“C. Q.” or, In the Wireless House
The second-cabin deck was clear, save for an invalid Italian woman lying on a steamer-chair in the shelter of a canvas windbreak. A sailor was picking up the scattered rope circles of a suddenly abandoned game of “ring-toss.” Micky ran up his ladder and opened the door of his office. There were Mrs. Trevelyan and a dark gentleman with waxed moustaches in a long green ulster, calmly eating pheasant from his operating-desk. A quart of champagne stood in a bucket of ice on the floor beside them.
“Ah, there you are!” cried the gay lady. “Lord Ashurst, let me introduce to you my very particular friend, Mr. Micky Fitzpatrick.”
“Glad to know you!” nodded his lordship, his mouth full of pheasant. “Awfully jolly up here you know. Quite rippin’, in fact. So beastly hot in that saloon, one can’t eat.”
“Sit down, do,” said Mrs. Trevelyan “I know you want to put us out, but it would n’t be polite—would it, Ashurst?”
“Assuredly not!” he answered. “Have a cigarette?”
“No thanks,” replied Micky. “I ’m very sorry, but I have to go down to lunch. By the way, if anybody calls up, just send ’em a19
