th spoons--at least so I conjectured.

"Aren't you coming, John?" asked Hortense, appearing at the
companionway. She looked very bacchanalian. Her splendid amber hair was
half riotous, and I was reminded of the toboggan fire-escape.

He obeyed her; and now I had the deck entirely to myself, or, rather,
but one other and distant person shared it with me. The hour had
come, the bells had struck; Charley's crew was eating its dinner
below forward; Charley's guests were drinking their liquor below aft;
Charley's correct meal-flag was to be seen in the port fore rigging, as
he had said, red and triangular; and away off from me in the bow was
the anchor watch, whom I dreamily watched trying to light his pipe.
His matches seemed to be bad; and the brotherly thought of helping
him drifted into my mind--and comfortably out of it again, without
disturbing my agreeable repose. It had been really entertaining in John
to tell Kitty that she ought to see the inside of Kings Port; that was
like his engaging impishness with Juno. If by any possible contrivance
(and none was possible) Kitty and her Replacers could have met
the inside of Kings Port, Kitty would have added one more "quaint"
impression to her stock, and gone away in total ignorance of the quality
of the impression she had made--and Bohm would probably have again
remarked, "Worse than Sunday." No; the St. Michaels and the Replacers
would never meet in this world, and I see no reason that they should
in the next. John's light and pleasing skirmish with Kitty gave me the
glimpse of his capacities which I had lacked hitherto. John evidently
"knew his way about," as they say; and I was diverted to think how Miss
Josephine St. Michael would have nodded over his adequacy and shaken
her head at his squandering it on such a companion. But it was no
squandering; the boy's heavy spirit was making a gallant "bluff" at
playing up with the lively party he had no choice but to join, and this
one saw the moment he was not called upon to play up.

The peaceful loveliness that floated from earth and water around me
triumphed over the jangling hilarity of the cabin, and I dozed away,
aware that they were now all thumping furiously in chorus, while Gazza
sang something that went, "Oh, she's my leetle preety poosee pet."
When I roused, it was Kitty's voice at the piano, but no change in the
quality of the song or the thumping; and Hortense was stepping on
deck. She had a cigarette, her beaut