Close at hand was the captain's table, where, as the doctor remarked, "Emperors and pontiffs" might be found. There were no emperors aboard this time; the nearest approach to a pontiff was an English bishop, who, with his wife, was touring Australia. He was a pink and pleasant person, who rather gave the impression that he was curate to his wife—a very tall woman, stout, dignified and extremely English. Dick rejoiced inwardly that he did not sit near this dignitary. He went as far as to feel sympathy for the captain himself, who made heavy weather in his efforts to entertain her, and used to look slightly exhausted towards the close of a meal. A famous singer—a tall, handsome woman—was also at his table; and a noted actor, whom the bishop's wife snubbed whenever possible. There was a chief justice from an eastern state, he had a keen, clever face, at which Dick liked to look when he spoke. The other people included a ship's captain going to take command of a vessel at Fremantle; a member of Parliament and his wife, a Riverina squatter, a German wool buyer and one or two others less distinguished. Dick eyed them with awe, and was glad that he sat at another table.
Just as the soup appeared, a quiet-looking young man slipped into one of the vacant seats at the doctor's left; and presently a party of three arrived to complete the table—Dick's enormous cabin mate, with his wife and little girl. They sat down opposite, and immediately the little girl made a face at Dick.
Now, Dick did not know much of the ways of girls, little or big. He was thirteen, and at thirteen girls are the last things a boy worries about. Therefore, this pleasantry on the part of the new-comer merely puzzled him slightly. He wrinkled his nose a little and went on with his soup.
The doctor was greeting them boisterously.
"Good evening, Mrs. Warner. Had a good run round Adelaide?"
"Oh, delightful," said the lady vaguely. Her husband laughed.
"Much she knows of Adelaide," he said. "She's been to a tea-party at the club, and Merle and I have been running round like good tourists. Haven't we, Merle?"
The little girl muttered something that sounded like "Horrid place!" and again Mr. Warner laughed.
"Merle is in the stage of disliking everything outside her own boundary fence," he said, attacking his dinner. "I've shown her all the beauties of Eastern Australia, and she still says there's no place like the sandy west, so we'll go back for another ten years or so before coming this side again." His eye fell on Dick, and he nodded in a friendly way. "Why, there's my cabin mate," he said. "I say, doctor, don't you think it's a trifle hard on a boy of that size to find he has drawn me in the lucky bag?"
"Distinctly," agreed the doctor, "but great luck for you." He made the Warners and Lesters known to each other, and the elders chatted through dinner. Merle, after another grimace at Dick, did not look his way again, for which he was mildly thankful. He decided that she was a cheeky kid, and thought no more about her—save that whenever he chanced to look across he saw the square little face, surrounded by a shock of dark hair and crowned with an enormous butterfly bow of black ribbon.