As if in sheer perversity, the weather changed early in the evening, and the night that followed was punctuated regularly by the blast of the fog-whistle. The next day broke thick and damp, with a wall of impenetrable mist shadowing the great vessel to half her length. Over the tall sides the greasy green of the water could just be seen moving by. The masts and funnels disappeared irregularly overhead. The fog clung to everything; it rimed the rugs and capes of the passengers who feared the close air of the 'tween-decks and lay recumbent in the steamer-chairs, and it clung in little pearls to Miss Marcia Dorn's curly front hair, that seemed to curl all the tighter for the wetting. With Mr. Victor Masterson at her side, she was walking up and down the hurricane-deck. His appearance was not quite so spruce or so comical this morning; he looked as if he had been dipped overboard. He still disdained a hat, and his hair was plastered over his forehead in an uneven, scraggly bang. The weather seemed also to have dampened his spirits. Miss Dorn found it difficult to lead him away from serious subjects; his ideas on mental telepathy did not amuse her, nor the fact that he was a fatalist. "Oh, I wish you'd do something to make me laugh," she broke in suddenly. "Are you ticklish?" inquired the Silly Ass quite soberly. Miss Dorn could not help but titter; she was not at all put out. "There!" said Mr. Masterson. "Now, you see, I have done it! Please thank me. Now let me go on. You know, there is no doubt that the mind of one person when thinking of----" "Oh, don't let's think!" Miss Dorn leaned back against the rail, half hidden from the gangway. "Isn't it dreary," she said, "this weather? And look at those people all stretched out. I wish we could do something to wake them up! The whole ship seems to have the glooms--even the captain; he wouldn't speak a word to me at breakfast." "I could wake 'em up," said Mr. Masterson emphatically. "I could wake the whole ship up, and the captain too, and the lootenant, and the quartermaster, and the squingerneer, and the crew of the _Nancy Brig_, if I wanted to--and your Uncle Admiral Elephant here, asleep in the steamer-chair." "Why, sure enough, there he is!" cried Miss Dorn. "He's got the glooms, too; he says he always gets 'em in foggy weather at sea." She turned and touched Mr. Masterson lightly on the arm. "Wake him up!" she said, her eyes twinkling. "I hardly dare." "Oh, go on! I don't believe you can. How would you do it?" "How would I do it? Why, just this way." He crumpled his hands together and blew between the knuckles of his thumbs a low, resonant, gruffly humming note. They were hidden now by the bow of the life-boat and were standing quite close together. They noticed that the figure in the steamer-chair nearest them had suddenly raised itself a little and then had sat bolt upright. The old admiral, the mist in his gray whiskers, turned one ear forward and listened attentively.