“Yes,” agreed Sue, “it would. And now, please, will you take me upstairs?”
“That I will,” replied the coal-passer. “At least I’ll take you to the foot of the stairs that lead up to the berth deck, and you can find your way from there, or some of the stewards will show you. We stokers aren’t allowed to come up on deck until we get clean, and I haven’t time for that now. Come along with me, little girl.”
Sue followed, and went up several flights of steps behind the man, who watched that she did not fall, for some of the steps were of iron and slippery.
At last her guide stopped and told Sue to go straight ahead and toward a light which he pointed out, and then up another flight of stairs.
“You’ll be all right then,” said the stoker.
“Good-by, and thank you,” said Sue.
“Good-by!” echoed the man, with a laugh.
He disappeared down a dark stairway, merging into the blackness of which he seemed a part, and Sue, going up another flight of steps, found herself in a place she remembered as being not far from her mother’s stateroom. A deck steward, clean and neat in white trousers and a blue coat, saw the little girl and asked:
“Where have you been? Your mother and father have been looking for you.”
“I’ve been down cellar,” explained Sue simply. “But I like it upstairs much better.”