In ships of the size and complexity of the Alcestis, there were sometimes feuds between the purser's side of the ship—the organizational, administrative side—and the seamen up top who worked her. In Foxy Cutler's mind, there was no such feud, and no occasion for it; and he took good care to communicate this to everyone around him. He knew that he could not have done the Captain's job; and the Captain could not have done his. Similarly, a good deck-hand would make a terrible steward, or no steward at all; and the oldish men who ran the elevators with ceremonial courtesy could never change jobs with the oldish men who watched the pressure-gauges, four decks below. But they were all, every last one of them, essential to the Alcestis. That was his personal creed; and an endlessly repeated You do your job, I'll do mine was the phrase which enshrined it. While Mr. Cutler was around, no one traded inter-departmental insults, no one swore that stewards were free-wheeling loafers, or deck-hands the dregs of the Liverpool waterfront; and, on board the Alcestis, they said it very seldom when he was out of hearing, either.
Now, while he waited for that first foreseeable complaint, he tuned his ear to his part of the ship, and was satisfied. He could hear cabin doors being opened and closed—that was the stewards obeying the bridge-order "Secure ports and deadlights". He could hear the restless creak of woodwork, as for the thousandth time the Alcestis faced the open sea. He felt the laboured motion as she shouldered her burden, and heard the wash and drip of spray, and the gentle working of her ribs and joints, and he was glad of all of them.
A slight sea to begin with always had a settling, salutary effect; it made people realize they were in a ship, part of her lading, and no longer sheltered by a run-of-the-mill roof ashore. It made them behave better, and stop whooping it up aimlessly, and drink for comfort instead of hilarity. It took the edge off bad behaviour; it would even do this for the child, young Master Barry Greenfield, whom an hour earlier a steward had observed in two separate misdemeanours—peeping through a keyhole into an adjoining cabin (which was traditionally fruitless, since there were protective flaps on either side), and poking his whip, or whatever it was, into one of the big electric fans in the corridor, which could be dangerous, or expensive, or both. Master Greenfield, with luck, would sooo feel slightly queasy; he would be given two tablets of dramamine, and wake up a better boy. The whip itself might well disappear, sunk (literally) without trace.
Presently Mr. Cutler's phone rang; answering, he said: "Purser's office," and then: "Yes, Mr. Walham." He had known all along that it would be Walham, because Walham was in Cabin B23, and B23 had a kind of primal curse upon it—a steam-joint which, for some reason locked deep in the hearts of the builders, picked up and magnified a rhythmic thudding sound from a valve at least forty feet away. They had tried everything with that steam-joint, and with the valve too; they had repacked them, altered their arc of curve, turned them sideways and then upside down, adjusted the pressure, invented an entirely new type of spring-loaded valve as gentle as a butterfly's kiss; all to no avail. The steam-joint still thudded, steadily and metallically, from one end of a voyage to the other, and B23 was its sounding-board.
Thus Mr. Cutler had known that his first complainant would be Walham; and he knew quite a lot about Walham, too. He was a Chicago industrialist with interests in steel and farm equipment; he was very rich; he would probably be seated at the Captain's table; and though married, he was travelling alone. What Mr. Cutler could not have foreseen about Walham was his voice, a sort of nasal bark like a petulant sergeant-major; and his outlook on life, which came through with alarming clarity in the first few sentences. Mr. Walham was mean; not poor-mean, which was often forgivable, but rich-mean, which was invariably odious.
"There's some damn' pipe or other making a racket, just outside my door," began Walham, as soon as he had announced himself. "I want it stopped."
Mr. Cutler, soothing, courteous, explained as well as he could, from a well-worn rubric, that unfortunately this particular pipe always made that noise, and there was nothing he could do about it.
"Like hell!" said Walham disagreeably. "I don't pay good money for that sort of thing. How do you expect me to get to sleep nights?"
"We have found," said Mr. Cutler patiently, "that people grow used to the noise."
"I don't care aboutpeople." Walham made his point very clearly. "I want you to take care of me. I didn't pay nearly five thousand bucks, just to listen to some damned steam hammer. I can get that sort of racket back home in the boiler factory."
"I'm very sorry—" began Mr. Cutler.
"You'll be sorrier still," barked Walham, "if you don't see this thing my way." "But fortunately," continued Mr. Cutler, controlling himself with a practised hand, "1 can offer you another cabin."
"I should damn' well hope so."
"We happen to have one free. It's a double-cabin. Slightly larger. B14."
There was a silence, suspicious, loaded. Then:
"Same price, though," said Walham. It was a command rather than a query. "You're not going to railroad me into paying—"
"Same price," said Mr. Cutler. Occupation of Cabin B14 did in fact involve an extra two hundred dollars, but there was (as Cutler sometimes phrased it to himself) a time to go fishing and a time to dry the nets. This particular net, if he was any judge at all, was worth two hundred dollars to Myth Lines; it was certainly worth it, in the general interests of harmony on board. "If you would like to make the move, I'll send a message to your cabin-steward."
"Sure I'd like to make the move." Walham did not sound in the least grateful; the grudging, nasal twang was unaltered. I'm getting what I paid for, the tone said unmistakably; you're not doing me any favours. . . . "Can't be too soon for me, with this damned racket going on all the time. And there's another thing. Afternoon tea."
"Afternoon tea?" queried Cutler, surprised.
"Yes, afternoon tea!" There was a rustle of papers over the telephone. "It says here, afternoon tea is served daily in the Olympic Lounge."
"That is so, Mr. Walham."
"I went there at half after four," said Walham deliberately, as if he were giving evidence in some massive crime. "I waited. No tea. I waited a full half-hour. No tea. Then I asked a steward. He had the gall to tell me they weren't serving it today."
"That is so," said Cutler again. "You see—"
"Now what sort of a deal is that?" demanded Walham, his sharp voice rising a full half-octave. "You put out this catalogue, or whatever it is, saying what you're going to give us. Then when the time comes to deliver, we're told it's not available. Like hell it's not available! You make a contract, you've got to stick with it. You can't chop and change, just the way it suits you. If I ran my business like that, would I be in business? No, I'd be in jail! Afternoon tea daily means—"
"Mr. Walham!" Cutler, faced with this rising tide, decided that he must stem it somehow, and his voice was loud and clear and crisp.
^What is it?" asked Walham, caught in mid-sentence.
"We didn't sail till four o'clock," said Cutler, going straight into his explanation while he had the chance. "By the time we were clear of harbour, it was nearer five, well past tea-time. We don't serve tea on the first day. We never do. The times just don't fit in."