cornered the romance
market. The King's Highway had become No Thoroughfare.

America. He would go to the land of the brave (when occasion demanded)
and the free (if you were imaginative). Having packed his trunk and
valise, he departed for Liverpool. Besides, America was all that was
left; he was at the end of his rope.

What a rollicking old fraud life was! Swung out of his peaceful orbit,
by the legerdemain of death; no longer a humble steady star but a
meteor; bumping as yet darkly against the planets; and then this
monumental folly which had returned him to the old orbit but still in
meteoric form, without peace or means of livelihood! An ass, indeed,
if ever there was one.

He eventually arrived at his destination, lied blithely to the chief
steward, and was assigned to the first-class cabins on the promenade
deck, simply because his manner was engaging and his face pleasing to
the eye. The sea? He had never been on it but once, and then only in
a rowboat. A good sailor? Perhaps. Chicken and barley broths at
eleven; the captain's table in the dining-saloon, breakfast, luncheon
and dinner; cabin housekeeper and luggage man at the ports; and always
a natty, stiffly starched jacket with a metal number; and "Yes, sir!"
and "No, sir!" and "Thank you, sir!" his official vocabulary. Fine job
for a poet!

It was all in the game he was going to play with fate. A chap who
could sell flamingo ties to gentlemen with purple noses, and shirts
with attached cuffs to coal-porters ought not to worry over such a
simple employment as cabin-steward on board an ocean liner.

Early the next morning they left port, with only a few first-class
passengers. The heavy travel was coming from the west, not going that
way. The series of cabins under his stewardship were vacant.
Therefore, with the thoroughness of his breed, he set about to learn
"ship"; and by the time the first bugle for dinner blew, he knew port
from starboard, boat-deck from main, and many other things, some
unknown to the chief-steward who had made a hundred and twenty voyages
on this very ship.

Beautiful weather; a mild southwest blow, with a moderate beam-sea;
only the deck _would_ come up smack against the soles of his boots in a
most unexpected and aggravating manner. But after the third day out,
he found his sea-legs and learned how to "lean." From two till five
his time was his own, and a very good deal of this time he devoted to
Henley and M