"Say, listen, J. Henry," broke in Mr. Bates. "Who in thunder do you think that gang is you've been associating with?" "Think it is? Who would it be but the Moguls?" "Moguls?" A convulsion seized and overcame Mr. Bates. He bent double, his distorted face in his hands, his shoulders heaving, weird sounds issuing from his throat. Then lifting his head, he opened that big mouth of his, afflicting the adjacent air with raucous and discordant laughter. "Moguls! Moguls! Say, you need to have your head looked into. Why, J. Henry, the Moguls came in on the twelve-forty-five and Nick Cornwall and the crowd met 'em and they're down to the Hotel Esplanade right this minute, I reckon. We tried to land 'em for the Balboa, but it seemed like they wanted a quiet hotel. Well, they'll have their wish at the Esplanade!" "Then who--then who are these?" It was the broken, faltering accent of Mr. Birdseye, sounded wanly and as from a long way off. "These? Why, it's the College Glee Club from Chickasaw Tech., down in Alabama, that's going to give a concert at the opera house to-night. And you thought all the time you were with the Moguls? Well, you poor simp!" In addition to simp Mr. Bates also used the words boob, sucker, chunk of Camembert and dub in this connection. But it is doubtful if Mr. Birdseye heard him now. A great roaring, as of dashing cataracts and swirling rapids, filled his ears as he fled away, blindly seeking some sanctuary wherein to hide himself from the gaze of mortal man. Remaining to be told is but little; but that little looms important as tending to prove that truth sometimes is stranger than fiction. With Swifty Megrue coaching, with Magnus, the Big Chief, backstopping, with Pinderson, master of the spitball, in the box twirling, nevertheless and to the contrary notwithstanding, the Anneburg team that day mopped up, the score standing: R H E Anneburg 6 9 1 Moguls 4 7 2 CHAPTER X SMOOTH CROSSING On this voyage the _Mesopotamia_ was to sail at midnight. It was now, to be precise about it, eleven forty-five P. M. and some odd seconds; and they were wrestling the last of the heavy luggage aboard. The Babel-babble that distinguishes a big liner's departure was approaching its climax of acute hysteria, when two well-dressed, youngish men joined the wormlike column of eleventh-hour passengers mounting a portable bridge labelled First Cabin which hyphenated the strip of dark water between ship and shore. They were almost the last persons to join the line, coming in such haste along the dock that the dock captain on duty at the foot of the canvas-sided gangway let them pass without question.