Havelock set his massive lips firmly together. You could not say that he pursed that Cyclopean mouth. "Ferguson did not boast. He merely told me. He was, I think, a modest man." Incredulity beyond any power of laughter to express settled on Chantry's countenance. "Modest? And he _told_ you?" "The whole thing." Havelock's voice was heavy enough for tragedy. "Listen. Don't interrupt me once. Ferguson told me that, when the explosion came, he looked round--considered, for fully a minute, his duty. He never lost control of himself once, he said, and I believe him. The _Argentina_ was a small boat, making a winter passage. There were very few cabin passengers. No second cabin, but plenty of steerage. She sailed, you remember, from Naples. He had been doing some work, some very important work, in the Aquarium. The only other person of consequence--I am speaking in the most literal and un-snobbish sense--in the first cabin, was Benson. No" (with a lifted hand), "_don't interrupt me_. Benson, as we all know, was an international figure. But Benson was getting old. His son could be trusted to carry on the House of Benson. In fact, every one suspected that the son had become more important than the old man. He had put through the last big loan while his father was taking a rest-cure in Italy. That is how Benson _pere_ happened to be on the _Argentina_. The newspapers never sufficiently accounted for that. A private deck on the _Schrecklichkeit_ would have been more his size. Ferguson made it out: the old man got wild, suddenly, at the notion of their putting anything through without him. He trusted his gouty bones to the _Argentina_." "Sounds plausible, but--" Chantry broke in. "If you interrupt again," said Havelock, "I'll hit you, with all the strength I've got." Chantry grunted. You had to take Havelock the Dane as you found him.