Striking a match viciously, I lit a cigarette and strolled forward.  Either the fellow had fancied that he knew her or he had behaved in a confoundedly impertinent way.  The latter hypothesis seemed, on the whole, the more likely, and I felt a lively desire to drop him over the rail.

“But I don’t know what a girl of your looks expects, I’m sure,” I grumbled, “setting off on your travels with no chaperon and no companion and no maid!  Where are your father and mother?  Where are your brothers?  Where’s the old friend of the family who dined with you last night?  If chaps who have no right to walk the same earth with you get insolent, who is going to teach them their place, and who is going to take care of you if a U-boat pops out of the sea?  Oh, well, never mind.  It isn’t any of my business.  But just the same if you need my services, I think I’ll tackle the job.”

Time was passing; night had fallen.  Consulting my watch, I found that it was seven o’clock.  I had been aboard more than two hours.  An afternoon sailing, quotha!  At this rate we would be lucky if we got off by dawn.

The dinner gong, a welcome diversion, summoned us below to lights and warmth.  At one table the young Italian entertained his relatives, and at another the captain, a short, swart-faced, taciturn being, had grouped his officers and various officials of the steamship company at a farewell feast.  The little sharp-faced passenger was throned elsewhere in lonely splendor, but when I selected a fourth table, he jumped up, crossed over and installed himself as my vis-a-vis.  Passing me the salt, which I did not require, he supplied with it some personal data of which I felt no greater need.  His name was McGuntrie, he announced; he was sales agent for the famous Phillipson Rifles and was being dispatched to secure a gigantic contract on the other side.

“And if inside six months you don’t see three hundred thousand Italian soldiers carrying Phillipson’s best,” he informed me, “I’ll take a back seat and let young Jim Furman, who thinks I’m a has-been and he’s the one white hope, begin to draw my pay.  You can’t beat those rifles.  When the boys get to carrying them, old Francis Joseph’s ghost’ll weep.  Pity, ain’t it, we didn’t get on board by noon?” he digressed sociably.  “I could’ve found something to do ashore the four hours I’ve been twiddling my thumbs here, and I guess you could too.  Hardest, though, on our friends the newspaper boys.  Did you know they were out there waiting to take a flashlight film?  Fact.  They do it nowadays every time a big liner leaves.  Then if we sink, all they have to do is run it, with ’Doomed Ship Leaving New York Harbor’ underneath.”

To his shocked surprise I laughed at the information.  My appetite was unimpaired as I pursued my meal.  Trains in which others ride may telescope and steamers may take one’s acquaintances to watery graves, but to normal people the chance of any catastrophe overtaking them personally must always seem gratifyingly far-fetched and vague.