“How is it this don’t get you, too?” says I.

“I’ve always been a good sailor,” says Vee.  “And, anyway, a storm is too thrilling to waste the time being seasick.  I always want to stay up around, too, and repeat that little verse of Kipling’s.  You know—­

  ’When the cabin portholes are dark and green,
    Because of the seas outside,
  When the ship goes wop with a wiggle between,
  And the cook falls into the soup tureen,
    And the trunks begin to slide—­’

Doesn’t that just describe it, though—­that ’wop with a wiggle between’?”

“As good as a thousand feet of film,” says I.  “Kip must have had some of this fun himself.  Here comes a wop for us.  There!  Great, eh?”

I hope I made it convincin’; but, as a matter of fact, I had to force the enthusiasm a bit.

Not that I was scared, exactly:  but now and then, when the Agnes sidled downhill and buried the whole front end of her in a wave that looked like a side elevation of the Flatiron Building, I’d have a panicky thought as to whether some time she wouldn’t forget to come up again.

She never did, though.  No matter how hard she was soused under, she’d shake it off with a shiver and go on climbin’ up again patient.  There was several vacant chairs at the dinner-table, and when I finally crawled into my bunk about 9:30 I had to brace myself to keep from bein’ slopped out on the floor.

I was wonderin’ whether I’d be too sick to answer the shipwreck call when it came, and I tried to figure out how I’d feel bouncin’ around on them skyscraper waves draped in thin pajamas and a life belt, until I must have dropped off to sleep.

And, take it from me, when I woke up and saw the good old sunshine streamin’ in through the porthole, and discovered that I was still alive and had an appetite for breakfast, I was as thankful a private sec. as ever tore open a pay envelope.

By the time I got dressed and found that the Agnes was doin’ only the gentle wallow act, with the wop and wiggle left out, I begun to get chesty.  I decides that I’m some grand little sailor myself, and I looks around for a willin’ ear that I can whisper the news into.

The only person on deck, though, is Captain Rupert Killam, who’s pacin’ up and down, lookin’ mysterious, as usual.

“Well, Cap,” says I.  “Looked like it was goin’ to be a little rough for a spell there last night, eh?”

“Rough?” says he.  “Oh, we did have a little bobble off Hatteras—­just a bobble.”

“Huh!” says I.  “I don’t expect you’d admit anything’s happenin’ until a boat begins to turn flip-flops.  Do you know, Rupert, there’s times when you make me sad in the spine.  Honest, now, you didn’t invent the ocean, did you?”

But Rupert just stares haughty and walks off.

I’ve been afraid all along he didn’t appreciate me; in fact, ever since he first showed up at the Corrugated, and I kidded him about his buried treasure tale, he’s looked on me with a cold and suspicious eye.