"Ha, gentlemen, here you are! I am so glad to see you. Would you try one of my cigars; they are really a first-class brand. No; you don't smoke cigars, eh? Sorry for that. Prefer a pipe, eh? Well, that's a nice one you are smoking, and it seems to colour well. Splendid thing, a meerschaum. I always smoke cherry-wood myself; see, this is one. I have some more down below like it. Would you care for one? I assure you they are something special; and this tobacco's simply—"
"Yes, yes," said Hal, stopping him abruptly. "I am sure all you say is quite correct, but we do not require anything to-day, and, moreover, we are engaged—"
"But, my dear sir, you know on board ship people are—"
"Supposed to mind their own business," said Hal, exasperated with the man's importunity.
"Yes, exactly, my dear sir, but when—"
"Look, Mr. Tickell, there's Mrs. Morgan beckoning to you," said Reg.
"Where? Ah, yes, I am sorry I must leave you: ta, ta; I'll see you again," and away he skipped to annoy someone else.
"Tickell is a specimen of that irritating species of human kind, the unsnubbable," said Hal.
Various attempts were made to penetrate their reserve, but without success, for they clearly gave everyone to understand that they preferred the company of each other, which did not tend to their popularity on board. Amongst the passengers was a young man who rejoiced in the high-sounding name of Hugh St. John Wilson-Mainwaring, and whose sense of self-importance was as extensive as his appellation. He was the younger son of a bishop, and intended to tour the Colonies at the expense of the inhabitants, feeling satisfied that he had only to make it known that his father was the Bishop of Doseminster to have the door of every aristocrat-loving Australian flung open wide in his honour. His voice had a delightful drawl that attracted the female portion of the passengers, and the little time of each day that was left to him after that which was occupied in the management of this characteristic, the manipulation of his eye-glass, and the exposure of the correct four inches of shirt-cuff, was devoted to the invention of inane practical jokes. He had successfully played "ripping good jokes, don't yer know" on most of the passengers, and one old squatter who was returning with his "missus" after doing England felt highly honoured at being made the butt of such aristocratic ingenuity.
"We must invite him to the station, missus," he said to his wife the evening after that event. "He would be such a catch for our Eliza."