"Ten thousand million little blue devils, what does this mean?" roared the captain. "Have you been drinking?"
Monsieur Pettipon quaked to the end of his toes.
"No, no!" he stammered. "I am only too sober, monsieur the captain, and I do not blame you for being enraged. The Voltaire is your ship, and you love her, as I do. I feel this disgrace even more than you can, monsieur the captain, believe me. But I beg of you do not be hasty; my honor is involved. I admit that this thing was found in one of my cabins. Consider my horror when he was found. It was no less than yours, monsieur the captain. But I give you my word, the word of a Pettipon, that——"
The captain stopped the rush of words with, "Compose yourself. Come to the point."
"Point, monsieur the captain?" gasped Pettipon. "Is it not enough point that this thing was found in one of my cabins? Such a thing—in the cabin of Monsieur Alphonse Marie Louis Camille Pettipon! Is that nothing? For twenty-two years have I been steward in the second class, and not one of these, not so much as a baby one, has ever been found. I am beside myself with chagrin. My only defense is that a passenger—a fellow of dirtiness, monsieur the captain—brought it with him. He denies it. I denounce him as a liar the most barefaced. For did I not say to Georges Prunier—a fellow steward and a man of integrity—'Georges, old oyster, that hairy fellow in C 346 has a look of itchiness which I do not fancy. I must be on my guard.' And Georges said——"
The captain, with something like a smile playing about among his whiskers, interrupted with, "So this is the first one in twenty-two years, eh? We'll have to look into this, Monsieur Pettipon. Good day."
"Look into this," groaned Pettipon as he stumbled down a gangway. "I know what that means. Ah, poor Thérèse! Poor Napoleon!"
He looked down at the great, green, hungry waves with a calculating eye; he wondered if they would be cold. He placed a tentative hand on the rail. Then an inspiration came to him. M. Victor Ronssoy was aboard; he was the last court of appeal. Monsieur Pettipon would dare, for the sake of his honor, to go to the president of the line himself. For tortured minutes Alphonse Pettipon paced up and down, and something closely resembling sobs shook his huge frame as he looked about his little kingdom and thought of his impending banishment. At last by a supreme effort of will he nerved himself to go to the suite of Monsieur Ronssoy. It was a splendid suite of five rooms, and Monsieur Pettipon had more than once peeked into it when it was empty and had noted with fascinated eyes the perfection of its appointments. But now he twice turned from the door, his courage oozing from him. On the third attempt, with the recklessness of a condemned man, he rapped on the door.
The president of the line was a white-haired giant with a chin like an anvil and bright humorous eyes, like a kingfisher.
"Monsieur Ronssoy," began the flustered, damp-browed Pettipon in a faltering voice, "I have only apologies to make for this intrusion. Only a matter of the utmost consequence could cause me to take the liberty."