“When the ship’s surgeon first met you,” he cried, “you called yourself Lord Ridley.”

“I’ll call myself anything I jolly well like,” returned Talbot.  “If I choose to dodge reporters, that’s my pidgin.  I don’t have to give my name to every meddling busybody that—­”

“You’ll give it to the police, all right,” chortled Mr. Smedburg.  In the confident, bullying tone of the man who knows the crowd is with him, he shouted:  “And in the meantime you’ll keep out of this smoking-room!”

The chorus of assent was unanimous.  It could not be disregarded.  Talbot rose and with fastidious concern brushed the cigarette ashes from his sleeve.  As he moved toward the door he called back:  “Only too delighted to keep out.  The crowd in this room makes a gentleman feel lonely.”

But he was not to escape with the last word.

His prosecutor pointed his finger at him.

“And the next time you take the name of Adolph Meyer,” he shouted, “make sure first he hasn’t a friend on board; some one to protect him from sharpers and swindlers—­”

Talbot turned savagely and then shrugged his shoulders.

“Oh, go to the devil!” he called, and walked out into the night.

The purser was standing at my side and, catching my eye, shook his head.

“Bad business,” he exclaimed.

“What happened?” I asked.

“I’m told they caught him dealing from the wrong end of the pack,” he said.  “I understand they suspected him from the first—­seems our surgeon recognized him—­and to-night they had outsiders watching him.  The outsiders claim they saw him slip himself an ace from the bottom of the pack.  It’s a pity!  He’s a nice-looking lad.”

I asked what the excited Smedburg had meant by telling Talbot not to call himself Meyer.

“They accused him of travelling under a false name,” explained the purser, “and he told ’em he did it to dodge the ship’s news reporters.  Then he said he really was a brother of Adolph Meyer, the banker; but it seems Smedburg is a friend of Meyer’s, and he called him hard!  It was a silly ass thing to do,” protested the purser.  “Everybody knows Meyer hasn’t a brother, and if he hadn’t made that break he might have got away with the other one.  But now this Smedburg is going to wireless ahead to Mr. Meyer and to the police.”

“Has he no other way of spending his money?” I asked.

“He’s a confounded nuisance!” growled the purser.  “He wants to show us he knows Adolph Meyer; wants to put Meyer under an obligation.  It means a scene on the wharf, and newspaper talk; and,” he added with disgust, “these smoking-room rows never helped any line.”