e towering flanks of the sea-monster, newest and biggest
of her species, they seemed absurdly inadequate to the job. But they
made up for their insignificance by self-important and fussy puffings
and pipings, while, like an elephant harried by terriers, the vast mass
slowly swung outward toward the open. From the pier there arose a
composite clamor of farewell.

The Tyro gazed down upon this lively scene with a feeling of loneliness.
No portion of the ceremonial of parting appertained personally to him.
He had had his fair fraction in the form of a crowd of enthusiastic
friends who came to see him off on his maiden voyage. They, however,
retired early, acting as escort to his tearful mother and sister who had
given way to uncontrollable grief early in the proceedings, on a theory
held, I believe, by the generality of womankind in the face of
considerable evidence to the contrary, that a first-time voyager seldom
if ever comes back alive. Lacking individual attention, the Tyro decided
to appropriate a share of the communal. Therefore he bowed and waved
indiscriminately, and was distinctly cheered up by a point-blank smile
and handkerchief flutter from a piquant brunette who liked his looks.
Most people liked his looks, particularly women.

In the foreground of the dock was an individual who apparently didn't.
He was a fashionable and frantic oldish-young man, who had burst through
the barrier and now jigged upon the pier-head in a manner not
countenanced by the Society for Standardizing Ballroom Dances. At
intervals he made gestures toward the Tyro as if striving, against
unfair odds of distance, to sweep him from the surface of creation. As
the Tyro had never before set eyes upon him, this was surprising. The
solution of the mystery came from the crowd, close-pressed about the
Tyro. It took the form of an unmistakable sniffle, and it somehow
contrived to be indubitably and rather pitifully feminine. The Tyro
turned.

At, or rather underneath, his left shoulder, and trying to peep over or
past it, he beheld a small portion of a most woe-begone little face,
heavily swathed against the nipping March wind. Through the beclouding
veil he could dimly make out that the eyes were swollen, the cheeks were
mottled; even the nose--with regret I state it--was red and puffy. An
unsightly, melancholy little spectacle to which the Tyro's young heart
went out in prompt pity. It had a habit of going out in friendly and
helpful wise t