"Heavens, no! That's the--the man I'm running away from." "The plot thickens. I thought it was your family you were eluding." "Everybody! Everything! And I'm _never_ coming back. There's no way they can get me now, is there?" A reiterated word of the convulsive howler on the dock had stuck in the Tyro's mind. "What about the pilot-boat?" "Oh! Could they? What shall I do? I _won't_ go back. I'll jump overboard first. And you do nothing but stand there like a ninny." "Many thanks, gentle maiden," returned her companion, unperturbed, "for this testimonial of confidence and esteem. With every inclination to aid and abet any crime or misdemeanor within reach, I nevertheless think I ought to be let in on the secret before I commit myself finally." "It--it's that Thing on the dock." "So you led me to infer." "He wants to marry me." "Well, America is the land of boundless ambitions," observed the young man politely. "But they'll make me marry him if I stay," came the half-strangled whisper. "I'm engaged to him, I tell you." "No; you didn't tell me anything of the sort. Why, he's old enough to be your father." "Older!" she asseverated spitefully. "And hatefuller than he is old." "Why do such a thing?" "I didn't do it." "Then he did it all himself? I thought it took two to make an engagement." "It does. Father was the other one." "Oh! Father is greatly impressed with our acrobatic friend's eligibility as son-in-law?" "Well, of course, he's got plenty of money, and a splendid position, and all that. And I--I--I didn't exactly say 'No.' But when I saw it in the newspapers, all spread out for everybody to read--" "Hello! It got into the papers, did it?" "Yesterday morning. Father put it in; I _know_ he did. I cried all night, and this morning I had Marie pack my things, and I made a rush for this old ship, and they didn't have anything for me but a stuffy little hole 'way down in the hold somewhere, and I wish I were dead!" "Oh, cheer up!" counseled the Tyro. "I've got an awfully decent stateroom--123 D, and if you want to change--" "Why, I'm 129 D. That's the same kind of room in the same passage. Do you call _that_ fit to live in?" Now the Tyro is a person of singularly equable temperament. But to have an offer which he had made only with self-sacrificing effort thus cavalierly received by a red-nosed, blear-eyed, impudent little chittermouse (thus, I must reluctantly admit, did he mentally characterize his new acquaintance), was just a bit too much. "You don't have to accept the offer, you know," he assured her. "I only made it to be offensive. And as I've apparently been successful beyond my fondest hopes, I will now waft myself away." There was some kind of struggle in which the lachrymose maiden's whole anatomy seemed involved, and then a gloved hand went out appealingly. "Meaning that you're sorry?" inquired the Tyro sternly.