"Thanks, no," said Holt, and then, as the siren blew: "If you'd asked my advice before you bought your tickets, old man, I'd have told you: 'Don't go to sea; but if you do go, don't play cards; but if you do play cards, cut the cards. They'll cheat you anyhow, but it'll take longer.'" He waved a plump farewell and bared a bald head and waddled down the gang-plank. The band began to play, and Stainton and his wife went to their stateroom to unpack: they were travelling without a maid because Muriel had said something about wanting to secure one in France. By sunrise next morning the _Friedrich Barbarossa_ was racing through the grey Atlantic with even speed. It was late winter--it was really early spring--and she had already encountered a storm and heavy seas, but the lean ocean express dove through the former and rode the latter as easily as if she had been a railway train running on tried rails along a perfect roadbed. There was no reason in the world why anybody should be sick aboard her; few others were sick; yet, Stainton, on that second day out, remained below. He could not account for it. He did not like to confess it. He especially hated to confess, when he awoke to see his wife putting the finishing touches to her toilet in the far corner of their big stateroom. But this was manifestly a case where discretion must triumph over valour: he no sooner got to his feet than he got off them again. "It's no use," he sighed. "I don't know what it was. I wish they didn't have such good dinners on this boat, for it must have been something I ate." Muriel was all consolation. "Let me ring for the steward to bring your breakfast here," she said. "Not if you don't want to kill me! Don't mention food again, please--I wonder if that lobster were just fresh." She insisted for a long time that she would remain below with him, but he overruled her. He said that the open air would be good for her, even if she did not seem to need it, and he meant that, although he meant also--what he dared not say--that he wanted to struggle alone with his malady. Finally, therefore, Muriel descended to the big dining saloon alone and surprisedly found herself breakfasting with enjoyment, in spite of her husband's absence.