Page:The Plutocrat (1927).pdf/26

 you," the girl said fiercely; and Ogle had an impression that she lifted herself and made an angry gesture toward the door. "Aren't you ever going to get out of here?"

"All right! All right! It wasn't me that wanted to leave God's country and go scramblin' around over the globe; you got to blame Mamma for that. Never mind; I'm goin'." Then, before the door closed, Ogle heard the husky, hearty voice in a final solicitation. "Honey, you do your best for Baby!"

The miserable young man groaned from the depths. His neighbours were a mother and a daughter, evidently; the daughter engaged in some sort of war with her father, and the three of them outlanders of that particular type to which, of all types in the world, his own fastidiousness found the greatest objection. Before him, if the ship did not sink, he foresaw eleven days and three quarters of physical agony accompanied by the beating upon his ears of family quarrellings in the odious accent to which he was most shudderingly sensitive.

"Rotarians!" he whispered. Honey, how's Baby? But he was unwise to repeat this paternal inquiry, for immediately he became deathly sick,