Chapter 5

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_ CHAPTER V

Fifth day out.
A dull, dead, blank unprofitable calm.
Nothing doing; nothing to do.
Wish I'd gone steerage.

SMITH'S LOG.

Legal employment is susceptible of almost indefinite expansion. Thus ruminated Judge Enderby, rising early with a brisk appetite for romance, as he fingered the two five-dollar bills received from his newest client.

For that client he was jovially minded to do his best. The young fellow had taken a strong hold upon his liking. Moreover, the judge was a confirmed romantic, though he would have resented being thus catalogued. He chose to consider his inner stirrings of sentimentalism in the present case as due to a fancy for minor diplomacies and delicate negotiations. One thing he was sure of: that he was enjoying himself unusually, and that the Tyro was like to get very good value for his fee.

To which end, shortly after breakfast he broke through the cordon surrounding Miss Cecily Wayne and bore her off for a promenade.

"But it's not alone for your _beaux yeux_," he explained to her. "I'm acting for a client."

"How exciting! But you're not going to browbeat me as you did poor papa when you had him on the stand?" said Miss Wayne, exploring the gnarled old face with soft eyes.

"Browbeat the court!" cried the legal light (who had frequently done that very thing). "You're the tribunal of highest jurisdiction in this case."

"Then I must look very solemn and judicial." Which she proceeded to do with such ravishing effect that three young men approaching from the opposite direction lost all control of their steering-gear and were precipitated into the scuppers by the slow tilt of a languid ground-swell.

"If you must, you must," allowed the judge, "though," he added with a glance at the struggling group, "it's rather dangerous. I'm approaching you," he continued, "on behalf of a client suddenly stricken dumb."

Miss Wayne's shapely nose elevated itself to a marked angle. "I don't think I want to hear about him," she observed coldly.

"He's in dire distress over his affliction."

"I have troubles of my own. I'm deaf."

"Then suppose I should express to you in the sign language that my client--"

"I don't want to hear it--see it--know anything about it." The amount of determination which Miss Wayne's chin contrived to express seemed quite incompatible with the adorable dimple nestling in the center thereof.

"Must I return the fee, then?"

"What fee?"

"The victim of this sudden misfortune has retained me--"

"To act as go-between?"

"Well, no; not precisely. But to represent him in all matters of import on this voyage. On two occasions he has paid over the sum of five dollars. I never work for nothing. Would you deprive a superannuated lawyer of the most promising chance to earn an honest penny which has presented itself in a year?"

"Poor old gentleman!" she laughed. "Far be it from me to ruin your prospects. But if Mr. Daddle--if your client," pursued the girl with heightened color, "has anything to say to me, he'd best say it himself."

"As I have already explained to the learned court, he can't. He's dumb."

"Why is he dumb?"

"Ah! What an ally is curiosity! My unhappy client is dumb by order."

"Whose order?"

"The captain's."

"Has the captain told him he mustn't speak?"

"To you."

All of Miss Wayne's dimples sprang to their places and stood at attention. "How lovely! What for? I'll make him."

"Ah! What an ally is opposition," sighed the astute old warrior. "But I fear you can't."

"Can't I! Wait and see."

"No. He is afraid."

"He doesn't look a victim of timidity."

"Not for himself. But unpleasant things will happen to a friend--well, let us say an acquaintance for whom he has no small regard--if he disobeys."

"Oh, dealer in mysteries, tell me more!"

"Thou art the woman."

"I? What can possibly happen to me?"

"Solitary confinement."

"I don't think that's a very funny joke," said she contemptuously.

"Indeed, it's no joke. Your eyes will grow dim, your appetite will wane, your complexion will suffer, that tolerable share of good looks which a casual Providence has bestowed upon you--"

"Please don't tease the court, Judge Enderby. What is it all about?"

"In words of one syllable: if the boy speaks to you once more, you're to be sentenced to your stateroom."

"How intolerable!" she flashed. "Who on this ship has the right--"

"Nobody. But on shore you possess a stern and rockbound father who, thanks to the malevolent mechanism of an evil genius named Marconi, has been able to exert his authority through the captain, acting _in loco parentis_, if I may venture to employ a tongue more familiar to this learned court than to myself."

"And that's the reason Mr. Daddleskink," she got it out, with a brave effort, "wouldn't speak to me yesterday?"

"The sole and only reason! Being a minor--"

"Gracious! Isn't he twenty-one?"

"If the court will graciously permit me to conclude my sentence--being a minor, you still--"

"I'm not a minor."

"You're not?"

"Certainly not. I was twenty-one last month."

"Your father gave the captain to understand that you were under age."

"Papa's memory sometimes plays tricks on him," said the maiden demurely.

"Or on others. I noticed that in the Mid & Mud Railroad investigation. You're sure you're over twenty-one?"

"Of course I'm sure."

"But can you prove it?"

"Gracious! How are such things proved? Is it necessary for me to prove it?"

"It would be helpful."

"What am I to do?"

"Give me five dollars," said the judge promptly.

"I haven't five dollars with me."

"Get it, then. I never work for nothing."

The ranging eye of Miss Wayne fell upon a figure in a steamer-chair, all huddled up behind a widespread newspaper. There was something suspiciously familiar about the figure. Miss Wayne bore down upon it. The paper--five days old--trembled. She peered over the top of it. Behind and below crouched the Tyro pretending to be asleep.

"Good-morning," said Miss Wayne.

A delicate but impressive snore answered her.

"Mr. Daddleskink!"

No answer. But the face of the victim twitched painfully. It is but human for the bravest martyr to wince under torture.

"Wake up! I know you're not asleep. I _will_ be answered!" She stamped her small but emphatic foot on the deck. The legs of the Tyro curled up under as instinctively as those of an assailed spider.

"There! You see! You needn't pretend. Won't you please speak to me?" The tormentor was having a beautiful time with her revenge.

"Go away," said a hoarse whisper from behind the newspaper.

"I'm in trouble." The voice sounded very childlike in its plea. The Tyro writhed.

"Even if you don't like me"--the Tyro writhed some more--"and don't consider me fit to speak to"--the Tyro's contortions were fairly Laocooenish--"would you--couldn't you lend me five dollars?"

The Tyro blinked rapidly.

"I need it awfully," pursued the malicious maiden.

Desperation marked itself on his brow. He scrambled from his chair, plunged his hand into his pocket, extracted a bill, transferred it to her waiting fingers, and hustled for the nearest doorway. He didn't reach it. The august undulations of Mrs. Charlton Denyse's form intercepted him.

"This is shameless!" she declared.

For once the abused youth was almost ready to agree with her.

"What?" he said weakly.

"Don't quibble with me, sir. I saw, if I did not hear. You passed Miss Wayne a note. I am astonished!" she said, in the tone of a scandalized Sunday-School teacher.

The Tyro rapidly reflected that she would have been considerably more astonished could she have known the nature of the "note." From the tail of his eye he saw the recipient in close conversation with Judge Enderby. Remembering his own dealings with that eminent fee-hunter he drew a rapid conclusion.

"Would you like to know what was in that note?" he inquired.

"As a prospective connection of Miss Wayne's--"

"If so, ask Judge Enderby."

"Why should I ask Judge Enderby?"

"Because, unless I'm mistaken, he's got the note now."

"I shall not ask Judge Enderby. I shall report the whole disgraceful affair to the captain."

"Don't do that!" cried the Tyro in alarm.

"Perhaps that will put an end to your vulgar persecution of an inexperienced young girl."

"O Lord!" groaned the Tyro, setting out in pursuit of the lawyer as the protector of social sanctities turned away. "Now I _have_ done it!"

He caught up with the judge and his companion at the turn of the deck. "May I have a word with you, Judge?" he cried.

"I'm busy," said the lawyer gruffly. "I'm engaged in an important consultation."

"But this can't wait," cried the unfortunate.

"Anything can wait," said the old man. "But youth," he added in an undertone.

"You've got to listen!" The Tyro planted himself, a very solid, set bulk of athletic young manhood, in the jurist's path.

"In the face of force and coercion," sighed the other.

"I've been seen speaking to Miss--Miss--"

"Grouch," supplied the indicated damsel sweetly.

"Mrs. Denyse saw us. She has gone to report to the captain."

"Lovely!" said the lawyer. "Beautiful! Enter the Wicked Godmother. The fairy-tale is working out absolutely according to Grimm."

"But Miss--"

"Grouch," chirped the young lady melodiously.

"--will be locked up--"

"In the donjon-keep," chuckled the lawyer. "Chapter the seventh. Who says that romance has died out of the world?"

"But if Mrs. Denyse carries out her threat and tells the captain--"

"The Wicked Ogre, you mean. If you love me, the Wicked Ogre. And he will lock the Lovely Princess in the donjon-keep until the dumb but devoted Prince arrives in time--just in the nick of time--to effect a rescue. That comes in the last chapter. And then, of course, they were mar--"

"I'm tired of fairy-tales," said Little Miss Grouch hastily. "It won't be a bit funny to be locked up--"

"With three grains of corn per day and a cup of sour wine. Hans Christian Andersen never did anything like this!" crowed the enchanted lawyer.

"Meantime," observed the Tyro, with the calm of despair, "Mrs. Denyse has found the captain."

"Presto, change!" said Judge Enderby, catching each by an arm and hurtling them around the curve of the cabin. "We come back to the dull reality of facts, retainers and advice. Fairy Prince,--young man, I mean,--you go and watch for icebergs over the port bow until sent for. Miss Wayne, you come with me to a secluded spot where the captain can't discover us for an hour or so. I have a deep suspicion that he isn't really in any great haste to find you."

As soon as they were seated in the refuge which the old gentleman found, he turned upon her.

"What are you trying to do to that young man?"

"Nothing," said she with slanted eyes.

"Don't look at me that way. It's a waste of good material. Remember, he's my client and I'm bound to protect his interests. Are you trying to drive him mad?"

Little Miss Grouch's wrongs swept over her memory. "He said I was homely. And red-nosed. And had a voice like a sick crow. And he called me Little Miss Grouch. I'm getting even," she announced with delicate satisfaction.

The old man cackled with glee. "Blind as well as dumb! There's a little godling who is also blind and--well, you know the proverb: 'When the blind lead the blind, both shall fall in the ditch.' Look well to your footsteps, O Princess."

"Is that legal advice?"

"Oh, that reminds me! You don't chance to have any documentary proof of your birth, do you?"

"With me? Gracious, no! People don't travel with the family Bible, do they?"

"They ought to, in melodrama. And this is certainly some ten-twenty-thirty show! Wise people occasionally have passports."

"Nobody ever accused me of wisdom. Besides, I left in a hurry."

"To escape the false prince. More fairy-tale."

"But I _am_ twenty-one and I've got the very watch that papa gave me on my birthday."

"Let me see it."

She drew out a beautiful little diamond-studded chronometer of foreign and very expensive make.

"Most inappropriate for a child of your age," commented the other severely. "Ha! Here we are. Fairy Godfather--that's me--to the rescue." He read from the inner case of the watch. "'To my darling Cecily on her 21st birthday, from Father.' Not strictly legal, but good enough," he observed. "We shall now go forth and kill the dragon. That is to say, tell the captain the time of day."

"What fun! But--Judge Enderby."

"Well?"

"Don't tell Mr.--your other client, will you?"

"Why not?"

"I don't want him to know."

"But, you see, my duty to him as his legal adviser certainly demands that--"

"You're _my_ legal adviser, too. Isn't my five dollars as good as his? Particularly when it really is his five dollars?"

"Allowed."

"Well, then, my age is a confidential communication and--what do you call it?--privileged."

"Oh, wise young judge! But, fair Portia, don't let me perish of curiosity. Why?"

"My revenge isn't complete yet."

"Look out for the inner edge of that tool," he warned.

With the timepiece in his hand, Judge Enderby bearded the autocrat of the Clan Macgregor on his own deck to such good purpose that Miss Cecily Wayne presently learned of the end of her troubles so far as prospective incarceration went. The knowledge, preserved intact for her own uses, put in her hand a dire weapon for the discomfiture of the Tyro.

Thereafter the ship's company was treated to the shameful spectacle of a young man hunted, harried, and beset by a Diana of the decks; chevied out of comfortable chairs, flushed from odd nooks and corners, baited openly in saloon and reading-room, trailed as with the wile of the serpent along devious passageways and through crowded assemblages, hare to her hound, up and down, high and low, until he became a byword among his companions for the stricken eye of eternal watchfulness. Sometimes the persecutress stalked him, unarmed; anon she threatened with a five-dollar bill. Now she trailed in a deadly silence; again, when there were few to hear, she bayed softly upon the spoor, and ever in her eyes gleamed the wild light and wild laughter of the chase.

Once she penned him. He had ensconced himself in a corner behind one of the lifeboats, where, with uncanny instinct, she spied him. Before he could escape, she had shut off egress.

"How do you do?" she said demurely.

He took off his cap, but with a sidelong eye seemed to be measuring the jump to the deck below.

"You've forgotten me, I'm afraid. I'm Little Miss Grouch. Would this help you to remember?"

She extended a five-dollar bill. He took it with the expression of one to whom a nice, shiny blade has just been handed for purposes of hara-kiri.

"I have missed you," she pursued with diabolical plaintiveness. "Our child--our adopted child," she corrected, the pink running up under her skin, "has been crying for you."

"Go away!" said the Tyro hoarsely.

"Are these the manners of a Perfect Pig?" she reproached him. And with adorable sauciness she warbled a nursery ditty:--

"Lady once loved a pig.
'Honey,' said she,
'Pig, will you marry me?'
'Wrrumph!' said he.

"I can't grunt very nicely," she admitted. "_You_ do it."

"Go away," he implored, gazing from side to side like a trapped animal. "Somebody'll see you. They'll lock you up."

"Me? Why?" Her eyes opened wide in the loveliness of feigned surprise. "Much more likely you. I doubt whether you really should be at large. Such a queer-acting person!"

"I--I'll write and explain," he said desperately.

"If you do, I'll show the letter to the captain."

He regarded her with a stricken gaze. "Wh--why the captain?"

"Being a helpless and unchaperoned young lady," she explained primly, "he is my natural guardian and protector. I think I see him coming now."

Legend is enriched by the picturesque fates of those who have historically affronted Heaven with prevarications no more flagrant than this. But did punishment, then, descend upon the fair, false, and frail perpetrator of this particular taradiddle? Not at all. The Tyro was the sole sufferer. Had the word been a bullet he could scarcely have dropped more swiftly. When next he appeared to the enraptured gaze of the heckler, he was emerging, _ventre a terre_, from beneath the far end of the life-boat.

"I'll be in my deck-chair between eight and nine to receive explanations and apologies," was her Parthian shot, as he rose and fled.

At the time named, the Tyro took particularly good care to be at the extreme other side of the deck, where he maintained a wary lookout. Not twice should the huntress catch him napping. But he reckoned without her emissaries. Lord Guenn presently sauntered up, paused, and surveyed the quarry with a twinkling eye.

"I'm commanded to bring you in, dead or alive," he said.

"It will be dead, then," said the Tyro.

"What's the little game? Some of your American rag-josh, I believe you call it?"

"Something of that nature," admitted the other.

"This will be a blow to Cissy," observed his lordship. "She's used to having 'em come to heel at the first whistle. I say, Mr. Daddleskink--"

"My name's not Daddleskink," the Tyro informed him morosely.

"I beg your pardon if I mispronounced it. How--"

"Smith," said the proprietor of that popular cognomen.

"I say," cried the Briton in vast surprise, "that's worse than our pronouncing 'Castelreagh' 'Derby' for short!"

"S-m-i-t-h, Smith. The other was a joke and a very bum one! Alexander Forsyth Smith from now on."

"Hullo! What price the Forsyth?" Lord Guenn regarded him with increased interest. "Did Miss Wayne say something about your having an interest in her house on the Battery?"

"My house," corrected the other. "Yes, I've got an old option, depending on a ground-lease, that's come down in the family."

"What family?"

"The Forsyths. My grandmother was born in that house."

"Then our portrait of the Yank--of the American who looks like you at Guenn Oaks is your great-grandfather."

"I suppose so."

"Well met!" said Lord Guenn. "There are some sketches of the Forsyth place as it used to be at Guenn Oaks that would interest you. My ancestor was a bit of a dab with his brush."

"Indeed they'd interest me," returned the Tyro, "if they show the old boundary-lines. My claim on which I hope to buy in the property rests on the original lot, and that's in question now. There are some other people trying to hold me off--But that's another matter," he concluded hastily, as he recalled who his rival was.

"Quite the same matter. It's Cecily Wayne, isn't it?"

"Her father, I suppose. And as far as any evidence in your possession goes, of course I couldn't expect--considering that Miss Wayne's interests are involved--"

"Why on earth not, my dear fellow?"

"Well, I suppose--that is--I thought perhaps you--" floundered the Tyro, reddening.

Lord Guenn laughed outright. "You thought I was in the universal hunt? No, indeed! You see, I married Cecily's cousin. As for the house, I'm with you. I believe in keeping those things in the family. I say, where are you going when we land?"

"London, I suppose."

"Why not run up to Guenn Oaks for a week and see your great-grandad? Lady Guenn would be delighted. Cissy will be there, I shouldn't wonder."

"That's mighty good of you," said the Tyro. A sudden thought amused him. "Won't your ancestors turn over in their graves at having a haberdasher at Guenn Oaks?"

"They would rise up to welcome any of the blood of Spencer Forsyth," said the Briton seriously. "But what a people you are!" he continued. "Now an English haberdasher may be a very admirable person, but--"

"Hold on a moment. I'm not really a haberdasher. While I was in college I invented an easy-slipping tie. A friend patented it and I still draw an income from it. It's just another of the tangle of mistakes I've gotten into. As people have got the other notion, I don't care to correct it."

"That rotter, Sperry," said Lord Guenn with a grin--"I was glad to see you bowl him over. He's just a bit too impressed with his money. Fished all over the shop for an invitation to Guenn Oaks, and when he couldn't get it, wanted to buy the place. Bounder! Then you'll come?"

"Yes. I'll be delighted to."

"Jove! I'm forgetting my mission. Are you going to obey the imperial summons?"

"Can't possibly," said the Tyro, "I'm very ill. Tell her, will you?"

Lord Guenn nodded. "Perhaps one of you will condescend to let me in presently on all these plots and counterplots," he remarked as he walked away.

Left to himself the Tyro floated away on cloudy imaginings of gold and rose-color. A week--a whole week--with Little Miss Grouch; a week of freedom on good, solid land, beyond the tyranny of captains, the espionage of self-appointed chaperons, and the interference of countless surrounding ninnies; a week on every day of which he could watch the play of light and color in the face which had not been absent from his thoughts one minute since--

_Thump!_ It was as if a huge fist had thrust up out of the ocean's depths and jolted the Clan Macgregor in the ribs. Several minor impacts jarred beneath his feet. Then the engines stopped, and the great hulk began to swing slowly to starboard in the still water.

Excited talk broke out. Questions to which nobody made reply filled the air. An officer hurried past.

"No. No damage done," he cried back mechanically over his shoulder.

Presently the engine resumed work. The rhythm appeared to the Tyro to drag. Dr. Alderson came along.

"Nothing at all," he said with the _sang-froid_ of the experienced traveler. "Some little hitch in the machinery."

"Do you notice that there's a slant to the deck?" asked the Tyro in a low voice.

"Yes. Keep it to yourself. Most people won't notice it." And he walked on, stopping to chat with an acquaintance here and there, and doing his unofficial part to diffuse confidence.

One idea seized and possessed the Tyro. If that gently tilted deck meant danger, his place was on the farther side of the ship. Quite casually, to avoid any suggestion of haste, he wandered around.

Little Miss Grouch was sitting in her chair, alone and quiet. As the Tyro slipped, soft-footed, into the shelter of a shadow, he saw her stretch her hand out to a box of candy. She selected a round sweet, and dropped it on the deck. It rolled slowly into the scuppers. Again she tried the experiment, with the same result. She started to get up, changed her mind and settled back to wait.

The Tyro, leaning against the cabin, also waited. With no apparent cause--for he was sure he had made no noise--she turned her head and looked into the sheltering shadow. She smiled, a very small but very contented smile.

An officer came along the deck.

"The port screw," he paused to tell the waiting girl, "struck a bit of wreckage and broke a blade. Absolutely no danger. We will be delayed a little getting to port, that's all. I am glad you had the nerve to sit quiet," he added.

"I didn't know what else to do," she said.

She rose and gathered her belongings to her. Going to the entrance she passed so near that he could have touched her. Yet she gave no sign of knowledge that he was there; he was ready to believe that he had been mistaken in thinking that her regard had penetrated his retreat. In the doorway she turned.

"Good-night," she said, in a voice that thrilled in his pulses. "And--thank you." _

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