Our bedroom-steward will send him, I dare say, thank you." Mr.Triscoe had got his trunk open, and Burnamy had no longer an excuse for lingering.

In his defeat concerning the bath-steward, as he felt it to be, he had not the courage, now, to offer the lower berth.

He went away, forgetting to change his shoes; but he came back, and as soon as he got the enamelled shoes on, and shut the shabby russet pair in his bag, he said, abruptly: "Mr.Triscoe, I wish you'd take the lower berth.
I got it at the eleventh hour by some fellow's giving it up, and it isn't as if I'd bargained for it a month ago." The elder man gave him one of his staccato glances in which Burnamy fancied suspicion and even resentment.

But he said, after the moment of reflection which he gave himself, "Why, thank you, if you don't mind, really." "Not at all!" cried the young man.

"I should like the upper berth better.