bed for the day." And he went.

During the day Henry brought the cheerful information that the Doctor
was down and that the Eager Soul and the Gilded Youth were wearing
out the deck. Henry also added that her slapping was scheduled for
that night.

"Has her hair slopped over yet?" This from me.

"No," answered Henry, "but it's getting crinklier and crinklier
and she looks pinker and pinker, and prettier and prettier, and
you ought to see her in her new purple sweater. She sprang that on
the boat this afternoon! It's laying 'em out in swaths!" Henry's
affinity was afraid to turn off his back. But he turned a pale
face toward his side-kick and whispered: "Henry, you tell her,"
he gulped before going on, "that if she can't find anyone else to
slap, there's a man down here who can't fight back!"

A sense of security comes to one who churns along seven days on
a calm sea on an eventless voyage. And the French, by easy-going
ways, stimulate that sense of security; we had heard weird stories
of boat-drills at daybreak, of midnight alarms and of passengers
sleeping on deck in their life preservers, and we were prepared
for the thrills which Wichita and Emporia expected us to have. They
never came. One afternoon, seven or eight days out, we had notice
at noon that we would try on our life preservers that afternoon.
The life preservers were thrown on our beds by the stewards and at
three o'clock each passenger appeared beside the life-boat assigned
to him, donned his life-belt which gave him a ridiculously stuffed
appearance, answered to a roll-call, guyed those about him after