"Name of a name!" burst out the chief steward. "Am I to hear all that again? Did I not say to forget the matter?"
"Forget, monsieur? Could Napoleon forget Waterloo? I beg that you permit me to explain."
"Oh, bother you and your explanations!" cried the chief steward with the sudden impatience common to fat men. "Take them to some less busy man.
The captain, for example."
Monsieur Pettipon bowed himself from the office, covered with confusion and despair. Had not the chief steward refused to hear him? Did not the chief steward"s words imply that the crime was too heinous for any one less than the captain himself to pa.s.s judgment on it? To the captain Monsieur Pettipon would have to go, although he dreaded to do it, for the captain was notoriously the busiest and least approachable man on the ship. Desperation gave him courage. Breathless at his own temerity, pink as a peony with shame, Monsieur Pettipon found himself bowing before a blur of gold and multi-hued decorations that instinct rather than his reason told him was the captain of the _Voltaire_.
The captain was worried about the fog, and about the presence aboard of M. Victor Ronssoy, the president of the line, and his manner was brisk and chilly.
"Did I ring for you?" he asked.
"No," jerked out Monsieur Pettipon, "but if the captain will pardon the great liberty, I have a matter of the utmost importance on which I wish to address him."
"Speak, man, speak!" shot out the captain, alarmed by Monsieur Pettipon"s serious aspect. "Leak? Fire? Somebody overboard? What?"
"No, no!" cried Monsieur Pettipon, trickles of moist emotion sliding down the creases of his round face. "n.o.body overboard; no leak; no fire.
But--monsieur the captain--behold this!"
He extended his hand and the captain bent his head over it with quick interest.
For a second the captain stared at the thing in Monsieur Pettipon"s hand; then he stared at Monsieur Pettipon.
"Ten thousand million little blue devils, what does this mean?" roared the captain. "Have you been drinking?"
Monsieur Pettipon quaked to the end of his toes.
"No, no!" he stammered. "I am only too sober, monsieur the captain, and I do not blame you for being enraged. The _Voltaire_ is your ship, and you love her, as I do. I feel this disgrace even more than you can, monsieur the captain, believe me. But I beg of you do not be hasty; my honor is involved. I admit that this thing was found in one of my cabins. Consider my horror when he was found. It was no less than yours, monsieur the captain. But I give you my word, the word of a Pettipon, that----"
The captain stopped the rush of words with, "Compose yourself. Come to the point."
"Point, monsieur the captain?" gasped Pettipon. "Is it not enough point that this thing was found in one of my cabins? Such a thing--in the cabin of Monsieur Alphonse Marie Louis Camille Pettipon! Is that nothing? For twenty-two years have I been steward in the second cla.s.s, and not one of these, not so much as a baby one, has ever been found. I am beside myself with chagrin. My only defense is that a pa.s.senger--a fellow of dirtiness, monsieur the captain--brought it with him.
He denies it. I denounce him as a liar the most barefaced. For did I not say to Georges Prunier--a fellow steward and a man of integrity--"Georges, old oyster, that hairy fellow in C 346 has a look of itchiness which I do not fancy. I must be on my guard." And Georges said----"
The captain, with something like a smile playing about among his whiskers, interrupted with, "So this is the first one in twenty-two years, eh? We"ll have to look into this, Monsieur Pettipon. Good day."
"Look into this," groaned Pettipon as he stumbled down a gangway. "I know what that means. Ah, poor Therese! Poor Napoleon!"
He looked down at the great, green, hungry waves with a calculating eye; he wondered if they would be cold. He placed a tentative hand on the rail. Then an inspiration came to him. M. Victor Ronssoy was aboard; he was the last court of appeal. Monsieur Pettipon would dare, for the sake of his honor, to go to the president of the line himself. For tortured minutes Alphonse Pettipon paced up and down, and something closely resembling sobs shook his huge frame as he looked about his little kingdom and thought of his impending banishment. At last by a supreme effort of will he nerved himself to go to the suite of Monsieur Ronssoy.
It was a splendid suite of five rooms, and Monsieur Pettipon had more than once peeked into it when it was empty and had noted with fascinated eyes the perfection of its appointments. But now he twice turned from the door, his courage oozing from him. On the third attempt, with the recklessness of a condemned man, he rapped on the door.
The president of the line was a white-haired giant with a chin like an anvil and bright humorous eyes, like a kingfisher.
"Monsieur Ronssoy," began the fl.u.s.tered, damp-browed Pettipon in a faltering voice, "I have only apologies to make for this intrusion. Only a matter of the utmost consequence could cause me to take the liberty."
The president"s brow knitted anxiously.
"Out with it," he ordered. "Are we sinking? Have we hit an iceberg?"
"No, no, monsieur the president! But surely you have heard what I, Alphonse Pettipon, steward in the second cla.s.s, found in one of my cabins?"
"Oh, so you"re Pettipon!" exclaimed the president, and his frown vanished. "Ah, yes; ah, yes."
"He knows of my disgrace," thought Monsieur Pettipon, mopping his streaming brow. "Now all is lost indeed." Hanging his head he addressed the president: "Alas, yes, I am none other than that unhappy Pettipon,"
he said mournfully. "But yesterday, monsieur, I was a proud man. This was my one hundred and twenty-eighth trip on the _Voltaire_. I had not a mark against me. But the world has been black for me, monsieur the president, since I found this."
He held out his hand so that the president could view the remains lying in it.
"Ah," exclaimed the president, adjusting his pince-nez, "a perfect specimen!"
"But note, monsieur the president," begged Monsieur Pettipon, "that he is a mere infant. But a few days old, I am sure. He could not have been aboard long. One can see that. I am convinced that it was the pa.s.senger who brought him with him. I have my reasons for making this serious charge, Monsieur Ronssoy. Good reasons too. Did I not say to Georges Prunier--a steward of the strictest honesty, monsieur--"Georges, old oyster, that hairy fellow in C 346 has a look of itchiness which I do not fancy." And Georges said, "Alphonse, my friend----""
"Most interesting," murmured the president. "Pray proceed."
With a wealth of detail and with no little pa.s.sion Monsieur Pettipon told his story. The eyes of the president encouraged him, and he told of little Napoleon and the violin, and of his twenty-two years on the _Voltaire_ and how proud he was of his work as a steward, and how severe a blow the affair had been to him.
When he had finished, Monsieur Ronssoy said, "And you thought it necessary to report your discovery to the head steward of the second cla.s.s?"
"Yes, monsieur."
"And to the chief steward?"
"Yes, monsieur."
"And to the captain?"
"Yes, monsieur."
"And finally to me, the president of the line?"
"Even so, monsieur," said the perspiring Pettipon.
M. Victor Ronssoy regarded him thoughtfully.
"Monsieur Pettipon," he said, "the sort of man I like is the man who takes his job seriously. You would not have raised such a devil of a fuss about so small a thing as this if you were not that sort of man. I am going to have you made steward of my suite immediately, Monsieur Pettipon. Now you may toss that thing out of the porthole."
"Oh, no, monsieur!" cried Alphonse Pettipon, great, grateful tears rushing to his eyes. "Never in this life! Him I shall keep always in my watch charm."
II: _Mr. Pottle and the South-Sea Cannibals_
--1
Mr. Pottle was a barber, but also a man of imagination, and as his hands went through their accustomed motions, his mind was far away, recalling what he had read the night before.