Mr. Coulson nodded.

"Hamilton Fynes," he said, "so far as I knew him, was a quiet,
inoffensive sort of creature, who has been drawing a regular
salary from the State for the last fifteen years and saving half
of it. He has been coming over to Europe now and then, and though
he was a good, steady chap enough, he liked his fling when he was
over here, and between you and me, he was the greatest crank I
ever struck. I met him in London a matter of three years ago, and
he wanted to go to Paris. There were two cars running at the
regular time, meeting the boat at Dover. Do you think he would
have anything to do with them? Not he! He hired a special train
and went down like a prince."

"What did he do that for?" the reporter asked.

"Why, because he was a crank, sir," Mr. Coulson answered
confidentially. "There was no other reason at all. Take this last
voyage on the Lusitania, now. He spoke to me the first day out
because he couldn't help it, but for pretty well the rest of the
journey he either kept down in his stateroom or, when he came up
on deck, he avoided me and everybody else. When he did talk, his
talk was foolish. He was a good chap at his work, I believe, but
he was a crank. Seemed to me sometimes as though that humdrum
life of his had about turned his brain. The last day out he was
fidgeting all the time; kept looking at his watch, studying the
chart, and asking the sailors questions. Said he wanted to get up
in time to take a girl to lunch on Thursday. It was just for that
reason that he scuttled off the boat without a word to any of us,