“Poetry!” Sam’s heart sank a little. He had read a certain amount of poetry at school, and once he had won a prize of three shillings and sixpence for the last line of a Limerick in a competition in a weekly paper; but he was self-critic enough to know that poetry was not his long suit. Still there was a library on board the ship, and no doubt it would be possible to borrow the works of some standard bard and bone them up from time to time. “Any special poet?”
“Well, she seemed to like my stuff. You never read my sonnet-sequence on Spring, did you?”
“No. What other poets did she like besides you?”
“Tennyson principally,” said Eustace Hignett with a reminiscent quiver in his voice. “The hours we have spent together reading the Idylls of the King!”
“The which of what?” inquired Sam, taking a pencil from his pocket and shooting out a cuff.
“‘The Idylls of the King.’ My good man, I know you have a soul which would be considered inadequate by a common earthworm but you have surely heard of Tennyson’s ‘Idylls of the King?’”
“Oh, those! Why, my dear old chap! Tennyson’s ‘Idylls of the King?’ Well, I should say! Have I heard of Tennyson’s ‘Idylls of the King?’ Well, really? I suppose you haven’t a copy with you on board by any chance?”
“There is a copy in my kit bag. The very one we used to read together. Take it and keep it or throw it overboard. I don’t want to see it again.”
Sam prospected among the shirts, collars, and trousers in the bag and presently came upon a morocco-bound volume. He laid it beside him on the lounge.
“Little by little, bit by bit,” he said, “I am beginning to form a sort of picture of this girl, this—what was her name again? Bennett—this Miss Bennett. You have a wonderful knack of description. You make her seem so real and vivid. Tell me some more about her. She wasn’t keen on golf, by any chance, I suppose?”