'm under 'K,' and Sally 'W.' We'll
both have all we can attend to wrestling with our own Fiends, and
Louise will be just as busy. But you're a British subject, on a short
visit to this country, and they won't be as diabolical to you, dear. I
did all the swearing necessary for you in the saloon, with my own, when
the tiresome man came on board, and there's really nothing left for you
to bother with on the dock, except to open your boxes and say you have
nothing to declare."

I was glad that since profanity had been called for in the saloon,
owing to the tiresomeness of a man, it had been Mrs. Ess Kay who was
obliged to give vent to it, not I; but I felt rather defrauded that I
couldn't have heard, and I wondered if she had gone so far as to
mention "damn." All I said out loud, however, was that I was sure I
could manage very well in the docks, and Mrs. Ess Kay appeared much
relieved. "That's perfectly sweet of you, Betty," she said, launching a
daggery glance at poor, inoffensive Sally, for some reason which I
couldn't understand. "I hope you won't think I'm horrid not to have
asked you to label your baggage 'K,' so it could go with mine. It's
better not, for _everyone_ concerned; I'll explain afterwards _why_;
and Louise shall take you to 'B.'"

Louise did take me to "B," which they had thoughtfully printed very
large and black on a wooden wall of the dock, in a row with all the
other letters of the alphabet. A good many people from the ship were
collecting beneath theirs, as if they were animals getting ready to
join the procession for the ark, under the heading of Cat or Elephant,
as the case might be; and they all seemed worried and apprehensive, as
you do at the dentist's, even when you try to distract your mind by
looking at the pictures in _Punch_.

Louise put my bag on the wooden floor, and folded my coat on it.
"Miladi will do well to sit down," said she. "It may be that the
baggage do not come _immediatement_." With this she bustled away to the
Louise rabbit warren, wherever it was, leaving me to the tender mercies
of fellow "B's," who began to swarm round me and buzz distractedly.

I subsided on the bag, which was very like sitting on the floor; but it
was stifling down there among people's feet; besides, mine soon got
"pins and needles"; so presently I popped up like a Jack out of his
Box, and almost knocked off a man's nose with the crown of my hat.

I said "I _beg_ your pardon!" though what the nose wa