s regrettable fickleness, he--to his shame be it
chronicled--having practically forgotten the woe-begone damsel's very
existence within eighteen short hours after his adventure in
knight-errantry. Her tear-ravaged and untidy plainness had, in that
brief time, been exorcised from memory by a more potent interest, that
of Beauty on her imperial throne. Setting forth the facts in their due
order, it befell in this wise:--

At or about one bell, to be quite nautical, the Tyro awoke from a
somewhat agitated sleep.

"Hold on a minute!" protested he, addressing whatever Powers might be
within hearing. "Stop the swing. I want to get out!"

He lifted his head and the wall leaned over and bumped it back upon the
pillow. Incidentally it bumped him awake.

"Must be morning," he yawned. A pocket-knife and two keys rolled off the
stand almost into the yawn. "Some weather," deduced the Tyro. "Now, if
I'm ever going to be seasick I suppose this is the time to begin." He
gave the matter one minute's fair and honorable consideration. "I think
I'll be breakfasting," he decided, and dismissed it.

Having satisfied an admirable appetite in an extensive area of solitude,
he weaved and wobbled up the broad stairs and emerged into the open,
where he stood looking out upon a sea of flecked green and a sky of
mottled gray. Alderson bore down upon him, triangulating the deck like a
surveyor.

"Trying out my sea-legs," he explained. "How does this strike you as an
anti-breakfast roll?"

"Hasn't struck me that way at all," said the Tyro. "I feel fine."

"Welcome to the Society of Seaworthy Salts! These are the times that try
men's stomachs, if not their souls. Come along."

The pair marched back and forth past a row of sparsely inhabited
deck-chairs, meeting in their promenade a sprinkling of the hardier
spirits of the ship community.

"Have you seen Miss Melancholia this morning?" asked Alderson.

"No, thank Heaven! I didn't dare go in to breakfast till I'd peeked
around the corner to make sure she wasn't there."

"Wait. She'll cross your bows early and often."

"Don't! You make me nervous. What a beast she must think me!"

"Here comes a girl now," said his friend maliciously. "Prepare to
emulate the startled fawn."

The Tyro turned hastily. "Oh, that's all right," he said, reassured.
"She's wholly surrounded by a masculine bodyguard. No fear of its being
Little Miss Grouch."

A sudden roll of the ship opened up the phalanx, an