thought for
a moment. Then he spoke, very quietly and apologetically.

"Well--I don't see you telling another man how wonderful you are. It
isn't immoral, it simply isn't manners. And if Ferguson boasted to you
that he was saved when so many went down, it was worse than bad manners.
He ought to have been kicked for it. It's the kind of phenomenal luck
that it would have been decent to regret."

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.

"Ferguson saw the whole thing clear. Old Benson had just gone into the
smoking-room. Ferguson was on the deck outside his own stateroom. The
only person on board who could possibly be conside