plaid up about her shoulders and observed with some gravity that she was going to sleep. The purser took up a romantic attitude at her feet, saying, “Good-night.” Hildegarde jumped up. “I’ll go and see how Mrs. Blumpitty is.” Getting rid of the purser lent a rapture even to going below. And as she went she smiled, remembering how her mother was comforting herself with the thought of the Blumpittys (“splendid sailors” both of them!) pledged to watch over Miss Mar, and if she were laid low to bring her sustenance on deck out of their private supplies. Four days and no glimpse of either of her guardian angels till this moment, when, rolling through the second saloon on her way to smooth Mrs. Blumpitty’s pillow, Hildegarde, pitching from side to side, clutching at anything within reach to steady herself, caught sight of her stand-by, her protector, the man who was going to minister to her and “see her through,” Blumpitty, with ghastly visage, clinging to the knob of a cabin door like a shipwrecked mariner to a spar. In these days of seclusion poor Mr. Blumpitty had sadly altered, wearing now a yellow-gray beard of some five days’ growth, bristling upon a countenance pea-green and pitiful. “Oh, is that you?” says the young lady, holding on to the rough board that covered with newspapers at meal time, did duty down here for a dining-table. “How do you do?” “How—” Blumpitty stopped at that and devoted his entire attention to keeping hold of the knob. Hildegarde didn’t quite like to go away and leave him to his fate, at a moment so abject in the Blumpitty history, nor did she quite know how to conduct a conversation under these conditions. She decided frankness was best. So, as her friend still clutched and tried to steady himself, she gave way a little to smiling. “I thought you were a seasoned old salt, Mr. Blumpitty.” He only rolled his yellow eyes—but no, that statement is misleading, for Blumpitty rolled his entire economy. Yet never a word rolled out. Hildegarde, wishing to spare his feelings, added, as she turned to go, “A great many people seem to have been bowled over by the pitching of _this_ ship.” “No ship,” said Blumpitty in a sepulchral whisper, “no _ship_ could make a man feel like this.” Hildegarde was alarmed. Was Mr. Blumpitty about to be snatched from them by some fell disease? “Wh-what do you think it is?” she inquired, with another lurch, but much sympathy. He clung now with both hands to his savior-knob, while the rolling _Roumelia_ worked her own wild will upon Mr. Blumpitty’s contorted frame. “It’s the cook,” he groaned. “The _cook_!” This was indeed terrible! His brain was giving way! “Yes,” he went on hoarsely in an interval of comparative steadiness, “I know these fellows. If a sea-cook thinks he’s got too many people to feed—he—oh, Gawd!—he puts stuff in the coffee, or soap in the bread—and—people don’t want to eat any more.”