in the hand-shaking sense. But I spoke to you one night at the movie just out of Washington Square. They were running an Egyptian play; camels coming down the desert, and all that Los Angeles stuff."
"Oh yes; I remember." And she truly did. This was the young man who wanted to see the Orient. And here he was, on the way. She was now genuinely interested. This ship was truly a barge of dreams.
"And, say," went on William, now that the ice was broken, "you're a school-teacher around the corner from—"
"School-teacher?" she interrupted. She sat up, her eyes wide; and there was a vague terror in them. William saw it, and a bit of the disillusion returned to sting him. "How did you know that?" She had phrased and spoken the question before she realized that it was a tacit admission.
"Oh, I guessed it," he acknowledged. "You see, it's like this. Every morning and afternoon you go by Burns, Dolan & Co.'s plumbing-shop, where I work. I'm in the cellar, mostly."
"In the cellar?" she repeated, dazedly.
"Ye-ah. And as you never came by Saturdays I took it that you were a teacher around the corner. I never saw anything but your feet—"
"My feet?" She was growing more and more bewildered. Was the man insane?
"Maybe I'm bulling the story. Anyhow, it was like this." He gained confidence as he went along. The terror in her eyes died away and vanished completely as he described his impersonal observations from the cellar window; and when he reached the climax—her passing from starboard to port while he stood in the waist—she lay back and laughed, first softly, then with full rollick. William laughed, too. "Funny kind of a game for a gink like me to play—huh?"
"I never heard anything like it! You are a real Sherlock Holmes!" Her attitude was no longer aloof. She was ready to hear anything this unusual young man had to say.
"Say, that guy Doyle can put 'em across the plate, can't he? I read him twice a year, along with Kipling."
"You enjoy reading?"
"Sure. Maybe I read too much. I don't know how to sift 'em. I read Dumas a good deal, Jules Verne, Dickens, Hugo, James Whitcomb Riley, Mark Twain, and Nick Carter." There was a sly twinkle in his eye.
"I don't quite recollect Mr. Carter."
"Aw, you haven't been a school-teacher without running up against good old Nick in between geographies."
"But I haven't admitted that I'm a school-teacher."
"Well, aren't you?"
He was a direct young man. "I see that there is no escape. Yes, I've met Mr. Carter, but I've never gone further than to stuff him into the paper-chutes."
"Poor old Nick! There's another guy I like—O. Henry."
"And why do you like him?" she asked, curious to learn why O. Henry interested this young man who worked in the cellar of a plumber's shop. The whole affair was so rich in novelty—to have watched her feet flit past his window for three years!
"Well," said the happy William, "he never tells me anything I don't already know. You see, I know his people—friends of mine, next-door neighbors, and all that."
She nodded. "Did you ever read a book called The Life of Benvenuto Cellini?"
"Nope."
"It is an autobiography."
"Nothing doing. When I read I want action."
"But this is like The Three Musketeers, only it's real. It's the most exciting book you ever read."
"Me for the wop."
"The what?"
"The dago."
"Oh. Where in the world do you men pick up such wonderful English?"
"Now you're guying me. Well, maybe I am a rough-neck," said William, dolefully. "But I've taught myself what I know, mostly. I went to school until I was nine, and then I had to hump myself. Went to night-school for a term; but that's the finish. And here I am, taking the grand hike around this little old walnut." There wasn't any barrier here that he could see; she was just what he always imagined she would be.
Her interest in this odd specimen of humanity grew. All goes well with a young man who aims to better himself, to improve his mind and condition. She could see in fancy the scrimping and hoarding to make this trip possible. Had not she herself fought for her pennies? Her ticket and express-checks represented the savings of years. In one mad moment she had taken the plunge, closing her eyes to the inevitable rainy days of the future. When she returned she would have to begin life all over again. Well, so be it. At least one dream should come true.
"If you like, I'll get the Cellini book for you," she said, impulsively. She did not know his name, but that did not matter. She knew that his eyes were of the right sort.
She swung off the chair, a lithe, graceful young woman, something more than pretty, something indescribably different from any woman William had met before; and yet he knew that she was a school-teacher, that she worked for her bread and butter the same as he did. This fact leveled the barriers, effaced any social dead-lines so far as he was concerned.
The mills of the romantic gods began to grind again. There was no doubt in his mind that she had come from a fine race of people, and they had willed the "come-down" to her. He didn't mean the Sunday-newspaper kind, money and all that. It was what these writers of books called breeding, something which did not arrive in one generation, but which had to go through the refining process of many generations. He was quite certain that he did not possess it, nor had his father, nor his father's father. Honest, hard-working, self-respecting people; they hadn't been any more than that.
He ran his newly manicured ringers through his fiery, wiry hair. He was determined to watch her closely. If breeding could be acquired, well, he was going to acquire it. None of your toplofty stuff, but as near the real article as he could reasonably expect to approach. He knew most of the rules, to be sure; but he lacked manner when it came to interpreting them. That's what he wanted—manner. It wasn't just guiding old ladies over muddy crossings; it was the way you accomplished it. The point in William's favor was that he knew what he lacked.
His school-teacher here on board! He had actually talked to her, and she had smiled and laughed and gone to get him a book; all in half an hour. Nothing had ever happened in books quite like this. The shipwreck and desert island weren't so far away as might be.
"And a homely mug like me!"
Romance and magic carpets! William was now absolutely certain that she was the rich man's daughter flying the mesh of the unfavored suitor. She was no runaway wife; that idea was totally wrong. He mapped it all out. She had run away and gone bravely to work rather than marry the man who was not her choice. No doubt there was a Handsome-Is somewhere in the background, but she had evidently slipped through his fingers. She couldn't laugh like that if she hadn't. Oh, he knew all about it. Good-looking young women, fighting their own way, seldom escaped that sordid adventure. Somewhere along the route they poked their pretty fingers into the web of the spider just to see him wriggle, and some of them got caught.
A rich man's daughter, running away because she loved her independence; a very agreeable fabric as William wove it on the loom of his fancy. Glory to the day he had stepped into Cook's!
A shadow fell athwart the deck, causing him to turn. The shadow belonged to the deck steward. The dapper little man in uniform scribbled on a card, which he slipped into the metal slide at the top of William's chair. On that card was written, "Mr. Grogan." William handed a silver dollar to the steward.
"Say, how do you get into the diner?"
"The chief steward will take care of you, sir. If you want any special place, you'd better apply at once, sir. Thank you." The steward nodded briefly as he turned away.
William had an idea. He rose and went over to