ant to know if a man is in the navy?"

She spoke as though we were talking a different language.

"We ask if he is in the navy," I answered.

She laughed again at that, quite as though I had said something clever.

"And you are not?"

"No," I said, "I am in Joyce & Carboy's office. I am a stenographer."

Again my answer seemed both to puzzle and to surprise her. She regarded
me doubtfully. I could see that she thought, for some reason, I was
misleading her.

"In an office?" she repeated. Then, as though she had caught me, she
said: "How do you keep so fit?" She asked the question directly, as a
man would have asked it, and as she spoke I was conscious that her eyes
were measuring me and my shoulders, as though she were wondering to what
weight I could strip.

"It's only lately I've worked in an office," I said. "Before that I
always worked out-of-doors; oystering and clamming and, in the fall,
scalloping. And in the summer I played ball on a hotel nine."

I saw that to the beautiful lady my explanation carried no meaning
whatsoever, but before I could explain, the young man with whom she had
come on board walked toward us.

Neither did he appear to find in her talking to a stranger anything
embarrassing. He halted and smiled. His smile was pleasant, but entirely
vague. In the few minutes I was with him, I learned that it was no sign
that he was secretly pleased. It was merely his expression. It was as
though a photographer had said: "Smile, please," and he had smiled.

When he joined us, out of deference to the young lady I raised my hat,
but the youth did not seem to think that outward show of respect was
necessary, and kept his hands in his pockets. Neither did he cease
smoking. His first remark to the lovely lady somewhat startled me.

"Have you got a brass bed in your room?" he asked. The beautiful lady
said she had.

"So've I," said the young man. "They do you rather well, don't they? And
it's only three dollars. How much is that?"

"Four times three would be twelve," said the lady. "Twelve shillings."

The young man was smoking a cigarette in a long amber cigarette-holder.
I never had seen one so long. He examined the end of his
cigarette-holder, and, apparently surprised and relieved at finding a
cigarette there, again smiled contentedly.

The lovely lady pointed at the marble shaft rising above Madison Square.

"That is the tallest sky-scraper," she said, "in New York." I had just
informed he