“C. Q.” or, In the Wireless House
but he was angry and upset, for the home office had held him over two days at Genoa to take those of the Olympic’s passengers, who after her collision with the Hawke had shrewdly figured out that the only way of making sure of getting home was by the southern route, and had had the Pavonia held by wire from London in consequence.
Mrs. Trevelyan had been one of these, and for four days now she had sat his right hand and made love to him. The ship was jammed to the bulwarks, with first-cabin passengers sleeping in threes in second-class state-rooms, and everybody was growling except the stewards and stewardesses, who already heard the clink of golden sovereigns on every hand. It was a “stewardesses’ trip,” for the ladies-maids could find no berths in the first-cabin quarters and were ignominiously consigned to the second cabin, where, with noses in air, they sat at meals in undignified juxtaposition with chauffeurs, Turks, professors, Mafiusi from Palermo and Camorristi from Naples, rug merchants from Beirut and Antioch, Mennonite bishops. Baptist missionaries, and millionaire lemon growers from Morocco, Oran, and the16
