he very noisiest crying of which he was capable, and,
standing with his legs very wide apart and his mouth as far open as it
would go, howled his very loudest, the sound of his woe speedily
bringing a crowd to see what was the matter.

"I don't think that he is very much the worse for his fall, only a
little bit dazed by having the old lady come flop down upon him; but if
he had not been there to break her fall, it is quite likely that she
would have broken her neck," said the gentleman who had picked Rumple
up, as he handed him over to the care of Nealie.

"Poor, poor boy, how frightened he must have been when she fell upon
him!" cried Nealie, who thought that the whole affair was an accident,
and had no idea of Rumple's bravery.

Then Billykins promptly stopped howling to explain, which he did in
jerks, being rather breathless from his vocal efforts.

"Rumple saw her fall, and rushed in to save her. It was just splendid
heroism--the sort that gets the Victoria Cross; but so dreadful hopeless
you see, because she was so big, and she came down flop on the top of
him, and he was just--just extinguished, you know, like the candle flame
when we used to put the tin extinguishers on them when we lived at
Beechleigh."

"I'll be all right in a minute, only my wind is gone," gasped Rumple,
who looked rather flattened, and was not at all pleased to find himself
momentarily famous.

The old lady's daughter, a thin, angular person with a long nose, rushed
up at this juncture, and, seizing upon Rumple, hugged and kissed him in
the presence of everyone, declaring that she would always love him for
having saved her dear mother's life in such a noble fashion.

"I am wet through, Nealie; help me to get into dry clothes," panted
Rumple, struggling to escape from this unexpected and wholly unwelcome
embrace.

Nealie rose to the occasion, and swept him off to their own quarters,
where Rupert met them and undertook the task of getting him rubbed down
and into dry clothes as quickly as possible, while Nealie went back to
the deck for news of the old lady.

Everyone was full of praises of Rumple's action in breaking the old
lady's fall; but Nealie was secretly uneasy as to whether he had
received more damage from the impact than had at first appeared. So,
when she had been assured that Mrs. Barrow, who apparently weighed about
fourteen stone, was only shaken, and not otherwise hurt, she hurried
back again to satisfy herself that R