?"

"Well what?"

"Are you Ismay?"

A broad, mocking grin irradiated the little man's pinched features.
"Don't ask me," he begged: "I might tell you."

Staff frowned and waited a minute, then, receiving no further response
to his enquiry, grunted "Good night," turned off the light and got into
his berth.

A moment later the question came out of the darkness overhead: "I
say--what do _you_ think?"

"Are you Iff or Ismay--you mean?"

"Aye, lad, aye!"

"I don't know. It's for you to say."

"But if you thought I was Ismay you'd shift quarters, wouldn't you?"

"Why?"

"Because I might pinch something of yours."

"In the first place," said Staff, yawning, "I can't shift without going
into the second cabin--and you know it: the boat's full up. Secondly,
I've nothing you could steal save ideas, and you haven't got the right
sort of brains to turn them to any account."

"That ought to hold me for some time," Iff admitted fairly. "But I'm
concerned about your sensitive young reputation. Suppose I were to turn
a big trick this trip?"

"As for instance--?"

"Well, say I swipe the Cadogan collar."

"Then I'd stand just so much the better chance of catching you
red-handed."

"Swell notion you've got of the cunning of the Twentieth Century
criminal, I must say. D' you for an instant suppose my work's so coarse
that you could detect grits in it?"

"Then you _are_ Ismay?"

"My son," said the other solemnly, "your pertinacity shan't go
unrewarded: I will be frank with you. You shall know all. I am Iff--the
eternal question."

"Oh, go to thunder!" said Staff indignantly.

But as he slipped off to sleep he could hear the man overhead chuckling
quietly, beneath his breath....

The next few days would have provided him with ample opportunity in
which to ponder the question of his roommate's identity, had Staff
chosen so to occupy his time. As it happened, Heaven was kind to the
young man, and sent a gale of sorts, which, breaking upon the Autocratic
the following morning, buffeted her for three days and relegated to
their berths all the poor sailors aboard, including the lady with the
pink soul and underthings. Of Mrs. Thataker, indeed, Staff saw nothing
more until just before the vessel docked in New York. He wasn't
heartless by any manner of means; he was, as a matter of fact, frankly
sorry for the other poor passengers; but he couldn't help feeling there
was a lot of truth in the old saw about an ill wind..