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a ship?" miss beresford, needling me again, sweet-smiling, the momentarily innocent clear green eyes almost too big for the delicately tanned face. "In case anything went wrong with the captain, I mean. You must hold a master's certificate, mustn't you?"
    "I do. I also hold a driver's licence, but you wouldn't catch me driving a bus in the rush hour in downtown manhattan." old man beresford grinned. His wife smiled. Miss beresford regarded me thoughtfully for a moment, then bent to examine her hors d'oeuvres, showing the gleaming auburn hair cut in a bouffant style that looked as if it had been achieved with a garden rake and a pair of secateurs but had probably cost a fortune. The man by her side wasn't going to let it go so easily, though. He laid down his fork, raised his thin dark head until he had me more or less sighted along his acquiline nose, and said in his clear high drawling voice, "oh, come now, chief officer. I don't think the comparison is very apt at all." the "chief officer" was to put me in my place. The duke of hartwell spent a great deal of his time aboard the campari in putting people in their places, which was pretty ungrateful of him, considering that he was getting it all for free. He had nothing against me personally; it was just that he was publicly lending miss beresford his support. Even the very considerable sums of money earned by inveigling the properly respectful lower classes into viewing his stately home at two and six a time were making only a slight dent on the crushing burden of death duties, whereas an alliance with miss beresford would solve his difficulties for ever and ever. Things were being complicated for the unfortunate duke by the fact that, though
    his intellect was bent on miss beresford, his attentions and eyes were for the most part on the extravagantly opulent charms-and undeniable beauty of the platinum blonde and often-divorced cinema actress who flanked him on the other side. "I don't suppose it is, sir," I acknowledged. Captain Bullen refused to address him as "your grace,"
    and i'd be damned if i'd do it either. "But the best I could think up on the spur of the moment." he nodded as though satisfied and returned to attack his hors d'oeuvre. Old beresford eyed him speculatively, mrs.
    beresford half-smilingly, miss harcourtthe cinema actress -admiringly, while miss beresford herself just kept on treating us to an uninterrupted view of the auburn bouffant. There's little enough to do during off-duty hours at sea, and [1 watching developments at the captain's table would make a very entertaining pastime indeed. What promised to make it even more entertaining was the very considerable interest being taken in the captain's table by the young man seated at the foot of my own table. One of the passengers who had joined at caracio. Tony carreras-my guess that he was miguel carteras' son had been a correct and far from difficult on-was by any odds the most extraordinarily handsome man who'd ever passed through the dining-room
    door of the campari. In one way this might not have signified much as it takes many years to amass sufficient cash to sail on the campari even for a weekend and young men were in a tiny minority at any time, but nevertheless there was no denying his impact. Even at close-up range there was none of that weakness, that almost effeminate regularity of feature so often found in the faces of many very good-looking men. He looked for all the world like a slightly latinate reincarnation of a younger errol flynn, but harder, tougher, more enduring. The only flaw, if one could call it flaw, lay in the eyes. There seemed to be something ever so slightly wrong with them, as if the pupils were slightly flattened, giving a hard, bright glitter. Maybe it was just the lighting at the table. But there was nothing wrong with them as eyes; he had twenty-twenty vision all right and was using it all to study the captain's table. Miss beresford or miss harcourt, I couldn't be