The doc left his invalid hanging on the edge of the grave, and stopped and stared.  Old Mrs. Bounderby h’isted the gold-mounted double spyglass she had slung round her neck and took an observation.  Her daughter “Maizie” fetched a long breath and shut her eyes, like she’d seen her finish and was resigned to it.

“Well, Mr. Jones,” says I, soon’s I could get my breath, “this is kind of unexpected, ain’t it?  Thought you was booked for the main deck.”

“Yes, sir,” he says, polite as a sewing-machine agent, “I was, but Percy and I have exchanged.  Cereal this morning, madam?”

Mrs. Bounderby took her measure of shavings and Jones’s measure at the same time.  She had him labeled “Danger” right off; you could tell that by the way she spread her wings over “Maizie.”  But I wa’n’t watching her just then.  I was looking at Mabel Seabury—­ looking and wondering.

The housekeeper was white as the tablecloth.  She stared at the Jones man as if she couldn’t believe her eyes, and her breath come short and quick.  I thought sure she was going to cry.  And what she ate of that meal wouldn’t have made a lunch for a hearty humming-bird.

When ’twas finished I went out on the porch to think things over.  The dining room winder was open and Jonesy was clearing the table.  All of a sudden I heard him say, low and earnest: 

“Well, aren’t you going to speak to me?”

The answer was in a girl’s voice, and I knew the voice.  It said: 

“You!  You!  How could you?  Why did you come?”

“You didn’t think I could stay away, did you?”

“But how did you know I was here?  I tried so hard to keep it a secret.”

“It took me a month, but I worked it out finally.  Aren’t you glad to see me?”

She burst out crying then, quiet, but as if her heart was broke.

“Oh!” she sobs.  “How could you be so cruel!  And they’ve been so kind to me here.”

I went away then, thinking harder than ever.  At dinner Jonesy done the waiting, but Mabel wa’n’t on deck.  She had a headache, the cook said, and was lying down.  ’Twas the same way at supper, and after supper Peter Brown comes to me, all broke up, and says he: 

“There’s merry clink to pay,” he says.  “Mabel’s going to leave.”

“No?” says I.  “She ain’t neither!”

“Yes, she is.  She says she’s going to-morrer.  She won’t tell me why, and I’ve argued with her for two hours.  She’s going to quit, and I’d rather enough sight quit myself.  What’ll we do?” says he.

I couldn’t help him none, and he went away, moping and miserable.  All round the place everybody was talking about the “lovely” new waiter, and to hear the girls go on you’d think the Prince of Wales had landed.  Jonadab was the only kicker, and he said ’twas bad enough afore, but now that new dude had shipped, ’twa’n’t the place for a decent, self-respecting man.