[Illustration: "GOOD-NIGHT," SHE SAID, "AND--THANK YOU"] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- LITTLE MISS GROUCH A Narrative Based Upon The Private Log Of Alexander Forsyth Smith's Maiden Transatlantic Voyage By Samuel Hopkins Adams With Illustrations by R. M. Crosby BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY The Riverside Press Cambridge 1915 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- COPYRIGHT, 1914 AND 1915, BY THE BUTTERICK PUBLISHING COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY SAMUEL HOPKINS ADAMS ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Published September 1915 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ILLUSTRATIONS "Good-night," she said, "and--thank you"(page 129) Frontispiece "Aren't you going to speak to me?" 38 Surprise held the Tyro's tongue in leash 52 "Oh, look at that adorable baby!" 74 "Couldn't you lend me five dollars?" 112 Her knight keeping watch over her 144 The Tyro curled his legs under him 166 "You've come through, my boy" 206 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- LITTLE MISS GROUCH I First day out. Weather horrible, uncertain and squally, but interesting Developments promised Feel fine. SMITH'S LOG. Several tugs were persuasively nudging the Clan Macgregor out from her pier. Beside the towering flanks of the sea-monster, newest and biggest of her species, they seemed absurdly inadequate to the job. But they made up for their insignificance by self-important and fussy puffings and pipings, while, like an elephant harried by terriers, the vast mass slowly swung outward toward the open. From the pier there arose a composite clamor of farewell. The Tyro gazed down upon this lively scene with a feeling of loneliness. No portion of the ceremonial of parting appertained personally to him. He had had his fair fraction in the form of a crowd of enthusiastic friends who came to see him off on his maiden voyage. They, however, retired early, acting as escort to his tearful mother and sister who had given way to uncontrollable grief early in the proceedings, on a theory held, I believe, by the generality of womankind in the face of considerable evidence to the contrary, that a first-time voyager seldom if ever comes back alive. Lacking individual attention, the Tyro decided to appropriate a share of the communal. Therefore he bowed and waved indiscriminately, and was distinctly cheered up by a point-blank smile and handkerchief flutter from a piquant brunette who liked his looks. Most people liked his looks, particularly women.