They spent an hour or so in arranging details, going over charts, dividing their funds, and so on. Jack gave Tab addresses at Genoa, Florence, and Rome by which he might be reached, and told him that at Naples he should go to the Hôtel du Vesuve. On the twentieth of August Jerry was to inquire for him there. These and other affairs having been arranged, the pair smoked a final pipe, and turned in.
Jack was very wakeful. He lay thinking of this and of that, restlessly tossing about in his berth. Just as at last he was dropping off to sleep, he was aroused by the voice of Jerry, who called softly across the passage:—
"I say, Jack,—are you awake?"
"Almost," replied Jack; "but I shouldn't have been, if you'd let me alone."
"I say, Jacko, do you fancy the President came a cropper in that Tillington smashup?"
"Don't know," Jack answered. "He's pretty shrewd, and Mrs. Fairhew would have been likely to hear of it, I should think, if he had come seriously to grief."
"Well, you know, it struck me that perhaps that beastly letter from Tillington might have been something important, and"—
"Oh, take a liver-pill!" interrupted Jack. "You've got an attack of Conscientia Novanglicana."
"What's that?"
"Forerunner of nervous pros.," replied the captain with a chuckle. "Go to sleep or you'll get it."