“Wonder what would happen to us, if we sat over there?” remarked Arthur Warren.
“Perhaps we’d turn black,” said Henry Burns.
“Well, Joe always eats till he’s black in the face when he gets a good dinner,” said George Warren.
Young Joe sniffed, contemptuously.
After dinner they strolled about the boat. There were not a great number of passengers aboard, and the four kept their own company. The only exception for the afternoon was in the case of a young man, who accosted the party as they happened to pause for a moment in front of the open door of his state-room. He was a youth of about nineteen years, but with the manner of a man of the world. He sat, with his feet up on the foot of the bed, smoking a cigar and filling the room with clouds of smoke. A derby hat was perched rakishly on the back of his head. His dress was smart in appearance, though not new, and his coat thrown back revealed a waist-coat of brilliant hue and flaring design.
“How’d do,” he said, removing his cigar, and waving a hand rather patronizingly to them. “Step in. Strangers down this way, I see. Have a smoke?”
He motioned to a table on which there was a box of the cigars.
“No, thanks,” replied George Warren. “Don’t smoke.”
They would have passed on, but the young man was not to be wholly denied. He had a free and easy flow of conversation, which would not be stopped for the moment, and which culminated in the offer—indicating his design from the first—of a game of cards with them, which, he assured them, should not cost them but little, if anything, with the alluring alternative that they might be fortunate enough to win his money.
“Say,” interrupted Henry Burns at this point, “why don’t you fix your neck-tie?”