It was only fun to run up on deck again. Of course I tumbled from one side to the other and laughed and laughed, enjoying it hugely.
When I was down-stairs again, the stewardess must have thought that I flew around too much and was in the way, for she pushed me suddenly into a stateroom. There sat the woman with the covered basket.
"Isn't there any one that will help me?" the complaining voice kept on in the stateroom opposite us.
"Can you imagine why such folks travel?" said the woman, jerking her head in the direction the voice came from, "when they have their good home, and their good bed and everything to suit them—why should they rove around from pillar to post?"
"Oh, I have been on a little trip off to Grimstad, to my sister's, for three weeks; I didn't think I should stay longer than a week at the most, so I didn't take more than one change with me, and you must excuse me if I look rather untidy."
No, I assured her, she didn't look in the least untidy. But she was awfully funny, I can tell you. She told me the whole story of her life. Her husband was a skipper; twice she had been with him to the Black Sea, "and once across the equator as far as a place they call Buenos Ayres, and it was so elegant, my dear, with riding policemen in the streets."
And the whole time we were talking she chewed and munched. For there had been some one in Grimstad named Gonnersen, who was so polite that he had bought a whole basket of cakes for her on the journey. "Will you condescend to help yourself to a cake?" she said suddenly.
"Gonnersen was so polite"—was the last I heard as she crossed the gangway at Fredriksvern. That was where she lived. Then she stood on the wharf and waved to me, still eating.
Now there was only Larvik and Vallö before we got to Horten; there I was to meet Mina;—hurrah, hurrah, how glad I was!