"Well, we've paid for half, anyhow," said Dick, practically. "And even if your father is big, he can't sleep in two bunks."
"I don't care—you're just a horrid little nuisance, getting into a gentleman's cabin," declared Merle, endeavouring to tilt a rather snub nose.
The speech was meant to crush—as Dick remarked, later, to his mother, it might have been employed in describing a cockroach; but it had the wrong effect on Dick. He broke into a shout of laughter.
"I say," he cried, "it's as good as a play to hear you talk. You weren't behind the door when they served out bad tempers, anyhow, were you?"
It was ordinary schoolboy repartee, but it reduced Merle to impotent fury. She glared at him, speechless, her face flushing from brow to chin; and just then a friendly, boisterous presence swung round the corner.
"Hullo, children." The doctor greeted them cheerily. "Out for an early walk, eh?" Something in their demeanour made him look more keenly. "Why, I believe you're quarrelling! Fie now, for shame."
"Not we!" declared Dick laughing.
"I am," Merle exploded. "He's just a beastly little boy."
She turned, wriggled from the hand the doctor dropped on her shoulder, and fled, leaving the two bewildered males staring after her.
"Now that's a firework in petticoats!" ejaculated the doctor. "What's annoyed her, Dick?"