“W’y wallopin’ the purser.”
“What’s he got against the purser?”
“Says he don’t like the color of his hair. But as the purser ain’t got no hair, it’s my private opinion the gentleman up there don’t like his fascinatin’ ways.” He looked significantly at the tall girl. Hildegarde bent down to tuck the tartan round Mrs. Blumpitty. Now, why on earth should the Arctic Cap care how the purser behaved to—other people?
CHAPTER XVIII
When Mrs. Blumpitty found herself being taken below that first evening, she revived sufficiently to protest, and so frustrated the giant’s amiable design of carrying her off to bed. The invalid stayed on deck day and night, and instead of dying as the captain and all the passengers confidently expected, she got well and “lived happy ever after” on that voyage upon Miss Mar’s supplies, sharing even the fresh eggs which the giant, by some means, acquired daily from the Nome-bound hens. Hildegarde was sorry she lacked courage to share Mrs. Blumpitty’s new quarters. But the “queerness” of sleeping out of your bed—in the public eye, too!—almost the immodesty of it (in the passenger mind), if unpalliated, as in Mrs. Blumpitty’s case, by threatened dissolution—no, it was too daunting. Since Mrs. Locke could “stand it” in the cabin, Hildegarde must. Even Mrs. Locke’s seamanship had gone down before the Roumelia’s roll, but she was getting better. She made fitful appearances on deck. But there was something odd about her. You never knew whether it was sea-sickness or distrust of her kind that would carry her suddenly below when a fellow-passenger stopped to speak to her.
Fresh from a raid upon the provision-box, Hildegarde coming on deck one evening, found Mrs. Locke in an hour of clearing weather between showers. There was even a strip of ruddy sunset to gladden the voyager’s heart.