Part 23 (1/2)

”He _did_! He'd been ash.o.r.e!”

”_No_!”

”Yes! I'd been talking to him, and had just turned to say something to the Babe when he slipped down the gangway. I do wish we weren't so hard up. It's an awful rag going ash.o.r.e. He came back an hour ago, found a letter, and has been sitting up and taking notice ever since. It was a man's handwriting, I saw the envelope!”

Mater flung everything pell-mell into the trunk, pushed it back with the aid of her daughter's heels under the berth, bent her head and sat down beside her.

”He looked so different that I actually asked him for a cigarette, and he gave me the box, and if it hadn't been for Mrs. Tomlinson-Tomlinson's hateful little brat--you know--Muriel--we should have had a good long talk. The little wretch actually sat on the arm of his chair; it's extraordinary how he lets children worry him.”

”Yes! dear Lady de Smythe has christened him the wet nurse!”

Which leaves no doubt whatever that some time, somewhere the dear lady had been clawed by the grizzly.

”Why don't you get into your black sequin to-night! It'll be frightfully hot going down the Ca.n.a.l, and you can slip on the scarf if you go up on the boat deck, as everyone does the first time they go through the Suez.”

”Yes! I might--the blue _does_ want ironing!” replied the daughter, taking a hand in that weird game of ”make-believe” which the majority of women play between themselves. For what ultimate benefit it is impossible to say, since from the moment the cards are shuffled they know, to a nicety, the tricks and manoeuvres of each player.

Anyway the sequin was fished out from somewhere, and shaken and pulled this way and that.

It consisted of a skirt of a kind, a waistbelt, two shoulder straps, and a big jet b.u.t.terfly poised just where, for the sake of decency, it was necessary, and as a toilette allied with the boat deck would doubtless prove most attractive to the man who was not in search of a wife.

The man it was intended to subjugate, meanwhile, was lying full length on his deck chair intent upon a letter, oblivious of the noise of the harbour and the racket necessary to the boat's imminent departure.

Jan Cuxson had read the letter five times and was just starting on it for the sixth, subconsciously congratulating himself on his foresight, or horse sense, which you will.

His cabin was like nothing on earth, and in it, upon the outer edge of a dead maelstrom of his entire wardrobe, stood John Smith, cabin steward.

John Smith is not his name, but who does not know and bless him if they have ever travelled on this particular boat.

He has a big, very black mole on the extreme tip of his nose, and is the cheeriest, most optimistic soul on the ocean wave, yea! even those out-size waves in the Bay at its worst.

After the first lightning perusal of the G.o.d-sped letter, Jan Cuxson had given divers urgent orders for as much as possible of his gear in the hold to be thrown ash.o.r.e.

Imagine it, and the boat almost due to sail!

He had then rushed to his cabin and initiated the maelstrom, until common sense had smitten him between the love-fogged eyes of his desire; whereupon he had heaved a huge sigh of utter contentment, propped himself against the door for the second perusal, rung the bell, countermanded all he had ordered, and left John Smith to it.

He had pulled the letter out of its envelope, growled at a vendor of Egyptian wares, and turned with a whole-hearted smile at the sound of a small voice.

”Is 'oo velly unhappy, Mr. Bear?”

The man did not know that he had become the object of that loathsome habit of nicknaming all and sundry which a certain clique on every boat consider so smart.

”I'm the happiest man on earth--water, I mean, little one. Yes! come along up--and why Mr. Bear?”

Followed a scramble, a gurgle, and arranging of infinitesimal frills.

”Mummie calls 'oo Mr. Grizzly Bear because you're cwoss! Mrs.

Tom--Tom--li'son says Mummie's cwoss 'cos 'oo wouldn't take the buns she wanted 'oo too. Why didn't 'oo take the buns--buns nice, I fink!”