By some means a quantity of their baggage got below with that of the cabin passengers. We had a lot of cabin folks that voyage. There was a bunch of actors, men and women you hear at the opera, drummers galore, buyers who were coming home from the fall trading, several millionaires; and, among the society or upper-strata people, the ones without occupation to give them distinction, were the Lady Amadoun and her following.
Lady Amadoun was American born, but French by adoption, or, rather, marriage, preferring in her youth the suave manners of older generations to the rougher ones of her own countrymen. Raoul, Vicomte Amadoun, her husband, had not turned out the soft and gentle creature he appeared before marriage. In fact, he had followed the usual time-worn game of demanding money at unusual crises, which, as you know, has a tendency to make intelligent women think twice before coming across with it. The Vicomtesse Amadoun, or countess, as they called her, was young; in fact, looked hardly twenty-five—but, of course, a countess has maids to fix her up a bit!
You see, being first officer, and sitting at the head of my own table in the saloon, the countess came under my observation more than I intended. Old Hall had his own cronies, who sat with him, and Driggs, the steward, gave the most prominent passenger my right-hand seat—sort of compliment. Driggs was a good steward, and owed his place to my exertions in his behalf.
It was about this confounded baggage that I had a chance to further acquaint myself with nobility, for the trunks of the countess—and she had about fifty, including those of her friends who came with her—got mixed with the stuff that the baggage-master had sent by mistake to the first-class baggage room—the unlovely dunnage of the human moles who were roosting low in the steerage, and paying two pounds sterling a head for the privilege.
"I would take it as a great favor if you would allow me to get into my baggage by to-morrow at the latest," said the countess, beaming upon me from the adjacent seat at my table at dinner that day. "You see, we've been all over Europe, and while traveling through Russia I picked up some very pretty furs, which will be nice to use on deck during this cool sea weather."
"Madam," said I, "I shall be at your service right after eight bells to-morrow, when I leave the bridge." So I warned the baggage man, below, to have the place cleaned out a mite, so that her ladyship could go below without getting her frock spoiled from contact with the steerage passengers or their belongings.
To be sure that he would do my bidding—he belonged to the purser's force—I went below that morning, and looked the baggage over myself. I passed in through the steerage, and noted the men stowed there. Two big brutes of Lithuanians sat upon their dunnage, and jabbered in their language.
"Hike!" I said abruptly to the pair. "Git away from the baggage, and let the trunk slingers dig up."
"Oh, Mister Mate, Mister Chief, we have our trunks here, also, and want to get to them," answered one fellow in fairly good lingo.
"Beat it!" I ordered. "Make a get-away as quick as you can. Only first-class passengers can take their baggage out, or get a look-in. Why, you lubber, if every one of you steerage rats wanted to get into your trunks, it would take about fifteen hundred stewards and baggage men to take care of you."