“So will I,” Evans wrote down the course and the time and a description of the weather in the logbook. “Get me up,” he said to Martin, “if you see a ship or something. You got the course straight?”
“I got it.”
Evans went into his cabin. He took the papers off his desk so that they would not fall on the deck if the ship should roll. He looked at himself in the mirror and said quite loudly, “Avunculus.”
iii
Major Barkison found the Chief to be good, if not particularly intelligent, company. In the middle of the afternoon Duval had joined the Major in the salon. They talked of New Orleans.
“I have always felt,” said the Major, recalling in his mind the French Quarter, “that there was no other place like New Orleans. It’s not like New York. It is nothing like Paris.” Major Barkison had never been to Paris but that was not really important.
“It sure is a fine place,” said Duval. “Those women there are something.” He winked largely at the Major who quickly agreed.
Duval continued, “Yes, I think of those women up here all the time; anywhere, in fact, because there’s just nothing like them anywhere.”
“Yes,” said the Major. He changed the subject. “Of course the food is wonderful down there; marvellous shrimp there.”
“So do I like it. You know I used to know a girl down there who was pretty enough to be in the pictures, and she was some lay, too. I was just a young fellow at the time and she was maybe seventeen, eighteen then, and we sure played around together. She was sure some woman. I bet you can’t guess what she’s doing now?”