hed on the light.
Eustace Hignett shied like a startled horse. His friend's profile, seen
dimly, had been disconcerting enough. Full face, he was a revolting
object. Nothing that Eustace Hignett had encountered in his recent
dreams--and they had included such unusual fauna as elephants in top
hats and running shorts--had affected him so profoundly. Sam's
appearance smote him like a blow. It seemed to take him straight into a
different and a dreadful world.
"What ... what ... what...?" he gurgled.
Sam squinted at himself in the glass and added a touch of black to his
nose.
"How do I look?"
Eustace Hignett began to fear that his cousin's reason must have become
unseated. He could not conceive of any really sane man, looking like
that, being anxious to be told how he looked.
"Are my lips red enough? It's for the ship's concert, you know. It
starts in half-an-hour, though I believe I'm not on till the second
part. Speaking as a friend, would you put a touch more black round the
ears, or are they all right?"
Curiosity replaced apprehension in Hignett's mind.
"What on earth are you doing performing at the ship's concert?"
"Oh, they roped me in. It got about somehow that I was a valuable man,
and they wouldn't take no." Sam deepened the colour of his ears. "As a
matter of fact," he said casually, "my fiancee made rather a point of my
doing something."
A sharp yelp from the lower berth proclaimed the fact that the
significance of the remark had not been lost on Eustace.
"Your fiancee?"
"The girl I'm engaged to. Didn't I tell you about that? Yes, I'm
engaged."
Eustace sighed heavily.
"I feared the worst. Tell me, who is she?"
"Didn't I tell you her name?"
"No."
"Curious! I must have forgotten." He hummed an airy strain as he
blackened the tip of his nose. "It's rather a curious coincidence,
really. Her name is Bennett."
"She may be a relation."
"That's true. Of course, girls do have relations."
"What is her first name?"
"That is another rather remarkable thing. It's Wilhelmina."
"Wilhelmina!"
"Of course, there must be hundreds of girls in the world called
Wilhelmina Bennett, but still it is a coincidence."
"What colour is her hair?" demanded Eustace Hignett in a hollow voice.
"Her hair! What colour is it?"
"Her hair? Now, let me see. You ask me what colour is her hair. Well,
you might call it auburn ... or russet ... or you might call it
Titian...."
"Never mind what
|