“Thank you very much.”
“Very well. Mr. Farwell—Farnum, I mean—shake hands with Lieutenant Beauchamp,” and with the sense of duty done the worthy captain dismissed the new arrival from his mind.
Jeff bowed to Miss Frome and followed his broad-shouldered guide to a cabin. He was conscious of an odd elation that had not entirely to do with a brave adventure happily ended. The impelling cause of it was rather the hope of a braver adventure happily begun.
Part 2
“By Jove, I envy you, Mr. Farnum. Didn't know people bucked into adventures like that these tame days. Think of actually being shanghaied. It's like a novel. My word, the ladies will make a lion of you!”
The Englishman was dragging a steamer trunk from under his bed. It needed no second glance at his frank boyish face to divine him a friend worth having. Fresh-colored and blue-eyed, he looked very much the country gentleman Jeff had read about but never seen. It was perhaps by the gift of race that he carried himself with distinction, though the flat straight back and the good shoulders of the cricketer contributed somewhat, too. Jeff sized him up as a resolute, clean-cut fellow, happily endowed with many gifts of fortune to make him the likable chap he was.
Beauchamp threw out some clothes from a steamer trunk and left the rescued man alone to dress. Ten minutes later he returned.
“Expect you'd like an interview with the barber. I'll take you round. By the way, you'll let me be your banker till you reach Verden?”
“Thank you. Since I must.”
From the barber shop the Englishman took him to the dining saloon. “Awfully sorry you can't sit at our table, Mr. Farnum. It's full up. You're to be at the purser's.”