To the old mother
Sing your ditty!”)
He rhymed sonnets to Miss Rowrer, and trotted out his erudition, working up his Baedeker in his cabin, and astonishing every one by his qualifications as a cicerone.
“M. Caracal would make an ideal courier,” thought grandma.
Caracal, out of the tail of his eye, glanced at the books on the salon table. “The House of Glass,” which had just appeared before their departure, lay, uncut, under a pile of magazines. Caracal was a little annoyed; but, with an author’s pride, he hesitated to call Miss Rowrer’s attention again to his own novel.
“A wireless for Miss Rowrer.” The captain’s boy approached, with his cap off and a paper in his hand.
“Where does it come from?” Ethel asked.
“From a ship off there.”
Ethel instinctively lifted her eyes to the mast, which seemed to be throwing out its feelers into space. Then she opened the paper and read:
Captain Far East en route New York wishes good journey to Captain Columbia. R. K. Rowrer’s orders to put himself at disposition of yacht. Bad news from Morgania—land excursions dangerous. Any message for New York.