f the
day on board an ocean steamer is when we have taken our last turn on
deck, have smoked our last cigar, and having succeeded in tiring
ourselves, feel at liberty to turn in with a clear conscience. On that
first night of the voyage I felt particularly lazy, and went to bed in
one hundred and five rather earlier than I usually do. As I turned in, I
was amazed to see that I was to have a companion. A portmanteau, very
like my own, lay in the opposite corner, and in the upper berth had been
deposited a neatly folded rug with a stick and umbrella. I had hoped to
be alone, and I was disappointed; but I wondered who my room-mate was to
be, and I determined to have a look at him.

Before I had been long in bed he entered. He was, as far as I could
see, a very tall man, very thin, very pale, with sandy hair and whiskers
and colourless grey eyes. He had about him, I thought, an air of rather
dubious fashion; the sort of man you might see in Wall Street, without
being able precisely to say what he was doing there--the sort of man who
frequents the Cafe Anglais, who always seems to be alone and who drinks
champagne; you might meet him on a race-course, but he would never
appear to be doing anything there either. A little over-dressed--a
little odd. There are three or four of his kind on every ocean steamer.
I made up my mind that I did not care to make his acquaintance, and I
went to sleep saying to myself that I would study his habits in order
to avoid him. If he rose early, I would rise late; if he went to bed
late, I would go to bed early. I did not care to know him. If you once
know people of that kind they are always turning up. Poor fellow! I need
not have taken the trouble to come to so many decisions about him, for I
never saw him again after that first night in one hundred and five.

I was sleeping soundly when I was suddenly waked by a loud noise. To
judge from the sound, my room-mate must have sprung with a single leap
from the upper berth to the floor. I heard him fumbling with the latch
and bolt of the door, which opened almost immediately, and then I heard
his footsteps as he ran at full speed down the passage, leaving the door
open behind him. The ship was rolling a little, and I expected to hear
him stumble or fall, but he ran as though he were running for his life.
The door swung on its hinges with the motion of the vessel, and the
sound annoyed me. I got up and shut it, and groped my way back to my
berth in