At or about one bell, to be quite nautical, the Tyro awoke from a somewhat agitated sleep.
"Hold on a minute!" protested he, addressing whatever Powers might be within hearing. "Stop the swing. I want to get out!"
He lifted his head and the wall leaned over and bumped it back upon the pillow. Incidentally it bumped him awake.
"Must be morning," he yawned. A pocket-knife and two keys rolled off the stand almost into the yawn. "Some weather," deduced the Tyro. "Now, if I'm ever going to be seasick I suppose this is the time to begin." He gave the matter one minute's fair and honorable consideration. "I think I'll be breakfasting," he decided, and dismissed it.
Having satisfied an admirable appetite in an extensive area of solitude, he weaved and wobbled up the broad stairs and emerged into the open, where he stood looking out upon a sea of flecked green and a sky of mottled gray. Alderson bore down upon him, triangulating the deck like a surveyor.
"Trying out my sea-legs," he explained. "How does this strike you as an anti-breakfast roll?"
"Hasn't struck me that way at all," said the Tyro. "I feel fine."
"Welcome to the Society of Seaworthy Salts! These are the times that try men's stomachs, if not their souls. Come along."
The pair marched back and forth past a row of sparsely inhabited deck-chairs, meeting in their promenade a sprinkling of the hardier spirits of the ship community.
"Have you seen Miss Melancholia this morning?" asked Alderson.