“Troubles?” repeated Phil, inquiringly, as though such things and he were but the most distant of acquaintances. “Yes, of course, I have had some troubles; but they don’t bother me now half so much as they did. I’ll tell you all about them, though; but this is a poor place for talking. If you don’t mind we’ll go up to my room. It is close at hand, and we can be there in a minute. Then we can relate our several adventures, and discuss plans without fear of interruption.”
Why Phil had not returned to his hotel for breakfast the very first thing after being set at liberty he could not have explained; but hungry, friendless, and penniless as he was that morning, he could no more have entered the Driard dining-room than he could have begged for a meal at a private house. Now, however, the situation seemed to him so entirely different that he walked into the hotel office as coolly as a young millionaire, and with quite the air of one demanded the key of his room, ordered his bag sent up to it, and led the way to the elevator.
The clerk on duty, who happened to be the same who had witnessed his unpleasant encounter with an officer the evening before, regarded the young fellow with a mild surprise, but made no comment. He concluded that there must have been some mistake after all, but was too well trained in the hotel business to ask unpleasant questions of a guest. He did eye Serge a little curiously, for though the lad had on his best suit it was unmistakably the garb of a sailor.
As for the young Russo-American, he followed his friend into this swell hotel, listened to the orders that he issued, and which were so promptly obeyed, and finally accompanied him to his room with so comical an expression of bewilderment on his face that Phil noticed, and laughed at it.
“You are evidently thinking that my plea of poverty and these surroundings do not exactly match each other,” he said.
“Well, yes, I must confess—”
“That I appear very much like an impostor. But really I am not one, old man. I was in such a desperate fix when you turned up, like a blessed angel to help me out of it, that in an hour more, if left to my own devices, I believe I should have jumped overboard.”
“You would have done nothing of the kind,” cried Serge, indignantly. “You are no such coward as that, and I know it.”
“Well, perhaps not,” replied Phil. “But it seems to me that hunger with no prospect of its relief can make cowards of the bravest fellows. And I was hungry, awfully hungry.”
“I can well believe that,” laughed Serge, “after seeing you eat. But tell me, why do you stay in this hotel?”