Ralph Stock

“ The human stream flowed sluggishly as far as the saloon doors, but once inside them burst all bounds and flooded the place like a cataract. A few anæmic stewards tried to preserve order, but matters resolved themselves into a game of musical chairs without the music, a game at which Challoner was patently no good whatever. It was only by dint of strategy on Strode's part, and the kindly assistance of the indignant matron, who proved to be telescopic as well as resilient, that room was made for him at all. ”

“ It was an awkward question, but Challoner was relieved of having to answer it by the clanging of a bell and a general stampede for the dining saloon, headed by Berth No. 3.
A few minutes of the free fight proceeding in the passage outside satisfied Strode that the first call for "tea" was not his. He returned to the cabin to find Challoner alone and in earnest contemplation of his neatly-shod feet.
Suddenly, and without any apparent cause, he laughed.
"Excuse me," he said, as though caught in some guilty act. "I thought I was alone. My son-in-law has gone to try and find his wife. ”

“ Strode must have smiled.
"You're beginning to get it," railed Challoner, "the great father-in-law jest! Well, that's what's expected of me. They're educating me to it."
"But surely your daughter——"
"Gone clean over to the enemy!" snapped Challoner. "And quite right, too. If a wife doesn't share her husband's principles, she has no right to share anything else of his. I'm old-fashioned enough to see that." His tone became milder. "After the crash—about which the least said the better—farming in Canada was decided on. It sounds solid, and reads well in the leaflets. ”

“ Challoner's face relaxed into a grin of understanding. "Hush!" he said. "You mustn't say things like that, or you'll never make a good mixer."
In the neighbourhood of the saloon door the ordeal became intensified. By way of after-dinner entertainment, the brighter spirits of the "first sitting" had converted the main companion into a grand stand, from which they passed their successors in ribald review.
"Straight through to the dry 'ash!"
"The animals went in two by two," complete with chorus.
"Stay with it, ma; you'll win if you don't weaken," were a few gems from their repertoire. ”

“ Challoner ended on a note of defiant futility, and glared upward at the scudding cloud- wrack.
"Aren't you rather hard on yourself?" Strode suggested.
"Not a bit. I've only taken a look at myself rather late in life, and don't like the view." ”

“ A natural aloofness from the herd, a well-disciplined tolerance when forced to mingle with it, the suggestion he conveyed in speech and bearing that whatever wrong he may have done had never been done wrongly, led one to the conclusion that he had had time and opportunity beyond the average to cultivate the art of being a gentleman. ”

“ Who from? Why?"
"My son-in-law, for offending our friend of berth Number Three," said Challoner, looking up from his seat on a cabin trunk to note the effect of the announcement.
Strode laughed shortly.
"Ah, it does amuse you," sighed Challoner. "Good. Then perhaps you'll allow me to go further. I should like an unbiased opinion. Did you notice anything of the sort?"
"I must say he seemed offended," Strode admitted, "though for the life of me I couldn't see what about. He struck me as a man looking for trouble."
"Exactly," beamed Challoner. "That was my contention. ”

“ If one tries to fling himself overboard, the other can hold him back, and get a medal."
"Besides, you'll die of cold up here," pursued the inexorable head and shoulders, "and Henry says——"
"Yes, he's just said it."
"And it's time for the constitutional."
"Impossible! " protested Challoner. "It can't be time for both constitutional and quoits."
But the head and shoulders carried the day, and incidentally Challoner fuming to the lower deck.
"You see what I mean," he told Strode at the next boat-deck session. ”

“ Place such a man, together with his unmistakably newly-married daughter and her husband, in the steerage of a liner bound for the Land of Promise, mix for nine days, by means of Atlantic rollers, with as various an assemblage as you will find ashore or afloat, and the result is apt to be interesting. ”

“ The ensuing silence appeared to precipitate further revelations.
"Bunk 'ouses they're called," he informed the assembled company, "full of red-blooded he-men with hair on, and you can't come any of your 'glass with care' stuff with them, I'm telling yer. If you ain't a good mixer, you might as well be meat."
"Really?" said Challoner in a tone of polite interest.
"Yep, re-ally," mimicked Berth No. 3. ”

“ It was a ghastly business. The steerage, including even Berth No. 3, was quite shocked—until landing preparations drove all else from its mind.
As for Strode, his last hours aboard the "ship of hope" constituted a nightmare. The general impression seemed to prevail—especially with the bereaved relatives—that he was in some way responsible. Had he not lured Challoner on to the perilous boat-deck? And what could Strode reply? Nothing. Naturally the thing had been accepted as an accident. He let it go at that.
The entry in the ship's log read as follows—
March 15th. ”

“ It scares me stiff to think what some of this bunch 'll have to stand for before they get halter-broke, trailin' out to a white man's country the way they do with all their old back-numbered notions of how to do this and how not to do that, and takin' no advice from them as knows. ”