ugh the voyage.

Rupert and Sylvia were the only two who did not suffer from seasickness,
but, as Sylvia remarked, it was not all fun being immune, because they
had such hard work in waiting upon the others. However, the end of the
week found them all upon their feet again, and very much disposed to
enjoy the novelty of life at sea.

Nealie and Don sang duets, to which Rupert played accompaniments on the
banjo, while Ducky and Billykins led the applause, and Sylvia posed as
audience, aping the languid, bored look of a fine lady at a concert with
such inimitable mimicry that she came in for nearly as much applause as
the proper performers from such of the other passengers as gathered
round to hear.

Then Rumple would do his share towards entertaining the company by
declaiming his own poetry, and he was so funny to look at when he stood
on one foot, with his face screwed into puckers, and his arms waving
wildly above his head, that his performance used to evoke shouts of
laughter.

"I can't think what makes the silly goats guffaw at such a rate when I
recite my 'Ode to a Dying Sparrow'," he said in a petulant tone to
Nealie, one day when his audience had been more than usually convulsed.
"It must be shocking bad form to double up in public as they did; a
photograph of them would have served as an up-to-date advertisement of
the latest thing in gramaphones, and when I came to that touching line,
about the poor bird sighing out its last feeble chirp ere it closed its
eyes and died, those two very fat women simply howled."

"Dear, they could not help it, you did look so funny, and--I don't think
that dying birds sigh, at least I never heard them, and I have seen
quite a lot of Mrs. Puffin's chickens die," replied Nealie, who was
struggling with her own laughter at the remembrance of the comic
attitude which Rumple had struck. He was a queer-looking boy at the
best, and then he always went in for the most extraordinary gestures,
so it was not wonderful that people found food for mirth in watching
him.

"I shall not go in for pathetic poetry with an audience who cannot
appreciate fine shades of feeling," he said in a disgusted fashion. "I
will just get away by myself and throw a few thoughts together which may
prove suitable to their intelligence."

"That would be a good idea," said Nealie in a rather choky voice, and
then, when he had gone, she put her head down on her hands, laughing and
laughing, until someone touc