so?" he added, waving his cigarette in
a gesture which expressed the ineffectiveness of the adjective.

"Yes, very," said Carlton. "Good-night, sir."

He turned, and leaned with both elbows on the rail, and looked out at
the misty banks, puffing at his cigar. Then he dropped it hissing into
the water, and, stifling a yawn, looked up and down the length of the
deserted deck. It seemed particularly bare and empty.

"What a pity she's engaged!" Carlton said. "She loses so much by it."

They steamed slowly into the harbor of the Piraeus at an early hour the
next morning, with a flotilla of small boats filled with shrieking
porters and hotel-runners at the sides. These men tossed their
painters to the crew, and crawled up them like a boarding crew of
pirates, running wildly about the deck, and laying violent hands on any
piece of baggage they saw unclaimed. The passengers' trunks had been
thrown out in a heap on the deck, and Nolan and Carlton were clambering
over them, looking for their own effects, while Miss Morris stood
below, as far out of the confusion as she could place herself, and
pointed out the different pieces that belonged to her. As she stood
there one of the hotel-runners, a burly, greasy Levantine in pursuit of
a possible victim, shouldered her intentionally and roughly out of the
way. He shoved her so sharply that she lost her balance and fell back
against the rail. Carlton saw what had happened, and made a flying
leap from the top of the pile of trunks, landing beside her, and in
time to seize the escaping offender by the collar. He jerked him back
off his feet.

"How dare you--" he began.

But he did not finish. He felt the tips of Miss Morris's fingers laid
upon his shoulder, and her voice saying, in an annoyed tone: "Don't;
please don't." And, to his surprise, his fingers lost their grip on
the man's shirt, his arms dropped at his side, and his blood began to
flow calmly again through his veins. Carlton was aware that he had a
very quick temper. He was always engaging in street rows, as he called
them, with men who he thought had imposed on him or on some one else,
and though he was always ashamed of himself later, his temper had never
been satisfied without a blow or an apology. Women had also touched
him before, and possibly with a greater familiarity; but these had
stirred him, not quieted him; and men who had laid detaining hands on
him had had them beaten down for their pains.