hat's good enough
for descriptive purposes. She's the crossest little patch that ever grew
up without being properly spanked."

"Where did you run across her?"

"Oh, she wrecked my pet toe with a guillotine heel because I ventured to
sympathize with her."

"Oh," commented the experienced Alderson. "Sympathy isn't in much demand
when one is seasick."

"It wasn't seasickness. It was weeps for the vanished fatherland; such
blubbery weeps! Poor little girl!" mused the Tyro. "She isn't much
bigger than a minute, and _so_ forlorn, and _so_ red-nosed, and _so_
homely, you couldn't help but--"

At this moment a drunken stagger on the part of the ship slewed the
speaker halfway around. He found himself looking down upon a
steamer-chair, wherein lay a bundle swathed in many rugs. From that
bundle protruded a veiled face and the outline of a swollen nose, above
which a pair of fixed eyes blazed, dimmed but malevolent, into his.

"Er--ah--oh," said the Tyro, moving hastily away. "If you'll excuse me I
think I'll just step over the rail and speak to a fish I used to know."

"What's the matter?" inquired Alderson suspiciously, following him. "Not
already!"

"Oh, no. Not that. Worse. That bundle almost under our feet when I
spoke--that was Little Miss Grouch."

Alderson took a furtive glance. "She's all mummied up," he suggested;
"maybe she didn't hear."

"Oh, yes, she did. Trust my luck for that. And I said she was homely.
And she is. Oh, Lord, I wouldn't have hurt her poor little feelings for
anything."

"Don't you be too sure about her being so homely. Any woman looks a
fright when she's all bunged up from crying."

"What's the difference?" said the Tyro miserably. "A pretty girl don't
like to be called homely any more than a homely one."

"There's where you're off, my son," returned Alderson. "She can summon
her looking-glass as a witness in rebuttal."

"Anyway, I've put my foot in it up to the knee!"

"Oh, go up to-morrow when she's feeling better and tell her you were
talking about the ship's cat."

"I'd show better sense by keeping out of her way altogether."

"You'll never be able to do that," said the sea-wise Alderson. "Try to
avoid any one on shipboard and you'll bump into that particular person
everywhere you go, from the engine-room to the forepeak. Ten to one she
sits next to you at table."

"I'll have my seat changed," cried the other in panic. "I'll eat in my
cabin. I'll fast for the week."

"