"Poor, dear Mr. Mumford!" she sighs. "How he did love dancing with me. And how wonderfully he could polka!"
"She's off again!" I whispers to Vee.
So we drifts forward as far away from this monologue about the dear departed as we could get. Not that we didn't appreciate hearin' intimate details about the late Mr. Mumford. We did—the first two or three times. After that it was more entertainin' to look at the moon.
For my part, I could have stood a few more hours of that; but about ten o'clock Mrs. Mumford's voice gives out, or she gets to the end of a chapter. Anyway, she informs us cheerful that it's time young folks was gettin' in their beauty sleep; so Vee goes off to her stateroom, and after I've helped J. Dudley Simms burn up a couple of his special cork-tipped Russians, I turns in myself.
Didn't seem like I'd been poundin' my ear more'n half an hour, and I was dreamin' something lovely about doin' one of them pelican dives off a pink cotton cloud, when I feels someone shakin' me by the shoulder. I pries my eyes open, and finds one of the crew standin' over me, urgin' me to get up.
"Wrong number, Jack," says I. "I ain't on the night shift."
"It's the young lady, sir," says he. "You're to dress and come on deck."
"Eh?" says I. "Have we been U-boated or Zepped? All right; I'll be there in two minutes."
And I finds Vee costumed businesslike in a middy blouse and khaki skirt, stowin' things away in a picnic hamper.
"What's the plot of the piece?" I asks, yawny.