There was the young woman—­she had elocutionary talents, it turned out afterward, and had graduated with honors from a school of expression—­who assisted in getting up the ship’s concert and then took part in it, both of those acts being mistakes on her part, as it proved.

And there was the official he-beauty of the ship.  He was without a wrinkle in his clothes—­or his mind either; and he managed to maneuver so that when he sat in the smoking room he always faced a mirror.  That was company enough for him.  He never grew lonely or bored then.  Only one night he discovered something wrong about one of his eyebrows.  He gave a pained start; and then, oblivious of those of us who hovered about enjoying the spectacle, he spent a long time working with the blemish.  The eyebrow was stubborn, though, and he just couldn’t make it behave; so he grew petulant and fretful, and finally went away to bed in a huff.  Had it not been for fear of stopping his watch, I am sure he would have slapped himself on the wrist.

This fair youth was one of the delights of the voyage.  One felt that if he had merely a pair of tweezers and a mustache comb and a hand glass he would never, never be at a loss for a solution of the problem that worries so many writers for the farm journals—­a way to spend the long winter evenings pleasantly.

Chapter II

My Bonny Lies over the Ocean—­Lies and Lies and Lies

Of course, we had a bridal couple and a troupe of professional deep-sea fishermen aboard.  We just naturally had to have them.  Without them, I doubt whether the ship could have sailed.  The bridal couple were from somewhere in the central part of Ohio and they were taking their honeymoon tour; but, if I were a bridal couple from the central part of Ohio and had never been to sea before, as was the case in this particular instance, I should take my honeymoon ashore and keep it there.  I most certainly should!  This couple of ours came aboard billing and cooing to beat the lovebirds.  They made it plain to all that they had just been married and were proud of it.  Their baggage was brand-new, and the groom’s shoes were shiny with that pristine shininess which, once destroyed, can never be restored; and the bride wore her going-and-giving-away outfit.

Just prior to sailing and on the morning after they were all over the ship.  Everywhere you went you seemed to meet them and they were always wrestling.  You entered a quiet side passage—­there they were, exchanging a kiss—­one of the long-drawn, deep-siphoned, sirupy kind.  You stepped into the writing room thinking to find it deserted, and at sight of you they broke grips and sprang apart, eyeing you like a pair of startled fawns surprised by the cruel huntsman in a forest glade.  At all other times, though, they had eyes but for each other.

A day came, however—­and it was the second day out—­when they were among the missing.  For two days and two nights, while the good ship floundered on the tempestuous bosom of the overwrought ocean, they were gone from human ken.  On the afternoon of the third day, the sea being calmer now, but still sufficiently rough to satisfy the most exacting, a few hardy and convalescent souls sat in a shawl-wrapped row on the lee side of the ship.