were wearing; his russet shoes had turned shabby on his feet;
but there was a pair of enamelled leather boots in his bag which he
thought might do.

His room was in the group of cabins on the upper deck; he had already
missed his way to it once by mistaking the corridor which it opened into;
and he was not sure that he was not blundering again when he peered down
the narrow passage where he supposed it was. A lady was standing at an
open state-room door, resting her hands against the jambs and leaning
forward with her head within and talking to some one there. Before he
could draw back and try another corridor he heard her say: "Perhaps he's
some young man, and wouldn't care."

Burnamy could not make out the answer that came from within. The lady
spoke again in a tone of reluctant assent, "No, I don't suppose you
could; but if he understood, perhaps he would offer."

She drew her head out of the room, stepping back a pace, and lingering a
moment at the threshold. She looked round over her shoulder and
discovered Burnamy, where he stood hesitating at the head of the passage.
She ebbed before him, and then flowed round him in her instant escape;
with some murmured incoherencies about speaking to her father, she
vanished in a corridor on the other side of the ship, while he stood
staring into the doorway of his room.

He had seen that she was the young lady for whom he had come to put on
his enamelled shoes, and he saw that the person within was the elderly
gentleman who had sat next her at breakfast. He begged his pardon, as he
entered, and said he hoped he should not disturb him. "I'm afraid I left
my things all over the place, when I got up this morning."

The other entreated him not to mention it and went on taking from his
hand-bag a variety of toilet appliances which the sight of made Burnamy
vow to keep his own simple combs and brushes shut in his valise all the
way over. "You slept on board, then," he suggested, arresting himself
with a pair of low shoes in his hand; he decided to put them in a certain
pocket of his steamer bag.

"Oh, yes," Burnamy laughed, nervously: "I came near oversleeping, and
getting off to sea without knowing it; and I rushed out to save myself,
and so--"

He began to gather up his belongings while he followed the movements of
Mr. Triscoe with a wistful eye. He would have liked to offer his lower
berth to this senior of his, when he saw him arranging to take possession
of the upper;