"Hallo!" says a young man, not in naval costume, but evidently an official of some sort, blithely turning towards me and mentioning my name inquiringly, which I immediately acknowledge, whereupon he continues, "I'm delighted to meet you. My name's Crick." I smile, and shake his hand warmly, as if congratulating him on his appellation. "Where's your berth?" Then I have to explain it all over to him. I'm becoming sick of these explanations. They're asking me for the number of my berth, as if they wanted an extract from my baptismal-register, or my marriage-certificate. "Don't know what you'll do," says Crick, smiling as if the whole thing were a good joke. And I thought he could help me! "Where's your dinner-place?" he asks. Good heavens! I don't know—how should I? Where's his dinner-place? "Oh," he replies, "mine's aft. If you like to join us, we'll find room. It's very jolly. Not so swell, you know." No, I don't know, and haven't an idea what he means. But if I can't get dinner "forward," I'll dine "aft" with pleasure. Rossher comes up.
"All right," he says to Crick. "Just take this gentleman" (meaning me) "to the Saloon; there are several spare places." Rossher pats me on the back, encouragingly. Oh, how grateful I am to Rossher! Crick says, "Yes, Sir," (what is Crick?) and takes me to the Saloon—beautifully laid out for two hundred and fifty guests—and finds me a capital place. Why didn't he do this before? No matter, it's settled now. First bell sounds. Crick directs me to the wash-and-brush-up. In ten minutes I have made my toilette, including opening my bag and getting out a dark serge for dinner wear, and I walk into the Saloon as the convives are assembling, with the air of a man who is well within his rights.
Happy Thought.—I won't ask Rossher anything more about berth and cabin until after dinner. After dinner is always a good-natured, complaisant time.
Excellent dinner. Amusing company. Chiefly stories about long voyages, rats and cockroaches. From what I hear I should not like a long voyage in an old ship. We disperse over the vessel. Music, coffee, cigars, and conversation. Lovely sight. Still, it will be lovelier if I am quite certain where I am going to sleep. I find Rossher. "Ah!" he cries out, cheerily, as if he had quite forgotten my particularly sad case, "how are you getting along? All right? Eh?" And he is just going on to join a lively party of distinguished visitors when I detain him sharply, as the Ancient Mariner did the guest, and hold him with my glittering eye.
"How about the berth?" I say, with as little show of anxiety as the desperate circumstances of the case will permit.
"The berth!" he repeats. "Why, haven't you got a berth yet?"
"No," I return, abjectly, as if I were a poor stowaway, without a friend to speak up for me. He meditates a moment. What can he be thinking about? Putting me on shore at once? Getting rid of me politely, as a sort of Jonah. I await his decision nervously.
"Come to the Purser," he says. I follow him.
The Purser is in his counting-house, counting out his billets. Aha! at the sight of me he knows what we have come about. "You're all right," he says to me. "Your berth is No. 273."
"There!" exclaims Rossher, triumphantly, exulting in the capabilities of the M. & N.'s new ship Regina. "Now you're fixed up." I am. I could go on my knees to Rossher; I could bless the Steward, Purser, I mean,—whatever a Purser is,—but I content myself with concealing my agitation, thanking Rossher simply but warmly, and then I follow a black man dressed in white, who carries my bag to No. 273. A lovely outside cabin, airy as if it were on deck, with an electric light, and three empty bunks (I think they are called "bunks,"—but am not certain) besides mine. How four persons on a long voyage, or a short one, can live, move, and have their being in this, I don't know; but how one can is evident, and temporarily I am that privileged one. I hope I shall remain so. I do; and have it all to myself.