"I wish they were," said the Tyro fervently.

Judge Enderby chuckled. "Do you understand that the embargo is general?"

"Applies only to me, as far as I can make out."

"That's curious," said the archaeologist. "What did you say to the captain?"

"Told him I'd think it over."

Judge Enderby laughed outright. "That must have occasioned him a mild degree of surprise," he observed.

"I didn't wait to see. I went away from that place before I lost my temper."

"A good rule," approved Dr. Alderson. "Still, I'm afraid he's got you. What do you think, Enderby?"

"I don't think non-professionally on legal matters."

"But what can the boy do?"

"Give me five dollars."

"What?" queried the Tyro.

"Give him five dollars," directed Alderson.

The Tyro extracted a bill from his modest roll and handed it over.

"Thank you," said the jurist. "That is my retainer. You have employed counsel."

"The best counsel in New York," added Dr. Alderson.

"The best counsel in New York," agreed the judge with unmoved solemnity; "in certain respects. Specializes in maritime and cardiac complications. You go out on deck and walk some air into Alderson's brain until I come back. He needs it. He doesn't know enough not to return a suit when his partner leads the nine."

"When one's partner is stupid enough to open a suit—" began the other; but the critic was gone. "So you've found out that Little Miss Grouch is Cecily Wayne, have you?" Alderson observed, turning to the Tyro.

"Whatever that may mean," assented the Tyro.

"It means a good deal. It means that she's Hurry-up Wayne's daughter for one thing."

"That also fails to ring any bell. You see, I've been so long out of the world. Besides, I don't want to be told about her. I'm under bonds."

"Very well. But the paterfamilias is a tough customer. I looked up some old records for him once, and was obliged to tell him a few plain facts in plainer English. He appeared to want me to give false expert testimony. To do him justice, he didn't resent my well-chosen remarks; only observed that he could doubtless hire other historians with different views."

"Was that about the Battery Place house?"

"Precisely. But how do you know—Oh, of course! You've got a sort of intangible interest in that, haven't you? Through your maternal grandmother."

"I've got more than that. I've got an option."

"Great Rameses! Are you the mysterious holder of the option?" Dr. Alderson laughed long and softly. "This is lovely! Does she know?"

"If she does, it hasn't shaken her confidence."

"Hire Enderby to unravel that," chuckled the other. "Here he comes back already. His interview must have been brief."

The lawyer approached, halted, set his back against the rail, and gazed grimly at the Tyro over his lowered spectacles. His client braced himself for the impending examination.

"Young man," the judge inquired, "what do you legally call yourself?"

"Smith. Alexander Forsyth Smith."

"What do you call yourself when you don't call yourself Smith?"

"Er—you heard! I've sometimes been called Daddleskink by those who don't know any better. That was only a little joke."

"It's a joke which Captain Herford seems to have taken to heart. He thinks you're a dangerous criminal traveling under the subtle alias of Smith."

"Can he lock me up for that?"

"Doubtless he can. But I don't think he will. Who's been sending back wireless messages about you?"

"Wireless? About me? Heaven knows; I don't."

"Could it have been Mrs. Charlton Denyse?"

"If they were uncomplimentary, it might. I'm afraid she doesn't approve of me."

"They seem to have been distinctly unfavorable. That Denyse female," continued the veteran lawyer, "is a raddled old polecat. Mischief is her specialty. How did she get on your trail?"

The Tyro explained.

"Hum! I'll bet a cigar with a gold belt around its stomach that the captain wishes she were out yonder playing with the porpoises. He doesn't look happy."

"What ails him?" inquired Dr. Alderson.

"Five different messages from Henry Clay Wayne, to begin with. Also, I fear my interview with him didn't have a sedative effect."

"What did you say to him?" asked his client.

"I informed him that I'd been retained by our young friend here, and that if he were restrained of his liberty without due cause we would promptly bring suit against the line. Thereupon he tried to bluff me. It's a melancholy thing, Alderson," sighed the tough old warrior of a thousand legal battles, "to look as easy and browbeatable as I do. It wastes a lot of my time—and other people's."

"Did it waste much of the captain's on this occasion?"

"No. He threatened to lock me up, too. I told him if he did, he and his company would have another batch of suits; a suit for every day in the week, like the youth that married the tailor's daughter.

"He called me some sort of sea-lawyer, and was quite excited until I calmed him with my card. When I left he was looking at my card as if it had just bitten him, and sending out a summons for the wireless operator that had all the timbre of an S.O.S. call. Young man, he'll want to see you about three o'clock this afternoon if I'm not mistaken."

"What shall I do about it?" asked the Tyro.

"Give me five dollars. Thank you. I never work for nothing. Against my principles. I'm now employed for the case. Go and see him, and keep a stiff upper lip. Now, Alderson, your theory that a man must indicate every high card in his hand before—"

Perceiving that he was no longer essential to the conversation the Tyro drifted away. Luncheon was a gloomy meal. It was with rather a feeling of relief that he answered the summons to the captain's room two hours thereafter.

"Mr. Daddlesmith," began that harried official.

"That isn't my name," said the Tyro firmly.

"Well, Mr. Daddleskink, or Smith, or whatever you choose to call yourself, I've had an interview with your lawyer."

"Yes? Judge Enderby?"

"Judge Enderby. He threatens to sue, if you are confined to your stateroom."

"That's our intention."

"I've no lawyer aboard, and I can't risk it. So I'll not lock you up. But I'll tell you what I can and will do. If you so much as address one word to Miss Wayne for the rest of this voyage, I'll lock her up and keep her locked up."

The Tyro went red and then white. "I don't believe you've got the power," he said.

"I have; and I'll use it. Her father gives me full authority. Make no mistake about the matter, Mr. Smith: one word to her, and down she goes. And I shall instruct every officer and steward to be on watch."

"As Judge Enderby has probably already told you what he thinks of your methods" (this was a random shot, but the marksman observed with satisfaction that the captain winced), "it would be superfluous for me to add anything."

"Superfluous and risky," retorted the commander.

The Tyro went out on deck because he felt that he needed air. Malign fate would have it that, as he stood at the rail, brooding over this unsurmountable complication, Little Miss Grouch should appear, radiant, glorious of hue, and attended by the galaxy of swains. She gave him the lightest of passing nods as she went by. He raised his cap gloomily.

"Your queer-named friend doesn't look happy," commented Lord Guenn at her elbow.

"Go and tell him I wish to speak with him," ordered the delectable tyrant.

The Englishman did so.

"I'm not feeling well," apologized the Tyro. "Please ask her to excuse me."

"You'd best ask her yourself," suggested the other. "I'm not much of a diplomat."

"No. I'm going below," said the wretched Tyro.

Well for him had he gone at once. But he lingered, and when he turned again he was frozen with horror to see her bearing down upon him with all sails set and colors flying.

"Why weren't you at the dance last night?" she demanded.

He looked at her with a piteous eye and shook his head.

"Not feeling fit?"

Another mute and miserable denial.

"I don't believe it! You aren't a bit pea-green. Quite red, on the contrary."

Silence from the victim.

"Besides, you know, you're the seaworthy child," she mocked.

"'Whose feelings could never be riled. While the porpoises porped And the passengers torped, He sat on the lee rail and smiled.'

Here's the lee rail. Haven't you a single smile about you anywhere?"

He shook his head with infinite vigor.

"Can't you even speak? Is that the way a Perfect Pig should act?" she persisted, impishly determined to force him out of his extraordinary silence. "Have you made a vow? Or what?"

At that moment the Tyro caught sight of a gold-laced individual advancing upon them. With a stifled groan he turned his back full upon the Wondrous Vision, and at that moment would have been willing to reward handsomely any wave that would have reached up and snatched him into the bosom of the Atlantic.

Behind him he could hear a stifled little gasp, then a stamp of a foot (he shrank with involuntary memory), then retreating steps. In a conquering career Miss Cecily Wayne had never before been snubbed by any male creature. If her wishes could have been transformed into fact, the yearned-for wave might have been spared any trouble; a swifter and more withering death would have been the Tyro's immediate portion.

The officer passed, leveling a baleful eye, and the Tyro staggered to the passageway, and with lowered head plunged directly into the midst of Judge Enderby.

"Here!" grunted the victim. "Get out of my waistcoat. What's the matter with the boy?"

In his woe the Tyro explained everything.

"Tch—tch—tch," clucked the leader of the New York bar, like a troubled hen. "That's bad."

"Can he do it?" besought the Tyro. "Can he lock her up?"

"I'm afraid there's no doubt of it."

"Then what on earth shall I do?"

"Give me five—No; I forgot. I've had my fee."

"It's rather less than your customary one, I'm afraid," said the Tyro, with an effortful smile.

"Reckoned in thousands it would be about right. But this is different. This is serious. I've got to think about this. Meantime you keep away from that pink-and-white peril. Understand?"

"Yes, sir," said the Tyro miserably.

"But there's no reason why you shouldn't write a note if you think fit."

"So there isn't!" The Tyro brightened amazingly. "I'll do it now."

But that note was never delivered. For, coming on deck after writing it, its author met Little Miss Grouch face to face, and was the recipient of a cut so direct, so coldly smiling, so patent to all the ship-world, so indicative of permanent and hopeless unconsciousness of his existence, that he tore up the epistle and a playful porpoise rolled the fragments deep into the engulfing ocean. Perhaps it was just as well, for, as Judge Enderby remarked that night to his friend Dr. Alderson, while the two old hard-faced soft-hearts sat smoking their good-night cigar over the Tyro's troubles, in the course of a dissertation which would have vastly astonished his confreres of the metropolitan bar:—

"It's fortunate that the course of true love never does run smooth. If it did, marriages would have to be made chiefly in heaven. Mighty few of them would get themselves accomplished on earth. For love is, by nature, an obstacle race. Run on the flat, without any difficulties, it would lose its zest both for pursuer and pursued, and Judge Cupid would as well shut up court and become an advocate of race suicide. But as for that spade lead, Alderson—are you listening?"

"She's a devilishly pretty girl," grunted Dr. Alderson.



V

Fifth day out. A dull, dead, blank unprofitable calm. Nothing doing; nothing to do. Wish I'd gone steerage.

SMITH'S LOG.

Legal employment is susceptible of almost indefinite expansion. Thus ruminated Judge Enderby, rising early with a brisk appetite for romance, as he fingered the two five-dollar bills received from his newest client.

For that client he was jovially minded to do his best. The young fellow had taken a strong hold upon his liking. Moreover, the judge was a confirmed romantic, though he would have resented being thus catalogued. He chose to consider his inner stirrings of sentimentalism in the present case as due to a fancy for minor diplomacies and delicate negotiations. One thing he was sure of: that he was enjoying himself unusually, and that the Tyro was like to get very good value for his fee.

To which end, shortly after breakfast he broke through the cordon surrounding Miss Cecily Wayne and bore her off for a promenade.

"But it's not alone for your beaux yeux," he explained to her. "I'm acting for a client."

"How exciting! But you're not going to browbeat me as you did poor papa when you had him on the stand?" said Miss Wayne, exploring the gnarled old face with soft eyes.

"Browbeat the court!" cried the legal light (who had frequently done that very thing). "You're the tribunal of highest jurisdiction in this case."

"Then I must look very solemn and judicial." Which she proceeded to do with such ravishing effect that three young men approaching from the opposite direction lost all control of their steering-gear and were precipitated into the scuppers by the slow tilt of a languid ground-swell.

"If you must, you must," allowed the judge, "though," he added with a glance at the struggling group, "it's rather dangerous. I'm approaching you," he continued, "on behalf of a client suddenly stricken dumb."

Miss Wayne's shapely nose elevated itself to a marked angle. "I don't think I want to hear about him," she observed coldly.

"He's in dire distress over his affliction."

"I have troubles of my own. I'm deaf."

"Then suppose I should express to you in the sign language that my client—"

"I don't want to hear it—see it—know anything about it." The amount of determination which Miss Wayne's chin contrived to express seemed quite incompatible with the adorable dimple nestling in the center thereof.

"Must I return the fee, then?"

"What fee?"

"The victim of this sudden misfortune has retained me—"

"To act as go-between?"

"Well, no; not precisely. But to represent him in all matters of import on this voyage. On two occasions he has paid over the sum of five dollars. I never work for nothing. Would you deprive a superannuated lawyer of the most promising chance to earn an honest penny which has presented itself in a year?"

"Poor old gentleman!" she laughed. "Far be it from me to ruin your prospects. But if Mr. Daddle—if your client," pursued the girl with heightened color, "has anything to say to me, he'd best say it himself."

"As I have already explained to the learned court, he can't. He's dumb."

"Why is he dumb?"

"Ah! What an ally is curiosity! My unhappy client is dumb by order."

"Whose order?"

"The captain's."

"Has the captain told him he mustn't speak?"

"To you."

All of Miss Wayne's dimples sprang to their places and stood at attention. "How lovely! What for? I'll make him."

"Ah! What an ally is opposition," sighed the astute old warrior. "But I fear you can't."

"Can't I! Wait and see."

"No. He is afraid."

"He doesn't look a victim of timidity."

"Not for himself. But unpleasant things will happen to a friend—well, let us say an acquaintance for whom he has no small regard—if he disobeys."

"Oh, dealer in mysteries, tell me more!"

"Thou art the woman."

"I? What can possibly happen to me?"

"Solitary confinement."

"I don't think that's a very funny joke," said she contemptuously.

"Indeed, it's no joke. Your eyes will grow dim, your appetite will wane, your complexion will suffer, that tolerable share of good looks which a casual Providence has bestowed upon you—"

"Please don't tease the court, Judge Enderby. What is it all about?"

"In words of one syllable: if the boy speaks to you once more, you're to be sentenced to your stateroom."

"How intolerable!" she flashed. "Who on this ship has the right—"

"Nobody. But on shore you possess a stern and rockbound father who, thanks to the malevolent mechanism of an evil genius named Marconi, has been able to exert his authority through the captain, acting in loco parentis, if I may venture to employ a tongue more familiar to this learned court than to myself."

"And that's the reason Mr. Daddleskink," she got it out, with a brave effort, "wouldn't speak to me yesterday?"

"The sole and only reason! Being a minor—"

"Gracious! Isn't he twenty-one?"

"If the court will graciously permit me to conclude my sentence—being a minor, you still—"

"I'm not a minor."

"You're not?"

"Certainly not. I was twenty-one last month."

"Your father gave the captain to understand that you were under age."

"Papa's memory sometimes plays tricks on him," said the maiden demurely.

"Or on others. I noticed that in the Mid & Mud Railroad investigation. You're sure you're over twenty-one?"

"Of course I'm sure."

"But can you prove it?"

"Gracious! How are such things proved? Is it necessary for me to prove it?"

"It would be helpful."

"What am I to do?"

"Give me five dollars," said the judge promptly.

"I haven't five dollars with me."

"Get it, then. I never work for nothing."

The ranging eye of Miss Wayne fell upon a figure in a steamer-chair, all huddled up behind a widespread newspaper. There was something suspiciously familiar about the figure. Miss Wayne bore down upon it. The paper—five days old—trembled. She peered over the top of it. Behind and below crouched the Tyro pretending to be asleep.

"Good-morning," said Miss Wayne.

A delicate but impressive snore answered her.

"Mr. Daddleskink!"

No answer. But the face of the victim twitched painfully. It is but human for the bravest martyr to wince under torture.

"Wake up! I know you're not asleep. I will be answered!" She stamped her small but emphatic foot on the deck. The legs of the Tyro curled up under as instinctively as those of an assailed spider.

"There! You see! You needn't pretend. Won't you please speak to me?" The tormentor was having a beautiful time with her revenge.

"Go away," said a hoarse whisper from behind the newspaper.

"I'm in trouble." The voice sounded very childlike in its plea. The Tyro writhed.

"Even if you don't like me"—the Tyro writhed some more—"and don't consider me fit to speak to"—the Tyro's contortions were fairly Laocooenish—"would you—couldn't you lend me five dollars?"

The Tyro blinked rapidly.

"I need it awfully," pursued the malicious maiden.

Desperation marked itself on his brow. He scrambled from his chair, plunged his hand into his pocket, extracted a bill, transferred it to her waiting fingers, and hustled for the nearest doorway. He didn't reach it. The august undulations of Mrs. Charlton Denyse's form intercepted him.

"This is shameless!" she declared.

For once the abused youth was almost ready to agree with her.



"What?" he said weakly.

"Don't quibble with me, sir. I saw, if I did not hear. You passed Miss Wayne a note. I am astonished!" she said, in the tone of a scandalized Sunday-School teacher.

The Tyro rapidly reflected that she would have been considerably more astonished could she have known the nature of the "note." From the tail of his eye he saw the recipient in close conversation with Judge Enderby. Remembering his own dealings with that eminent fee-hunter he drew a rapid conclusion.

"Would you like to know what was in that note?" he inquired.

"As a prospective connection of Miss Wayne's—"

"If so, ask Judge Enderby."

"Why should I ask Judge Enderby?"

"Because, unless I'm mistaken, he's got the note now."

"I shall not ask Judge Enderby. I shall report the whole disgraceful affair to the captain."

"Don't do that!" cried the Tyro in alarm.

"Perhaps that will put an end to your vulgar persecution of an inexperienced young girl."

"O Lord!" groaned the Tyro, setting out in pursuit of the lawyer as the protector of social sanctities turned away. "Now I have done it!"

He caught up with the judge and his companion at the turn of the deck. "May I have a word with you, Judge?" he cried.

"I'm busy," said the lawyer gruffly. "I'm engaged in an important consultation."

"But this can't wait," cried the unfortunate.

"Anything can wait," said the old man. "But youth," he added in an undertone.

"You've got to listen!" The Tyro planted himself, a very solid, set bulk of athletic young manhood, in the jurist's path.

"In the face of force and coercion," sighed the other.

"I've been seen speaking to Miss—Miss—"

"Grouch," supplied the indicated damsel sweetly.

"Mrs. Denyse saw us. She has gone to report to the captain."

"Lovely!" said the lawyer. "Beautiful! Enter the Wicked Godmother. The fairy-tale is working out absolutely according to Grimm."

"But Miss—"

"Grouch," chirped the young lady melodiously.

"—will be locked up—"

"In the donjon-keep," chuckled the lawyer. "Chapter the seventh. Who says that romance has died out of the world?"

"But if Mrs. Denyse carries out her threat and tells the captain—"

"The Wicked Ogre, you mean. If you love me, the Wicked Ogre. And he will lock the Lovely Princess in the donjon-keep until the dumb but devoted Prince arrives in time—just in the nick of time—to effect a rescue. That comes in the last chapter. And then, of course, they were mar—"

"I'm tired of fairy-tales," said Little Miss Grouch hastily. "It won't be a bit funny to be locked up—"

"With three grains of corn per day and a cup of sour wine. Hans Christian Andersen never did anything like this!" crowed the enchanted lawyer.

"Meantime," observed the Tyro, with the calm of despair, "Mrs. Denyse has found the captain."

"Presto, change!" said Judge Enderby, catching each by an arm and hurtling them around the curve of the cabin. "We come back to the dull reality of facts, retainers and advice. Fairy Prince,—young man, I mean,—you go and watch for icebergs over the port bow until sent for. Miss Wayne, you come with me to a secluded spot where the captain can't discover us for an hour or so. I have a deep suspicion that he isn't really in any great haste to find you."

As soon as they were seated in the refuge which the old gentleman found, he turned upon her.

"What are you trying to do to that young man?"

"Nothing," said she with slanted eyes.

"Don't look at me that way. It's a waste of good material. Remember, he's my client and I'm bound to protect his interests. Are you trying to drive him mad?"

Little Miss Grouch's wrongs swept over her memory. "He said I was homely. And red-nosed. And had a voice like a sick crow. And he called me Little Miss Grouch. I'm getting even," she announced with delicate satisfaction.

The old man cackled with glee. "Blind as well as dumb! There's a little godling who is also blind and—well, you know the proverb: 'When the blind lead the blind, both shall fall in the ditch.' Look well to your footsteps, O Princess."

"Is that legal advice?"

"Oh, that reminds me! You don't chance to have any documentary proof of your birth, do you?"

"With me? Gracious, no! People don't travel with the family Bible, do they?"

"They ought to, in melodrama. And this is certainly some ten-twenty-thirty show! Wise people occasionally have passports."

"Nobody ever accused me of wisdom. Besides, I left in a hurry."

"To escape the false prince. More fairy-tale."

"But I am twenty-one and I've got the very watch that papa gave me on my birthday."

"Let me see it."

She drew out a beautiful little diamond-studded chronometer of foreign and very expensive make.

"Most inappropriate for a child of your age," commented the other severely. "Ha! Here we are. Fairy Godfather—that's me—to the rescue." He read from the inner case of the watch. "'To my darling Cecily on her 21st birthday, from Father.' Not strictly legal, but good enough," he observed. "We shall now go forth and kill the dragon. That is to say, tell the captain the time of day."

"What fun! But—Judge Enderby."

"Well?"

"Don't tell Mr.—your other client, will you?"

"Why not?"

"I don't want him to know."

"But, you see, my duty to him as his legal adviser certainly demands that—"

"You're my legal adviser, too. Isn't my five dollars as good as his? Particularly when it really is his five dollars?"

"Allowed."

"Well, then, my age is a confidential communication and—what do you call it?—privileged."

"Oh, wise young judge! But, fair Portia, don't let me perish of curiosity. Why?"

"My revenge isn't complete yet."

"Look out for the inner edge of that tool," he warned.

With the timepiece in his hand, Judge Enderby bearded the autocrat of the Clan Macgregor on his own deck to such good purpose that Miss Cecily Wayne presently learned of the end of her troubles so far as prospective incarceration went. The knowledge, preserved intact for her own uses, put in her hand a dire weapon for the discomfiture of the Tyro.

Thereafter the ship's company was treated to the shameful spectacle of a young man hunted, harried, and beset by a Diana of the decks; chevied out of comfortable chairs, flushed from odd nooks and corners, baited openly in saloon and reading-room, trailed as with the wile of the serpent along devious passageways and through crowded assemblages, hare to her hound, up and down, high and low, until he became a byword among his companions for the stricken eye of eternal watchfulness. Sometimes the persecutress stalked him, unarmed; anon she threatened with a five-dollar bill. Now she trailed in a deadly silence; again, when there were few to hear, she bayed softly upon the spoor, and ever in her eyes gleamed the wild light and wild laughter of the chase.

Once she penned him. He had ensconced himself in a corner behind one of the lifeboats, where, with uncanny instinct, she spied him. Before he could escape, she had shut off egress.

"How do you do?" she said demurely.

He took off his cap, but with a sidelong eye seemed to be measuring the jump to the deck below.

"You've forgotten me, I'm afraid. I'm Little Miss Grouch. Would this help you to remember?"

She extended a five-dollar bill. He took it with the expression of one to whom a nice, shiny blade has just been handed for purposes of hara-kiri.

"I have missed you," she pursued with diabolical plaintiveness. "Our child—our adopted child," she corrected, the pink running up under her skin, "has been crying for you."

"Go away!" said the Tyro hoarsely.

"Are these the manners of a Perfect Pig?" she reproached him. And with adorable sauciness she warbled a nursery ditty:—

"Lady once loved a pig. 'Honey,' said she, 'Pig, will you marry me?' 'Wrrumph!' said he.

"I can't grunt very nicely," she admitted. "You do it."

"Go away," he implored, gazing from side to side like a trapped animal. "Somebody'll see you. They'll lock you up."

"Me? Why?" Her eyes opened wide in the loveliness of feigned surprise. "Much more likely you. I doubt whether you really should be at large. Such a queer-acting person!"

"I—I'll write and explain," he said desperately.

"If you do, I'll show the letter to the captain."

He regarded her with a stricken gaze. "Wh—why the captain?"

"Being a helpless and unchaperoned young lady," she explained primly, "he is my natural guardian and protector. I think I see him coming now."

Legend is enriched by the picturesque fates of those who have historically affronted Heaven with prevarications no more flagrant than this. But did punishment, then, descend upon the fair, false, and frail perpetrator of this particular taradiddle? Not at all. The Tyro was the sole sufferer. Had the word been a bullet he could scarcely have dropped more swiftly. When next he appeared to the enraptured gaze of the heckler, he was emerging, ventre a terre, from beneath the far end of the life-boat.

"I'll be in my deck-chair between eight and nine to receive explanations and apologies," was her Parthian shot, as he rose and fled.

At the time named, the Tyro took particularly good care to be at the extreme other side of the deck, where he maintained a wary lookout. Not twice should the huntress catch him napping. But he reckoned without her emissaries. Lord Guenn presently sauntered up, paused, and surveyed the quarry with a twinkling eye.

"I'm commanded to bring you in, dead or alive," he said.

"It will be dead, then," said the Tyro.

"What's the little game? Some of your American rag-josh, I believe you call it?"

"Something of that nature," admitted the other.

"This will be a blow to Cissy," observed his lordship. "She's used to having 'em come to heel at the first whistle. I say, Mr. Daddleskink—"

"My name's not Daddleskink," the Tyro informed him morosely.

"I beg your pardon if I mispronounced it. How—"

"Smith," said the proprietor of that popular cognomen.

"I say," cried the Briton in vast surprise, "that's worse than our pronouncing 'Castelreagh' 'Derby' for short!"

"S-m-i-t-h, Smith. The other was a joke and a very bum one! Alexander Forsyth Smith from now on."

"Hullo! What price the Forsyth?" Lord Guenn regarded him with increased interest. "Did Miss Wayne say something about your having an interest in her house on the Battery?"

"My house," corrected the other. "Yes, I've got an old option, depending on a ground-lease, that's come down in the family."

"What family?"

"The Forsyths. My grandmother was born in that house."

"Then our portrait of the Yank—of the American who looks like you at Guenn Oaks is your great-grandfather."

"I suppose so."

"Well met!" said Lord Guenn. "There are some sketches of the Forsyth place as it used to be at Guenn Oaks that would interest you. My ancestor was a bit of a dab with his brush."

"Indeed they'd interest me," returned the Tyro, "if they show the old boundary-lines. My claim on which I hope to buy in the property rests on the original lot, and that's in question now. There are some other people trying to hold me off—But that's another matter," he concluded hastily, as he recalled who his rival was.

"Quite the same matter. It's Cecily Wayne, isn't it?"

"Her father, I suppose. And as far as any evidence in your possession goes, of course I couldn't expect—considering that Miss Wayne's interests are involved—"

"Why on earth not, my dear fellow?"

"Well, I suppose—that is—I thought perhaps you—" floundered the Tyro, reddening.

Lord Guenn laughed outright. "You thought I was in the universal hunt? No, indeed! You see, I married Cecily's cousin. As for the house, I'm with you. I believe in keeping those things in the family. I say, where are you going when we land?"

"London, I suppose."

"Why not run up to Guenn Oaks for a week and see your great-grandad? Lady Guenn would be delighted. Cissy will be there, I shouldn't wonder."

"That's mighty good of you," said the Tyro. A sudden thought amused him. "Won't your ancestors turn over in their graves at having a haberdasher at Guenn Oaks?"

"They would rise up to welcome any of the blood of Spencer Forsyth," said the Briton seriously. "But what a people you are!" he continued. "Now an English haberdasher may be a very admirable person, but—"

"Hold on a moment. I'm not really a haberdasher. While I was in college I invented an easy-slipping tie. A friend patented it and I still draw an income from it. It's just another of the tangle of mistakes I've gotten into. As people have got the other notion, I don't care to correct it."

"That rotter, Sperry," said Lord Guenn with a grin—"I was glad to see you bowl him over. He's just a bit too impressed with his money. Fished all over the shop for an invitation to Guenn Oaks, and when he couldn't get it, wanted to buy the place. Bounder! Then you'll come?"

"Yes. I'll be delighted to."

"Jove! I'm forgetting my mission. Are you going to obey the imperial summons?"

"Can't possibly," said the Tyro, "I'm very ill. Tell her, will you?"

Lord Guenn nodded. "Perhaps one of you will condescend to let me in presently on all these plots and counterplots," he remarked as he walked away.

Left to himself the Tyro floated away on cloudy imaginings of gold and rose-color. A week—a whole week—with Little Miss Grouch; a week of freedom on good, solid land, beyond the tyranny of captains, the espionage of self-appointed chaperons, and the interference of countless surrounding ninnies; a week on every day of which he could watch the play of light and color in the face which had not been absent from his thoughts one minute since—

Thump! It was as if a huge fist had thrust up out of the ocean's depths and jolted the Clan Macgregor in the ribs. Several minor impacts jarred beneath his feet. Then the engines stopped, and the great hulk began to swing slowly to starboard in the still water.

Excited talk broke out. Questions to which nobody made reply filled the air. An officer hurried past.

"No. No damage done," he cried back mechanically over his shoulder.

Presently the engine resumed work. The rhythm appeared to the Tyro to drag. Dr. Alderson came along.

"Nothing at all," he said with the sang-froid of the experienced traveler. "Some little hitch in the machinery."

"Do you notice that there's a slant to the deck?" asked the Tyro in a low voice.

"Yes. Keep it to yourself. Most people won't notice it." And he walked on, stopping to chat with an acquaintance here and there, and doing his unofficial part to diffuse confidence.

One idea seized and possessed the Tyro. If that gently tilted deck meant danger, his place was on the farther side of the ship. Quite casually, to avoid any suggestion of haste, he wandered around.

Little Miss Grouch was sitting in her chair, alone and quiet. As the Tyro slipped, soft-footed, into the shelter of a shadow, he saw her stretch her hand out to a box of candy. She selected a round sweet, and dropped it on the deck. It rolled slowly into the scuppers. Again she tried the experiment, with the same result. She started to get up, changed her mind and settled back to wait.

The Tyro, leaning against the cabin, also waited. With no apparent cause—for he was sure he had made no noise—she turned her head and looked into the sheltering shadow. She smiled, a very small but very contented smile.

An officer came along the deck.

"The port screw," he paused to tell the waiting girl, "struck a bit of wreckage and broke a blade. Absolutely no danger. We will be delayed a little getting to port, that's all. I am glad you had the nerve to sit quiet," he added.

"I didn't know what else to do," she said.

She rose and gathered her belongings to her. Going to the entrance she passed so near that he could have touched her. Yet she gave no sign of knowledge that he was there; he was ready to believe that he had been mistaken in thinking that her regard had penetrated his retreat. In the doorway she turned.

"Good-night," she said, in a voice that thrilled in his pulses. "And—thank you."



VI

Sixth day out. Bump! And we're three days late. Suits me. I don't care if we never get in.

SMITH'S LOG.

Whoso will, may read in the Hydrographic Office records, the fate of the steamship Sarah Calkins. Old was Sarah; weather-scarred, wave-battered, suffering from all the internal disorders to which machinery is prone; tipsy of gait, defiant of her own helm, a very hag of the high seas.

Few mourned when she went down in Latitude 43 deg. 10' North, Longitude 20 deg. 12' West—few indeed, except for the maritime insurance companies. They lamented and with cause, for the Sarah Calkins was loaded with large quantities of rock, crated in such a manner as to appear valuable, and to induce innocent agents to insure them as pianos, furniture, and sundry merchandise. Such is the guile of them that go down to the sea in ships.

For the first time in her disreputable career, the Sarah Calkins obeyed orders, and went to the bottom opportunely in sight of a Danish tramp which took off her unalarmed captain and crew. Let us leave her to her deep-sea rest.

The evil that ships do lives after them, and the good is not always interred with their bones. For the better or worse of Little Miss Grouch and the Tyro, the Sarah Calkins, of whom neither of them had ever heard, left her incidental wreckage strewn over several leagues of Atlantic. One bit of it became involved with the Clan Macgregor's screw, to what effect has already been indicated. Hours later a larger mass came along, under the impulsion of half a gale, and punched a hole through the leviathan's port side as if it were but paper, just far enough above the water-line so that every alternate wave could make an easy entry.

The Tyro came up out of deep slumber with a plunge. He heard cries from without, and a strongly bawled order. Above him there was a scurry of feet. The engines stopped. Three bells struck just as if nothing had happened. He opened his door and the coldest water he had ever felt on his skin closed about his feet. The passageway was awash.

Jumping into enough clothing to escape the rigor of the law, the Tyro ran across to 129 D and knocked on the door. It opened. Little Miss Grouch stood there. Her eyes were sweet with sleep. A long, soft, fluffy white coat fell to her little bare feet. Her hair, half-loosed, clustered warmly close to the flushed warmth of her face. The Tyro stood, stricken for the moment into silence and forgetfulness by the power of her beauty.

"What is it?" she asked softly.

He found speech. "Something has happened to the ship."

"I knew you'd come," she said with quiet confidence.

"Aren't you afraid?"

"I was afraid."

A roll of the ship brought the chill water up about her feet. She shivered and winced. Stooping he caught her under the knees, and lifted her to his arms. Feeling the easy buoyancy of his strength beneath her, she lapsed against his shoulder, wholly trustful, wholly content. Through the passage he splashed, around the turn, and up the broad companionway. Not until he had found a chair in the near corner of the lower saloon did he set her down. Released from his arms, she realized with a swift shock the loss of all sense of security. She shot a quick glance at him, half terrified, half wistful. But the Tyro was now all for action.

"What clothes do you most need?" he asked sharply.

"Clothes? I don't know." She found it hard to adjust the tumult which had suddenly sprung up within her, to such considerations.

"Shoes and stockings. A heavy coat. Your warmest dress—where is it? What else?"

"What are you going to do?"

"Go back after your things."

"You mustn't! I won't let you. It's dangerous."

"Later it may be. Not now."

She stretched out her hands to him. "Please don't leave me."

He took the imploring little hands in his own firm grip. "Listen. There's no telling what has happened. We may have to go on deck. We may even be ordered to the boats. Warm clothing is an absolute necessity. Think now, and tell me what you need."

She gave him a quick but rather sketchy list. "And your own overcoat and sweater—or I won't let you go. Promise." Her fingers turned in his and caught at them.

"Very well, tyrant. I'll be back in three minutes."

Had he known what was awaiting him he might have promised with less confidence. For there was a dragon in the path in the person of young Mr. Diedrick Sperry, breathing, if not precisely flames, at least, fumes, for he had sat late in the smoking-room, consuming much liquor. At sight of the Tyro, his joke which he had so highly esteemed, returned to his mind.

"Haberdashin' 'round again, hey?" he shouted, blocking the passage halfway down to Stateroom 129. "Where's Cissy Wayne?"

"Safe," said the Tyro briefly.

"Safe be damned! You tell me where before you move a step farther." He stretched out a hand which would have done credit to a longshoreman.

Fight was the last thing that the Tyro wished. More important business was pressing. But as Sperry was blocking the way to the conclusion of that business, it was manifest that he must be disposed of. Here was no time for diplomacy. The Tyro struck at his bigger opponent, the blow falling short. With a shout, the other rushed him, and went right on over his swiftly dropped shoulder, until he felt himself clutched at the knees in an iron grip, and heaved clear of the flooded floor.

The stateroom door opposite swung unlatched. With a mighty effort, the wrestler whirled his opponent clean through it, heard his frame crash into the berth at the back, and slammed the door to after him, only to be apprised, by a lamentable yell in a deep contralto voice, that he had made an unfortunate choice of safe-deposits.

In two leaps he was in room 129 D, whence, peering forth, he beheld his late adversary emerge and speed down the narrow hall in full and limping flight, pursued by Mrs. Charlton Denyse clad in inconsiderable pink, and shrieking vengeance as she splashed. Relieved, through this unexpected alliance, of further interference, the messenger collected a weird assortment of his liege's clothing and an article or two of his own and returned to her. There was no mistaking the gladness of her relief.

"You've done very well," she approved. "Though I don't know that I actually need this lace collar, and I suppose I could brave the perils of the deep without that turquoise necklace."

"I took what I could get," explained he. "It's my rule of life."

"Did you obey my orders? Yes, I see you did. Put on your overcoat at once. It's cold. And you're awfully wet," she added, with charming dismay, looking at his feet.

"They'll dry out. There's quite a little water below."

Little Miss Grouch studied him for a moment of half-smiling consideration. "I want to ask you something," she said presently.

"Ask, O Queen, and it shall be answered you."

"Would you have come after me just the same if—if I'd been really a Miss Grouch, and red-nosed, and puffy-faced, and a frump, and homely?"

He took the question under advisement, with a gravity suitable to its import. "Not just the same," he decided, "not as—as anxiously."

"But you'd have come?"

"Oh, yes, I'd have come."

"I thought so." Her voice was strange. There was a pause. "Do you know you're a most exasperating person? It wouldn't make any difference to you who a woman was, if she needed help, whether she was in the steerage—"

He leaped to his feet. "The baby!" he cried, "and his mother. I'd forgotten."

On the word he was gone. Little Miss Grouch looked after him, and there was a light in her eyes which no human being had ever surprised there—and which would have vastly surprised herself had she appreciated the purport of it.

In five minutes he was back, having calmly violated one of the most rigid of ship's rules, in bringing steerage passengers up to the first cabin.

"Here's the Unparalleled Urchin," he announced, "right as a trivet. Here, let's make a little camp." He pulled around a settee, established the frightened but quiet mother and the big-eyed child on it, drew up a chair for himself next to the girl and said, "Now we can wait comfortably for whatever comes."

News it was that came, in the course of half an hour. An official, the genuineness of whose relief was patent, announced that the leak was above water-line, that it was being patched, that the ship was on her way and that there was absolutely no danger, his statement being backed up by the resumed throb of the engines and the sound of many hammers on the port side. Stateroom holders in D and E, however, he added, would best arrange to remain in the saloon until morning.

So the Tyro conveyed his adoptive charges back to the steerage, and returned to his other and more precious charge. There he found Judge Enderby in attendance.

"Isn't there something more I can get from your room?" the Tyro asked of Little Miss Grouch, after he had greeted the judge.

She shook her head with a smile.

"So the dumb has found a tongue, eh?" remarked the lawyer.

"Emergency use only," explained the Tyro.

"Well, my legal advice," pursued the jurist with a reassuring grimace at the girl, "is that you can make hay while the moon shines, for I don't think any officer is going to concern himself with your little affair just at present. But my personal advice," he added significantly, "in the interests of your own peace of mind, is that you go and sit on the rudder the rest of the voyage. Safety first!"

"I think he's an awfully queer old man," pouted Little Miss Grouch, as the judge sauntered away.

"Don't abuse my counsel," said the Tyro.

"He isn't your counsel. He's my counsel. I paid him five whole dollars to be."

"Hoots, lassie! I paid him ten."

"You want my house," said Little Miss Grouch, aggrieved, "and you want my lawyer. Is there anything else of mine you'd like to lay claim to?"

It may have been accident—the unprincipled opportunist of a godling who rules these matters will league himself with any chance—that the Tyro's eyes fell upon her hand, which lay, pink and warmly half-curled in her lap, and remained there. It certainly was not accident that the hand was hastily moved.

"Do you suppose Baby Karl and his mother are safe?" she inquired, in a voice of extreme detachment.

"Just as safe as we are. By the way, you heard what Judge Enderby suggested to me about 'safety first'?"

Her face took on an expression of the severest innocence. "No. Something stupid, I dare say."

"He advised me to go and sit on the rudder for the rest of the voyage."

"Wouldn't it be awfully wet—and lonely?"

"Unspeakably. Particularly the latter."

"Then I wouldn't do it," she counseled.

"I won't," he promised. "But, Miss Grouch, the dry land may be just as lonely as the wet ocean."

"Haven't you any friends in Europe?"

"No. Unless you count Lord Guenn one."

"You never met him until I introduced you, did you?"

"No. But he's asked me to come and visit him at Guenn Oaks."

"Has he! Why?"

The Tyro laughed. "There's something very unflattering about your surprise. Not for my beaux yeux alone. It seems he's sort of inherited me from a careless ancestor."

"I came to him by marriage."

"So he tells me. Also that you're going to Guenn Oaks."

"Yes."

"Well?"

"Why 'well'? I didn't say anything."

"You didn't. I'm waiting to hear you."

"What?"

"Tell me whether I'm to go or not."

"What have I to do with it?"

"Everything."

"Your servitude ends the moment we touch land."

"It will never end," said the Tyro in a low voice.

Little Miss Grouch peeked up at him from under the fascinating, slanted brows, and immediately regretted her indiscretion. What she saw in his face stirred within her a sweet and tremulous panic, the like of which she had not before experienced.

"Please don't look at me like that," she said petulantly. "What will people think?"

"People are, for once, minding their own businesses, bless 'em."

"Well, anyway, you make me n-n-nervous."

"Am I to come to Guenn Oaks?"

"I'll tell you to-morrow," she fenced.

"To-morrow I shan't be speaking to you."

"Why not?—oh, I forgot. Still, you might write," she dimpled.

"Would you answer?"

"I'll consider it."

"How long would consideration require?"

"Was there ever such a human question-mark! Please, kind sir, I'm awfully tired and sleepy. Won't you let me off now?"

"Forgive me," said the Tyro with such profound contrition that the Wondrous Vision's heart smote her, for she had said, in her quest of means of defense, the thing which most distinctly was not true.

Never had she felt less sleepy. Within her was a terrifying and quivering tumult. She closed her eyes upon the outer world, which seemed now all comprised in one personality. Within the closed lids she had shut the imprint of the tired, lean, alert, dependable face. Within the doors of her heart, which she was now striving to close, was the memory of his protective manliness, of his unobtrusive helpfulness, of the tonic of his frank and healthy humor—and above all of the strength and comfort of his arms as he had caught her up out of the flood. As she mused, the slumber-god crept in behind those blue-veined shutters of thought, and melted her memories into dreams.

While consciousness was still feebly efficient, but control had passed from the surrendering mind, she stretched out a groping hand. The Tyro's closed over it very gently. At the corner of her delicate mouth the merest ghost of a smile flickered and passed. Little Miss Grouch went deep into the land of dreams, with her knight keeping watch and ward over her.

Came then the destroying ogre, in the form of the captain, and passed on; came then the wicked fairy, in the person of Mrs. Charlton Denyse, and passed on, not without some gnashing of metaphorical teeth (her own, I regret to state, she had left in her berth); came also the god from the machine, in the shape of Judge Willis Enderby, with his friend Dr. Alderson, and paused near the group.

"Love," observed the jurist softly, "is nine tenths opportunity and the rest importunity. I hope our young protege doesn't forget that odd tenth. It's important."

"It seems to me," observed his companion suspiciously, "that you boast considerable wisdom about the tender passion."

The ablest honest lawyer in New York sighed. "I am old who once was young, but ego in Arcadia fui and I have not forgotten." Then the two old friends passed on.



VII

Seventh day out.

This sea-life is too darned changeable for me. You never know what next. It's bad for the nerves—

Smith's Log.

Thus the Tyro, in much perturbation of spirit, at the end of a lonely day. "Varium et mutabile semper," was written, however, not of the sea but of woman. And it was of woman and woman's incomprehensibility that the keeper of the private log was petulantly thinking when he made that entry.

For, far from harrying him about the decks, Little Miss Grouch had now withdrawn entirely from his ken. He had written her once, he had written her twice; he had surreptitiously thrust a third note beneath her door. No answer came to any of his communications. Being comparatively innocent of the way of a maid with a man, the Tyro was discouraged. He considered that he was not being fairly used. And he gloomed and moped and was an object of private mirth to Judge Enderby.

Two perfectly sound reasons accounted for the Joyous Vision's remaining temporarily invisible. The first was that she needed sleep, and Stateroom 129 D, which she had once so despitefully characterized, seemed a very haven of restfulness when, after breakfast, it was reported habitably dried out; the other was a queer and exasperating reluctance to meet the Tyro—yes, even to see him. As the lifting of the embargo on speech was not known to him, she knew herself to be insured against direct address. But the mere thought of meeting him face to face, of having those clear, quiet gray eyes look into hers again, gave her the most mysterious and disquieting sensations.

"I do wish," said Little Miss Grouch to herself, "that his name weren't so perfectly awful."

Some thought-demon with a special mission for the persecution of maidens, put it into her head to inquire why she should so vehemently wish this thing. And the trail of that thought plunged her, face-first, into her pillow.

Thereafter she decided that if she went on deck at all that day, it would be with such a surrounding of bodyguard as should keep wandering Daddleskinks quite beyond her range of association. As for his notes, she would answer them when she thought fit. Meantime—as the writer thereof might have been enheartened to know—she put them away in the most private and personal compartment of her trunk, giving each a tender little pat to settle it comfortably into its place.

* * * * *

Doubtless the sun shone that day (the official records said, "Clear with light winds and a calm sea"); doubtless the crippled ship limped happily enough on her way; doubtless there was good food and drink, music and merriment, and the solace of enlivening company aboard. But the snap-shot of the Tyro surreptitiously taken by Judge Enderby—he having borrowed Alderson's traveling-camera for the purpose—showed a face which might suitably have been used as a marginal illustration for that cheerless hymn, "This world is all a fleeting show."

Life had lost all its flavor for the Tyro. He politely accepted Dr. Alderson's invitation to walk, but lagged with so springless a step that the archaeologist began to be concerned for his health. At Lord Guenn's later suggestion that squash was the thing for incipient seediness, he tried that, but played a game far too listless for the Englishman's prowess.

In vain did he seek consolation in the society of Karl, the Pride of the Steerage. That intelligent infant wept and would not be comforted because the pretty lady had not come also, and the Tyro was well fain to join him in his lamentations. Only the threatening advance of Diedrick Sperry, with a prominent and satisfactory decoration in dusky blue protruding from his forehead, roused him to a temporary zest in life. Mr. Sperry came, breathing threats and future slaughter, but met a disconcertingly cold and undisturbable gleam of the gray eye.

"If you interfere with me again," said the Tyro, "I'll throw you overboard."

And it was said in such evident good faith that his opponent deemed it best to forget that matter, vaguely suspecting that he had encountered a "professional."

A more fearsome opponent bore down upon the depressed scion of all the Smiths, late that afternoon. Mrs. Charlton Denyse maneuvered him into a curve of the rail, and there held him with her glittering eye.

"I beg your pardon." This, pitched on a flat and haughty level of vocality, was her method of opening the conversation.

The Tyro sought refuge in the example of classic lore. "You haven't offended me," he said, patterning his response upon the White Queen. "Perhaps you're going to," he added apprehensively.

"I am going to talk to you for your own good," was the chill retort.

"Oh, Lord! That's worse."

"Do you see that ship?" The Denyse hand pointed, rigid as a bar, to the south, where the Tyro discerned a thin smudge of smoke.

"I see something."

"That is the Nantasket."

"At this distance I can't deny it," murmured the Tyro.

"Which left New York two days behind us, and is now overhauling us, owing to our accident."

He received this news with a bow.

"On board her is Henry Clay Wayne," she continued weightily.

"Congratulations on your remarkable keenness of vision!" exclaimed the Tyro.

"Don't be an imbecile," said the lady, "I didn't see him. I learned by wireless."

"Rather a specialty of yours, wireless, isn't it?" he queried.

She shot an edged look at him, but his expression was innocence itself. "He will reach England before us."

"Then you don't think he'll board us and make us all walk the plank?" asked the Tyro in an apparent agony of relief.

"Don't get flip—" cried the exasperated lady—"pant," she added barely in time—"with me. Mr. Wayne will be in England waiting for you."

"Anyway, he can't eat me," the Tyro comforted himself. "Shall I hide in the stoke-hole? Shall I disguise myself as a rat and go ashore in the cargo? What do you advise?"

"I advise you to keep away from Miss Wayne."

"Yes. You did that before. At present I'm doing so."

"Then continue."

"I shall, until we reach solid earth."

"There my responsibility will cease. Mr. Wayne will know how to protect his daughter from upstart fortune-hunters."

The Tyro regarded her with an unruffled brow. "Never hunted a fortune in my life. A modest competence is the extent of my ambition, and I've attained that, thanking you for your kind interest."

"In the necktie and suspender business, I suppose," she snapped, enraged at her failure to pierce the foe's armor. "It's a crying scandal that you should thrust yourself on your betters."

This annoyed the Tyro. Not that he allowed Mrs. Denyse to perceive it. With a bland, reminiscent smile he remarked:—

"Speaking of scandals, I observed a young man, rather informally clad, entering Stateroom 144 D at a late hour last night, in some haste."

"Oh!" gasped Mrs. Denyse, and there was murder in her tones.

"He looked to me like young Sperry."

Mrs. Denyse glowed ocular fire.

"And, according to the list, Stateroom 144 D is occupied by Mrs. Charlton Denyse."

Mrs. Denyse growled an ominous, subterranean growl.

"Now, my dear madam, in view of this fact, which I perceive you do not deny" (here the lady gave evidence of having a frenzied protest stuck in her throat like a bone), "I would suggest that you cease chaperoning me and attend to the proprieties in your own case. Hi, Dr. Alderson!" he called to that unsuspecting savant who was passing, "will you look after Mrs. Denyse for a bit? I fear she's ill." And he made his escape.

What Mrs. Denyse said to Dr. Alderson when she regained the power of coherent speech, is beside the purposes of this chronicle. Suffice it to state that he left in some alarm, believing the unfortunate woman to have lost her mind.

The Tyro sought out his deck-chair and relapsed into immitigable boredom. He was not the only person aboard to be dissatisfied with the way affairs were developing. As an amateur Cupid, Judge Enderby had been fancying himself quite decidedly. Noting, however, that there had been absolutely no communication between his two young clients that day, he began to distrust his diplomacy, and he set about the old, familiar problem of administering impetus to inertia. Sad though I am to say it of so eminent a member of the bar, his method perilously approached betrayal of a client's confidence.

It was after his evening set-to at bridge, when, coming on deck for a good-night sniff of air, he encountered the Tyro who was lugubriously contemplating the moon.

"Hah!" he greeted. "How's the dumb palsy?"

"Worse," was the morose reply.

"Haven't seen your pretty little acquaintance about to-day. Have you?"

"No."

"Don't swear at me, young man," reproved the lawyer, mildly.

"I didn't swear at you, sir," said the startled Tyro.

"Not in words, but in tone. Not that I blame you for being put out. At your age, to miss the sun from out of the heavens—and Miss Wayne is certainly a fascinating and dangerous young person. Considering that she is barely twenty-one, it is quite remarkable."

"Remarkable?" repeated the Tyro vaguely.

"Considering that she is barely twenty-one, I said."

The Tyro rubbed his head. Was loneliness befuddling his brain? "I'm afraid I'm stupid," he apologized.

"I'm afraid your fears are well based."

"But—what's remarkable?"

"It's remarkable that you should be deaf as well as dumb," retorted the other, testily. "To resume: considering that she is barely twenty-one—not nearly, but barely twenty-one, you'll note—"

"You needn't go any further," cried the youth, suddenly enlightened. "Twenty-one is legal age on the high seas?"

"It is."

"Then she's her own mistress and the captain has no more authority over her than over me?"

"So much, I have reason to believe, an eminent legal authority pointed out to the captain yesterday."

"Why didn't that same eminent authority point it out to me before?"

"Before? I object to the implication. I haven't pointed it out to you now. Your own natural, if somewhat sluggish intelligence inferred it from a random remark about a friend's age."

"Does she know it?"

"She does."

"Since when?"

"Since some forty-eight hours."

"Then, why on earth didn't she tell me? She knew I didn't dare speak to her. But she never said a word."

"Give me," began the judge, "five" (here the Tyro reached for his pocket, but the other repudiated the gesture with a wave of the hand) "million dollars, and I wouldn't undertake to guess why any female between the ages of one and one hundred years, does or does not do any given thing. I'm no soothsayer."

"Then I may speak to her to-morrow, without fear of making trouble?"

"You may certainly speak to her—if you can find her. As for trouble, I wouldn't care to answer for you," chuckled the judge. "Good-night to you."

The Tyro sat up late, asking questions of the moon, who, being also of feminine gender, obstinately declined to betray the secrets of the sex.



VIII

Eighth day out.

Glorious sunshine, a tingling wind, and the ship just "inchin' along like a poor inch-worm."

Everything's wrong with the ship;— Everything's right with the world.

Perfectly satisfied with the Macgregor hospitality. She may take all the time she wants, so far as I'm concerned—

SMITH'S LOG.

Out of the blue void of a fleckless sky, came whooping at dawn a boisterous wind. All the little waves jumped from their slow-swinging cradles to play with it, and, as they played, became big waves, with all the sportiveness of children and all the power of giants. The Clan Macgregor was their toy.

At first she pretended indifference, and strove to keep the even tenor of her way, regardless of them. But they were too much and too many for her. She began to cripple and jig most painfully for one of her size and dignity. She limped, she wobbled, she squattered, she splashed and sploshed, she reeled hither and thither like an intoxicated old rounder buffeted by a crowd of practical jokers, and she lost time hand over fist, to the vast approval of Mr. Alexander Forsyth Smith. Time was now just so much capital to his hopes.

The tonic seduction of the gale was too much for Little Miss Grouch. This was no day for a proven sailor to be keeping between decks. Moreover, the maiden panic was now somewhat allayed. The girl's emotions, after the first shock of the surprise and the resentment of the hitherto untouched spirit, had come under control. She could now face a Daddleskink or a regiment of Daddleskinks, unmoved, so she felt—with proper support. Hence, like the Tyro, she was on deck early.

So they met. As in the mild and innocent poem of Victorian days, "'twas in a crowd." Little Miss Grouch had provided the crowd, and the Tyro simply added one to it. He was fain if not wholly content to stay in the background and bide his chance.

Now Little Miss Grouch, ignorant of the fact that her high-priced counsel had betrayed her cause, marveled and was disturbed when the Tyro approached, greeted her, and straightway dropped into the fringe of Society as constituted by herself for the occasion. Was he deliberately, in the face of his own belief that imprisonment would be the penalty of any communication between her and himself, willing to risk her liberty? If so, he was not the man she had taken him for. Little Miss Grouch's ideal was rocking a bit on his pedestal.

Patience was not one of the young lady's virtues. On the other hand, the compensating quality of directness was. "Do It Now" was her prevailing motto. She wanted to know what her slave meant by his abrupt change of attitude, and she wanted to know at once. But her methods, though prompt, were not wholly lacking in finesse. Out of her surrounding court she appointed Judge Enderby and Lord Guenn escorts for the morning promenade, and picked up Dr. Alderson on the way.

Be it duly set down to the credit of the Joyous Vision's solider qualities, that old men found her as interesting a companion, though in a different way, as did young men. By skillful management, she led the conversation to the house on the Battery, with the anticipated result that Judge Enderby (all innocent, wily old fox though he was, that he was playing her game) suggested the inclusion of the other claimant in the conference. The Tyro was summoned and came.

"The charge against you," explained the judge, "is contumaciousness in that you still insist on coveting a property which is claimed by royalty, under the divine right of queens."

"I'd be glad to surrender it," said the Tyro meekly, "but there seems to be a species of family obligation about it."

"Obligation or no obligation, you know you can't have it," declared the lady.

"I rather expect to, though."

"When papa says he'll get a thing, he always gets it," she informed him with lofty confidence, "and he has promised me that house."

"Then I'm afraid that this is the time his promise goes unfulfilled," said Judge Enderby.

She turned to him with incredulously raised brows.

"Alderson knows the old records; he's seen the option—it's a queer old document, by the way, but sound legally—and can swear to it."

"The only loose joint is the exact plan of the original property," observed the archaeologist.

"And that is in the picture at Guenn Oaks," contributed Lord Guenn.

"Why are you all against me?" cried Little Miss Grouch in grieved amazement.

"Not against you at all," said Judge Enderby. "It's simply a matter of the best claim. Besides, you, who have everything in the world, would you turn this poor homeless young wanderer out of a house that he's never been in?"

"Except by ancestral proxy," qualified Dr. Alderson.

"How mean of you!" She turned the fire of denunciatory eyes upon the archaeologist. "You told me with your own lips that no family named Daddleskink was ever connected in the remotest degree with the house. You said the idea was as absurd as the name."

"So it is."

"Yet you turn around and declare that Mr. Daddleskink's claim is good."

"Whose claim?"

"Mr. Daddleskink's." She indicated the Tyro with a scornful gesture. "Oh," she added, noting the other's obvious bewilderment, "I see you didn't know his real name."

"I? I've known him and his name all his life."

"And it isn't Daddleskink?"

The learned archaeologist lapsed against the rail and gave way to wild mirth. "Wh—where on earth d-d-did you gu-gu-get such a notion?" he quavered, when he could speak.

"He told me, himself."

"I? Never!" The Tyro's face was as that of a babe for innocence.

"You—didn't—tell—me—your—name—was—Daddleskink?"

"Certainly not. I simply asked if you didn't think it a misfortune to be named Daddleskink, and you jumped to the conclusion that it was my name and my misfortune."

"Perhaps you didn't tell me, either, that your friends called you 'Smith,'" she said ominously.

"So they do."

"Why should they call you 'Smith' if your name isn't Daddleskink?" she demanded, with an effect of unanswerable logic.

"Because my name is Smith."

"Permit me to present," said Lord Guenn, who had been quietly but joyously appreciative of the duel, "my ancestral friend, Mr. Alexander Forsyth Smith."

"Why didn't you tell me your real name?" Little Miss Grouch's offended regard was fixed upon the Tyro.

"Well, you remember, you made fun of the honorable cognomen of Smith when we first met."

"That is no excuse."

"And you were mysterious as an owl about your own identity."

"I could see no occasion for revealing it." The delicately modeled nose was now quite far in the air.

"So I thought I'd furnish a really interesting name for you to amuse yourself with. I'm sorry you don't care for it."

Little Miss Grouch's limpid and lofty consideration passed from the anxious physiognomy of the speaker to the mirthful countenances of the other three.

"I'm not sure that I shall ever speak to any of you again," she stated, and, turning her back, marched away from them with lively resentment expressed in every supple line of her figure.

"Young man," said Judge Enderby to his client, as the male quartette, thus cavalierly dismissed, passed on, "will you take the advice of an old man?"

"Have I paid for it?" inquired the Tyro.

"You have not. Gratis advice, this. The most valuable kind."

"Shoot, sir."

"Don't let two blades of grass grow under your feet where one grew before."

"But—"

"—me no buts. Half an hour I give you. If you haven't found the young lady in that time I discard you."

Opportunity for successful concealment on shipboard is all but limitless. Hence the impartial recorder must infer that the efforts of Little Miss Grouch to elude pursuit were in no way excessive. A quarter of an hour sufficed for the searcher to locate his object in a sunny nook on the boat-deck. He approached and stood at attention. For several moments she ignored his presence. In point of fact she pretended not to see him. He shifted his position. She turned her head in the reverse direction and pensively studied the sea.

The Tyro sighed.

Little Miss Grouch frowned.

The Tyro coughed gently.

Little Miss Grouch scowled.

The Tyro lapsed to the deck and curled his legs under him.

Little Miss Grouch turned upon him a baleful eye. But her glance wavered: at least, it twinkled. Her little jaw was set, it is true. At the corner of her mouth, however, dimpled a suspicious and delicious quiver. Perhaps the faintest hint of it crept into her voice to mollify the rigor of the tone in which she announced:

"I came here to be alone."

"We are," said the Tyro. "At last!" he added with placid satisfaction.

"Well, really!" For the moment it was all that came to her, as offset to this superb impudence. "Go away, at once," she commanded presently.

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"I'm lame," he said plaintively. "Pity the poor cripple."

"A little while ago you were deaf; then dumb. And now—By the way," she cried, struck with a sudden reminiscence, "what has become of your dumbness?"

"Cured."

"A miracle. Listen then. And stop looking at that crack in the deck as if you'd lost your last remaining idea down it."

"To look up is dangerous."

"Where's the danger?"

"Dangerous to my principles," he explained. "You see, you are somewhat less painful to the accustomed eye than usual to-day, and if I should so far forget my principles as to mention that fact—"

"You haven't a principle to your name! You're untruthful—"



"Ah, come, Little Miss Grouch!"

"Deceitful—"

"As to that Smith matter—"

"And most selfishly inconsiderate of me."

"Of you!" cried the Tyro, roused to protest.

"Certainly. Or you wouldn't be exposing me to imprisonment in my cabin by talking to me."

"Nothing doing," said he comfortably. "That little joke is played out."

"How did you know?"

Loyalty forbade the Tyro to betray his ally. "That you were of age, you mean, and couldn't be treated like a child?" he fenced.

"Yes."

"Well, when you spoke of the house on the Battery being deeded over to you, I knew that you must have reached your majority! The rest was simple to figure out."

"Oh, dear!" she mourned. "It was such fun chasing you around the ship!"

"Yes? Well, I've emulated the startled fawn all I'm going to this trip."

"What's your present role?"

"Meditation upon the wonder of existence."

"Do you find it good?"

"Existence? That depends. Am I to come to Guenn Oaks?"

"I'm sure you'd be awfully in the way there," she said petulantly. "You've been a perfect nuisance for the last two days."

"My picturesqueness has gone glimmering, now that I'm only a Smith instead of a Daddleskink. Why, oh, why must these lovely illusions ever perish!"

"You killed cock-robin," she accused.

"Not at all. It was Dr. Alderson with his misplaced application of the truth."

"Anyway, I don't find you nearly so entertaining, now that you're plain Mr. Smith."

"Nor I you as Miss Cecily Wayne, equally plain if not plainer."

"In that case," she suggested with a mock-mournful glance from beneath the slanted brows, "this acquaintance might as well die a painless death."

"But for one little matter that you've forgotten."

"And that?"

"The Magnificent Manling of the Steerage."

"So I had forgotten! Let's go make our call on him. We must not neglect him a moment longer."

The Tyro leaped to his feet and they ran, hand in hand like two children, down to their point of observation of the less favored passengers. They spent a lively half-hour with the small Teuton, at the end of which Little Miss Grouch issued imperative commands to the Tyro to the effect that he was to wait at the pier when they got in, and see to it that mother and child were safely forwarded to the transfer.

"Yessum," said the Tyro meekly. "Anything further?"

"I'll let you know," she returned, royally. "You may wire me when the commission is executed. Perhaps, if you carry it through very nicely, I'll let you come to Guenn Oaks."

"Salaam, O Empress," returned the Tyro, executing a most elaborate Oriental bow, the concluding spiral of which almost involved him in Mrs. Charlton Denyse's suddenly impending periphery.

Mrs. Denyse retired three haughty paces.

"I wish to speak to Miss Wayne," she announced with a manner which implied that she did not wish and never again would wish to speak to Miss Wayne's companion.

"With me?" asked Little Miss Grouch, bland surprise in her voice.

"Yes. I have a message."

Little Miss Grouch waited.

"A private message," continued the lady.

"Is it very private? You know Mr. Daddleskink-Smith, I believe?"

"I've seen Mr. Daddleskink-Smith," frigidly replied the lady, mistaking the introducer's hesitation for a hyphen, "if that is what he calls himself now."

"It isn't," said the Tyro. "You know, Mrs. Denyse, I've always held that the permutation of names according to the taste of the inheritor, is one of the most interesting phases of social ingenuity."

Mrs. Charlton Denyse, relict of the late Charley Dennis, turned a deep Tyrian purple. "If you would be good enough—" she began, when the girl broke in:—

"Is your message immediate, Mrs. Denyse?"

"It is from my cousin, Mr. Van Dam."

"To me?" cried the girl.

"No. To me. By wireless. But it concerns you."

"In that case I don't think I'm interested," said the girl, her color rising. "You must excuse me." And she walked on.

"Then the gentlemanly spider on the hot griddle loses," murmured the Tyro.

"I don't know whom you mean," said the girl, obstinately.

"I mean that your foot-destroying 'Never-never-never' holds good."

"Yes," she replied. "I did think I might marry him once. But now," she added pensively and unguardedly, "I know I never could."

The Tyro's heart came into his throat—except that portion of it which looked out of his eyes.

"Why?"

A flame rose in Little Miss Grouch's cheeks, and subsided, leaving her shaking.

"Why?" He had halted her beside the rail, and was trying to look into her face, which was averted toward the sea, and quivering with panic of the peril suddenly become imminent again.

Lord Guenn, approaching along the deck, furnished Little Miss Grouch an inspiration, the final flash of hope of the hard-pressed.

"Shut your eyes," she bade her terrifying slave.

"What for?"

"Obey!"

"They're shut."

"Tight?"

"Under sealed orders."

Little Miss Grouch made a swift signal to the approaching Englishman, and executed a silent maneuver.

"Count three," she directed breathlessly, "before you ask again or open your eyes."

"One—two—three," said the Tyro slowly. "Why?"

"Hanged if I know, my dear fellow," replied Lord Guenn, upon whose trim elegance the Tyro's discomfited vision rested.

Little Miss Grouch had vanished.



IX

Ninth day out.

Sixty days has September, April, June and November. From January until May The rain it raineth every day. All the rest have thirty-one Without a single gleam of sun. If any should have thirty-two, They'd be dull and dirty, too!

ADAPTED BY SMITH FOR SMITH'S LOG

Rain, fog, mist, drizzle, more rain. Such was the waste world through which the Clan Macgregor wallowed. Other ships passed her, hooting as they went. Small craft began to loom up under her massive bows, and slide away from beneath her towering stern, always eluding Fate, as it seemed, by miraculous inches. And slower and ever slower moved the sea-mammoth, lugubriously trumpeting her distress and dismay at the plight in which she found herself.

Thus and no otherwise would the Tyro have vented his grief and chagrin, had he possessed competent vocal organs, more lost and befogged than the ship which bore him and his sorrow to an alien land. For breakfast had come and gone, and then luncheon and dinner, and nowhere had he caught so much as a glimpse of Little Miss Grouch. At ten o'clock that night he was standing immersed in gloom, within and without, staring out over the rail into a world of blackness. Far out in the void, a bell tolled. The Tyro resumed his purposeless promenade, meditating cheerlessly upon buried hopes.

Now, were individuals required, as are craft, to carry fog signals, this maritime record might be something other than it is. The collision was head on, and the impact severe. The lighter craft recoiled against the rail.

"Oh!" she said.

"You!" cried the Tyro, with the voice of glad tidings.

"How you frightened me!" she said, but the tone indicated more of relief, not to say content, than alarm.

"I'm sorry. Where have you been all day?"

"Packing."

"Oh!" There was a pause. Then: "Lord Guenn doesn't know."

"Doesn't know what?"

"Doesn't know why. I asked him, you know. When you—er—disappeared. So I have to ask you again. Why?"

"Aren't you afraid that when you die you'll change into a question-mark?"

"Not at all. I intend to be answered before I die. Long before. One—two—three; why?"

But she was ready for the question now. "About Mr. Van Dam, you mean?" said she with elaborate carelessness. "Oh, well, you see, I'd be Mrs. Denyse's cousin in that case and, after a week of her, I've concluded that it isn't worth the price."

"Hard-hearted Parent will be displeased."

"I'm afraid so. Perhaps he'll cut me off with a shilling."

"I hope so."

"Now, that isn't a bit kind of you," she complained. "I'm not fitted for poverty. Not that it would be literally a shilling. But to have to do everything on twelve thousand a year—"

"How much?"

"That's all I can call my really own."

"And you consider that insufficient?" asked the Tyro, in a queer, strained voice.

"Not as long as papa pays my principal bills," she explained. "But of course, to live on—" An expressive shrug furnished the conclusion.

"For some years I lived on less than a tenth of it," said he.

"No! It couldn't be done."

"Don't you know anything at all about life?" he demanded, almost angrily.

"Of course I do. But I don't bother about money and such things."

"I do. I've had to all my life. Even now, when I consider myself very well off, I can make only a little more than the income which you consider mere pin-money."

"Yet you can buy houses on the Battery," she insinuated.

"Only through the option that gives me the inside track. And even that will make a huge hole in my pile."

"Ah, well," she said petulantly. "I don't see what difference it makes. Anyway, I'm bored. Aren't you going to be any more amusing than this at Guenn Oaks?"

"I'm not coming to Guenn Oaks."

"Who are you to say what you are or are not going to do—Slave?" she said with her most imperious air.

At the tone, he rallied a difficult smile. "I'm the Honest Workingman. Whereas you are—" he spread his hands out in a suave gesture, which was exceedingly displeasing to Little Miss Grouch—"a mirage."

"A mirage?" she repeated.

"The Eternally Unattainable."

"Long words always make my head ache."

"I'll state it mathematically. If you concentrate your powerful intellect upon the problem you will perceive that two plus two equals four."

"In that faith I live and die! But what it has to do with Bertie Guenn's invitation—"

"The sum proves up equally when raised to thousands, or millions."

"What concern has a Perfect Pig with figures?" she asked wistfully, and lifted a hesitant hand in the darkness.

It fell lightly on his arm. In the soft gloom her face glimmered, dimly warm to his vision, upturned to his. The fog covered much that might otherwise have been seen, but failed to smother what might have been (and in fact was, as Judge Enderby and Dr. Alderson, turning the angle of the deck, halted and tactfully melted away) heard. To wit:—

"Oh!" in a feminine and tremulous pitch.

"Forgive me," said the Tyro hoarsely. "That was for good-bye."

Was it a detaining hand that went forth in the darkness? If so, it failed of its purpose, for the Tyro had gone.

Then and there Little Miss Grouch proceeded to pervert a proverb.

"Man proposes," she observed to herself, philosophically. "Maybe not always, though. But, anyway, woman disposes. I don't think that was really good-bye."

Behold now a complete reversal of conditions from the initial night of the voyage. For now it was the Tyro who went to bed, miserable and at odds with a hostile world; whereas Little Miss Grouch dreamed of a morrow, new, glorious, and irradiated with a more splendid adventurousness than her slave had ever previsioned.



LAND HO!

Land Ho!

A fool for luck went a-fishing in the Atlantic with his heart for bait—and caught the Goddess of the Realm of Dreams.

I have sailed out of the Port of Chance, across the Ocean of Golden hopes, straight into the Haven of All-Joy—

And so, Journey's End in the good old way—

SMITH'S LOG.

Blue-gray out of pearl-gray mist rose the shores of old England. Long before the sun, the Tyro was up and on deck, looking with all his eyes, a little awed, a little thrilled, as every man of the true American blood who honors his country must be at first sight of the Motherland. Slowly, through an increasing glow that lighted land and water alike, the leviathan of the deep made her ponderous progress to the hill-encircled harbor. A step that halted at the Tyro's elbow detached his attention.

"What do you think of it?" asked Lord Guenn.

The eyes of Alexander Forsyth Smith rested for a moment on a toy lighthouse and passed to the trim shore, where a plaything locomotive was pulling a train of midget box-cars with the minimum of noise and effort.

"It's like Fairyland," he said, in a voice unconsciously modulated to the peace of the scene. "So tiny and neatly beautiful."

"Yes; it hasn't the overwhelming magnificence of New York Harbor. But it's England."

"And you're gladder to get back to it than you'd confess, for shame of sentimentalizing," said the other shrewdly, having marked the note of deep content in that "it's England."

"One doesn't climb the rail and sing 'Rule, Britannia.'"

"It's a matter of temperament and training. Inside, I suppose, every decent man feels the same about his own country, allowing for racial differences. I don't suppose, though, you'd have quite the same sensation if you were an American returning home after a long absence."

"Good Lord, no!" was the unguarded reply.

The Tyro laughed outright. "For once I've pierced the disguise of your extremely courteous cosmopolitanism, and behold! there's John Bull underneath, rampantly sure that nobody can be a really justified patriot except an Englishman."

"Confound you and your traps!" retorted the young peer, ruefully. "Ah, I say, Cecily!" he cried as Little Miss Grouch appeared, looking, in her long soft traveling-coat, rather lovelier (so the Tyro considered within himself) than any human being has any right to look.