King, who is the best
scout in the world, brought the tidings.
"I can't tell you much," she began breathlessly; "but there's
something frightfully interesting. Colonel Swift knows all about him.
He met him once in Poona and they have mutual friends. And how do you
think he described him? He says he's the worst liver in India."
There is no need to describe the sensation created by this piece of
information. If the man had set us guessing before, he now excited
a frenzy of curiosity. The glad news traversed the ship like wind,
brightening every eye; at any rate every female eye. For, though the
good may have their reward elsewhere, it is beyond doubt that, if
public interest is any guerdon, the bad get it on earth.
Show me a really bad man--dark-complexioned, with well-cut clothes
and a black moustache--and I will show you a hero; a hero a little
distorted, it is true, but not much the less heroic for that. Show me
a notorious breaker of male hearts and laws and--so long as she
is still in business--I will show you a heroine; again a little
distorted, but with more than the magnetism of the virtuous variety.
For the rest of the voyage the lonely passenger was lonely only
because he preferred to be, or was unaware of the agitation which
he caused.
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