Моэм (Maugham )Mr. Know-All - William Somerset Maugham
I was prepared to dislike Max Kelada even before I knew him.
The war had just finished and the passenger traffic in the ocean-going liners was heavy.
Accommodation was very hard to get and you had to put up with whatever the agents chose to offer you.
You could not hope for a cabin to yourself and I was thankful to be given one in which there were only two berths.
But when I was told the name of my companion my heart sank.
It suggested closed portholes and the night air rigidly excluded.
It was bad enough to share a cabin for fourteen days with anyone (I was going from San Francisco to Yokohama), but I should have looked upon it with less dismay if my fellow passenger's name had been Smith or Brown).
When I went on board I found Mr Kelada's luggage already below.
I did not like the look of it;
there were too many labels on the suit-cases, and the wardrobe trunk was too big.
He had unpacked his toilet things, and I observed that he was a patron of the excellent Monsieur Coty;
for I saw on the washing-stand his scent, his hair-wash and his brilliantine.
Mr Kelada's brushes, ebony with his monogram in gold, would have been all the better for a scrub.
I did not at all like Mr Kelada.
I made my way into the smoking-room.
I called for a pack of cards and began to play patience.
I had scarcely started before a man came up to me and asked me if he was right in thinking my name was so and so.
"I am Mr Kelada," he added, with a smile that showed a row of flashing teeth, and sat down.
"Oh, yes, we're sharing a cabin, I think."
"Bit of luck, I call it.
You never know who you're going to be put in with.
I was jolly glad when I heard you were English.
I'm all for us English sticking together when we're abroad, if you understand what I mean."
I blinked.
"Are you English?
" I asked, perhaps tactlessly.
"Rather.
You don't think I look like an American, do you?
British to the backbone, that's what I am."
To prove it, Mr Kelada took out of his pocket a passport and airily waved it under my nose.
King George has many strange subjects.
Mr Kelada was short and of a sturdy build, clean-shaven and dark-skinned, with a fleshy hooked nose and very large, lustrous and liquid eyes.