"I have a singularly hard head," said he, and forthwith felt of the back of it.
"Will you please stand ready to receive boarders? My maid is following me, poor thing, and I can't afford to have her smashed to pieces. Here she is!"
Quite a pretty maid, with wide, horrified eyes and a pale green complexion came hustling around the corner. R. Schmidt, albeit a prince, received her with open arms.
"Merci, M'sieur!" she squealed and added something in muffled French that strangely reminded him of what Hobbs had said in English. Then she deposited an armful of rugs and magazines at Robin's feet, and clutched wildly at a post actually some ten feet away but which appeared to be coming toward her with obliging swiftness, so nicely was the deck rotating for her. "Mon dieu! Mon dieu!"
"You may go back to bed, Marie," cried her mistress in some haste.
"But ze rug, I feex it—" groaned the unhappy maid, and then once more: "Merci, M'sieur!" She clung to the arm he extended, and tried bravely to smile her thanks.
"Here! Go in through this door," he said, bracing the door open with his elbow. "You'll be all right in a little while. Keep your nerve." He closed the door after her and turned to the amused Miss Guile. "Well, it's an ill wind that blows no good," he said enigmatically, and she flushed under the steady smile in his eyes. "Allow me to arrange your rug for you. Miss Guile."
"Thank you, no. I think I would better go inside. It is really too windy—"
"The wind can't get at you back here in this cubbyhole," he protested. "Do sit down. I'll have you as snug as a bug in a rug before you can say Jack Robinson. See! Now stick 'em out and I'll wrap it around them. There! You're as neatly done up as a mummy and a good deal better off, because you are a long way short of being two thousand years old."
"How is your head, Mr. Schmidt?" she inquired with grave concern. "You seem to be quite crazy. I hope—"