Samuel Hopkins Adams

“ The Tyro looked him between the eyes. "The best I can," said he, and walked away.
"Now, Enderby," said the great financier, following him with his glance, "it's up to the boy and the girl."
"You've killed him off."
"Not if I know Cecily. She's got a good deal of her mother in her. I've always known it would be once and forever with her. And I'm afraid this boy is the once."
"It might be worse," suggested the lawyer dryly.
"Yes. I've made inquiries. But what can a man know about things?" The great man's regard drifted out into the gray distance of the open sea. ”

“ The fog covered much that might otherwise have been seen, but failed to smother what might have been (and in fact was, as Judge Enderby and Dr. Alderson, turning the angle of the deck, halted and tactfully melted away) heard. To wit:—
"Oh!" in a feminine and tremulous pitch.
"Forgive me," said the Tyro hoarsely. "That was for good-bye."
Was it a detaining hand that went forth in the darkness? If so, it failed of its purpose, for the Tyro had gone.
Then and there Little Miss Grouch proceeded to pervert a proverb.
"Man proposes," she observed to herself, philosophically. ”

“ It's just a sort of snobbery in you. Oh, I'd have married you when I thought your name was Daddleskink!" she cried, with flaming face. "And now because we're different from what you thought, you—you—"
"You're not making it very easy for me, dear," he said piteously.
There came into her face, like an inspiration, a radiance of the tenderest fun. She put her hands one on each of his shoulders, and with a little soft catch in her voice, sang:—
"You grunt!" ”

“ Alderson bore down upon him, triangulating the deck like a surveyor.
"Trying out my sea-legs," he explained. "How does this strike you as an anti-breakfast roll?"
"Hasn't struck me that way at all," said the Tyro. "I feel fine."
"Welcome to the Society of Seaworthy Salts! These are the times that try men's stomachs, if not their souls. Come along."
The pair marched back and forth past a row of sparsely inhabited deck-chairs, meeting in their promenade a sprinkling of the hardier spirits of the ship community. ”

“ For an interminable quarter of an hour the marplot jurist teased his captive. Then, with the air of one making a brilliant discovery, he said:—
"Why, there's your homely little friend."
"Who?" said the Tyro.
"Little Miss—what was it you called her?—oh, yes, Miss Grouch. Strange how these plain girls sometimes attract men, isn't it? Look at the circle around her. Suppose we join it."
The Tyro joyfully assented. The Queen welcomed Judge Enderby graciously, and ordered a chair vacated for him; young Mr. Sperry, whose chair it was, obeying with ill grace. ”

“ It's the cunningest, quaintest, homiest little old house in all New York."
"I'm sorry," he said in the tone of one who reluctantly thwarts another's project.
"What are you sorry about?" She drew down the slanted brows with a delicious effect of surprise.
"I'm sorry; but you can't have that house."
"Why not?"
"It's mine."
"Now, you take any other house in New York that you want," she cajoled. "Fifth Avenue is still nice. Any one can live on Fifth Avenue, though. But to have a real house on Battery Place—that's different." ”

“ The Tyro, with a lithe movement of his body, slipped aside from his position of vantage, and the pressure of the crowd brought the girl against the rail. Thereupon the Seven Saltatory Devils possessing the frame of the frantic and fashionable dock-dancer deserted it, yielding place to a demon of vocality.
"I think he's calling to you," said the Tyro in the girl's ear.
The girl shook her head with a vehemence which imparted not so much denial as an "I-don't-care-if-he-is" impression.
Stridently sounded the voice of distress from the pier. "Pilot-boat," it yelled, and repeated it. "Pilot! Pilot! ”

“ Hans Christian Andersen never did anything like this!" crowed the enchanted lawyer.
"Meantime," observed the Tyro, with the calm of despair, "Mrs. Denyse has found the captain."
"Presto, change!" said Judge Enderby, catching each by an arm and hurtling them around the curve of the cabin. "We come back to the dull reality of facts, retainers and advice. Fairy Prince,—young man, I mean,—you go and watch for icebergs over the port bow until sent for. Miss Wayne, you come with me to a secluded spot where the captain can't discover us for an hour or so. ”

“ The Tyro went out on deck because he felt that he needed air. Malign fate would have it that, as he stood at the rail, brooding over this unsurmountable complication, Little Miss Grouch should appear, radiant, glorious of hue, and attended by the galaxy of swains. She gave him the lightest of passing nods as she went by. He raised his cap gloomily.
"Your queer-named friend doesn't look happy," commented Lord Guenn at her elbow. ”

“ Perhaps it was just as well, for, as Judge Enderby remarked that night to his friend Dr. Alderson, while the two old hard-faced soft-hearts sat smoking their good-night cigar over the Tyro's troubles, in the course of a dissertation which would have vastly astonished his confrères of the metropolitan bar:—
"It's fortunate that the course of true love never does run smooth. If it did, marriages would have to be made chiefly in heaven. Mighty few of them would get themselves accomplished on earth. For love is, by nature, an obstacle race. ”

“ Who is Cecily Wayne?"
"Of all the impudence!" cried the enraged lady. "As you've been making yourself and her conspicuous all the afternoon—"
"Oh!" exclaimed the Tyro, a great light breaking in upon him. "So that's Cecily Wayne. It's a pretty name."
"It's a name that half of the most eligible men in New York have tried their best to change," said the other with emphasis. "Remsen Van Dam is not the only one, I assure you."
"Then the apostle of St. Vitus on the dock was Remsen Van Dam! Well, that's all right. She isn't engaged to him. The paper's wrong." ”

“ The Tyro laughed outright. "For once I've pierced the disguise of your extremely courteous cosmopolitanism, and behold! there's John Bull underneath, rampantly sure that nobody can be a really justified patriot except an Englishman."
"Confound you and your traps!" retorted the young peer, ruefully. "Ah, I say, Cecily!" he cried as Little Miss Grouch appeared, looking, in her long soft traveling-coat, rather lovelier (so the Tyro considered within himself) than any human being has any right to look. ”

“ But the snap-shot of the Tyro surreptitiously taken by Judge Enderby—he having borrowed Alderson's traveling-camera for the purpose—showed a face which might suitably have been used as a marginal illustration for that cheerless hymn, "This world is all a fleeting show."
Life had lost all its flavor for the Tyro. He politely accepted Dr. Alderson's invitation to walk, but lagged with so springless a step that the archæologist began to be concerned for his health. ”

“ In a conquering career Miss Cecily Wayne had never before been snubbed by any male creature. If her wishes could have been transformed into fact, the yearned-for wave might have been spared any trouble; a swifter and more withering death would have been the Tyro's immediate portion.
The officer passed, leveling a baleful eye, and the Tyro staggered to the passageway, and with lowered head plunged directly into the midst of Judge Enderby. ”

“ She came over to the rail, giving the Tyro the briefest flutter of a glance to accompany her "Good-morning, Mr. Smith."
"I appeal to you," continued Lord Guenn. "You're a cosmopolitan—"
"Indeed, I'm not! I'm an American," said the young lady with vigor.
"Heaven preserve us! You Yankees are all alike. You may be as mild and deprecatory as you please at home; one sniff of foreign air, and up goes the Stars and Stripes. ”

“ The tender was swaying alongside in a strong tide-rip and the Tyro himself was making the passage between the two craft carefully but jerkily, in the wake of Alderson and Enderby. Once on the small boat he separated himself from his companions, found a secluded spot at the rail, well aft, and tactfully turned his back upon the Grouch group.
Evolutionists assert that we all possess some characteristic, however vague, of all the forms into which the life-stock has differentiated. ”

“ Is your foot fit to walk on?"
"It's fit for me to walk on," said the Tyro cautiously.
"Come along, then," and she set out at a brisk, swinging stride which told its own tale of pulsing life and joyous energy. After half a dozen turns, she paused to lean over the rail which shuts off the carefully caged creatures of the steerage from the superior above.
"My grandfather came over steerage," she remarked casually. "I don't think I should like it."
A big-eyed baby, in its mother's sturdy arms below, caught sight of her and crowed with delight, stretching up its arms. ”

“ The Tyro paid not the slightest heed to his loss. With his eyes fixed firmly upon the bewitching face before him,—these apparitions vanish unless held under determined regard,—he cautiously reached around and pinched himself. The Vision interpreted his action, and signalized her appreciation of it by a sort of beatified chuckle.
"Oh, yes; you're awake," she assured him, "and I'm real."
"Wishes do come true," he said with the profoundest conviction.
Up went the Vision's quaintly slanted brows in dainty inquiry, with further disastrous results to the young man's cardiac mechanism. ”

“ It was an easy leap from where the Tyro stood. One foot was on the rail, when he staggered aside from an impact very different from the feminine assault. Mr. Henry Clay Wayne had turned from an absorbing conversation with Mrs. Denyse in time to see his daughter in hand-to-hand combat with a man. Observing the man now about to precipitate himself into the sea, he formulated the theory of an attempted robbery and escape, and acted with the promptitude which had made him famous in Wall Street. ”

“ Do you see the tall man coming down the deck?"
"The old farmer with the wispy hair?"
"Precisely. That 'farmer' is the ablest honest lawyer in New York. Also, he knows everybody. Oh, Judge Enderby," he hailed.
"Howdy, Alderson," responded the iron-gray one. "Glad to see you. Now we shall have some whist."
"Good! Judge, do you know the pretty girl over yonder, in that chair?"
The judge put up an eyeglass. "Yes," he said. ”

“ For the Puritan in her demanded something more than her own circle gave her. And, true to the Puritan character, she wanted her price. That price was happiness. Hence she had fled from Remsen Van Dam.
"But what's become of your promenade deck court?" inquired the Tyro, when he found his attempts to elicit any further light upon her character or career ineffective.
"Scattered," she laughed. "I told them I wouldn't be up until after luncheon. Aren't you flattered?"
"I'm grateful," he said. "But don't forget that we have to call on Karl at four o'clock." ”

“ Stooping he caught her under the knees, and lifted her to his arms. Feeling the easy buoyancy of his strength beneath her, she lapsed against his shoulder, wholly trustful, wholly content. Through the passage he splashed, around the turn, and up the broad companionway. Not until he had found a chair in the near corner of the lower saloon did he set her down. Released from his arms, she realized with a swift shock the loss of all sense of security. She shot a quick glance at him, half terrified, half wistful. But the Tyro was now all for action.
"What clothes do you most need?" ”

“ That bundle almost under our feet when I spoke—that was Little Miss Grouch."
Alderson took a furtive glance. "She's all mummied up," he suggested; "maybe she didn't hear."
"Oh, yes, she did. Trust my luck for that. And I said she was homely. And she is. Oh, Lord, I wouldn't have hurt her poor little feelings for anything."
"Don't you be too sure about her being so homely. Any woman looks a fright when she's all bunged up from crying."
"What's the difference?" said the Tyro miserably. "A pretty girl don't like to be called homely any more than a homely one." ”

“ Is there any secret? A very charming girl who says she knows you finds herself forgotten by you. And you've been maladroit enough to betray the fact. Naturally she is not pleased. Nothing very mysterious in that."
Thereupon the pestered youth retired in distress and dudgeon to his cabin to formulate a campaign.
Progress, however, seemed slow. It was a very discontented Tyro who, after luncheon, betook himself to the spray-soaked weather rail and strove to assuage his impatience by a thoughtful contemplation of the many leagues of ocean still remaining to be traversed. ”

“ Well, to be in a torpor, is to torp. Now I'm going to do it all over again, and if you interrupt this time, I'll sing it.
"Beautiful!" she applauded. "I feel much better already."
"Don't you think a little walk would put you completely on your feet?" he inquired.
"On yours, more probably." She smiled up at him. "Come and sit down and tell me: are you a poet, or a lunatic, or a haberdasher, or what kind of a—a Daddleskink are you?"
"Haberdasher? Why should I be a haberdasher?"
"An acquaintance of yours has been talking—trying to talk to me about you. She said you were." ”

“ Smith, to keep that amiable young lady running at the rate of speed which she considers legal, trims fifty thousand a year down so fine that I could put the remainder in the plate on New Year's Sunday without a pang."
"Fifty thousand!" gasped the Tyro.
"Oh, the modern American girl is a high-priced luxury. Are you worth a million dollars?"
"No."
"See any prospect of getting a million?"
"Not the slightest."
"Well, do you think it would be fair to a girl like Cecily, with an upbringing which—"
"Which imbecility and snobbery have combined to make the worst imaginable," cut in Judge Enderby. ”

“ The pursuit passed on, and an hour later the pilot-boat chugged away passengerless; for even the mightiest cannot hold indefinitely an ocean liner setting out after a possible record. Almost at the moment that the man of power received a message stating positively that his daughter was not on the Clan Macgregor that perverse little person was saying to her preserver, who—foolish youth—had expected some expression of appreciation:—
"What do you mean by calling me Amy? I hate the name." ”

“ The Tyro made her a low bow. "Oh, pattern of all the graces," said he, "I accept and appreciate the appellation. The pig is a praiseworthy character. The pig suffereth long and is kind. The pig is humble, pious, a home-lover and a home-stayer. You never heard of a pig changing his heart and running away across the seas on twelve hours' notice, because things didn't go exactly to suit him. Did you, now? The pig is mild of temper and restrained of speech. ”

“ At the moment when that portion of the chase to which the promenade deck was apportioned, consisting of the second officer, the purser, and two stewards, approached the secluded nook where the Tyro stood guardian above the feminine Fount of Tears, they beheld and heard only a young man admonishing a stricken girl in unmistakably fraternal terms:
"Now, Amy, you might just as well stop that sniveling. [The Tyro was taking a bit of revenge on the side.] You can't change your stateroom. There isn't another to be had on board. ”