He nodded, obviously glad to hear I was no longer a young pup. “This Lusitania voyage will be a test of your new maturity, then.”

“I consider it a golden opportunity, Mr. McClure.”

“Your journalistic sense of fair play will be tested.”

“How well I know it. I wrote a fairly vicious piece on Hubbard in Smart Set.”

The homespun philosopher Elbert Hubbard was booked on the Lusitania; I was to ingratiate myself with him and do “the definitive interview” with the so-called “Sage of East Aurora” (New York). That I considered him a boob and a fraud apparently was not to get in the way of this non-mean-spirited effort.

“Though you’ve written of him,” McClure said, “you have never met Hubbard. .?”

“I’ve been spared that pleasure thus far.”

McClure’s eyes tightened. “You should understand that I admire Elbert Hubbard-consider him a sort of roughhewn genius. . and I’m not alone. Clarence Darrow, Henry Ford, Booker T. Washington, even Teddy Roosevelt, have sat looking up at him.”

Which only meant that even the best among us have our foolish streaks.

“Impressive,” I said.

“Keep an open mind, sir. And do your best not to alienate your subject.”

To McClure, Rumely said, “That’s why we’ve arranged for our friend here to travel under a pseudonym. His true identity is known by Staff Captain Anderson, and he will of course carry a proper passport to present at journey’s end, in Liverpool.”

McClure was frowning, the line between his eyes like an exclamation point. “I dislike such deceptions.”

“Modern journalism requires bold methodology,” I opined. “If I were to travel under my own name, Hubbard would surely recognize it, and never grant me an interview.”

“Several of the other prominent passengers,” Rumely put in, “might react similarly, if they happen to know of our man’s acid reputation.”

McClure said to Rumely, as if I were not present, “Is he aware of the other potential interviewees?”