Another passenger, also English, but gray-haired and elderly, came tacking down the deck, bound somewhere or other. His was a zig-zag transit. He dove for the rail, caught it, steadied himself, took a fresh start, swooped to the row of chairs by the deck house, carromed from them, and, in company with a barrel or two of flying brine, came head first into my lap. I expected profanity and temper. I did get a little of the former.
“This damned French boat!” he observed, rising with difficulty. “She absolutely WON'T be still.”
“The sea is pretty rough.”
“Oh, the sea is all right. A bit damp, that's all. It's the blessed boat. Foreigners are such wretched sailors.”
He was off on another tack. Hephzy watched him wonderingly.
“A bit damp,” she repeated. “Yes, I shouldn't wonder if 'twas. I suppose likely he wouldn't call it wet if he fell overboard.”
“Not on this side of the Channel,” I answered. “This side is English water, therefore it is all right.”
A few minutes later Hephzy spoke again.
“Look at those poor women,” she said.
Opposite us were two English ladies, middle-aged, wretchedly ill and so wet that the feathers on their hats hung down in strings.