On the morning of the fifth day they had their first dispute. They were sitting on the boat deck, aft, watching the wake of the ship as it twisted like an uncertain white serpent. Stefan was sketching her, as he had done already several times when he could get her apart from hovering children--he could not endure being overlooked as he worked. “They chew gum in my ear, and breathe down my neck,” he would explain. He had almost completed an impression of her head against the sky, with a flying veil lifting above it, when a shadow fell across the canvas, and the voice of McEwan blared out a pleased greeting. “Weel, here ye are!” exclaimed that mountain of tweed, lowering himself onto a huge iron cleat between which and the bulwarks the two were sitting cross-legged. “I was speerin' where ye'd both be.” “Good Lord, McEwan, can't you speak English?” exclaimed Byrd, with quick exasperation. “I hae to speak the New York lingo when I get back there, ye ken,” replied the Scot with imperturbable good humor, “so I like to use a wee bit o' the guid Scotch while I hae the chance.” “A wee bit!” snorted Stefan, and “Good morning, Mr. McEwan, isn't it beautiful up here?” interposed Miss Elliston, pleasantly. “It's grand,” replied the Scotchman, “and ye look bonnie i' the sun,” he added simply. “So Mr. Byrd thinks. You see he has just been painting me,” she answered smilingly, indicating, with a touch of mischief, the drawing that Stefan had hastily slipped between them. The Scotchman stooped, and, before Stefan could stop him, had the sketch in his hand. “It's a guid likeness,” he pronounced, “though I dinna care mesel' for yon new-fangled way o' slappin' on the color. I'll mak'ye a suggestion--” But he got no further, for Stefan, incoherent with irritation, snatched the sketch from his hands and broke out at him in a stammering torrent of French of the Quarter, which neither of his listeners, he was aware, could understand. Having safely consigned all the McEwans of the universe to pig-sties and perdition, he walked off to cool himself, the sketch under his arm, leaving both his hearers incontinently dumb. McEwan recovered first. “The puir young mon suffers wi' his temper, there's nae dooting,” said he, addressing himself to the task of entertaining his rather absent-minded companion. His advantage lasted but a few moments, however. Byrd, repenting his strategic error, returned, and in despair of other methods succeeded in summoning a candid smile. “Look here, McEwan,” said he, with the charm of manner he knew so well how to assume, “don't mind my irritability; I'm always like that when I'm painting and any one interrupts--it sends me crazy. The light's just right, and it won't be for long. I can't possibly paint with anybody round. Won't you, like a good fellow, get out and let me finish?” His frankness was wonderfully disarming, but in any case, the Scot was always good nature's self.