"You remember the time when Ferguson didn't go down on the Argentina?"
"I do. Ferguson just wouldn't go down, you know. He'd turn up smiling, without even a chill, and meanwhile lots of good fellows would be at the bottom of the sea."
"Prejudice again," barked Havelock. "Yet in point of fact, it's perfectly true. And you would have preferred him to drown."
"I was very glad he was saved." Chantry said it in a stilted manner.
"Why?"
"Because his life was really important to the world."
Chantry might have been distributing tracts. His very voice sounded falsetto.
"Exactly. Well, that is what Ferguson thought."
"How do you know?"
"He told me."