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Page 98
"I perfectly well knew you'd never die," exclaimed the flapper, and laid
glad hands upon him.
"Where do they eat?" asked Bean.
"How jolly! We'll eat together," rejoined the flapper. "The funniest
thing! They all kept up till half an hour ago. Then it got rougher and
rougher and now they're all three laid out. Poor Moms says it's the
smell of the rubber matting, and Granny says she had too many of those
perfectly whiffy old cigarettes, and Pops says he's plain seasick.
Serves 'em rippingly well right--_taggers!_"
She convoyed him to the dining-room, where he was welcomed by a waiter
who had sorrowfully thought not to come to his notice. He greedily
scanned the menu card, while the waiter, of his own initiative, placed
some trifles of German delicatessen before them.
"It is a lot rougher," said the flapper. "Isn't it too close for you in
here?" She was fixedly regarding on a plate before her a limp, pickled
fish with one glazed eye staring aloft.
"Never felt better in my life," declared Bean. "Don't care how this
little old steamer teeters now. Got my sea-legs."
"Me, too," said the flapper, but with a curious diminution of spirit.
She still hung on the hypnotic eye of the pickled fish.
"Ham and cabbage!" said Bean proudly to the waiter.
The flapper pushed her chair swiftly back.
"Forgot my handkerchief," said she.
"There it is," prompted Bean ineptly.
The flapper placed it to her lips and rose to her feet.
"'S perfe'ly old rubber mattin'," she uttered through the fabric, and
started toward the doorway. Bean observed that incoming diners anxiously
made way for her. He followed swiftly and overtook the flapper at her
door.
"Maybe if you'd try a little--" he began.
"Please go away," pleaded the flapper.
Bean returned to the ham and cabbage.
"Ought to go into the silence," he reflected. "'S all she needs. Fixed
me all right."
After his hearty luncheon he ventured on deck. It was undeniably
rougher, but he felt no fear. The breeze being cold, he went below for
his overcoat.
Watkins of Hartford--or Adams, as he persisted in calling
himself--reclined in his berth, his unlocked treasures carelessly
scattered about him.
"Hold fast to the all good," counselled Bean revengefully.
"Uh--hah!" said Watkins or Adams, not doing so.
Bean fled. Everybody was getting it. The little old steamer was becoming
nothing but a plague-ship.
"'As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he'," he muttered, wondering if
the words meant anything.
Then, in the fulness of his returned strength, he was appalled anew by
the completeness of his own tragedy. He had become once more
insignificant. Forever, now, he must be afraid of policemen and all
earthly powers. People in crowds would dent his hat and take his new
watches. He must never again carry anything but a dollar watch.
And the Breedes saw through him. He must have confessed everything back
at that table when he had felt so inscrutably buoyant. Once in Paris
they would have him arrested. They might even have him put in irons
before the ship landed.
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