The Prince and the Prosecutor: The Mark Twain Mysteries #3. Peter J. Heck
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will not give way to persons of no merit or importance. Have the courtesy to stand aside and let a gentleman board, and you will have your turn.”
The young man did not back down. “We were here first, I’ll have you know,” he said. “First come, first served, is the rule in this country. If you won’t stand back, I’ll push you back.”
“Robert, please,” said Mrs. Babson, who stood next to her husband, a nervous look on her face. Mr. Babson stood stiffly, looking down his nose in the general direction of the prince. From their attitudes, it was easy to guess that young Robert must be their son, and his next words confirmed it.
“Don’t worry, Mother,” he said. “This pompous tub of lard may be used to cowing the peasants back home, but if he hasn’t learned not to tread on an American’s toes, it’s time somebody taught him the lesson.” Young Babson turned back to the prince. “Stand aside, mister. This is the last chance I’m giving you.”
I was convinced the two men were about to exchange blows, and wondering whether I ought to intervene to keep the peace—although experience had taught me that the man who steps between two others determined to fight often takes a harder blow than either. I had no reason to take either man’s side. I took one step forward, holding out my hand to keep Mr. Clemens from straying too close to the altercation. For myself, I intended to stay clear, but I was ready to do whatever became necessary.
I was saved from any such necessity by an authoritative voice from the deck above. “Ahoy! We’ll have none of that. Both you men, step off the gangplank and let the other passengers board.” The speaker was a tall, bearded man, in a blue uniform covered with gold braid: one of the ship’s officers, I decided. When neither Prinz Karl nor young Babson gave a sign of moving, the officer frowned and said, “Mr. Gallagher, will you please clear the gangplank!”
A wiry fellow with a weather-beaten face and a short-trimmed black beard stepped out of the ship and onto the gangplank. He was not much more than five foot six, and cocky as a bantam rooster in his uniform, though it was far plainer than the officer’s. Behind him were two burly seamen, neither of whom I would have been pleased to see across the line from me on a football field. They stepped down the gangplank in a purposeful manner, with that curious sway in their step that is the hallmark of a sailor. “You heard the captain,” said Gallagher, conveying a clear sense of menace without particularly raising his voice. “Step aside, now.”
Prinz Karl looked as if he might be ready to contest this order, but a look at the crewmen changed his mind. He stepped backward off the gangplank, still holding himself arrogantly erect. Young Babson stood his ground a moment longer, looking at the three men calmly advancing toward him. “Come on, lad, we don’t want any trouble,” said Gallagher, with a half-smile that suggested that while he mightn’t want trouble, he was fully prepared to deal with it.
Then Mrs. Babson said, “Robert! Come here this instant!” Her husband had been supervising two servants collecting their luggage; now he strode back to the gangplank and spoke in the tone of one used to being obeyed: “Robert, this is absurd. Come down and help your mother board the ship.” Looking somewhat peeved, the young fellow backed down, going to his mother’s side. His expression bespoke resentment, but the confrontation was over. Mr. Gallagher looked around, spotted Mr. Clemens, and smiled. “Here, I know that face,” he said. “You’re Mark Twain, aren’t you? No reason for you to wait here. Come aboard, and I’ll sort the rest of this out.”
And so we strolled up the gangplank onto the City of Baltimore, leaving Gallagher and his crewmen to resolve the question of precedence between Prinz Karl and the Babsons. I was just as glad to leave it in his hands; I’d had more than my share of fights and confrontations during my brief employment with Mr. Clemens, and had no interest in any more. For now, all I cared for was to find our cabin and pursue the exact same course of action as Mr. Clemens had planned for the voyage: sit on the deck, relax, and do as little as possible.
4
A businesslike man wearing an officer’s uniform and carrying a clipboard met us at the top of the gangplank. He introduced himself as Mr. Leslie, the ship’s purser. After a quick but thorough inspection of our tickets and passports he detailed a steward to lead Mr. Clemens and me to our cabin.
The steward, who was introduced to us as Harrison, set off at a brisk pace through such a maze of stairs and passageways that I quickly lost track of all the twists and turns. Meanwhile, he kept up a steady stream of commentary, indicating various points of interest as we passed them. “Here’s the purser’s office, and right down that passageway you’ll find the first-class barbershop, and the ship’s doctor is just opposite. Now we’ll go up to the cabin deck. Watch your step, please, gentlemen. Just aft of us is the ship’s library, which I’m sure you’ll find of interest, Mr. Clemens—we have over six hundred volumes on all subjects, and the Grand Saloon is aft of that. That’s the main smoking room, there—there’s another smoker up by the prow, and another on the deck below.”
I did my best to keep track of all the facilities he mentioned, but by the time he finally brought us to the door of our cabin I was certain only that the ship was even larger on the inside than she had appeared from the dock. It was obvious that we would find every amenity on board that one would expect in a first-class hotel ashore. Perhaps the only thing missing was a billiard room, but it did not take much thought to realize that lining up a carom shot on a rolling sea might be more akin to torture than to diversion.
Our cabin was actually a small suite of rooms, with an opening from the main room directly onto the deck. The sitting-room, paneled in blond oak, had two large armchairs and a small table, and a comfortable-looking settee. Two doors opened off it, leading to a pair of bedrooms with brass bedsteads. Two portholes offered ample sunlight, and there was an electric bulb in each room. We also had our own sink (cold water only), and Harrison showed us to a bathroom on the inside corridor only a few doors away. Mr. Clemens took the slightly larger bedroom; but even my smaller one was more comfortably appointed than the stateroom I had inhabited for several weeks on the Horace Greeley, our Mississippi riverboat. I had thought the three-hundred-fifty-dollar price for the crossing excessive, but now that I saw the accommodations, I began to revise my estimate.
The trunks containing the clothing we would wear on the voyage had been delivered to the main room, and Mr. Clemens and I directed Harrison in sorting the contents and placing them in our bedrooms. (The bulk of our luggage was stored somewhere below, until we reached Southampton.) The steward was finishing this job when there was a knock on the door. “Who could that be?” I wondered out loud.
I opened the door to discover Mr. Kipling, dressed in a serviceable brown tweed jacket and a well-broken-in felt hat. “Hullo,” he said. “I see you two are getting settled in nicely. Carrie and I are just around the corner in number seventeen. Shall we go see if we can all get seated at the same table for meals?”
“That would be fine with me, but it may not be as easy as you’d think,” said Mr. Clemens. “The captain will probably insist on having me at his table. I’m not sure he’ll want to take on all four of us as the price of it.”
“We shan’t attempt to read the captain’s mind,” said Mr. Kipling, smiling broadly. “Let’s go make our own arrangements, and we can adjust our plans to the captain’s wishes when he makes them known.”
“Fair enough,” said Mr. Clemens. We left the steward to finish stowing our belongings, and walked out on deck. We had a good view of the harbor from this point, well above the sheds that lined the dock. It was a clear day, and I could see well up the Hudson beyond the currently vacant dock of the White Star Line, and across to the steep Palisades on the New Jersey side. There were numerous boats of one kind or another in the river, sail and steam alike: the Hoboken ferry, barges coming downriver from Albany and Poughkeepsie, pleasure craft and fishing boats. Yet all of them seemed inconsequential next to the great liner we were about to sail on. It was exhilarating to contemplate the voyage that lay before us.
I followed Mr. Clemens and