Miss Brewster made her way to the captain's room and rapped at the door. On being told to enter, she found that officer seated at his table with some charts before him, and a haggard look upon his face, which might have warned her that this was not the proper time to air any personal grievances. 'Well?' he said briefly as she entered. 'I came to see you, captain,' she began, 'because an outrageous thing has been done on board this ship, and I desire reparation. What is more, I will have it! 'What is the "outrageous thing"?' asked the captain. 'I had some despatches to send to New York, to the _New York Argus_, on whose staff I am.' 'Yes,' said the captain with interest; 'despatches relating to what has happened to the ship?' 'One of them did, the other did not.' 'Well, I hope,' said the captain, 'you have not given an exaggerated account of the condition we are in.' 'I have given no account at all, simply because I was prevented from sending the cablegrams.' 'Ah, indeed,' said the captain, a look of relief coming over his face, in spite of his efforts to conceal it; 'and pray what prevented you from sending your cablegrams? The mate would have taken any messages that were given to him.' 'I know that,' cried the young woman; 'but when I was in my room writing the last of the despatches, a person who is on board as a passenger here--Miss Longworth--came into my room and held me prisoner there until the boat had left the ship.' The captain arched his eyebrows in surprise. 'My dear madam,' he said, 'you make a very serious charge. Miss Longworth has crossed several times with me, and I am bound to say that a better-behaved young lady I never had on board my ship.' 'Extremely well behaved she is!' cried the correspondent angrily, 'she stood against my door and prevented me from going out. I screamed for help, but my screams were drowned in the cheers of the passengers when the boat left.' 'Why did you not ring your bell?' 'I couldn't ring my bell because she prevented me. Besides, if I had reached the bell, it is not likely anybody would have answered it; everybody seemed to be bawling after the boat that was leaving.' 'You can hardly blame them for that. A great deal depends on the safety of that boat. In fact, if you come to think about it, you will see that whatever grievance you may have, it is, after all, a very trivial one compared with the burden that weighs on me just now, and I should much prefer not to have anything to do with disputes between the passengers until we are out of our present predicament.'