Several of the stewardesses and two or three women from the second cabin
were avowed and bitter suffragettes. Indeed, two of the stewardesses,
being English, were of the hatchet-wielding, brick-throwing element that
made things so warm for the pained but bull-headed male population of
London shortly before the Great War began. These ladies harangued their
companions with great effect.

To have heard or witnessed the little gatherings at noon and at the
close of work for the day, one might have been led to believe that a
grave, portentous ques-tion of state was involved. Trifling and simple
as all this may seem to the reader of this narrative, it serves a
definite purpose. It reveals to a no uncertain degree the eagerness with
which these castaways reached out hungrily for the slightest morsel
that would satisfy the craving of active minds dulled by the constant,
never-absent thought of self; minds charged with thoughts that centred
on something thousands of miles away; minds that seldom if ever worked
in harmony with hands that toiled.

The men took up the gauntlet. They considered themselves challenged.
Notwithstanding the secret conviction that the women were right, they
stood united in defence of their action. Nothing that Percival could
say or do moved them. He tramped from one group of toilers to another,
always meeting with the same grins and laughter when he suggested that
they wait until Mrs. Cruise was able to approve or disapprove of the
name they had chosen.

"Good gosh!" cried one of the sailors. "Are you goin' to give in to the
women, boss?"

"Well, I've been thinking it over, boys. I guess we were a little too
officious. We meant well, God knows, but after all, Betty Cruise ought
to be consulted,--now, oughtn't she?"

"Sure," cried any number of them cheerfully. "It's her kid."

"Well, there you are," he rejoined persuasively.

"But how do we know she won't be tickled to death with our name? She'd
ought to be. It's purtier than any name I can think of," argued Jack
Wales, a sailor. "When she's well enough, we'll tell her the kid's name
is Doraine, and--"

"She won't hold back a second, boss, when she finds out that you picked
it for her," broke in another. "Only a couple o' days ago she was sayin'
to one of the other women in my hearin' that if it was a boy she was
goin' to call him Percival,--and she didn't know what on earth she'd do
if it was a girl. Said she'd probably have to call it after