“Tickets, please?” he announced.
Webster surrendered both tickets, receiving in turn two seat checks for the dining saloon, and the purser passed on to the next cabin.
Andrew Bowers smiled a small, prescient smile, but said nothing and presently John Stuart Webster broke the silence. “Well,” he ordered “sing the song or tell the story.”
“I noticed you surrendered my ticket to the purser,” the young man answered irrelevantly, “and I am glad of that. I take it as prima facie evidence that you have made up your mind to accept my company.”
“You're too infernally cool and cocksure, my friend,” Webster warned him testily. “I pride myself on a sense of humour and I dearly love a joke until it's carried too far, but be advised in time, young man, and don't try to play horse with me. I haven't made up my mind to accept your company, although, provided you do not rub my fur the wrong way, I may decide to put up with you, for whether you are a decayed gentleman or an engaging scoundrel, you are, at least, intelligent and impressive, clean, white, resourceful, and pleasant. However, my acceptance or non-acceptance of you is a subject for future discussion, since at present we have some fiduciary matters before us. You owe me fifty dollars for your ticket, Andrew Bowers, and in view of the fact that I never saw you before to-day, suppose we start the voyage by squaring the account.”
Andrew Bowers sat up in the berth and let his legs drape over the side. “Mr. Webster,” he began seriously, “had I sung my song or told my story before you surrendered that ticket to the purser I might have found myself in a most embarrassing predicament. If, prior to the arrival of the purser to collect the tickets, you had handed my ticket to me, saying: 'Here is your ticket, Mr. Bowers. Be kind enough to reimburse me to the extent of fifty dollars,' I should have been compelled to admit then, as I do now, that I haven't fifty dollars. Fortunately for me, however, you surrendered the ticket to the purser before acquainting yourself with the state of my fortunes; the voyage has commenced and whether you like it or not, my dear sir, I am your guest from now until we reach San Buenaventura. Rather an interesting situation, don't you think?”
John Stuart Webster was of Scotch ancestry. He had an hereditary regard for his baubees. He was a business man. Prodigal spender though he was and generous to a fault, the fact remained that he always made it a point to get value received, and he was prodigal with his own money; he preferred that the privilege of prodigality with the Websterian funds should remain an inalienable prerogative of the sole surviving member of the Webster family. He gazed contemplatively now upon his devil-may-care, unbidden guest, torn between a desire to whisk him out of the berth and shake him until his teeth fell out, and another to be just and patient, in the hope that some great extenuating circumstance might be adduced to account for this impudent daylight robbery. Mr. Webster had been deluded, cheated, robbed, and pillaged many a time and oft in the course of his rather eventful career, but he had yet to meet the man who, having swindled him out of fifty dollars, had the effrontery to add insult to injury by exhibiting a perfectly obvious intention of making him like it. Indeed, John Stuart Webster was obsessed with a secret fear that the smiling bandit in the upper berth was going to succeed in his nefarious design, and, in the contemplation of this unheard-of contretemps, the genial John was struck temporarily speechless.
“The last cent I had in the world went to that taxi person whose taxi I borrowed and whose old uniform I purchased,” Andrew Bowers supplemented his confession.
“You asked me to ring for two golden fizzes,” Webster reproached him. “Am I to be stuck for the drinks? Not satisfied with rooking me for a first-class passage to San Buenaventura you plan to tack on extras, eh?”
“Oh, I'll pay for the drinks,” Andrew Bowers assured him.