"Let's stop here for a minute," panted Alderson. "Haven't got my sea-legs yet." There was a pause. "Did I see you making yourself agreeable to a young person of the dangerous sex a couple of hours ago?" "Agreeable? Well, judging by results, no. I doubt if Chesterfield himself could have made himself agreeable to Little Miss Grouch." "Miss _Who_?" "Little Miss Grouch. Don't know her real name. But that's good enough for descriptive purposes. She's the crossest little patch that ever grew up without being properly spanked." "Where did you run across her?" "Oh, she wrecked my pet toe with a guillotine heel because I ventured to sympathize with her." "Oh," commented the experienced Alderson. "Sympathy isn't in much demand when one is seasick." "It wasn't seasickness. It was weeps for the vanished fatherland; such blubbery weeps! Poor little girl!" mused the Tyro. "She isn't much bigger than a minute, and _so_ forlorn, and _so_ red-nosed, and _so_ homely, you couldn't help but--" At this moment a drunken stagger on the part of the ship slewed the speaker halfway around. He found himself looking down upon a steamer-chair, wherein lay a bundle swathed in many rugs. From that bundle protruded a veiled face and the outline of a swollen nose, above which a pair of fixed eyes blazed, dimmed but malevolent, into his. "Er--ah--oh," said the Tyro, moving hastily away. "If you'll excuse me I think I'll just step over the rail and speak to a fish I used to know." "What's the matter?" inquired Alderson suspiciously, following him. "Not already!" "Oh, no. Not that. Worse. That bundle almost under our feet when I spoke--that was Little Miss Grouch." Alderson took a furtive glance. "She's all mummied up," he suggested; "maybe she didn't hear." "Oh, yes, she did. Trust my luck for that. And I said she was homely. And she is. Oh, Lord, I wouldn't have hurt her poor little feelings for anything." "Don't you be too sure about her being so homely. Any woman looks a fright when she's all bunged up from crying." "What's the difference?" said the Tyro miserably. "A pretty girl don't like to be called homely any more than a homely one." "There's where you're off, my son," returned Alderson. "She can summon her looking-glass as a witness in rebuttal." "Anyway, I've put my foot in it up to the knee!" "Oh, go up to-morrow when she's feeling better and tell her you were talking about the ship's cat." "I'd show better sense by keeping out of her way altogether." "You'll never be able to do that," said the sea-wise Alderson. "Try to avoid any one on shipboard and you'll bump into that particular person everywhere you go, from the engine-room to the forepeak. Ten to one she sits next to you at table." "I'll have my seat changed," cried the other in panic. "I'll eat in my cabin. I'll fast for the week." "You be a game sport and I'll help you out," promised his friend. "All hands to repel boarders! Here she comes!"