rom first to last the Twinklers annoyed them. As plain Twinklers they
had been tiresome in a hundred ways in the cabin, and as von Twinklers
they were intolerable in their high-nosed indifference.

It had naturally been expected by the elder ladies at the beginning of
the journey, that two obscure Twinklers of such manifest youth should
rise politely and considerately each morning very early, and get
themselves dressed and out of the way in at the most ten minutes,
leaving the cabin clear for the slow and careful putting together bit by
bit of that which ultimately emerged a perfect specimen of a lady of
riper years, but the weedy Twinkler insisted on lying in her berth so
late that if the ladies wished to be in time for the best parts of
breakfast, which they naturally and passionately did wish, they were
forced to dress in her presence, which was most annoying and awkward.

It is true she lay with closed eyes, apparently apathetic, but you never
know with persons of that age. Experience teaches not to trust them.
They shut their eyes, and yet seem, later on, to have seen; they
apparently sleep, and afterwards are heard asking their spectacled
American friend what people do on a ship, a place of so much gustiness,
if their hair gets blown off into the sea. Also the weedy one had a most
tiresome trick of being sick instantly every time Odol was used, or a
little brandy was drunk. Odol is most refreshing; it has a lovely smell,
without which no German bedroom is complete. And the brandy was not
common schnaps, but an old expensive brandy that, regarded as a smell,
was a credit to anybody's cabin.

The German ladies would have persisted, and indeed did persist in using
Odol and drinking a little brandy, indifferent to the feeble prayer from
the upper berth which floated down entreating them not to, but in their
own interests they were forced to give it up. The objectionable child
did not pray a second time; she passed immediately from prayer to
performance. Of two disagreeables wise women choose the lesser, but they
remain resentful.

The other Twinkler, the small active one, did get up early and take
herself off, but she frequently mixed up her own articles of toilet with
those belonging to the ladies, and would pin up her hair, preparatory to
washing her face, with their hairpins.

When they discovered this they hid them, and she, not finding any,
having come to the end of her own, lost no time in irresolution but