"Where is Miss Blanche?" asked Mrs. Belgrave.
"She is keeping the lookout with Louis," replied the captain with a significant smile. "The steward will call her."
"I will call her myself," replied the lady as she went forward, where she found Blanche looking through a spy-glass at the shores of Greece under the direction of Louis, who held the end of the glass. "Come to dinner with the starboard watch, Miss Blanche."
"I don't want any dinner yet, Mrs. Belgrave, for I wish to find the hut of the hermit of whom Captain Ringgold told us this morning."
"You will not find it here, for the hermit lived on Cape Malea," said the lady with a merry laugh. "Besides, they don't keep a restaurant on board the Maud, and have 'meals at all hours.'"
"But the port watch must have meals at all hours; and I have already accepted an invitation to dine with Mr. Woolridge, the distinguished first officer of the Maud, and the equally distinguished deck-hand without any handle to his name whom you call Louis, and I call Mr. Belgrave."
The young lady had her own way, and dined with the port watch to the great satisfaction of the young millionaire deck-hand. The dinner was late on account of the extra preparations made for the guests, and did not conform to the usual hours. The dinner was very creditable to the skill of Pitts; and Miss Blanche enjoyed it quite as much as Louis, though it was doubtless a very tame affair to Morris, who was not elevated to the seventh heaven by the circumstances.
The Maud sped on her course, and was in the middle of the gulf with the Greek name when the port watch finished the dinner, and Louis returned to his post on the forecastle; but the young lady seemed to prefer this part of the deck, and accompanied him. The captain and Felix returned to the standing-room when they were relieved, for they had served out of course on account of the lateness of the dinner hour.
"I suppose you begin to feel at home here, Flix," said the captain as they seated themselves opposite Mrs. Belgrave. "I believe you have always claimed to be a Greek, though you were born in America."
"Is it a Grake? Upon me worrud I am a Grake from Kilkenny," replied Felix; Mrs. Belgrave, who had known him from his childhood, always laughed when he spoke the Milesian dialect, and he used half a dozen different ones.