"Then the gentlemanly spider on the hot griddle loses," murmured the Tyro. "I don't know whom you mean," said the girl, obstinately. "I mean that your foot-destroying 'Never-never-never' holds good." "Yes," she replied. "I did think I _might_ marry him once. But now," she added pensively and unguardedly, "I know I never could." The Tyro's heart came into his throat--except that portion of it which looked out of his eyes. "Why?" A flame rose in Little Miss Grouch's cheeks, and subsided, leaving her shaking. "Why?" He had halted her beside the rail, and was trying to look into her face, which was averted toward the sea, and quivering with panic of the peril suddenly become imminent again. Lord Guenn, approaching along the deck, furnished Little Miss Grouch an inspiration, the final flash of hope of the hard-pressed. "Shut your eyes," she bade her terrifying slave. "What for?" "Obey!" "They're shut." "Tight?" "Under sealed orders." Little Miss Grouch made a swift signal to the approaching Englishman, and executed a silent maneuver. "Count three," she directed breathlessly, "before you ask again or open your eyes." "One--two--three," said the Tyro slowly. "_Why?_" "Hanged if I know, my dear fellow," replied Lord Guenn, upon whose trim elegance the Tyro's discomfited vision rested. Little Miss Grouch had vanished. IX Ninth day out. Sixty days has September, April, June and November. From January until May The rain it raineth every day. All the rest have thirty-one Without a single gleam of sun. If any should have thirty-two, They'd be dull and dirty, too! ADAPTED BY SMITH FOR SMITH'S LOG Rain, fog, mist, drizzle, more rain. Such was the waste world through which the Clan Macgregor wallowed. Other ships passed her, hooting as they went. Small craft began to loom up under her massive bows, and slide away from beneath her towering stern, always eluding Fate, as it seemed, by miraculous inches. And slower and ever slower moved the sea-mammoth, lugubriously trumpeting her distress and dismay at the plight in which she found herself. Thus and no otherwise would the Tyro have vented his grief and chagrin, had he possessed competent vocal organs, more lost and befogged than the ship which bore him and his sorrow to an alien land. For breakfast had come and gone, and then luncheon and dinner, and nowhere had he caught so much as a glimpse of Little Miss Grouch. At ten o'clock that night he was standing immersed in gloom, within and without, staring out over the rail into a world of blackness. Far out in the void, a bell tolled. The Tyro resumed his purposeless promenade, meditating cheerlessly upon buried hopes. Now, were individuals required, as are craft, to carry fog signals, this maritime record might be something other than it is. The collision was head on, and the impact severe. The lighter craft recoiled against the rail. "Oh!" she said.