“Can’t you signal a boat and let me get off on her?”
“Well, I suppose we could. It is a very unusual thing to do. But that would delay us for some time, and unless the business is of the utmost necessity, I would not feel justified in delaying the steamer, or in other words delaying several hundred passengers for the convenience of one. If you tell me what the trouble is I shall tell you at once whether I can promise to signal a boat if I get the opportunity of doing so.”
Morris thought for a moment. It would sound very absurd to the captain for him to say that there was a passenger on the ship whom he desired very much not to meet, and yet, after all, that was what made the thought of the voyage so distasteful to him.
He merely said, “Thank you,” and turned away, muttering to himself something in condemnation of his luck in general. As he walked slowly down the deck up which he had rushed with such headlong speed a few moments before, he noticed a lady trying to set together her steamer chair, which had seemingly given way—a habit of steamer chairs. She looked up appealing at Mr. Morris, but that gentleman was too preoccupied with his own situation to be gallant. As he passed her, the lady said—
“Would you be kind enough to see if you can put my steamer chair together?”
Mr. Morris looked astonished at this very simple request. He had resolved to make this particular voyage without becoming acquainted with anybody, more especially a lady.
“Madam,” he said, “I shall be pleased to call to your assistance the deck steward if you wish.”
“If I had wished that,” replied the lady, with some asperity, “I would have asked you to do so. As it is, I asked you to fix it yourself.”
“I do not understand you,” said Mr. Morris, with some haughtiness. “I do not see that it matters who mends the steamer chair so long as the steamer chair is mended. I am not a deck steward.” Then, thinking he had spoken rather harshly, he added, “I am not a deck steward, and don’t understand the construction of steamer chairs as well as they do, you see.”
The lady rose. There was a certain amount of indignation in her voice as she said—