In lounge and smoking rooms all was cosey, cheerful, lively company. Lavis in passing had only to glance into air-ports to be sure of that. It was card-playing and easy gossip in the one, and not infrequent drinks being brought to impatient men by alert, deferential, many-buttoned servants in the other. In the grill those who must have a special little bite before turning in were having it; and, this being a chilly sort of a night, there were those who were also having a warming drink, with the bite or without it. It was growing late. The deck was now almost deserted. Lavis took a last look over the rail, a last gulp of the cooling air, and went into the loungeroom. Here he got from the steward paper and envelopes, sat down and wrote: Now see that you make no attempt to lure him back. There was no address, no signature. He sealed the envelope and went below to where, at the end of a passageway, he found a stewardess on watch. "Miss Huttle hasn't come down yet, Hannah?" "No, sir, Mr. Lavis." "No? Well, there is a party in Mr. Drissler's suite." "Mr. Drissler, sir?" "The wealthy man in the royal suite." "Oh, yes, sir." "Miss Huttle is there. You take this note to her there, and let me know that it has been delivered, please." Lavis went to his room, got out a long, loose linen duster from his wardrobe, removed his top-coat, pulled the duster over his evening clothes, found an old cloth cap, and waited for the return of the stewardess. She came presently. "I gave it to Miss Huttle, Mr. Lavis. Into her own hand, sir." "Thank you, Hannah." * * * * * Lavis left his room and descended deep down into the ship, to where a man in dungarees, but with an officer's cap of authority, was perched on a horizontal grating poring over the speed register. Over his shoulder Lavis watched the numerals shift--seven, eight, nine, thirty. One, two--eight, nine, forty. Click, click, click, click--he watched them until the officer turned and saw him. "Ho, I was beginning to think you'd given me the go-by for to-night." They shook hands. "Isn't it the most beautiful mechanism ever made by the hand of man!" exclaimed the officer. "A watch is nothing to it. And what you see here cost more than twenty thousand watches--twenty thousand of 'em, and every danged watch in a gold case." He drew out his own gun-metal stop-watch. "I'll time her now for a hundred revolutions." He caught the time, set it down in a little notebook, and from it slowly but surely reckoned her speed. "Grand, grand!" he said softly. "Will you come along? Good!" They descended and ascended many narrow iron ladders and made their way through many narrow, grimy passageways. Oilers, stokers, coal-passers, water-tenders straightened up to give them a greeting as they passed. In one boiler-room a stoker was scooping a dipper through the water-pail at his feet as they entered.