e rather a weary easing of his person from one limb to the other. He
stooped to pull his trunk out from under the berth, and Burnamy sprang
to help him.

"Let me get that out for you!" He caught it up and put it on the sofa
under the port. "Is that where you want it?"

"Why, yes," the other assented. "You're very good," and as he took
out his key to unlock the trunk he relented a little farther to the
intimacies of the situation. "Have you arranged with the bath-steward
yet? It's such a full boat."

"No, I haven't," said Burnamy, as if he had tried and failed; till then
he had not known that there was a bath-steward. "Shall I get him for
you?"

"No; no. Our bedroom-steward will send him, I dare say, thank you."

Mr. Triscoe had got his trunk open, and Burnamy had no longer an excuse
for lingering. In his defeat concerning the bath-steward, as he felt it
to be, he had not the courage, now, to offer the lower berth. He went
away, forgetting to change his shoes; but he came back, and as soon as
he got the enamelled shoes on, and shut the shabby russet pair in his
bag, he said, abruptly: "Mr. Triscoe, I wish you'd take the lower berth.
I got it at the eleventh hour by some fellow's giving it up, and it
isn't as if I'd bargained for it a month ago."

The elder man gave him one of his staccato glances in which Burnamy
fancied suspicion and even resentment. But he said, after the moment of
reflection which he gave himself, "Why, thank you, if you don't mind,
really."

"Not at all!" cried the young man. "I should like the upper berth
better. We'll, have the steward change the sheets."

"Oh, I'll see that he does that," said Mr. Triscoe. "I couldn't allow
you to take any trouble about it." He now looked as if he wished Burnamy
would go, and leave him to his domestic arrangements.

X.

In telling about himself Burnamy touched only upon the points which he
believed would take his listener's intelligent fancy, and he stopped so
long before he had tired him that March said he would like to introduce
him to his wife. He saw in the agreeable young fellow an image of his
own youth, with some differences which, he was willing to own, were to
the young fellow's advantage. But they were both from the middle West;
in their native accent and their local tradition they were the same;
they were the same in their aspirations; they were of one blood in their
literary impulse to externate their thoughts and emotions.

Burnamy