seven o’clock
Years ago Mrs. Maurier had learned that unadulterated fruit juice was salutary, nay, necessary to a nautical life. A piece of information strange, irrelevant at first draught, yet on second thought quite possible, not to mention pleasant in contemplation, so she had accepted it, taking it unto her and making of it an undeviating marine conviction. Hence there was grapefruit again for dinner: she was going to inoculate them first, then take chances.
Fairchild’s gang was ultimately started from its lair in his quarters. The other guests were already seated and they regarded the newcomers with interest and trepidation and, on Mrs. Maurier’s part, with actual alarm.
“Here comes the dogwatch,” Mrs. Wiseman remarked brightly. “It’s the gentlemen, isn’t it? We haven’t seen any gentlemen since we left New Orleans, hey, Dorothy?”
Her brother grinned at her sadly. “How about Mark and Talliaferro?”
“Oh, Mark’s a poet. That lets him out. And Ernest isn’t a poet, so that lets him out, too,” she replied with airy feminine logic. “Isn’t that right, Mark?”
“I’m the best poet in New Orleans,” the ghostly young man said heavily, mooning his pale, prehensile face at her.
“We were kind of wondering where you were, Mark,” Fairchild told the best poet in New Orleans. “We got the idea you were supposed to be on the boat with us. Too bad you couldn’t come,” he continued tediously.
“Maybe Mark couldn’t find himself in time,” the Semitic man suggested, taking his seat.
“He’s found his appetite, though,” Fairchild replied. “Maybe he'll find the rest of himself laying around somewhere nearby.” He seated himself and stared at the plate
