They thought perhaps they had better ask somebody whether there wouldn't soon be something to eat, but the other passengers had all disappeared. They were by themselves on the gloomy deck, and there were no lights. The row of cabin windows along the wall were closely shuttered, and the door they had come through when first they came on deck was shut too, and they couldn't find it in the dark. It seemed so odd to be feeling along a wall for a door they knew was there and not be able to find it, that they began to laugh; and the undiscoverable door cheered them up more than anything that had happened since seeing the last of Uncle Arthur. "It's like a game," said Anna-Rose, patting her hands softly and vainly along the wall beneath the shuttered windows. "It's like something in 'Alice in Wonderland,'" said Anna-Felicitas, following in her tracks. A figure loomed through the mist and came toward them. They left off patting, and stiffened into straight and motionless dignity against the wall till it should have passed. But it didn't pass. It was a male figure in a peaked cap, probably a steward, they thought, and it stopped in front of them and said in an American voice, "Hello." Anna-Rose cast rapidly about in her mind for the proper form of reply to Hello. Anna-Felicitas, instinctively responsive to example murmured "Hello" back again. Anna-Rose, feeling sure that nobody ought to say just Hello to people they had never seen before, and that Aunt Alice would think they had brought it on themselves by being conspicuous, decided that perhaps "Good-evening" would regulate the situation, and said it. "You ought to be at dinner," said the man, taking no notice of this. "That's what _we_ think," agreed Anna-Felicitas earnestly. "Can you please tell us how to get there?" asked Anna-Rose, still distant, but polite, for she too very much wanted to know. "But _don't_ tell us to ask the Captain," said Anna-Felicitas, even more earnestly. "No," said Anna-Rose, "because we won't." The man laughed. "Come right along with me," he said, striding on; and they followed him as obediently as though such persons as possible _böse Buben_ didn't exist. "First voyage I guess," said the man over his shoulder. "Yes," said the twins a little breathlessly, for the man's legs were long and they could hardly keep up with him. "English?" said the man. "Ye--es," said Anna-Rose. "That's to say, practically," panted the conscientious Anna-Felicitas. "What say?" said the man, still striding on. "I said," Anna-Felicitas endeavoured to explain, hurrying breathlessly after him so as to keep within reach of his ear, "practically." "Ah," said the man; and after a silence, broken only by the pantings for breath of the twins, he added: "Mother with you?"