goes the whistle!"

It is an awful quarter of an hour, that quarter of an hour before the liner sails; that worrying, waving, whooping, whistling quarter of an hour through which you stand on deck like a human centre-piece loaded with candy, fruit, and flowers, surrounded by a phantasmagoria of friendly faces, talking like a dancing-man and feeling like a dancing dervish. Small wonder that the deafening whistle-blast and cry of "All ashore!" smite sweetly on your ears. Small wonder that you hand a dollar to your sister and kiss the porter who has brought your steamer-rugs.

Ah, blessed moment when the dock begins to move away with all those laughing, crying, waving, shouting people; when snub-nosed tugs begin to warp the ship into the stream; when the final howlings of the megaphonomaniacs sound dim. ("Bon voyage, Charlie!" "Take care of yourself, old man! Think of me in gay Par-ree!")

SMALL WONDER THAT YOU HAND A DOLLAR TO YOUR SISTER AND KISS THE PORTER.

You lean, in a dazed way, upon the rail, turning on maudlin grins and waving your cap at no one in particular, until the crowd becomes a moving blur upon the dock-end. The liner's nose points down the river; gentle vibrations tell you she is under way; small craft dip flags and toot as they go by; the man-made mountain of Manhattan's office buildings drops astern; the statue of Liberty, the shores of Staten Island, the flat back of Sandy Hook run past as though wound on rollers; the pilot goes over the side with a bag of farewell letters; the white yacht which has followed down the bay blows a parting blast, dips her ensign, and swings in a wide circle toward New York; the pursuing tug comes up and puts a tardy passenger aboard. Then, suddenly, like a sleep-walking dragon that wakes up, the liner shakes herself; her propellers lash the sea to suds; a wedge-shaped wake spreads out behind her, and the voyage is on in earnest.

Reno, Roosevelt, Trusts, Wall Street, High Buildings, High Tariff, High Cost of Living, Graft, Yellow Journals, Family Hotels, the Six Best Sellers, the Sixty Worst Writers, the Four Hundred, the Hundred Million, all the things which go to make home sweet, lie astern, enveloped in the haze at the horizon. You are on the sea at last!—the vast and tireless sea which has been the inspiration of painter, poet, and pirate; the cradle of Columbus, Nelson, Paul Jones, Dewey, Hobson, and Annette Kellerman!

What is there like the sea? What is there like the free swing of a gallant ship breasting the Atlantic? Nothing! Let's sit down. No, I don't want to go and get my coat. I'm not so terribly cold yet, and my state-room smells of rubber and fresh paint. I like it better up here in the air, don't you? I'm very fond of the fresh air. I really adore it. No, it doesn't always give me a good colour. Not always. If I'm pale it is only because I sat up late last night at that farewell dinner. Perhaps I ate too much. Let's just stay here quietly in our deckchairs and watch the people.

But, goodness! How they've changed! Where are all those pretty, fashionable women who were on deck before we sailed? Where, for instance, is the adorable blonde with the seal coat, orchids, low shoes, silk stockings, and cough?

A certain cynical friend of mine would answer this inquiry by declaring that all the attractive women go ashore, having only come to see their homely relatives and friends depart. But I don't think so. I believe the pretty ones are here, though in seclusion or disguise.

Nothing of them that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change

at the first touch of Neptune's hand. Only the professional mermaid can look well at sea. The other women either lie on deck in pale green rows and live throughout the voyage on sea biscuits and sherry, or, giving up completely, seek burrows in the ship and hibernate like animals awaiting spring. Yes, even now I think I recognise the blonde divinity. She's the third one from the end in that row of steamer-chairs in the wide part of the deck. Her orchids lie disconsolate upon her chest, her eyes are closed, her hair blows in straight, strawlike strings across her colourless face, her hat is on one ear, and she is wrapped like a mummy in an atrocious rug of pink and olive plaid.

I RECOGNIZE THE BLONDE DIVINITY. HER EYES ARE CLOSED, HER HAT ON ONE EAR, AND SHE IS WRAPPED LIKE A MUMMY.

Of course there's always the exception: the rosy-cheeked, plaid-coated creature who walks the deck without a hat, and lets the ringlets blow about her face. Her hair curls with the dampness. Her colour heightens with the seas and winds. You might suspect her of a golden scaly tail and fins, excepting that you see her tiny, well-shod feet as they step out firmly on the deck. They never step alone. There are lots of other feet, and larger, that delight in stepping with them. The very wind that loves her wafts her friends—wafts them with tobacco-smoke, as like as not:

"I beg your pardon, does this smoke trouble you?"

"Thanks awfully. Perhaps you'd like to walk around to the other side and see the lightship?"

"Oh, thanks!" She thanks him for the lightship as if it were a bunch of roses.

And so they walk, and walk, and walk, and walk—she near the rail, he careering on beside her, hurdling over the foot-rests of the rows of steamer-chairs, and tripping now and then upon the feet extending from them. And sometimes she sits down and shows him magazines which he has seen before, and he leans over very far, and points to things, and she points, too, and his hand touches hers, and he begs pardon, and she excuses him, of course, and laughs—and little locks of hair have touched his cheek. And then they walk again, and then she feeds him chocolates (sent by some poor chap who had to stay behind) with her own rosy finger-tips, and then another light looms up ahead, all golden, and then—How short the voyage has seemed!

Ah, feet that twinkle, cheeks that hold your roses when the world is tottering and green! Ah, youth! Ah, blowing curls! Ah, Delta Kappa Epsilon! Ah, Alpha and Omega! Ah, snapshots, shuffleboard, and sea! Ah, confidences beside a life-boat on the upper deck!... "And I was taken with you from the second that I saw you!"

"And I with you——!"

"Were you—honestly——?"

"Yes, dear——!"

"Dearest——!"

Of course we didn't overhear them; it was the third life-boat on the port side of the ship that overheard, as it has overheard so many other times on other voyages.

As for ourselves, we were not even up there, but were sitting in the lounge, trying, as I recollect, to match passengers