As I reach this awful climax, I open my eyes very wide, and sink my voice to a tragic depth.
"The moral is—" says Sir Roger, stopping beside me, laying his hand on my chair back, and regarding me with a mixture of pain and diversion in his eyes, "stick to steam!"
CHAPTER XIX.
A heavy foot along the passage, a hand upon the door, a hatted head looking in.
"Roger," says father, in that laboriously amiable voice in which he always addresses his son-in-law, "sorry to interrupt you, but could you come here for a minute—will not keep you long."
"All right!" cries Sir Roger, promptly.
(How can he speak in that flippantly cheerful voice, with the prospect of seventeen days' sea before him?)
"Now, where did I put my hat, Nancy? did you happen to notice?"