The Girl on the Boat

rather jog along and take a chance of starvation than be the innocent cause of such things. They open with a long speech from the master of the ceremonies-so long, as a rule, that i

at length on a subject which, treated by a master of oratory, would have palled on the audience after ten or fifteen minutes; and at the end of fifteen minutes this speaker had only just got past the haddocks and was feeling his way tentatively through the shrimps. "The Rosary" had been sung an

hings run in families-had sung "My Little Gray Home in the West"-rather sombrely, for she had wanted to sing "The Rosary," and, with the same obtuseness which characterised her brother, had

ed to read t

Imitation...

forgotten wounds, to occasions when performers at ships' concerts had imitated whole strings of Dickens' characters or, with the assistance of a few hats and a little false hair, had endeavoured to portray Napoleon, Bismarck, Shakespeare, and o

Hignett apprehensively. There seemed to be something ominous in the man's very aspect. His face was very pale and set, the face of one approaching a task at which his humanity shudders. They could not know that the pallor of Eustace Hignett was due entirely to the slight tremor which, even on the calmest nights, the engines of an ocean liner produc

with a little thrill of embarrassment. She wished that she had been content with one of the seats at the back. But Jane Hubba

rprised to see that her friend was staring eagerly before her with a fixity almost equal to that of Eustace. Un

she whispe

the matte

at the piano? D

do," said Billie. "His

" She breathed a sigh. "Poor littl

and struck a crashing chord, and, as he did so, there appeared through the door at the far end of the saloon a figure at the sight

e was a grisly black and below the nose appeared what seemed

Ernest,"

ntly, as though desiring some reply

o, Er

man on the stool had grown whiter still. His eyes gazed out glassily from under his damp brow. He looked

ompletely overlooked the fact. The cigar came as an absolute surprise to him and it could not have affected him more powerfully if it had been a voice from the tomb. He stared at it pallidly, like Macbeth at the ghost of Banquo. It was a strong, lively young cigar, and its curling smo

the piano, her big heart had gone out to him, and now, in his moment of anguish, he seemed to bring to the surface everything that was best and ma

stricken field, might have felt something akin to his emotion. Of all the learned professions, the imitation of Mr. Frank Tinney is the one which can least easily be ca

loon seemed to beckon an invitation. He made for it, reached it, passed thro

rdinary measure the one quality which renders amateur imitations tolerable, that of brevity. They had

He had fled for refuge to his state-room and was lying i