But she permitted nothing of her thoughts to become legible in her manner. After all, she had only wanted an escort for the evening, an excuse to postpone that unavoidable return to the company of the girl she had betrayed; and Fowey had seemed the most convenient and the least dangerous man she could think of. If in the inflation of his insufferable conceit he dreamed for an instant another thing.... Well, Joan promised herself, he'd soon find out his mistake!... Keeping up the fiction of her imaginary birthday, she outlined her plans: they would take one of the Iron Steamboat Company's boats from Pier 1, North River--a short walk from the station--to Coney Island. When that resort palled, they would drive to Manhattan Beach and dine, perhaps "take in" Pain's Fireworks; and return to New York by the same route. Fowey's objections were instant and sincere and well-grounded: the boats would be crowded beyond endurance with an unwashed rabble liberally sown with drunks and screaming children. If she would only let him, he'd get a taxicab--or even a touring-car. Quietly but firmly Joan overruled him. It must be her party or no party, as she proposed or not at all. He yielded in the end, but the event proved him right in all he had foretold. Joan was very soon made sorry she hadn't suffered herself to be gainsaid. They had half an hour to wait for the boat, and the waiting-room upon the second-storey of the pier was like an oven, packed with a milling, sweating mob exactly fulfilling Fowey's prediction. They were elbowed, shouldered, walked upon, and at one time openly ridiculed by a gang of hooligans, any one of whom would have made short work of Fowey had he dared show any resentment. Upon the boat, when at length it turned up tardily to receive them, conditions were little better, save that the open air was an indescribable relief after the reeking atmosphere of the pier. Fowey managed to secure two uncomfortable folding stools, upon which they perched, crowded against the rail of the upper deck; a wretched "orchestra" wrung infamous parodies of popular songs from several tortured instruments; children scuffled and howled; burly ruffians in unclean aprons thrust themselves bodily through the throng, balancing dripping trays laden with glasses of lukewarm beer and "soft drinks" and bawling in every ear their seductive refrain--"Here's the waiter! Want the waiter? _Who_ wants the waiter?"--and an alcoholic, planting his chair next to Joan's, promptly went to sleep, snoring atrociously, and threatened every instant to topple over and rest his head in her lap. A single circumstance modified in a way Joan's regret that she hadn't heeded Fowey's protests.