ered from his serious fit even sooner than
she had thought possible; and, though she had made it sufficiently clear
to him that as a serious suitor he was utterly unwelcome, she was
intensely angry with him for having so swiftly resumed his customary gay
spirits.

IV

"Come! What happened last evening? We want to know," said Major
Granville, in his slightly overbearing manner. "I saw you with the
second engineer this morning, Fisher. I'm sure you have ferreted it
out."

"I am not at liberty to pass on my information," responded Fisher
stolidly. "You wouldn't understand it if I did, Major. There was danger
and there was steam. Two of the engineers had their arms scalded, and
one of the stokers was badly hurt. I can't tell you any more than that."

"Do you go so far as to say that the ship herself was in danger?" asked
Major Granville. He was talking loudly, as was his wont, across the
smoking saloon.

"I should say so," said Fisher, without lifting his eyes from the
magazine he was deliberately studying.

"Where is young Cleveland this morning?" asked the Major abruptly.

Fisher shrugged his shoulders.

"He was in his bunk when I saw him last. Heaven knows what he may be up
to by now."

Charlie Cleveland strolled in at this juncture. He had his right arm in
a sling.

"Hullo!" he said. "How are you all? I'm on the sick-list to-day. I
sprained my wrist when I fell up the steps yesterday."

Fisher glanced at him for a moment over the top of his magazine and
resumed his reading in silence.

"Look here, my friend!" he said. "You were in the thick of this engine
business. I am sure of it."

"I was," said Charlie readily. "But for me you would all be at the
bottom of the sea by this time."

He threw himself into a chair with a broad grin at Major Granville's
contemptuous countenance and took up a book.

Major Granville looked intensely disgusted. It was scarcely credible
that a passenger could have penetrated to the engine-room and interfered
with the machinery there, yet he more than half believed that this
outrageous thing had actually occurred. He got up after a brief silence
and stalked stiffly from the saloon.

Charlie banged down his book with a yell of laughter.

"Didn't I tell you, Fisher?" he cried. "He's gone to have a good,
square, face-to-face talk with the captain. But he won't get anything
out of him. I've been there first."

He went up on deck and found a party of quoit-players. Molly E