"Yes, sir," he admitted, "I was. You see——"
"There's something different about me from the men you have been in the habit of coming across."
There was undoubtedly. Why, even the clothes which this stranger wore were strange to Dudley. They were of a smooth, dark cloth, probably of foreign manufacture, while the cut was decidedly different from that in vogue in England. There was a soft, white shirt beneath the coat, a soft collar attached, and a brilliant-coloured tie of very ample dimensions issued from beneath the collar and fell in soft folds over his shirt and the lapels of his coat. Added to all this, a wide-brimmed felt hat, with an ostrich plume thrust into the band, lay on the seat beside him, the sort of article which one would hardly have expected to have come across at sea, and certainly not in England in those prim days.
"Well? Am I right? Speak out, lad, and don't fear to offend me. My name's Blunt. Harvey Blunt, at your service. Blunt by name and blunt also by nature, I fear."
Dudley smiled, for the stranger beamed on him as he spoke, his kindly face and eyes belying his words. He might be blunt in speech, and perhaps for all Dudley knew had cultivated the habit for some special reason. He might be a man who commanded many workers, and short, sharp orders were appreciated and quickly obeyed. But he was certainly not offensively blunt, and there was a kind heart under his jacket. Dudley reckoned all that out swiftly, while he noticed that Mr. Blunt spoke English perfectly, but sometimes with the faintest foreign accent, while later, as they conversed, he heard many strange exclamations issue from his lips, and he was at a loss to understand what they meant or in what language they were uttered.
"A lad who thinks and notices," Mr. Blunt was saying to himself, as he watched the young passenger opposite. "I like his looks. He is a fine sample of the English boy, well set up, manly, with a lot of character and determination about him, and yet with manners. Ah, I like a lad who is always polite! Well, sir?"
Dudley laughed outright now. He had finished his soup, and was now discussing a big plate of beef, while a steaming cup of coffee was wedged into the corner of the fiddle just at his elbow.
"I must admit that you are a little different, sir," he said. "To begin with, your clothes are not like those we wear, and then, well, you look to me as if you had always lived in the open, and had slept there, too. You look, what we call at school, 'as hard as nails, and awfully fit.'"
"English or not?" was the next question, flashed at him without a second's intermission.
"Yes, undoubtedly, but accustomed to use another language."