With eyes staring absently into space Cadogan was drumming on the table with his fingers.
"Sounds like some tom-tom march you're trying to play," interrupted Meade, and proffered a cigar. Cadogan shook his head.
"No?" Meade dropped his cigar placidly back into its case. "But listen here, Cadogan. As a writer and newspaper man, my main business in life is to discover people who know more than other people about some particular thing, and then get it out of them. What about this ocean-liner travelling of to-day—is it perfectly safe?"
"The safest mode of travel ever devised—or should be."
"But lives are lost?"
"Surely. And probably will be. But they should not be—not on the high sea—except in a collision, and then probably one ship or the other is to blame. Even inshore, if they keep their lead and foghorn going, and steam up to kick her off, nothing will happen either, unless"—he shrugged his shoulders—"they've gone foolish or something else on the bridge."
Meade questioned further. And Cadogan answered briefly, abstractedly, until—Meade growing more cunning and subtle—he was led into citing one experience after another from out of his own life in proof of this or that side of an argument.
Cadogan had begun in short, snappy sentences, and in a tense, rather high-keyed voice; but once warmed up he swung along in rounded, almost classic periods; and his voice deepened and softened and, as he became yet more absorbed in his subject, grew rhythmical, musical almost, the while his words took on added color and glow.
Once in full swing it was not difficult for Meade to get him to run on; and he ran on for an hour, and would have gone on indefinitely only, suddenly coming to himself and looking around, he discovered that half the room had gathered in a semicircle behind his chair. He flushed, cut his story short, and said no more. The crowd dispersed to their various seats.
Presently Meade observed: "How did you ever find time in your young life for the half of it? And how you do suggest things—possibilities that try a man's spirit even to contemplate!"