“Quite so, sir. Well, you see, that is the price of one berth only. Mr. Buel, here, paid the same amount.”
“Come to the point. Do I understand you to refuse to remedy the mistake (to put the matter in its mildest form) of your London people?”
“I do not refuse. I would be only too glad to give you the room to yourself, if it were possible. Unfortunately, it is not possible. I assure you there is not an unoccupied state-room on the ship.”
“Then I will see the captain. Where shall I find him?”
“Very good, sir. Steward, take Mr. Hodden to the captain’s room.”
When they were alone again Buel very contritely expressed his sorrow at having been the innocent cause of so much trouble to the purser.
“Bless you, sir, I don’t mind it in the least. This is a very simple case. Where both occupants of a room claim it all to themselves, and where both are angry and abuse me at the same time, then it gets a bit lively. I don’t envy him his talk with the captain. If the old man happens to be feeling a little grumpy today, and he most generally does at the beginning of the voyage, Mr. Hodden will have a bad ten minutes. Don’t you bother a bit about it, sir, but go down to your room and make yourself at home. It will be all right.”
Mr. Hodden quickly found that the appeal to Cæsar was not well timed. The captain had not the suave politeness of the purser. There may be greater and more powerful men on earth than the captain of an ocean liner, but you can’t get any seafaring man to believe it, and the captains themselves are rarely without a due sense of their own dignity. The man who tries to bluff the captain of a steamship like the Geranium has a hard row to hoe. Mr. Hodden descended to his state-room in a more subdued frame of mind than when he went on the upper deck. However, he still felt able to crush his unfortunate room-mate.
“You insist, then,” he said, speaking to Buel for the first time, “on occupying this room?”
“I have no choice in the matter.”