"'Scuse me, gents,—are you from that boat down there?"
I answered in the affirmative.
"Going to Havana?"
This, too, I admitted.
"Well, there's a feller by the desk who missed the steamer, and he hoped—er——"
"We'd take him over," Tommy supplied the halting words. "Where is he?"
Turning, we easily distinguished the man by his timid glances in our direction.
"Whiz-bang," Tommy whispered. "What the deuce would you call it, Jack?"
Except for his age, that might have been sixty, he was most comical to look upon—in stature short and round, suggesting kinship with a gnome. His head seemed too large for the body, yet this might have been because it carried a plenteous shock of straw-colored hair, with mustache and beard to match. He was attired in "knickers" and pleated jacket, that looked as if he'd slept in them, and his fat legs were knock-kneed. On the floor about his feet lay almost every conceivable type and age of traveling bag, with the inevitable camera.
"What's his name?" Tommy asked, not that that would have made any difference if his passport were in order.