't got sick of the
voyage yet," said Holmes, when his roar had subsided.

"Was I? I didn't say so. What a chap you are for returning to worry a
point, Holmes. However, I don't mind telling you. The fact is, I enjoy
this voyage because it is so thoroughly and delightfully restful. You
are not only allowed to do nothing, but are actually expected to perform
that easy and congenial feat. There is nothing to worry you--absolutely
nothing--not even a baby in the next cabin."

"I don't mind a little worry now and then," objected the other, in the
tone and with the look of one who was ignorant of the real meaning of
the word. "It shakes one up a bit, don't you know--relieves the monotony
of life."

"Oh, does it? Look here, Holmes; I don't say it in an
'assert-my-superiority' sense, but I believe I'm a little older than
you. Now, I've had a trifle too much of the commodity under discussion.
In fact, I would take my chances of the monotony in order to dispense
with any more of the other thing."

Holmes cast a furtive and curious glance at his companion, but made no
immediate reply. He was an average, good-looking, well-built specimen of
Young England, and his healthy sun-burnt countenance showed, in its
cheery serenity, that, as the other had hinted, he was not speaking from
knowledge. At any rate, it was a marked contrast to the rather lined and
prematurely careworn countenance of Laurence Stanninghame, even as his
frank, jolly laugh was to the half-stifled grin which would lurk around
the satirical corners of the latter's mouth when anything amused him.

"What a row those women are making over there!" remarked Laurence, as
peal after peal of feminine laughter went up from one of the groups
above referred to.

"That ass Swaynston, I suppose," growled the other. "Don't know what
anybody can see funny about the fellow; he makes me sick. By the way, I
haven't seen Miss Ormskirk on deck this morning."

"That'll make Swaynston sick, won't it? Isn't he one of her poodles?"

"Eh? Her what?"

"Fetch and carry; stand up on his hind legs and beg. There--good dog!
and all that sort of thing, you know; go to heel, too, when ordered."

Holmes laughed again, this time in rather a shamefaced way, for he was
conscious of having filled the role whose subserviency was thus
pungently characterized by his cynical companion.

"Oh, dash it all, Stanninghame, don't be such an old bear!" he burst
forth. "A fellow can't help doing things f