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the good old days? Look at this room!”
    “Atom bomb number four. Well, let's shovel this mess into transportable shape and shove off. They've done their worst — ”
    “Have they? What if they are now convinced that we must be carrying this mytserious treasure on us — ?”
    “You always have the most charming ideas. Shall we ask Boone for an escort down to the Sumba ?. After all it isto his advantage that we arrive on board in one piece and reasonably undamaged.”
    “Maybe we'd better not noise our shame aloud. But I do suggest that we look behind us now and then and avoid dark alleys. I’d like to get my hands on the fun merchant who did this!” Sam held up a pair of shorts patterned with a combination of ink and sun lotion. “Td feed him to Ironjaw for breakfast!”
    “Cloak and dagger boys — yeah!” Kane licked his fingers absentmindedly, then spat shaving cream in wry-mouthed disgust. “Brother, this was one time when we were caught off base!”

3
    THE GENTLEMAN FROM ROTTERDAM
    “The Mijnheer will drink?”
    Kane opened his eyes upon a curiously unstable world. A brown-skinned, white-coated man stood by the bunk as steady as a mile post, balancing within easy reaching distance a tray on which stood a glass, its sides beaded with moisture. Through the open cabin door came a suggestion of breeze.
    Rubbing sleep-sanded eyes Kane hitched out of the lower bunk and leaned forward into the none too roomy center section where piles of luggage made an obstacle course of the small quarters. He accepted the glass and found that he was sipping iced water. After a long gulp he got to his feet and raised a hand to prod Sam into wakefulness.
    The hand remained poised in mid-air because Sam wasn't alone in the upper bunk to which the flip of a coin the night before had exiled him.
    Snug on the pillow beside the black head was a brown one, smaller and much neater. Thin slits of aquamarineeyes regarded Kane without much interest and a red tongue pointed contemptuously in his general direction as narrow jaws gaped wide in a yawn.
    “What the — !”
    Sam accepted that exclamation as his cue to roll over, roll over and face his bunkmate — apparently for the first time. His head jerked up and thumped against the ceiling. But his companion was already withdrawing gracefully. Brown legs and cream body and, last of all, a seal brown tail flowed away as the stowaway gained the top of a neighboring box, then the floor. Without so much as a glance the visitor slid out of the door and out of their sight Kane took the second glass from the tray and handed it to Sam.
    “Who's your friend?”
    “I wouldn't know.” Sam swung down from his perch, accepted the ice water and sat rubbing his forehead. “I’ll swear it wasn't there when I crawled in last night”
    “Do the mijnheeren wish anything?”
    The Malay steward still hovered by the door.
    “Where did that cat come from?”
    “It is the cat of the ship, mijnheeren. She does not make friends easily — ”
    Kane laughed. “So we would guess. What is your irresistible power over women, Sam?”
    “I have none that I know of. And that flea hotel better keep out of my bed in the future if it knows what is good for it!”
    “Breakfast in the officers’ mess in one hour, mijnheeren. Do you wish now your morning coffee?”
    “Sure. Only don't bring the lady back with you.”
    Kane set out his shaving kit “I think I'm going to enjoy this trip,” he observed.
    “Of course. Only next time the cat can sleep with you. Where did I put my toothbrush? Since our visitor back inManila had his way with the baggage I can't find anything. Let's make it snappy. That suggestion about breakfast hit the spot — I wonder if we dare dream of ham and eggs — ”
    But even prodded by appetite they weren't the first to visit the wardroom that morning. Just at the door they almost collided with a stout little man well swathed in oily dungarees at least one size too large for him. A