“Beg pardon, sir,” he urged, showing his embarrassment at not being able to stand, “but I am the only one who knows how Mr. Edestone likes his dinner clothes laid out, and his whole evening will be spoiled without me, sir. I only ask to be allowed to break in the new man, sir, as starting right in laying out a gentleman’s clothes is half the battle, sir.” “Don’t you think, you have had enough of a battle for one day, you dear old fighting fossil?” asked Lawrence in a tone of real affection, for there is nothing which draws men together, regardless of rank, more quickly than to fight on the same side, and he could not help but admire the cool manner in which the valet had borne himself under fire. “Thank you, sir, but mightn’t I be allowed to see to his bath, sir? A drop of hot water in it turns his stomach for a week. Just let me do that, and I will come straight back to these very kind persons.” He glanced about at the men of science with the condescending manner of the English upper servant in dealing with the shopkeeper class. But Lawrence shook his head. “I’m sorry, James, but--” he bowed low to the grinning circle of doctors and nurses, and assumed his most grandiloquent air--“you are now in the hands of the only acknowledged ruling class of the twentieth century, who hold you with a grip of steel, but whose touch is as gentle as a mother’s kiss. So get out your knitting, Old Socks; you are doomed.” He turned with a laugh and a new impersonation to the surgeon as he left the room. “Thank you, Doc. You’ve cert’nly been kind to me, a poor working girl. Just send the bill to Mr. Edestone. He is my greatest gentleman friend.” In his room, which was reached by an elevator, he found the ship’s tailor waiting for him; but after this functionary had taken his measure and gone, he had an opportunity to look around. He was in a room, he found, a parlour or sitting-room, about fifteen by twenty, neatly but handsomely furnished, and suggesting to him in its general appearance the owner’s apartments on the largest and most perfectly equipped yachts. There was this difference, however, that nothing about it indicated that it was ever off an even keel. There were no racks or other contrivances to suggest that it was prepared to turn in any direction at an angle of forty-five degrees, and which to the land-lubber causes qualms even while the ship is still tied to the dock. It might indeed have been a handsome living-room in a bachelor’s apartment, but for the windows, which at the first glance seemed to be of the ordinary French casement form, running down to the floor, and looking as if they might open out onto a balcony; but to his surprise, he found, when he pulled aside the heavy curtains, that they looked into a perfectly blank white wall about two inches from the glass.