Have you a vacant berth anywhere, purser?”

An expression faintly suggestive of annoyance passed over the purser’s serene brow. He thought the matter had been settled. “We have several berths vacant, but they are each in rooms that already contain three persons.”

“One of those will do for me; that is, if the occupants have no objection.”

“It will be rather crowded, sir.”

“That doesn’t matter, if the others are willing.”

“Very good, sir. I will see to it immediately after dinner.”

The purser was as good as his word, and introduced Buel and his portmanteau to a room that contained three wild American collegians who had been doing Europe “on the cheap” and on foot. They received the new-comer with a hilariousness that disconcerted him.

“Hello, purser!” cried one, “this is an Englishman. You didn’t tell us you were going to run in an Englishman on us.”

“Never, mind, we’ll convert him on the way over.”

“I say, purser, if you sling a hammock from the ceiling and put up a cot on the floor you can put two more men in here. Why didn’t you think of that?”

“It’s not too late yet. Why did you suggest it?”

“Gentlemen,” said Buel, “I have no desire to intrude, if it is against your wish.”

“Oh, that’s all right. Never mind them. They have to talk or die. The truth is, we were lonesome without a fourth man.”

“What’s his name, purser?”

“My name is Buel.”

One of them shouted out the inquiry, “What’s the matter with Buel?” and all answered in concert with a yell that made the steamer ring, “He’s all right.”

“You’ll have to sing ‘Hail Columbia’ night and morning if you stay in this cabin.”

“Very good,” said Buel, entering into the spirit of the occasion. “Singing is not my strong point, and after you hear me at it once, you will be glad to pay a heavy premium to have it stopped.”

“Say, Buel, can you play poker?”

“No, but I can learn.”

“That’s business. America’s just yearning for men who can learn. We have had so many Englishmen who know it all, that we’ll welcome a change. But poker’s an expensive game to acquire.”

“Don’t be bluffed, Mr. Buel. Not one of the crowd has enough money left to buy the drinks all round. We would never have got home if we hadn’t return tickets.”

“Say, boys, let’s lock the purser out, and make Buel an American citizen before he can call for help. You solemnly swear that you hereby and hereon renounce all emperors, kings, princes, and potentates, and more especially—how does the rest of it go!”

“He must give up his titles, honours, knighthoods, and things of that sort.”

“Say, Buel, you’re not a lord or a duke by any chance? Because, if you are, we’ll call back the purser and have you put out yet.”

“No, I haven’t even the title esquire, which, I understand, all American citizens possess.”

“Oh, you’ll do. Now, I propose that Mr. Buel take his choice of the four bunks, and that we raffle for the rest.”

When Buel reached the deck out of this pandemonium, he looked around for another citizen of the United States, but she was not there. He wondered if she were reading his book, and how she liked it.

Chapter IV

Next morning Mr. Buel again searched the deck for the fair American, and this time he found her reading his book, seated very comfortably in her deck chair. The fact that she was so engaged put out of Buel’s mind the greeting he had carefully prepared beforehand, and he stood there awkwardly, not knowing what to say. He inwardly cursed his unreadiness, and felt, to his further embarrassment, that his colour was rising. He was not put more at his ease when Miss Jessop looked up at him coldly, with a distinct frown on her pretty face.

“Mr. Buel, I believe?” she said pertly.

“I—I think so,” he stammered.

She went on with her reading, ignoring him, and he stood there not knowing how to get away. When he pulled himself together, after a few moments’ silence, and was about to depart, wondering at the caprice of womankind, she looked up again, and said icily—

“Why don’t you ask me to walk with you? Do you think you have no duties, merely because you are on shipboard?”

“It isn’t a duty, it is a pleasure, if you will come with me. I was afraid I had offended you in some way.”

“You have. That is why I want to walk with you. I wish to give you a piece of my mind, and it won’t be pleasant to listen to, I can assure you. So there must be no listener but yourself.”

“Is it so serious as that?”

“Quite. Assist me, please. Why do you have to be asked to do such a thing? I don’t suppose there is another man on the ship who would see a lady struggling with her rugs, and never put out his hand.”

Before the astonished young man could offer assistance the girl sprang to her feet and stood beside him. Although she tried to retain her severe look of displeasure, there was a merry twinkle in the corner of her eye, as if she enjoyed shocking him.

“I fear I am very unready.”

“You are.”

“Will you take my arm as we walk?”

“Certainly not,” she answered, putting the tips of her fingers into the shallow pockets of her pilot jacket. “Don’t you know the United States are long since independent of England?”

“I had forgotten for the moment. My knowledge of history is rather limited, even when I try to remember. Still, independence and all, the two countries may be friends, may they not?”

“I doubt it. It seems to be natural that an American should hate an Englishman.”

“Dear me, is it so bad as that? Why, may I ask? Is it on account of the little trouble in 1770, or whenever it was?”

“1776, when we conquered you.”

“Were we conquered? That is another historical fact which has been concealed from me. I am afraid England doesn’t quite realise her unfortunate position. She has a good deal of go about her for a conquered nation. But I thought the conquering, which we all admit, was of much more recent date, when the pretty American girls began to come over. Then Englishmen at once capitulated.”

“Yes,” she cried scornfully. “And I don’t know which to despise most, the American girls who marry Englishmen, or the Englishmen they marry. They are married for their money.”

“Who? The Englishmen?”

The girl stamped her foot on the deck as they turned around.

“You know very well what I mean. An Englishman thinks of nothing but money.”

“Really? I wonder where you got all your cut-and-dried notions about Englishmen? You seem to have a great capacity for contempt. I don’t think it is good. My experience is rather limited, of course, but, as far as it goes, I find good and bad in all nations. There are Englishmen whom I find it impossible to like, and there are Americans whom I find I admire in spite of myself. There are also, doubtless, good Englishmen and bad Americans, if we only knew where to find them. You cannot sum up a nation and condemn it in a phrase, you know.”

“Can’t you? Well, literary Englishmen have tried to do so in the case of America. No English writer has ever dealt even fairly with the United States.”

“Don’t you think the States are a little too sensitive about the matter?”

“Sensitive? Bless you, we don’t mind it a bit.”

“Then where’s the harm? Besides, America has its revenge in you. Your scathing contempt more than balances the account.”

“I only wish I could write. Then I would let you know what I think of you.”

“Oh, don’t publish a book about us. I wouldn’t like to see war between the two countries.”

Miss Jessop laughed merrily for so belligerent a person.

“War?” she cried. “I hope yet to see an American army camped in London.”

“If that is your desire, you can see it any day in summer. You will find them tenting out at the Métropole and all the expensive hotels. I bivouacked with an invader there some weeks ago, and he was enduring the rigours of camp life with great fortitude, mitigating his trials with unlimited champagne.”

“Why, Mr. Buel,” cried the girl admiringly, “you’re beginning to talk just like an American yourself.”

“Oh, now, you are trying to make me conceited.”

Miss Jessop sighed, and shook her head.

“I had nearly forgotten,” she said, “that I despised you. I remember now why I began to walk with you. It was not to talk frivolously, but to show you the depth of my contempt! Since yesterday you have gone down in my estimation from 190 to 56.”

“Fahrenheit?”

“No, that was a Wall Street quotation. Your stock has ‘slumped,’ as we say on the Street.”

“Now you are talking Latin, or worse, for I can understand a little Latin.”

“‘Slumped’ sounds slangy, doesn’t it? It isn’t a pretty word, but it is expressive. It means going down with a run, or rather, all in a heap.”

“What have I done?”

“Nothing you can say will undo it, so there is no use in speaking any more about it. Second thoughts are best. My second thought is to say no more.”

“I must know my crime. Give me a chance to, at least, reach par again, even if I can’t hope to attain the 90 above.”

“I thought an Englishman had some grit. I thought he did not allow any one to walk over him. I thought he stood by his guns when he knew he was in the right. I thought he was a manly man, and a fighter against injustice!”

“Dear me! Judging by your conversation of a few minutes ago, one would imagine that you attributed exactly the opposite qualities to him.”

“I say I thought all this—yesterday. I don’t think so to-day.”

“Oh, I see! And all on account of me?”

“All on account of you.”

“Once more, what have I done?”

“What have you done? You have allowed that detestably selfish specimen of your race, Hodden, to evict you from your room.”

The young man stopped abruptly in his walk, and looked at the girl with astonishment. She, her hands still coquettishly thrust in her jacket-pockets, returned his gaze with unruffled serenity.

“What do you know about it?” he demanded at last.

“Everything. From the time you meekly told the steward to take out your valise until the time you meekly apologised to Hodden for having told him the truth, and then meekly followed the purser to a room containing three others.”

“But Hodden meekly, as you express it, apologised first. I suppose you know that too, otherwise I would not have mentioned it.”

“Certainly he did. That was because he found his overbearing tactics did not work. He apologised merely to get rid of you, and did. That’s what put me out of patience with you. To think you couldn’t see through his scheme!”

“Oh! I thought it was the lack of manly qualities you despised in me. Now you are accusing me of not being crafty.”

“How severely you say that! You quite frighten me! You will be making me apologise by-and-by, and I don’t want to do that.”

Buel laughed, and resumed his walk.

“It’s all right,” he said; “Hodden’s loss is my gain. I’ve got in with a jolly lot, who took the trouble last night to teach me the great American game at cards—and counters.”