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 _confrères_ 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.