Tsang Foo looked at him cunningly:  “I win, you belong good boy?  Stop whisky-soda, maybe?”

Reynolds laughed in spite of himself:  “Going to reform me, oh?  All right, it’s a bargain.”

Tsang allowed his hand to be shaken, then he carefully counted over the express checks that had been given to him.

“My go now,” he announced as eight bells sounded from the bridge.

As the door closed Reynolds sighed, then his eyes brightened as they fell upon the sandwiches.  Even a desperate young man on the verge of suicide if he is hungry must needs cheer up temporarily at the sight of food.  Reynolds had taken an early breakfast after being up all night, and had eaten nothing since.  After devouring the sandwiches and tea with relish, he ordered a hot bath, and in less than an hour was wrapped in his berth sleeping the sleep that is not confined to the righteous.

It was high noon the next day when he awoke.  His first feeling was one of exhilaration:  the long sleep, the fresh sea air pouring in at the port-hole, and a sense of perfect physical well-being had made him forget, for a moment, the serious business the day might have in store for him.

As he lay, half dozing, he became dimly aware that something was wrong.  The throb of the engines had ceased, and an ominous stillness prevailed.  He sat up in bed and listened, then he thrust his head out of the port-hole, only to see a deserted deck.  The passage was likewise deserted save for a hurried stewardess, who called back, over her shoulder, “It’s a man overboard, sir, on the starboard side—­”

Reynolds flung on his clothes.  The boy in him was keen for excitement, and in five minutes he was on deck, and had joined the crowd of passengers that thronged the railing.

The life-boat was being lowered, groaning and protesting as it cleared the davits and swung away from the ship’s side.  Far behind, in the still shining wake of the steamer, a small black object bobbed helplessly in the gray expanse of waters.

“What’s the matter?” “Did he fall overboard!” “Did he jump in?” “Was it suicide?” The air buzzed with questions.  The sentimental contingent clung to the theory that it was some poor stoker who could no longer stand the heat, or a foreign refugee afraid to come into port.  The more practical argued that it was probably one of the seamen who, while doing outside painting, had lost his balance and fallen into the sea.

A smug, well-dressed man, with close-cropped gray beard, and a detached gaze that seemed to go no further than his rimless glasses, turned and spoke to Reynolds: 

“It has gotten to be quite the fashion for somebody in the steerage to create this sort of sensation.  It happened as I went over.  If a man sees fit to jump overboard, all well and good; in nine cases out of ten it’s a good riddance to the community.  But why in Heaven’s name should the steamer put back?  Why should several hundred people be delayed an hour or so for the sake of an inconsiderate, useless fool?”