with a more anxious
watchfulness than is expected even of the ship's lookout; he peered into
nooks and corners; he studied the plan of the leviathan for possible
refuges; he pervaded the structure like a lost dog. Useless. All
useless. No Little Miss Grouch anywhere to be seen.

At noon he had given up hope and stood leaning against a stanchion in
morose contemplation of a school of porpoises. They were very playful
porpoises. They seemed to be actually enjoying themselves. That there
should be joy anywhere in that gray and colorless world was, to the
Tyro, a monstrous thing. Then he turned and beheld Little Miss Grouch.

She sat, muffled up in a steamer chair, just behind him. Only her eyes
appeared, bright and big under the quaintly slanted brows; but that was
enough. The Tyro was under the impression that the sun had come out.

"Hel-_lo_!" he cried. "How long have you been there?"

"One minute, exactly."

"Isn't it a glorious day?" said the Tyro, meaning every word of it.

"No; it isn't," she returned, with conviction. "I think this is a very
queer-acting ship."

"No! Do you? Why, I supposed all ships acted this way."

"Well, they don't. I don't like it. I haven't been feeling a bit well."

The Tyro expressed commiseration and sympathy.

"_You_ look disgustingly fit," she commented.

"I? Never felt so well in my life. A minute ago, I won't say. But
now--I could burst into poetry."

"Do," she urged.

"All right, I will. Listen. It's a limerick. I made it up out of the
fullness of my heart, and it's about myself but dedicated to you.

"There once was a seaworthy child
Whose feelings could never be riled.
While the porpoises porped--"

"There's no such word as 'porped,'" she interrupted.

"Yes, there is. There has to be. Nothing else in the world acts like a
porpoise; therefore there must be a word meaning to act like a porpoise;
and that word is the verb 'to porp.'"

"You're an ingenious lunatic," she allowed.

"Dangerous only when interrupted. I will now resume my lyric:--

"While the porpoises porped
And the passengers torped--"

"The passengers _what_-ed?"

"Torped. What you've been doing this morning."

"I haven't!" she denied indignantly.

"Of course you have. You've been in a torpor, haven't you? Well, to be
in a torpor, is to torp. Now I'm going to do it all over again, and if
you interrupt this time, I'll _sing_ it.

"There once was a seaworthy child