I joined Colonel Ryder and Clovelly in the smoking-room. Hungerford, as I guessed gladly, was gone. I was too much the coward to meet his eye just then. Colonel Ryder was estimating the amount he would wager--if he were in the habit of betting--that the ‘Fulvia’ could not turn round in her tracks in twenty minutes, while he parenthetically endorsed Hungerford’s remarks to me--though he was ignorant of them--that lascars should not be permitted on English passenger ships. He was supported by Sir Hayes Craven, a shipowner, who further said that not one out of ten British sailors could swim, while not five out of ten could row a boat properly. Ryder’s anger was great, because Clovelly remarked with mock seriousness that the lascars were picturesque, and asked the American if he had watched them listlessly eating rice and curry as they squatted between decks; whether he had observed the Serang, with his silver whistle, who ruled them, and despised us “poor white trash;” and if he did not think it was a good thing to have fatalists like them as sailors--they would be cool in time of danger. Colonel Ryder’s indignation was curbed, however, by the bookmaker, who, having no views, but seeing an opportunity for fun, brought up reinforcements of chaff and slang, easily construable into profanity, and impregnated with terse humour. Many of the ladies had spoken of the bookmaker as one of the best-mannered men on board. So he was to all appearance. None dressed with better taste, nor carried himself with such an air. There was even a deferential tone in his strong language, a hesitating quaintness, which made it irresistible. He was at the service of any person on board needing championship. His talents were varied. He could suggest harmonies in colour to the ladies at one moment, and at the next, in the seclusion of the bar counter, arrange deadly harmonies in liquor. He was an authority on acting; he knew how to edit a newspaper; he picked out the really nice points in the sermons delivered by the missionaries in the saloon; he had some marvellous theories about navigation; and his trick with a salad was superb. He now convulsed the idlers in the smoking-room with laughter, and soon deftly drew off the discussion to the speed of the vessel, arranging a sweep-stake immediately, upon the possibilities of the run. He instantly proposed to sell the numbers by auction. He was the auctioneer. With his eye-glass at his eye, and Bohemian pleasantry falling from his lips, he ran the prices up. He was selling Clovelly’s number, and had advanced it beyond the novelist’s own bidding, when suddenly the screw stopped, the engines ceased working, and the ‘Fulvia’ slowed down. The numbers remained unsold. Word came to us that an accident had happened to the machinery, and that we should be hove-to for a day, or longer, to accomplish necessary repairs. How serious the accident to the machinery was no one knew. CHAPTER V. ACCUSING FACES