IV

“Come!  What happened last evening?  We want to know,” said Major Granville, in his slightly overbearing manner.  “I saw you with the second engineer this morning, Fisher.  I’m sure you have ferreted it out.”

“I am not at liberty to pass on my information,” responded Fisher stolidly.  “You wouldn’t understand it if I did, Major.  There was danger and there was steam.  Two of the engineers had their arms scalded, and one of the stokers was badly hurt.  I can’t tell you any more than that.”

“Do you go so far as to say that the ship herself was in danger?” asked Major Granville.  He was talking loudly, as was his wont, across the smoking saloon.

“I should say so,” said Fisher, without lifting his eyes from the magazine he was deliberately studying.

“Where is young Cleveland this morning?” asked the Major abruptly.

Fisher shrugged his shoulders.

“He was in his bunk when I saw him last.  Heaven knows what he may be up to by now.”

Charlie Cleveland strolled in at this juncture.  He had his right arm in a sling.

“Hullo!” he said.  “How are you all?  I’m on the sick-list to-day.  I sprained my wrist when I fell up the steps yesterday.”

Fisher glanced at him for a moment over the top of his magazine and resumed his reading in silence.

“Look here, my friend!” he said.  “You were in the thick of this engine business.  I am sure of it.”

“I was,” said Charlie readily.  “But for me you would all be at the bottom of the sea by this time.”

He threw himself into a chair with a broad grin at Major Granville’s contemptuous countenance and took up a book.

Major Granville looked intensely disgusted.  It was scarcely credible that a passenger could have penetrated to the engine-room and interfered with the machinery there, yet he more than half believed that this outrageous thing had actually occurred.  He got up after a brief silence and stalked stiffly from the saloon.

Charlie banged down his book with a yell of laughter.

“Didn’t I tell you, Fisher?” he cried.  “He’s gone to have a good, square, face-to-face talk with the captain.  But he won’t get anything out of him.  I’ve been there first.”

He went up on deck and found a party of quoit-players.  Molly Erle was among them.  Charlie stood and watched, yelling advice and encouragement.

“Looking on as usual?” the girl said to him presently, with a bitter little smile, as she found herself near him.

He nodded.

“I’m really afraid to speak to you to-day,” he said.  “Your skirt will never again bear the light of day.”

“What happened?” she said briefly.

The game was over, and they strolled away together across the deck.

“I’ll tell you,” he said, with ill-suppressed gaiety in his voice.  “We should all have been blown out of the water last night if it hadn’t been for me.  Forgetful of my finery, I went and—­looked on.  The magic result was that I saved the situation, and—­incidentally, of course—­the ship.”