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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of In a Steamer Chair and Other Shipboard Stories, by Robert Barr
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: In a Steamer Chair
+       and Other Shipboard Stories
+
+Author: Robert Barr
+
+Release Date: September 19, 2003 [eBook #9309]
+[Most recently updated: November 23, 2022]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: Juliet Sutherland, David Widger and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN A STEAMER CHAIR ***
+
+
+
+
+In a Steamer Chair
+
+and Other Shipboard Stories
+
+by Robert Barr
+(Luke Sharp)
+
+
+
+
+A PRELIMINARY WORD
+
+
+As the incidents related herein took place during voyages between
+England and America, I dedicate this book to the Vagabond Club of
+London, and the Witenagemote Club of Detroit, in the hope that, if any
+one charges me with telling a previously told tale, the fifty members
+of each club will rise as one man and testify that they were called
+upon to endure the story in question from my own lips prior to the
+alleged original appearance of the same.
+
+R. B.
+
+
+
+
+Table of Contents
+
+ In a Steamer Chair
+ Mrs. Tremain
+ Share and Share Alike
+ An International Bow
+ A Ladies’ Man
+ A Society for the Reformation of Poker Players
+ The Man Who was Not on the Passenger List
+ The Terrible Experience of Plodkins
+ A Case of Fever
+ How the Captain Got His Steamer Out
+ My Stowaway
+ The Purser’s Story
+ Miss McMillan
+
+
+
+
+In a Steamer Chair
+
+
+The First Day
+
+Mr. George Morris stood with his arms folded on the bulwarks of the
+steamship _City of Buffalo_, and gazed down into the water. All around
+him was the bustle and hurry of passengers embarking, with friends
+bidding good-bye. Among the throng, here and there, the hardworking men
+of the steamer were getting things in order for the coming voyage.
+Trunks were piled up in great heaps ready to be lowered into the hold;
+portmanteaux, satchels, and hand-bags, with tags tied to them, were
+placed in a row waiting to be claimed by the passengers, or taken down
+into the state-rooms. To all this bustle and confusion George Morris
+paid no heed. He was thinking deeply, and his thoughts did not seem to
+be very pleasant. There was nobody to see him off, and he had evidently
+very little interest in either those who were going or those who were
+staying behind. Other passengers who had no friends to bid them
+farewell appeared to take a lively interest in watching the hurry and
+scurry, and in picking out the voyagers from those who came merely to
+say good-bye.
+
+At last the rapid ringing of a bell warned all lingerers that the time
+for the final parting had come. There were final hand-shakings, many
+embraces, and not a few tears, while men in uniform with stentorian
+voices cried, “All ashore.” The second clanging of the bell, and the
+preparations for pulling up the gang-planks hurried the laggards to the
+pier. After the third ringing the gang-plank was hauled away, the
+inevitable last man sprang to the wharf, the equally inevitable last
+passenger, who had just dashed up in a cab, flung his valises to the
+steward, was helped on board the ship, and then began the low pulsating
+stroke, like the beating of a heart, that would not cease until the
+vessel had sighted land on the other side. George Morris’s eyes were
+fixed on the water, yet apparently he was not looking at it, for when
+it began to spin away from the sides of the ship he took no notice, but
+still gazed at the mass of seething foam that the steamer threw off
+from her as she moved through the bay. It was evident that the sights
+of New York harbour were very familiar to the young man, for he paid no
+attention to them, and the vessel was beyond Sandy Hook before he
+changed his position. It is doubtful if he would have changed it then,
+had not a steward touched him on the elbow, and said—
+
+“Any letters, sir?”
+
+“Any what?” cried Morris, suddenly waking up from his reverie.
+
+“Any letters, sir, to go ashore with the pilot?”
+
+“Oh, letters. No, no, I haven’t any. You have a regular post-office on
+
+board, have you? Mail leaves every day?”
+
+“No, sir,” replied the steward with a smile, “not _every_ day, sir. We
+
+send letters ashore for passengers when the pilot leaves the ship. The
+next mail, sir, will leave at Queenstown.”
+
+The steward seemed uncertain as to whether the passenger was trying to
+joke with him or was really ignorant of the ways of steamships.
+However, his tone was very deferential and explanatory, not knowing but
+that this particular passenger might come to his lot at the table, and
+stewards take very good care to offend nobody. Future fees must not be
+jeopardized.
+
+Being aroused, Mr. Morris now took a look around him. It seemed
+wonderful how soon order had been restored from the chaos of the
+starting. The trunks had disappeared down the hold; the portmanteaux
+were nowhere to be seen. Most of the passengers apparently were in
+their state-rooms exploring their new quarters, getting out their
+wraps, Tam-o-Shanters, fore-and-aft caps, steamer chairs, rugs, and
+copies of paper-covered novels. The deck was almost deserted, yet here
+and there a steamer chair had already been placed, and one or two were
+occupied. The voyage had commenced. The engine had settled down to its
+regular low thud, thud; the vessel’s head rose gracefully with the long
+swell of the ocean, and, to make everything complete, several
+passengers already felt that inward qualm—the accompaniment of so many
+ocean voyages. George Morris yawned, and seemed the very picture of
+_ennui._ He put his hands deeply into his coat pockets, and sauntered
+across the deck. Then he took a stroll up the one side and down the
+other. As he lounged along it was very evident that he was tired of the
+voyage, even before it began. Judging from his listless manner nothing
+on earth could arouse the interest of the young man. The gong sounded
+faintly in the inner depths of the ship somewhere announcing dinner.
+Then, as the steward appeared up the companion way, the sonorous whang,
+whang became louder, and the hatless official, with the gong in hand,
+beat that instrument several final strokes, after which he disappeared
+into the regions below.
+
+“I may as well go down,” said Morris to himself, “and see where they
+have placed me at table. But I haven’t much interest in dinner.”
+
+As he walked to the companion-way an elderly gentleman and a young lady
+appeared at the opposite door, ready to descend the stairs. Neither of
+them saw the young man. But if they had, one of them at least would
+have doubted the young man’s sanity. He stared at the couple for a
+moment with a look of grotesque horror on his face that was absolutely
+comical. Then he turned, and ran the length of the deck, with a speed
+unconscious of all obstacles.
+
+“Say,” he cried to the captain, “I want to go ashore. I _must_ go
+ashore. I want to go ashore with the pilot.”
+
+The captain smiled, and said, “I shall be very happy to put you ashore,
+sir, but it will have to be at Queenstown. The pilot has gone.”
+
+“Why, it was only a moment ago that the steward asked me if I had any
+letters to post. Surely he cannot have gone yet?”
+
+“It is longer than that, I am afraid,” said the captain. “The pilot
+left the ship half an hour ago.”
+
+“Is there no way I can get ashore? I don’t mind what I pay for it.”
+
+“Unless we break a shaft and have to turn back there is no way that I
+know of. I am afraid you will have to make the best of it until we
+reach Queenstown.”
+
+“Can’t you signal a boat and let me get off on her?”
+
+“Well, I suppose we could. It is a very unusual thing to do. But that
+would delay us for some time, and unless the business is of the utmost
+necessity, I would not feel justified in delaying the steamer, or in
+other words delaying several hundred passengers for the convenience of
+one. If you tell me what the trouble is I shall tell you at once
+whether I can promise to signal a boat if I get the opportunity of
+doing so.”
+
+Morris thought for a moment. It would sound very absurd to the captain
+for him to say that there was a passenger on the ship whom he desired
+very much not to meet, and yet, after all, that was what made the
+thought of the voyage so distasteful to him.
+
+He merely said, “Thank you,” and turned away, muttering to himself
+something in condemnation of his luck in general. As he walked slowly
+down the deck up which he had rushed with such headlong speed a few
+moments before, he noticed a lady trying to set together her steamer
+chair, which had seemingly given way—a habit of steamer chairs. She
+looked up appealing at Mr. Morris, but that gentleman was too
+preoccupied with his own situation to be gallant. As he passed her, the
+lady said—
+
+“Would you be kind enough to see if you can put my steamer chair
+together?”
+
+Mr. Morris looked astonished at this very simple request. He had
+resolved to make this particular voyage without becoming acquainted
+with anybody, more especially a lady.
+
+“Madam,” he said, “I shall be pleased to call to your assistance the
+deck steward if you wish.”
+
+“If I had wished that,” replied the lady, with some asperity, “I would
+have asked you to do so. As it is, I asked you to fix it yourself.”
+
+“I do not understand you,” said Mr. Morris, with some haughtiness. “I
+do not see that it matters who mends the steamer chair so long as the
+steamer chair is mended. I am not a deck steward.” Then, thinking he
+had spoken rather harshly, he added, “I am not a deck steward, and
+don’t understand the construction of steamer chairs as well as they do,
+you see.”
+
+The lady rose. There was a certain amount of indignation in her voice
+as she said—
+
+“Then pray allow me to present you with this steamer chair.”
+
+“I—I—really, madam, I do not understand you,” stammered the young man,
+astonished at the turn the unsought conversation had taken.
+
+“I think,” replied the lady, “that what I said was plain enough. I beg
+you to accept this steamer chair as your own. It is of no further use
+to me.”
+
+Saying this, the young woman, with some dignity, turned her back upo
+him, and disappeared down the companion-way, leaving Morris in a state
+of utter bewilderment as he looked down at the broken steamer chair,
+wondering if the lady was insane. All at once he noticed a rent in his
+trousers, between the knee and the instep.
+
+“Good heavens, how have I done this? My best pair of trousers, too.
+Gracious!” he cried, as a bewildered look stole over his face, “it
+isn’t possible that in racing up this deck I ran against this steamer
+chair and knocked it to flinders, and possibly upset the lady at the
+same time? By George! that’s just what the trouble is.”
+
+Looking at the back of the flimsy chair he noticed a tag tied to it,
+and on the tag he saw the name, “Miss Katherine Earle, New York.”
+Passing to the other side he called the deck steward.
+
+“Steward,” he said, “there is a chair somewhere among your pile with
+the name ‘Geo. Morris’ on it. Will you get it for me?”
+
+“Certainly, sir,” answered the steward, and very shortly the other
+steamer chair, which, by the way, was a much more elegant, expensive,
+and stable affair than the one that belonged to Miss Katherine Earle,
+was brought to him. Then he untied the tag from his own chair and tied
+it to the flimsy structure that had just been offered to him; next he
+untied the tag from the lady’s chair and put it on his own.
+
+“Now, steward,” he said, “do you know the lady who sat in this chair?”
+
+“No, sir,” said the steward, “I do not. You see, we are only a few
+hours out, sir.”
+
+“Very well, you will have no trouble finding her. When she comes on
+deck again, please tell her that this chair is hers, with the apologies
+of the gentleman who broke her own, and see if you can mend this other
+chair for me.”
+
+“Oh yes,” said the steward, “there will be no trouble about that. They
+are rather rickety things at best, sir.”
+
+“Very well, if you do this for me nicely you will not be a financial
+sufferer.”
+
+“Thank you, sir. The dinner gong rang some time ago, sir.”
+
+“Yes, I heard it,” answered Morris.
+
+Placing his hands behind him he walked up and down the deck, keeping an
+anxious eye now and then on the companion way. Finally, the young lady
+whom he had seen going down with the elderly gentleman appeared alone
+on deck. Then Morris acted very strangely. With the stealthy demeanour
+of an Indian avoiding his deadly enemy, he slunk behind the different
+structures on the deck until he reached the other door of the
+companion-way, and then, with a sigh of relief, ran down the steps.
+There were still quite a number of people in the saloon, and seated at
+the side of one of the smaller tables he noticed the lady whose name he
+imagined was Miss Katherine Earle.
+
+“My name is Morris,” said that gentleman to the head steward. “Where
+have you placed me?”
+
+The steward took him down the long table, looking at the cards beside
+the row of plates.
+
+“Here you are, sir,” said the steward. “We are rather crowded this
+voyage, sir.”
+
+Morris did not answer him, for opposite he noticed the old gentleman,
+who had been the companion of the young lady, lingering over his wine.
+
+“Isn’t there any other place vacant? At one of the smaller tables, for
+instance? I don’t like to sit at the long table,” said Morris, placing
+his finger and thumb significantly in his waistcoat pocket.
+
+“I think that can be arranged, sir,” answered the steward, with a
+smile.
+
+“Is there a place vacant at the table where that young lady is sitting
+alone?” said Morris, nodding in the direction.
+
+“Well, sir, all the places are taken there; but the gentleman who has
+been placed at the head of the table has not come down, sir, and if you
+like I will change his card for yours at the long table.”
+
+“I wish you would.”
+
+So with that he took his place at the head of the small table, and had
+the indignant young lady at his right hand.
+
+“There ought to be a master of ceremonies,” began Morris with some
+hesitation, “to introduce people to each other on board a steamship. As
+it is, however, people have to get acquainted as best they may. My name
+is Morris, and, unless I am mistaken, you are Miss Katherine Earle. Am
+I right?”
+
+“You are right about my name,” answered the young lady, “I presume you
+ought to be about your own.”
+
+“Oh, I can prove that,” said Morris, with a smile. “I have letters to
+show, and cards and things like that.”
+
+Then he seemed to catch his breath as he remembered there was also a
+young woman on board who could vouch that his name was George Morris
+This took him aback for a moment, and he was silent. Miss Earle made no
+reply to his offer of identification.
+
+“Miss Earle,” he said hesitatingly at last, “I wish you would permit me
+to apologise to you if I am as culpable as I imagine. _Did_ I run
+against your chair and break it?”
+
+“Do you mean to say,” replied the young lady, looking at him steadily,
+“that you do not _know_ whether you did or not?”
+
+“Well, it’s a pretty hard thing to ask a person to believe, and yet I
+assure you that is the fact. I have only the dimmest remembrance of the
+disaster, as of something I might have done in a dream. To tell you the
+truth, I did not even suspect I had done so until I noticed I had torn
+a portion of my clothing by the collision. After you left, it just
+dawned upon me that I was the one who smashed the chair. I therefore
+desire to apologise very humbly, and hope you will permit me to do so.”
+
+“For what do you intend to apologise, Mr. Morris? For breaking the
+chair, or refusing to mend it when I asked you?”
+
+“For both. I was really in a good deal of trouble just the moment
+before I ran against your chair, Miss Earle, and I hope you will excuse
+me on the ground of temporary insanity. Why, you know, they even let
+off murderers on that plea, so I hope to be forgiven for being careless
+in the first place, and boorish in the second.”
+
+“You are freely forgiven, Mr. Morris. In fact, now that I think more
+calmly about the incident, it was really a very trivial affair to get
+angry over, and I must confess I was angry.”
+
+“You were perfectly justified.”
+
+“In getting angry, perhaps; but in showing my anger, no—as some one
+says in a play. Meanwhile, we’ll forget all about it,” and with that
+the young lady rose, bidding her new acquaintance good night.
+
+George Morris found he had more appetite for dinner than he expected to
+have.
+
+ Second Day
+
+Mr. George Morris did not sleep well his first night on the _City of
+Buffalo_. He dreamt that he was being chased around the deck by a
+couple of young ladies, one a very pronounced blonde, and the other an
+equally pronounced brunette, and he suffered a great deal because of
+the uncertainty as to which of the two pursuers he desired the most to
+avoid. It seemed to him that at last he was cornered, and the fiendish
+young ladies began literally, as the slang phrase is, to mop the deck
+with him. He felt himself being slowly pushed back and forward across
+the deck, and he wondered how long he would last if this treatment were
+kept up. By and by he found himself lying still in his bunk, and the
+swish, swish above him of the men scrubbing the deck in the early
+morning showed him his dream had merged into reality. He remembered
+then that it was the custom of the smoking-room steward to bring a
+large silver pot of fragrant coffee early every morning and place it on
+the table of the smoking-room. Morris also recollected that on former
+voyages that early morning coffee had always tasted particularly good.
+It was grateful and comforting, as the advertisement has it. Shortly
+after, Mr. Morris was on the wet deck, which the men were still
+scrubbing with the slow, measured swish, swish of the brush he had
+heard earlier in the morning. No rain was falling, but everything had a
+rainy look. At first he could see only a short distance from the ship.
+The clouds appeared to have come down on the water, where they hung,
+lowering. There was no evidence that such a thing as a sun existed. The
+waves rolled out of this watery mist with an oily look, and the air was
+so damp and chilly that it made Morris shiver as he looked out on the
+dreary prospect. He thrust his hands deep into his coat pockets, which
+seemed to be an indolent habit of his, and walked along the slippery
+deck to search for the smoking-room. He was thinking of his curious and
+troublesome dream, when around the corner came the brunette, wrapped in
+a long cloak that covered her from head to foot. The cloak had a couple
+of side pockets set angleways in front, after the manner of the pockets
+in ulsters. In these pockets Miss Earle’s hands were placed, and she
+walked the deck with a certain independent manner which Mr. Morris
+remembered that he disliked. She seemed to be about to pass him without
+recognition, when the young man took off his cap and said pleasantly,
+“Good morning, Miss Earle. You are a very early riser.”
+
+“The habit of years,” answered that young lady, “is not broken by
+merely coming on board ship.”
+
+Mr. Morris changed step and walked beside her.
+
+“The habit of years?” he said. “Why, you speak as if you were an old
+woman.”
+
+“I _am_ an old woman,” replied the girl, “in everything but one
+particular.”
+
+“And that particular,” said her companion, “is the very important one,
+I imagine, of years.”
+
+“I don’t know why that is so very important.”
+
+“Oh, you will think so in after life, I assure you. I speak as a
+veteran myself.”
+
+The young lady gave him a quick side glance with her black eyes from
+under the hood that almost concealed her face.
+
+“You say you are a veteran,” she answered, “but you don’t think so. It
+would offend you very deeply to be called old.”
+
+“Oh, I don’t know about that. I think such a remark is offensive only
+when there is truth in it. A young fellow slaps his companion on the
+shoulder and calls him ‘old man.’ The grey-haired veteran always
+addresses his elderly friend as ‘my boy.’”
+
+“Under which category do you think you come, then?”
+
+“Well, I don’t come under either exactly. I am sort of on the middle
+ground. I sometimes feel very old. In fact, to confess to you, I never
+felt older in my life than I did yesterday. Today I am a great deal
+younger.”
+
+“Dear me,” replied the young lady, “I am sorry to hear that.”
+
+“Sorry!” echoed her companion; “I don’t see why you should be sorry. It
+is said that every one rejoices in the misfortunes of others, but it is
+rather unusual to hear them admit it.”
+
+“It is because of my sympathy for others that I am sorry to hear you
+are younger today than you were yesterday. If you take to running along
+the deck today then the results will be disastrous and I think you owe
+it to your fellow passengers to send the steward with his gong ahead of
+you so as to give people in steamer chairs warning.”
+
+“Miss Earle,” said the young man, “I thought you had forgiven me for
+yesterday. I am sure I apologised very humbly, and am willing to
+apologise again to-day.”
+
+“Did I forgive you? I had forgotten?”
+
+“But you remembered the fault. I am afraid that is misplaced
+forgetfulness. The truth is, I imagine, you are very unforgiving.”
+
+“My friends do not think so.”
+
+“Then I suppose you rank me among your enemies?”
+
+“You forget that I have known you for a day only.”
+
+“That is true, chronologically speaking. But you must remember a day on
+shipboard is very much longer than a day on shore. In fact, I look on
+you now as an old acquaintance, and I should be sorry to think you
+looked on me as an enemy.”
+
+“You are mistaken. I do not. I look on you now as you do on your own
+age—sort of between the two.”
+
+“And which way do you think I shall drift? Towards the enemy line, or
+towards the line of friendship?”
+
+“I am sure I cannot tell.”
+
+“Well, Miss Earle, I am going to use my best endeavours to reach the
+friendship line, which I shall make unless the current is too strong
+for me. I hope you are not so prejudiced against me that the pleasant
+effort will be fruitless.”
+
+“Oh, I am strictly neutral,” said the young lady. “Besides, it really
+amounts to nothing. Steamer friendships are the most evanescent things
+on earth.”
+
+“Not on earth, surely, Miss Earle. You must mean on sea.”
+
+“Well, the earth includes the sea, you know.”
+
+“Have you had experience with steamer friendships? I thought, somehow,
+this was your first voyage.”
+
+“What made you think so?”
+
+“Well, I don’t know. I thought it was, that’s all.”
+
+“I hope there is nothing in my manner that would induce a stranger to
+think I am a verdant traveller.”
+
+“Oh, not at all. You know, a person somehow classifies a person’s
+fellow-passengers. Some appear to have been crossing the ocean all
+their lives, whereas, in fact, they are probably on shipboard for the
+first time. Have you crossed the ocean before?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Now, tell me whether you think I ever crossed before?”
+
+“Why, of course you have. I should say that you cross probably once a
+year. Maybe oftener.”
+
+“Really? For business or pleasure?”
+
+“Oh, business, entirely. You did not look yesterday as if you ever had
+any pleasure in your life.”
+
+“Oh, yesterday! Don’t let us talk about yesterday. It’s to-day now, you
+know. You seem to be a mind-reader. Perhaps you could tell my
+occupation?”
+
+“Certainly. Your occupation is doubtless that of a junior partner in a
+prosperous New York house. You go over to Europe every year—perhaps
+twice a year, to look after the interests of your business.”
+
+“You think I am a sort of commercial traveller, then?”
+
+“Well, practically, yes. The older members of the firm, I should
+imagine, are too comfortably situated, and care too little for the
+pleasures of foreign travel, to devote much of their time to it. So
+what foreign travel there is to be done falls on the shoulders of the
+younger partner. Am I correct?”
+
+“Well, I don’t quite class myself as a commercial traveller, you know,
+but in the main you are—in fact, you are remarkably near right. I think
+you must be something of a mind-reader, as I said before, Miss Earle,
+or is it possible that I carry my business so plainly in my demeanour
+as all that?”
+
+Miss Earle laughed. It was a very bright, pleasant, cheerful laugh.
+
+“Still, I must correct you where you are wrong, for fear you become too
+conceited altogether about your powers of observation. I have not
+crossed the ocean as often as you seem to think. In the future I shall
+perhaps do so frequently. I am the junior partner, as you say, but have
+not been a partner long. In fact I am now on my first voyage in
+connection with the new partnership. Now, Miss Earle, let me try a
+guess at your occupation.”
+
+“You are quite at liberty to guess at it.”
+
+“But will you tell me if I guess correctly?”
+
+“Yes. I have no desire to conceal it.”
+
+“Then, I should say off-hand that you are a teacher, and are now taking
+a vacation in Europe. Am I right?”
+
+“Tell me first why you think so?”
+
+“I am afraid to tell you. I do not want to drift towards the line of
+enmity.”
+
+“You need have no fear. I have every respect for a man who tells the
+truth when he has to.”
+
+“Well, I think a school teacher is very apt to get into a certain
+dictatorial habit of speech. School teachers are something like
+military men. They are accustomed to implicit obedience without
+question, and this, I think, affects their manner with other people.”
+
+“You think I am dictatorial, then?”
+
+“Well, I shouldn’t say that you were dictatorial exactly. But there is
+a certain confidence—I don’t know just how to express it, but it seems
+to me, you know—well, I am going deeper and deeper into trouble by what
+I am saying, so really I shall not say any more. I do not know just how
+to express it.”
+
+“I think you express it very nicely. Go on, please.”
+
+“Oh, you are laughing at me now.”
+
+“Not at all, I assure you. You were trying to say that I was very
+dictatorial.”
+
+“No, I was trying to say nothing of the kind. I was merely trying to
+say that you have a certain confidence in yourself and a certain belief
+that everything you say is perfectly correct, and is not to be
+questioned. Now, do as you promised, and tell me how near right I am.”
+
+“You are entirely wrong. I never taught school.”
+
+“Well, Miss Earle, I confessed to my occupation without citing any
+mitigating circumstances. So now, would you think me impertinent if I
+asked you to be equally frank?”
+
+“Oh, not at all! But I may say at once that I wouldn’t answer you.”
+
+“But you will tell me if I guess?”
+
+“Yes, I promise that.”
+
+“Well, I am certainly right in saying that you are crossing the ocean
+for pleasure.”
+
+“No, you are entirely wrong. I am crossing for business.”
+
+“Then, perhaps you cross very often, too?”
+
+“No; I crossed only once before, and that was coming the other way.”
+
+“Really, this is very mysterious. When are you coming back?”
+
+“I am not coming back.”
+
+“Oh, well,” said Morris, “I give it up. I think I have scored the
+unusual triumph of managing to be wrong in everything that I have said.
+Have I not?”
+
+“I think you have.”
+
+“And you refuse to put me right?”
+
+“Certainly.”
+
+“I don’t think you are quite fair, Miss Earle.”
+
+“I don’t think I ever claimed to be, Mr. Morris. But I am tired of
+walking now. You see, I have been walking the deck for considerably
+longer than you have. I think I shall sit down for a while.”
+
+“Let me take you to your chair.”
+
+Miss Earle smiled. “It would be very little use,” she said.
+
+The deck steward was not to be seen, and Morris, diving into a dark and
+cluttered-up apartment, in which the chairs were piled, speedily picked
+out his own, brought it to where the young lady was standing, spread it
+out in its proper position, and said—
+
+“Now let me get you a rug or two.”
+
+“You have made a mistake. That is not my chair.”
+
+“Oh yes, it is. I looked at the tag. This is your name, is it not?”
+
+“Yes, that is my name; but this is not my chair.”
+
+“Well, I beg that you will use it until the owner calls for it.”
+
+“But who is the owner? Is this your chair?”
+
+“It was mine until after I smashed up yours.”
+
+“Oh, but I cannot accept your chair, Mr. Morris.”
+
+“You surely wouldn’t refuse to do what you desired, in fact, commanded,
+another to do. You know you practically ordered me to take your chair.
+Well, I have accepted it. It is going to be put right to-day. So, you
+see, you cannot refuse mine.”
+
+Miss Earle looked at him for a moment.
+
+“This is hardly what I would call a fair exchange,” she said. “My chair
+was really a very cheap and flimsy one. This chair is much more
+expensive. You see, I know the price of them. I think you are trying to
+arrange your revenge, Mr. Morris. I think you want to bring things
+about so that I shall have to apologise to you in relation to that
+chair-breaking incident. However, I see that this chair is very
+comfortable, so I will take it. Wait a moment till I get my rugs.”
+
+“No, no,” cried Morris, “tell me where you left them. I will get them
+for you.”
+
+“Thank you. I left them on the seat at the head of the companion-way.
+One is red, the other is more variegated; I cannot describe it, but
+they are the only two rugs there, I think.”
+
+A moment afterwards the young man appeared with the rugs on his arm,
+and arranged them around the young lady after the manner of deck
+stewards and gallant young men who are in the habit of crossing the
+ocean.
+
+“Would you like to have a cup of coffee?”
+
+“I would, if it can be had.”
+
+“Well, I will let you into a shipboard secret. Every morning on this
+vessel the smoking-room steward brings up a pot of very delicious
+coffee, which he leaves on the table of the smoking-room. He also
+brings a few biscuits—not the biscuit of American fame, but the biscuit
+of English manufacture, the cracker, as we call it—and those who
+frequent the smoking-room are in the habit sometimes of rising early,
+and, after a walk on deck, pouring out a cup of coffee for themselves.”
+
+“But I do not expert to be a _habitué_ of the smoking-room,” said Miss
+Earle.
+
+“Nevertheless, you have a friend who will be, and so in that way, you
+see, you will enjoy the advantages of belonging to the smoking club.”
+
+A few moments afterwards, Morris appeared with a camp-stool under his
+arm, and two cups of coffee in his hands. Miss Earle noticed the smile
+suddenly fade from his face, and a look of annoyance, even of terror,
+succeed it. His hands trembled, so that the coffee spilled from the cup
+into the saucer.
+
+“Excuse my awkwardness,” he said huskily; then, handing her the cup, he
+added, “I shall have to go now. I will see you at breakfast-time. Good
+morning.” With the other cup still in his hand, he made his way to the
+stair.
+
+Miss Earle looked around and saw, coming up the deck, a very handsome
+young lady with blonde hair.
+
+Third Day
+
+On the morning of the third day, Mr. George Morris woke up after a
+sound and dreamless sleep. He woke up feeling very dissatisfied with
+himself, indeed. He said he was a fool, which was probably true enough,
+but even the calling himself so did not seem to make matters any
+better. He reviewed in his mind the events of the day before. He
+remembered his very pleasant walk and talk with Miss Earle. He knew the
+talk had been rather purposeless, being merely that sort of preliminary
+conversation which two people who do not yet know each other indulge
+in, as a forerunner to future friendship. Then, he thought of his
+awkward leave-taking of Miss Earle when he presented her with the cup
+of coffee, and for the first time he remembered with a pang that he had
+under his arm a camp-stool. It must have been evident to Miss Earle
+that he had intended to sit down and have a cup of coffee with her, and
+continue the acquaintance begun so auspiciously that morning. He
+wondered if she had noticed that his precipitate retreat had taken
+place the moment there appeared on the deck a very handsome and
+stylishly dressed young lady. He began to fear that Miss Earle must
+have thought him suddenly taken with insanity, or, worse still,
+sea-sickness. The more Morris thought about the matter the more
+dissatisfied he was with himself and his actions. At breakfast—he had
+arrived very late, almost as Miss Earle was leaving—he felt he had
+preserved a glum, reticent demeanour, and that he had the general
+manner of a fugitive anxious to escape justice. He wondered what Miss
+Earle must have thought of him after his eager conversation of the
+morning. The rest of the day he had spent gloomily in the smoking-room,
+and had not seen the young lady again. The more he thought of the day
+the worse he felt about it. However, he was philosopher enough to know
+that all the thinking he could do would not change a single item in the
+sum of the day’s doing. So he slipped back the curtain on its brass rod
+and looked out into his state-room. The valise which he had left
+carelessly on the floor the night before was now making an excursion
+backwards and forwards from the bunk to the sofa, and the books that
+had been piled up on the sofa were scattered all over the room. It was
+evident that dressing was going to be an acrobatic performance.
+
+The deck, when he reached it, was wet, but not with the moisture of the
+scrubbing. The outlook was clear enough, but a strong head-wind was
+blowing that whistled through the cordage of the vessel, and caused the
+black smoke of the funnels to float back like huge sombre streamers.
+The prow of the big ship rose now into the sky and then sank down into
+the bosom of the sea, and every time it descended a white cloud of
+spray drenched everything forward and sent a drizzly salt rain along
+the whole length of the steamer.
+
+“There will be no ladies on deck this morning,” said Morris to himself,
+as he held his cap on with both hands and looked around at the
+threatening sky. At this moment one wave struck the steamer with more
+than usual force and raised its crest amidship over the decks. Morris
+had just time to escape into the companion-way when it fell with a
+crash on the deck, flooding the promenade, and then rushing out through
+the scuppers into the sea.
+
+“By George!” said Morris. “I guess there won’t be many at breakfast
+either, if this sort of thing keeps up. I think the other side of the
+ship is the best.”
+
+Coming out on the other side of the deck, he was astonished to see,
+sitting in her steamer chair, snugly wrapped up in her rugs, Miss
+Katherine Earle, balancing a cup of steaming coffee in her hand. The
+steamer chair had been tightly tied to the brass stanchion, or
+hand-rail, that ran along the side of the housed-in portion of the
+companion-way, and although the steamer swayed to and fro, as well as
+up and down, the chair was immovable. An awning had been put up over
+the place where the chair was fastened, and every now and then on that
+dripping piece of canvas the salt rain fell, the result of the waves
+that dashed in on the other side of the steamer.
+
+“Good morning, Mr. Morris!” said the young lady, brightly. “I am very
+glad you have come. I will let you into a shipboard secret. The steward
+of the smoking-room brings up every morning a pot of very fragrant
+coffee. Now, if you will speak to him, I am sure he will be very glad
+to give you a cup.”
+
+“You do like to make fun of me, don’t you?” answered the young man.
+
+“Oh, dear no,” said Miss Earle, “I shouldn’t think of making fun of
+anything so serious. Is it making fun of a person who looks half frozen
+to offer him a cup of warm coffee? I think there is more philanthropy
+than fun about that.”
+
+“Well, I don’t know but you are right. At any rate, I prefer to take it
+as philanthropy rather than fun. I shall go and get a cup of coffee for
+myself, if you will permit me to place a chair beside yours?”
+
+“Oh, I beg you not to go for the coffee yourself. You certainly will
+never reach here with it. You see the remains of that cup down by the
+side of the vessel. The steward himself slipped and fell with that
+piece of crockery in his hands. I am sure he hurt himself, although he
+said he didn’t.”
+
+“Did you give him an extra fee on that account?” asked Morris,
+cynically.
+
+“Of course I did. I am like the Government in that respect. I take care
+of those who are injured in my service.”
+
+“Perhaps, that’s why he went down. They are a sly set, those stewards.
+He knew that a man would simply laugh at him, or perhaps utter some
+maledictions if he were not feeling in very good humour. In all my
+ocean voyages I have never had the good fortune to see a steward fall.
+He knew, also, the rascal, that a lady would sympathise with him, and
+that he wouldn’t lose anything by it, except the cup, which is not his
+loss.”
+
+“Oh yes, it is,” replied the young lady, “he tells me they charge all
+breakages against him.”
+
+“He didn’t tell you what method they had of keeping track of the
+breakages, did he? Suppose he told the chief steward that you broke the
+cup, which is likely he did. What then?”
+
+“Oh, you are too cynical this morning, and it would serve you just
+right if you go and get some coffee for yourself, and meet with the
+same disaster that overtook the unfortunate steward. Only you are
+forewarned that you shall have neither sympathy nor fee.”
+
+“Well, in that case,” said the young man, “I shall not take the risk. I
+shall sacrifice the steward rather. Oh, here he is. I say, steward,
+will you bring me a cup of coffee, please?”
+
+“Yes, sir. Any biscuit, sir?”
+
+“No, no biscuit. Just a cup of coffee and a couple of lumps of sugar,
+please; and if you can first get me a chair, and strap it to this rod
+in the manner you do so well, I shall be very much obliged.”
+
+“Yes, sir. I shall call the deck steward, sir.”
+
+“Now, notice that. You see the rascals never interfere with each other.
+The deck steward wants a fee, and the smoking-room steward wants a fee,
+and each one attends strictly to his own business, and doesn’t
+interfere with the possible fees of anybody else.”
+
+“Well,” said Miss Earle, “is not that the correct way? If things are to
+be well done, that is how they should be done. Now, just notice how
+much more artistically the deck steward arranged these rugs than you
+did yesterday morning. I think it is worth a good fee to be wrapped up
+so comfortably as that.”
+
+“I guess I’ll take lessons from the deck steward then, and even if I do
+not get a fee, I may perhaps get some gratitude at least.”
+
+“Gratitude? Why, you should think it a privilege.”
+
+“Well, Miss Earle, to tell the truth, I do. It is a privilege that—I
+hope you will not think I am trying to flatter you when I say—any man
+might be proud of.”
+
+“Oh, dear,” replied the young lady, laughing, “I did not mean it in
+that way at all. I meant that it was a privilege to be allowed to
+practise on those particular rugs. Now, a man should remember that he
+undertakes a very great responsibility when he volunteers to place the
+rugs around a lady on a steamer chair. He may make her look very neat
+and even pretty by a nice disposal of the rugs, or he may make her look
+like a horrible bundle.”
+
+“Well, then, I think I was not such a failure after all yesterday
+morning, for you certainly looked very neat and pretty.”
+
+“Then, if I did, Mr. Morris, do not flatter yourself it was at all on
+account of your disposal of the rugs, for the moment you had left a
+very handsome young lady came along, and, looking at me, said, with
+such a pleasant smile, ‘Why, what a pretty rug you have there; but how
+the steward _has_ bungled it about you! Let me fix it,’ and with that
+she gave it a touch here and a smooth down there, and the result was
+really so nice that I hated to go down to breakfast. It is a pity you
+went away so quickly yesterday morning. You might have had an
+opportunity of becoming acquainted with the lady, who is, I think, the
+prettiest girl on board this ship.”
+
+“Do you?” said Mr. Morris, shortly.
+
+“Yes, I do. Have you noticed her? She sits over there at the long table
+near the centre. You must have seen her; she is so very, very pretty,
+that you cannot help noticing her.”
+
+“I am not looking after pretty women this voyage,” said Morris,
+savagely.
+
+“Oh, are you not? Well, I must thank you for that. That is evidently a
+very sincere compliment. No, I can’t call it a compliment, but a
+sincere remark, I think the first sincere one you have made to-day.”
+
+“Why, what do you mean?” said Morris, looking at her in a bewildered
+sort of way.
+
+“You have been looking after me this morning, have you not, and
+yesterday morning? And taking ever so much pains to be helpful and
+entertaining, and now, all at once you say—Well, you know what you said
+just now.”
+
+“Oh yes. Well, you see—”
+
+“Oh, you can’t get out of it, Mr. Morris. It was said, and with evident
+sincerity.”
+
+“Then you really think you are pretty?” said Mr. Morris, looking at his
+companion, who flushed under the remark.
+
+“Ah, now,” she said, “you imagine you are carrying the war into the
+enemy’s country. But I don’t at all appreciate a remark like that. I
+don’t know but I dislike it even more than I do your compliments, which
+is saying a good deal.”
+
+“I assure you,” said Morris, stiffly, “that I have not intended to pay
+any compliments. I am not a man who pays compliments.”
+
+“Not even left-handed ones?”
+
+“Not even any kind, that I know of. I try as a general thing to speak
+the truth.”
+
+“Ah, and shame your hearers?”
+
+“Well, I don’t care who I shame as long as I succeed in speaking the
+truth.”
+
+“Very well, then; tell me the truth. Have you noticed this handsome
+young lady I speak of?”
+
+“Yes, I have seen her.”
+
+“Don’t you think she is very pretty?”
+
+“Yes, I think she is.”
+
+“Don’t you think she is the prettiest woman on the ship?”
+
+“Yes, I think she is.”
+
+“Are you afraid of pretty women?”
+
+“No, I don’t think I am.”
+
+“Then, tell me why, the moment she appeared on the deck yesterday
+morning, you were so much agitated that you spilled most of my coffee
+in the saucer?”
+
+“Did I appear agitated?” asked Morris, with some hesitation.
+
+“Now, I consider that sort of thing worse than a direct prevarication.”
+
+“What sort of thing?”
+
+“Why, a disingenuous answer. You _know_ you appeared agitated. You know
+you _were_ agitated. You know you had a camp-stool, and that you
+intended to sit down here and drink your coffee. All at once you
+changed your mind, and that change was coincident with the appearance
+on deck of the handsome young lady I speak of. I merely ask why?”
+
+“Now, look here, Miss Earle, even the worst malefactor is not expected
+to incriminate himself. I can refuse to answer, can I not?”
+
+“Certainly you may. You may refuse to answer anything, if you like. It
+was only because you were boasting about speaking the truth that I
+thought I should test your truth-telling qualities. I have been
+expecting every moment that you would say to me I was very impertinent,
+and that it was no business of mine, which would have been quite true.
+There, you see, you had a beautiful chance of speaking the truth which
+you let slip entirely unnoticed. But there is the breakfast gong. Now,
+I must confess to being very hungry indeed. I think I shall go down
+into the saloon.”
+
+“Please take my arm, Miss Earle,” said the young man.
+
+“Oh, not at all,” replied that young lady; “I want something infinitely
+more stable. I shall work my way along this brass rod until I can make
+a bolt for the door. If you want to make yourself real useful, go and
+stand on the stairway, or the companion-way I think you call it, and if
+I come through the door with too great force you’ll prevent me from
+going down the stairs.”
+
+“‘Who ran to help me when I fell,’” quoted Mr. Morris, as he walked
+along ahead of her, having some difficulty in maintaining his
+equilibrium.
+
+“I wouldn’t mind the falling,” replied the young lady, “if you only
+would some pretty story tell; but you are very prosaic, Mr. Morris. Do
+you ever read anything at all?”
+
+“I never read when I have somebody more interesting than a book to talk
+to.”
+
+“Oh, thank you. Now, if you will get into position on the stairway, I
+shall make my attempts at getting to the door.”
+
+“I feel like a base-ball catcher,” said Morris, taking up a position
+somewhat similar to that of the useful man behind the bat.
+
+Miss Earle, however, waited until the ship was on an even keel, then
+walked to the top of the companion-way, and, deftly catching up the
+train of her dress with as much composure as if she were in a ballroom,
+stepped lightly down the stairway. Looking smilingly over her shoulder
+at the astonished baseball catcher, she said—
+
+“I wish you would not stand in that ridiculous attitude, but come and
+accompany me to the breakfast table. As I told you, I am very hungry.”
+
+The steamer gave a lurch that nearly precipitated Morris down the
+stairway, and the next moment he was by her side.
+
+“Are you fond of base-ball?” she said to him.
+
+“You should see me in the park when our side makes a home run. Do you
+like the game?”
+
+“I never saw a game in my life.”
+
+“What! you an American girl, and never saw a game of base-ball? Why, I
+am astonished.”
+
+“I did not say that I was an American girl.”
+
+“Oh, that’s a fact. I took you for one, however.”
+
+They were both of them so intent on their conversation in walking up
+the narrow way between the long table and the short ones, that neither
+of them noticed the handsome blonde young lady standing beside her
+chair looking at them. It was only when that young lady said, “Why, Mr.
+Morris, is this you?” and when that gentleman jumped as if a cannon had
+been fired beside him, that either of them noticed their fair
+fellow-traveller.
+
+“Y—es,” stammered Morris, “it is!”
+
+The young lady smiled sweetly and held out her hand, which Morris took
+in an awkward way.
+
+“I was just going to ask you,” she said, “when you came aboard. How
+ridiculous that would have been. Of course, you have been here all the
+time. Isn’t it curious that we have not met each other?—we of all
+persons in the world.”
+
+Morris, who had somewhat recovered his breath, looked steadily at her
+as she said this, and her eyes, after encountering his gaze for a
+moment, sank to the floor.
+
+Miss Earle, who had waited for a moment expecting that Morris would
+introduce her, but seeing that he had for the time being apparently
+forgotten everything on earth, quietly left them, and took her place at
+the breakfast table. The blonde young lady looked up again at Mr.
+Morris, and said—
+
+“I am afraid I am keeping you from breakfast.”
+
+“Oh, that doesn’t matter.”
+
+“I am afraid, then,” she continued sweetly, “that I am keeping you from
+your very interesting table companion.”
+
+“Yes, that _does_ matter,” said Morris, looking at her. “I wish you
+good morning, madam.” And with that he left her and took his place at
+the head of the small table.
+
+There was a vindictive look in the blonde young lady’s pretty eyes as
+she sank into her own seat at the breakfast table.
+
+Miss Earle had noticed the depressing effect which even the sight of
+the blonde lady exercised on Morris the day before, and she looked
+forward, therefore, to rather an uncompanionable breakfast. She was
+surprised, however, to see that Morris had an air of jaunty joviality,
+which she could not help thinking was rather forced.
+
+“Now,” he said, as he sat down on the sofa at the head of the table, “I
+think it’s about time for us to begin our chutney fight.”
+
+“Our what?” asked the young lady, looking up at him with open eyes.
+
+“Is it possible,” he said, “that you have crossed the ocean and never
+engaged in the chutney fight? I always have it on this line.”
+
+“I am sorry to appear so ignorant,” said Miss Earle, “but I have to
+confess I do not know what chutney is.”
+
+“I am glad of that,” returned the young man. “It delights me to find in
+your nature certain desert spots—certain irreclaimable lands, I might
+say—of ignorance.”
+
+“I do not see why a person should rejoice in the misfortunes of another
+person,” replied the young lady.
+
+“Oh, don’t you? Why, it is the most natural thing in the world. There
+is nothing that we so thoroughly dislike as a person, either lady or
+gentleman, who is perfect. I suspect you rather have the advantage of
+me in the reading of books, but I certainly have the advantage of you
+on chutney, and I intend to make the most of it.”
+
+“I am sure I shall be very glad to be enlightened, and to confess my
+ignorance whenever it is necessary, and that, I fear, will be rather
+often. So, if our acquaintance continues until the end of the voyage,
+you will be in a state of perpetual delight.”
+
+“Well, that’s encouraging. You will be pleased to learn that chutney is
+a sauce, an Indian sauce, and on this line somehow or other they never
+have more than one or two bottles. I do not know whether it is very
+expensive. I presume it is. Perhaps it is because there is very little
+demand for it, a great number of people not knowing what chutney is.”
+
+“Thank you,” said the young lady, “I am glad to find that I am in the
+majority, at least, even in the matter of ignorance.”
+
+“Well, as I was saying, chutney is rather a seductive sauce. You may
+not like it at first, but it grows on you. You acquire, as it were, the
+chutney habit. An old Indian traveller, whom I had the pleasure of
+crossing with once, and who sat at the same table with me, demanded
+chutney. He initiated me into the mysteries of chutney, and he had a
+chutney fight all the way across.”
+
+“I still have to confess that I do not see what there is to fight about
+in the matter of chutney.”
+
+“Don’t you? Well, you shall soon have a practical illustration of the
+terrors of a chutney fight. Steward,” called Morris, “just bring me a
+bottle of chutney, will you?”
+
+“Chutney, air?” asked the steward, as if he had never heard the word
+before.
+
+“Yes, chutney. Chutney sauce.”
+
+“I am afraid, sir,” said the steward, “that we haven’t any chutney
+sauce.”
+
+“Oh yes, you have. I see a bottle there on the captain’s table. I think
+there is a second bottle at the smaller table. Just two doors up the
+street. Have the kindness to bring it to me.”
+
+The steward left for the chutney, and Morris looking after him, saw
+that there was some discussion between him and the steward of the other
+table. Finally, Morris’s steward came back and said, “I am very sorry,
+sir, but they are using the chutney at that table.”
+
+“Now look here, steward,” said Morris, “you know that you are here to
+take care of us, and that at the end of the voyage I will take care of
+you. Don’t make any mistake about that. You understand me?”
+
+“Yes, sir, I do,” said the steward. “Thank you, sir.”
+
+“All right,” replied Morris. “Now you understand that I want chutney,
+and chutney I am going to have.”
+
+Steward number one waited until steward number two had disappeared
+after another order, and then he deftly reached over, took the chutney
+sauce, and placed it before Mr. Morris.
+
+“Now, Miss Earle, I hope that you will like this chutney sauce. You see
+there is some difficulty in getting it, and that of itself ought to be
+a strong recommendation for it.”
+
+“It is a little too hot to suit me,” answered the young lady, trying
+the Indian sauce, “still, there is a pleasant flavour about it that I
+like.”
+
+“Oh, you are all right,” said Morris, jauntily; “you will be a victim
+of the chutney habit before two days. People who dislike it at first
+are its warmest advocates afterwards. I use the word warmest without
+any allusion to the sauce itself, you know. I shall now try some
+myself.”
+
+As he looked round the table for the large bottle, he saw that it had
+been whisked away by steward number two, and now stood on the other
+table. Miss Earle laughed.
+
+“Oh, I shall have it in a moment,” said the young man.
+
+“Do you think it is worth while?”
+
+“Worth while? Why, that is the excitement of a chutney fight. It is not
+that we care for chutney at all, but that we simply are bound to have
+it. If there were a bottle of chutney at every table, the delights of
+chutney would be gone. Steward,” said Morris, as that functionary
+appeared, “the chutney, please.”
+
+The steward cast a rapid glance at the other table, and waited until
+steward number two had disappeared. Then Morris had his chutney.
+Steward number two, seeing his precious bottle gone, tried a second
+time to stealthily obtain possession of it, but Morris said to him in a
+pleasant voice, “That’s all right, steward, we are through with the
+chutney. Take it along, please. So that,” continued Mr. Morris, as Miss
+Earle rose from the table, “that is your first experience of a chutney
+fight—one of the delights of ocean travel.”
+
+Fourth Day
+
+Mr. George Morris began to find his “early coffees,” as he called them,
+very delightful. It was charming to meet a pretty and entertaining
+young lady every morning early when they had the deck practically to
+themselves. The fourth day was bright and clear, and the sea was
+reasonably calm. For the first time he was up earlier than Miss Earle,
+and he paced the deck with great impatience, waiting for her
+appearance. He wondered who and what she was. He had a dim, hazy idea
+that some time before in his life, he had met her, and probably had
+been acquainted with her. What an embarrassing thing it would be, he
+thought, if he had really known her years before, and had forgotten
+her, while she knew who he was, and had remembered him. He thought of
+how accurately she had guessed his position in life—if it was a guess.
+He remembered that often, when he looked at her, he felt certain he had
+known her and spoken to her before. He placed the two steamer chairs in
+position, so that Miss Earle’s chair would be ready for her when she
+did appear, and then, as he walked up and down the deck waiting for
+her, he began to wonder at himself. If any one had told him when he
+left New York that, within three or four days he could feel such an
+interest in a person who previous to that time had been an utter
+stranger to him, he would have laughed scornfully and bitterly at the
+idea. As it was, when he thought of all the peculiar circumstances of
+the case, he laughed aloud, but neither scornfully nor bitterly.
+
+“You must be having very pleasant thoughts, Mr. Morris,” said Miss
+Earle, as she appeared with a bright shawl thrown over her shoulders,
+instead of the long cloak that had encased her before, and with a Tam
+o’ Shanter set jauntily on her black, curly hair.
+
+“You are right,” said Morris, taking off his cap, “I was thinking of
+you.”
+
+“Oh, indeed,” replied the young lady, “that’s why you laughed, was it?
+I may say that I do not relish being laughed at in my absence, or in my
+presence either, for that matter.”
+
+“Oh, I assure you I wasn’t laughing at you. I laughed with pleasure to
+see you come on deck. I have been waiting for you.”
+
+“Now, Mr. Morris, that from a man who boasts of his truthfulness is a
+little too much. You did not see me at all until I spoke; and if, as
+you say, you were thinking of me, you will have to explain that laugh.”
+
+“I will explain it before the voyage is over, Miss Earle. I can’t
+explain it just now.”
+
+“Ah, then you admit you were untruthful when you said you laughed
+because you saw me?”
+
+“I may as well admit it. You seem to know things intuitively. I am not
+nearly as truthful a person as I thought I was until I met you. You
+seem the very embodiment of truth. If I had not met you, I imagine I
+should have gone through life thinking myself one of the most truthful
+men in New York.”
+
+“Perhaps that would not be saying very much for yourself,” replied the
+young lady, as she took her place in the steamer chair.
+
+“I am sorry you have such a poor opinion of us New Yorkers,” said the
+young man. “Why are you so late this morning?”
+
+“I am not late; it is you who are early. This is my usual time. I have
+been a very punctual person all my life.”
+
+“There you go again, speaking as if you were ever so old.”
+
+“I am.”
+
+“Well, I don’t believe it. I wish, however, that you had confidence
+enough in me to tell me something about yourself. Do you know, I was
+thinking this morning that I had met you before somewhere? I feel
+almost certain I have.”
+
+“Well, that is quite possible, you know. You are a New Yorker, and I
+have lived in New York for a great number of years, much as you seem to
+dislike that phrase.”
+
+“New York! Oh, that is like saying you have lived in America and I have
+lived in America. We might live for hundreds of years in New York and
+never meet one another!”
+
+“That is very true, except that the time is a little long.”
+
+“Then won’t you tell me something about yourself?”
+
+“No, I will not.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“Why? Well, if you will tell me why you have the right to ask such a
+question, I shall answer why.”
+
+“Oh, if you talk of rights, I suppose I haven’t the right. But I am
+willing to tell you anything about myself. Now, a fair exchange, you
+know—”
+
+“But I don’t wish to know anything about you.”
+
+“Oh, thank you.”
+
+George Morris’s face clouded, and he sat silent for a few moments.
+
+“I presume,” he said again, “that you think me very impertinent?”
+
+“Well, frankly, I do.”
+
+Morris gazed out at the sea, and Miss Earle opened the book which she
+had brought with her, and began to read. After a while her companion
+said—
+
+“I think that you are a little too harsh with me, Miss Earle.”
+
+The young lady placed her finger between the leaves of the book and
+closed it, looking up at him with a frank, calm expression in her dark
+eyes, but said nothing.
+
+“You see, it’s like this. I said to you a little while since that I
+seem to have known you before. Now, I’ll tell you what I was thinking
+of when you met me this morning. I was thinking what a curious thing it
+would be if I had been acquainted with you some time during my past
+life, and had forgotten you, while you had remembered me.”
+
+“That was very flattering to me,” said the young lady; “I don’t wonder
+you laughed.”
+
+“That is why I did not wish to tell you what I had been thinking
+of—just for fear that you would put a wrong construction on it—as you
+have done. But now you can’t say anything much harsher to me than you
+have said, and so I tell you frankly just what I thought, and why I
+asked you those questions which you seem to think are so impertinent.
+Besides this, you know, a sea acquaintance is different from any other
+acquaintance. As I said, the first time I spoke to you—or the
+second—there is no one here to introduce us. On land, when a person is
+introduced to another person, he does not say, ‘Miss Earle, this is Mr.
+Morris, who is a younger partner in the house of So-and-so.’ He merely
+says, ‘Miss Earle, Mr. Morris,’ and there it is. If you want to find
+anything out about him you can ask your introducer or ask your friends,
+and you can find out. Now, on shipboard it is entirely different.
+Suppose, for instance, that I did not tell you who I am, and—if you
+will pardon me for suggesting such an absurd supposition—-imagine that
+you wanted to find out, how could you do it?”
+
+Miss Earle looked at him for a moment, and then she answered—
+
+“I would ask that blonde young lady.”
+
+This reply was so utterly unexpected by Morris that he looked at her
+with wide eyes, the picture of a man dumbfounded. At that moment the
+smoking-room steward came up to them and said—
+
+“Will you have your coffee now, sir?”
+
+“Coffee!” cried Morris, as if he had never heard the word before.
+“Coffee!”
+
+“Yes,” answered Miss Earle, sweetly, “we will have the coffee now, if
+you please. You will have a cup with me, will you not, Mr. Morris?”
+
+“Yes, I will, if it is not too much trouble.”
+
+“Oh, it is no trouble to me,” said, the young lady; “some trouble to
+the steward, but I believe even for him that it is not a trouble that
+cannot be recompensed.”
+
+Morris sipped his coffee in silence. Every now and then Miss Earle
+stole a quiet look at him, and apparently was waiting for him to again
+resume the conversation. This he did not seem in a hurry to do. At last
+she said—
+
+“Mr. Morris, suppose we were on shipboard and that we had become
+acquainted without the friendly intervention of an introducer, and
+suppose, if such a supposition is at all within the bounds of
+probability, that you wanted to find out something about me, how would
+you go about it?”
+
+“How would I go about it?”
+
+“Yes. How?”
+
+“I would go about it in what would be the worst possible way. I would
+frankly ask you, and you would as frankly snub me.”
+
+“Suppose, then, while declining to tell you anything about myself I
+were to refer you to somebody who would give you the information you
+desire, would you take the opportunity of learning?”
+
+“I would prefer to hear from yourself anything I desired to learn.”
+
+“Now, that is very nicely said, Mr. Morris, and you make me feel almost
+sorry, for having spoken to you as I did. Still, if you really want to
+find out something about me, I shall tell you some one whom you can
+ask, and who will doubtless answer you.”
+
+“Who is that? The captain?”
+
+“No. It is the same person to whom I should go if I wished to have
+information of you—the blonde young lady.”
+
+“Do you mean to say you know her?” asked the astonished young man.
+
+“I said nothing of the sort.”
+
+“Well, _do_ you know her?”
+
+“No, I do not.”
+
+“Do you know her name?”
+
+“No, I do not even know her name.”
+
+“Have you ever met her before you came on board this ship?”
+
+“Yes, I have.”
+
+“Well, if that isn’t the most astonishing thing I ever heard!”
+
+“I don’t see why it is. You say you thought you had met me before. As
+you are a man no doubt you have forgotten it. I say I think I have met
+that young lady before. As she is a woman I don’t think she will have
+forgotten. If you have any interest in the matter at all you might
+inquire.”
+
+“I shall do nothing of the sort.”
+
+“Well, of course, I said I thought you hadn’t very much interest. I
+only supposed the case.”
+
+“It is not that I have not the interest, but it is that I prefer to go
+to the person who can best answer my question if she chooses to do so.
+If she doesn’t choose to answer me, then I don’t choose to learn.”
+
+“Now, I like that ever so much,” said the young lady; “if you will get
+me another cup of coffee I shall be exceedingly obliged to you. My
+excuse is that these cups are very small, and the coffee is very good.”
+
+“I am sure you don’t need any excuse,” replied Morris, springing to his
+feet, “and I am only too happy to be your steward without the hope of
+the fee at the end of the voyage.”
+
+When he returned she said, “I think we had better stop the personal
+conversation into which we have drifted. It isn’t at all pleasant to
+me, and I don’t think it is very agreeable to you. Now, I intended this
+morning to give you a lesson on American literature. I feel that you
+need enlightening on the subject, and that you have neglected your
+opportunities, as most New York men do, and so I thought you would be
+glad of a lesson or two.”
+
+“I shall be very glad of it indeed. I don’t know what our opportunities
+are, but if most New York men are like me I imagine a great many of
+them are in the same fix. We have very little time for the study of the
+literature of any country.”
+
+“And perhaps very little inclination.”
+
+“Well, you know, Miss Earle, there is some excuse for a busy man. Don’t
+you think there is?”
+
+“I don’t think there is very much. Who in America is a busier man than
+Mr. Gladstone? Yet he reads nearly everything, and is familiar with
+almost any subject you can mention.”
+
+“Oh, Gladstone! Well, he is a man of a million. But you take the
+average New York man. He is worried in business, and kept on the keen
+jump all the year round. Then he has a vacation, say for a couple of
+weeks or a month, in summer, and he goes off into the woods with his
+fishing kit, or canoeing outfit, or his amateur photographic set, or
+whatever the tools of his particular fad may be. He goes to a
+book-store and buys up a lot of paper-covered novels. There is no use
+of buying an expensive book, because he would spoil it before he gets
+back, and he would be sure to leave it in some shanty. So he takes
+those paper-covered abominations, and you will find torn copies of them
+scattered all through the Adirondacks, and down the St. Lawrence, and
+everywhere else that tourists congregate. I always tell the book-store
+man to give me the worst lot of trash he has got, and he does. Now,
+what is that book you have with you?”
+
+“This is one of Mr. Howells’ novels. You will admit, at least, that you
+have heard of Howells, I suppose?”
+
+“Heard of him? Oh yes; I have read some of Howells’ books. I am not as
+ignorant as you seem to think.”
+
+“What have you read of Mr. Howells’?”
+
+“Well, I read _The American,_ I don’t remember the others.”
+
+“_The American!_ That is by Henry James.”
+
+“Is it? Well, I knew that it was by either Howells or James, I forgot
+which. They didn’t write a book together, did they?”
+
+“Well, not that I know of. Why, the depth of your ignorance about
+American literature is something appalling. You talk of it so jauntily
+that you evidently have no idea of it yourself.”
+
+“I wish you would take me in hand, Miss Earle. Isn’t there any sort of
+condensed version that a person could get hold of? Couldn’t you give me
+a synopsis of what is written, so that I might post myself up in
+literature without going to the trouble of reading the books?”
+
+“The trouble! Oh, if that is the way you speak, then your case is
+hopeless! I suspected it for some time, but now I am certain. The
+trouble! The _delight_ of reading a new novel by Howells is something
+that you evidently have not the remotest idea of. Why, I don’t know
+what I would give to have with me a novel of Howells’ that I had not
+read.”
+
+“Goodness gracious! You don’t mean to say that you have read
+_everything_ he has written?”
+
+“Certainly I have, and I am reading one now that is coming out in the
+magazine; and I don’t know what I shall do if I am not able to get the
+magazine when I go to Europe.”
+
+“Oh, you can get them over there right enough, and cheaper than you can
+in America. They publish them over there.”
+
+“Do they? Well, I am glad to hear it.”
+
+“You see, there is something about American literature that you are not
+acquainted with, the publication of our magazines in England, for
+instance. Ah, there is the breakfast gong. Well, we will have to
+postpone our lesson in literature until afterwards. Will you be up here
+after breakfast?”
+
+“Yes, I think so.”
+
+“Well, we will leave our chairs and rugs just where they are. I will
+take your book down for you. Books have the habit of disappearing if
+they are left around on shipboard.”
+
+After breakfast Mr. Morris went to the smoking-room to enjoy his cigar,
+and there was challenged to a game of cards. He played one game; but
+his mind was evidently not on his amusement, so he excused himself from
+any further dissipation in that line, and walked out on deck. The
+promise of the morning had been more than fulfilled in the day, and the
+warm sunlight and mild air had brought on deck many who had not been
+visible up to that time. There was a long row of muffled up figures on
+steamer chairs, and the deck steward was kept busy hurrying here and
+there attending to the wants of the passengers. Nearly every one had a
+book, but many of the books were turned face downwards on the steamer
+rugs, while the owners either talked to those next them, or gazed idly
+out at the blue ocean. In the long and narrow open space between the
+chairs and the bulwarks of the ship, the energetic pedestrians were
+walking up and down.
+
+At this stage of the voyage most of the passengers had found congenial
+companions, and nearly everybody was acquainted with everybody else.
+Morris walked along in front of the reclining passengers, scanning each
+one eagerly to find the person he wanted, but she was not there.
+Remembering then that the chairs had been on the other side of the
+ship, he continued his walk around the wheel-house, and there he saw
+Miss Earle, and sitting beside her was the blonde young lady talking
+vivaciously, while Miss Earle listened.
+
+Morris hesitated for a moment, but before he could turn back the young
+lady sprang to her feet, and said—“Oh, Mr. Morris, am I sitting in your
+chair?”
+
+“What makes you think it is my chair?” asked that gentleman, not in the
+most genial tone of voice.
+
+“I thought so,” replied the young lady, with a laugh, “because it was
+near Miss Earle.”
+
+Miss Earle did not look at all pleased at this remark. She coloured
+slightly, and, taking the open book from her lap, began to read.
+
+“You are quite welcome to the chair,” replied Morris, and the moment
+the words were spoken he felt that somehow it was one of those things
+he would rather have left unsaid, as far as Miss Earle was concerned.
+“I beg that you will not disturb yourself,” he continued; and, raising
+his hat to the lady, he continued his walk.
+
+A chance acquaintance joined him, changing his step to suit that of
+Morris, and talked with him on the prospects of the next year being a
+good business season in the United States. Morris answered rather
+absent-mindedly, and it was nearly lunch-time before he had an
+opportunity of going back to see whether or not Miss Earle’s companion
+had left. When he reached the spot where they had been sitting he found
+things the very reverse of what he had hoped. Miss Earle’s chair was
+vacant, but her companion sat there, idly turning over the leaves of
+the book that Miss Earle had been reading. “Won’t you sit down, Mr.
+Morris?” said the young woman, looking up at him with a winning smile.
+“Miss Earle has gone to dress for lunch. I should do the same thing,
+but, alas! I am too indolent.”
+
+Morris hesitated for a moment, and then sat down beside her.
+
+“Why do you act so perfectly horrid to me?” asked the young lady,
+closing the book sharply.
+
+“I was not aware that I acted horridly to anybody,” answered Morris.
+
+“You know well enough that you have been trying your very best to avoid
+me.”
+
+“I think you are mistaken. I seldom try to avoid any one, and I see no
+reason why I should try to avoid you. Do you know of any reason?”
+
+The young lady blushed and looked down at her book, whose leaves she
+again began to turn.
+
+“I thought,” she said at last, “that you might have some feeling
+against me, and I have no doubt you judge me very harshly. You never
+_did_ make any allowances.”
+
+Morris gave a little laugh that was half a sneer.
+
+“Allowances?” he said.
+
+“Yes, allowances. You know you always were harsh with me, George,
+always.” And as she looked up at him her blue eyes were filled with
+tears, and there was a quiver at the corner of her mouth. “What a
+splendid actress you would make, Blanche,” said the young man, calling
+her by her name for the first time.
+
+She gave him a quick look as he did so. “Actress!” she cried. “No one
+was ever less an actress than I am, and you know that.”
+
+“Oh, well, what’s the use of us talking? It’s all right. We made a
+little mistake, that’s all, and people often make mistakes in this
+life, don’t they, Blanche?”
+
+“Yes,” sobbed that young lady, putting her dainty silk handkerchief to
+her eyes.
+
+“Now, for goodness sake,” said the young man, “don’t do that. People
+will think I am scolding you, and certainly there is no one in this
+world who has less right to scold you than I have.”
+
+“I thought,” murmured the young lady, from behind her handkerchief,
+“that we might at least be friends. I didn’t think you could ever act
+so harshly towards me as you have done for the past few days.”
+
+“Act?” cried the young man. “Bless me, I haven’t acted one way or the
+other. I simply haven’t had the pleasure of meeting you till the other
+evening, or morning, which ever it was. I have said nothing, and done
+nothing. I don’t see how I could be accused of acting, or of anything
+else.”
+
+“I think,” sobbed the young lady, “that you might at least have spoken
+kindly to me.”
+
+“Good gracious!” cried Morris, starting up, “here comes Miss Earle. For
+heaven’s sake put up that handkerchief.”
+
+But Blanche merely sank her face lower in it, while silent sobs shook
+her somewhat slender form.
+
+Miss Earle stood for a moment amazed as she looked at Morris’s flushed
+face, and at the bowed head of the young lady beside him; then, without
+a word, she turned and walked away.
+
+“I wish to goodness,” said Morris, harshly, “that if you are going to
+have a fit of crying you would not have it on deck, and where people
+can see you.”
+
+The young woman at once straightened up and flashed a look at him in
+which there were no traces of her former emotion.
+
+“People!” she said, scornfully. “Much _you_ care about people. It is
+because Miss Katherine Earle saw me that you are annoyed. You are
+afraid that it will interfere with your flirtation with her.”
+
+“Flirtation?”
+
+“Yes, flirtation. Surely it can’t be anything more serious?”
+
+“Why should it not be something more serious?” asked Morris, very
+coldly. The blue eyes opened wide in apparent astonishment.
+
+“Would you _marry_ her?” she said, with telling emphasis upon the word.
+
+“Why not?” he answered. “Any man might be proud to marry a lady like
+Miss Earle.”
+
+“A lady! Much of a lady she is! Why, she is one of your own shop-girls.
+You know it.”
+
+“Shop-girls?” cried Morris, in astonishment.
+
+“Yes, shop-girls. You don’t mean to say that she has concealed that
+fact from you, or that you didn’t know it by seeing her in the store?”
+
+“A shop-girl in my store?” he murmured, bewildered. “I knew I had seen
+her somewhere.”
+
+Blanche laughed a little irritating laugh.
+
+“What a splendid item it would make for the society papers,” she said.
+“The junior partner marries one of his own shop-girls, or, worse still,
+the junior partner and one of his shop-girls leave New York on the
+_City of Buffalo_, and are married in England. I hope that the
+reporters will not get the particulars of the affair.” Then, rising,
+she left the amazed young man to his thoughts.
+
+George Morris saw nothing more of Miss Katherine Earle that day.
+
+“I wonder what that vixen has said to her,” he thought, as he turned in
+for the night.
+
+Fifth Day
+
+In the early morning of the fifth day out, George Morris paced the deck
+alone.
+
+“Shop-girl or not,” he had said to himself, “Miss Katherine Earle is
+much more of a lady than the other ever was.” But as he paced the deck,
+and as Miss Earle did not appear, he began to wonder more and more what
+had been said to her in the long talk of yesterday forenoon. Meanwhile
+Miss Earle sat in her own state-room thinking over the same subject.
+Blanche had sweetly asked her for permission to sit down beside her.
+
+“I know no ladies on board,” she said, “and I think I have met you
+before.”
+
+“Yes,” answered Miss Earle, “I think we have met before.”
+
+“How good of you to have remembered me,” said Blanche, kindly.
+
+“I think,” replied Miss Earle, “that it is more remarkable that you
+should remember me than that I should remember you. Ladies very rarely
+notice the shop-girls who wait upon them.”
+
+“You seemed so superior to your station,” said Blanche, “that I could
+not help remembering you, and could not help thinking what a pity it
+was you had to be there.”
+
+“I do not think that there is anything either superior or inferior
+about the station. It is quite as honourable, or dishonourable, which
+ever it may be, as any other branch of business. I cannot see, for
+instance, why my station, selling ribbons at retail, should be any more
+dishonourable than the station of the head of the firm, who merely does
+on a very large scale what I was trying to do for him on a very limited
+scale.”
+
+“Still,” said Blanche, with a yawn, “people do not all look upon it in
+exactly that light.”
+
+“Hardly any two persons look on any one thing in the same light. I hope
+you have enjoyed your voyage so far?”
+
+“I have not enjoyed it very much,” replied the young lady with a sigh.
+
+“I am sorry to hear that. I presume your father has been ill most of
+the way?”
+
+“My father?” cried the other, looking at her questioner.
+
+“Yes, I did not see him at the table since the first day.”
+
+“Oh, he has had to keep his room almost since we left. He is a very
+poor sailor.”
+
+“Then that must make your voyage rather unpleasant?”
+
+The blonde young lady made no reply, but, taking up the book which Miss
+Earle was reading, said, “You don’t find Mr. Morris much of a reader, I
+presume? He used not to be.”
+
+“I know very little about Mr. Morris,” said Miss Earle, freezingly.
+
+“Why, you knew him before you came on board, did you not?” questioned
+the other, raising her eyebrows.
+
+“No, I did not.”
+
+“You certainly know he is junior partner in the establishment where you
+work?”
+
+“I know that, yes, but I had never spoken to him before I met him on
+board this steamer.”
+
+“Is that possible? Might I ask you if there is any probability of your
+becoming interested in Mr. Morris?”
+
+“Interested! What do you mean?”
+
+“Oh, you know well enough what I mean. We girls do not need to be
+humbugs with each other, whatever we may be before the men. When a
+young woman meets a young man in the early morning, and has coffee with
+him, and when she reads to him, and tries to cultivate his literary
+tastes, whatever they may be, she certainly shows some interest in the
+young man, don’t you think so?”
+
+Miss Earle looked for a moment indignantly at her questioner. “I do not
+recognise your right,” she said, “to ask me such a question.”
+
+“No? Then let me tell you that I have every right to ask it. I assure
+you that I have thought over the matter deeply before I spoke. It
+seemed to me there was one chance in a thousand—only one chance in a
+thousand, remember—that you were acting honestly, and on that one
+chance I took the liberty of speaking to you. The right I have to ask
+such a question is this—Mr. George Morris has been engaged to me for
+several years.”
+
+“Engaged to _you_?”
+
+“Yes. If you don’t believe it, ask him.”
+
+“It is the very last question in the world I would ask anybody.”
+
+“Well, then, you will have to take my word for it. I hope you are not
+very shocked, Miss Earle, to hear what I have had to tell you.”
+
+“Shocked? Oh dear, no. Why should I be? It is really a matter of no
+interest to me, I assure you.”
+
+“Well, I am very glad to hear you say so. I did not know but you might
+have become more interested in Mr. Morris than you would care to own. I
+think myself that he is quite a fascinating young gentleman; but I
+thought it only just to you that you should know exactly how matters
+stood.”
+
+“I am sure I am very much obliged to you.”
+
+This much of the conversation Miss Earle had thought over in her own
+room that morning. “Did it make a difference to her or not?” that was
+the question she was asking herself. The information had certainly
+affected her opinion of Mr. Morris, and she smiled to herself rather
+bitterly as she thought of his claiming to be so exceedingly truthful.
+Miss Earle did not, however, go up on deck until the breakfast gong had
+rung.
+
+“Good morning,” said Morris, as he took his place at the little table.
+“I was like the boy on the burning deck this morning, when all but he
+had fled. I was very much disappointed that you did not come up, and
+have your usual cup of coffee.”
+
+“I am sorry to hear that,” said Miss Earle; “if I had known I was
+disappointing anybody I should have been here.”
+
+“Miss Katherine,” he said, “you are a humbug. You knew very well that I
+would be disappointed if you did not come.”
+
+The young lady looked up at him, and for a moment she thought of
+telling him that her name was Miss Earle, but for some reason she did
+not do so.
+
+“I want you to promise now,” he continued, “that to-morrow morning you
+will be on deck as usual.”
+
+“Has it become a usual thing, then?”
+
+“Well, that’s what I am trying to make it,” he answered. “Will you
+promise?”
+
+“Yes, I promise.”
+
+“Very well, then, I look on that as settled. Now, about to-day. What
+are you going to do with yourself after breakfast?”
+
+“Oh, the usual thing, I suppose. I shall sit in my steamer chair and
+read an interesting book.”
+
+“And what is the interesting book for to-day?”
+
+“It is a little volume by Henry James, entitled _The Siege of London._”
+
+“Why, I never knew that London had been besieged. When did that
+happen?”
+
+“Well, I haven’t got very far in the book yet, but it seems to have
+happened quite recently, within a year or two, I think. It is one of
+the latest of Mr. James’s short stories. I have not read it yet.”
+
+“Ah, then the siege is not historical?”
+
+“Not historical further than Mr. James is the historian.”
+
+“Now, Miss Earle, are you good at reading out loud?”
+
+“No, I am not.”
+
+“Why, how decisively you say that. I couldn’t answer like that, because
+I don’t know whether I am or not. I have never tried any of it. But if
+you will allow me, I will read that book out to you. I should like to
+have the good points indicated to me, and also the defects.”
+
+“There are not likely to be many defects,” said the young lady. “Mr.
+James is a very correct writer. But I do not care either to read aloud
+or have a book read to me. Besides, we disturb the conversation or the
+reading of any one else who happens to sit near us. I prefer to enjoy a
+book by reading it myself.”
+
+“Ah, I see you are resolved cruelly to shut me out of all participation
+in your enjoyment.”
+
+“Oh, not at all. I shall be very happy to discuss the book with you
+afterwards. You should read it for yourself. Then, when you have done
+so, we might have a talk on its merits or demerits, if you think, after
+you have read it, that it has any.”
+
+“Any what? merits or demerits?”
+
+“Well, any either.”
+
+“No; I will tell you a better plan than that. I am not going to waste
+my time reading it.”
+
+“Waste, indeed!”
+
+“Certainly waste. Not when I have a much better plan of finding out
+what is in the book. I am going to get you to tell me the story after
+you have read it.”
+
+“Oh, indeed, and suppose I refuse?”
+
+“Will you?”
+
+“Well, I don’t know. I only said suppose.”
+
+“Then I shall spend the rest of the voyage trying to persuade you.”
+
+“I am not very easily persuaded, Mr. Morris.”
+
+“I believe that,” said the young man. “I presume I may sit beside you
+while you are reading your book?”
+
+“You certainly may, if you wish to. The deck is not mine, only that
+portion of it, I suppose, which I occupy with the steamer chair. I have
+no authority over any of the rest.”
+
+“Now, is that a refusal or an acceptance?”
+
+“It is which ever you choose to think.”
+
+“Well, if it is a refusal, it is probably softening down the _No_, but
+if it is an acceptance it is rather an ungracious one, it seems to me.”
+
+“Well, then, I shall be frank with you. I am very much interested in
+this book. I should a great deal rather read it than talk to you.”
+
+“Oh, thank you, Miss Earle. There can be no possible doubt about your
+meaning now.”
+
+“Well, I am glad of that, Mr. Morris. I am always pleased to think that
+I can speak in such a way as not to be misunderstood.”
+
+“I don’t see any possible way of misunderstanding that. I wish I did.”
+
+“And then, after lunch,” said the young lady, “I think I shall finish
+the book before that time;—if you care to sit beside me or to walk the
+deck with me, I shall be very glad to tell you the story.”
+
+“Now, that is perfectly delightful,” cried the young man. “You throw a
+person down into the depths, so that he will appreciate all the more
+being brought up into the light again.”
+
+“Oh, not at all. I have no such dramatic ideas in speaking frankly with
+you. I merely mean that this forenoon I wish to have to myself, because
+I am interested in my book. At the end of the forenoon I shall probably
+be tired of my book and will prefer a talk with you. I don’t see why
+you should think it odd that a person should say exactly what a person
+means.”
+
+“And then I suppose in the evening you will be tired of talking with
+me, and will want to take up your book again.”
+
+“Possibly.”
+
+“And if you are, you won’t hesitate a moment about saying so?”
+
+“Certainly not.”
+
+“Well, you are a decidedly frank young lady, Miss Earle; and, after
+all, I don’t know but what I like that sort of thing best. I think if
+all the world were honest we would all have a better time of it here.”
+
+“Do you really think so?”
+
+“Yes, I do.”
+
+“You believe in honesty, then?”
+
+“Why, certainly. Have you seen anything in my conduct or bearing that
+would induce you to think that I did not believe in honesty?”
+
+“No, I can’t say I have. Still, honesty is such a rare quality that a
+person naturally is surprised when one comes unexpectedly upon it.”
+
+George Morris found the forenoon rather tedious and lonesome. He sat in
+the smoking room, and once or twice he ventured near where Miss Earle
+sat engrossed in her book, in the hope that the volume might have been
+put aside for the time, and that he would have some excuse for sitting
+down and talking with her. Once as he passed she looked up with a
+bright smile and nodded to him.
+
+“Nearly through?” he asked dolefully.
+
+“Of _The Siege of London_?” she asked.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Oh, I am through that long ago, and have begun another story.”
+
+“Now, that is not according to contract,” claimed Morris. “The contract
+was that when you got through with _The Siege of London_ you were to
+let me talk with you, and that you were to tell me the story.”
+
+“That was not my interpretation of it. Our bargain, as I understood it,
+was that I was to have this forenoon to myself, and that I was to use
+the forenoon for reading. I believe my engagement with you began in the
+afternoon.”
+
+“I wish it did,” said the young man, with a wistful look.
+
+“You wish what?” she said, glancing up at him sharply.
+
+He blushed as he bent over towards her and whispered, “That our
+engagement, Miss Katherine, began in the afternoon.”
+
+The colour mounted rapidly into her cheeks, and for a moment George
+Morris thought he had gone too far. It seemed as if a sharp reply was
+ready on her lips; but, as on another occasion, she checked it and said
+nothing. Then she opened her book and began to read. He waited for a
+moment and said—
+
+“Miss Earle, have I offended you?”
+
+“Did you mean to give offence?” she asked.
+
+“No, certainly, I did not.”
+
+“Then why should you think you had offended me?”
+
+“Well, I don’t know, I—” he stammered.
+
+Miss Earle looked at him with such clear, innocent, and unwavering eyes
+that the young man felt that he could neither apologise nor make an
+explanation.
+
+“I’m afraid,” he said, “that I am encroaching on your time.”
+
+“Yes, I think you are: that is, if you intend to live up to your
+contract, and let me live up to mine. You have no idea how much more
+interesting this book is than you are.”
+
+“Why, you are not a bit flattering, Miss Earle, are you?”
+
+“No, I don’t think I am. Do you try to be?”
+
+“I’m afraid that in my lifetime I have tried to be, but I assure you,
+Miss Earle, that I don’t try to be flattering, or try to be anything
+but what I really am when I am in your company. To tell the truth, I am
+too much afraid of you.”
+
+Miss Earle smiled and went on with her reading, while Morris went once
+more back into the smoking-room.
+
+“Now then,” said George Morris, when lunch was over, “which is it to
+be? The luxurious languor of the steamer chair or the energetic
+exercise of the deck? Take your choice.”
+
+“Well,” answered the young lady, “as I have been enjoying the luxurious
+languor all the forenoon, I prefer the energetic exercise, if it is
+agreeable to you, for a while, at least.”
+
+“It is very agreeable to me. I am all energy this afternoon. In fact,
+now that you have consented to allow me to talk with you, I feel as if
+I were imbued with a new life.”
+
+“Dear me,” said she, “and all because of the privilege of talking to
+me?”
+
+“All.”
+
+“How nice that is. You are sure that it is not the effect of the sea
+air?”
+
+“Quite certain. I had the sea air this forenoon, you know.”
+
+“Oh, yes, I had forgotten that.”
+
+“Well, which side of the deck then?”
+
+“Oh, which ever is the least popular side. I dislike a crowd.”
+
+“I think, Miss Earle, that we will have this side pretty much to
+ourselves. The madd’ing crowd seems to have a preference for the sunny
+part of the ship. Now, then, for the siege of London. Who besieged it?”
+
+“A lady.”
+
+“Did she succeed?”
+
+“She did.”
+
+“Well, I am very glad to hear it, indeed. What was she besieging it
+for?”
+
+“For social position, I presume.
+
+“Then, as we say out West, I suppose she had a pretty hard row to hoe?”
+
+“Yes, she had.”
+
+“Well, I never can get at the story by cross-questioning. Now,
+supposing that you tell it to me.”
+
+“I think that you had better take the book and read it. I am not a good
+story-teller.”
+
+“Why, I thought we Americans were considered excellent story-tellers.’
+
+“We Americans?”
+
+“Oh, I remember now, you do not lay claim to being an American. You are
+English, I think you said?”
+
+“I said nothing of the kind. I merely said I lay no claims to being an
+American.”
+
+“Yes, that was it.”
+
+“Well, you will be pleased to know that this lady in the siege of
+London was an American. You seem so anxious to establish a person’s
+nationality that I am glad to be able to tell you at the very first
+that she was an American, and, what is more, seemed to be a Western
+American.”
+
+“Seemed? Oh, there we get into uncertainties again. If I like to know
+whether persons are Americans or not, it naturally follows that I am
+anxious to know whether they were Western or Eastern Americans. Aren’t
+you sure she was a Westerner?”
+
+“The story, unfortunately, leaves that a little vague, so if it
+displeases you I shall be glad to stop the telling of it.”
+
+“Oh no, don’t do that. I am quite satisfied to take her as an American
+citizen; whether she is East or West, or North or South, does not make
+the slightest difference to me. Please go on with the story.”
+
+“Well, the other characters, I am happy to be able to say, are not at
+all indefinite in the matter of nationality. One is an Englishman; he
+is even more than that, he is an English nobleman. The other is an
+American. Then there is the English nobleman’s mother, who, of course,
+is an English woman; and the American’s sister, married to an
+Englishman, and she, of course, is English-American. Does that satisfy
+you?”
+
+“Perfectly. Go on.”
+
+“It seems that the besieger, the heroine of the story if you may call
+her so, had a past.”
+
+“Has not everybody had a past?”
+
+“Oh no. This past is known to the American and is unknown to the
+English nobleman.”
+
+“Ah, I see; and the American is in love with her in spite of her past?”
+
+“Not in Mr. James’s story.”
+
+“Oh, I beg pardon. Well, go on; I shall not interrupt again.”
+
+“It is the English nobleman who is in love with her in spite of his
+absence of knowledge about her past. The English nobleman’s mother is
+very much against the match. She tries to get the American to tell what
+the past of this woman is. The American refuses to do so. In fact, in
+Paris he has half promised the besieger not to say anything about her
+past. She is besieging London, and she wishes the American to remain
+neutral. But the nobleman’s mother at last gets the American to promise
+that he will tell her son what he knows of this woman’s past. The
+American informs the woman what he has promised the nobleman’s mother
+to do, and at this moment the nobleman enters the room. The besieger of
+London, feeling that her game is up, leaves them together. The American
+says to the nobleman, who stands rather stiffly before him, ‘If you
+wish to ask me any questions regarding the lady who has gone out I
+shall be happy to tell you.’ Those are not the words of the book, but
+they are in substance what he said. The nobleman looked at him for a
+moment with that hauteur which, we presume, belongs to noblemen, and
+said quietly, ‘I wish to know nothing.’ Now, that strikes me as a very
+dramatic point in the story.”
+
+“But _didn’t_ he wish to know anything of the woman whom he was going
+to marry?”
+
+“I presume that, naturally, he did.”
+
+“And yet he did not take the opportunity of finding out when he had the
+chance?”
+
+“No, he did not.”
+
+“Well, what do you think of that?”
+
+“What do I think of it? I think it’s a very dramatic point in the
+story.”
+
+“Yes, but what do you think of his wisdom in refusing to find out what
+sort of a woman he was going to marry? Was he a fool or was he a very
+noble man?”
+
+“Why, I thought I said at the first that he was a nobleman, an
+Englishman.”
+
+“Miss Katherine, you are dodging the question. I asked your opinion of
+that man’s wisdom. Was he wise, or was he a fool?”
+
+“What do you think about it? Do you think he was a fool, or a wise
+man?”
+
+“Well, I asked you for your opinion first. However, I have very little
+hesitation in saying, that a man who marries a woman of whom he knows
+nothing, is a fool.”
+
+“Oh, but he was well acquainted with this woman. It was only her past
+that he knew nothing about.”
+
+“Well, I think you must admit that a woman’s past and a man’s past are
+very important parts of their lives. Don’t you agree with me?”
+
+“I agree with you so seldom that I should hesitate to say I did on this
+occasion. But I have told the story very badly. You will have to read
+it for yourself to thoroughly appreciate the different situations, and
+then we can discuss the matter intelligently.”
+
+“You evidently think the man was very noble in refusing to hear
+anything about the past of the lady he was interested in.”
+
+“I confess I do. He was noble, at least, in refusing to let a third
+party tell him. If he wished any information he should have asked the
+lady himself.”
+
+“Yes, but supposing she refused to answer him?”
+
+“Then, I think he should either have declined to have anything more to
+do with her, or, if he kept up his acquaintance, he should have taken
+her just as she was, without any reference to her past.”
+
+“I suppose you are right. Still, it is a very serious thing for two
+people to marry without knowing something of each other’s lives.”
+
+“I am tired of walking,” said Miss Earle, “I am now going to seek
+comfort in the luxuriousness, as you call it, of my steamer chair.”
+
+“And may I go with you?” asked the young man.
+
+“If you also are tired of walking.”
+
+“You know,” he said, “you promised the whole afternoon. You took the
+forenoon with _The Siege_, and now I don’t wish to be cheated out of my
+half of the day.”
+
+“Very well, I am rather interested in another story, and if you will
+take _The Siege of London_, and read it, you’ll find how much better
+the book is than my telling of the story.”
+
+George Morris had, of course, to content himself with this proposition,
+and they walked together to the steamer chairs, over which the gaily
+coloured rugs were spread.
+
+“Shall I get your book for you?” asked the young man, as he picked up
+the rugs.
+
+“Thank you,” answered Miss Earle, with a laugh, “you have already done
+so,” for, as he shook out the rugs, the two books, which were small
+handy volumes, fell out on the deck.
+
+“I see you won’t accept my hint about not leaving the books around. You
+will lose some precious volume one of these days.”
+
+“Oh, I fold them in the rugs, and they are all right. Now, here is your
+volume. Sit down there and read it.”
+“That means also, ‘and keep quiet,’ I suppose?”
+
+“I don’t imagine you are versatile enough to read and talk at the same
+time. Are you?”
+
+“I should be very tempted to try it this afternoon.”
+
+Miss Earle went on with her reading, and Morris pretended to go on with
+his. He soon found, however, that he could not concentrate his
+attention on the little volume in his hand, and so quickly abandoned
+the attempt, and spent his time in meditation and in casting furtive
+glances at his fair companion over the top of his book. He thought the
+steamer chair a perfectly delightful invention. It was an easy,
+comfortable, and adjustable apparatus, that allowed a person to sit up
+or to recline at almost any angle. He pushed his chair back a little,
+so that he could watch the profile of Miss Katherine Earle, and the
+dark tresses that formed a frame for it, without risking the chance of
+having his espionage discovered.
+
+“Aren’t you comfortable?” asked the young lady, as he shoved back his
+chair.
+
+“I am very, very comfortable,” replied the young man.
+
+“I am glad of that,” she said, as she resumed her reading.
+
+George Morris watched her turn leaf after leaf as he reclined lazily in
+his chair, with half-closed eyes, and said to himself, “Shop-girl or
+not, past or not, I’m going to propose to that young lady the first
+good opportunity I get. I wonder what she will say?”
+
+“How do you like it?” cried the young lady he was thinking of, with a
+suddenness that made Morris jump in his chair.
+
+“Like it?” he cried; “oh, I like it immensely.”
+
+“How far have you got?” she continued.
+
+“How far? Oh, a great distance. Very much further than I would have
+thought it possible when I began this voyage.”
+
+Miss Earle turned and looked at him with wide-open eyes, as he made
+this strange reply.
+
+“What are you speaking of?” she said.
+
+“Oh, of everything—of the book, of the voyage, of the day.”
+
+“I was speaking of the book,” she replied quietly. “Are you sure you
+have not fallen asleep and been dreaming?”
+
+“Fallen asleep? No. Dreaming? Yes.”
+
+“Well, I hope your dreams have been pleasant ones.”
+
+“They have.”
+
+Miss Earle, who seemed to think it best not to follow her
+investigations any further, turned once more to her own book, and read
+it until it was time to dress for dinner. When that important meal was
+over, Morris said to Miss Earle: “Do you know you still owe me part of
+the day?”
+
+“I thought you said you had a very pleasant afternoon.”
+
+“So I had. So pleasant, you see, that I want to have the pleasure
+prolonged. I want you to come out and have a walk on the deck now in
+the starlight. It is a lovely night, and, besides, you are now halfway
+across the ocean, and yet I don’t think you have been out once to see
+the phosphorescence. That is one of the standard sights of an ocean
+voyage. Will you come?”
+
+Although the words were commonplace enough, there was a tremor in his
+voice which gave a meaning to them that could not be misunderstood.
+Miss Earle looked at him with serene composure, and yet with a touch of
+reproachfulness in her glance. “He talks like this to me,” she said to
+herself, “while he is engaged to another woman.”
+
+“Yes,” she answered aloud, with more firmness in her voice than might
+have seemed necessary, “I will be happy to walk on the deck with you to
+see the phosphorescence.”
+
+He helped to hinder her for a moment in adjusting her wraps, and they
+went out in the starlit night together.
+
+“Now,” he said, “if we are fortunate enough to find the place behind
+the after-wheel house vacant we can have a splendid view of the
+phosphorescence.”
+
+“Is it so much in demand that the place is generally crowded?” she
+asked.
+
+“I may tell you in confidence,” replied Mr. Morris, “that this
+particular portion of the boat is always very popular. Soon as the
+evening shades prevail the place is apt to be pre-empted by couples
+that are very fond of—”
+
+“Phosphorescence,” interjected the young lady.
+
+“Yes,” he said, with a smile that she could not see in the darkness,
+“of phosphorescence.”
+
+“I should think,” said she, as they walked towards the stern of the
+boat, “that in scientific researches of that sort, the more people who
+were there, the more interesting the discussion would be, and the more
+chance a person would have to improve his mind on the subject of
+phosphorescence, or other matters pertaining to the sea.”
+
+“Yes,” replied Morris. “A person naturally would think that, and yet,
+strange as it may appear, if there ever was a time when two is company
+and three is a crowd, it is when looking at the phosphorescence that
+follows the wake of an ocean steamer.”
+
+“Really?” observed the young lady, archly. “I remember you told me that
+you had crossed the ocean several times.”
+
+The young man laughed joyously at this _repartee_, and his companion
+joined him with a laugh that was low and musical.
+
+“He seems very sure of his ground,” she said to herself. “Well, we
+shall see.”
+
+As they came to the end of the boat and passed behind the temporary
+wheel-house erected there, filled with _debris_ of various sorts,
+blocks and tackle and old steamer chairs, Morris noticed that two
+others were there before them standing close together with arms upon
+the bulwarks. They were standing very close together, so close in fact,
+that in the darkness, it seemed like one person. But as Morris stumbled
+over some chains, the dark, united shadow dissolved itself quickly into
+two distinct separate shadows. A flagpole stood at the extreme end of
+the ship, inclining backwards from the centre of the bulwarks, and
+leaning over the troubled, luminous sea beneath. The two who had taken
+their position first were on one side of the flag-pole and Morris and
+Miss Earle on the other. Their coming had evidently broken the spell
+for the others. After waiting for a few moments, the lady took the arm
+of the gentleman and walked forward. “Now,” said Morris, with a sigh,
+“we have the phosphorescence to ourselves.”
+
+“It is very, very strange,” remarked the lady in a low voice. “It seems
+as if a person could see weird shapes arising in the air, as if in
+torment.”
+
+The young man said nothing for a few moments. He cleared his throat
+several times as if to speak, but still remained silent. Miss Earle
+gazed down at the restless, luminous water. The throb, throb of the
+great ship made the bulwarks on which their arms rested tremble and
+quiver.
+
+Finally Morris seemed to muster up courage enough to begin, and he said
+one word—
+
+“Katherine.” As he said this he placed his hand on hers as it lay white
+before him in the darkness upon the trembling bulwark. It seemed to him
+that she made a motion to withdraw her hand, and then allowed it to
+remain where it was.
+
+“Katherine,” he continued, in a voice that he hardly recognised as his
+own, “we have known each other only a very short time comparatively;
+but, as I think I said to you once before, a day on shipboard may be as
+long as a month on shore. Katherine, I want to ask you a question, and
+yet I do not know—I cannot find—I—I don’t know what words to use.”
+
+The young lady turned her face towards him, and he saw her clear-cut
+profile sharply outlined against the glowing water as he looked down at
+her. Although the young man struggled against the emotion, which is
+usually experienced by any man in his position, yet he felt reasonably
+sure of the answer to his question. She had come with him out into the
+night. She had allowed her hand to remain in his. He was, therefore,
+stricken dumb with amazement when she replied, in a soft and musical
+voice—
+
+“You do not know what to say? What do you _usually_ say on such an
+occasion?”
+
+“Usually say?” he gasped in dismay. “I do not understand you. What do
+you mean?”
+
+“Isn’t my meaning plain enough? Am I the first young lady to whom you
+have not known exactly what to say?”
+
+Mr. Morris straightened up, and folded his arms across his breast;
+then, ridiculously enough, this struck him as a heroic attitude, and
+altogether unsuitable for an American, so he thrust his hands deep in
+his coat pockets.
+
+“Miss Earle,” he said, “I knew that you could be cruel, but I did not
+think it possible that you could be so cruel as this.”
+
+“Is the cruelty all on my side, Mr. Morris?” she answered. “Have you
+been perfectly honest and frank with me? You know you have not. Now, I
+shall be perfectly honest and frank with you. I like you very much
+indeed. I have not the slightest hesitation in saying this, because it
+is true, and I don’t care whether you know it, or whether anybody else
+knows it or not.”
+
+As she said this the hope which Morris had felt at first, and which had
+been dashed so rudely to the ground, now returned, and he attempted to
+put his arm about her and draw her to him; but the young lady quickly
+eluded his grasp, stepping to the other side of the flag-pole, and
+putting her hand upon it.
+
+“Mr. Morris,” she said, “there is no use of your saying anything
+further. There is a barrier between us; you know it as well as I. I
+would like us to be friends as usual; but, if we are to be, you will
+have to remember the barrier, and keep to your own side of it.”
+
+“I know of no barrier,” cried Morris, vehemently, attempting to come
+over to her side.
+
+“There is the barrier,” she said, placing her hand on the flag-pole.
+“My place is on this side of that barrier; your place is on the other.
+If you come on this side of that flag-pole, I shall leave you. If you
+remain on your own side, I shall be very glad to talk with you.”
+
+Morris sullenly took his place on the other side of the flag-pole. “Has
+there been anything in my actions,” said the young lady, “during the
+time we have been acquainted that would lead you to expect a different
+answer?”
+
+“Yes. You have treated me outrageously at times, and that gave me some
+hope.”
+
+Miss Earle laughed her low, musical laugh at this remark.
+
+“Oh, you may laugh,” said Morris, savagely; “but it is no laughing
+matter to me, I assure you.”
+
+“Oh, it will be, Mr. Morris, when you come to think of this episode
+after you get on shore. It will seem to you very, very funny indeed;
+and when you speak to the next young lady on the same subject, perhaps
+you will think of how outrageously I have treated your remarks
+to-night, and be glad that there are so few young women in the world
+who would act as I have done.”
+
+“Where did you get the notion,” inquired George Morris, “that I am in
+the habit of proposing to young ladies? It is a most ridiculous idea. I
+have been engaged once, I confess it. I made a mistake, and I am sorry
+for it. There is surely nothing criminal in that.”
+
+“It depends.”
+
+“Depends on what?”
+
+“It depends on how the other party feels about it. It takes two to make
+an engagement, and it should take two to break it.”
+
+“Well, it didn’t in my case,” said the young man.
+
+“So I understand,” replied Miss Earle. “Mr. Morris, I wish you a very
+good evening.” And before he could say a word she had disappeared in
+the darkness, leaving him to ponder bitterly over the events of the
+evening.
+
+Sixth Day
+
+In the vague hope of meeting Miss Earle, Morris rose early, and for a
+while paced the deck alone; but she did not appear. Neither did he have
+the pleasure of her company at breakfast. The more the young man
+thought of their interview of the previous evening, the more puzzled he
+was.
+
+Miss Earle had frankly confessed that she thought a great deal of him,
+and yet she had treated him with an unfeelingness which left him sore
+and bitter. She might have refused him; that was her right, of course.
+But she need not have done it so sarcastically. He walked the deck
+after breakfast, but saw nothing of Miss Earle. As he paced up and
+down, he met the very person of all others whom he did not wish to
+meet. “Good morning, Mr. Morris,” she said lightly, holding out her
+hand.
+
+“Good morning,” he answered, taking it without much warmth.
+
+“You are walking the deck all alone, I see. May I accompany you?”
+
+“Certainly,” said the young man, and with that she put her hand on his
+arm and they walked together the first two rounds without saying
+anything to each other. Then she looked up at him, with a bright smile,
+and said, “So she refused you?”
+
+“How do you know?” answered the young man, reddening and turning a
+quick look at her.
+
+“How do I know?” laughed the other. “How should I know?”
+
+For a moment it flashed across his mind that Miss Katherine Earle had
+spoken of their interview of last night; but a moment later he
+dismissed the suspicion as unworthy.
+
+“How do you know?” he repeated.
+
+“Because I was told so on very good authority.”
+
+“I don’t believe it.”
+
+“Ha, ha! now you are very rude. It is very rude to say to a lady that
+she doesn’t speak the truth.”
+
+“Well, rude or not, you are not speaking the truth. Nobody told you
+such a thing.”
+
+“My dear George, how impolite you are. What a perfect bear you have
+grown to be. Do you want to know who told me?”
+
+“I don’t care to know anything about it.”
+
+“Well, nevertheless, I shall tell you. _You_ told me.”
+
+“I did? Nonsense, I never said anything about it.”
+
+“Yes, you did. Your walk showed it. The dejected look showed it, and
+when I spoke to you, your actions, your tone, and your words told it to
+me plainer than if you had said, ‘I proposed to Miss Earle last night
+and I was rejected.’ You poor, dear innocent, if you don’t brighten up
+you will tell it to the whole ship.”
+
+“I am sure, Blanche, that I am very much obliged to you for the
+interest you take in me. Very much obliged, indeed.”
+
+“Oh no, you are not; and now, don’t try to be sarcastic, it really
+doesn’t suit your manner at all. I was very anxious to know how your
+little flirtation had turned out. I really was. You know I have an
+interest in you, George, and always will have, and I wouldn’t like that
+spiteful little black-haired minx to have got you, and I am very glad
+she refused you, although why she did so I cannot for the life of me
+imagine.”
+
+“It must be hard for you to comprehend why she refused me, now that I
+am a partner in the firm.” Blanche looked down upon the deck, and did
+not answer.
+
+“I am glad,” she said finally, looking up brightly at him with her
+innocent blue eyes, “that you did not put off your proposal until
+to-night. We expect to be at Queenstown to-night some time, and we
+leave there and go on through by the Lakes of Killarney. So, you see,
+if you hadn’t proposed last night I should have known nothing at all
+about how the matter turned out, and I should have died of curiosity
+and anxiety to know.”
+
+“Oh, I would have written to you,” said Morris. “Leave me your address
+now, and I’ll write and let you know how it turns out.”
+
+“Oh,” she cried quickly, “then it isn’t ended yet? I didn’t think you
+were a man who would need to be refused twice or thrice.”
+
+“I should be glad to be refused by Miss Earle five hundred times.”
+
+“Indeed?”
+
+“Yes, five hundred times, if on the five hundredth and first time she
+accepted.”
+
+“Is it really so serious as that?”
+
+“It is just exactly that serious.”
+
+“Then your talk to me after all was only pretence?”
+
+“No, only a mistake.”
+
+“What an escape I have had!”
+
+“You have, indeed.”
+
+“Ah, here comes Miss Earle. Really, for a lady who has rejected a
+gentleman, she does not look as supremely happy as she might. I must go
+and have a talk with her.”
+
+“Look here, Blanche,” cried the young man, angrily, “if you say a word
+to her about what we have been speaking of, I’ll—”
+
+“What will you do?” said the young lady, sweetly.
+
+Morris stood looking at her. He didn’t himself know what he would do;
+and Blanche, bowing to him, walked along the deck, and sat down in the
+steamer chair beside Miss Earle, who gave her a very scant recognition.
+
+“Now, you needn’t be so cool and dignified,” said the lady. “George and
+I have been talking over the matter, and I told him he wasn’t to feel
+discouraged at a first refusal, if he is resolved to have a shop-girl
+for his wife.”
+
+“What! Mr. Morris and you have been discussing me, have you?”
+
+“Is there anything forbidden in that, Miss Earle? You must remember
+that George and I are very, very old friends, old and dear friends. Did
+you refuse him on my account? I know you like him.”
+
+“Like him?” said Miss Earle, with a fierce light in her eyes, as she
+looked at her tormentor. “Yes, I like him, and I’ll tell you more than
+that;” she bent over and added in an intense whisper, “I love him, and
+if you say another word to me about him, or if you dare to discuss me
+with him, I shall go up to him where he stands now and accept him. I
+shall say to him, ‘George Morris, I love you.’ Now if you doubt I shall
+do that, just continue in your present style of conversation.”
+
+Blanche leaned back in the steamer chair and turned a trifle pale. Then
+she laughed, that irritating little laugh of hers, and said, “Really I
+did not think it had gone so far as that. I’ll bid you good morning.”
+
+The moment the chair was vacated, George Morris strolled up and sat
+down on it.
+
+“What has that vixen been saying to you?” he asked.
+
+“That vixen,” said Miss Earle, quietly, “has been telling me that you
+and she were discussing me this morning, and discussing the
+conversation that took place last night.”
+
+“It is a lie,” said Morris.
+
+“What is? What I say, or what she said, or what she says you said?”
+
+“That we were discussing you, or discussing our conversation, is not
+true. Forgive me for using the coarser word. This was how it was; she
+came up to me—”
+
+“My dear Mr. Morris, don’t say a word. I know well enough that you
+would not discuss the matter with anybody. I, perhaps, may go so far as
+to say, least of all with her. Still, Mr. Morris, you must remember
+this, that even if you do not like her now—”
+
+“Like her?” cried Morris; “I hate her.”
+
+“As I was going to say, and it is very hard for me to say it, Mr.
+Morris, you have a duty towards her as you—we all have our duties to
+perform,” said Miss Earle, with a broken voice. “You must do yours, and
+I must do mine. It may be hard, but it is settled. I cannot talk this
+morning. Excuse me.” And she rose and left him sitting there.
+
+“What in the world does the girl mean? I am glad that witch gets off at
+Queenstown. I believe it is she who has mixed everything up. I wish I
+knew what she has been saying.”
+
+Miss Earle kept very closely to her room that day, and in the evening,
+as they approached the Fastnet Light, George Morris was not able to
+find her to tell her of the fact that they had sighted land. He took
+the liberty, however, of scribbling a little note to her, which the
+stewardess promised to deliver. He waited around the foot of the
+companion-way for an answer. The answer came in the person of Miss
+Katherine herself.
+
+If refusing a man was any satisfaction, it seemed as if Miss Katherine
+Earle had obtained very little gratification from it. She looked weary
+and sad as she took the young man’s arm, and her smile as she looked up
+at him had something very pathetic in it, as if a word might bring the
+tears. They sat in the chairs and watched the Irish coast. Morris
+pointed out objects here and there, and told her what they were. At
+last, when they went down to supper together, he said—
+
+“We will be at Queenstown some time to-night. It will be quite a
+curious sight in the moonlight. Wouldn’t you like to stay up and see
+it?”
+
+“I think I would,” she answered. “I take so few ocean voyages that I
+wish to get all the nautical experiences possible.”
+
+The young man looked at her sharply, then he said—
+
+“Well, the stop at Queenstown is one of the experiences. May I send the
+steward to rap at your door when the engine stops?”
+
+“Oh, I shall stay up in the saloon until that time?”
+
+“It may be a little late. It may be as late as one or two o’clock in
+the morning. We can’t tell. I should think the best thing for you to do
+would be to take a rest until the time comes. I think, Miss Earle, you
+need it.”
+
+It was a little after twelve o’clock when the engine stopped. The
+saloon was dimly lighted, and porters were hurrying to and fro, getting
+up the baggage which belonged to those who were going to get off at
+Queenstown. The night was very still, and rather cold. The lights of
+Queenstown could be seen here and there along the semi-circular range
+of hills on which the town stood. Passengers who were to land stood
+around the deck well muffled up, and others who had come to bid them
+good-bye were talking sleepily with them. Morris was about to send the
+steward to Miss Earle’s room, when that young lady herself appeared.
+There was something spirit-like about her, wrapped in her long cloak,
+as she walked through the half-darkness to meet George Morris.
+
+“I was just going to send for you,” he said.
+
+“I did not sleep any,” was the answer, “and the moment the engine
+stopped I knew we were there. Shall we go on deck?”
+
+“Yes,” he said, “but come away from the crowd,” and with that he led
+her towards the stern of the boat. For a moment Miss Earle seemed to
+hold back, but finally she walked along by his side firmly to where
+they had stood the night before. With seeming intention Morris tried to
+take his place beside her, but Miss Earle, quietly folding her cloak
+around her, stood on the opposite side of the flagpole, and, as if
+there should be no forgetfulness on his part, she reached up her hand
+and laid it against the staff.
+
+“She evidently meant what she said,” thought Morris to himself, with a
+sigh, as he watched the low, dim outlines of the hills around
+Queenstown Harbour, and the twinkling lights here and there.
+
+“That is the tender coming now,” he said, pointing to the red and green
+lights of the approaching boat. “How small it looks beside our monster
+steamship.”
+
+Miss Earle shivered.
+
+“I pity the poor folks who have to get up at this hour of the night and
+go ashore. I should a great deal rather go back to my state-room.”
+
+“Well, there is one passenger I am not sorry for,” said Morris, “and
+that is the young woman who has, I am afraid, been saying something to
+you which has made you deal more harshly with me than perhaps you might
+otherwise have done. I wish you would tell me what she said?”
+
+“She has said nothing,” murmured Miss Earle, with a sigh, “but what you
+yourself have confirmed. I do not pay much attention to what she says.”
+
+“Well, you don’t pay much attention to what I say either,” he replied.
+“However, as I say, there is one person I am not sorry for; I even wish
+it were raining. I am very revengeful, you see.”
+
+“I do not know that I am very sorry for her myself,” replied Miss
+Earle, frankly; “but I am sorry for her poor old father, who hasn’t
+appeared in the saloon a single day except the first. He has been sick
+the entire voyage.”
+
+“Her father?” cried Morris, with a rising inflection in his voice.
+
+“Certainly.”
+
+“Why, bless my soul! Her father has been dead for ages and ages.”
+
+“Then who is the old man she is with?”
+
+“Old man! It would do me good to have her hear you call him the old
+man. Why, that is her husband.”
+
+“Her husband!” echoed Miss Earle, with wide open eyes, “I thought he
+was her father.”
+
+“Oh, not at all. It is true, as you know, that I was engaged to the
+young lady, and I presume if I had become a partner in our firm sooner
+we would have been married. But that was a longer time coming than
+suited my young lady’s convenience, and so she threw me over with as
+little ceremony as you would toss a penny to a beggar, and she married
+this old man for his wealth, I presume. I don’t see exactly why she
+should take a fancy to him otherwise. I felt very cut up about it, of
+course, and I thought if I took this voyage I would at least be rid for
+a while of the thought of her. They are now on their wedding trip. That
+is the reason your steamer chair was broken, Miss Earle. Here I came on
+board an ocean steamer to get rid of the sight or thought of a certain
+woman, and to find that I was penned up with that woman, even if her
+aged husband was with her, for eight or nine days, was too much for me.
+So I raced up the deck and tried to get ashore. I didn’t succeed in
+that, but I _did_ succeed in breaking your chair.”
+
+Miss Earle was evidently very much astonished at this revelation, but
+she said nothing. After waiting in vain for her to speak, Morris gazed
+off at the dim shore. When he looked around he noticed that Miss Earle
+was standing on his side of the flagstaff. There was no longer a
+barrier between them.
+
+Seventh Day
+
+If George Morris were asked to say which day of all his life had been
+the most thoroughly enjoyable, he would probably have answered that the
+seventh of his voyage from New York to Liverpool was the red-letter day
+of his life. The sea was as calm as it was possible for a sea to be.
+The sun shone bright and warm. Towards the latter part of the day they
+saw the mountains of Wales, which, from the steamer’s deck, seemed but
+a low range of hills. It did not detract from Morris’s enjoyment to
+know that Mrs. Blanche was now on the troubleless island of Ireland,
+and that he was sailing over this summer sea with the lady who, the
+night before, had promised to be his wife.
+
+During the day Morris and Katherine sat together on the sunny side of
+the ship looking at the Welsh coast. Their books lay unread on the rug,
+and there were long periods of silences between them.
+
+“I don’t believe,” said Morris, “that anything could be more perfectly
+delightful than this. I wish the shaft would break.”
+
+“I hope it won’t,” answered the young lady; “the chances are you would
+be as cross as a bear before two days had gone past, and would want to
+go off in a small boat.”
+
+“Oh, I should be quite willing to go off in a small boat if you would
+come with me. I would do that now.”
+
+“I am very comfortable where I am,” answered Miss Katherine. “I know
+when to let well enough alone.”
+
+“And I don’t, I suppose you mean?”
+
+“Well, if you wanted to change this perfectly delightful day for any
+other day, or this perfectly luxurious and comfortable mode of travel
+for any other method, I should suspect you of not letting well enough
+alone.”
+
+“I have to admit,” said George, “that I am completely and serenely
+happy. The only thing that bothers me is that to-night we shall be in
+Liverpool. I wish this hazy and dreamy weather could last for ever, and
+I am sure I could stand two extra days of it going just as we are now.
+I think with regret of how much of this voyage we have wasted.”
+
+“Oh, you think it was wasted, do you?”
+
+“Well, wasted as compared with this sort of life. This seems to me like
+a rest after a long chase.”
+
+“Up the deck?” asked the young lady, smiling at him.
+
+“Now, see here,” said Morris, “we may as well understand this first as
+last, that unfortunate up-the-deck chase has to be left out of our
+future life. I am not going to be twitted about that race every time a
+certain young lady takes a notion to have a sort of joke upon me.”
+
+“That was no joke, George. It was the most serious race you ever ran in
+your life. You were running away from one woman, and, poor blind young
+man, you ran right in the arms of another. The danger you have run into
+is ever so much greater than the one you were running away from.”
+
+“Oh, I realise that,” said the young man, lightly; “that’s what makes
+me so solemn to-day, you know.” His hand stole under the steamer rugs
+and imprisoned her own.
+
+“I am afraid people will notice that,” she said quietly.
+
+“Well, let them; I don’t care. I don’t know anybody on board this ship,
+anyhow, except you, and if you realised how very little I care for
+their opinions you would not try to withdraw your hand.”
+
+“I am not trying very hard,” answered the young woman; and then there
+was another long silence. Finally she continued—
+
+“I am going to take the steamer chair and do it up in ribbons when I
+get ashore.”
+
+“I am afraid it will not be a very substantial chair, no matter what
+you do with it. It will be a trap for those who sit in it.”
+
+“Are you speaking of your own experience?”
+
+“No, of yours.”
+
+“George,” she said, after a long pause, “did you like her very much?”
+
+“Her?” exclaimed the young man, surprised. “Who?”
+
+“Why, the young lady you ran away from. You know very well whom I
+mean.”
+
+“Like her? Why, I hate her.”
+
+“Yes, perhaps you do now. But I am asking of former years. How long
+were you engaged to her?”
+
+“Engaged? Let me see, I have been engaged just about—well, not
+twenty-four hours yet. I was never engaged before. I thought I was, but
+I wasn’t really.”
+
+Miss Earle shook her head. “You must have liked her very much,” she
+said, “or you never would have proposed marriage to her. You would
+never have been engaged to her. You never would have felt so badly when
+she—”
+
+“Oh, say it out,” said George, “jilted me, that is the word.”
+
+“No, that is not the phrase I wanted to use. She didn’t really jilt
+you, you know. It was because you didn’t have, or thought you didn’t
+have, money enough. She would like to be married to you to-day.”
+
+George shuddered.
+
+“I wish,” he said, “that you wouldn’t mar a perfect day by a horrible
+suggestion.”
+
+“The suggestion would not have been so horrible a month ago.”
+
+“My dear girl,” said Morris, rousing himself up, “it’s a subject that I
+do not care much to talk about, but all young men, or reasonably young
+men, make mistakes in their lives. That was my mistake. My great luck
+was that it was discovered in time. As a general thing, affairs in this
+world are admirably planned, but it does seem to me a great mistake
+that young people have to choose companions for life at an age when
+they really haven’t the judgment to choose a house and lot. Now,
+confess yourself, I am not your first lover, am I?”
+
+Miss Earle looked at him for a moment before replying.
+
+“You remember,” she said, “that once you spoke of not having to
+incriminate yourself. You refused to answer a question I asked you on
+that ground. Now, I think this is a case in which I would be quite
+justified in refusing to answer. If I told you that you were my first
+lover, you would perhaps be manlike enough to think that after all you
+had only taken what nobody else had expressed a desire for. A man does
+not seem to value anything unless some one else is struggling for it.”
+
+“Why, what sage and valuable ideas you have about men, haven’t you, my
+dear?”
+
+“Well, you can’t deny but what there is truth in them.”
+
+“I not only can, but I do. On behalf of my fellow men, and on behalf of
+myself, I deny it.”
+
+“Then, on the other hand,” she continued, “if I confessed to you that I
+did have half a score or half a dozen of lovers, you would perhaps
+think I had been jilting somebody or had been jilted. So you see,
+taking it all in, and thinking the matter over, I shall refuse to
+answer your question.”
+
+“Then you will not confess?”
+
+“Yes, I shall confess. I have been wanting to confess to you for some
+little time, and have felt guilty because I did not do so.”
+
+“I am prepared to receive the confession,” replied the young man,
+lazily, “and to grant absolution.”
+
+“Well, you talk a great deal about America and about Americans, and
+talk as if you were proud of the country, and of its ways, and of its
+people.”
+
+“Why, I am,” answered the young man.
+
+“Very well, then; according to your creed one person is just as good as
+another.”
+
+“Oh, I don’t say that, I don’t hold that for a moment. I don’t think I
+am as good as you, for instance.”
+
+“But what I mean is this, that one’s occupation does not necessarily
+give one a lower station than another. If that is not your belief then
+you are not a true American, that is all.”
+
+“Well, yes, that is my belief. I will admit I believe all that. What of
+it?”
+
+“What of it? There is this of it. You are the junior partner of a large
+establishment in New York?”
+
+“Nothing criminal in that, is there?”
+
+“Oh, I don’t put it as an accusation, I am merely stating the fact. You
+admit the fact, of course?”
+
+“Yes. The fact is admitted, and marked _Exhibit A,_ and placed in
+evidence. Now, what next?”
+
+“In the same establishment there was a young woman who sold ribbons to
+all comers?”
+
+“Yes, I admit that also, and the young lady’s name was Miss Katherine
+Earle.”
+
+“Oh, you knew it, then?”
+
+“Why, certainly I did.”
+
+“You knew it before you proposed to me.”
+
+“Oh, I seem to have known that fact for years and years.”
+
+“She told it to you.”
+
+“She? What she?”
+
+“You know very well who I mean, George. She told it to you, didn’t
+she?”
+
+“Why, don’t you think I remembered you—remembered seeing you there?”
+
+“I know very well you did not. You may have seen me there, but you did
+not remember me. The moment I spoke to you on the deck that day in the
+broken chair, I saw at once you did not remember me, and there is very
+little use of your trying to pretend you thought of it afterwards. She
+told it to you, didn’t she?”
+
+“Now, look here, Katherine, it isn’t I who am making a confession, it
+is you. It is not customary for a penitent to cross-examine the father
+confessor in that style.”
+
+“It does not make any difference whether you confess or not, George; I
+shall always know she told you that. After all, I wish she had left it
+for me to tell. I believe I dislike that woman very much.”
+
+“Shake hands, Kate, over that. So do I. Now, my dear, tell me what she
+told _you_.”
+
+“Then she _did_ tell you that, did she?”
+
+“Why, if you are so sure of it without my admitting it, why do you ask
+again?”
+
+“I suppose because I wanted to make doubly sure.”
+
+“Well, then, assurance is doubly sure. I admit she did.”
+
+“And you listened to her, George?” said Katherine, reproachfully.
+
+“Listened? Why, of course I did. I couldn’t help myself. She said it
+before I knew what she was going to say. She didn’t give me the chance
+that your man had in that story you were speaking of. I said something
+that irritated her and she out with it at once as if it had been a
+crime on your part. I did not look on it in that light, and don’t now.
+Anyhow, you are not going back to the ribbon counter.”
+
+“No,” answered the young lady, with a sigh, looking dreamily out into
+the hazy distance. “No, I am not.”
+
+“At least, not that side of the counter,” said George.
+
+She looked at him for a moment, as if she did not understand him; then
+she laughed lightly.
+
+“Now,” said Morris, “I have done most of the confession on this
+confession of yours. Supposing I make a confession, and ask you to tell
+me what she told you.”
+
+“Well, she told me that you were a very fascinating young man,”
+answered Katherine, with a sigh.
+
+“Really. And did after-acquaintance corroborate that statement?”
+
+“I never had occasion to tell her she was mistaken.”
+
+“What else did she say? Didn’t mention anything about my prospects or
+financial standing in any way?”
+
+“No; we did not touch on that subject.”
+
+“Come, now, you cannot evade the question. What else did she say to you
+about me?”
+
+“I don’t know that it is quite right to tell you, but I suppose I may.
+She said that you were engaged to her.”
+
+“Had been.”
+
+“No, were.”
+
+“Oh, that’s it. She did not tell you she was on her wedding tour?”
+
+“No, she did not.”
+
+“And didn’t you speak to her about her father being on board?”
+
+Katherine laughed her low, enjoyable laugh.
+
+“Yes,” she said, “I did, and I did not think till this moment of how
+flustered she looked. But she recovered her lost ground with a great
+deal of dexterity.”
+
+“By George, I should like to have heard that! I am avenged!”
+
+“Well, so is she,” was the answer.
+
+“How is that?”
+
+“You are engaged to me, are you not?”
+
+Before George could make any suitable reply to this bit of humbug, one
+of the officers of the ship stopped before them.
+
+“Well,” he said, “I am afraid we shall not see Liverpool to-night.”
+
+“Really. Why?” asked George.
+
+“This haze is settling down into a fog. It will be as thick as pea-soup
+before an hour. I expect there will be a good deal of grumbling among
+the passengers.”
+
+As he walked on, George said to Katherine, “There are two passengers
+who won’t grumble any, will they, my dear?”
+
+“I know one who won’t,” she answered.
+
+The fog grew thicker and thicker; the vessel slowed down, and finally
+stopped, sounding every now and then its mournful, timber-shaking
+whistle.
+
+Eighth Day
+
+On the afternoon of the eighth day George Morris and Katherine Earle
+stood together on the deck of the tender, looking back at the huge
+steamship which they had just left.
+
+“When we return,” he said, “I think we shall choose this ship.”
+
+“Return?” she answered, looking at him.
+
+“Why, certainly; we are going back, are we not?”
+
+“Dear me,” she replied, “I had not thought of that. You see, when I
+left America I did not intend to go back.”
+
+“Did you not? I thought you were only over here for the trip.”
+
+“Oh no. I told you I came on business, not on pleasure.”
+
+“And did you intend to stay over here?”
+
+“Certainly.”
+
+“Why, that’s strange; I never thought of that.”
+
+“It is strange, too,” said Katherine, “that I never thought of going
+back.”
+
+“And—and,” said the young man, “won’t you go?”
+
+She pressed his arm, and stood motionless.
+
+“_Where thou goest, I will go. Thy people shall be my people._”
+
+“That’s a quotation, I suppose?” said George.
+
+“It is,” answered Katherine.
+
+“Well, you see, as I told you, I am not very well read up on the books
+of the day.”
+
+“I don’t know whether you would call that one of the books of the day
+or not,” said Katherine; “it is from the Bible.”
+
+“Oh,” answered the other. “I believe, Kate, you will spend the rest of
+your life laughing at me.”
+
+“Oh no,” said the young lady, “I always thought I was fitted for
+missionary life. Now, look what a chance I have.”
+
+“You have taken a big contract, I admit.”
+
+They had very little trouble with their luggage. It is true that the
+English officials looked rather searchingly in Katherine’s trunk for
+dynamite, but, their fears being allayed in that direction, the trunks
+were soon chalked and on the back of a stout porter, who transferred
+them to the top of a cab.
+
+“I tell you what it is,” said George, “it takes an American
+Custom-house official to make the average American feel ashamed of his
+country.”
+
+“Why, I did not think there was anything over there that could make you
+feel ashamed of your country. You are such a thorough-going American.”
+
+“Well, the Customs officials in New York have a knack of making a
+person feel that he belongs to no place on earth.”
+
+They drove to the big Liverpool hotel which is usually frequented by
+Americans who land in that city, and George spent the afternoon in
+attending to business in Liverpool, which he said he did not expect to
+have to look after when he left America, but which he desired very much
+to get some information about.
+
+Katherine innocently asked if she could be of any assistance to him,
+and he replied that she might later on, but not at the present state of
+proceedings.
+
+In the evening they went to a theatre together, and took a long route
+back to the hotel.
+
+“It isn’t a very pretty city,” said Miss Earle.
+
+“Oh, I think you are mistaken,” replied her lover. “To me it is the
+most beautiful city in the world.”
+
+“Do you really mean that?” she said, looking at him with surprise.
+
+“Yes, I do. It is the first city through which I have walked with the
+lady who is to be my wife.”
+
+“Oh, indeed,” remarked the lady who was to be his wife, “and have you
+never walked with—”
+
+“Now, see here,” said Morris, “that subject is barred out. We left all
+those allusions on the steamer. I say I am walking now with the lady
+who _is_ to be my wife. I think that statement of the case is perfectly
+correct, is it not?”
+
+“I believe it is rather more accurate than the average statement of the
+average American.”
+
+“Now, Katherine,” he said, “do you know what information I have been
+looking up since I have been in Liverpool?”
+
+“I haven’t the slightest idea,” she said. “Property?”
+
+“No, not property.”
+
+“Looking after your baggage, probably?”
+
+“Well, I think you have got it this time. I _was_ looking after my
+baggage. I was trying to find out how and when we could get married.”
+
+“Oh!”
+
+“Yes, oh! Does that shock you? I find they have some idiotic
+arrangement by which a person has to live here three months before he
+can be married, although I was given some hope that, by paying for it,
+a person could get a special licence. If that is the case, I am going
+to have a special licence to-morrow.”
+
+“Indeed?”
+
+“Yes, indeed. Then we can be married at the hotel.”
+
+“And don’t you think, George, that I might have something to say about
+that?”
+
+“Oh, certainly! I intended to talk with you about it. Of course I am
+talking with you now on that subject. You admitted the possibility of
+our getting married. I believe I had better get you to put it down in
+writing, or have you say it before witnesses, or something of that
+sort.”
+
+“Well, I shouldn’t like to be married in a hotel.”
+
+“In a church, then? I suppose I can make arrangements that will include
+a church. A parson will marry us. That parson, if he is the right sort,
+will have a church. It stands to reason, therefore, that if we give him
+the contract he will give us the use of his church, _quid pro quo_, you
+know.”
+
+“Don’t talk flippantly, please. I think it better to wait until
+to-morrow, George, before you do anything rash. I want to see something
+of the country. I want us to take a little journey together to-morrow,
+and then, out in the country, not in this grimy, sooty city, we will
+make arrangements for our marriage.”
+
+“All right, my dear. Where do you intend to go?”
+
+“While you have been wasting your time in getting information relating
+to matrimony, I have been examining time-tables. Where I want to go is
+two or three hours’ ride from here. We can take one of the morning
+trains, and when we get to the place I will allow you to hire a
+conveyance, and we will have a real country drive. Will you go with
+me?”
+
+“_Will_ I? You better believe I will. But you see, Katherine, I want to
+get married as soon as possible. Then we can take a little trip on the
+Continent before it is time for us to go back to America. You have
+never been on the Continent, have you?”
+
+“Never.”
+
+“Well, I am very glad of that. I shall be your guide, philosopher, and
+friend, and, added to that, your husband.”
+
+“Very well, we will arrange all that on our little excursion
+to-morrow.”
+
+Ninth Day
+
+Spring in England—and one of those perfect spring days in which all
+rural England looks like a garden. The landscape was especially
+beautiful to American eyes, after the more rugged views of
+Transatlantic scenery. The hedges were closely clipped, the fields of
+the deepest green, and the hills far away were blue and hazy in the
+distance.
+
+“There is no getting over the fact,” said Morris, “that this is the
+prettiest country in the whole world.”
+
+During most of the journey Katherine Earle sat back in her corner of
+the first-class compartment, and gazed silently out of the flying
+windows. She seemed too deeply impressed with the beauty of the scene
+to care for conversation even with the man she was to marry. At last
+they stopped at a pretty little rural station, with the name of the
+place done in flowers of vivid colour that stood out against the brown
+of the earth around, them and the green turf which formed the sloping
+bank.
+
+“Now,” said George, as they stood on the platform, “whither away? Which
+direction?”
+
+“I want to see,” said she, “a real, genuine, old English country home.”
+
+“A castle?”
+
+“No, not a castle.”
+
+“Oh, I know what you want. Something like Haddon Hall, or that sort of
+thing. An old manor house. Well, wait a minute, and I’ll talk to the
+station master, and find out all there is about this part of the
+country.”
+
+And before she could stop him, he had gone to make his inquiry of that
+official. Shortly after he came back with a list of places that were
+worth seeing, which he named.
+
+“Holmwood House,” she repeated. “Let us see that. How far is it?”
+
+George again made inquiries, and found that it was about eight miles
+away. The station-master assured him that the road thither was one of
+the prettiest drives in the whole country.
+
+“Now, what kind of a conveyance will you have? There are four-wheeled
+cabs, and there is even a hansom to be had. Will you have two horses or
+one, and will you have a coachman?”
+
+“None of these,” she said, “if you can get something you can drive
+yourself—I suppose you are a driver?”
+
+“Oh, I have driven a buggy.”
+
+“Well, get some sort of conveyance that we can both sit in while you
+drive.”
+
+“But don’t you think we will get lost?”
+
+“We can inquire the way,” she said, “and if we do get lost, it won’t
+matter. I want to have a long talk with you before we reach the place.”
+
+They crossed the railway by a bridge over the line, and descended into
+a valley along which the road wound.
+
+The outfit which George had secured was a neat little cart made of wood
+in the natural colour and varnished, and a trim little pony, which
+looked ridiculously small for two grown people, and yet was, as George
+afterwards said, “as tough as a pine knot.”
+
+The pony trotted merrily along, and needed no urging. George doubtless
+was a good driver, but whatever talents he had in that line were not
+brought into play. The pony was a treasure that had apparently no bad
+qualities. For a long time the two in the cart rode along the smooth
+highway silently, until at last Morris broke out with—
+
+“Oh, see here! This is not according to contract. You said you wanted a
+long talk, and now you are complacently saying nothing.”
+
+“I do not know exactly how to begin.”
+
+“Is it so serious as all that?”
+
+“It is not serious exactly—it is merely, as it were, a continuation of
+the confession.”
+
+“I thought we were through with that long ago. Are there any more
+horrible revelations?”
+
+She looked at him with something like reproach in her eyes.
+
+“If you are going to talk flippantly, I think I will postpone what I
+have to say until another time.”
+
+“My dear Kate, give a man a chance. He can’t reform in a moment. I
+never had my flippancy checked before. Now then, I am serious again.
+What appalling—I mean—you see how difficult it is, Katherine—I mean,
+what serious subject shall we discuss?”
+
+“Some other time.”
+
+“No—now. I insist on it. Otherwise I will know I am unforgiven.”
+
+“There is nothing to forgive. I merely wanted to tell you something
+more than you know about my own history.”
+
+“I know more now than that man in the story.”
+
+“He did not object to the knowledge, you know. He objected to receiving
+it from a third person. Now I am not a third person, am I?”
+
+“Indeed, you are not. You are first person singular—at present—the
+first person to me at least. There, I am afraid I have dropped into
+flippancy again.”
+
+“That is not flippancy. That is very nice.” The interval shall be
+unreported.
+
+At last Katherine said quietly, “My mother came from this part of
+England.”
+
+“Ah! That is why you wanted to come here.”
+
+“That is why I wanted to come here. She was her father’s only daughter,
+and, strange to say, he was very fond of her, and proud of her.”
+
+“Why strange?”
+
+“Strange from his action for years after. She married against his will.
+He never forgave her. My father did not seem to have the knack of
+getting along in the world, and he moved to America in the hope of
+bettering his condition. He did not better it. My father died ten years
+ago, a prematurely broken down man, and my mother and I struggled along
+as best we could until she died two years ago. My grandfather returned
+her letter unopened when mother wrote to him ten years ago, although
+the letter had a black border around it. When I think of her I find it
+hard to forgive him, so I suppose some of his nature has been
+transmitted to me.”
+
+“Find it hard? Katherine, if you were not an angel you would find it
+impossible.”
+
+“Well, there is nothing more to tell, or at least, not much. I thought
+you should know this. I intended to tell you that last day on
+shipboard, but it seemed to me that here was where it should be
+told—among the hills and valleys that she saw when she was my age.”
+
+“Katherine, my dear, do not think about it any more than you can help.
+It will only uselessly depress you. Here is a man coming. Let us find
+out now whether we have lost our way or not.”
+
+They had.
+
+Even after that they managed to get up some wrong lanes and byways, and
+took several wrong turnings; but by means of inquiry from every one
+they met, they succeeded at last in reaching the place they were in
+search of.
+
+There was an old and grey porter’s lodge, and an old and grey gateway,
+with two tall, moss-grown stone pillars, and an iron gate between them.
+On the top of the pillars were crumbled stone shields, seemingly held
+in place by a lion on each pillar.
+
+“Is this Holmwood House?” asked Morris of the old and grey man who came
+out of the porter’s lodge.
+
+“Yes, sir, it be,” replied the man.
+
+“Are visitors permitted to see the house and the grounds?”
+
+“No, they be’ant,” was the answer. “Visitors were allowed on Saturdays
+in the old Squire’s time, but since he died they tell me the estate is
+in the courts, and we have orders from the London lawyers to let nobody
+in.”
+
+“I can make it worth your while,” said George, feeling in his vest
+pocket; “this lady would like to see the house.”
+
+The old man shook his head, even although George showed him a gold
+piece between his finger and thumb. Morris was astonished at this, for
+he had the mistaken belief which all Americans have, that a tip in
+Europe, if it is only large enough, will accomplish anything.
+
+“I think perhaps I can get permission,” said Katherine, “if you will
+let me talk a while to the old man.”
+
+“All right. Go ahead,” said George. “I believe you could wheedle
+anybody into doing what he shouldn’t do.”
+
+“Now, after saying that, I shall not allow you to listen. I shall step
+down and talk with him a moment and you can drive on for a little
+distance, and come back.”
+
+“Oh, that’s all right,” said George, “I know how it is. You don’t want
+to give away the secret of your power. Be careful, now, in stepping
+down. This is not an American buggy,” but before he had finished the
+warning, Katherine had jumped lightly on the gravel, and stood waiting
+for him to drive on. When he came back he found the iron gates open.
+
+“I shall not get in again,” she said. “You may leave the pony with this
+man, George, he will take care of it. We can walk up the avenue to the
+house.”
+
+After a short walk under the spreading old oaks they came in sight of
+the house, which was of red brick and of the Elizabethan style of
+architecture.
+
+“I am rather disappointed with that,” said George, “I always thought
+old English homesteads were of stone.”
+
+“Well, this one at least is of brick, and I imagine you will find a
+great many of them are of the same material.”
+
+They met with further opposition from the housekeeper who came to the
+door which the servant had opened after the bell was rung.
+
+She would allow nobody in the house, she said. As for Giles, if he
+allowed people on the grounds that was his own look-out, but she had
+been forbidden by the lawyers to allow anybody in the house, and she
+had let nobody in, and she wasn’t going to let anybody in.
+
+“Shall I offer her a tip?” asked George, in a whisper.
+
+“No, don’t do that.”
+
+“You can’t wheedle her like you did the old man, you know. A woman may
+do a great deal with a man, but when she meets another woman she meets
+her match. You women know each other, you know.”
+
+Meanwhile the housekeeper, who had been about to shut the door, seemed
+to pause and regard the young lady with a good deal of curiosity. Her
+attention had before that time been taken up with the gentleman.
+
+“Well, I shall walk to the end of the terrace, and give you a chance to
+try your wiles. But I am ready to bet ten dollars that you don’t
+succeed.”
+
+“I’ll take you,” answered the young lady.
+
+“Yes, you said you would that night on the steamer.”
+
+“Oh, that’s a very good way of getting out of a hopeless bet.”
+
+“I am ready to make the bet all right enough, but I know you haven’t a
+ten-dollar bill about you.”
+
+“Well, that is very true, for I have changed all my money to English
+currency; but I am willing to bet its equivalent.”
+
+Morris walked to the end of the terrace. When he got back he found that
+the door of the house was as wide open as the gates of the park had
+been.
+
+“There is something uncanny about all this,” he said. “I am just
+beginning to see that you have a most dangerous power of fascination. I
+could understand it with old Giles, but I must admit that I thought the
+stern housekeeper would—”
+
+“My dear George,” interrupted Katherine, “almost anything can be
+accomplished with people, if you only go about it the right way.”
+
+“Now, what is there to be seen in this house?”
+
+“All that there is to be seen about any old English house. I thought,
+perhaps, you might be interested in it.”
+
+“Oh, I am. But I mean, isn’t there any notable things? For instance, I
+was in Haddon Hall once, and they showed me the back stairway where a
+fair lady had eloped with her lover. Have they anything of that kind to
+show here?”
+
+Miss Earle was silent for a few moments. “Yes,” she said, “I am afraid
+they have.”
+
+“Afraid? Why, that is perfectly delightful. Did the young lady of the
+house elope with her lover?”
+
+“Oh, don’t talk in that way, George,” she said. “Please don’t.”
+
+“Well, I won’t, if you say so. I admit those little episodes generally
+turn out badly. Still you must acknowledge that they add a great
+interest to an old house of the Elizabethan age like this?”
+
+Miss Earle was silent. They had, by this time, gone up the polished
+stairway, which was dimly lighted by a large window of stained glass.
+
+“Here we are in the portrait hall,” said Miss Earle. “There is a
+picture here that I have never seen, although I have heard of it, and I
+want to see it. Where is it?” she asked, turning to the housekeeper,
+who had been following them up the stairs.
+
+“This way, my lady,” answered the housekeeper, as she brought them
+before a painting completely concealed by a dark covering of cloth.
+
+“Why is it covered in that way? To keep the dust from it?”
+
+The housekeeper hesitated for a moment; then she said—
+
+“The old Squire, my lady, put that on when she left, and it has never
+been taken off since.”
+
+“Then take it off at once,” demanded Katherine Earle, in a tone that
+astonished Morris.
+
+The housekeeper, who was too dignified to take down the covering
+herself, went to find the servant, but Miss Earle, with a gesture of
+impatience, grasped the cloth and tore it from its place, revealing the
+full-length portrait of a young lady.
+
+Morris looked at the portrait in astonishment, and then at the girl by
+his side.
+
+“Why, Katherine,” he cried, “it is your picture!”
+
+The young lady was standing with her hands tightly clenched and her
+lips quivering with nervous excitement. There were tears in her eyes,
+and she did not answer her lover for a moment; then she said—
+
+“No, it is not my picture. This is a portrait of my mother.”
+
+
+
+
+Mrs. Tremain
+
+
+“And Woman, wit a flaming torch
+    Sings heedless, in a powder-mine
+Her careless smiles they warp and scorch
+    Man’s heart, as fire the pine
+Cuts keener than the thrust of lance
+                    Her glance”
+
+
+The trouble about this story is that it really has no ending. Taking an
+ocean voyage is something like picking up an interesting novel, and
+reading a chapter in the middle of it. The passenger on a big steamer
+gets glimpses of other people’s lives, but he doesn’t know what the
+beginning was, nor what the ending will be.
+
+The last time I saw Mrs. Tremain she was looking over her shoulder and
+smiling at Glendenning as she walked up the gangway plank at Liverpool,
+hanging affectionately on the arm of her husband. I said to myself at
+the time, “You silly little handsome idiot, Lord only knows what
+trouble you will cause before flirting has lost its charm for you.”
+Personally I would like to have shoved Glendenning off the gangway
+plank into the dark Mersey; but that would have been against the laws
+of the country on which we were then landing.
+
+Mrs. Tremain was a woman whom other women did not like, and whom men
+did. Glendenning was a man that the average man detested, but he was a
+great favourite with the ladies.
+
+I shall never forget the sensation Mrs. Tremain caused when she first
+entered the saloon of our steamer. I wish I were able to describe
+accurately just how she was dressed; for her dress, of course, had a
+great deal to do with her appearance, notwithstanding the fact that she
+was one of the loveliest women I ever saw in my life. But it would
+require a woman to describe her dress with accuracy, and I am afraid
+any woman who was on board the steamer that trip would decline to help
+me. Women were in the habit of sniffing when Mrs. Tremain’s name was
+mentioned. Much can be expressed by a woman’s sniff. All that I can say
+about Mrs. Tremain’s dress is that it was of some dark material,
+brightly shot with threads of gold, and that she had looped in some way
+over her shoulders and around her waist a very startlingly coloured
+silken scarf, while over her hair was thrown a black lace arrangement
+that reached down nearly to her feet, giving her a half-Spanish
+appearance. A military-looking gentleman, at least twice her age, was
+walking beside her. He was as grave and sober as she appeared light and
+frivolous, and she walked by his side with a peculiar elastic step,
+that seemed hardly to touch the carpet, laughing and talking to him
+just as if fifty pair of eyes were not riveted upon her as the pair
+entered. Everybody thought her a Spanish woman; but, as it turned out
+afterward, she was of Spanish-Mexican-American origin, and whatever
+beauty there is in those three nationalities seemed to be blended in
+some subtle, perfectly indescribable way in the face and figure of Mrs.
+Tremain.
+
+The grave military-looking gentleman at her side was Captain Tremain,
+her husband, although in reality he was old enough to be her father. He
+was a captain in the United States army, and had been stationed at some
+fort near the Mexican border where he met the young girl whom he made
+his wife. She had seen absolutely nothing of the world, and they were
+now on their wedding trip to Europe, the first holiday he had taken for
+many a year.
+
+In an incredibly short space of time Mrs. Tremain was the acknowledged
+belle of the ship. She could not have been more than nineteen or twenty
+years of age, yet she was as perfectly at her ease, and as thoroughly a
+lady as if she had been accustomed to palaces and castles for years. It
+was astonishing to see how naturally she took to it. She had lived all
+her life in a rough village in the wilds of the South-West, yet she had
+the bearing of a duchess or a queen.
+
+The second day out she walked the deck with the captain, which, as
+everybody knows, is a very great honour. She always had a crowd of men
+around her, and apparently did not care the snap of her pretty fingers
+whether a woman on board spoke to her or not. Her husband was one of
+those slow-going, sterling men whom you meet now and again, with no
+nonsense about him, and with a perfect trust in his young wife. He was
+delighted to see her enjoying her voyage so well, and proud of the
+universal court that was paid to her. It was quite evident to everybody
+on board but himself that Mrs. Tremain was a born coquette, and the way
+she could use those dark, languishing, Spanish-Mexican eyes of hers was
+a lesson to flirts all the world over. It didn’t, apparently, so much
+matter as long as her smiles were distributed pretty evenly over the
+whole masculine portion of the ship. But by-and-by things began to
+simmer down until the smiles were concentrated on the most utterly
+objectionable man on board—Glendenning. She walked the deck with him,
+she sat in cozy corners of the saloon with him, when there were not
+many people there, and at night they placed their chairs in a little
+corner of the deck where the electric light did not shine. One by one
+the other admirers dropped off, and left her almost entirely to
+Glendenning.
+
+Of all those of us who were deserted by Mrs. Tremain none took it so
+hard as young Howard of Brooklyn. I liked Howard, for he was so
+palpably and irretrievably young, through no fault of his own, and so
+thoroughly ashamed of it. He wished to be considered a man of the
+world, and he had grave opinions on great questions, and his opinions
+were ever so much more settled and firm than those of us older people.
+
+Young Howard confided a good deal in me, and even went so far one time
+as to ask if I thought he appeared very young, and if I would believe
+he was really as old as he stated.
+
+I told him frankly I had taken him to be a very much older man than
+that, and the only thing about him I didn’t like was a certain cynicism
+and knowledge of the world which didn’t look well in a man who ought to
+be thinking about the serious things of life. After this young Howard
+confided in me even more than before. He said that he didn’t care for
+Mrs. Tremain in that sort of way at all. She was simply an innocent
+child, with no knowledge of the world whatever, such as he and I
+possessed. Her husband—and in this I quite agreed with him—had two bad
+qualities: in the first place he was too easy going at the present, and
+in the second place he was one of those quiet men who would do
+something terrible if once he were aroused.
+
+One day, as young Howard and I walked the deck together, he burst out
+with this extraordinary sentiment—
+
+“All women,” he said, “are canting hypocrites.”
+
+“When a man says that,” I answered, “he means some particular woman.
+What woman have you in your eye, Howard?”
+
+“No, I mean _all_ women. All the women on board this boat, for
+instance.”
+
+“Except one, of course,” I said.
+
+“Yes,” he answered, “except one. Look at the generality of women,” he
+cried bitterly; “especially those who are what they call philanthropic
+and good. They will fuss and mourn over some drunken wretch who cannot
+be reclaimed, and would be no use if he could, and they will spend
+their time and sympathy over some creature bedraggled in the slums,
+whose only hope can be death, and that as soon as possible, yet not one
+of them will lift a finger to save a fellow creature from going over
+the brink of ruin. They will turn their noses in the air when a word
+from them would do some good, and then they will spend their time
+fussing and weeping over somebody that nothing on earth can help.”
+
+“Now, Howard,” I said, “that’s your cynicism which I’ve so often
+deplored. Come down to plain language, and tell me what you mean?”
+
+“Look at the women on board this steamer,” he cried indignantly.
+“There’s pretty little Mrs. Tremain, who seems to have become
+fascinated by that scoundrel Glendenning. Any person can see what kind
+of a man he is—any one but an innocent child, such as Mrs. Tremain is.
+Now, no man can help. What she needs is some good kindly woman to take
+her by the hand and give her a word of warning. Is there a woman on
+board of this steamer who will do it? Not one. They see as plainly as
+any one else how things are drifting; but it takes a man who has
+murdered his wife to get sympathy and flowers from the modern so-called
+lady.”
+
+“Didn’t you ever hear of the man, Howard, who made a large sum of
+money, I forget at the moment exactly how much, by minding his own
+business?”
+
+“Oh yes, it’s all very well to talk like that; but I would like to
+pitch Glendenning overboard.”
+
+“I admit that it would be a desirable thing to do, but if anybody is to
+do it, it is Captain Tremain and not you. Are you a married man,
+Howard?”
+
+“No,” answered Howard, evidently very much flattered by the question.
+
+“Well, you see, a person never can tell on board ship; but, if you
+happen to be, it seems to me that you wouldn’t care for any outsider to
+interfere in a matter such as we are discussing. At any rate Mrs.
+Tremain is a married woman, and I can’t see what interest you should
+have in her. Take my advice and leave her alone, and if you want to
+start a reforming crusade among women, try to convert the rest of the
+ladies of the ship to be more charitable and speak the proper word in
+time.”
+
+“You may sneer as much as you like,” answered young Howard, “but I will
+tell you what I am going to do. _Two is company, and three is none_;
+I’m going to make the third, as far as Mrs. Tremain and Glendenning are
+concerned.”
+
+“Supposing she objects to that?”
+
+“Very likely she will; I don’t care. The voyage lasts only a few days
+longer, and I am going to make the third party at any _tête-à-tête_.”
+
+“Dangerous business, Howard; first thing, you know, Glendenning will be
+wanting to throw _you_ overboard.”
+
+“I would like to see him try it,” said the young fellow, clenching his
+fist.
+
+And young Howard was as good as his word. It was very interesting to an
+onlooker to see the way the different parties took it. Mrs. Tremain
+seemed to be partly amused with the boy, and think it all rather good
+fun. Glendenning scowled somewhat, and tried to be silent; but, finding
+that made no particular difference, began to make allusions to the
+extreme youth of young Howard, and seemed to try to provoke him, which
+laudable intention, to young Howard’s great credit, did not succeed.
+
+One evening I came down the forward narrow staircase, that leads to the
+long corridor running from the saloon, and met, under the electric
+light at the foot, Mrs. Tremain, young Howard, and Glendenning. They
+were evidently about to ascend the stairway; but, seeing me come down,
+they paused, and I stopped for a moment to have a chat with them, and
+see how things were going on.
+
+Glendenning said, addressing me, “Don’t you think it’s time for
+children to be in bed?”
+
+“If you mean me,” I answered, “I am just on my way there.”
+
+Mrs. Tremain and young Howard laughed, and Glendenning after that
+ignored both Howard and myself.
+
+He said to Mrs. Tremain, “I never noticed you wearing that ring before.
+It is a very strange ornament.”
+
+“Yes,” answered Mrs. Tremain, turning it round and round. “This is a
+Mexican charmed ring. There is a secret about it, see if you can find
+it out.” And with that she pulled off the ring, and handed it to
+Glendenning.
+
+“You ought to give it to him as a keepsake,” said young Howard,
+aggressively. “The ring, I notice, is a couple of snakes twisted
+together.”
+
+“Little boys,” said Mrs. Tremain, laughing, “shouldn’t make remarks
+like that. They lead to trouble.”
+
+Young Howard flushed angrily as Mrs. Tremain said this. He did not seem
+to mind it when Glendenning accused him of his youth, but he didn’t
+like it coming from her.
+
+Meanwhile Glendenning was examining the ring, and suddenly it came
+apart in his hand. The coils of the snake were still linked together,
+but instead of composing one solid ring they could now be spread
+several inches apart like the links of a golden chain. Mrs. Tremain
+turned pale, and gave a little shriek, as she saw this.
+
+“Put it together again,” she cried; “put it together quickly.”
+
+“What is the matter?” said Glendenning, looking up at her. She was
+standing two or three steps above him; Glendenning was at the bottom of
+the stair; young Howard stood on the same step as Mrs. Tremain, and I
+was a step or two above them.
+
+“Put it together,” cried Mrs. Tremain again. “I am trying to,” said
+Glendenning, “is there a spring somewhere?”
+
+“Oh, I cannot tell you,” she answered, nervously clasping and
+unclasping her hands; “but if you do not put it together without help,
+that means very great ill-luck for both you and me.”
+
+“Does it?” said Glendenning, looking up at her with a peculiar glance,
+quite ignoring our presence.
+
+“Yes, it does,” she said; “try your best to put that ring together as
+you found it.” It was quite evident that Mrs. Tremain had all the
+superstition of Mexico.
+
+Glendenning fumbled with the ring one way and another, and finally
+said, “I cannot put it together.”
+
+“Let me try,” said young Howard.
+
+“No, no, that will do no good.” Saying which Mrs. Tremain snatched the
+links from Glendenning, slipped them into one ring again, put it on her
+finger, and dashed quickly up the stairs without saying a word of good
+night to any of us.
+
+Glendenning was about to proceed up the stair after her, when young
+Howard very ostentatiously placed himself directly in his path.
+Glendenning seemed to hesitate for a moment, then thought better of it,
+turned on his heel and walked down the passage towards the saloon.
+
+“Look here, Howard,” I said, “you are going to get yourself into
+trouble. There’s sure to be a fuss on board this steamer before we
+reach Liverpool.”
+
+“I wouldn’t be at all surprised,” answered young Howard.
+
+“Well, do you think it will be quite fair to Mrs. Tremain?”
+
+“Oh, I shan’t bring her name into the matter.”
+
+“The trouble will be to keep her name out. It may not be in your power
+to do that. A person who interferes in other people’s affairs must do
+so with tact and caution.”
+
+Young Howard looked up at me with a trace of resentment in his face.
+“Aren’t you interfering now?” he said.
+
+“You are quite right, I am. Good night.” And I went up the stairway.
+Howard shouted after me, but I did not see him again that night.
+
+Next day we were nearing Queenstown, and, as I had letters to write, I
+saw nothing of young Howard till the evening. I found him unreasonably
+contrite for what he had said to me the night before; and when I told
+him he had merely spoken the truth, and was quite justified in doing
+so, he seemed more miserable than ever.
+
+“Come,” he said, “let us have a walk on the deck.”
+
+It was between nine and ten o’clock; and when we got out on the deck, I
+said to him, “Without wishing to interfere any further—”
+
+“Now, don’t say that,” he cried; “it is cruel.”
+
+“Well, I merely wanted to know where your two charges are.”
+
+“I don’t know,” he answered, in a husky whisper; “they are not in the
+usual corner to-night, and I don’t know where they are.”
+
+“She is probably with her husband,” I suggested.
+
+“No, he is down in the saloon reading.”
+
+As young Howard was somewhat prone to get emphatic when he began to
+talk upon this subject, and as there was always a danger of other
+people overhearing what he said, I drew him away to a more secluded
+part of the ship. On this particular boat there was a wheelhouse aft
+unused, and generally filled up with old steamer chairs. A narrow
+passage led around this at the curving stern, seldom used by
+promenaders because of certain obstructions which, in the dark, were
+apt to trip a person up. Chains or something went from this wheelhouse
+to the sides of the ship, and, being covered up by boxes of plank, made
+this part of the deck hard to travel on in the dark. As we went around
+this narrow passage young Howard was the first to stop. He clutched my
+arm, but said nothing. There in the dark was the faint outline of two
+persons, with their backs towards us, leaning over the stern of the
+ship. The vibration at this part of the boat, from the throbbing of the
+screw, made it impossible for them to hear our approach. They doubtless
+thought they were completely in the dark; but they were deluded in that
+idea, because the turmoil of the water left a brilliant phosphorescent
+belt far in the rear of the ship, and against this bright, faintly
+yellow luminous track their forms were distinctly outlined. It needed
+no second glance to see that the two were Glendenning and Mrs. Tremain.
+Her head rested on his shoulder, and his arm was around her waist.
+
+“Let us get back,” I said in a whisper; and, somewhat to my surprise,
+young Howard turned back with me. I felt his hand trembling on my arm,
+but he said nothing. Before we could say a word to each other a sadden
+and unexpected complication arose. We met Captain Tremain, with a shawl
+on his arm, coming towards us.
+
+“Good evening, captain,” I said; “have a turn on the deck with us?”
+
+“No, thanks,” he replied, “I am looking for my wife. I want to give her
+this shawl to put over her shoulders. She is not accustomed to such
+chilly weather as we are now running into, and I am afraid she may take
+cold.”
+
+All this time young Howard stood looking at him with a startled
+expression in his eyes, and his lower jaw dropped. I was afraid Captain
+Tremain would see him, and wonder what was the matter with the boy. I
+tried to bring him to himself by stamping my heel—not too gently—on his
+toes, but he turned his face in the semi-darkness toward me without
+changing its expression. The one idea that had taken possession of my
+mind was that Captain Tremain must not be allowed to go further aft
+than he was, and I tried by looks and nudges to tell young Howard to go
+back and give her warning, but the boy seemed to be completely dazed
+with the unexpected horror of the situation. To have this calm, stern,
+unsuspecting man come suddenly upon what we had seen at the stern of
+the boat was simply appalling to think of. He certainly would have
+killed Glendenning where he stood, and very likely Mrs. Tremain as
+well. As Captain Tremain essayed to pass us I collected my wits as well
+as I could, and said—
+
+“Oh, by the way, captain, I wanted to speak to you about Mexico. Do
+you—do you—think that it is a good—er—place for investment?”
+
+“Well,” said Captain Tremain, pausing, “I am not so sure about that.
+You see, their Government is so very unstable. The country itself is
+rich enough in mineral wealth, if that is what you mean.” All the while
+Howard stood there with his mouth agape, and I felt like shoving my
+fist into it.
+
+“Here, Howard,” I said, “I want to speak to Captain Tremain for a
+moment. Take this shawl and find Mrs. Tremain, and give it to her.”
+Saying this, I took the shawl from the captain’s arm and threw it at
+young Howard. He appeared then to realise, for the first time, what was
+expected of him, and, giving me a grateful look, disappeared toward the
+stern.
+
+“What I wanted more particularly to know about Mexico,” I said to the
+captain, who made no objection to this move, “was whether there would
+be any more—well, likely to have trouble—whether we would have trouble
+with them in a military way, you know—that’s more in your line.”
+
+“Oh, I think not,” said the captain. “Of course, on the boundary where
+we were, there was always more or less trouble with border ruffians,
+sometimes on one side of the line and sometimes on the other. There is
+a possibility always that complications may arise from that sort of
+thing. Our officers might go over into the Mexican territory and seize
+a desperado there, or they might come over into ours. Still, I don’t
+think anything will happen to bring on a war such as we had once or
+twice with Mexico.”
+
+At this moment I was appalled to hear Glendenning’s voice ring out
+above the noise of the vibration of the vessel.
+
+“What do you mean by that, you scoundrel,” he said.
+
+“Hallo,” exclaimed the captain, “there seems to be a row back there. I
+wonder what it is?”
+
+“Oh, nothing serious, I imagine. Probably some steerage passengers have
+come on the cabin deck. I heard them having a row with some one to-day
+on that score. Let’s walk away from it.”
+
+The captain took my arm, and we strolled along the deck while he gave
+me a great deal of valuable information about Mexico and the state of
+things along the border line, which I regret to say I cannot remember a
+word of. The impressions of a man who has been on the spot are always
+worth hearing, but my ears were strained to catch a repetition of the
+angry cry I had heard, or the continuation of the quarrel which it
+certainly seemed to be the beginning of. As we came up the deck again
+we met young Howard with the shawl still on his arm and Mrs. Tremain
+walking beside him. She was laughing in a somewhat hysterical manner,
+and his face was as pale as ashes with a drawn look about the corners
+of his lips, but the captain’s eyes were only on his wife.
+
+“Why don’t you put on the shawl, my dear?” he said to her
+affectionately. “The shawl?” she answered. Then, seeing it on young
+Howard’s arm, she laughed, and said, “He never offered it to me.”
+
+Young Howard made haste to place the shawl on her shoulders, which she
+arranged around herself in a very coquettish and charming way. Then she
+took her husband’s arm.
+
+“Good night,” she said to me; “good night, and thanks, Mr. Howard.”
+
+“Good night,” said the captain; “I will tell you more about that mine
+to-morrow.”
+
+We watched them disappear towards the companion-way. I drew young
+Howard towards the side of the boat.
+
+“What happened?” I asked eagerly. “Did you have trouble?”
+
+“Very nearly, I made a slip of the tongue. I called her Mrs.
+Glendenning.”
+
+“You called her _what_?”
+
+“I said, ‘Mrs. Glendenning, your husband is looking for you.’ I had
+come right up behind them, and they hadn’t heard me, and of course both
+were very much startled. Glendenning turned round and shouted, ‘What do
+you mean by that, you scoundrel?’ and caught me by the throat. She
+instantly sprang between us, pushing him toward the stern of the boat,
+and me against the wheelhouse. “‘Hush, hush,’ she whispered; ‘you mean,
+Mr. Howard, that my husband is there, do you not?’
+
+“‘Yes,’ I answered, ‘and he will be here in a moment unless you come
+with me.’ With that she said ‘Good night, Mr. Glendenning,’ and took my
+arm, and he, like a thief, slunk away round the other side of the
+wheelhouse. I was very much agitated. I suppose I acted like a fool
+when we met the captain, didn’t I?”
+
+“You did,” I answered; “go on.”
+
+“Well, Mrs. Tremain saw that, and she laughed at me, although I could
+see she was rather disturbed herself.”
+
+Some time that night we touched at Queenstown, and next evening we were
+in Liverpool. When the inevitable explosion came, I have no means of
+knowing, and this, as I have said before, is a story without a
+conclusion.
+
+Mrs. Tremain the next day was as bright and jolly as ever, and the last
+time I saw her, she was smiling over her shoulder at Glendenning, and
+not paying the slightest attention to either her husband on whose arm
+she hung, or to young Howard, who was hovering near.
+
+
+
+
+Share and Share Alike
+
+
+“The quick must haste to vengeance taste,
+    For time is on his head;
+But he can wait at the door of fate,
+Though the stay be long and the hour be late—
+                    The dead.”
+
+
+Melville Hardlock stood in the centre of the room with his feet wide
+apart and his hands in his trousers pockets, a characteristic attitude
+of his. He gave a quick glance at the door, and saw with relief that
+the key was in the lock, and that the bolt prevented anybody coming in
+unexpectedly. Then he gazed once more at the body of his friend, which
+lay in such a helpless-looking attitude upon the floor. He looked at
+the body with a feeling of mild curiosity, and wondered what there was
+about the lines of the figure on the floor that so certainly betokened
+death rather than sleep, even though the face was turned away from him.
+He thought, perhaps, it might be the hand with its back to the floor
+and its palm towards the ceiling; there was a certain look of
+hopelessness about that. He resolved to investigate the subject some
+time when he had leisure. Then his thoughts turned towards the subject
+of murder. It was so easy to kill, he felt no pride in having been able
+to accomplish that much. But it was not everybody who could escape the
+consequences of his crime. It required an acute brain to plan after
+events so that shrewd detectives would be baffled. There was a
+complacent conceit about Melville Hardlock, which was as much a part of
+him as his intense selfishness, and this conceit led him to believe
+that the future path he had outlined for himself would not be followed
+by justice.
+
+With a sigh Melville suddenly seemed to realise that while there was no
+necessity for undue haste, yet it was not wise to be too leisurely in
+some things, so he took his hands from his pockets and drew to the
+middle of the floor a large Saratoga trunk. He threw the heavy lid
+open, and in doing so showed that the trunk was empty. Picking up the
+body of his friend, which he was surprised to note was so heavy and
+troublesome to handle, he with some difficulty doubled it up so that it
+slipped into the trunk. He piled on top of it some old coats, vests,
+newspapers, and other miscellaneous articles until the space above the
+body was filled. Then he pressed down the lid and locked it, fastening
+the catches at each end. Two stout straps were now placed around the
+trunk and firmly buckled after he had drawn them as tight as possible.
+Finally he damped the gum side of a paper label, and when he had pasted
+it on the end of the trunk, it showed the words in red letters, “S.S.
+_Platonic_, cabin, wanted.” This done, Melville threw open the window
+to allow the fumes of chloroform to dissipate themselves in the outside
+air. He placed a closed, packed and labelled portmanteau beside the
+trunk, and a valise beside that again, which, with a couple of
+handbags, made up his luggage. Then he unlocked the door, threw back
+the bolt, and, having turned the key again from the outside, strode
+down the thickly-carpeted stairs of the hotel into the large pillared
+and marble-floored vestibule where the clerk’s office was. Strolling up
+to the counter behind which stood the clerk of the hotel, he shoved his
+key across to that functionary, who placed it in the pigeon-hole marked
+by the number of his room.
+
+“Did my friend leave for the West last night, do you know?”
+
+“Yes,” answered the clerk, “he paid his bill and left. Haven’t you seen
+him since?”
+
+“No,” replied Hardlock.
+
+“Well, he’ll be disappointed about that, because he told me he expected
+to see you before he left, and would call up at your room later. I
+suppose he didn’t have time. By the way, he said you were going back to
+England to-morrow. Is that so?”
+
+“Yes, I sail on the _Platonic_. I suppose I can have my luggage sent to
+the steamer from here without further trouble?”
+
+“Oh, certainly,” answered the clerk; “how many pieces are there? It
+will be fifty cents each.”
+
+“Very well; just put that down in my bill with the rest of the
+expenses, and let me have it to-night. I will settle when I come in.
+Five pieces of luggage altogether.”
+
+“Very good. You’ll have breakfast to-morrow, I suppose?”
+
+“Yes, the boat does not leave till nine o’clock.”
+
+“Very well; better call you about seven, Mr. Hardlock. Will you have a
+carriage?”
+
+“No, I shall walk down to the boat. You will be sure, of course, to
+have my things there in time.”
+
+“Oh, no fear of that. They will be on the steamer by half-past eight.”
+
+“Thank you.”
+
+As Mr. Hardlock walked down to the boat next morning he thought he had
+done rather a clever thing in sending his trunk in the ordinary way to
+the steamer. “Most people,” he said to himself, “would have made the
+mistake of being too careful about it. It goes along in the ordinary
+course of business. If anything should go wrong it will seem incredible
+that a sane man would send such a package in an ordinary express waggon
+to be dumped about, as they do dump luggage about in New York.”
+
+He stood by the gangway on the steamer watching the trunks, valises,
+and portmanteaus come on board.
+
+“Stop!” he cried to the man, “that is not to go down in the hold; I
+want it. Don’t you see it’s marked ‘wanted?’”
+
+“It is very large, sir,” said the man; “it will fill up a state-room by
+itself.”
+
+“I have the captain’s room,” was the answer.
+
+So the man flung the trunk down on the deck with a crash that made even
+the cool Mr. Hardlock shudder.
+
+“Did you say you had the captain’s room, sir?” asked the steward
+standing near.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Then I am your bedroom steward,” was the answer; “I will see that the
+trunk is put in all right.”
+
+The first day out was rainy but not rough; the second day was fair and
+the sea smooth. The second night Hardlock remained in the smoking-room
+until the last man had left. Then, when the lights were extinguished,
+he went out on the upper deck, where his room was, and walked up and
+down smoking his cigar. There was another man also walking the deck,
+and the red glow of his cigar, dim and bright alternately, shone in the
+darkness like a glow-worm.
+
+Hardlock wished that he would turn in, whoever he was. Finally the man
+flung his cigar overboard and went down the stairway. Hartlock had now
+the dark deck to himself. He pushed open the door of his room and
+turned out the electric light. It was only a few steps from his door to
+the rail of the vessel high above the water. Dimly on the bridge he saw
+the shadowy figure of an officer walking back and forth. Hardlock
+looked over the side at the phosphorescent glitter of the water which
+made the black ocean seem blacker still. The sharp ring of the bell
+betokening midnight made Melville start as if a hand had touched him,
+and the quick beating of his heart took some moments to subside. “I’ve
+been smoking too much to-day,” he said to himself. Then looking quickly
+up and down the deck, he walked on tip toe to his room, took the trunk
+by its stout leather handle and pulled it over the ledge in the
+doorway. There were small wheels at the bottom of the trunk, but
+although they made the pulling of it easy, they seemed to creak with
+appalling loudness. He realised the fearful weight of the trunk as he
+lifted the end of it up on the rail. He balanced it there for a moment,
+and glanced sharply around him, but there was nothing to alarm him. In
+spite of his natural coolness, he felt a strange, haunting dread of
+some undefinable disaster, a dread which had been completely absent
+from him at the time he committed the murder. He shoved off the trunk
+before he had quite intended to do so, and the next instant he nearly
+bit through his tongue to suppress a groan of agony. There passed half
+a dozen moments of supreme pain and fear before he realised what had
+happened. His wrist had caught in the strap handle of the trunk, and
+his shoulder was dislocated. His right arm was stretched taut and
+helpless, like a rope holding up the frightful and ever-increasing
+weight that hung between him and the sea. His breast was pressed
+against the rail and his left hand gripped the iron stanchion to keep
+himself from going over. He felt that his feet were slipping, and he
+set his teeth and gripped the iron with a grasp that was itself like
+iron. He hoped the trunk would slip from his useless wrist, but it
+rested against the side of the vessel, and the longer it hung the more
+it pressed the hard strap handle into his nerveless flesh. He had
+realised from the first that he dare not cry for help, and his breath
+came hard through his clenched teeth as the weight grew heavier and
+heavier. Then, with his eyes strained by the fearful pressure, and
+perhaps dazzled by the glittering phosphorescence running so swiftly by
+the side of the steamer far below, he seemed to see from out the trunk
+something in the form and semblance of his dead friend quivering like
+summer heat below him. Sometimes it was the shimmering phosphorescence,
+then again it was the wraith hovering over the trunk. Hardlock, in
+spite of his agony, wondered which it really was; but he wondered no
+longer when it spoke to him.
+
+“Old Friend,” it said, “you remember our compact when we left England.
+It was to be _share and share alike,_ my boy—_share and share alike._ I
+have had my share. Come!”
+
+Then on the still night air came the belated cry for help, but it was
+after the foot had slipped and the hand had been wrenched from the iron
+stanchion.
+
+
+
+
+An International Row
+
+
+                    “A simple child
+That lightly draws its breath,
+And feels its life in every limb,
+What should it know of——” kicking up a row
+
+
+(_Note_.—Only the last four words of the above poem are claimed as
+original.)
+“Then America declared war on England.”—_History of_ 1812
+
+
+Lady, not feeling particularly well, reclining in a steamer chair,
+covered up with rags. Little girl beside her, who wants to know.
+Gentleman in an adjoining steamer chair. The little girl begins to
+speak.
+
+“And do you have to pay to go in, mamma?”
+
+“Yes, dear.”
+
+“How much do you have to pay? As much as at a theatre?”
+
+“Oh, you need not pay anything particular—no set sum, you know. You pay
+just what you can afford.”
+
+“Then it’s like a collection at church, mamma?”
+
+“Yes, dear.”
+
+“And does the captain get the money, mamma?”
+
+“No, dear; the money goes to the poor orphans, I think.”
+
+“Where are the orphans, mamma?”
+
+“I don’t know, dear, I think they are in Liverpool.”
+
+“Whose orphans are they, mamma?”
+
+“They are the orphans of sailors, dear.”
+
+“What kind of sailors, mamma?”
+
+“British sailors, darling.”
+
+“Aren’t there any sailors in America, mamma?”
+
+“Oh yes, dear, lots of them.”
+
+“And do they have any orphans?”
+
+“Yes, dear, I suppose there are orphans there too.”
+
+“And don’t they get any of the money, mamma?”
+
+“I am sure I do not know, dear. By the way, Mr. Daveling, how is that?
+Do they give any of the money to American orphans?”
+
+“I believe not, madam. Subscriptions at concerts given on board British
+steamers are of course donated entirely to the Seamen’s Hospital or
+Orphanage of Liverpool.”
+
+“Well, that doesn’t seem to be quite fair, does it? A great deal of the
+money is subscribed by Americans.”
+
+“Yes, madam, that is perfectly true.”
+
+“I should think that ten Americans cross on these lines for every one
+Englishman.”
+
+“I am sure I do not know, madam, what the proportion is. The Americans
+are great travellers, so are the English too, for that matter.”
+
+“Yes; but I saw in one of the papers that this year alone over a
+hundred thousand persons had taken their passage from New York to
+England. It seems to me, that as all of them contribute to the receipts
+of the concerts, some sort of a division should be made.”
+
+“Oh, I have no doubt if the case were presented to the captain, he
+would be quite willing to have part of the proceeds at least go to some
+American seamen’s charity.”
+
+“I think that would be only fair.”
+
+Two young ladies, arm in arm, approach, and ask Mrs. Pengo how she is
+feeling to-day.
+
+Mrs. Pengo replies that she doesn’t suppose she will feel any better as
+long as this rolling of the ship continues.
+
+They claim, standing there, endeavouring to keep as perpendicular as
+possible, that the rolling is something simply awful.
+
+Then the lady says to them, “Do you know, girls, that all the money
+subscribed at the concerts goes to England?”
+
+“Why, no; I thought it went to some charity.”
+
+“Oh, it _does_ go to a charity. It goes to the Liverpool Seamen’s
+Hospital.”
+
+“Well, isn’t that all right?”
+
+“Yes, it’s all right enough; but, as Sadie was just suggesting now, it
+doesn’t seem quite fair, when there are orphans of sailors belonging to
+America, and as long as such large sums are subscribed by Americans,
+that the money should not be divided and part of it at least given to
+an American charity.”
+
+“Why, that seems perfectly fair, doesn’t it, Mr. Daveling?”
+
+“Yes, it is perfectly fair. I was just suggesting that perhaps if the
+state of things was presented to the captain, he would doubtless give a
+portion at least of the proceeds to an American Seamen’s Home—if such
+an institution exists.”
+
+“Then,” remarked the other girl, “I propose we form a committee, and
+interview the captain. I think that if Americans subscribe the bulk of
+the money, which they certainly do, they should have a voice in the
+disposal of it.”
+
+This was agreed to on all hands, and so began one of the biggest rows
+that ever occurred on board an Atlantic liner. Possibly, if the captain
+had had any tact, and if he had not been so thoroughly impressed with
+his own tremendous importance, what happened later on would not have
+happened.
+
+The lady in the steamer chair took little part in the matter, in fact
+it was not at that time assumed to be of any importance whatever; but
+the two young American girls were enthusiastic, and they spoke to
+several of the passengers about it, both American and English. The
+English passengers all recognised the justice of the proposed plan, so
+a committee of five young ladies, and one young gentleman as spokesman,
+waited upon the captain. The young ladies at first had asked the doctor
+of the ship to be the spokesman; but when the doctor heard what the
+proposal was, he looked somewhat alarmed, and stroked his moustache
+thoughtfully.
+
+“I don’t know about that,” he said; “it is a little unusual. The money
+has always gone to the Liverpool Seamen’s Hospital, and—well, you see,
+we are a conservative people. We do a thing in one way for a number of
+years, and then keep on doing it because we have always done it in that
+way.”
+
+“Yes,” burst out one of the young ladies, “that is no reason why an
+unjust thing should be perpetuated. Merely because a wrong has been
+done is no reason why it should be done again.”
+
+“True,” said the doctor, “true,” for he did not wish to fall out with
+the young lady, who was very pretty; “but, you see, in England we think
+a great deal of precedent.”
+
+And so the result of it all was that the doctor demurred at going to
+see the captain in relation to the matter. He said it wouldn’t be the
+thing, as he was an official, and that it would be better to get one of
+the passengers.
+
+I was not present at the interview, and of course know only what was
+told me by those who were there. It seems that the captain was highly
+offended at being approached on such a subject at all. A captain of an
+ocean liner, as I have endeavoured to show, is a very great personage
+indeed. And sometimes I imagine the passengers are not fully aware of
+this fact, or at least they do not show it as plainly as they ought to.
+Anyhow, the committee thought the captain had been exceedingly gruff
+with them, as well as just a trifle impolite. He told them that the
+money from the concerts had always gone to the Liverpool Seamen’s
+Hospital, and always would while he was commanding a ship. He seemed to
+infer that the permission given them to hold a concert on board the
+ship was a very great concession, and that people should be thankful
+for the privilege of contributing to such a worthy object.
+
+So, beginning with the little girl who wanted to know, and ending with
+the captain who commanded the ship, the conflagration was started.
+
+Such is British deference to authority that, as soon as the captain’s
+decision was known, those who had hitherto shown an open mind on the
+subject, and even those who had expressed themselves as favouring the
+dividing of the money, claimed that the captain’s dictum had settled
+the matter. Then it was that every passenger had to declare himself.
+“Those who are not with us,” said the young women, “are against us.”
+The ship was almost immediately divided into two camps. It was
+determined to form a committee of Americans to take the money received
+from the second concert; for it was soon resolved to hold two concerts,
+one for the American Seamen’s Orphans’ Home and the other for that at
+Liverpool.
+
+One comical thing about the row was, that nobody on board knew whether
+an American Seamen’s Orphans’ Home existed or not. When this problem
+was placed before the committee of young people, they pooh-poohed the
+matter. They said it didn’t make any difference at all; if there was no
+Seamen’s Hospital in America, it was quite time there should be one;
+and so they proposed that the money should be given to the future
+hospital, if it did not already exist.
+
+When everything was prepared for the second concert there came a bolt
+from the blue. It was rumoured round the ship that the captain had
+refused his permission for the second concert to be held. The American
+men, who had up to date looked with a certain amused indifference on
+the efforts of the ladies, now rallied and held a meeting in the
+smoking-room. Every one felt that a crisis had come, and that the time
+to let loose the dogs of war—sea-dogs in this instance—had arrived. A
+committee was appointed to wait upon the captain next day. The
+following morning the excitement was at its highest pitch. It was not
+safe for an American to be seen conversing with an Englishman, or _vice
+versâ_.
+
+Rumour had it at first—in fact all sorts of wild rumours were flying
+around the whole forenoon—that the captain refused to see the
+delegation of gentlemen who had requested audience with him. This
+rumour, however, turned out to be incorrect. He received the delegation
+in his room with one or two of the officers standing beside him. The
+spokesman said—
+
+“Captain, we are informed that you have concluded not to grant
+permission to the Americans to hold a concert in aid of the American
+Seamen’s Orphans’ Home. We wish to know if this is true?”
+
+“You have been correctly informed,” replied the captain.
+
+“We are sorry to hear that,” answered the spokesman. “Perhaps you will
+not object to tell us on what grounds you have refused your
+permission?”
+
+“Gentlemen,” said the captain, “I have received you in my room because
+you requested an interview. I may say, however, that I am not in the
+habit of giving reasons for anything I do, to the passengers who honour
+this ship with their company.”
+
+“Then,” said the spokesman, endeavouring to keep calm, but succeeding
+only indifferently, “it is but right that we should tell you that we
+regard such a proceeding on your part as a high handed outrage; that we
+will appeal against your decision to the owners of this steamship, and
+that, unless an apology is tendered, we will never cross on this line
+again, and we will advise all our compatriots never to patronise a line
+where such injustice is allowed.”
+
+“Might I ask you,” said the captain very suavely, “of what injustice
+you complain?”
+
+“It seems to us,” said the spokesman, “that it is a very unjust thing
+to allow one class of passengers to hold a concert, and to refuse
+permission to another class to do the same thing.”
+
+“If that is all you complain of,” said the captain, “I quite agree with
+you. I think that would be an exceedingly unjust proceeding.”
+
+“Is not that what you are about to do?”
+
+“Not that I am aware of.”
+
+“You have prohibited the American concert?”
+
+“Certainly. But I have prohibited the English concert as well.”
+
+The American delegates looked rather blankly at each other, and then
+the spokesman smiled. “Oh, well,” he said, “if you have prohibited both
+of them, I don’t see that we have anything to grumble at.”
+
+“Neither do I,” said the captain.
+
+The delegation then withdrew; and the passengers had the unusual
+pleasure of making one ocean voyage without having to attend the
+generally inevitable amateur concert.
+
+
+
+
+A Ladies Man
+
+
+“Jest w’en we guess we’ve covered the trail
+So’s no one can’t foller, w’y then we fail
+W’en we feel safe hid. Nemesis, the cuss,
+Waltzes up with nary a warnin’ nor fuss.
+Grins quiet like, and says, ‘How d’y do,
+So glad we’ve met, I’m a-lookin’ fer you’”
+
+
+I do not wish to particularise any of the steamers on which the
+incidents given in this book occurred, so the boat of which I now write
+I shall call _The Tub_. This does not sound very flattering to the
+steamer, but I must say _The Tub_ was a comfortable old boat, as
+everybody will testify who has ever taken a voyage in her. I know a
+very rich man who can well afford to take the best room in the best
+steamer if he wants to, but his preference always is for a slow boat
+like _The Tub_. He says that if you are not in a hurry, a slow boat is
+preferable to one of the new fast liners, because you have more
+individuality there, you get more attention, the officers are flattered
+by your preference for their ship, and you are not merely one of a
+great mob of passengers as in a crowded fast liner. The officers on a
+popular big and swift boat are prone to be a trifle snobbish. This is
+especially the case on the particular liner which for the moment stands
+at the top—a steamer that has broken the record, and is considered the
+best boat in the Atlantic service for the time being. If you get a word
+from the captain of such a boat you may consider yourself a peculiarly
+honoured individual, and even the purser is apt to answer you very
+shortly, and make you feel you are but a worm of the dust, even though
+you have paid a very large price for your state-room. On _The Tub_
+there was nothing of this. The officers were genial good fellows who
+admitted their boat was not the fastest on the Atlantic, although at
+one time she had been; but if _The Tub_ never broke the record, on the
+other hand, she never broke a shaft, and so things were evened up. She
+wallowed her way across the Atlantic in a leisurely manner, and there
+was no feverish anxiety among the passengers when they reached
+Queenstown, to find whether the rival boat had got in ahead of us or
+not.
+
+Everybody on board _The Tub_ knew that any vessel which started from
+New York the same day would reach Queenstown before us. In fact, a good
+smart sailing vessel, with a fair wind, might have made it lively for
+us in an ocean race. _The Tub_ was a broad slow boat, whose great
+speciality was freight, and her very broadness, which kept her from
+being a racer, even if her engines had had the power, made her
+particularly comfortable in a storm. She rolled but little; and as the
+state-rooms were large and airy, every passenger on board _The Tub_ was
+sure of a reasonably pleasant voyage.
+
+It was always amusing to hear the reasons each of the passengers gave
+for being on board _The Tub_. A fast and splendid liner of an
+opposition company left New York the next day, and many of our
+passengers explained to me they had come to New York with the intention
+of going by that boat, but they found all the rooms taken, that is, all
+the desirable rooms. Of coarse they might have had a room down on the
+third deck; but they were accustomed in travelling to have the best
+rooms, and if they couldn’t be had, why it didn’t much matter what was
+given them, so that was the reason they took passage on _The Tub_.
+Others were on the boat because they remembered the time when she was
+one of the fastest on the ocean, and they didn’t like changing ships.
+Others again were particular friends of the captain, and he would have
+been annoyed if they had taken any other steamer. Everybody had some
+particularly valid reason for choosing _The Tub_, that is, every reason
+except economy, for it was well known that _The Tub_ was one of the
+cheapest boats crossing the ocean. For my own part I crossed on her,
+because the purser was a particular friend of mine, and knew how to
+amalgamate fluids and different solid substances in a manner that
+produced a very palatable refreshment. He has himself deserted _The
+Tub_ long ago, and is now purser on one of the new boats of the same
+line.
+
+When the gong rang for the first meal on hoard _The Tub_ after leaving
+New York, we filed down from the smoking-room to the great saloon to
+take our places at the table. There were never enough passengers on
+board _The Tub_ to cause a great rush for places at the table; but on
+this particular occasion, when we reached the foot of the stairway, two
+or three of us stood for a moment both appalled and entranced. Sitting
+at the captain’s right hand was a somewhat sour and unattractive
+elderly woman, who was talking to that smiling and urbane official.
+Down the long table from where she sat, in the next fifteen seats were
+fifteen young and pretty girls, most of them looking smilingly and
+expectantly toward the stairway down which we were descending. The
+elderly woman paused for a moment in her conversation with the captain,
+glanced along the line of beauty, said sharply, ‘Girls!’ and instantly
+every face was turned demurely toward the plate that was in front of
+it, and then we, who had hesitated for a moment on the stairway, at
+once made a break, not for our seats at the table, but for the purser.
+
+“It’s all right, gentlemen,” said that charming man, before we could
+speak; “it’s all right. I’ve arranged your places down the table on the
+opposite side. You don’t need to say a word, and those of you who want
+to change from the small tables to the large one, will find your names
+on the long table as well as at the small tables, where you have
+already chosen your places. So, you see, I knew just how you wished
+things arranged; but,” he continued, lowering his voice, “boys, there’s
+a dragon in charge. I know her. She has crossed with us two or three
+times. She wanted me to arrange it so that fifteen ladies should sit
+opposite her fifteen girls; but, of course, we couldn’t do that,
+because there aren’t fifteen other ladies on board, and there had to be
+one or two ladies placed next the girls at the foot of the table, so
+that no girl should have a young man sitting beside her. I have done
+the best I could, gentlemen, and, if you want the seats rearranged, I
+think we can manage it for you. Individual preferences may crop up, you
+know.” And the purser smiled gently, for he had crossed the ocean very,
+very often.
+
+We all took our places, sternly scrutinised by the lady, whom the
+purser had flatteringly termed the “dragon.” She evidently didn’t think
+very much of us as a crowd, and I am sure in my own heart I cannot
+blame her. We were principally students going over to German colleges
+on the cheap, some commercial travellers, and a crowd generally who
+could not afford to take a better boat, although we had all just missed
+the fast liner that had left a few days before, or had for some reason
+not succeeded in securing a berth on the fast boat, which was to leave
+the day after.
+
+If any of the fifteen young ladies were aware of our presence, they did
+not show it by glancing toward us. They seemed to confine their
+conversation to whispers among themselves, and now and then a little
+suppressed giggle arose from one part of the line or the other, upon
+which the “dragon” looked along the row, and said severely, “Girls!”
+whereupon everything was quiet again, although some independent young
+lady generally broke the silence by another giggle just at the time the
+stillness was becoming most impressive.
+
+After dinner, in the smoking-room, there was a great deal of discussion
+about the fifteen pretty girls and about the “dragon.” As the officers
+on board _The Tub_ were gentlemen whom an ordinary person might speak
+to, a delegation of one was deputed to go to the purser’s room and find
+out all that could be learned in relation to the young and lovely
+passengers.
+
+The purser said that the dragon’s name was Mrs. Scrivener-Yapling, with
+a hyphen. The hyphen was a very important part of the name, and Mrs.
+Scrivener-Yapling always insisted upon it. Any one who ignored that
+hyphen speedily fell from the good graces of Mrs. Scrivener-Yapling. I
+regret to say, however, in spite of the hyphen, the lady was very
+generally known as the “dragon” during that voyage. The purser told us
+further, that Mrs. Scrivener-Yapling was in the habit of coming over
+once a year with a party of girls whom she trotted around Europe. The
+idea was that they learnt a great deal of geography, a good deal of
+French and German, and received in a general way a polish which Europe
+is supposed to give.
+
+The circular which Mrs. Scrivener-Yapling issued was shown to me once
+by one of the girls, and it represented that all travelling was
+first-class, that nothing but the very best accommodations on steamers
+and in hotels were provided, and on account of Mrs. S. Y.’s intimate
+knowledge of Europe, and the different languages spoken there, she
+managed the excursion in a way which any one else would find impossible
+to emulate, and the advantages accruing from such a trip could not be
+obtained in any other manner without a very much larger expenditure of
+money. The girls had the advantage of motherly care during all the time
+they were abroad, and as the party was strictly limited in number, and
+the greatest care taken to select members only from the very best
+families in America, Mrs. Scrivener-Yapling was certain that all her
+patrons would realise that this was an opportunity of a lifetime, etc.,
+etc.
+
+Even if _The Tub_ were not the finest boat on the Atlantic, she
+certainly belonged to one of the best lines, and as the circular
+mentioned the line and not the particular vessel on which the excursion
+was to go, the whole thing had a very high-class appearance.
+
+The first morning out, shortly after, breakfast, the “dragon” and her
+girls appeared on deck. The girls walked two and two together, and kept
+their eyes pretty much on the planks beneath them. The fifteenth girl
+walked with the “dragon,” and thus the eight pairs paced slowly up and
+down the deck under the “dragon’s” eye. When this morning promenade was
+over the young ladies were marshalled into the ladies’ saloon, where no
+masculine foot was allowed to tread. Shortly before lunch an
+indignation meeting was held in the smoking-room. Stewart Montague, a
+commercial traveller from Milwaukee, said that he had crossed the ocean
+many times, but had never seen such a state of things before. This
+young ladies’ seminary business (he alluded to the two and two walk
+along the deck) ought not to be permitted on any well regulated ship.
+Here were a number of young ladies, ranging in age from eighteen
+upwards, and there lay ahead of us a long and possibly dreary voyage,
+yet the “dragon” evidently expected that not one of the young ladies
+was to be allowed to speak to one of the young gentlemen on board, much
+less walk the deck with him. Now, for his part, said Stewart Montague,
+he was going to take off his hat the next morning to the young lady who
+sat opposite him at the dinner-table and boldly ask her to walk the
+deck with him. If the “dragon” interfered, he proposed that we all
+mutiny, seize the vessel, put the captain in irons, imprison the
+“dragon” in the hold, and then take to pirating on the high seas. One
+of the others pointed out to him an objection to this plan, claiming
+that _The Tub_ could not overtake anything but a sailing-vessel, while
+even that was doubtful. Montague explained that the mutiny was only to
+be resorted to as a last desperate chance. He believed the officers of
+the boat would give us every assistance possible, and so it was only in
+case of everything else failing that we should seize the ship.
+
+In a moment of temporary aberration I suggested that the “dragon” might
+not be, after all, such an objectionable person as she appeared, and
+that perhaps she could be won over by kindness. Instantly a motion was
+put, and carried unanimously, appointing me a committee to try the
+effect of kindness on the “dragon.” It was further resolved that the
+meeting should be adjourned, and I should report progress at the next
+conclave.
+
+I respectfully declined this mission. I said it was none of my affair.
+I didn’t wish to talk to any of the fifteen girls, or even walk the
+deck with them. I was perfectly satisfied as I was. I saw no reason why
+I should sacrifice myself for the good of others. I suggested that the
+name of Stewart Montague be substituted for mine, and that he should
+face the “dragon” and report progress.
+
+Mr. Montague said it had been my suggestion, not his, that the “dragon”
+might be overcome by kindness. He did not believe she could, but he was
+quite willing to suspend hostilities until my plan had been tried and
+the result reported to the meeting. It was only when they brought in a
+motion to expel me from the smoking-room that I succumbed to the
+pressure. The voyage was just beginning, and what is a voyage to a
+smoker who dare not set foot in the smoking-room?
+
+I do not care to dwell on the painful interview I had with the
+“dragon.” I put my foot in it at the very first by pretending that I
+thought she came from New York, whereas she had really come from
+Boston. To take a New York person for a Bostonian is flattery, but to
+reverse the order of things, especially with a woman of the uncertain
+temper of Mrs. Scrivener-Yapling, was really a deadly insult, and I
+fear this helped to shipwreck my mission, although I presume it would
+have been shipwrecked in any case. Mrs. Scrivener-Yapling gave me to
+understand that if there was one thing more than another she excelled
+in it was the reading of character. She knew at a glance whether a man
+could be trusted or not; most men were not, I gathered from her
+conversation. It seems she had taken a great many voyages across the
+Atlantic, and never in the whole course of her experience had she seen
+such an objectionable body of young men as on this present occasion.
+She accused me of being a married man, and I surmised that there were
+other iniquities of which she strongly suspected me.
+
+The mission was not a success, and I reported at the adjourned meeting
+accordingly.
+
+Mr. Stewart Montague gave it as his opinion that the mission was
+hopeless from the first, and in this I quite agreed with him. He said
+he would try his plan at dinner, but what it was he refused to state.
+We asked if he would report on the success or failure, and he answered
+that we would all see whether it was a success or failure for
+ourselves. So there was a good deal of interest centring around the
+meal, an interest not altogether called forth by the pangs of hunger.
+
+Dinner had hardly commenced when Mr. Stewart Montague leaned over the
+table and said, in quite an audible voice, to the young lady opposite
+him, “I understand you have never been over the ocean before?”
+
+The young lady looked just a trifle frightened, blushed very prettily,
+and answered in a low voice that she had not.
+
+Then he said, “I envy you the first impressions you will have of
+Europe. It is a charming country. Where do you go after leaving
+England?”
+
+“We are going across to Paris first,” she replied, still in a low
+voice.
+
+Most of us, however, were looking at the “dragon.” That lady sat bolt
+upright in her chair as if she could not believe her ears. Then she
+said, in an acid voice, “Miss Fleming.”
+
+“Yes, Mrs. Scrivener-Yapling,” answered that young lady.
+
+“Will you oblige me by coming here for a moment?”
+
+Miss Fleming slowly revolved in her circular chair, then rose and
+walked up to the head of the table.
+
+“Miss Strong,” said the “dragon” calmly, to the young lady who sat
+beside her, “will you oblige me by taking Miss Fleming’s place at the
+centre of the table?”
+
+Miss Strong rose and took Miss Fleming’s place.
+
+“Sit down beside me, please?” said the “dragon” to Miss Fleming; and
+that unfortunate young woman, now as red as a rose, sat down beside the
+“dragon.”
+
+Stewart Montague bit his lip. The rest of us said nothing, and appeared
+not to notice what had occurred. Conversation went on among ourselves.
+The incident seemed ended; but, when the fish was brought, and placed
+before Miss Fleming, she did not touch it. Her eyes were still upon the
+table. Then, apparently unable to struggle any longer with her
+emotions, she rose gracefully, and, bowing to the captain, said,
+“Excuse me, please.” She walked down the long saloon with a firm step,
+and disappeared. The “dragon” tried to resume conversation with the
+captain as if nothing had happened; but that official answered only in
+monosyllables, and a gloom seemed to have settled down upon the dinner
+party.
+
+Very soon the captain rose and excused himself. There was something to
+attend to on deck, he said, and he left us.
+
+As soon as we had reassembled in the smoking-room, and the steward had
+brought in our cups of black coffee, Stewart Montague arose and said,
+“Gentlemen, I know just what you are going to say to me. It _was_
+brutal. Of course I didn’t think the ‘dragon’ would do such a thing. My
+plan was a complete failure. I expected that conversation would take
+place across the table all along the line, if I broke the ice.”
+
+Whatever opinions were held, none found expression, and that evening in
+the smoking-room was as gloomy as the hour at the dinner-table.
+
+Towards the shank of the evening a gentleman, who had never been in the
+smoking-room before, entered very quietly. We recognised him as the man
+who sat to the left of the captain opposite the “dragon.” He was a man
+of middle age and of somewhat severe aspect. He spoke with deliberation
+when he did speak, and evidently, weighed his words. All we knew of him
+was that the chair beside his at meal-times had been empty since the
+voyage began, and it was said that his wife took her meals in her
+state-room. She had appeared once on deck with him, very closely
+veiled, and hung upon his arm in a way that showed she was not standing
+the voyage very well, pleasant as it had been.
+
+“Gentlemen,” began the man suavely, “I would like to say a few words to
+you if I were certain that my remarks would be taken in the spirit in
+which they are given, and that you would not think me intrusive or
+impertinent.”
+
+“Go ahead,” said Montague, gloomily, who evidently felt a premonition
+of coming trouble.
+
+The serious individual waited until the steward had left the room, then
+he closed the door. “Gentlemen,” he continued, “I will not recur to the
+painful incident which happened at the dinner-table to-night further
+than by asking you, as honourable men, to think of Mrs.
+Scrivener-Yapling’s position of great responsibility. She stands in the
+place of a mother to a number of young ladies who, for the first time
+in their lives, have left their homes.”
+
+“Lord pity them,” said somebody, who was sitting in the corner.
+
+The gentleman paid no attention to the remark.
+
+“Now what I wish to ask of you is that you will not make Mrs.
+Scrivener-Yapling’s position any harder by futile endeavours to form
+the acquaintance of the young ladies.”
+
+At this point Stewart Montague broke out. “Who the devil are you, sir,
+and who gave you the right to interfere?”
+
+“As to who I am,” said the gentleman, quietly, “my name is Kensington,
+and—”
+
+“West or South?” asked the man in the corner.
+
+At this there was a titter of laughter.
+
+“My name is Kensington,” repeated the gentleman, “and I have been asked
+by Mrs. Scrivener-Yapling to interfere, which I do very reluctantly. As
+I said at the beginning, I hope you will not think my interference is
+impertinent. I only do so at the earnest request of the lady I have
+mentioned, because I am a family man myself, and I understand and
+sympathise with the lady in the responsibility which she has assumed.”
+
+“It seems to me,” said the man in the corner, “that if the ‘dragon’ has
+assumed responsibilities and they have not been thrust upon her, which
+I understand they have not, then she must take the responsibility of
+the responsibilities which she has assumed. Do I make myself clear?”
+
+“Gentlemen,” said Mr. Kensington, “it is very painful for me to speak
+with you upon this subject. I feel that what I have so clumsily
+expressed may not be correctly understood; but I appeal to your honour
+as gentlemen, and I am sure I will not appeal in vain when I ask you
+not to make further effort towards the acquaintance of the young
+ladies, because all that you can succeed in doing will be to render
+their voyage unpleasant to themselves, and interrupt, if not seriously
+endanger, the good feeling which I understand has always existed
+between Mrs. Scrivener-Yapling and her _protégées_.”
+
+“All right,” said the man in the corner. “Have a drink, Mr.
+Kensington?”
+
+“Thank you, I never drink,” answered Mr. Kensington.
+
+“Have a smoke, then?”
+
+“I do not smoke either, thank you all the same for your offer. I hope,
+gentlemen, you will forgive my intrusion on you this evening. Good
+night.”
+
+“Impudent puppy,” said Stewart Montague, as he closed the door behind
+him.
+
+But in this we did not agree with him, not even the man in the corner.
+
+“He is perfectly right,” said that individual, “and I believe that we
+ought to be ashamed of ourselves. It will only make trouble, and I for
+one am going to give up the hunt.”
+
+So, from that time forward, the smoking-room collectively made no
+effort towards the acquaintance of the young ladies. The ladies’
+seminary walk, as it was called, took place every morning punctually,
+and sometimes Mr. Kensington accompanied the walkers. Nevertheless,
+individual friendships, in spite of everything that either Mr.
+Kensington or the “dragon” could do, sprang up between some of the
+young men and some of the girls, but the “dragon” had an invaluable
+ally in Mr. Kensington. The moment any of the young ladies began
+walking with any of the young gentlemen on deck, or the moment they
+seated themselves in steamer chairs together, the urbane, always polite
+Mr. Kensington appeared on the scene and said, “Miss So-and-So, Mrs.
+Scrivener-Yapling would like to speak with you.”
+
+Then the young lady would go with Mr. Kensington, while the young
+gentleman was apt to use strong language and gnash his teeth.
+
+Mr. Kensington seemed lynx-eyed. There was no escaping him. Many in the
+smoking-room no doubt would have liked to have picked a flaw in his
+character if they could. One even spoke of the old chestnut about a man
+who had no small vices being certain to have some very large ones; but
+even the speakers themselves did not believe this, and any one could
+see at a glance that Mr. Kensington was a man of sterling character.
+Some hinted that his wife was the victim of his cruelty, and kept her
+state-room only because she knew that he was so fond of the “dragon’s”
+company, and possibly that of some of the young ladies as well. But
+this grotesque sentiment did not pass current even in the smoking-room.
+Nevertheless, although he was evidently so good a man, he was certainly
+the most unpopular individual on board _The Tub_. The hatred that
+Stewart Montague felt for him ever since that episode in the
+smoking-room was almost grotesque.
+
+Montague had somehow managed to get a contrite note of apology and
+distress to Miss Fleming, and several times the alert Mr. Kensington
+had caught them together, and asked Miss Fleming with the utmost
+respect to come down and see Mrs. Scrivener-Yapling.
+
+All in all the “dragon” did not have a very easy time of it. She fussed
+around like any other old hen who had in charge a brood of ducks.
+
+Once I thought there was going to be a row between Montague and
+Kensington. He met that gentleman in a secluded part of the deck, and,
+going up to him, said—
+
+“You old wife deserter, why can’t you attend to your own affairs?”
+
+Kensington turned deadly pale at this insult, and his fists clinched—
+
+“What do you mean?” he said huskily.
+
+“I mean what I say. Why don’t you take your own wife walking on the
+deck, and leave the young ladies alone. It’s none of your business with
+whom they walk.”
+
+Kensington seemed about to reply; but he thought better of it, turned
+on his heel, and left Montague standing there.
+
+The old _Tub_ worried her way across the ocean, and reached the bar at
+Liverpool just in time to be too late to cross it that night. Word was
+passed along that a tender would come out from Liverpool for us, which
+was not a very cheering prospect, as we would have two hours’ sail at
+least in what was practically an open boat.
+
+Finally the tender came alongside, and the baggage was dumped down upon
+it. All of us gathered together ready to leave _The Tub_. Mr.
+Kensington, with his closely-veiled wife hanging on his arm, was
+receiving the thanks and congratulations of the “dragon.” The fifteen
+girls were all around her. Before any one started down the sloping
+gangway plank, however, two policemen, accompanied by a woman, hurried
+up on board _The Tub_.
+
+“Now, madam,” said the policeman, “is he here?”
+
+We saw that trouble was coming, and everybody looked at everybody else.
+
+“Is he here?” cried the woman excitedly; “there he stands, the villain.
+Oh, you villain, you scoundrel, you _mean_ rascal, to leave me, as you
+thought, penniless in New York, and desert your own wife and family for
+that—that creature!” We all looked at Kensington, and his face was
+greenish-pale. The heavily veiled woman shrunk behind him and the
+policeman tried to make the true wife keep quiet.
+
+“Is your name Braughton?”
+
+Kensington did not answer. His eyes were riveted on his wife. “In the
+name of God,” he cried aghast, “how did _you_ come here?”
+
+“How did I come here,” she shrieked. “Oh, you thought you slipped away
+nicely, didn’t you? But you forgot that the _Clipper_ left the next
+day, and I’ve been here two days waiting for you. You little thought
+when you deserted me and my children in New York that we would be here
+to confront you at Liverpool.”
+
+“Come, come.” said the policeman, “there’s no use of this. I am afraid
+you will have to come with us, sir.”
+
+They took him in charge, and the irate wife then turned like a tigress
+on the heavily veiled woman who was with him.
+
+“No wonder you are ashamed to show your face,” she cried.
+
+“Come, come,” said the policeman, “come, come.” And they managed to
+induce her to say no more.
+
+“Madam,” said young Montague to the speechless ‘dragon,’ “I want to ask
+your permission to allow me to carry Miss Fleming’s hand- baggage
+ashore.”
+
+“How dare you speak to me, sir?” she answered.
+
+“Because,” he said, in a low voice, “I thought perhaps you wouldn’t
+like an account of this affair to go to the Boston newspapers. I’m a
+newspaper man, you see,” he added, with unblushing mendacity. Then,
+turning to Miss Fleming, he said, “Won’t you allow me to carry this for
+you?”
+
+Miss Fleming surrendered the natty little handbag she had with her, and
+smiled. The “dragon” made no objection.
+
+
+
+
+A Society For The Reformation Of Poker Players.
+
+
+“O Unseen Hand that ever makes and deals us,
+          And plays our game!
+That now obscures and then to light reveals us,
+          Serves blanks of fame
+How vain our shuffling, bluff and weak pretending!
+’Tis Thou alone can name the final ending”
+
+
+The seductive game of poker is one that I do not understand. I do not
+care to understand it, because it cannot be played without the putting
+up of a good deal of the coin of the realm, and although I have nothing
+to say against betting, my own theory of conduct in the matter is this,
+that I want no man’s money which I do not earn, and I do not want any
+man to get my money unless he earns it. So it happens, in the matter of
+cards, I content myself with euchre and other games which do not
+require the wagering of money.
+
+On board the Atlantic steamers there is always more or less gambling. I
+have heard it said that men make trips to and fro merely for the
+purpose of fleecing their fellow-passengers; but, except in one
+instance, I never had any experience with this sort of thing.
+
+Our little society for the reformation of poker players, or to speak
+more correctly, for the reformation of one particular poker player, was
+formed one bright starlight night, latitude such a number, and
+longitude something else, as four of us sat on a seat at the extreme
+rear end of the great steamer. We four, with one other, sat at a small
+table in the saloon. One of the small tables on a Transatlantic steamer
+is very pleasant if you have a nice crowd with you. A seat at a small
+table compares with a seat at the large table as living in a village
+compares with living in a city. You have some individuality at the
+short table; you are merely one of a crowd at the long table. Our small
+table was not quite full. I had the honour of sitting at the head of
+it, and on each side of me were two young fellows, making five
+altogether. We all rather prided ourselves on the fact that there were
+no ladies at our little table.
+
+The young Englishman who sat at my right hand at the corner of the
+table was going out to America to learn farming. I could, myself, have
+taught him a good deal about it, but I refrained from throwing cold
+water on his enthusiastic ideas about American agriculture. His notion
+was that it was an occupation mostly made up of hunting and fishing,
+and having a good time generally. The profits, he thought, were large
+and easily acquired. He had guns with him, and beautiful fishing-rods,
+and things of that sort. He even had a vague idea that he might be able
+to introduce fox-hunting in the rural district to which he was going.
+He understood, and regretted the fact, that we in the United States
+were rather behind-hand in the matter of fox-hunting. He had a good
+deal of money with him, I understood, and he had already paid a hundred
+pounds to a firm in England that had agreed to place him on a farm in
+America. Of course, now that the money had been paid, there was no use
+in telling the young man he had been a fool. He would find that out
+soon enough when he got to America. Henry Storm was his name, and a
+milder mannered man with a more unsuitable name could hardly be found.
+The first two or three days out he was the life of our party. We all
+liked him, in fact, nobody could help liking him; but, as the voyage
+progressed, he grew more and more melancholy, and, what was really
+serious, took little food, which is not natural in an Englishman. I
+thought somebody had been telling him what a fool he had been to pay
+away his hundred pounds before leaving England, but young Smith of
+Rochester, who sat at my left, told me what the trouble was one day as
+we walked the deck. “Do you know,” he began, “that Henry Storm is being
+robbed?”
+
+“Being robbed?” I answered; “you mean he has been robbed.”
+
+“Well, has been, and is being, too. The thing is going on yet. He is
+playing altogether too much poker in the smoking-room, and has lost a
+pile of money—more, I imagine, than he can well afford.”
+
+“That’s what’s the trouble with him, is it? Well, he ought to know
+better than to play for bigger stakes than he can afford to lose.”
+
+“Oh, it’s easy to say that; but he’s in the hands of a swindler, of a
+professional gambler. You see that man?” He lowered his voice as he
+spoke, and I looked in the direction of his glance. By this time we
+knew, in a way, everybody on board the ship. The particular man Smith
+pointed out was a fellow I had noticed a good deal, who was very quiet
+and gentlemanly, interfering with nobody, and talking with few. I had
+spoken to him once, but he had answered rather shortly, and, apparently
+to his relief, and certainly to my own, our acquaintance ceased where
+it began. He had jet black beard and hair, both rather closely clipped;
+and he wore a fore and aft cap, which never improves a man’s appearance
+very much.
+
+“That man,” continued Smith, as he passed us, “was practically under
+arrest for gambling on the steamer in which I came over. It seems that
+he is a regular professional gambler, who does nothing but go across
+the ocean and back again, fleecing young fellows like Storm.”
+
+“Does he cheat?” I asked.
+
+“He doesn’t need to. He plays poker. An old hand, and a cool one, has
+no occasion to cheat at that game to get a young one’s money away from
+him.”
+
+“Then why doesn’t some one warn young Storm?”
+
+“Well, that’s just what I wanted to speak to you about. I think it
+ought to be done. I think we should call a meeting of our table,
+somewhere out here in the quiet, and have a talk over it, and make up
+our mind what is to be done. It’s a delicate matter, you know, and I am
+afraid we are a little late as it is. I do believe young Storm has lost
+nearly all his money to that fellow.”
+
+“Can’t he be made to disgorge?”
+
+“How? The money has been won fairly enough, as that sort of thing goes.
+Other fellows have played with them. It isn’t as if he had been caught
+cheating—he hasn’t, and won’t be. He doesn’t cheat—he doesn’t need to,
+as I said before. Now that gambler pretends he is a commercial
+traveller from Buffalo. I know Buffalo down to the ground, so I took
+him aside yesterday and said plumply to him, ‘What firm in Buffalo do
+you represent?’ He answered shortly that his business was his own
+affair. I said, ‘Certainly it is, and you are quite right in keeping it
+dark. When I was coming over to Europe, I saw a man in your line of
+business who looked very much like you, practically put under arrest by
+the purser for gambling. You were travelling for a St. Louis house
+then.’”
+
+“What did he say to that?”
+
+“Nothing; he just gave me one of those sly, sinister looks of his,
+turned on his heel, and left me.”
+
+The result of this conversation was the inauguration of the Society for
+the Reforming of a Poker Player. It was agreed between us that if young
+Storm had lost all his money we would subscribe enough as a loan to
+take care of him until he got a remittance from home. Of course we knew
+that any young fellow who goes out to America to begin farming, does
+not, as a general rule, leave people in England exceedingly well off,
+and probably this fact, more than any other, accounted for the remorse
+visible on Storm’s countenance. We knew quite well that the offering of
+money to him would be a very delicate matter, but it was agreed that
+Smith should take this in hand if we saw the offer was necessary. Then
+I, as the man who sat at the head of the table, was selected to speak
+to young Storm, and, if possible, get him to abandon poker. I knew this
+was a somewhat impudent piece of business on my part, and so I took
+that evening to determine how best to perform the task set for me. I
+resolved to walk the deck with him in the morning, and have a frank
+talk over the matter.
+
+When the morning came, I took young Storm’s arm and walked two or three
+turns up and down the deck, but all the while I could not get up
+courage enough to speak with him in relation to gambling. When he left
+me, I again thought over the matter. I concluded to go into the
+smoking-room myself, sit down beside him, see him lose some money and
+use that fact as a test for my coming discourse on the evils of
+gambling. After luncheon I strolled into the smoking-room, and there
+sat this dark-faced man with his half-closed eyes opposite young Storm,
+while two others made up the four-handed game of poker.
+
+Storm’s face was very pale, and his lips seemed dry, for he moistened
+them every now and then as the game went on. He was sitting on the
+sofa, and I sat down beside him, paying no heed to the dark gambler’s
+look of annoyance. However, the alleged Buffalo man said nothing, for
+he was not a person who did much talking. Storm paid no attention to me
+as I sat down beside him. The gambler had just dealt. It was very
+interesting to see the way he looked at his hand. He allowed merely the
+edges of the cards to show over each other, and then closed up his hand
+and seemed to know just what he had. When young Storm looked at his
+hand he gave a sort of gasp, and for the first time cast his eyes upon
+me. I had seen his hand, but did not know whether it was a good one or
+not. I imagined it was not very good, because all the cards were of a
+low denomination. Threes or fours I think, but four of the cards had a
+like number of spots. There was some money in the centre of the table.
+Storm pushed a half-crown in front of him, and the next man did the
+same. The gambler put down a half-sovereign, and the man at his left,
+after a moment’s hesitation, shoved out an equal amount from the pile
+of gold in front of him.
+
+Young Storm pushed out a sovereign.
+
+“I’m out,” said the man whose next bet it was, throwing down his cards.
+
+The gambler raised it a sovereign, and the man at his left dropped out.
+It now rested between Storm and the gambler. Storm increased the bet a
+sovereign. The gambler then put on a five-pound note.
+
+Storm said to me huskily, “Have you any money?”
+
+“Yes,” I answered him.
+
+“Lend me five pounds if you can.”
+
+Now, the object of my being there was to stop gambling, not to
+encourage it. I was the president _pro tem_, of the Society for the
+Reformation of Poker Players, yet I dived into my pocket, pulled out my
+purse under the table and slipped a five-pound note into his hand. He
+put that on the table as if he had just taken it from his own pocket.
+
+“I call you,” he said.
+
+“What have you got?” asked the gambler.
+
+“Four fours,” said Storm, putting down his hand.
+
+The gambler closed up his and threw the cards over to the man who was
+to deal. Storm paused a moment and then pulled towards him the money in
+the centre of the table and handed me my five-pound note.
+
+When the cards were next dealt, Storm seemed to have rather an ordinary
+hand, so apparently had all the rest, and there was not much money in
+the pile. But, poor as Storm’s hand was, the rest appeared to be
+poorer, and he raked in the cash. This went on for two or three deals,
+and finding that, as Storm was winning all the time, although not
+heavily, I was not getting an object lesson against gambling, I made a
+move to go.
+
+“Stay where you are,” whispered Storm to me, pinching my knee with his
+hand so hard that I almost cried out.
+
+Then it came to the gambler’s turn to deal again. All the time he
+deftly shuffled the cards he watched the players with that furtive
+glance of his from out his half-shut eyes.
+
+Storm’s hand was a remarkable one, after he had drawn two cards, but I
+did not know whether it had any special value or not. The other players
+drew three cards each, and the gambler took one.
+
+“How much money have you got?” whispered Storm to me.
+
+“I don’t know,” I said, “perhaps a hundred pounds.”
+
+“Be prepared to lend me every penny of it,” he whispered.
+
+I said nothing; but I never knew the president of a society for the
+suppression of gambling to be in such a predicament.
+
+Storm bet a sovereign. The player to his left threw down his hand. The
+gambler pushed out two sovereigns. The other player went out.
+
+Storm said, “I see your bet, and raise you another sovereign.” The
+gambler, without saying a word, shoved forward some more gold.
+
+“Get your money ready,” whispered Storm to I did not quite like his
+tone, but I made allowance for the excitement under which he was
+evidently labouring.
+
+He threw on a five-pound note. The gambler put down another five-pound
+note, and then, as if it were the slightest thing possible, put a
+ten-pound note on top of that, which made the side players gasp. Storm
+had won sufficient to cover the bet and raise it. After that I had to
+feed in to him five-pound notes, keeping count of their number on my
+fingers as I did so. The first to begin to hesitate about putting money
+forward was the gambler. He shot a glance now and again from under his
+eyebrows at the young man opposite. Finally, when my last five-pound
+note had been thrown on the pile, the gambler spoke for the first time.
+
+“I call you,” he said.
+
+“Put down another five-pound note,” cried the young man.
+
+“I have called you,” said the gambler.
+
+Henry Storm half rose from his seat in his excitement. “Put down
+another five-pound note, if you dare.”
+
+“That isn’t poker,” said the gambler. “I have called you. What have you
+got?”
+
+“Put down another five-pound note, and I’ll put a ten-pound note on top
+of it.”
+
+“I say that isn’t poker. You have been called. What have you got?”
+
+“I’ll bet you twenty pounds against your five-pound note, if you dare
+put it down.”
+
+By this time Storm was standing up, quivering with excitement, his
+cards tightly clenched in his hand. The gambler sat opposite him calm
+and imperturbable.
+
+“What have you got?” said Storm.
+
+“I called you,” said the gambler, “show your hand.”
+
+“Yes; but when I called you, you asked me what I had, and I told you.
+What have _you_ got?”
+
+“I am not afraid to show my hand,” said the gambler, and he put down on
+the table four aces.
+
+“There’s the king of hearts,” said Storm, putting it down on the table.
+“There’s the queen of hearts, there’s the knave of hearts, there’s the
+ten of hearts. Now,” he cried, waving his other card in the air, “can
+you tell me what this card is?”
+
+“I am sure I don’t know,” answered the gambler, quietly, “probably the
+nine of hearts.”
+
+“It _is_ the nine of hearts,” shouted Storm, placing it down beside the
+others.
+
+The gambler quietly picked up the cards, and handed them to the man who
+was to deal. Storm’s hands were trembling with excitement as he pulled
+the pile of bank notes and gold towards him. He counted out what I had
+given him, and passed it to me under the table. The rest he thrust into
+his pocket.
+
+“Come,” I said, “it is time to go. Don’t strain your luck.”
+
+“Another five pounds,” he whispered; “sit where you are.”
+
+“Nonsense,” I said, “another five pounds will certainly mean that you
+lose, everything you have won. Come away, I want to talk with you.”
+
+“Another five pounds, I have sworn it.”
+
+“Very well, I shall not stay here any longer.”
+
+“No, no,” he cried eagerly; “sit where you are, sit where you are.”
+
+There was a grim thin smile on the lips of the gambler as this
+whispered conversation took place.
+
+When the next hand was dealt around and Storm looked at his cards, he
+gave another gasp of delight. I thought that a poker player should not
+be so free with his emotions; but of course I said nothing. When it
+came his time to bet, he planked down a five-pound note on the table.
+The other two, as was usual, put down their cards. They were evidently
+very timorous players. The gambler hesitated for a second, then he put
+a ten-pound note on Storm’s five-pounds. Storm at once saw him, and
+raised him ten. The gambler hesitated longer this time, but at last he
+said, “I shall not bet. What have you got?”
+
+“Do you call me?” asked Storm. “Put up your money if you do.”
+
+“No, I do not call you.”
+
+Storm laughed and threw his cards face up on the table. “I have
+nothing,” he said, “I have bluffed you for once.”
+
+“It is very often done,” answered the gambler, quietly, as Storm drew
+in his pile of money, stuffing it again in his coat pocket. “Your deal,
+Storm.”
+
+“No, sir,” said the young man, rising up; “I’ll never touch a poker
+hand again. I have got my own money back and five or ten pounds over. I
+know when I’ve had enough.”
+
+Although it was Storm’s deal, the gambler had the pack of cards in his
+hand idly shuffling them to and fro.
+
+“I have often heard,” he said slowly without raising his eyes, “that
+when one fool sits down beside another fool at poker, the player has
+the luck of two fools—but I never believed it before.”
+
+
+
+
+The Man Who was Not on the Passenger List.
+
+
+“The well-sworn Lie, franked to the world with all
+    The circumstance of proof,
+Cringes abashed, and sneaks along the wall
+    At the first sight of Truth.”
+
+
+The _Gibrontus_ of the Hot Cross Bun Line was at one time the best ship
+of that justly celebrated fleet. All steamships have, of course, their
+turn at the head of the fleet until a better boat is built, but the
+_Gibrontus_ is even now a reasonably fast and popular boat. An accident
+happened on board the _Gibrontus_ some years ago which was of small
+importance to the general public, but of some moment to Richard
+Keeling—for it killed him. The poor man got only a line or two in the
+papers when the steamer arrived at New York, and then they spelled his
+name wrong. It had happened something like this: Keeling was wandering
+around very late at night, when he should have been in his bunk, and he
+stepped on a dark place that he thought was solid. As it happened,
+there was nothing between him and the bottom of the hold but space.
+They buried Keeling at sea, and the officers knew absolutely nothing
+about the matter when inquisitive passengers, hearing rumours,
+questioned them. This state of things very often exists both on sea and
+land, as far as officials are concerned. Mrs. Keeling, who had been
+left in England while her husband went to America to make his fortune,
+and tumbled down a hole instead, felt aggrieved at the company. The
+company said that Keeling had no business to be nosing around dark
+places on the deck at that time of night, and doubtless their
+contention was just. Mrs. Keeling, on the other hand, held that a
+steamer had no right to have such mantraps open at any time, night or
+day, without having them properly guarded, and in that she was also
+probably correct. The company was very sorry, of course, that the thing
+had occurred; but they refused to pay for Keeling unless compelled to
+do so by the law of the land, and there matters stood. No one can tell
+what the law of the land will do when it is put in motion, although
+many people thought that if Mrs. Keeling had brought a suit against the
+Hot Cross Bun Company she would have won it. But Mrs. Keeling was a
+poor woman, and you have to put a penny in the slot when you want the
+figures of justice to work, so the unfortunate creature signed
+something which the lawyer of the company had written out, and accepted
+the few pounds which Keeling had paid for Room 18 on the _Gibrontus_.
+It would seem that this ought to have settled the matter, for the
+lawyer told Mrs. Keeling he thought the company acted very generously
+in refunding the passage money; but it didn’t settle the matter. Within
+a year from that time, the company voluntarily paid Mrs. Keeling £2100
+for her husband. Now that the occurrence is called to your mind, you
+will perhaps remember the editorial one of the leading London dailies
+had on the extraordinary circumstance, in which it was very ably shown
+that the old saying about corporations having no souls to be condemned
+or bodies to be kicked did not apply in these days of commercial honour
+and integrity. It was a very touching editorial, and it caused tears to
+be shed on the Stock Exchange, the members having had no idea, before
+reading it, that they were so noble and generous.
+
+How, then, was it that the Hot Cross Bun Company did this commendable
+act when their lawyer took such pains to clear them of all legal
+liability? The purser of the _Gibrontus_, who is now old and
+superannuated, could probably tell you if he liked.
+
+When the negotiations with Mrs. Keeling had been brought to a
+satisfactory conclusion by the lawyer of the company, and when that
+gentleman was rubbing his hands over his easy victory, the good ship
+_Gibrontus_ was steaming out of the Mersey on her way to New York. The
+stewards in the grand saloon were busy getting things in order for
+dinner, when a wan and gaunt passenger spoke to one of them.
+
+“Where have you placed me at table?” he asked.
+
+“What name, sir?” asked the steward.
+
+“Keeling.”
+
+The steward looked along the main tables, up one side and down the
+other, reading the cards, but nowhere did he find the name he was in
+search of. Then he looked at the small tables, but also without
+success.
+
+“How do you spell it, sir?” he asked the patient passenger.
+
+“K-double-e-l-i-n-g.”
+
+“Thank you, sir.”
+
+Then he looked up and down the four rows of names on the passenger list
+he held in his hand, but finally shook his head.
+
+“I can’t find your name on the passenger list,” he said. “I’ll speak to
+the purser, sir.”
+
+“I wish you would,” replied the passenger in a listless way, as if he
+had not much interest in the matter. The passenger, whose name was not
+on the list, waited until the steward returned. “Would you mind
+stepping into the purser’s room for a moment, sir? I’ll show you the
+way, sir.”
+
+When the passenger was shown into the purser’s room that official said
+to him, in the urbane manner of pursers—
+
+“Might I look at your ticket, sir?”
+
+The passenger pulled a long pocket-book from the inside of his coat,
+opened it, and handed the purser the document it contained. The purser
+scrutinized it sharply, and then referred to a list he had on the desk
+before him.
+
+“This is very strange,” he said at last. “I never knew such a thing to
+occur before, although, of course, it is always possible. The people on
+shore have in some unaccountable manner left your name out of my list.
+I am sorry you have been put to any inconvenience, sir.”
+
+“There has been no inconvenience so far,” said the passenger, “and I
+trust there will be none. You find the ticket regular, I presume?”
+
+“Quite so—quite so,” replied the purser. Then, to the waiting steward,
+“Give Mr. Keeling any place he prefers at the table which is not
+already taken. You have Room 18.”
+
+“That was what I bought at Liverpool.”
+
+“Well, I see you have the room to yourself, and I hope you will find it
+comfortable. Have you ever crossed with us before, sir? I seem to
+recollect your face.”
+
+“I have never been in America.”
+
+“Ah! I see so many faces, of course, that I sometimes fancy I know a
+man when I don’t. Well, I hope you will have a pleasant voyage, sir.”
+
+“Thank you.”
+
+No. 18 was not a popular passenger. People seemed instinctively to
+shrink from him, although it must be admitted that he made no advances.
+All went well until the _Gibrontus_ was about half-way over. One
+forenoon the chief officer entered the captain’s room with a pale face,
+and, shutting the door after him, said—
+
+“I am very sorry to have to report, sir, that one of the passengers has
+fallen into the hold.”
+
+“Good heavens!” cried the captain. “Is he hurt?”
+
+“He is killed, sir.”
+
+The captain stared aghast at his subordinate.
+
+“How did it happen? I gave the strictest orders those places were on no
+account to be left unguarded.”
+
+Although the company had held to Mrs. Keeling that the captain was not
+to blame, their talk with that gentleman was of an entirely different
+tone.
+
+“That is the strange part of it, sir. The hatch has not been opened
+this voyage, sir, and was securely bolted down.”
+
+“Nonsense! Nobody will believe such a story! Some one has been
+careless! Ask the purser to come here, please.”
+
+When the purser saw the body, he recollected, and came as near fainting
+as a purser can.
+
+They dropped Keeling overboard in the night, and the whole affair was
+managed so quietly that nobody suspected anything, and, what is the
+most incredible thing in this story, the New York papers did not have a
+word about it. What the Liverpool office said about the matter nobody
+knows, but it must have stirred up something like a breeze in that
+strictly business locality. It is likely they pooh-poohed the whole
+affair, for, strange to say, when the purser tried to corroborate the
+story with the dead man’s ticket the document was nowhere to be found.
+
+The _Gibrontus_ started out on her next voyage from Liverpool with all
+her colours flying, but some of her officers had a vague feeling of
+unrest within them which reminded them of the time they first sailed on
+the heaving seas. The purser was seated in his room, busy, as pursers
+always are at the beginning of a voyage, when there was a rap at the
+door.
+
+“Come in!” shouted the important official, and there entered unto him a
+stranger, who said—“Are you the purser?”
+
+“Yes, sir. What can I do for you?”
+
+“I have room No. 18.”
+
+“What!” cried the purser, with a gasp, almost jumping from his chair.
+Then he looked at the robust man before him, and sank back with a sigh
+of relief. It was not Keeling.
+
+“I have room No. 18,” continued the passenger, “and the arrangement I
+made with your people in Liverpool was that I was to have the room to
+myself. I do a great deal of shipping over your—”
+
+“Yes, my dear sir,” said the purser, after having looked rapidly over
+his list, “you have No. 18 to yourself.”
+
+“So I told the man who is unpacking his luggage there; but he showed me
+his ticket, and it was issued before mine. I can’t quite understand why
+your people should—”
+
+“What kind of a looking man is he?”
+
+“A thin, unhealthy, cadaverous man, who doesn’t look as if he would
+last till the voyage ends. I don’t want _him_ for a room mate, if I
+have to have one. I think you ought—”
+
+“I will, sir. I will make it all right. I suppose, if it should happen
+that a mistake has been made, and he has the prior claim to the room,
+you would not mind taking No. 24—it is a larger and better room.”
+
+“That will suit me exactly.”
+
+So the purser locked his door and went down to No. 18.
+
+“Well?” he said to its occupant.
+
+“Well,” answered Mr. Keeling, looking up at him with his cold and fishy
+eyes.
+
+“You’re here again, are you?”
+
+“I’m here again, and I _will_ be here again. And again and again, and
+again and again.”
+
+“Now, what the—” Then the purser hesitated a moment, and thought
+perhaps he had better not swear, with that icy, clammy gaze fixed upon
+him. “What object have you in all this?”
+
+“Object? The very simple one of making your company live up to its
+contract. From Liverpool to New York, my ticket reads. I paid for being
+landed in the United States, not for being dumped overboard in
+mid-ocean. Do you think you can take me over? You have had two tries at
+it and have not succeeded. Yours is a big and powerful company too.”
+
+“If you know we can’t do it, then why do you—?” The purser hesitated.
+
+“Pester you with my presence?” suggested Mr. Keeling. “Because I want
+you to do justice. Two thousand pounds is the price, and I will raise
+it one hundred pounds every trip.” This time the New York papers got
+hold of the incident, but not of its peculiar features. They spoke of
+the extraordinary carelessness of the officers in allowing practically
+the same accident to occur twice on the same boat. When the _Gibrontus_
+reached Liverpool all the officers, from the captain down, sent in
+their resignations. Most of the sailors did not take the trouble to
+resign, but cut for it. The managing director was annoyed at the
+newspaper comments, but laughed at the rest of the story. He was
+invited to come over and interview Keeling for his own satisfaction,
+most of the officers promising to remain on the ship if he did so. He
+took Room 18 himself. What happened I do not know, for the purser
+refused to sail again on the _Gibrontus_, and was given another ship.
+
+But this much is certain. When the managing director got back, the
+company generously paid Mrs. Keeling £2100.
+
+
+
+
+The Terrible Experience of Plodkins
+
+
+“Which—life or death? ’Tis a gambler’s chance!
+Yet, unconcerned, we spin and dance,
+On the brittle thread of circumstance.”
+
+
+I understand that Plodkins is in the habit of referring sceptical
+listeners to me, and telling them that I will substantiate every word
+of his story. Now this is hardly fair of Plodkins. I can certainly
+corroborate part of what he says, and I can bear witness to the
+condition in which I found him after his ordeal was over. So I have
+thought it best, in order to set myself right with the public, to put
+down exactly what occurred. If I were asked whether or not I believe
+Plodkins’ story myself, I would have to answer that sometimes I believe
+it, and sometimes I do not. Of course Plodkins will be offended when he
+reads this, but there are other things that I have to say about him
+which will perhaps enrage him still more; still they are the truth. For
+instance, Plodkins can hardly deny, and yet probably he will deny, that
+he was one of the most talented drinkers in America. I venture to say
+that every time he set foot in Liverpool coming East, or in New York
+going West, he was just on the verge of delirium tremens, because,
+being necessarily idle during the voyage, he did little else but drink
+and smoke. I never knew a man who could take so much liquor and show
+such small results. The fact was, that in the morning Plodkins was
+never at his best, because he was nearer sober then than at any other
+part of the day; but, after dinner, a more entertaining, genial,
+generous, kind-hearted man than Hiram Plodkins could not be found
+anywhere.
+
+I want to speak of Plodkins’ story with the calm, dispassionate manner
+of a judge, rather than with the partisanship of a favourable witness;
+and although my allusion to Plodkins’ habits of intoxication may seem
+to him defamatory in character, and unnecessary, yet I mention them
+only to show that something terrible must have occurred in the
+bath-room to make him stop short. The extraordinary thing is, from that
+day to this Plodkins has not touched a drop of intoxicating liquor,
+which fact in itself strikes me as more wonderful than the story he
+tells.
+
+Plodkins was a frequent crosser on the Atlantic steamers. He was
+connected with commercial houses on both sides of the ocean; selling in
+America for an English house, and buying in England for an American
+establishment. I presume it was his experiences in selling goods that
+led to his terrible habits of drinking. I understood from him that out
+West, if you are selling goods you have to do a great deal of treating,
+and every time you treat another man to a glass of wine, or a whiskey
+cocktail, you have, of course, to drink with him. But this has nothing
+to do with Plodkins’ story.
+
+On an Atlantic liner, when there is a large list of passengers,
+especially of English passengers, it is difficult to get a convenient
+hour in the morning at which to take a bath. This being the case, the
+purser usually takes down the names of applicants and assigns each a
+particular hour. Your hour may be, say seven o’clock in the morning.
+The next man comes on at half-past seven, and the third man at eight,
+and so on. The bedroom steward raps at your door when the proper time
+arrives, and informs you that the bath is ready. You wrap a
+dressing-gown or a cloak around you, and go along the silent corridors
+to the bath-room, coming back, generally before your half hour is up,
+like a giant refreshed.
+
+Plodkins’ bath hour was seven o’clock in the morning. Mine was
+half-past seven. On the particular morning in question the steward did
+not call me, and I thought he had forgotten, so I passed along the dark
+corridor and tried the bath-room door. I found it unbolted, and as
+everything was quiet inside, I entered. I thought nobody was there, so
+I shoved the bolt in the door, and went over to see if the water had
+been turned on. The light was a little dim even at that time of the
+morning, and I must say I was horror-stricken to see, lying in the
+bottom of the bath-tub, with his eyes fixed on the ceiling, Plodkins. I
+am quite willing to admit that I was never so startled in my life. I
+thought at first Plodkins was dead, notwithstanding his open eyes
+staring at the ceiling; but he murmured, in a sort of husky far-away
+whisper, “Thank God,” and then closed his eyes.
+
+“What’s the matter, Plodkins?” I said. “Are you ill? What’s the matter
+with you? Shall I call for help?”
+
+There was a feeble negative motion of the head. Then he said, in a
+whisper, “Is the door bolted?”
+
+“Yes,” I answered.
+
+After another moment’s pause, I said—
+
+“Shall I ring, and get you some whiskey or brandy?”
+
+Again he shook his head.
+
+“Help me to get up,” he said feebly.
+
+He was very much shaken, and I had some trouble in getting him on his
+feet, and seating him on the one chair in the room.
+
+“You had better come to my state-room,” I said; “it is nearer than
+yours. What has happened to you?”
+
+He replied, “I will go in a moment. Wait a minute.” And I waited.
+
+“Now,” he continued, when he had apparently pulled himself together a
+bit, “just turn on the electric light, will you?”
+
+I reached up to the peg of the electric light and turned it on. A
+shudder passed over Plodkins’ frame, but he said nothing. He seemed
+puzzled, and once more I asked him to let me take him to my stateroom,
+but he shook his head.
+
+“Turn on the water.” I did so.
+
+“Turn out the electric light.” I did that also.
+
+“Now,” he added, “put your hand in the water and turn on the electric
+light.”
+
+I was convinced Plodkins had become insane, but I recollected I was
+there alone with him, shaky as he was, in a room with a bolted door, so
+I put my fingers in the water and attempted to turn on the electric
+light. I got a shock that was very much greater than that which I
+received when I saw Plodkins lying at the bottom of the bath-tub. I
+gave a yell and a groan, and staggered backwards. Then Plodkins laughed
+a feeble laugh.
+
+“Now,” he said, “I will go with you to your state-room.”
+
+The laugh seemed to have braced up Plodkins like a glass of liquor
+would have done, and when we got to my state-room he was able to tell
+me what had happened. As a sort of preface to his remarks, I would like
+to say a word or two about that bath-tub. It was similar to bath-tubs
+on board other steamers; a great and very deep receptacle of solid
+marble. There were different nickel-plated taps for letting in hot or
+cold water, or fresh water or salt water as was desired; and the
+escape-pipe instead of being at the end, as it is in most bath-tubs,
+was in the centre. It was the custom of the bath-room steward to fill
+it about half full of water at whatever temperature you desired. Then,
+placing a couple of towels on the rack, he would go and call the man
+whose hour it was to bathe.
+
+Plodkins said, “When I went in there everything appeared as usual,
+except that the morning was very dark. I stood in the bath-tub, the
+water coming nearly to my knees, and reached up to turn on the electric
+light. The moment I touched the brass key I received a shock that
+simply paralyzed me. I think liquor has something to do with the awful
+effect the electricity had upon me, because I had taken too much the
+night before, and was feeling very shaky indeed; but the result was
+that I simply fell full length in the bath-tub just as you found me. I
+was unable to move anything except my fingers and toes. I did not
+appear to be hurt in the least, and my senses, instead of being dulled
+by the shock, seemed to be preternaturally sharp, and I realized in a
+moment that if this inability to move remained with me for five minutes
+I was a dead man—dead, not from the shock, but by drowning. I gazed up
+through that clear green water, and I could see the ripples on the
+surface slowly subsiding after my plunge into the tub. It reminded me
+of looking into an aquarium. You know how you see up through the water
+to the surface with the bubbles rising to the top. I knew that nobody
+would come in for at least half an hour, and even then I couldn’t
+remember whether I had bolted the door or not. Sometimes I bolt it, and
+sometimes I don’t. I didn’t this morning, as it happens. All the time I
+felt that strength was slowly returning to me, for I continually worked
+my fingers and toes, and now feeling seemed to be coming up to my
+wrists and arms. Then I remembered that the vent was in the middle of
+the bath-tub; so, wriggling my fingers around, I got hold of the ring,
+and pulled up the plug. In the dense silence that was around me, I
+could not tell whether the water was running out or not; but gazing up
+towards the ceiling I thought I saw the surface gradually sinking down
+and down and down. Of course it couldn’t have been more than a few
+seconds, but it seemed to be years and years and years. I knew that if
+once I let my breath go I would be drowned, merely by the spasmodic
+action of my lungs trying to recover air. I felt as if I should burst.
+It was a match against time, with life or death as the stake. At first,
+as I said, my senses were abnormally sharp, but, by and by, I began to
+notice that they were wavering. I thought the glassy surface of the
+water, which I could see above me, was in reality a great sheet of
+crystal that somebody was pressing down upon me, and I began to think
+that the moment it reached my face I would smother. I tried to
+struggle, but was held with a grip of steel. Finally, this slab of
+crystal came down to my nose, and seemed to split apart. I could hold
+on no longer, and with a mighty expiration blew the water up towards
+the ceiling, and drew in a frightful smothering breath of salt water,
+that I blew in turn upwards, and the next breath I took in had some air
+with the water. I felt the water tickling the corners of my mouth, and
+receding slower and slower down my face and neck. Then I think I must
+have become insensible until just before you entered the room. Of
+course there is something wrong with the electric fittings, and there
+is a leak of electricity; but I think liquor is at the bottom of all
+this. I don’t believe it would have affected me like this if I had not
+been soaked in whiskey.”
+
+“If I were you,” I said, “I would leave whiskey alone.”
+
+“I intend to,” he answered solemnly, “and baths too.”
+
+
+
+
+A Case Of Fever
+
+
+“O, underneath the blood red sun,
+No bloodier deed was ever done!
+Nor fiercer retribution sought
+The hand that first red ruin wrought.”
+
+
+This is the doctor’s story—
+
+The doctors on board the Atlantic liners are usually young men. They
+are good-looking and entertaining as well, and generally they can play
+the violin or some other instrument that is of great use at the
+inevitable concert which takes place about the middle of the Atlantic.
+They are urbane, polite young men, and they chat pleasantly and nicely
+to the ladies on board. I believe that the doctor on the Transatlantic
+steamer has to be there on account of the steerage passengers. Of
+course the doctor goes to the steerage; but I imagine, as a general
+thing, he does not spend any more time there than the rules of the
+service compel him to. The ladies, at least, would be unanimous in
+saying that the doctor is one of the most charming officials on board
+the ship.
+
+This doctor, who tells the story I am about to relate, was not like the
+usual Atlantic physician. He was older than the average, and, to judge
+by his somewhat haggard, rugged face, had seen hard times and rough
+usage in different parts of the world. Why he came to settle down on an
+Atlantic steamer—a berth which is a starting-point rather than a
+terminus—I have no means of knowing. He never told us; but there he
+was, and one night, as he smoked his pipe with us in the smoking-room,
+we closed the door, and compelled him to tell us a story.
+
+As a preliminary, he took out of his inside pocket a book, from which
+he selected a slip of creased paper, which had been there so long that
+it was rather the worse for wear, and had to be tenderly handled.
+
+“As a beginning,” said the doctor, “I will read you what this slip of
+paper says. It is an extract from one of the United States Government
+Reports in the Indian department, and it relates to a case of fever,
+which caused the death of the celebrated Indian chief Wolf Tusk.
+
+“I am not sure that I am doing quite right in telling this story. There
+may be some risk for myself in relating it, and I don’t know exactly
+what the United States Government might have in store for me if the
+truth came to be known. In fact, I am not able to say whether I acted
+rightly or wrongly in the matter I have to tell you about. You shall be
+the best judges of that. There is no question but Wolf Tusk was an old
+monster, and there is no question either that the men who dealt with
+him had been grievously—but, then, there is no use in my giving you too
+many preliminaries; each one will say for himself whether he would have
+acted as I did or not. I will make my excuses at the end of the story.”
+Then he read the slip of paper. I have not a copy of it, and have to
+quote from memory. It was the report of the physician who saw Wolf Tusk
+die, and it went on to say that about nine o’clock in the morning a
+heavy and unusual fever set in on that chief. He had been wounded in
+the battle of the day before, when he was captured, and the fever
+attacked all parts of his body. Although the doctor had made every
+effort in his power to relieve the Indian, nothing could stop the
+ravages of the fever. At four o’clock in the afternoon, having been in
+great pain, and, during the latter part, delirious, he died, and was
+buried near the spot where he had taken ill. This was signed by the
+doctor.
+
+“What I have read you,” said the physician, folding up the paper again,
+and placing it in his pocket-book, “is strictly and accurately true,
+otherwise, of course, I would not have so reported to the Government.
+Wolf Tusk was the chief of a band of irreconcilables, who were now in
+one part of the West and now in another, giving a great deal of trouble
+to the authorities. Wolf Tusk and his band had splendid horses, and
+they never attacked a force that outnumbered their own. In fact, they
+never attacked anything where the chances were not twenty to one in
+their favour, but that, of course, is Indian warfare; and in this, Wolf
+Tusk was no different from his fellows.
+
+“On one occasion Wolf Tusk and his band swooped down on a settlement
+where they knew that all the defenders were away, and no one but women
+and children were left to meet them. Here one of the most atrocious
+massacres of the West took place. Every woman and child in the
+settlement was killed under circumstances of inconceivable brutality.
+The buildings, such as they were, were burnt down, and, when the men
+returned, they found nothing but heaps of smouldering ruin.
+
+“Wolf Tusk and his band, knowing there would be trouble about this, had
+made for the broken ground where they could so well defend themselves.
+The alarm, however, was speedily given, and a company of cavalry from
+the nearest fort started in hot pursuit.
+
+“I was the physician who accompanied the troops. The men whose families
+had been massacred, and who were all mounted on swift horses, begged
+permission to go with the soldiers, and that permission was granted,
+because it was known that their leader would take them after Wolf Tusk
+on his own account, and it was thought better to have every one engaged
+in the pursuit under the direct command of the chief officer.
+
+“He divided his troop into three parts, one following slowly after Wolf
+Tusk, and the other two taking roundabout ways to head off the savages
+from the broken ground and foothills from which no number of United
+States troops could have dislodged them. These flanking parties were
+partly successful. They did not succeed in heading off the Indians
+entirely, but one succeeded in changing their course, and throwing the
+Indians unexpectedly into the way of the other flanking party, when a
+sharp battle took place, and, during its progress, we in the rear came
+up. When the Indians saw our reinforcing party come towards them each
+man broke away for himself and made for the wilderness. Wolf Tusk, who
+had been wounded, and had his horse shot under him, did not succeed in
+escaping. The two flanking parties now having reunited with the main
+body, it was decided to keep the Indians on the run for a day or two at
+least, and so a question arose as to the disposal of the wounded chief.
+He could not be taken with the fighting party; there were no soldiers
+to spare to take him back, and so the leader of the settlers said that
+as they had had enough of war, they would convey him to the fort. Why
+the commander allowed this to be done, I do not know. He must have
+realized the feelings of the settlers towards the man who massacred
+their wives and children. However, the request of the settlers was
+acceded to, and I was ordered back also, as I had been slightly
+wounded. You can see the mark here on my cheek, nothing serious; but
+the commander thought I had better get back into the fort, as he was
+certain there would be no more need of my services. The Indians were on
+the run, and would make no further stand.
+
+“It was about three days’ march from where the engagement had taken
+place to the fort. Wolf Tusk was given one of the captured Indian
+horses. I attended to the wound in his leg, and he was strapped on the
+horse, so that there could be no possibility of his escaping.
+
+“We camped the first night in a little belt of timber that bordered a
+small stream, now nearly dry. In the morning I was somewhat rudely
+awakened, and found myself tied hand and foot, with two or three of the
+settlers standing over me. They helped me to my feet, then half carried
+and half led me to a tree, where they tied me securely to the trunk.
+
+“‘What are you going to do? What is the meaning of this?’ I said to
+them in astonishment.
+
+“‘Nothing,’ was the answer of the leader; ‘that is, nothing, if you
+will sign a certain medical report which is to go to the Government.
+You will see, from where you are, everything that is going to happen,
+and we expect you to report truthfully; but we will take the liberty of
+writing the report for you.
+
+“Then I noticed that Wolf Tusk was tied to a tree in a manner similar
+to myself, and around him had been collected a quantity of firewood.
+This firewood, was not piled up to his feet, but formed a circle at
+some distance from him, so that the Indian would be slowly roasted.
+
+“There is no use in my describing what took place. When I tell you that
+they lit the fire at nine o’clock, and that it was not until four in
+the afternoon that Wolf Tusk died, you will understand the peculiar
+horror of it.
+
+“‘Now,’ said the leader to me when everything was over,’ here is the
+report I have written out,’ and he read to me the report which I have
+read to you.
+
+“‘This dead villain has murdered our wives and our children. If I could
+have made his torture last for two weeks I would have done so. You have
+made every effort to save him by trying to break loose, and you have
+not succeeded. We are not going to harm you, even though you refuse to
+sign this report. You cannot bring him to life again, thank God, and
+all you can do is to put more trouble on the heads of men who have
+already, through red devils like this, had more trouble than they can
+well stand and keep sane. Will you sign the report?’
+
+“I said I would, and I did.”
+
+
+
+
+How The Captain Got His Steamer Out
+
+
+“On his own perticular well-wrought row,
+    That he’s straddled for ages—
+    Learnt its lay and its gages—
+His style may seem queer, but permit him to know,
+The likeliest, sprightliest, manner to hoe.”
+
+
+“There is nothing more certain than that some day we may have to record
+a terrible disaster directly traceable to ocean racing.
+
+“The vivid account which one of our reporters gives in another column
+of how the captain of the _Arrowic_ went blundering across the bar
+yesterday in one of the densest fogs of the season is very interesting
+reading. Of course the account does not pretend to be anything more
+than imaginary, for, until the _Arrowic_ reaches Queenstown, if she
+ever does under her present captain, no one can tell how much of luck
+was mixed with the recklessness which took this steamer out into the
+Atlantic in the midst of the thickest fog we have had this year. All
+that can be known at present is, that, when the fog lifted, the
+splendid steamer _Dartonia_ was lying at anchor in the bay, having
+missed the tide, while the _Arrowic_ was nowhere to be seen. If the fog
+was too thick for the _Dartonia_ to cross the bar, how, then, did the
+captain of the _Arrowic_ get his boat out? The captain of the _Arrowic_
+should be taught to remember that there are other things to be thought
+of beside the defeating of a rival steamer. He should be made to
+understand that he has under his charge a steamer worth a million and a
+half of dollars, and a cargo probably nearly as valuable. Still, he
+might have lost his ship and cargo, and we would have had no word to
+say. That concerns the steamship company and the owners of the cargo;
+but he had also in his care nearly a thousand human lives, and these he
+should not be allowed to juggle with in order to beat all the rival
+steamers in the world.”
+
+The above editorial is taken from the columns of the New York _Daily
+Mentor_. The substance of it had been cabled across to London and it
+made pleasant reading for the captain of the _Arrowic_ at Queenstown.
+The captain didn’t say anything about it; he was not a talkative man.
+Probably he explained to his chief, if the captain of an ocean liner
+can possibly have a chief, how he got his vessel out of New York
+harbour in a fog; but, if he did, the explanation was never made
+public, and so here’s an account of it published for the first time,
+and it may give a pointer to the captain of the rival liner _Dartonia_.
+I may say, however, that the purser was not as silent as the captain.
+He was very indignant at what he called the outrage of the New York
+paper, and said a great many unjustifiable things about newspaper men.
+He knew I was a newspaper man myself, and probably that is the reason
+he launched his maledictions against the fraternity at my head.
+
+“Just listen to that wretched penny-a-liner,” he said, rapping savagely
+on the paper with the back of his hand.
+
+I intimated mildly that they paid more than a penny a line for
+newspaper work in New York, but he said that wasn’t the point. In fact
+the purser was too angry to argue calmly. He was angry the whole way
+from Queenstown to Liverpool.
+
+“Here,” he said, “is some young fellow, who probably never saw the
+inside of a ship in his life, and yet he thinks he can tell the captain
+of a great ocean liner what should be done and what shouldn’t. Just
+think of the cheek of it.”
+
+“I don’t see any cheek in it,” I said, as soothingly as possible. “You
+don’t mean to pretend to argue, at this time of day that a newspaper
+man does _not_ know how to conduct every other business as well as his
+own.”
+
+But the purser did make that very contention, although of course he
+must be excused, for, as I said, he was not in a good temper.
+
+“Newspaper men,” he continued, “act as if they did know everything.
+They pretend in their papers that every man thinks he knows how to run
+a newspaper or a hotel. But look at their own case. See the advice they
+give to statesmen. See how they would govern Germany, or England, or
+any other country under the sun. Does a big bank get into trouble, the
+newspaper man at once informs the financiers how they should have
+conducted their business. Is there a great railway smash-up, the
+newspaper man shows exactly how it could have been avoided if he had
+had the management of the railway. Is there a big strike, the newspaper
+man steps in. He tells both sides what they should do. If every man
+thinks he can run a hotel, or a newspaper—and I am sure most men could
+run a newspaper as well as the newspapers are conducted now—the conceit
+of the ordinary man is nothing to the conceit of the newspaper man. He
+not only thinks he can run a newspaper and a hotel, but every other
+business under the sun.”
+
+“And how do you know he can’t,” I asked.
+
+But the purser would not listen to reason. He contended that a captain
+who had crossed the ocean hundreds of times and for years and years had
+worked his way up, had just as big a sense of responsibility for his
+passengers and his ship and his cargo as any newspaper man in New York
+could have, and this palpably absurd contention he maintained all the
+way to Liverpool.
+
+When a great ocean racer is making ready to put out to sea, there can
+hardly be imagined a more bustling scene than that which presents
+itself on the deck and on the wharf. There is the rush of passengers,
+the banging about of luggage, the hurrying to and fro on the decks, the
+roar of escaping steam, the working of immense steam cranes hoisting
+and lowering great bales of merchandise and luggage from the wharf to
+the hold, and here and there in quiet corners, away from the rush, are
+tearful people bidding good-bye to one another.
+
+The _Arrowic_ and the _Dartonia_ left on the same day and within the
+same hour, from wharfs that were almost adjoining each other. We on
+board the _Arrowic_ could see the same bustle and stir on board the
+_Dartonia_ that we ourselves were in the midst of.
+
+The _Dartonia_ was timed to leave about half an hour ahead of us, and
+we heard the frantic ringing of her last bell warning everybody to get
+on shore who were not going to cross the ocean. Then the great steamer
+backed slowly out from her wharf.
+
+Of course all of us who were going on the _Arrowic_ were warm champions
+of that ship as the crack ocean racer; but, as the _Dartonia_ moved
+backwards with slow stately majesty, all her colours flying, and her
+decks black with passengers crowding to the rail and gazing towards us,
+we could not deny that she was a splendid vessel, and “even the ranks
+of Tuscany could scarce forbear a cheer.” Once out in the stream her
+twin screws enabled her to turn around almost without the help of tugs,
+and just as our last bell was ringing she moved off down the bay. Then
+we backed slowly out in the same fashion, and, although we had not the
+advantage of seeing ourselves, we saw a great sight on the wharf, which
+was covered with people, ringing with cheers, and white with the
+flutter of handkerchiefs.
+
+As we headed down stream the day began to get rather thick. It had been
+gloomy all morning, and by the time we reached the Statue of Liberty it
+was so foggy that one could hardly see three boats’ length ahead or
+behind. All eyes were strained to catch a glimpse of the _Dartonia_,
+but nothing of her was visible. Shortly after, the fog came down in
+earnest and blotted out everything. There was a strong wind blowing,
+and the vapour, which was cold and piercing, swept the deck with
+dripping moisture. Then we came to a standstill. The ship’s bell was
+rung continually forward and somebody was whanging on the gong towards
+the stern. Everybody knew that, if this sort of thing lasted long, we
+would not get over the bar that tide, and consequently everybody felt
+annoyed, for this delay would lengthen the trip, and people, as a
+general thing, do not take passage on an ocean racer with the idea of
+getting in a day late. Suddenly the fog lifted clear from shore to
+shore. Then we saw something that was not calculated to put our minds
+at ease. A big three-masted vessel, with full sail, dashed past us only
+a very few yards behind the stern of the mammoth steamer.
+
+“Look at that blundering idiot,” said the purser to me, “rushing full
+speed over crowded New York Bay in a fog as thick as pea-soup. A
+captain who would do a thing like that ought to be hanged.”
+
+Before the fog settled down again we saw the _Dartonia_ with her anchor
+chain out a few hundred yards to our left, and, farther on, one of the
+big German steamers, also at anchor.
+
+In the short time that the fog was lifted our own vessel made some
+progress towards the bar. Then the thickness came down again. A
+nautical passenger, who had crossed many times, came aft to where I was
+standing, and said—
+
+“Do you notice what the captain is trying to do?”
+
+“Well,” I answered, “I don’t see how anybody can do anything in weather
+like this.”
+
+“There is a strong wind blowing,” continued the nautical passenger,
+“and the fog is liable to lift for a few minutes at a time. If it lifts
+often enough our captain is going to get us over the bar. It will be
+rather a sharp bit of work if he succeeds. You notice that the
+_Dartonia_ has thrown out her anchor. She is evidently going to wait
+where she is until the fog clears away entirely.”
+
+So with that we two went forward to see what was being done. The
+captain stood on the bridge and beside him the pilot, but the fog was
+now so thick we could hardly see them, although we stood close by, on
+the piece of deck in front of the wheelhouse. The almost incessant
+clanging of the bell was kept up, and in the pauses we heard answering
+bells from different points in the thick fog. Then, for a second time,
+and with equal suddenness, the fog lifted ahead of us. Behind we could
+not see either the _Dartonia_ or the German steamer. Our own boat,
+however, went full speed ahead and kept up the pace till the fog shut
+down again. The captain now, in pacing the bridge, had his chronometer
+in his hand, and those of us who were at the front frequently looked at
+our watches, for of course the nautical passenger knew just how late it
+was possible for us to cross the bar.
+
+“I am afraid,” said the passenger, “he is not going to succeed.” But,
+as he said this, the fog lifted for the third time, and again the
+mammoth steamer forged ahead.
+
+“If this clearance will only last for ten minutes,” said the nautical
+passenger, “we are all right.” But the fog, as if it had heard him,
+closed down on us again damper and thicker than ever.
+
+“We are just at the bar,” said the nautical passenger, “and if this
+doesn’t clear up pretty soon the vessel will have to go back.”
+
+The captain kept his eyes fixed on the chronometer in his hand. The
+pilot tried to peer ahead, but everything was a thick white blank.
+
+“Ten minutes more and it is too late,” said the nautical passenger.
+
+There was a sudden rift in the fog that gave a moment’s hope, but it
+closed down again. A minute afterwards, with a suddenness that was
+strange, the whole blue ocean lay before us. Then full steam ahead. The
+fog still was thick behind us in New York Bay. We saw it far ahead
+coming in from the ocean. All at once the captain closed his
+chronometer with a snap. We were over the bar and into the Atlantic,
+and that is how the captain got the _Arrowic_ out of New York Bay.
+
+
+
+
+My Stowaway
+
+
+“Ye can play yer jokes on Nature,
+    An’ play ’em slick,
+She’ll grin a grin, but, landsakes, friend,
+    Look out fer the kick!”
+
+
+One night about eleven o’clock I stood at the stern of that fine
+Atlantic steamship, the _City of Venice,_ which was ploughing its way
+through the darkness towards America. I leaned on the rounded bulwark
+and enjoyed a smoke as I gazed on the luminous trail the wheel was
+making in the quiet sea. Some one touched me on the shoulder, saying,
+“Beg pardon, sir;” and, on straightening up, I saw in the dim light a
+man whom at first I took to be one of the steerage passengers. I
+thought he wanted to get past me, for the room was rather restricted in
+the passage between the aft wheelhouse and the stern, and I moved
+aside. The man looked hurriedly to one side and then the other and,
+approaching, said in a whisper, “I’m starving, sir!”
+
+“Why don’t you go and get something to eat, then? Don’t they give you
+plenty forward?”
+
+“I suppose they do, sir; but I’m a stowaway. I got on at Liverpool.
+What little I took with me is gone, and for two days I’ve had nothing.”
+
+“Come with me. I’ll take you to the steward, he’ll fix you all right.”
+
+“Oh, no, no, no,” he cried, trembling with excitement. “If you speak to
+any of the officers or crew I’m lost. I assure you, sir, I’m an honest
+man, I am indeed, sir. It’s the old story—nothing but starvation at
+home, so my only chance seemed to be to get this way to America. If I’m
+caught I shall get dreadful usage and will be taken back and put in
+jail.”
+
+“Oh, you’re mistaken. The officers are all courteous gentlemen.”
+
+“Yes, to you cabin passengers they are. But to a stowaway—that’s a
+different matter. If you can’t help me, sir, please don’t inform on
+me.”
+
+“How can I help you but by speaking to the captain or purser?”
+
+“Get me a morsel to eat.”
+
+“Where were you hid?”
+
+“Right here, sir, in this place,” and he put his hand on the square
+deck-edifice beside us. This seemed to be a spare wheel-house, used if
+anything went wrong with the one in front. It had a door on each side
+and there were windows all round it. At present it was piled full of
+cane folding steamer chairs and other odds and ends.
+
+“I crawl in between the chairs and the wall and get under that piece of
+tarpaulin.”
+
+“Well, you’re sure of being caught, for the first fine day all these
+chairs will be taken out and the deck steward can’t miss you.”
+
+The man sighed as I said this and admitted the chances were much
+against him. Then, starting up, he cried, “Poverty is the great crime.
+If I had stolen some one else’s money I would have been able to take
+cabin passage instead of—”
+
+“If you weren’t caught.”
+
+“Well, if I were caught, what then? I would be well fed and taken care
+of.”
+
+“Oh, they’d take _care_ of you.”
+
+“The waste food in this great ship would feed a hundred hungry wretches
+like me. Does my presence keep the steamer back a moment of time? No.
+Well, who is harmed by my trying to better myself in a new world? No
+one. I am begging for a crust from the lavish plenty, all because I am
+struggling to be honest. It is only when I become a thief that I am out
+of danger of starvation—caught or free.”
+
+“There, there; now, don’t speak so loud or you’ll have some one here.
+You hang round and I’ll bring you some provender. What would you like
+to have? Poached eggs on toast, roast turkey, or—”
+
+The wretch sank down at my feet as I said this, and, recognising the
+cruelty of it, I hurried down into the saloon and hunted up a steward
+who had not yet turned in. “Steward,” I said, “can you get me a few
+sandwiches or anything to eat at this late hour?”
+
+“Yessir, certainly, sir; beef or ’am, sir?”
+
+“Both, and a cup of coffee, please.”
+
+“Well, sir, I’m afraid there’s no coffee, sir; but I could make you a
+pot of tea in a moment, sir.”
+
+“All right, and bring them to my room, please?”
+
+“Yessir.”
+
+In a very short time there was that faint steward rap at the state-room
+door and a most appetising tray-load was respectfully placed at my
+service.
+
+When the waiter had gone I hurried up the companion-way with much the
+air of a man who is stealing fowls, and I found my stowaway just in the
+position I had left him.
+
+“Now, pitch in,” I said. “I’ll stand guard forward here, and, if you
+hear me cough, strike for cover. I’ll explain the tray matter if it’s
+found.”
+
+He simply said, “Thank you, sir,” and I went forward. When I came back
+the tray had been swept clean and the teapot emptied. My stowaway was
+making for his den when I said, “How about to-morrow?”
+
+He answered, “This’ll do me for a couple of days.”
+
+“Nonsense. I’ll have a square meal for you here in the corner of this
+wheel-house, so that you can get at it without trouble. I’ll leave it
+about this time to-morrow night.”
+
+“You won’t tell any one, any one at all, sir?”
+
+“No. At least, I’ll think over the matter, and if I see a way out I’ll
+let you know.”
+
+“God bless you, sir.”
+
+I turned the incident over in my mind a good deal that night, and I
+almost made a resolution to take Cupples into my confidence. Roger
+Cupples, a lawyer of San Francisco, sat next me at table, and with the
+freedom of wild Westerners we were already well acquainted, although
+only a few days out. Then I thought of putting a supposititious case to
+the captain—he was a thorough gentleman—and if he spoke generously
+about the supposititious case I would spring the real one on him. The
+stowaway had impressed me by his language as being a man worth doing
+something for.
+
+Nest day I was glad to see that it was rainy. There would be no demand
+for ship chairs that day. I felt that real sunshiny weather would
+certainly unearth, or unchair, my stowaway. I met Cupples on deck, and
+we walked a few rounds together.
+
+At last, Cupples, who had been telling me some stories of court trials
+in San Francisco, said, “Let’s sit down and wrap up. This deck’s too
+wet to walk on.”
+
+“All the seats are damp,” I said.
+
+“I’ll get out my steamer chair. Steward,” he cried to the deck steward
+who was shoving a mop back and forth, “get me my chair. There’s a tag
+on it, ‘Berth 96.’”
+
+“No, no,” I cried hastily; “let’s go into the cabin. It’s raining.”
+
+“Only a drizzle. Won’t hurt you at sea, you know.”
+
+By this time the deck steward was hauling down chairs trying to find
+No. 96, which I felt sure would be near the bottom. I could not control
+my anxiety as the steward got nearer and nearer the tarpaulin. At last
+I cried—
+
+“Steward, never mind that chair; take the first two that come handy.”
+
+Cupples looked astonished, and, as we sat down, I said—
+
+“I have something to tell you, and I trust you will say nothing about
+it to any one else. There’s a man under those chairs.”
+
+The look that came into the lawyer’s face showed that he thought me
+demented; but, when I told him the whole story, the judicial expression
+came on, and he said, shaking his head—
+
+“That’s bad business.”
+
+“I know it.”
+
+“Yes, but it’s worse than you have any idea of. I presume that you
+don’t know what section 4738 of the Revised Statutes says?”
+
+“No; I don’t.”
+
+“Well, it is to the effect that any person or persons, who wilfully or
+with malice aforethought or otherwise, shall aid, abet, succor or
+cherish, either directly or indirectly or by implication, any person
+who feloniously or secretly conceals himself on any vessel, barge,
+brig, schooner, bark, clipper, steamship or other craft touching at or
+coming within the jurisdiction of these United States, the said
+person’s purpose being the defrauding of the revenue of, or the
+escaping any or all of the just legal dues exacted by such vessel,
+barge, etc., the person so aiding or abetting, shall in the eye of the
+law be considered as accomplice before, during and after the illegal
+act, and shall in such case be subject to the penalties accruing
+thereunto, to wit—a fine of not more than five thousand dollars, or
+imprisonment of not more than two years—or both at the option of the
+judge before whom the party so accused is convicted.”
+
+“Great heavens! is that really so?”
+
+“Well, it isn’t word for word, but that is the purport. Of course, if I
+had my books here, I—why, you’ve doubtless heard of the case of the
+Pacific Steamship Company _versus_ Cumberland. I was retained on behalf
+of the company. Now all Cumberland did was to allow the man—he was sent
+up for two years—to carry his valise on board, but we proved the
+intent. Like a fool, he boasted of it, but the steamer brought back the
+man, and Cumberland got off with four thousand dollars and costs. Never
+got out of that scrape less than ten thousand dollars. Then again, the
+steamship _Peruvian versus_ McNish; that is even more to the—”
+
+“See here, Cupples. Come with me to-night and see the man. If you heard
+him talk you would see the inhumanity—”
+
+“Tush. I’m not fool enough to mix up in such a matter, and look here,
+you’ll have to work it pretty slick if you get yourself out. The man
+will be caught as sure as fate; then knowingly or through fright he’ll
+incriminate you.”
+
+“What would you do if you were in my place?”
+
+“My dear sir, don’t put it that way. It’s a reflection on both my
+judgment and my legal knowledge. I _couldn’t_ be in such a scrape. But,
+as a lawyer—minus the fee—I’ll tell you what _you_ should do. You
+should give the man up before witnesses—before _witnesses_. I’ll be one
+of them myself. Get as many of the cabin passengers as you like out
+here, to-day, and let the officers search. If he charges you with what
+the law terms support, deny it, and call attention to the fact that you
+have given information. By the way, I would give written information
+and keep a copy.”
+
+“I gave the man my word not to inform on him and so I can’t do it
+to-day, but I’ll tell him of it to-night.”
+
+“And have him commit suicide or give himself up first and incriminate
+you? Nonsense. Just release yourself from your promise. That’s all.
+He’ll trust you.”
+
+“Yes, poor wretch, I’m afraid he will.”
+
+About ten o’clock that night I resolved to make another appeal to Roger
+Cupples to at least stand off and hear the man talk. Cupples’
+state-room, No. 96, was in the forward part of the steamer, down a long
+passage and off a short side passage. Mine was aft the cabin. The door
+of 96 was partly open, and inside an astonishing sight met my gaze.
+
+There stood my stowaway.
+
+He was evidently admiring himself in the glass, and with a brush was
+touching up his face with dark paint here and there. When he put on a
+woe-begone look he was the stowaway; when he chuckled to himself he was
+Roger Cupples, Esq.
+
+The moment the thing dawned on me I quietly withdrew and went up the
+forward companion way. Soon Cupples came cautiously up and seeing the
+way clear scudded along in the darkness and hid in the aft wheelhouse.
+I saw the whole thing now. It was a scheme to get me to make a fool of
+myself some fine day before the rest of the passengers and have a
+standing joke on me. I walked forward. The first officer was on duty.
+
+“I have reason to believe,” I said, “that there is a stowaway in the
+aft wheelhouse.”
+
+Quicker than it takes me to tell it a detachment of sailors were sent
+aft under the guidance of the third mate. I went through the saloon and
+smoking room, and said to the gentlemen who were playing cards and
+reading—“There’s a row upstairs of some kind.”
+
+We were all on deck before the crew had surrounded the wheelhouse.
+There was a rattle of steamer folded chairs, a pounce by the third
+mate, and out came the unfortunate Cupples, dragged by the collar.
+
+“Hold on; let go. This is a mistake.”
+
+“You can’t both hold on and let go,” said Stalker, of Indiana.
+
+“Come out o’ this,” cried the mate, jerking him forward.
+
+With a wrench the stowaway tore himself free and made a dash for the
+companion way. A couple of sailors instantly tripped him up.
+
+“Let go of me; I’m a cabin passenger,” cried Cupples.
+
+“Bless me!” I cried in astonishment. “This isn’t you, Cupples? Why, I
+acted on your own advice and that of Revised Statutes, No. what
+ever-they-were.”
+
+“Well, act on my advice again,” cried the infuriated Cupples, “and go
+to—the hold.”
+
+However, he was better in humour the next day, and stood treat all
+round. We found, subsequently, that Cupples was a New York actor, and
+at the entertainment given for the benefit of the sailors’ orphans, a
+few nights after, he recited a piece in costume that just melted the
+ladies. It was voted a wonderfully touching performance, and he called
+it “The Stowaway.”
+
+
+
+
+The Purser’s Story
+
+
+“O Mother-nature, kind in touch and tone.
+Act as we may, thou clearest to thine own.”
+
+
+I don’t know that I should tell this story.
+
+When the purser related it to me I know it was his intention to write
+it out for a magazine. In fact he _had_ written it, and I understand
+that a noted American magazine had offered to publish it, but I have
+watched that magazine for over three years and I have not yet seen the
+purser’s story in it. I am sorry that I did not write the story at the
+time; then perhaps I should have caught the exquisite peculiarities of
+the purser’s way of telling it. I find myself gradually forgetting the
+story and I write it now in case I _shall_ forget it, and then be
+harassed all through after life by the remembrance of the forgetting.
+
+There is no position more painful and tormenting than the consciousness
+of having had something worth the telling, which, in spite of all
+mental effort, just eludes the memory. It hovers nebulously beyond the
+outstretched finger-ends of recollection, and, like the fish that gets
+off the hook, becomes more and more important as the years fade.
+
+Perhaps, when you read this story, you will say there is nothing in it
+after all. Well, that will be my fault, then, and I can only regret I
+did not write down the story when it was told to me, for as I sat in
+the purser’s room that day it seemed to me I had never heard anything
+more graphic.
+
+The purser’s room was well forward on the Atlantic steamship. From one
+of the little red-curtained windows you could look down to where the
+steerage passengers were gathered on the deck. When the bow of the
+great vessel plunged down into the big Atlantic waves, the smother of
+foam that shot upwards would be borne along with the wind, and spatter
+like rain against the purser’s window. Something about this
+intermittent patter on the pane reminded the purser of the story, and
+so he told it to me.
+
+There were a great many steerage passengers coming on at Queenstown, he
+said, and there was quite a hurry getting them aboard. Two officers
+stood at each side of the gangway and took the tickets as the people
+crowded forward. They generally had their tickets in their hands and
+there was usually no trouble. I stood there and watched them coming
+aboard. Suddenly there was a fuss and a jam. “What is it?” I asked the
+officer.
+
+“Two girls, sir, say they have lost their tickets.”
+
+I took the girls aside and the stream of humanity poured in. One was
+about fourteen and the other, perhaps, eight years old. The little one
+had a firm grip of the elder’s hand and she was crying. The larger girl
+looked me straight in the eye as I questioned her.
+
+“Where’s your tickets?”
+
+“We lost thim, sur.”
+
+“Where?”
+
+“I dunno, sur.”
+
+“Do you think you have them about you or in your luggage?”
+
+“We’ve no luggage, sur.”
+
+“Is this your sister?”
+
+“She is, sur.”
+
+“Are your parents aboard?”
+
+“They are not, sur.”
+
+“Are you all alone?”
+
+“We are, sur.”
+
+“You can’t go without your tickets.”
+
+The younger one began to cry the more, and the elder answered, “Mabbe
+we can foind thim, sur.”
+
+They were bright-looking, intelligent children, and the larger girl
+gave me such quick, straightforward answers, and it seemed so
+impossible that children so young should attempt to cross the ocean
+without tickets that I concluded to let them come, and resolved to get
+at the truth on the way over.
+
+Next day I told the deck steward to bring the children to my room.
+
+They came in just as I saw them the day before, the elder with a tight
+grip on the hand of the younger, whose eyes I never caught sight of.
+She kept them resolutely on the floor, while the other looked straight
+at me with her big, blue eyes.
+
+“Well, have you found your tickets?”
+
+“No, sur.”
+
+“What is your name?”
+
+“Bridget, sur.”
+
+“Bridget what?”
+
+“Bridget Mulligan, sur.”
+
+“Where did you live?”
+
+“In Kildormey, sur.”
+
+“Where did you get your tickets?”
+
+“From Mr. O’Grady, sur.”
+
+Now, I knew Kildormey as well as I know this ship, and I knew O’Grady
+was our agent there. I would have given a good deal at that moment for
+a few words with him. But I knew of no Mulligans in Kildormey,
+although, of course, there might be. I was born myself only a few miles
+from the place. Now, thinks I to myself, if these two children can
+baffle a purser who has been twenty years on the Atlantic when they say
+they came from his own town almost, by the powers they deserve their
+passage over the ocean. I had often seen grown people try to cheat
+their way across, and I may say none of them succeeded on _my_ ships.
+
+“Where’s your father and mother?”
+
+“Both dead, sur.”
+
+“Who was your father?”
+
+“He was a pinshoner, sur.”
+
+“Where did he draw his pension?”
+
+“I donno, sur.”
+
+“Where did you get the money to buy your tickets?”
+
+“The neighbors, sur, and Mr. O’Grady helped, sur.”
+
+“What neighbours? Name them.”
+
+She unhesitatingly named a number, many of whom I knew; and as that had
+frequently been done before, I saw no reason to doubt the girl’s word.
+
+“Now,” I said, “I want to speak with your sister. You may go.”
+
+The little one held on to her sister’s hand and cried bitterly.
+
+When the other was gone, I drew the child towards me and questioned
+her, but could not get a word in reply.
+
+For the next day or two I was bothered somewhat by a big Irishman named
+O’Donnell, who was a fire-brand among the steerage passengers. He
+_would_ harangue them at all hours on the wrongs of Ireland, and the
+desirability of blowing England out of the water; and as we had many
+English and German passengers, as well as many peaceable Irishmen, who
+complained of the constant ructions O’Donnell was kicking up, I was
+forced to ask him to keep quiet. He became very abusive one day and
+tried to strike me. I had him locked up until he came to his senses.
+
+While I was in my room, after this little excitement, Mrs. O’Donnell
+came to me and pleaded for her rascally husband. I had noticed her
+before. She was a poor, weak, broken-hearted woman whom her husband
+made a slave of, and I have no doubt beat her when he had the chance.
+She was evidently mortally afraid of him, and a look from him seemed
+enough to take the life out of her. He was a worse tyrant, in his own
+small way, than England had ever been.
+
+“Well, Mrs. O’Donnell,” I said, “I’ll let your husband go, but he will
+have to keep a civil tongue in his head and keep his hands off people.
+I’ve seen men, for less, put in irons during a voyage and handed over
+to the authorities when they landed. And now I want you to do me a
+favour. There are two children on board without tickets. I don’t
+believe they ever had tickets, and I want to find out. You’re a
+kind-hearted woman, Mrs. O’Donnell, and perhaps the children will
+answer you.” I had the two called in, and they came hand in hand as
+usual. The elder looked at me as if she couldn’t take her eyes off my
+face.
+
+“Look at this woman,” I said to her; “she wants to speak to you. Ask
+her some questions about herself,” I whispered to Mrs. O’Donnell.
+
+“Acushla,” said Mrs. O’Donnell with infinite tenderness, taking the
+disengaged hand of the elder girl. “Tell me, darlint, where yees are
+from.”
+
+I suppose I had spoken rather harshly to them before, although I had
+not intended to do so, but however that may be, at the first words of
+kindness from the lips of their countrywoman both girls broke down and
+cried as if their hearts would break. The poor woman drew them towards
+her, and, stroking the fair hair of the elder girl, tried to comfort
+her while the tears streamed down her own cheeks. “Hush, acushla; hush,
+darlints, shure the gentlemin’s not goin’ to be hard wid two poor
+childher going to a strange country.”
+
+Of course it would never do to admit that the company could carry
+emigrants free through sympathy, and I must have appeared rather
+hard-hearted when I told Mrs. O’Donnell that I would have to take them
+back with me to Cork. I sent the children away, and then arranged with
+Mrs. O’Donnell to see after them during the voyage, to which she agreed
+if her husband would let her. I could get nothing from the girl except
+that she had lost her ticket; and when we sighted New York, I took them
+through the steerage and asked the passengers if any one would assume
+charge of the children and pay their passage. No one would do so.
+
+“Then,” I said, “these children will go back with me to Cork; and if I
+find they never bought tickets, they will have to go to jail.”
+
+There were groans and hisses at that, and I gave the children in charge
+of the cabin stewardess, with orders to see that they did not leave the
+ship. I was at last convinced that they had no friends among the
+steerage passengers. I intended to take them ashore myself before we
+sailed; and I knew of good friends in New York who would see to the
+little waifs, although I did not propose that any of the emigrants
+should know that an old bachelor purser was fool enough to pay for the
+passage of a couple of unknown Irish children.
+
+We landed our cabin passengers, and the tender came alongside to take
+the steerage passengers to Castle Garden. I got the stewardess to bring
+out the children, and the two stood and watched every one get aboard
+the tender.
+
+Just as the tender moved away, there was a wild shriek among the
+crowded passengers, and Mrs. O’Donnell flung her arms above her head
+and cried in the most heart-rending tone I ever heard—“Oh, my babies,
+my babies.”
+
+“Kape quiet, ye divil,” hissed O’Donnell, grasping her by the arm. The
+terrible ten days’ strain had been broken at last, and the poor woman
+sank in a heap at his feet.
+
+“Bring back that boat,” I shouted, and the tender came back.
+
+“Come aboard here, O’Donnell.”
+
+“I’ll not!” he yelled, shaking his fist at me.
+
+“Bring that man aboard.”
+
+They soon brought him back, and I gave his wife over to the care of the
+stewardess. She speedily rallied, and hugged and kissed her children as
+if she would never part with them.
+
+“So, O’Donnell, these are your children?”
+
+“Yis, they are; an’ I’d have ye know I’m in a frae country, bedad, and
+I dare ye to lay a finger on me.”
+
+“Don’t dare too much,” I said, “or I’ll show you what can be done in a
+free country. Now, if I let the children go, will you send their
+passage money to the company when you get it?”
+
+“I will,” he answered, although I knew he lied.
+
+“Well,” I said, “for Mrs. O’Donnell’s sake, I’ll let them go; and I
+must congratulate any free country that gets a citizen like you.”
+
+Of course I never heard from O’Donnell again.
+
+
+
+
+Miss McMillan
+
+
+“Come hop, come skip, fair children all,
+Old Father Time is in the hall.
+He’ll take you on his knee, and stroke
+Your golden hair to silver bright,
+Your rosy cheeks to wrinkles white”
+
+
+In the saloon of the fine Transatlantic liner the _Climatus_, two long
+tables extend from the piano at one end to the bookcase at the other
+end of the ample dining-room.
+
+On each side of this main saloon are four small tables intended to
+accommodate six or seven persons. At one of these tables sat a pleasant
+party of four ladies and three gentlemen. Three ladies were from
+Detroit, and one from Kent, in England. At the head of the table sat
+Mr. Blair, the frosts of many American winters in his hair and beard,
+while the lines of care in his ragged, cheerful Scottish face told of a
+life of business crowned with generous success.
+
+Mr. Waters, a younger merchant, had all the alert vivacity of the
+pushing American. He had the distinguished honour of sitting opposite
+me at the small table. Blair and Waters occupied the same room, No. 27.
+The one had crossed the Atlantic more than fifty times, the other
+nearly thirty. Those figures show the relative proportion of their
+business experience.
+
+The presence of Mr. Blair gave to our table a sort of patriarchal
+dignity that we all appreciated. If a louder burst of laughter than
+usual came from where we sat and the other passengers looked
+inquiringly our way the sedate and self-possessed face of Mr. Blair
+kept us in countenance, and we, who had given way to undue levity, felt
+ourselves enshrouded by an atmosphere of genial seriousness. This
+prevented our table from getting the reputation of being funny or
+frivolous.
+
+Some remark that Blair made brought forth the following extraordinary
+statement from Waters, who told it with the air of a man exposing the
+pretensions of a whited sepulchre.
+
+“Now, before this voyage goes any further,” he began, “I have a serious
+duty to perform which I can shirk no longer, unpleasant though it be.
+Mr. Blair and myself occupy the same state-room. Into that state-room
+has been sent a most lovely basket of flowers. It is not an ordinary
+basket of flowers, I assure you, ladies. There is a beautiful floral
+arch over a bed of colour, and I believe there is some tender sentiment
+connected with the display;—_Bon Voyage, Auf Wiedersehen,_ or some such
+motto marked out in red buds. Now those flowers are not for me. I
+think, therefore, that Mr. Blair owes it to this company, which has so
+unanimously placed him at the head of the table, to explain how it
+comes that an elderly gentleman gets such a handsome floral tribute
+sent him from some unknown person in New York.”
+
+We all looked at Mr. Blair, who gazed with imperturbability at Waters.
+
+“If you had all crossed with Waters as often as I have you would know
+that he is subject to attacks like that. He means well, but
+occasionally he gives way in the deplorable manner you have just
+witnessed. Now all there is of it consists in this—a basket of flowers
+has been sent (no doubt by mistake) to our state-room. There is nothing
+but a card on it which says ‘Room 27.’ Steward,” he cried, “would you
+go to room 27, bring that basket of flowers, and set it on this table.
+We may as well all have the benefit of them.”
+
+The steward soon returned with a large and lovely basket of flowers,
+which he set on the table, shoving the caster and other things aside to
+make room for it.
+
+We all admired it very much, and the handsome young lady on my left
+asked Mr. Blair’s permission to take one of the roses for her own.
+“Now, mind you,” said Blair, “I cannot grant a flower from the basket,
+for you see it is as much the property of Waters as of myself, for all
+of his virtuous indignation. It was sent to the room, and he is one of
+the occupants. The flowers have evidently been misdirected.”
+
+The lady referred to took it upon herself to purloin the flower she
+wanted. As she did so a card came in view with the words written in a
+masculine hand—
+
+To
+    Miss McMillan,
+          With the loving regards of
+                    Edwin J—
+
+
+“Miss McMillan!” cried the lady; “I wonder if she is on board? I’d give
+anything to know.”
+
+“We’ll have a glance at the passenger list,” said Waters.
+
+Down among the M’s on the long list of cabin passengers appeared the
+name “Miss McMillan.”
+
+“Now,” said I, “it seems to me that the duty devolves on both Blair and
+Waters to spare no pains in delicately returning those flowers to their
+proper owner. _I_ think that both have been very remiss in not doing so
+long ago. They should apologise publicly to the young lady for having
+deprived her of the offering for a day and a half, and then I think
+they owe an apology to this table for the mere pretence that any sane
+person in New York or elsewhere would go to the trouble of sending
+either of them a single flower.”
+
+“There will be no apology from me,” said Waters. “If I do not receive
+the thanks of Miss McMillan, it will be because good deeds are rarely
+recognised in this world. I think it must be evident, even to the
+limited intelligence of my journalistic friend across the table, that
+Mr. Blair intended to keep those flowers in his state-room, and—of
+course I make no direct charges—the concealment of that card certainly
+looks bad. It may have been concealed by the sender of the flowers, but
+to me it looks bad.”
+
+“Of course,” said Blair dryly, “to you it looks bad. To the pure, etc.”
+
+“Now,” said the sentimental lady on my left, “while you gentlemen are
+wasting the time in useless talk the lady is without her roses. There
+is one thing that you all seem to miss. It is not the mere value of the
+bouquet. There is a subtle perfume about an offering like this more
+delicate than that which Nature gave the flowers—”
+
+“Hear, hear,” broke in Waters.
+
+“I told you,” said Blair aside, “the kind of fellow Waters is. He
+thinks nothing of interrupting a lady.”
+
+“Order, both of you!” I cried, rapping on the table; “the lady from
+England has the floor.”
+
+“What I was going to say—”
+
+“When Waters interrupted you.”
+
+“When Mr. Waters interrupted me I was going to say that there seems to
+me a romantic tinge to this incident that you old married men cannot be
+expected to appreciate.”
+
+I looked with surprise at Waters, while he sank back in his seat with
+the resigned air of a man in the hands of his enemies. We had both been
+carefully concealing the fact that we were married men, and the blunt
+announcement of the lady was a painful shock. Waters gave a side nod at
+Blair, as much as to say, “He’s given it away.” I looked reproachfully
+at my old friend at the head of the table, but he seemed to be absorbed
+in what our sentimental lady was saying.
+
+“It is this,” she continued. “Here is a young lady. Her lover sends her
+a basket. There may be some hidden meaning that she alone will
+understand in the very flowers chosen, or in the arrangement of them.
+The flowers, let us suppose, never reach their destination. The message
+is unspoken, or, rather, spoken, but unheard. The young lady grieves at
+the apparent neglect, and then, in her pride, resents it. She does not
+write, and he knows not why. The mistake may be discovered too late,
+and all because a basket of flowers has been missent.”
+
+“Now, Blair,” said Waters, “if anything can make you do the square
+thing surely that appeal will.”
+
+“I shall not so far forget what is due to myself and to the dignity of
+this table as to reply to our erratic friend. Here is what I propose to
+do—first catch our hare. Steward, can you find out for me at what table
+and at what seat Miss McMillan is?”
+
+While the steward was gone on his errand Mr. Blair proceeded.
+
+“I will become acquainted with her. McMillan is a good Scotch name and
+Blair is another. On that as a basis I think we can speedily form an
+acquaintance. I shall then in a casual manner ask her if she knows a
+young man by the name of Edwin J., and I shall tell you what effect the
+mention of the name has on her.”
+
+“Now, as part owner in the flowers up to date, I protest against that.
+I insist that Miss McMillan be brought to this table, and that we all
+hear exactly what is said to her,” put in Mr. Waters.
+
+Nevertheless we agreed that Mr. Blair’s proposal was a good one and the
+majority sanctioned it.
+
+Meanwhile our sentimental lady had been looking among the crowd for the
+unconscious Miss McMillan.
+
+“I think I have found her,” she whispered to me. “Do you see that
+handsome girl at the captain’s table. Really the handsomest girl on
+board.”
+
+“I thought that distinction rested with our own table.”
+
+“Now, please pay attention. Do you see how pensive she is, with her
+cheek resting on her hand? I am sure she is thinking of Edwin.”
+
+“I wouldn’t bet on that,” I replied. “There is considerable motion just
+now, and indications of a storm. The pensiveness may have other
+causes.”
+
+Here the steward returned and reported that Miss McMillan had not yet
+appeared at table, but had her meals taken to her room by the
+stewardess.
+
+Blair called to the good-natured, portly stewardess of the _Climatus_,
+who at that moment was passing through the saloon.
+
+“Is Miss McMillan ill?” he asked.
+
+“No, not ill,” replied Mrs. Kay; “but she seems very much depressed at
+leaving home, and she has not left her room since we started.”
+
+“There!” said our sentimental lady, triumphantly.
+
+“I would like very much to see her,” said Mr. Blair; “I have some good
+news for her.”
+
+“I will ask her to come out. It will do her good,” said the stewardess,
+as she went away.
+
+In a few moments she appeared, and, following her, came an old woman,
+with white hair, and her eyes concealed by a pair of spectacles.
+
+“Miss McMillan,” said the stewardess, “this is Mr. Blair, who wanted to
+speak to you.”
+
+Although Mr. Blair was, as we all were, astonished to see our mythical
+young lady changed into a real old woman, he did not lose his
+equanimity, nor did his kindly face show any surprise, but he evidently
+forgot the part he had intended to play.
+
+“You will pardon me for troubling you, Miss McMillan,” he said, “but
+this basket of flowers was evidently intended for you, and was sent to
+my room by mistake.”
+
+Miss McMillan did not look at the flowers, but gazed long at the card
+with the writing on it, and as she did so one tear and then another
+stole down the wrinkled face from behind the glasses.
+
+“There is no mistake, is there?” asked Mr. Blair. “You know the
+writer.”
+
+“There is no mistake—no mistake,” replied Miss McMillan in a low voice,
+“he is a very dear and kind friend.” Then, as if unable to trust
+herself further, she took the flowers and hurriedly said, “Thank you,”
+and left us.
+
+“There,” I said to the lady on my left, “your romance turns out to be
+nothing after all.”
+
+“No, sir,” she cried with emphasis; “the romance is there, and very
+much more of a romance than if Miss McMillan was a young and silly girl
+of twenty.”
+
+Perhaps she was right.
+
+
+
+
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