he's perfectly satisfied. I squelched him the other day, I can
tell you!"

"What did you do?" Miss Marcia asked the question with mock
seriousness.

"Never mind; but I taught him a lesson. Marcia, my dear, you do pick
up the most peculiar acquaintances."

"But, really, my dear Nuncky, he's so clever, so quick at
repartee--m--m--I'd be afraid! Tell me how you did it."

"Never mind how; but let me tell you this! That young man would never
say anything sensible if he could help it, and never do anything
useful, even by accident! And I think that you, my dear Marcia----"

"It's been a perfectly lovely day," remarked Miss Dorn abstractedly.

II

As if in sheer perversity, the weather changed early in the evening,
and the night that followed was punctuated regularly by the blast of
the fog-whistle. The next day broke thick and damp, with a wall of
impenetrable mist shadowing the great vessel to half her length. Over
the tall sides the greasy green of the water could just be seen moving
by. The masts and funnels disappeared irregularly overhead. The fog
clung to everything; it rimed the rugs and capes of the passengers who
feared the close air of the 'tween-decks and lay recumbent in the
steamer-chairs, and it clung in little pearls to Miss Marcia Dorn's
curly front hair, that seemed to curl all the tighter for the wetting.

With Mr. Victor Masterson at her side, she was walking up and down the
hurricane-deck. His appearance was not quite so spruce or so comical
this morning; he looked as if he had been dipped overboard. He still
disdained a hat, and his hair was plastered over his forehead in an
uneven, scraggly bang. The weather seemed also to have dampened his
spirits. Miss Dorn found it difficult to lead him away from serious
subjects; his ideas on mental telepathy did not amuse her, nor the
fact that he was a fatalist.

"Oh, I wish you'd do something to make me laugh," she broke in
suddenly.

"Are you ticklish?" inquired the Silly Ass quite soberly.

Miss Dorn could not help but titter; she was not at all put out.

"There!" said Mr. Masterson. "Now, you see, I have done it! Please
thank me. Now let me go on. You know, there is no doubt that the mind
of one person when thinking of----"

"Oh, don't let's think!" Miss Dorn leaned back against the rail, half
hidden from the gangway. "Isn't it dreary," she said, "this weather?
And look at those people all stretched out. I wish we could do
something to wake t