The steward stood at his elbow.
“Whisky and soda?” said Gorman. “We are still in English waters. Or shall I say cocktails, as we’re on our way to America?”
I am a temperate man and have made it a rule not to drink before luncheon. But I was so much ashamed of my first feeling about Gorman that I thought it well to break my rule. I should, under the circumstances, have considered myself justified in breaking a temperance pledge, on the principle, once explained to me by an archdeacon, that charity is above rubrics. I gave my vote for whisky and soda as the more thorough-going drink of the two. A cocktail is seldom more than a mouthful. Gorman gave the order.
“Don’t you think,” he said, “that it would be rather a good plan for us to sit together at meals? I’ll make arrangements with the steward and have a table reserved for us in the upper saloon. I can manage it all right. I often cross on this boat and everybody knows me.”
Again he looked at me and again smiled in his fascinating childlike way.
“I’m A-1 at ordering meals,” he said, “and it really does make a difference on these ships if you know how to get the best that’s going.”
That was the one attempt he made to justify himself in forcing his company on me. But it was not the hope of better dinners, though I like good dinners, which led me to agree to his proposal. I was captivated by his smile. Besides, I had not, so far as I knew, a single acquaintance among the passengers. I should be better off with Gorman as messmate than set down beside some chance stranger who might smile in a disagreeable way, or perhaps not smile at all.
“Very well,” I said. “You arrange it.”
“It would be pleasant,” he said, “if we could get hold of a couple of other interesting people, and make four at our table.”
I do not deny that Gorman is an interesting person, but I did not see what right he had to put me in that select class. I could only hope that the other interesting people would regard me as he did. He pulled a passenger list out of his pocket and turned over the pages.