point? I don't see how they
can, any more than a pumpkin can point; but perhaps nobody else being
able to see is the reason why the treasure's never been found.

We haven't many young men on board. Most of the young men who travel are
going the other way just now; and that makes our Ship's Mystery more
conspicuous. One reason he's so conspicuous is because he's travelling
third class. (We used to call it steerage!) Maybe you'll say that
travelling third class doesn't usually make people mysterious: it makes
them smell of disinfectants. Also it puts them Beyond the Pale. Not
that I or any other nice woman can tell precisely what a Pale is. But
anyhow, if you go third class you have to show your tongue if the least
important person demands a sight of it. And if that doesn't put you
beyond Pales and everything else, I don't know what does.

That's why this man deserves such extraordinary credit for being
interesting and mysterious. Even if caught in the act of displaying his
tongue to the doctor, I believe you'd say, should you see a snapshot:
"Who _is_ that man?"

Now, haven't I worked up to him well? Don't you want to hear the rest?
Well, so do _we_. For we don't know anything at all, except that if we
go and gaze over the rail of the first-class part of this old-fashioned
tub of a ship, into the third-class part, we can generally observe a
young man who looks like an Italian prince (I mean, the way an Italian
prince _ought_ to look) telling the steerage children stories or
teaching them games. I'm not sure if he's exactly handsome, but there
must be something remarkable about him, or all the first-class
passengers wouldn't have begun asking each other or the ship's officers
or even the deck stewards on the first day out, the question I
suggested: "Who _is_ that man?"

I believe, by the by, it was a deck steward _I_ asked. I've always found
that they know everything. Or what they don't know they cook up more
excitingly than if bound to dull facts.

I added to the question aforesaid--"Who _is_ that man?"--another: "And
how _does_ he come to be in the steerage?"

It was the second question which got answered first. "I suppose, my
lady"--(Whiffitts will anticipate the far future by calling me "my
lady")--"that all his money was torpedoed."

This explanation raised such a _weird_ picture (can't you see the thing
happening?) that Whiffitts was obliged to begin at the beginning, and
not stop till he came to the end, my