"Sure," said Mrs. van Dooren readily, between gulps. "How much?"
"One hundred dollars, madam. We divide it up into pools of ten people each. The prize is nine hundred dollars."
"Nine hundred?"
"We always deduct ten per cent, madam," answered Edgar, with Practised smoothness. "Ship's charities."
3
Passing the Statue of Liberty, the passengers flocked to the rail, cameras clicking and whirring like castanets, like crazy clocks. They even left the haven of the Tapestry Bar, where Edgar was now doing a roaring trade in late lunch-time liqueurs, early cocktails, and the first harvest of his endless series of sweepstakes. To Mrs. van Dooren, who did not leave her station at the brass rail, Edgar remarked:
"They say it's built on top of a prison."
"What's that, George?" asked Mrs. van Dooren.
"The Statue of Liberty. There used to be a prison underneath it, in the old days."
"So?" said Mrs. van Dooren, rather belligerently.
"Nothing really, madam. It's just an interesting fact. Sort of symbolic."
"Are you a radical?" asked Mrs. van Dooren.
"Far from it, madam."
An inwardly brooding man, sitting a few feet away down the bar, said: "There's an elevator going up inside the arm, too. Sensational!"
"Facts, facts," said Mrs. van Dooren.
Above their heads, the siren suddenly sounded, in a series of ear-splitting blasts which rattled every glass in the bar.
"Who in God's name is sounding off now?" asked Mrs. van Dooren peevishly.
"Boat drill, madam," answered Edgar. "You may have seen a notice about it in your cabin. Passengers are asked to assemble on the boat-deck."
"Boloney."
"Do you know your station, madam?"
"White Plains," said Mrs. van Dooren.
The brooding man got down from his stool. "Well, I guess we ought to obey orders," he remarked uncertainly. "Like they say, noblesse oblige."
"The Captain doesn't actually insist on it," said Edgar, in a confidential undertone. "He knows he can rely on all of you in an emergency."
"I buy that," said the man. "Integrity." He walked unsteadily towards the door.
"Integrity?" queried Mrs. van Dooren, astonished.
"That's Mr. Zucco," Edgar informed her. "He's in the film business. Hollywood."
"Gee whiz!" Mrs. van Dooren looked at Edgar with sudden, owlish concentration. "Has this ship ever been sunk?"
"No, madam."
"Just keep that up! And give me a rye and water."
Boat drill was indeed a somewhat sketchy affair, a sort of marine get-together with very slight overtones of crisis and actuality. It was true that Captain Harmer never insisted on a hundred-per-cent turn-out; he had long ago realized that many of his passengers resented it, that they considered themselves either too comfortable to be disturbed or too rich to drown. His officers went through the motions of mustering their crews and checking their allotted passengers; at least one of them—Tim Mansell—was delighted to find that he had drawn a winner, the beautiful blonde girl, together with her stepfather. (A lightning check at the Purser's office had established this relationship, and their names as well.) He did not speak to Kathy; she seemed aloof, unapproachable, staring about her at the unfamiliar scene as if it were something she did not choose to be involved in.
The truth was that she was cold, and also somewhat nervous. Everything so far—the size and luxury of the ship, the number of passengers, their air of sureness and consequence—had conspired to make her feel that they had taken on something too big, too complicated, too dangerous. They would hardly be able to make a dent in this quality of armour. . . . But when she mentioned this to Carl, after the drill was over and they were back in their day cabin, he scoffed at the idea.
"Nonsense, my darling!" He was sitting back in a comfortable armchair, leafing through the wine-list which was part of the ship's "directory". "In a week we'll be running this ship—or as much of it as we want to. You're going to be a tremendous success, Kathy— I can see it already."
"What makes you think that?"
"The way people look at you." He put out his hand to touch her shoulder. "You really are extremely decorative, you know."
She shrugged slightly, unconvinced, irritated. "But that's nothing, Carl, that's just the beginning of it. This is all so—" she frowned, "—so organized. As if they could deal with anything, including us."
"They've never had people like us," answered Carl decisively. "That I can guarantee."
"I wonder. I still get the impression that nothing is new around here. They've seen it all before. They've got answers to everything."
"Not to us," he said again.
The cabin door lifted suddenly, a slight rocking movement, and a patter of spray sounded against the plating outside. There was a knock at the door, and their steward, a small, rather harassed man, entered.
"Barkway, sir," he said to Carl. "Just checking the portholes."
"Please go ahead," said Carl.
Barkway crossed the cabin and started to put a few extra turns on the fastenings of the main porthole, which was already closed.
"Is it going to be rough?" Carl asked.
Barkway, turning, shook his head, summoning a weak grin. "Oh 110, sir. We wouldn't do that to you. It's just a little lift. We're outside now."
"Does she roll much?"
"No, sir. The Captain takes care of that."
Kathy laughed. "Now how can he do that?"
"Captain Harmer takes care of everything, miss," answered Barkway, a trifle dispiritedly, and withdrew.
He spoke with feeling; the Captain had already found time to have him brought up, logged, scathingly rebuked, officially reprimanded, and fined to the limit that the regulations allowed. Barkway, who would have had a hangover anyway, was already sick of the sea.
Mr. Cutler, the Purser, sat in his small cubbyhole of an office, just off the "entrance foyer" of the Alcestis, and waited for the first complaint. He knew exactly what that complaint would be about; he knew the extent to which it was justified; he knew what his answer would be. It was the duty of the best pursers never to be surprised, and Mr. Cutler, Senior Purser of Myth Lines, was one of the very best. He was a very small, very sharp, very grey man of fifty; he was known to anyone who had anything to do with big liners, the world over, as "Foxy" Cutler, but the nickname was admiring and affectionate, never derogatory. For Foxy Cutler knew it all—that was a matter of common agreement; the pointed, questing look had, over the years, ferreted out all conceivable answers.
He knew, down to the last packet of pins, how to run the inside of a ship; how to see that people—any number of people between one and one thousand—were bedded down, woken up, fed, amused, financed, mollified, kept happy, and unobtrusively disciplined.
He could tell a bouncing cheque before it hit his desk for the first time. He knew the kind of cosseting which made honeymoon couples happier still in their entrancement. He knew about stewards—all about all of them, from the good eager youngsters to the snivelling old drunks. Looking at any pair of passengers, he could smell out benefit of clergy, or the lack of it, and tell whether it really mattered or not. He knew the exact extent of Edgar the head-barman's various rackets, and at what point they stopped being good for the Alcestis, and were simply good for Edgar. He had his own rackets, naturally; they were monumental in some cases, modest in others; they were reflected in his No. 2 bank-account ashore, which was a remarkable monument in itself. He had always remained a bachelor—"the purser is married to the ship" was his explanatory comment upon this but the truth was far different. The simple fact was that he knew how to do too many things too perfectly. Mr. Cutler, the all-competent housekeeper, organizer, banker, and disciplinarian, would have driven any woman round the bend in six weeks.