The Lucky Number/Ocean Air

ocean voyage affects you in one of two ways: either you are gloriously stimulated or profoundly depressed. Moreover, salt air plays tricks with character itself. It gets into a man's blood for the time being, and sometimes makes him do things which surprise him.

Jacob Finch was bitterly disappointed in his first experience of the deep. He had pictured himself revelling in the luxury of a great ocean-going hotel, making pleasant acquaintances, and taking a prominent part in the social activities of the ship. In short, he had dreamed the dreams that a thoroughly shy and thoroughly undistinguished individual generally does dream at the prospect of escaping from the society of people who have known him and disregarded him all his life, into a world where nobody knows him at all and where he fondly imagines he will have his handicap revised.

Having recently come into money,—a comfortable income from a comfortable aunt lately departed this life at Chislehurst,—Jacob had decided to see the world. Being a young man of secret yearnings and little initiative, he had begun with Monte Carlo, where for three days he persevered in a dismal exercise which he described to himself as “entering into the life of the place.” That is to say, he loafed forlornly round the Casino,looking over the shoulders of people gambling at the tables, or sat forlornly in a restaurant watching the backs of people eating and drinking. Of course when he returned home he would be able to tell his relatives in Little Tushing ham how he had run over to Monte and had a flutter at the tables. But—il faut souffrir pour être viveur.

One day he noticed in the hotel lounge a bulletin which announced that a White Star liner from New York, bound on a spring cruise to various attractive Mediterranean ports, would call at Monaco on the morrow to take up intending passengers. Jacob realized at once that in Monte Carlo he was in his wrong setting. His rugged island nature was plainly unsuited to the pursuit of enervating and effeminate pleasures ashore: his home was obviously upon the rolling deep. So straightway he paid his hotel bill and transferred his person, effects, and lonely soul to an excellent cabin in the great ship Empiric, where he was excessively unwell for twenty-four hours. On the whole these were the happiest hours that he was destined to enjoy for some days to come; for when he recovered and endeavoured to “enter into the life of the ship,” he did so with as little appreciable effect upon the other participants therein as before. He strolled about the smoking-room, watching Semitic gentlemen playing poker. He tramped round the promenade deck, timidly eyeing the rows of passengers tucked into deck chairs, and vainly trying to summon sufficient courage to wake one of them up and start a conversation. He lingered wistfully in the vicinity of the athletes who played shuffle-board and deck-quoits. He sat in the corner of the lounge after dinner and watched the dancing couples, whistling defiantly through his teeth to show himself that he was enjoying the music. At meal-times he shared a table with four other passengers. Unfortunately they were all English, and strangers to one another as well; so conversation was limited to requests for the mustard.

Jacob had applied for and received a numbered and reserved chair in the long line that ran from end to end of the starboard side of the promenade deck. He had built high hopes on this. To sit wedged between two fellow-creatures for hours at a time and for days on end without occasionally exchanging some sort of greeting or observation is a human impossibility, even under the Union Jack. As a matter of fact Jacob had secretly hoped to find himself between two Americans, because experience had taught him that Americans are an intrepid and adventurous race, and will frequently risk addressing a remark to a stranger where an Englishman would insist upon waiting either for a formal introduction or a shipwreck.

Here again he was unfortunate. On the left of his chair came a gap in the line, caused by the intervention of the Smoking-room doorway. Still, there was a chair upon his right. It was empty, and it remained empty for two whole days. But after that an event occurred which changed the whole face of the world.

Jacob had completed his usual solitary morning constitutional, and was making for his moorings, carrying a rug and two magazines, when he observed that the chair next to his was occupied. In fact, at that very moment the deck-steward, with the solicitous tenderness of his race, was tucking a passenger into it—a girl. Somewhat fluttered, Jacob halted at a convenient distance, and examined her covertly. She repaid examination. She possessed large, dewy, grey eyes, a rather pert little nose, and a clear, delicate skin. But what Jacob chiefly noticed at first glance was her smile, which struck him as the most beautiful thing that God had ever created. The smile in question was directed at the deck-steward, in recognition of his ministrations; but some of it flowed past him and was intercepted by Jacob Finch. Simultaneously something which felt like a miniature torpedo struck Jacob fairly and squarely in the chest, and exploded. His heart, not unnaturally, ceased to beat: then, suddenly, it began to bump tumultuously. Jacob's head reeled: the blood sang in his ears. Dazed and trembling, he groped his way mechanically into his chair, and arranged the rug clumsily over his knees. Apparently unconscious of his presence, the vision beside him opened a book, found the place, and began composedly to read.

But pretty girls are seldom as unconscious as they look. Jacob's neighbour was fully aware that a healthy young male of presentable but slightly melancholic appearance had sat down beside her. Had she been stone blind she must have known, for she could hardly have failed to hear the beating of his heart. It was a still, sunny morning, and the great ship, heading south, slipped peacefully through the blue waters of the Mediterranean. The scene was set for comfortable chatting and pleasant confidences. The deck was almost deserted, and their nearest neighbour was an elderly gentleman fast asleep.

Presently Jacob's little companion laid down her book for a moment, in order to adjust her steamer rug. Straightway the volume slid from her lap on to the deck. Jacob dived for it, and returned it, dumbly. The girl thanked him with a smile, resumed her reading,—at least, she continued to keep her eyes upon its pages,–and silence reigned again.

Here was an opportunity; but seize it Jacob could not. Shyness is a potent and paralyzing thing. He sat rigid. The girl presented her left shoulder to him, and turned over another page.

Twenty minutes passed, and Jacob's tongue was still fast bound in misery and iron. Turning hither and thither in his extreme discomfort, he cast a sidelong glance upon the volume on his neighbour's lap. It was a new novel which half the ship was reading, called “Faint Heart.” The cruel appropriateness of the title cut his dumb soul like a whiplash.

“Go on!” he exhorted himself. “You’re fellow passengers, are n’t you? Say something! You miserable brute! Say anything! Tell her it's a fine day! Ask her if she’s a good sailor! Oh, you wretched, cowardly funk! Make her smile again! Say some thing funny! Do something! Do anything! Pah!”

It was no use. Speak he could not, without some friendly lead.

Presently his companion finished a chapter, laid down her book, opened a little bag, and produced a cigarette. Then she made further search in the bag, presumably for matches; but without success. She gave a little sigh of annoyance, and restored the cigarette to its case.

It was now or never. Jacob, his fingers in his waist coat-pocket and his heart in his mouth, nerved himself for the supreme effort of his life.

He swallowed his heart, cleared his throat in a distressing manner, and said huskily:

“May I offer you a light?”

“Oh, please!” replied the girl. “It was stupid of me to leave my matches in the cabin.” Her voice was fresh and clear. A student of intonation might have hazarded a guess that she was a native of London, but to Jacob Finch she sounded like the soloist of the Heavenly Choir. He handed her his match-case without a word. It did not occur to him to take out a match and light it for her. He knew nothing of such niceties of overture.

The girl lit her cigarette, and returned the match case.

“Thank you so much,” she said. “I hope my smoking does n’t upset you. You are a good sailor, I suppose?”

“Yes, very good,” replied Jacob. “At least,” he added more cautiously, “I hope I  shall be. This is my first long sea trip, and I only came on board at Monaco.”

“Monaco? Oh! Did you come from Monte?”

“Yes. I—I—had a run over from Town for a week, to have a flutter.”

“Had you any luck?”

“I was just all square.” This was literal truth, for Jacob had not adventured a penny piece at the tables, being quite ignorant of the necessary procedure and much too shy to seek advice on the matter.

“We came on board at Marseilles,” said the girl. “I did n’t enjoy the first few days much, even on this nice big boat. This is the first time I have been on deck.”

“I was wondering where you were,” said Jacob, with a temerity that surprised himself.

“Why? Did you—?”

“I mean, I  was wondering who was going to sit in that chair,” explained Jacob. “Are you a large party?”

“I am with an aunt of mine. She is down below—and likely to stay there, poor thing!”

“Is she still si–unwell?”

“Dreadfully. It was sweet of her to come at all, considering what a bad sailor she is. But I was dying to take the trip, and she always spoils me. I love being spoiled.” Again the smile flashed out. “Don’t you?”

“That’s right,” said Jacob—and felt thoroughly exasperated with himself. It was his habit, being a man of unambitious vocabulary, to say “That’s right” whenever he could think of nothing more original to say. It was plain that his companion had just given him the chance to say something very gallant indeed. But the fence was too formidable for him.

At this moment the ship's bell somewhere forward chimed twice, and a well-nourished youth in tight blue uniform and brass buttons, emerging from the doorway beside him, proceeded to shatter the gossamer of romance by means of an ear-splitting rendering of “The Roast Beef of Old England” upon the key-bugle.

the next few days Jacob Finch, having tumbled headlong in love, sank down, down into the lower depths, until he touched bottom. There he stayed. He had never been in love before. That is to say, he had never lost his heart to any girl, though he had been timidly in love with love itself ever since his sixteenth birthday. Consequently he suffered with all the severity incident upon a first experience. A lover is popularly supposed to pass his time alternately in the heights and in the depths, in correspondence with the mood of his lady. But this is not true. It is all a matter of disposition. Your sensitive lover—the unfortunate person who can not get along without systematic encouragement—resides almost permanently in the abyss. He is morbidly sensitive about intruding where he is not wanted: and once a humble-minded individual gets that idea into his head, he is in for a fairly agonizing time of it. The only man who ever ought to become a lover is your thick-skinned fellow with a good conceit of himself. He is in his element all the time: he is convinced that he is being a glorious and continuous success, and as often as not wearies his beloved into capitulation from sheer despair of making him understand that he is not indispensable.

But Jacob Finch was not of that mettle. As already stated, having dived into the ocean of love, he went straight to the bottom and stayed there. His knowledge of women was of the slightest, and his faith in his own powers of attraction slighter still. He cherished a theory that in order to inspire a woman's affection a man must be gallant, handsome, and above all notable in some way—a success, in short. The fact that there is more than one feminine instinct to which a man can appeal was unrevealed to him. He did not know that some women like mothering failures. So his longing soul clave to the dust—or rather, to the well-scrubbed deck-planking which supported the pretty feet of Miss Myra Greig. (That was her name, he discovered, by consulting the table-plan on the saloon staircase.)

Attractive girls on board ship are not easily monopolized, especially by diffident suitors. The greater part of Jacob's time now was spent in dumbly enduring the spectacle of Miss Greig being taken for walks, Miss Greig being instructed in deck games, Miss Greig dancing the fox-trot with a variety of more or less expert and eligible gentlemen. True, she was his companion and neighbour for a quite appreciable period every day, for she was an insatiable reader and spent long hours in her deck-chair. But Jacob reflected despondently, even as they reclined with elbows touching, that she was there by accident and not from choice.

Still, he persevered, in his own painstaking way. He studied Miss Greig's character, endeavouring to define her taste in men, in order that he might instantly model himself upon her ideal. He thought of interesting topics and entertaining anecdotes, and noted the same down upon his shirt-cuff, that he might never cease to be entertaining. He lay awake half the night envisioning his lady under various circumstances, and rehearsing exactly what he would do in the somewhat unlikely event of her falling overboard. In fine, by brooding and dreaming where he ought to have been pursuing a more active policy, Jacob worked himself into a state which may account for his subsequent surprising behaviour.

On the third afternoon after their first meeting Miss Greig, who had been immersed for half-an-hour in the closing chapters of “Faint Heart,” closed the book with a little sigh of rapture, and sat up. The faithful shadow beside her quivered responsively.

“Well, that’s over!” she remarked regretfully. “I wish I could write!” She turned to Jacob. “I’m afraid I’ve been very unsociable: but I’ve been in a trance for the last half-hour.” She shivered delicately. “It’s quite cold, is n’t it?”

“Would you like to walk round the deck?” inquired Jacob eagerly.

“I should love it. Hold my book for me, will you?”

Jacob extracted his divinity from her chair, much as a connoisseur might extract a porcelain shepherdess from a packing-case, and they set out for their walk. Not that Jacob had any particular realization that he was walking: he had a vague feeling that he was swimming. He was immediately in conversational difficulties, as usual, and began furtively to work his left shirt-cuff out of his sleeve.

They reached the rail which marked the sternmost limit of the promenade deck, and surveyed the receding vista of the Bay of Naples, which they had left an hour before. Above the city towered a mountain, from the summit of which now and then emerged a puff of smoke, suggestive of a comfortable gentleman smoking a cigar in his club.

“I suppose that is Mount Ætna?” said the girl.

“Yes,” replied Jacob tactfully. “Vesuvius, rather.” He referred stealthily to his shirt-cuff. “It is four thousand and twenty feet—”

“How wonderful it must be,” said Miss Greig, a trifle hastily, “to know things like history and geography! Do you remember how clever you were about Corsica when we touched there–Napoleon, and all that? I suppose you have travelled a great deal?”

“Well, of course one covers a certain amount of ground,” replied Jacob, trembling with pleasure. “One knocks about, and so on.” Then he added tentatively:

“Have you seen much of the world?”

“No, I am quite a little stay-at-home. I have spent most of my life in Devonshire. We have a place there. Of course it is n’t in the least grand, but it has been in the family a good long time now.”

“I take it,” said Jacob with a gulp, “yours is what is called a county family.”

“I suppose so,” said the girl carelessly. “At least, if a tumbledown old Jacobean house with a stone terrace, and a flock of deer on the lawn below, and a few acres of land, and some funny old tenants are the qualification, we are.”

Jacob's heart sank. Already the adamantine bars of the English caste system were lowering themselves between him and his crazy dream. Suddenly the girl looked up at him with an adorably confidential little air.

“Do you know,” she remarked, “I have been wondering lately what you are.”

“What I am?” Jacob's heart quickened again. She had actually been thinking about him.

“Yes—your profession. Now don’t tell me: it’s such fun guessing!”

“What do I look like?” asked Jacob, endeavouring to get his shoulders back without attracting notice.

“Well—are you in business of any kind?”

“No.”

“I am glad: I think commerce is so dull. Let me see, now—what else could you be? A lawyer—an engineer—an architect—an artist? No? Well—”

“What would you like me to be?” asked Jacob. It was an audacious flight for him, but Miss Greig did not seem to mind.

“I know what I should like to be myself, above all things in the world,” she replied.

“What?”

“An author.” She laid a caressing hand upon the cover of “Faint Heart,” which Jacob was carrying.

“I would give anything in this world,” she said, “simply to be the man who wrote that book!”

Jacob Finch gazed down into her small, eager, flushed face. Her lips were parted; her eyes shone. Something seemed to snap inside his head, and an unknown and omnipotent force from outside took possession of him.

“I’m afraid you can’t be him,” he said gravely. “But,—”

“But what?” asked the girl, her attention caught by the tone of his voice.

“You can meet him, if you like.”

“What do you mean?”

Without a tremor Jacob Finch turned back the cover of “Faint Heart,” and pointed to the author's name upon the title-page.

“My nom de plume!” he announced.

Miss Greig clasped her hands, and gazed up at him breathlessly.

“You? You are really Julius Mablethorpe?” She almost whispered the question.

Jacob Finch nodded defiantly.

travels fast on board ship. Within twelve hours it was known to every saloon passenger that the rather colourless young man, who wore a made-up tie at dinner and spent his time mooning about after that rather saucy little piece with the big eyes, was no less a personage than the famous Julius Mablethorpe, the author of nineteen Best Sellers and a household word (or byword, according to your standard of literary taste) throughout the English-speaking world.

The consequences were immediate and numerous, and entirely beyond anything that Jacob Finch—or indeed most people—could have anticipated. We can divide these into the consequences affecting his relations with the world in general, and those affecting his relations with Myra Greig.

The first naturally was that Jacob became a ship's topic of the first rank.

“Curious how hard some of these celebrities are to spot,” said the passengers to one another. “One would never have singled out this chap. But when you come to look at him, you can see–you can see! There’s something there—something that we have n’t got. Look at his forehead, the way it bulges! Look at his ears, the way they stick out! Look at his chin, the way it goes in! Watch his eyes! They seem to see nothing, but I bet you they’re taking in everything! You and I will be in his next book, as likely as not. We must be careful how we behave—eh?”

Next, lifelong admirers closed round Jacob Finch and discussed with him at length the works of Julius Mablethorpe—to the extreme discomfort of the former, whose acquaintance with the writings of the latter was of the slightest. But even when detected in palpable unfamiliarity with his own handiwork, his disciples counted the fact to him for righteousness.

“Most interesting, these geniuses!” they said. “This one really seems quite fed up at being asked about his own stuff. Can't even remember which book of his a character belongs to. Queer, reserved, dreamy, unpractical creatures—what? Barrie's another of 'em.”

Then they would ask Jacob Finch for the favour of Julius Mablethorpe's autograph—which was granted, they noted, with characteristic diffidence—and retire below to record the whole episode in their diaries.

Secondly, the effect upon Jacob's relations with Miss Greig. For perhaps six days he lived his dream—oblivious of everything save the consciousness that this matchless creature found him above all men desirable. He did not think; he did not reflect; he simply accepted the inconceivable bliss which had descended upon him.

Then, suddenly, he came to himself. The sun was blotted out; a pall of black despair spread over heaven; and he realized exactly what he had done. Previous to this he had had a chance—how good or bad he did not know; but a chance—to win Myra Greig for his own. Now that chance was gone forever. Plainly he could not marry Miss Greig without telling her that he was an impostor; and equally plainly if he told her he was an impostor she would not marry him. He worshipped her with all his body and soul—and by one single act of madness he had cut himself apart from her forever. No wonder the autograph-seekers found their lion a little distrait.

It was evening, and he sat upon the edge of his bed Smoking a cigarette. He had an appointment with Miss Greig on the boat deck—such appointments could be had for the mere asking now—at ten minutes to nine, to look at the moon, which was at the full. He closed his burning eyes and reflected for the hundredth time.

“If I carry on till the end of the trip, and then slip off the ship quietly, and disappear forever—that will be the end of the whole business, in a manner of speaking. Of course it will mean that I can never see her again. She will think that I have let her down. She will think me a cad—!”

He choked, and genuine tears forced their way beneath his eyelids.

“—And if I go upstairs and make a clean breast of it now, that only means that she will give me the chuck on her own account straight off, and never speak to me again! Oh, dear!” He dropped his face into his hands, and writhed in the tangled web which he had so artlessly woven for himself.

Still, taking him all in all, Jacob was a man, and a gentleman. He sat up, and looked at his watch. The hour of the rendezvous had come. He dipped his face into cold water and scrubbed it with a rough towel,- and there are less practical ways of achieving moral regeneration,—after which, having brushed his hair and rearranged his tie he surveyed himself resolutely in the mirror.

“I will!” he said aloud; “I will! It's the only decent thing to do. I’ll do it now!

was reclining in a lounge chair in the moonlight, on the boat deck, and welcomed him with a little air of demure proprietorship which at once thrilled and tortured him.

“I have a message for you,” she announced importantly.

“A message?” Jacob started. “Who sent it?”

“The Passengers' Entertainment Committee. There is to be a Concert in the Saloon to-morrow night, and they want you to take the chair.”

“Me?” exclaimed Jacob in a voice of horror.

Miss Greig smiled indulgently.

“Yes—you! Celebrities must n’t be too modest, you know. If you will be Julius Mablethorpe, you must expect to have to do things like that. You have brought it on yourself,” she concluded, with perfect truth.

“But isn't there anybody else?”

“No. You are easily the greatest celebrity on this ship. You will do it, won't you?” Miss Greig raised her eyes appealingly.

Jacob resolutely avoided them.

“I can’t,” he said miserably.

“Not even to please me?”

Jacob writhed. “Tell her now!” commanded a stern voice within him. “Go on! The longer you look at it the less you will like it.” He drew a deep, shuddering breath.

“I would do anything in the world to please you,” he began, leaning closer to the girl and speaking in a low, choking voice; “but—but—well, there is something I must tell you first. There is a reason—”

“A woman does n’t want to listen to reason,” retorted Miss Greig petulantly.

“But this reason—”

“Never mind reasons.” She gave him a quick glance. “I’m not really thinking about the Concert, or the silly old other passengers. I’m asking you to do this just to please me, and for nothing else. There! Won't you? I shall be so proud of you. Please?” Miss Greig laid an impulsive hand upon Jacob's sleeve.

Without doubt, argument between the sexes under the moon on a semitropical sea should be prohibited, or at least supervised, by the State. The consequences were automatic. Next moment Jacob had taken possession of the hand, and was kissing it passionately.

“I love you!” he said: “I  love you! I would do anything for you. I don’t care what happens now. I’ve said it—there! And I’m glad, anyway!”

This was not what Jacob had intended to say, nor anything like it; but Miss Greig showed no disposition to be critical. Neither did she withdraw her hand. Indeed, Jacob was conscious, to the very marrow of his soul, of a soft, responsive pressure. He gazed down upon her: her long lashes were drooping.

“Look up!” he said, in a voice entirely unfamiliar to him.

The girl obeyed; and Jacob, inexperienced though he was, realized at a glance that fate had put something into his keeping that night which would never entirely pass out of it again or ever be given to an other.

“Do you know,” said Myra ten minutes later, “you rather frighten me!”

“Do I?” replied Jacob in genuine astonishment. “Why?”

“Well, all my life I have dreamed that when I came to be loved by somebody, it would n’t be anybody famous, or clever, or strong; but just somebody who was nobody in particular, if you know what I mean—some man who was rather lonely and helpless and wanted taking care of.” She gave ashy laugh. “That was what first made me feel”—she leaned her head comfortably against his arm–“feel this way about you. I really thought you were lonely and helpless. Was n’t it cheek of me? Do you mind, dear?”

“No,” said Jacob unsteadily, “I don’t mind. I’m glad. At least—I would have been.”

“If you had n’t been what you are?”

“That's right,” said Jacob, with a heart of lead.

The girl rose to her feet.

“Let me go now,” she said. “No, don't kiss me—yet. To-morrow I shall have to speak to you about something. May I tell them that you will take the chair at the Concert?”

“Whatever you say,” assented Jacob mechanically. “Good-night, my dear!”

“Bless you!” said the girl. She threw him a last smile over her shoulder, and disappeared down the stairway.

Left alone, Jacob stood gazing over the moonlit sea—silent, motionless, not without a certain dignity. Finally he clasped his hands over his heart, and closed his eyes.

“O God,” he murmured, “please let her go on smiling at me like that for a little while longer. Then I will tell her. I promise! But not just yet–please!”

Purser, a stout gentleman of paternal appearance and enormous acquaintance, tapped discreetly upon the sitting-room door of Suite Number Seven teen, on B Deck, and entered.

Sprawling in an armchair, with his feet on the table and a litter of proof-sheets upon the floor all round him, sat a large man with greying hair, in his shirt-sleeves, angrily puffing an unclean pipe and stabbing at a proof-sheet with a fountain-pen.

He looked up.

“Go away!” he said. “Remove yourself! Go and purse somewhere else!”

But the Purser merely grinned, helped himself to a cigar unbidden, and sat down upon the sofa.

“So they’ve punctured your blessed old incognito after all,” he remarked.

The large man looked up from his proof-sheet and glared.

“What do you mean? I don’t understand your filthy vernacular, I only speak English.”

“Then why don’t you write it, old son?” asked the Purser gently. But Julius Mablethorpe was not to be drawn. He wanted this alarming allusion to his incognito explained.

“Don’t play the pantaloon,” he urged, “but tell me.”

“I have told you. Your disguise appears to have been penetrated.”

“What makes you think so?”

“Well, there is a notice up on the board outside my office to say that you are to take the chair at the Concert to-night. I presume the announcement has been made with your knowledge and consent. Between ourselves, I should n’t wonder if you had offered to do it. I have always suspected this incognito business of yours of being an advertising stunt.”

But these gross insults, which in most cases would by this time have precipitated a most enjoyable wrestling-match between two short-winded but light hearted sexagenarians, failed of their usual effect. Julius Mablethorpe (entered on the passenger list as Lemuel K. Baggs) rose from his seat, scattered his impedimenta upon the floor of the cabin, and gazed earnestly down upon his old friend.

“You’re speaking the truth, I suppose?”

“‘I always tries to utter lies, and every time I  fails,’” quoted the Purser.

“Either some one has found out that I am on board,” said Mablethorpe slowly, “and has put my name up as a sort of challenge to me to come forth and make a holy show of myself, or else—well, it has happened before, and may happen again.”

“What?”

“I wonder! What a rum coincidence if it has, with me actually on the same ship. The Long Arm, eh? Not a bad title for a short story! Now—”

“Abandon these senile and mercenary maunderings,” urged the Purser, “and say what you’re driving at.”

Mablethorpe told him.

“Go and find out who he is, like a good chap,” he said when he had finished.

“I will,” replied the Purser grimly, and left the cabin.

In twenty minutes he returned.

“You’re right, old fellow,” he announced. “You are being impersonated.”

Mablethorpe nodded.

“Somebody with mutton-chop whiskers and a cummerbund, I suppose?” he said gloomily.

“More or less.”

“I knew it! Well?”

“Apparently he revealed his identity—that is to say, your identity—two or three days ago, and has been the big noise on this old packet ever since. I suppose I ought to have heard about it sooner, but I have been busy in the office with manifests and things ever since we left Algiers. Anyhow, your understudy has been having a wonderful time—surrounded by adoring females, telling them where he gets his inspirations from, and writing autographs. What are you going to do about it? Shall I ask the Old Man to put him in clink?”

“Not at all. Why should I deprive a fellow creature of his innocent pleasures? But I should like to meet the gentleman. When is this perishing concert of his to take place?”

“To-night, at nine.”

“Bring him in here before dinner, will you?”

hours later Jacob Finch, gloriously arrayed for his evening's official labours, was ushered, not altogether at his ease, by the Purser into Suite Number Seventeen. There he beheld a large man with twinkling blue eyes and a preternaturally solemn expression, sitting behind a table.

“Purser,” announced the large man in a voice of thunder, “you can get out!”

“Yes, sir,” replied the Purser respectfully, and departed.

“Sit down, please,” said the man to Jacob, indicating the sofa. “Drink this.”

He rose and placed a glass of whiskey-and-soda within reach of his guest, and resumed his magisterial pose behind the table.

“Now,” he said, “you will naturally desire to know who I am, and why I have invited you to this téte-à-tête. I will tell you. I write novels, of a distressing but popular character. I have been for the last four months in the United States, collecting material for another. I am now rounding off my trip by circumnavigating the Mediterranean. I have been occupied during the past fortnight in revising the proofs of a new book which has to be delivered to my publishers next week. In order to secure complete privacy and freedom from interruption, I have remained almost entirely in my cabin, and I am entered on the passenger list under an assumed name. You will find it given there as Lemuel K. Baggs. I made it up myself: I  think it is rather good. My real name, in point of fact, is Julius Mablethorpe. … Here's another drink for you. Now, old man, tell me why you did it.”

Mr. Mablethorpe resumed his seat, leaned back, lit a cigar, smiled benevolently, and waited. He had to wait some time, for his visitor found himself for the moment incapable of speech. He sat huddled upon the sofa, gaping like a stranded fish.

“Take your time,” advised Mablethorpe. “In fact, you may as well listen to me for a bit longer.”

He exhaled a long cloud of cigar Smoke, and proceeded:

“A man impersonates another man for one of three reasons. Firstly, to gain some fraudulent advantage—make money out of the game, in fact. I may say at once that I acquit you of any such intention.”

“That's right, sir,” murmured Jacob faintly.

“Secondly, in obedience to a curious but not altogether unnatural craving—the craving for fame, distinction, notoriety—anything, in fact, which will lift a man out of the ruck of his fellow-creatures and make him conspicuous for a moment. Men have been found willing to die for such a moment. I suppose you have never written to the police pleading guilty to a murder, have you?”

“No, sir.”

“Ah! Well, I assure you lots of people do. It is a fact that after a murder of any importance has been committed, the difficulty of the authorities is not so much to find the guilty man, and hang him, as to avoid hanging some perfectly respectable citizen who insists that he did the deed and none other. It may seem strange that people should come and make bogus confessions; but they do, by the dozen. Why? Well, if there is one thing that galls a certain type of utterly undistinguished individual, it is the consciousness that the world at large has never heard of him, and never will. So he makes up his little mind to achieve immortality somehow—even if he has to invoke the assistance of. Of course that is an extreme way of putting it. Probably most of these self-confessed desperadoes do not expect to be convicted: after all, there is no evidence against them. What they really hope for is a couple of days in the public eye and a few really gratifying press notices. After they are acquitted—that is, kicked out—they return home branded as celebrities, and live happily ever after. But you say you have never been taken that way?”

“No, sir.”

“Good! Forgive me for talking so much, but I don’t often encounter such an indulgent audience. Of course there is a milder variation of the disease. Did you, for instance, ever write to a Patent Medicine Company, informing them that you were once a nervous wreck, but that since consuming three bottles of their specific you are now fit to hang from the chandelier by your heels?” “No, sir.”

“Well, I assure you thousands of people do it. There is an impression that patent medicine testimonials are paid for by the proprietors. Stuff and nonsense! They simply pour in unsolicited, from people who probably never touched the stuff, but hope that their ungrammatical letter, accompanied by an unrecognizable portrait, will be published in the advertisement columns of the press. You see, Madame Tussaud's again—from a less ambitious angle! It's a queer world. But you say you have never done any of these things?”

“No, sir.”

“Then that brings us to the third alternative. There is only one other reason why a man should endeavour to assume a personality which for some reason he regards as more desirable than his own, and that is to enable him to create an impression in some particular quarter. Of course it must be a temporary impression, because naturally he's bound to be found out if he goes on too long. Still he does it—and I rather think you have done it, my friend!”

Julius Mablethorpe abandoned his judgment seat, crossed to the sofa, sat heavily down upon it, and laid a gentle hand on Jacob Finch's shoulder.

“Now tell me all about her,” he said.

And to this eccentric but tender father confessor, Jacob recounted the whole pitiful story of Faint Heart and his Fair Lady.

“ know what you must think of me, sir,” he remarked miserably, when he had finished. “There are two kinds of sin,” announced Mablethorpe–“human and inhuman. The first kind can always be forgiven—and that’s where you come in. If you had robbed an orphanage, or written a psychoanalytical novel, it would have been different.” “But I deliberately took your name, sir, and—”

“Don’t you worry about that. It’s not the first time it’s happened. Why, a couple of years ago a friend of mine telegraphed to me from a Swiss hotel, to say that there was a fellow staying there who said he was me! Was he to have him arrested? I wired back and asked what the gentleman looked like, and how he was behaving. My friend replied: ‘A most presentable person. He has a large stock of your novels with him, and is giving them away.' I sent a final wire: ‘Encourage him to continue.’”

“It was very generous of you,” said Jacob.

“Not at all: it was good business.”

“But it was generous to let him off.”

“Oh, one has to make allowances, you know. There is something about the air of foreign hotels, and indeed ocean liners, which gives a curious twist to the moral fibre for the time being. It makes people extraordinarily elastic in their conception of who and what they really are. They are separated for the moment from those who are in a position to contradict them, so they hurriedly avail themselves of the opportunity—the opportunity of a lifetime to many of them—to allow the ineradicable human craving for telling lies about one's self full play. That's all, I think. Go along and have dinner.”

Jacob rose unsteadily to his feet.

“You—you forgive me, sir?” he asked humbly.

“Lord bless you, yes! I forgive you. But I’m going to make two conditions.”

“Anything, sir! Anything!”

“In the first place, you must make a clean breast of it to the young lady. You need not tell her I am on board; in fact, I would rather you did n’t tell anybody that. But tell her that you are not me.”

“I will, sir; I will, indeed! I was going to, in any case. I have been so miserable about it. I will tell her to-night, and leave the ship at Alexandria. What was the other condition, sir?”

Mablethorpe's eyes twinkled.

“I am a retiring individual,” he said. “You must take the chair for me at the Concert.”

Jacob Finch's knees turned to water.

“But, sir—” he stammered.

“They are fair terms, I think,” said Mablethorpe: “I  have forgiven you, and granted you full permission to continue your impersonation of me until you leave the ship. You owe me something for that. Take the chair you shall!”

“I—I—have to make a speech. What shall I say?”

“I will write something out for you. Look in here after dinner for it. And see you deliver it nicely, because I am coming to listen to you. Now run off. By the way, will you forgive a most personal suggestion?”

“Certainly, sir—anything!”

“As you are going to give an imitation of me, would you mind dressing the part a bit? For instance, I usually tie my evening ties myself, instead of wearing the extremely neat and symmetrical arrangement favoured by you. I can give you one when you come in for the speech—and tie it for you if necessary. Au revoir! I’m glad to feel that we understand one another.”

“That's right—I mean, God bless you, sir!”

so proud of you to-night,” said Myra softly. “You speak as well as you write.”

Once more they were sharing the boat deck with the moon. The Concert had been a great success: thanks to a moving appeal from the Chair a more than usually satisfactory sum had been collected for the Seamen's Orphanage. They reclined in their deck-chairs side by side, sharing a rug, with fingers intertwined.

Myra's testimonial evoked no direct response, but it gave Jacob what he had been groping for—a cue. He disengaged his cold fingers from those of his beloved, and rose to his feet.

“I am leaving the ship to-morrow,” he said abruptly.

Myra caught her breath, and gazed up at him with suddenly dilated eyes.

“You are going to—what?” she asked.

“I am going to leave this ship to-morrow,” repeated Jacob.

“But why? I—I—I hope you have n’t had bad news, or anything.”

“No. But I must leave.”

“Tired of me already?” The girl laughed a little unsteadily, and avoided his gaze.

“For God's sake, don’t joke about it!”

Myra heard the agony in his voice, and looked up again quickly. Then she saw his face in the moonlight. Swiftly she extended a slim arm and drew him gently down.

“Will you tell me about it?” she asked.

He dropped into his seat again.

“Yes—I will. That is why we are here now. Don't look at me, please: just turn your head away and listen. I have something to say to you. I am not Julius Mablethorpe at all. My name is Jacob Finch, and nothing else. Until six months ago I was a bank clerk in a little country town in Norfolk. Then an aunt died and left me some money. I’d never been anywhere or seen anything in all my life, so I thought I  would take a trip abroad. I went to Monte Carlo. I hated it. I came on this boat.I hated that, too. And then—then I saw you. I thought you were the most beautiful thing God ever made—especially your smile. When I got to know you, and you told me about yourself—your country place in Devonshire—the old family you belonged to—and—and the flocks of deer—and the terrace, and everything—I  felt so miserable I did n’t know what to do, you were so far above me. You see what I mean? I had no appearance, no accomplishments; nothing to impress a girl at all. I simply had to do something, to—to—get you to like me, even if it was only for a week. Then suddenly the chance—the temptation—came, when you said you admired people who could write, especially Julius Mablethorpe. It was all over in a flash. I was mad, I think. But it was my one chance to win your respect, and I seized it! …

“I never meant to tell you I loved you, though. I was trying that night to make a clean breast of everything. Instead, I—well, it just happened: Fate was too strong for me. And when you said that you—you—cared for me—well, I simply could n't give you up right away. I had to have my happiness, if only for a few days of my life. So I have been acting a lie to you for more than a week. …

“Well, it's all over now: I have confessed. It’s a relief, really, though it ends everything for me. Now you know why I leave the ship to-morrow. We shall not meet again, of course; our stations in life are so different: so I hope that, not having to see me, you will manage to forget this slight I have put upon you. I hope, too, you won't reproach me more than you can help. My punishment is about all I can bear already. You see, I am losing you. That’s enough: don’t add any words to it, if you don't mind. … That's all, I think. No, there's this. I am going to have a pretty bad time when I go away from you, but there's just one thing will keep me up. Do you know what that is? Remembrance! I have had my hour! I have been a liar, and an impostor, and a cad, and I  have borrowed—stolen—something I had no right to; and I’m going to be punished for it. But I have had my hour! Nothing can ever take that away from me. Please say to me, if you will, that you won’t grudge me that. Then I will take my leave and go below. I will be off the ship to-morrow before you come on deck.” His voice grew husky. “Will you please say—what I asked?”

Their two heads were very close together now. The girl, with face still averted, lay motionless in her chair.

“Please say it,” he whispered—“that you don't grudge me—that! Will you?”

Slowly she turned her face to him; and he saw her eyes were full of tears.

“My dear,” she said, with a laugh that was mainly a sob, “I can't tell you how happy you’ve made me!”

“Happy! Why? How?

Myra took his hand.

“Why? How? Don't you see, ever since you said you were the Mablethorpe man, I have felt that things were all wrong. I was so proud about it—but I was wretched underneath. You were too high up in the world for me, my dear. The fact is, I”—Jacob opened his mouth to offer an obvious protest—“I know! You are going to remind me about my county family, and my house in Devonshire, and the flock of deer (or was it a covey?), and the terrace, and the tenants! Well, forget them, will you? They’re a castle in the air of mine. In fact, I got them out of one of Mablethorpe's books! I live with my aunt in Highgate, and I work in an office in the city. I had influenza badly, and the Boss was very good about it, and sent me on this trip to pick up again. That's what I am, really. That’s why I told you the other day that I was frightened of you. I was speaking the truth that time, all right. Besides, there was another thing that made me wretched. There was nothing I felt I could really do for you. You must n’t think a woman always wants to be a wife to a man: sometimes she wants to be his mother. That's what I wanted to be to you—you poor, sensitive, solitary thing! And for more than a week you have been cheating me out of that hope, you bad boy! But it’s all right now. We are ourselves again, thank goodness!—just our two plain, ordinary little selves—and we love one another, and to-morrow Auntie and I are going straight back home with you when you land. You're my own Jacob: by the way, I’m going to call you Jack; and I'm your own—oh, there's one thing more! My name is n’t Myra Greig at all: it's Molly Grigg. Call me Molly, will you?”

Jacob complied at once, with immense solemnity.

“You’re quite sure you don’t like Molly less than Myra, do you?” inquired Miss Grigg, with a slight inflexion of anxiety.

“I prefer her,” replied Jacob. “She is more in my own class—on my level.”

But Molly shook her head.

“You’re worlds above me still,” she said. “Look at the little speech you made at the Concert to-night! It was beautiful. So long as you can make up things like that, there's no need for you to pretend to be Julius Mablethorpe, or anybody else.”

“Oh, that was just a flash-in-the-pan,” replied Jacob modestly.

But Molly shook her head again.

“I don’t agree with you. I agree with that big man with the grey hair who got up and seconded the vote of thanks to the Chair. He said that your speech would always linger in his memory as the most perfectly conceived and most happily phrased thing of its kind he'd ever listened to. What was his name, by the way?”

“Baggs, I think.”

“Well, Baggs is a good judge. Anyhow, he knows how to read character. I like Baggs.”

“So do I,” said Jacob, with feeling.

“I like Mablethorpe, too. Of course he's only a name to us; but—well, I feel somehow that I have Mablethorpe to thank for you!”

“That's right,” said Jacob.

But I am not so sure. Julius Mablethorpe and “Faint Heart” between them may have given Jacob his preposterous impulse, but I doubt if he would have obeyed it on land. The responsibility, in my opinion, rests with ocean air.