thing! And I'm _never_ coming back. There's no way they
can get me now, is there?"

A reiterated word of the convulsive howler on the dock had stuck in the
Tyro's mind. "What about the pilot-boat?"

"Oh! Could they? What shall I do? I _won't_ go back. I'll jump overboard
first. And you do nothing but stand there like a ninny."

"Many thanks, gentle maiden," returned her companion, unperturbed, "for
this testimonial of confidence and esteem. With every inclination to aid
and abet any crime or misdemeanor within reach, I nevertheless think I
ought to be let in on the secret before I commit myself finally."

"It--it's that Thing on the dock."

"So you led me to infer."

"He wants to marry me."

"Well, America is the land of boundless ambitions," observed the young
man politely.

"But they'll make me marry him if I stay," came the half-strangled
whisper. "I'm engaged to him, I tell you."

"No; you didn't tell me anything of the sort. Why, he's old enough to be
your father."

"Older!" she asseverated spitefully. "And hatefuller than he is old."

"Why do such a thing?"

"I didn't do it."

"Then he did it all himself? I thought it took two to make an
engagement."

"It does. Father was the other one."

"Oh! Father is greatly impressed with our acrobatic friend's eligibility
as son-in-law?"

"Well, of course, he's got plenty of money, and a splendid position, and
all that. And I--I--I didn't exactly say 'No.' But when I saw it in the
newspapers, all spread out for everybody to read--"

"Hello! It got into the papers, did it?"

"Yesterday morning. Father put it in; I _know_ he did. I cried all
night, and this morning I had Marie pack my things, and I made a rush
for this old ship, and they didn't have anything for me but a stuffy
little hole 'way down in the hold somewhere, and I wish I were dead!"

"Oh, cheer up!" counseled the Tyro. "I've got an awfully decent
stateroom--123 D, and if you want to change--"

"Why, I'm 129 D. That's the same kind of room in the same passage. Do
you call _that_ fit to live in?"

Now the Tyro is a person of singularly equable temperament. But to have
an offer which he had made only with self-sacrificing effort thus
cavalierly received by a red-nosed, blear-eyed, impudent little
chittermouse (thus, I must reluctantly admit, did he mentally
characterize his new acquaintance), was just a bit too much.

"You don't have to accept the offer, you know," he assured her. "I only