"No; it isn't," she returned, with conviction. "I think this is a very queer-acting ship." "No! Do you? Why, I supposed all ships acted this way." "Well, they don't. I don't like it. I haven't been feeling a bit well." The Tyro expressed commiseration and sympathy. "_You_ look disgustingly fit," she commented. "I? Never felt so well in my life. A minute ago, I won't say. But now--I could burst into poetry." "Do," she urged. "All right, I will. Listen. It's a limerick. I made it up out of the fullness of my heart, and it's about myself but dedicated to you. "There once was a seaworthy child Whose feelings could never be riled. While the porpoises porped--" "There's no such word as 'porped,'" she interrupted. "Yes, there is. There has to be. Nothing else in the world acts like a porpoise; therefore there must be a word meaning to act like a porpoise; and that word is the verb 'to porp.'" "You're an ingenious lunatic," she allowed. "Dangerous only when interrupted. I will now resume my lyric:-- "While the porpoises porped And the passengers torped--" "The passengers _what_-ed?" "Torped. What you've been doing this morning." "I haven't!" she denied indignantly. "Of course you have. You've been in a torpor, haven't you? Well, to be in a torpor, is to torp. Now I'm going to do it all over again, and if you interrupt this time, I'll _sing_ it. "There once was a seaworthy child Whose feelings could never be riled. While the porpoises porped And the passengers torped, _He_ sat on the lee rail and smiled." "Beautiful!" she applauded. "I feel much better already." "Don't you think a little walk would put you completely on your feet?" he inquired. "On yours, more probably." She smiled up at him. "Come and sit down and tell me: are you a poet, or a lunatic, or a haberdasher, or what kind of a--a Daddleskink are you?" "Haberdasher? Why should I be a haberdasher?" "An acquaintance of yours has been talking--trying to talk to me about you. She said you were." "Mrs. Denyse?" "She seems a fearfully queer person, and quite excited about you. There was something about you and a necktie, and--and Mr. Van Dam, and then I escaped." "Oh! The necktie. Why, yes, I suppose I am a sort of haberdasher, come to think of it." "I'm glad you're not ashamed of your business if you are of your name. You told her it was Smith." "Did I? I don't remember that I did, exactly. Even so, what would be the use of wasting a really good name on her? She wouldn't appreciate it." "Mr. De Dalesquinc--" "Daddleskink," corrected the Tyro firmly. "Very well," she sighed. "Daddleskink, then. Wasn't that Dr. Alderson, the historian, that you were walking with yesterday?" "Yes. Do you know him?" "Only by correspondence. He did some research work on my house." "_Your_ house. Do you inhabit a prehistoric ruin, that Alderson should take an interest in it?"