Turning slowly, he lowered the towel from his dripping face, holding it out like a propitiatory offering. He responded then with the slow emphasis of surprise.
"Hel-lo, old scout! So you've waked up at last! Thought you meant to sleep the trip out."
"Have I been asleep long?"
"Only since you came on aboard."
It was on my tongue to ask, When was that? but a sudden prompting of discretion bade me seek another way.
"You don't mean to say I've slept more than—more than"—I drew a bow at a venture—"more than twenty-four hours?"
He made the reckoning as he rubbed his shining face with the towel.
"Let me see! This is Friday. We came on board late Tuesday night. When John-M'rie, our bedroom steward, brought me down to the cabin about half past nine you were already in your bunk doing the opium act. John-M'rie passed it up that you were a Frenchman, because you'd spoken French to him; but now I see you're just an American like myself."
So! I was an American but I could speak French. I could speak French sufficiently well for one Frenchman to mistake me for another. I stowed this data away, noting that if I had lost some of the power of memory the faculty of reasoning was unimpaired.
Weighing my questions so as to get the maximum of information with the minimum of betrayal, I waited before hazarding anything else till he had finished polishing a face which had the handsome ugliness of a pug.