The Bandbox. Vance Louis Joseph

the young man was such that he was by no means prepared to see it confiscated without his knowledge or consent. In two long strides he overhauled the steward, plucked him back with a peremptory hand, and abashed him with a stern demand:

      “I say! where the devil do you think you’re going, my man?”

      His man showed a face of dashed amazement.

      “Beg pardon, sir! Do you mean me?”

      “Most certainly I mean you. That’s my bandbox. What are you doing with it?”

      Looking guiltily from his face to the article in question, the steward flushed and stammered – culpability incarnate, thought Staff.

      “Your bandbox, sir?”

      “Do you think I’d go charging all over this ship for a silly bandbox that wasn’t mine?”

      “But, sir – ”

      “I tell you, it’s mine. It’s tagged with my name. Where’s the steward I left it with?”

      “But, sir,” pleaded the accused, “this belongs to this lidy ’ere. I’m just tikin’ it to ’er stiteroom, sir.”

      Staff’s gaze followed the man’s nod, and for the first time he became aware that a young woman stood a step or two above them, half turned round to attend to the passage, her air and expression seeming to indicate a combination of amusement and impatience.

      Precipitately the young man removed his hat. Through the confusion clouding his thoughts, he both foreglimpsed humiliation and was dimly aware of a personality of force and charm: of a well-poised figure cloaked in a light pongee travelling-wrap; of a face that seemed to consist chiefly in dark eyes glowing lambent in the shadow of a wide-brimmed, flopsy hat. He was sensitive to a hint of breeding and reserve in the woman’s attitude; as though (he thought) the contretemps diverted and engaged her more than he did who was responsible for it.

      He addressed her in a diffident and uncertain voice: “I beg pardon…”

      “The box is mine,” she affirmed with a cool and even gravity. “The steward is right.”

      He choked back a counterclaim, which would have been unmannerly, and in his embarrassment did something that he instantly realised was even worse, approaching downright insolence in that it demanded confirmation of her word: he bent forward and glanced at the tag on the bandbox.

      It was labelled quite legibly with the name of Miss Eleanor Searle.

      He coloured, painfully contrite. “I’m sorry,” he stammered. “I – ah – happen to have with me the precise duplicate of this box. I didn’t at first realise that it might have a – ah – twin.”

      The young woman inclined her head distantly.

      “I understand,” she said, turning away. “Come, steward, if you please.”

      “I’m very sorry – very,” Staff said hastily in intense mortification.

      Miss Searle did not reply; she had already resumed her upward progress. Her steward followed, openly grinning.

      Since it is not considered good form to kick a steward for knowing an ass when he meets one, Staff could no more than turn away, disguise the unholy emotions that fermented in his heart, and seek his stateroom.

      “It had to be me!” he groaned.

      Stateroom 432-433 proved to be very much occupied when he found it – chiefly, to be sure, by the bandbox, which took up most of the floor space. Round it were grouped in various attitudes of dejection sundry other pieces of travelling-gear and Mr. Iff. The latter was sitting on the edge of the lower berth, his hands in his pockets, his brow puckered with perplexity, his gaze fixed in fascination to the bandbox. On Staff’s entrance he looked up.

      “Hello!” he said crisply.

      “Afternoon,” returned Staff with all the morose dignity appropriate to severely wounded self-esteem.

      Iff indicated the bandbox with a delicate gesture.

      “No wonder,” he observed mildly, “you wanted the ship to yourself.”

      Staff grunted irritably and, picking his way through and over the mound of luggage, deposited himself on the transom opposite the berths.

      “A present for the missis, I take it?” pursued Iff.

      “You might take it, and welcome, for all of me… Only it isn’t mine. And I am not married.”

      “Pardon!” murmured Mr. Iff. “But if it isn’t yours,” he suggested logically, “what the deuce-and-all is it doing here?”

      “I’m supposed to be taking it home for a friend.”

      “Ah! I see… A very, very dear friend, of course…?”

      “You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” Staff regarded the bandbox with open malevolence. “If I had my way,” he said vindictively, “I’d lift it a kick over the side and be rid of it.”

      “How you do take on, to be sure,” Iff commented placidly. “If I may be permitted to voice my inmost thought: you seem uncommon’ peeved.”

      “I am.”

      “Could I soothe your vexed soul in any way?”

      “You might tell me how to get quit of the blasted thing.”

      “I’ll try, if you’ll tell me how you got hold of it.”

      “Look here!” Staff suddenly aroused to a perception of the fact that he was by way of being artfully pumped. “Does this matter interest you very much indeed?”

      “No more, apparently, than it annoys you… And it is quite possible that, in the course of time, we might like to shut the door… But, as far as that is, I don’t mind admitting I’m a nosey little beast. If you feel it your duty to snub me, my dear fellow, by all means go to it. I don’t mind – and I dessay I deserve it.”

      This proved irresistible; Staff’s humour saved his temper. To the twinkle in Iff’s faded blue eyes he returned a reluctant smile that ended in open laughter.

      “It’s just this way,” he explained somewhat to his own surprise, under the influence of an unforeseen gush of liking for this good-humoured wisp of a man – “I feel I’m being shamelessly imposed upon. Just as I was leaving my rooms this morning this hat-box was sent to me, anonymously. I assume that some cheeky girl I know has sent it to me to tote home for her. It’s a certificated nuisance – but that isn’t all. There happens to be a young woman named Searle on board, who has an exact duplicate of this infernal contraption. A few moments ago I saw it, assumed it must be mine, quite naturally claimed it, and was properly called down in the politest, most crushing way imaginable. Hence this headache.”

      “So!” said Mr. Iff. “So that is why he doesn’t love his dear little bandbox!.. A Miss Earle, I think you said?”

      “No – Searle. At least, that was the name on her luggage.”

      “Oh – Searle, eh?”

      “You don’t happen to know her, by any chance?” Staff demanded, not without a trace of animation.

      “Who? Me? Nothing like that,” Iff disclaimed hastily.

      “I just thought you might,” said Staff, disappointed.

      For some moments the conversation languished. Then Staff rose and pressed the call-button.

      “What’s up?” asked Iff.

      “Going to get rid of this,” said Staff with an air of grim determination.

      “Just what I was going to suggest. But don’t do anything hasty – anything you’ll be sorry for.”

      “Leave that to me, please.”

      From his tone the assumption was not unwarrantable that Staff had never yet done anything that he had subsequently found cause to regret. Pensively punishing an inoffensive wrist, Iff subsided.

      A