"
"Do you think," he said gloomily, still leaning on the rail, "that
we can keep this kind of thing up--perhaps I should say down--much
longer? For myself, I am feeling far from well; it may have been
the lobster--or that last sentence--but"--
They were both silent. "Yet," she said, after a pause, "you can at
least take Mr. Starling and his dyspepsia off my hands. You might
be equal to that exertion."
"I suppose that by this time I ought to be doing something for
somebody," he said thoughtfully. "Yes, I will."
That evening after dinner he took Mr. Starling into the smoking-
room and card-room. They had something hot. At 4 A. M., with the
assistance of the steward, he projected Mr. Starling into Mrs.
Starling's stateroom, delicately withdrawing to evade the lady's
thanks. At breakfast he saw Miss Bike. "Thank you so much," she
said; "Mrs. Starling found Starling greatly improved. He himself
admitted he was 'never berrer' and, far from worrying about what
night-clothes he should wear, went to bed AS HE WAS--even to his
hat. Mrs. Starling calls you 'her preserver,' and Mr. Starling
distinctly stated that you were a 'jolly-good-fler.'"
"And you?" asked John Lummox.
"In your present condition of abnormal self-consciousness and
apperceptive egotism, I really shouldn't like to say."
When the voyage was ended Mr.
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