He was leaning gracefully over the starboard galley as I walked up the gang-plank. I did not speak to him, however, until after the vessel had sailed. I am too old a hand at interviewing modest people to be precipitate, and knew that if I began to talk to Mr. Kipling about my mission before we started, he would in all probability sneak ashore and wait over a steamer to escape me. Once started, he was doomed, unless he should choose to jump overboard. So I waited, and finally, as Gibraltar gradually sank below the horizon, I tackled him.
"Mr. Kipling?" said I, as we met on the lanyard deck.
"Peters," said he, nervously, lighting a jinrikisha.
ON THE LANYARD DECK
"All the same," I retorted, taking out my note-book, "I've come to interview you at home. Are you a good sailor?"
"I'm good at whatever I try," said he. "Therefore you can wager a spring bonnet against a Kohat that I am a good sailor."
"Excuse me for asking," said I. "It was necessary to ascertain. My instructions are to interview you at home. If you are a good sailor, then you are at home on the sea, so we may begin. What work are you engaged on now?"
"The hardest of my life," he replied. "I am now trying to avoid an American lady journalist. I know you are an American by the Cuban flag you are wearing in your button-hole. I know that you are a lady, because you wear a bonnet, which a gentleman would not do if he could. And I know you are a journalist, because you have confessed it. But for goodness' sake, madam, address me as Peters, and I will talk on forever. If it were known on this boat that I am Kipling, I should be compelled to write autographs for the balance of the voyage, and I have come away for a rest."