"I should die down there!" moaned the poor creature.
"Then sit over there by the paddle-box, where you have some shelter. You have here the worst place on the whole deck."
"O you good man!" said the governess. "It is indeed an eternal truth that there are good men in every clime."
I had to bite my lips.
"Can I assist you?" I said. "If you do not mind my working-dress----"
"'Among monsters the only feeling breast,'" murmured the governess, hanging on my arm.
"Where are you going, dear Duff?" cried a joyous voice behind us, and Hermine, who had sprung from her seat, came running up, apparently to help her friend, but if this was her intention, she could not carry it out for laughing. She clapped her hands and laughed until her white teeth glittered between her red lips. "Pluto and Proserpine!" she cried. "Düffchen, Düffchen, I always said they would carry you off from me some day!"
And she danced about the wet deck in wild glee, just as she had danced with her little spaniel about the deck of the Penguin eight years before.
"Are you ever coming to me, you fellow?" cried the commerzienrath, who, squeezed into a corner, had watched my attentions to the governess with very ill-pleased looks.
"There are two ladies here yet," I said.