t his mind to the matter. It was
just as well they weren't going back to Saloniki, he remarked
reflectively.

"How do you know? And why just as well?" asked Mr. Spokesly, wishing
Archy would go away. He wanted to be alone.

"Didn't you know?" said Archy, wondering. "The Old Man said so. The
second steward overheard something about it when he took a tray up when
the N. T. O. was here this morning. We're going to Calcutta. Oh, yes.
And a good job, too."

"Why?" said Mr. Spokesly.

Mr. Bates winked, and smiled his cat-grin.

"Fact is, Mister," he remarked in a low tone, "I went a little farther
than I intended. Nice little widow she is, and it simply wouldn't do for
me to be seen round there any more. She gave me this as a keepsake." And
Archy drew a ring with an enormous emerald set in pearls from his
vest-pocket. He put it on his little finger and turned it about.

"What!" ejaculated Mr. Spokesly. "Gave you that? Why, it's worth a
couple of hundred pounds."

"Three hundred," corrected Archy. "Easy! Ah, my boy, you don't know what
it is to have the ladies fancy you. Straight, Mister, they're a
nuisance."

Mr. Spokesly looked at Archy Bates and wondered just how much of this
was true. The value of the ring staggered him, as well it might, since
Archy, who always pretended to be drunker than he really was, had
discovered it in the upholstery of an ottoman on which he was sprawled,
his left hand closing over it and moving it softly into his pocket while
the right arm had encircled the waist of the widow. He assumed she was a
widow, of course, since he saw nothing of her husband. And he had
honestly forgotten it until after he had come aboard. He really had some
difficulty in not believing himself that she had given it to him. He
took it off and handed it to Mr. Spokesly, who looked puzzled.

"Keep it for me," Archy said. "I'm very careless. I might lose it. Give
it to me in Alexandria."

"Oh, I'll do that, all right." Mr. Spokesly took it. "I'll put it away."

"You got it all right?" said Archy, meaning the dark brown substance
concealed in among the clothes in Mr. Spokesly's drawers.

"Yes," said that gentleman shortly.

"How much...? That all? Why, I got four okes. Not coming back here, you
see. I'll keep half for Calcutta. You can get a thousand rupees an ounce
there. Nearly--let's see--nearly five hundred pounds an oke. Think of
it!"

Mr. Spokesly thought of it and wondered what sort of fight the London