There followed a terrific spluttering and gurgling, and an angry roar from the bunk. But we did not wait. Each man made a bee-line for his cabin, and deposited the empty tumbler where it belonged, after which we quietly filed into the tea-room and settled ourselves down at table as if nothing had happened.
Somehow or other, however, the master-at-arms must have guessed that I was the ringleader in the plot, for half an hour later I was approached by one of the officers.
“Mr. Carlton,” he remarked, in quiet, matter-of-fact tones, “the captain sends his compliments, and he wants to speak to you in his cabin on the first-class upper deck.”
“Very kind of him I am sure to desire to make my acquaintance,” I replied suavely. “But the desire is not reciprocated. Go and tell the captain so.”
Another thirty minutes or so went by. Then the first officer, accompanied by two others, marched up to me. “Mr. Carlton,” remarked the spokesman of the deputation, “the captain desires to see you on the first-class upper deck.”
“So I’ve heard,” I remarked in assumedly bored tones. “But I’ve already explained that I don’t wish to see the captain. And anyhow, if he wants to speak to me, I’m here. He knows where to find me. Let him come down to me. Certainly I’m not going up to him.”
At this they began to turn nasty, explaining to me that the captain was a magistrate on board his own ship, and that his expressed wishes must be taken as being in the nature of commands, to be obeyed implicitly and without question.
“Now are you coming, or are you not?” they concluded.
“No,” I repeated doggedly, “I’m not.”
“Then,” they said, “we shall have to use force, and take you.”