“Well,” said Mr. Alter, “perhaps we have both made mistakes. I should have told you my full name and my business at once—in truth, I intended to do so, but you didn’t give me much chance. I haven’t come to sell. I should like to pay a call, if you will allow me. There are friends of mine in the Gunroom—Fane-Herbert and Lynwood. I am Wingfield Alter. I write books, you know. That’s the card you asked for.”
It was as if some visitor, unknown by the name of Bennett, had added, “Arnold Bennett; I write books, you know.” Mr. Baring knew now only too well. So this odd creature, with a bowler hat and a hand-bag and a pointed beard, was Wingfield Alter, the friend of many admirals, an honoured guest in times past at combined manœuvres. Mr. Baring had an unpleasant vision of great men telling this tale to one another in the corridors at Whitehall. “And Baring took him for a commercial traveller. Baring must be an ass!”
“I am very sorry, Mr. Alter,” he said quickly, still feeling that it was Mr. Alter’s fault—as perhaps it was. “It was your little bag that deceived me. However, it will make a good tale for you to tell.”
“But I never tell tales against myself,” Mr. Alter answered.
At this moment, Reedham, who had disappeared quickly and discreetly when Mr. Alter handed his card to the officer of the watch, and who had been engaged meanwhile in awakening a somnolent Gunroom, and urging its occupants to “clear up some of the mess and stow away the Winning Post” before the arrival of a literary Order of Merit—Reedham returned panting to the quarter-deck, and gazed over the side while he attempted to regain his breath and to look as if he had never been absent. His face was still pink as a result of his exertion when he was ordered, as he had known he would be, to escort Mr. Alter to the Gunroom.
But they had not gone far together when Mr. Baring called him back.
“Reedham!... One moment. Excuse me, Mr. Alter.... Look here Reedham,” Mr. Baring continued, while Mr. Alter waited out of earshot in the starboard tunnel, “have you warned the snotties down below?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Gunroom tidy? Look decent?”