Ruth flushed a little at so open a compliment, but smiled at Grimshaw and said brightly: "I'm so glad you can come with us. I was dreadfully sorry to hear of your accident. It would have been horrid for you to stay cooped up in that old hospital. Father has told me how much you had counted on the trip." "The old craft isn't a derelict jest yet," replied Tyke complacently. "I'm afraid I'll be something of a nuisance till I get steady on my pins again, but I'll try not to be too much in the way." "We'll all be glad to wait on you, I'm sure," protested Ruth, with another smile that won Grimshaw completely. "I'll go down now and see how Wah Lee is getting along with breakfast," the girl continued. "I've no doubt you folks will be hungry enough to do justice to it." "This air would give an appetite to a mummy," declared Drew. "I'm some sharp set myself," admitted Tyke, as the fragrance of steaming coffee was wafted to him from the cook's galley. "Jest the very thought of eating in a ship's cabin again makes me hungry." Drew's eyes followed the girl as she disappeared down the companionway, and when he looked up it was to find Tyke regarding him amusedly. "So that's the way the wind blows, is it?" the old man chuckled. "Nonsense!" disclaimed Drew, although conscious that his tone did not carry conviction. "She's a very nice girl, but this is only the second time I've met her." To avoid further prodding, he added: "I'll go down to your room and see if that Jap has put things shipshape for you." As he went to the room reserved for Grimshaw, he met Ruth just coming out of it. Her skirts brushed against him in the narrow corridor and he tingled to the finger tips. "I've just put a few flowers in Mr. Grimshaw's room," she said. "They seem to make the bare little cubby holes a bit more homey, don't you think? I thought they would be a sort of welcome." Drew agreed with her, but the hope he had been hugging to his breast that he had been singled out for special attention vanished. "I was foolish enough to think that I had them all," he confessed with a sheepish grin. "What a greedy man!" she laughed. "No, indeed! Did you think I was going to overlook my father or Mr. Parmalee? You men are so conceited!" As though the mention of his name had summoned him, the door of a neighboring stateroom opened just then and a young man stepped out. He smiled pleasantly as his gaze fell on Ruth. "Good morning, Miss Ruth. I'm incorrigibly lazy, I'm afraid," he remarked, "or else this good air is responsible for my sleeping more soundly than for a long time past." Ruth assured him that it was still early. "If you are lazy, the sun is too," she said, "for, like yourself, it has just risen." "That makes him lazier," returned Parmalee, "for he went to rest a good deal earlier than I did last night." Ruth laughed, and, after introducing the young men to each other, she vanished in the direction of the captain's cabin.