Nealie and Don sang duets, to which Rupert played accompaniments on the banjo, while Ducky and Billykins led the applause, and Sylvia posed as audience, aping the languid, bored look of a fine lady at a concert with such inimitable mimicry that she came in for nearly as much applause as the proper performers from such of the other passengers as gathered round to hear.
Then Rumple would do his share towards entertaining the company by declaiming his own poetry, and he was so funny to look at when he stood on one foot, with his face screwed into puckers, and his arms waving wildly above his head, that his performance used to evoke shouts of laughter.
"I can't think what makes the silly goats guffaw at such a rate when I recite my 'Ode to a Dying Sparrow'," he said in a petulant tone to Nealie, one day when his audience had been more than usually convulsed. "It must be shocking bad form to double up in public as they did; a photograph of them would have served as an up-to-date advertisement of the latest thing in gramaphones, and when I came to that touching line, about the poor bird sighing out its last feeble chirp ere it closed its eyes and died, those two very fat women simply howled."
"Dear, they could not help it, you did look so funny, and—I don't think that dying birds sigh, at least I never heard them, and I have seen quite a lot of Mrs. Puffin's chickens die," replied Nealie, who was struggling with her own laughter at the remembrance of the comic attitude which Rumple had struck. He was a queer-looking boy at the best, and then he always went in for the most extraordinary gestures, so it was not wonderful that people found food for mirth in watching him.
"I shall not go in for pathetic poetry with an audience who cannot appreciate fine shades of feeling," he said in a disgusted fashion. "I will just get away by myself and throw a few thoughts together which may prove suitable to their intelligence."
"That would be a good idea," said Nealie in a rather choky voice, and then, when he had gone, she put her head down on her hands, laughing and laughing, until someone touched her shoulder, to ask her in kindly pity what she was crying for.
That was really the last straw, and Nealie gurgled and choked as if she were going to have a very bad fit of hysterics, which made the sympathizer—a kind-looking elderly man—still more concerned on her account.
"My dear, shall I call the stewardess, or one of your friends, to help you?" he asked, with so much anxiety on her account that Nealie was instantly sobered, and proceeded to explain the situation.
"You see, Rumple, that is my brother, always does take himself and his poetry so seriously; but the worst of it is that everyone who hears him recite his own things fancies it is the latest idea in comedy, and they laugh accordingly."
"And I have been watching you for the last five minutes, until I could no longer bear to see you, as I thought, in such trouble, and that was why I spoke to you," the gentleman said, scarcely able to make up his mind whether he was vexed with her for having so innocently deceived him, or whether he was only relieved to find himself mistaken.