Christopher Silburn [the message read], Assistant Purser, S. S. Trinidad, New York.
No letter. No photograph. All well.
Genevieve.
Under other circumstances that would have been a disappointment; but now it was what he hoped for, for with so much extra work he felt that it would be unfair for him to leave everything to Mr. Clark until the ship returned from Bermuda.
On the second day out, while sitting at his desk working at the manifest, Kit leaned his head on one hand and took serious counsel with himself.
“I have made a good many voyages,” he reflected; “to Sisal, to Barbadoes, twice across the Atlantic and back, and again to the West Indies. But I have never—”
He suddenly resolved to finish his reflections in the open air; and for greater convenience he leaned heavily against the rail.
“What’s the matter, Silburn?” Mr. Clark asked through the open door, catching a glimpse of his assistant’s white face. “You don’t mean to say that you’re—”
“Yes, I do, sir!” Kit answered, leaning over the rail again for fresh thought. “After all my voyages, this little choppy sea has made me just as sick as a dog!”
“Ah, you’re not the first victim of the Bermuda voyage!” the purser laughed. “I get sick myself out here sometimes. It’s the Gulf Stream that does it, my boy. We cross the stream diagonally, and the current catches us under the starboard quarter and gives us a nasty little motion, half pitch and half roll, that sends the oldest sailors to the rail sometimes. Lie down a few minutes, and you’ll feel better.”
“No, sir, I’m not going to give in to it,” Kit replied. “I’ll walk the deck a little in the air. I don’t see a single passenger on deck.”
“So much the better!” said the purser, with another of his jolly laughs. “When they’re all sick they can’t be haunting our office to ask questions. We can do very well without them.”