Oscar imagined himself watched by the pretty lady in first class. He arranged himself in a certain way which he hoped conveyed authority. He crossed a leg, straightened his back, and turned the pages of his book at regular intervals. He would ask Mr Smith to investigate the size of the firstclass windows on his behalf. Oscar stared at his Tacitus and waited. He stared at the page for perhaps twenty minutes until he heard Mr Smith's soft colonial vowels.

"Hello, Parson, still at your studies?",

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Mi Borrodaile and Mr Smith

He threw himself down beside Oscar who retrieved his Florida water just in time,

"By Jove, Borrodaile sets a pace," Percy Smith wiped his sweat-red brow with a handkerchief.

"He is still up there. 1 would say he has a five-foot stride. He left me by the bow."

"And when you pace," Oscar asked, putting his book away, "do you pace past the first-class cabins?"

"Oh, 1 dare say we do, but it's such a cracking pace," Percy Smith laughed, "it is all pretty much of a blur and I would not know what

1 was passing with those great long legs of his. I am not criticizing. It is admirable. But I'm afraid I'm a disappointment to him in this heat. Now you," he said, tapping Oscar's shin, "have got the right configuration. He has his eye on you. He will get you on the deck with him, I guarantee you."

"Oh, no."

"He has mentioned it," teased Mr Smith.

"Good grief."

"He has compared my legs unfavourably with yours."

"In length perhaps, not strength."

"In strength, too."

"He is mistook."

"In strength, in every respect," smiled Percy Smith. "No, I am afraid you have been chosen. I have been retired. If I were a horse I fear I would be shot."

"But I cannot go on deck, Mr Smith. It is quite impossible."

"When you refused him cards, he understood you. He told me he had a great respect for you. But he is a man of strong feelings, and he's just as likely to take your refusal as a slur of some sort. But perhaps I am wrong. I have only just made his acquaintance. But he is an emotional chap. I can vouch tor that. He told me his grandmother was a beauty from Spain, so that perhaps explains it."

"Yes," said Oscar, "but the fact that it is impossible for me to walk on deck has nothing, nothing whatever, to do with Mr Borrodaile."

"Mr Borrodaile would not see it that way," said Percy Smith and may-it was hard to tell-have suggested something critical of Mr Borrodaile in his censored smile. There was a dogged quality in Oscar which, in the midst of all his nervous excitements, plodded stubbornly onwards in the face of difficulties. This left him no time to see Mr Smith's treasonous smile. "But," he said, "I have an ailment."

When Percy Smith heard that the parson had an ailment he tucked

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Oscar and Lucinda

his chin down into his neck; his sandy brows pressed down heavily on his gentle blue eyes; he folded his big scratched arms across his chest.

"And it is because of this ailment/' said Oscar, beginning to open and shut his hands as if they were hinged lids, "that I would ask you to describe for me the size of the first-class windows."

"Portholes," corrected Percy Smith. "But what is this condition?" Even while he asked this, he was leaping to a conclusion-there was only one reason for looking through a first-class window. There was only one passenger in first-class and she had-Mr Borrodaile had remarked on the feature with disturbing enthusiasm-a very pretty sweep from her back to her backside.

"Portholes seems the wrong term. I have heard they are quite large, but my condition has prevented me discovering the truth for myself."

"You tease me like a girl. Is it meant to be a guessing game we play now?"

"I am sorry, but I find it quite embarrassing."

"It does not concern a young lady by any chance?" Percy Smith was not smiling. But he bit his lower lip and his sandy eyebrows no longer pressed upon his eyes so heavily. Oscar felt the rush of blood to his ears; he felt it gather in great hot pools, one in each lobe. "Oh, no," he said. He really looked quite prudish. "It is nothing ungentlemanly. I really only wish to know the dimensions of the windows. It is the seascape, you see, that actually concerns me. It is the quantity of sea…"

"The quantity of sea?"

"The quantity, yes, of sea, of water, that would be on view from a first-class cabin." He looked quite cross. He picked a fleck of spilt gravy from his rumpled thigh. "It is a professional matter, Mr Smith, please do not laugh at me. It is not an amour."

"Now, now, friend Parson," said Mr Smith and stroked Oscar on the shoulder as if he were a nervous beast who must be quieted. "I do not give a tinker's curse. I am a quiet enough man, I know, but just as I know you are not a wowser, you must see that I am not one either." Oscar had never heard the term before, but he had other more important misunderstandings on his mind.

"But first," said Percy Smith, now picking the animal hairs off his own jacket, "you must unclench your teeth a little and listen to me. Are you listening?" 1Q«

Montaigne "Of course, but your smile suggests you know something you could not know."

"I tell you, young man, relax yourself. There will be nothing done on your behalf today. But tomorrow, perhaps, and then you will no longer need to moon like a certain Montague beneath the window of a

Capulet."

Their conversation was cut short by Mr Borrodaile who returned to fetch Mr Smith for a game of quoits up on deck. As it was to be played "penny a poke" Mr Borrodaile assumed, quite loudly, that the Gluepot would not be interested.

52

Montaigne

Mr Borrodaile did not like a woman at his table. It constrained and restricted the natural flow of conversation. It meant that almost every door was temporarily locked before you. You were shackled, chained to your place, with nothing to talk about. Nothing? Well, what? Flowers? The children's health? The problem of one more maid got above herself or off to marry the footman?

But a man could not, if he were a gentleman, discuss politics (because they knew nothing of it) or question God (because this frightened them). Business was not suitable, nor were sporting matters, and the bottle, which might otherwise move back and forth so gaily, stayed in its place upon the sideboard and could not be sent upon its proper business.

So when Mr Borrodaile strolled into the second-class dining room, two snorts under his belt, as light and pearly as the southern evening light, he was put out of countenance to see at his table, not only the young parson (whom he had invited himself) but the young woman from first class whom Mr Smith had taken upon himself to introduce into their company. He had known, of course; Mr Smith had informed him of his presumption. But he had forgotten. He had forgotten totally.

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Oscar and Luanda

Now, of course, he remembered, and all that well-being he had so carefully nurtured in his measured stride around the deck, the long deep breaths of ozone, the equally satisfying inhalation of good cognac, all of it just went.

He sat down in silence. He was a large man and knew his silence to be heavy. He put on his "cutdowns" and examined the menu. He affected not to hear their good evening. He looked around to find the wine steward, looking also for the perpetrator of this blunder, who was, the nervous nelly, checking his charges 'tween decks. The purser-a hearty chap, too-had been placed amongst the teetotal Cornish farmers.