screwed tight,
Mr. Spokesly went aft to get his tea. He was to go on watch at eight.
This was the Captain's idea, he reflected. They were supposed to pick up
a new third mate in Alexandria. In the meanwhile the Captain was taking
a watch. It was very unsatisfactory, but what was one to do? The Old Man
had been very quiet about the shore-going in Saloniki. Hardly left the
ship himself. Had that friend of his, a major, living in the spare
cabin. Whiskies and sodas going upstairs too, the second steward had
mentioned. Too big to notice what his own officers were doing, no doubt.
If he knew what his chief officer was doing! By Jove! Mr. Spokesly was
suddenly inflated, as he sat eating his tea, with extraordinary pride.
He had recalled the moment when he had walked into the concert-hall of
the White Tower Gardens with Evanthia Solaris. The proudest moment of
his life. Every officer in the room had stared. Every woman had glared
at the slim _svelte_ form with the white velvet toque set off by a
single spray of osprey. As well they might, since they had never seen
her before. They had seen the toque, however, in Stein's Oriental Store,
and had wondered who had bought it. And as they had moved through the
dense throng of little tables surrounded by officers and cocottes, amid
a clamour of glasses and laughter and scraping chairs, with music on the
distant stage, Mr. Spokesly experienced a new pleasure. They sat down
and ordered beer. Upstairs a number of Russian officers, in their
beautiful soft green uniforms, were holding a girl over the edge of a
box and enjoying her screams. Someone threw a cream cake at the girl who
was singing on the stage and it burst on her bosom, and everyone
shrieked with laughter. The girl went into a paroxysm of rage and
snarled incomprehensibly at them before flinging out of sight, and they
all bawled with merriment. It was rich. Suddenly the Russian officers
pushed the girl over the edge of the box and she dangled by her wrists.
The audience howled as she kicked and screamed. The uproar became
intolerable. Officers of all nations rose to their feet and bawled with
excitement. One of them put a chair on a table and reached up until he
could remove the dangling girl's shoe. It was filled with champagne and
passed round. The girl was drawn up and disappeared into the box. The
manager appeared on the stage to implore silence and order. Someone
directed a soda-siphon at him and he retired, drenched. Fin