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 eager look a prophesied mine of half-crowns.
Whiffitts simply loved telling me. It _is_ nice knowing something somebody else doesn't know and is dying to! The name of the Ship's Mystery is supposed to be Storm, Peter Storm. I say "supposed," advisedly. Because it may be _anything_. They don't worry with passenger lists for third-class people; they're just a seething, nameless mass, apparently. But anything remarkable bubbles up to the top, as in the case of the alleged Peter Storm. Naturally, his fellow-passengers have nicknamed him "The Stormy Petrel."
What is he really? we wonder. A jewel shines more brightly at night, and perhaps it's the contrast between the Stormy Petrel and those "fellow-passengers" of his which makes him look so very great a gentleman, despite the fact that his clothes might have been bought at a second hand--no, a fourth or fifth hand--shop. The creature wears flannel shirts (he seems, thank heaven, to have several to change with, of different colours) and they have low, turn-over collars. Apparently all his neckties were torpedoed with his money, for he never sports one. Instead, he ties himself up in red or black silk handkerchiefs, very ancient and faded; and if you will believe me, my dear girl, the effect is most _distinguished_!
