The Girl on the Boat
told her I had a most important engagement with a man at eleven, and
she wanted to know what it was, and I tried to think of something, but
it sounded pretty feeble, and she said I had better telephone to the
man and put it off. I did it, too. Rang up the first number in the book
and told some fellow I had never seen in my life that I couldn’t meet
him because I hadn’t any trousers! He was pretty peeved, judging from
what he said about my being on the wrong number. And mother, listening
all the time, and I knowing that she knew—something told me that she
knew—and she knowing that I knew she knew.... I tell you, it was
awful!”
“And the girl?”
“She broke off the engagement. Apparently she waited at the church from
eleven till one-thirty, and then began to get impatient. She wouldn’t
see me when I called in the afternoon, but I got a letter from her
saying that what had happened was all for the best, as she had been
thinking it over and had come to the conclusion that she had made a
mistake. She said something about my not being as dynamic as she had
thought I was. She said that what she wanted was something more like
Lancelot or Sir Galahad, and would I look on the episode as closed.”
“Did you explain about the trousers?”
“Yes. It seemed to make things worse. She said that she could forgive a
man anything except being ridiculous.”
“I think you’re well out of it,” said Sam, judicially. “She can’t have
been much of a girl.”
“I feel that now. But it doesn’t alter the fact that my life is ruined.
I have become a woman-hater. It’s an infernal nuisance, because
practically all the poetry I have ever written rather went out of its
way to boost women, and now I’ll have to start all over again and
approach the subject from another angle. Women! When I think how mother
behaved and how Wilhelmina treated me, I wonder there isn’t a law
against them. ‘What mighty ills have not been done by Woman! Who was’t
betrayed the Capitol....’”
“In Washington?” said Sam, puzzled. He had heard nothing of this. But
then he generally confined his reading of the papers to the sporting
page.
“In Rome, you ass! Ancient Rome.”
“Oh, as long ago as that?”
“I was quoting from Thomas Otway’s ‘Orphan.’ I wish I could write like
Otway. He knew what he was talking about. ‘Who was’t betrayed the
Capitol? A woman. Who lost Marc Anthony the world? A woman. Who was the
cause of a long ten years’ war and laid at last old Troy in ashes?
Woman! Destructive, damnable, deceitful woman!’”
“Well, of course, he may be right in a way. As regards some women, I
mean. But the girl I met on the dock....”
“Don’t!” said Eustace Hignett. “If you have anything bitter and
derogatory to say about women, say it and I will listen eagerly. But if
you merely wish to gibber about the ornamental exterior of some dashed
girl you have been fool enough to get attracted by, go and tell it to
the captain or the ship’s cat or J. B. Midgeley. Do try to realise that
I am a soul in torment. I am a ruin, a spent force, a man without a
future. What does life hold for me? Love? I shall never love again. My
work? I haven’t any. I think I shall take to drink.”
“Talking of that,” said Sam, “I suppose they open the bar directly we
pass the three-mile limit. How about a small one?”
Eustace shook his head gloomily.
“Do you suppose I pass my time on board ship in gadding about and
feasting? Directly the vessel begins to move, I go to bed and stay
there. As a matter of fact, I think it would be wisest to go to bed
now. Don’t let me keep you if you want to go on deck.”
“It looks to me,” said Sam, “as if I had been mistaken in thinking that
you were going to be a ray of sunshine on the voyage.”
“Ray of sunshine!” said Eustace Hignett, pulling a pair of mauve
pyjamas out of the kit-bag. “I’m going to be a volcano!”
Sam left the state-room and headed for the companion. He wanted to get
on deck and ascertain if that girl was still on board. About now, the
sheep would be separating from the goats; the passengers would be on
deck and their friends returning to the shore. A slight tremor in the
boards on which he trod told him that this separation must have already
taken place. The ship was moving. He ran lightly up the companion. Was
she on board or was she not? The next few minutes would decide. He
reached the top of the stairs, and passed out on to the crowded deck.
And, as he did so, a scream, followed by confused shouting, came from
the rail nearest the shore. He perceived that the rail was black with
people hanging over it. They were all looking into the water.
Samuel Marlowe was not one of those who pass aloofly by when there is
excitement toward. If a horse fell down in the street, he was always
among those present: and he was never too busy to stop and stare at a
blank window on which were inscribed the words, “Watch this space!” In
short, he was one of Nature’s rubbernecks, and to dash to the rail and
shove a fat man in a tweed cap to one side was with him the work of a
moment. He had thus an excellent view of what was going on—a view which
he improved the next instant by climbing up and kneeling on the rail.
There was a man in the water, a man whose upper section, the only one
visible, was clad in a blue jersey. He wore a bowler hat, and from time
to time, as he battled with the waves, he would put up a hand and
adjust this more firmly on his head. A dressy swimmer.
Scarcely had he taken in this spectacle when Marlowe became aware of
the girl he had met on the dock. She was standing a few feet away,
leaning out over the rail with wide eyes and parted lips. Like
everybody else, she was staring into the water.
As Sam looked at her, the thought crossed his mind that here was a
wonderful chance of making the most tremendous impression on this girl.
What would she not think of a man who, reckless of his own safety,
dived in and went boldly to the rescue? And there were men, no doubt,
who would be chumps enough to do it, he thought, as he prepared to
shift back to a position of greater safety.
At this moment, the fat man in the tweed cap, incensed at having been
jostled out of the front row, made his charge. He had but been
crouching, the better to spring. Now he sprang. His full weight took
Sam squarely in the spine. There was an instant in which that young man
hung, as it were, between sea and sky: then he shot down over the rail
to join the man in the blue jersey, who had just discovered that his
hat was not on straight and had paused to adjust it once more with a
few skilful touches of the finger.
§ 3
In the brief interval of time which Marlowe had spent in the state-room
chatting with Eustace about the latter’s bruised soul, some rather
curious things had been happening above. Not extraordinary, perhaps,
but curious. These must now be related. A story, if it is to grip the
reader, should, I am aware, go always forward. It should march. It
should leap from crag to crag like the chamois of the Alps. If there is
one thing I hate, it is a novel which gets you interested in the hero
in chapter one and then cuts back in chapter two to tell you all about
his grandfather. Nevertheless, at this point we must go back a space.
We must return to the moment when, having deposited her Pekinese dog in
her state-room, the girl with the red hair came out again on deck. This
happened just about the time when Eustace Hignett was beginning his
narrative.
The girl went to the rail and gazed earnestly at the shore. There was a
rattle, as the gang-plank moved in-board and was deposited on the deck.
The girl uttered a little cry of dismay. Then suddenly her face
brightened, and she began to wave her arm to attract the attention of
an elderly man with a red face made redder by exertion, who had just
forced his way to the edge of the dock and was peering up at the
passenger-lined rail.
The boat had now begun to move slowly out of its slip, backing into the
river. It was now that the man on the dock sighted the girl. She
gesticulated at him. He gesticulated at her. He produced a
handkerchief, swiftly tied up a bundle of currency bills in it, backed
to give himself room, and then, with all the strength of his arm,
hurled the bills in the direction of the deck. The handkerchief with
its precious contents shot in a graceful arc towards the deck, fell
short by a good six feet, and dropped into the water, where it unfolded
like a lily, sending twenty-dollar bills, ten-dollar bills, five-dollar
bills, and an assortment of ones floating out over the wavelets.
It was at this moment that Mr. Oscar Swenson, one of the thriftiest
souls who ever came out of Sweden, perceived that the chance of a
lifetime had arrived for adding substantially to his little savings. By
profession he was one of those men who eke out a precarious livelihood
by rowing dreamily about the water-front in skiffs. He was doing so
now: and, as he sat meditatively in his skiff, having done his best to
give the liner a good send off by paddling round her in circles, the
pleading face of a twenty-dollar bill peered up at him. Mr. Swenson was
not the man to resist the appeal. He uttered a sharp bark of ecstasy,
pressed his bowler hat firmly upon his brow, and dived in. A moment
later he had risen to the surface, and was gathering up money with both
hands.
He was still busy with this congenial task when a tremendous splash at
his side sent him under again: and, rising for a second time, he
observed with not a little chagrin that he had been joined by a young
man in a blue flannel suit with an invisible stripe.
“Svensk!” exclaimed Mr. Swenson, or whatever it is that natives of
Sweden exclaim in moments of justifiable annoyance. He resented the
advent of this newcomer. He had been getting along fine and had had the
situation well in hand. To him Sam Marlowe represented Competition, and
Mr. Swenson desired no competitors in his treasure-seeking enterprise.
He travels, thought Mr. Swenson, the fastest who travels alone.
Sam Marlowe had a touch of the philosopher in him. He had the ability
to adapt himself to circumstances. It had been no part of his plans to
come whizzing down off the rail into this singularly soup-like water
which tasted in equal parts of oil and dead rats; but, now that he was
here he was prepared to make the best of the situation. Swimming, it
happened, was one of the things he did best, and somewhere among his
belongings at home was a tarnished pewter cup which he had won at
school in the “Saving Life” competition. He knew exactly what to do.
You get behind the victim and grab him firmly under his arms, and then
you start swimming on your back. A moment later, the astonished Mr.
Swenson who, being practically amphibious, had not anticipated that
anyone would have the cool impertinence to try to save him from
drowning, found himself seized from behind and towed vigorously away
from a ten-dollar bill which he had almost succeeded in grasping. The
spiritual agony caused by this assault rendered him mercifully dumb;
though, even had he contrived to utter the rich Swedish oaths which
occurred to him, his remarks could scarcely have been heard, for the
crowd on the dock was cheering as one man. They had often paid good
money to see far less gripping sights in the movies. They roared
applause. The liner, meanwhile, continued to move stodgily out into
mid-river.
The only drawback to these life-saving competitions at school,
considered from the standpoint of fitting the competitors for the
problems of afterlife, is that the object saved on such occasions is a
leather dummy, and of all things in this world a leather dummy is
perhaps the most placid and phlegmatic. It differs in many respects
from an emotional Swedish gentleman, six foot high and constructed