The Blind Barber

fancy! What would deah Les-leh ay? But if you two positively outrageous people positively insist, you know… Heh- heh-heh! Here's loud cheaahs!'

'What I mean to say is this,' said Morgan vigorously. 'If there's any toast to be drunk, first off there ought to be a toast drunk to Mrs. Perrigord, Skipper. She's been the best sport in the world this after, Skipper, and I'd like to see anybody deny it. She came with us on a fool's errand, and never asked one question. So what I propose—'

He was speaking rather loudly, but he would not have been heard in any case. The entire dining-saloon had begun to converse in an almost precisely similar vein, with the exception of one or two crusty spoil-sports who stared in growing amaze. They could not understand, and would go to their graves without the ability to understand, that mysterious spirit which suddenly strikes and galvanises ocean liners for no reason discernible to the eye. Laughter in varying tones broke like rockets over the tumult; sniggers, giggles, guffaws, excited chuckles growing and rushing. More corks popped and stewards flew. It being against the rules to smoke in the dining- saloon, for the first time a mist of smoke began to rise. The orchestra smashed into a rollicking air out of The Prince of Pisen; then the perspiring leader came to the rail of the balcony and bowed to a roar of applause, dashed back and whipped his minions into another. Jewels began to wink as total strangers drifted to one another's tables, made appointments, gesticulated, argued whether they should stay here or go up to the bar; and Henry Morgan ordered a third bottle of champagne.

'… Oh, no, but I say, reolly!' cried Mrs. Perrigord, dining back in a sort of coy alarm and talking still more loudly, 'you mustn't! You two outrageous people are positively outrageous, you know! It's simply dreadful how you take advantage of a pooah, weak woman who' — gurgle, gurgle, gurgle—'it's reolly lovely champagne, isn't it? — who can't defend herself, you know. Just fancy, you wicked men, I shall be positively tight, you know. And that would be owful, wouldn't it?' She laughed delightedly. 'Simply screamingly, deliriously owful if I am tight when 1 am tight, and—'

'What ay say iss diss,' declared Captain Valvick, tapping the table and speaking in a confidential roar. 'De champagne iss all right. Ay got not'ing against de champagne. But it iss not a man's drink. It do not put hair on de chest. What we want to drink iss Old Rob Roy. Ay tell you what. After we finish diss bottle we go up to de bar and we order Old Rob Roy and we start a poker game…'

'… but I say, you mustn't be so owfully, owfully formal,' said Mrs. Perrigord chidingly. 'Henry. Theah! I've said it, haven't I? Oh, deah me! And now you'll think I'm positively' — gurgle, gurgle, gurgle—'positively dreadful, won't you? But I have so many things I should like to discuss with you, you know…

A new voice chirped:

'Hullo!'

Morgan started up, rather guiltily, to see Peggy Glenn, in a green evening gown that looked rather disarranged, negotiating the last step of the staircase and bearing down on them. She was beaming seraphically, and something in her gait as she moved through the layers of smoke struck Morgan's eye even out of a warmth of champagne. Mrs. Perrigord turned. 'Why, my deah!' she cried, with unexpected and loud affection. 'Oh. how reolly, reolly wonderful! Oh, do, do come heah! It's simply wonderful to see you looking so spic hic, so sick and span after oil those owful things that happened to you last night whee! And—'

'Darling!' cried Peggy ecstatically.

'Peggy,' said Morgan, fixing her with a stern eye, 'Peggy, you — have — been — drinking.'

'Hoo!' cried Peggy, lifting her arm with a conquering gesture by way of emphasis. Her eyes were bright and pleased.

' Why have you been drinking?'

'Why not?' inquired Peggy, with the air of one clinching a point.

'Well then,' said Morgan magnanimously 'have another. Pour her a glass of fizz, Skipper. All I thought was after all that bawling and screaming this afternoon—'

'You did. You bawled and screamed this afternoon about Curt being shut up in a foul dungeon with the rats, and—'

'I hate him!' Peggy said passionately. She became tense and fierce, and moisture came into her eyes. 'I hate and loathe him and despise him, that's what I do. I don't ever want to hear his name again, ever, ever, ever! Gimme a drink.'

'My God!' said Morgan, starting up. 'What's happened now?'

'Ooo, how I loathe him! He wouldn't even speak to me, the f-filthy w-wretch,' she said, her lip trembling. 'Don't ever mention his name again, Hank. I'll get blind, speechless drunk, that's what I'll do, and that'll show him, it will, and I hope the rats gnaw him, too. And I had a big basket of fruit for him, and all he did was lie there and pretend he was asleep, that's what he did; and I said, 'All right!', so I went upstairs and I met Leslie — Mr. Perrigord — and he said, would I like to listen to his speech? And I said yes, if he didn't mind my drinking, and he said he never touched spirits, but he didn't mind if I did; so we sort of went to his cabin—'

'Have another drink, Mrs. Perrigord — Cynthia!' roared Morgan, to drown out the possibilities of this. 'Pour everybody a drink. Ha-ha!'

'But, Henry!' crowed Mrs. Perrigord, opening her eyes wide, 'I think it's p-perfectly wonderful, reolly, and so screamingly funny, don't you know, because oil deah Les-

He evah does is tolk, you see, and the pooah darling must have been most dreadfully disappointed. Whee!' Gurgle, gurgle, gurgle.

'Ay like to see de young foolks have a good time,' observed Captain Valvick affably.

'… and for Curt to act like that just when everything was nice and arranged for the performance to-night, when I'd finally succeeded in keeping Uncle Jules sober! And it was such a ghastly task, you know,' explained Peggy, wrinkling up her face to keep back the tears, 'because four separate times I caught him trying to sneak out after that horrible old gin!' The thought of that horrible old gin Almost overcame her with tears, but she turned a grim if wrinkled face steadily towards them. 'But at last I made him see reason, and everything was all right, and he came down here in lovely shape to the dining-room to eat his dinner, and everything is nice—'

'Your Uncle Jules,' said Morgan thoughtfully, in the midst of a curious silence, 'came down where to eat his dinner?'

'Why, down here! And—' 'No, he didn't,' said Morgan.

Peggy whirled round. Slowly, painstakingly, with misted eyes and lips slowly opening, she scanned the dining-saloon Inch by inch. Babble and riot flowed there under a fog of smoke; but Uncle Jules was not there. Peggy hesitated. Then she sat down at the table and burst into sobs.

'Come on!' said Morgan, leaping to his feet. 'Come on, Skipper! There's a chance to salvage the wreck if we work Nut, He'll be in the bar if he's anywhere… How long's he been on the loose, Peggy?'

'Th-thrree-qu-quarrbolooo!' sobbed Peggy, beating her hands against her forehead. 'And only an hour unt-t-il the bolooo. Oh, w-why w-was the aw-ful st-stuff ever invented, lind w-why do beastly m-men drink—?'

'Can he drink much in three quarters of an hour?' 'G-gallons,' said Peggy. 'Whoooo!' 'My de-deah,' cried Mrs. Perrigord, the tears starting to her own eyes, 'do you reolly mean that that cher M'skieux Fortinbras has really m'uskic, hie, has reolly got

himskehelp tight? Oh, my deah, the horrible, owful, drunken—'

'Lady, lady,' thundered Captain Valvick, hammering the table, 'ay tell you diss is no time for a crying yag! Come on, Mr. Morgan; you take care of one and ay take care of de odder. Stop it, bot' of you! Come on now… '

By dint of holding firmly to Mrs. Perrigord's arm while the captain took Peggy's, they slid through the rollicking, friendly crowd that was now streaming upstairs for a headlong rush on the bar before the hour of the ship's concert. The bar, already crowded and seething with noise, seemed even more crowded and noisy to Morgan. Each of his trio had consumed exactly one bottle of champagne; and, while he would have scorned the imputation that he could become the least sozzled on a quart of fizz, he could not in honesty deny certain insidious manifestations. For example, it seemed to him that he was entirely without legs, and that his torso must be moving through the air in a singularly ghostly fashion; whereas the more lachrymose became the two ladies over Uncle Jules going off on the razzle-dazzle, the more it impressed him as an excellent joke. On the other hand, his brain was clearer than normal; sights, sounds, colours, voices took on a brilliant sharpness and purity. He felt in his pores the heat and smoke and alcoholic dampness of the bar. He saw the red-faced crowd milling about leather chairs