A Fool There Was

by Porter Emerson Browne

"Say nothing to them about all this, Tom," he urged.

"Certainly not," acquiesced Blake.

A steward came down the deck, calling raucously:

"All ashore that's going ashore!"

Kathryn turned to Schuyler.

"And now that the time has really come to say good-bye," she said, brokenly, "here's something I brought you, Jack."

She handed him a little box of glazed cardboard. Wonderingly he took it.

"For me?" he cried, with simulated gaiety. "That's sweet of you, dear heart—sweeter, even than are these." For he had opened it, and taken forth the tiny bouquet of forget-me-nots that had nestled in the depths of the moist cotton, "and these are sweetness itself. But why forget-me- nots! As though I could ever forget you, even for one little minute!"

There came again the strident call:

"All ashore that's going ashor-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-e!!!"
Violet eyes suffused, Kathryn was clinging to him.