The Honorable Percival

								

glance from the recipient, are usually consigned to the ice-box. All
was noise and confusion.
Percival's critical eye swept the line of human backs that presented
themselves at the railing. The same old types! He could describe them
with his eyes shut: the conventional globe-trotters, avid to obtain and
to impart information; business men comparing statistics and endlessly
discussing the tariff; rich wanderers in quest of health; poor
missionaries in quest of "foreign fields"; fussy Frenchmen; stolid
Germans; a few suspicious-looking Englishmen; and always the ubiquitous
Americans, who had the same effect upon him that a highly colored cloth
has on the delicate sensibilities of a certain large animal.
The most conspicuous example of the last class was a somewhat noisy
young person in a still more resonant steamer-coat who hung at an angle
of forty-five degrees over the railing, and exchanged confidences of a
personal nature with an old man on the wharf twenty feet below. Every
time Percival's walk brought him toward the bow of the boat, his eyes
were offended by that blue-and-lavender steamer-coat and by a pair of
beaded-leather slippers with three straps across the instep and absurdly
high French heels. Could any one but an American, he soliloquized, be
guilty of starting on a journey in such a costume?
The prospect of being imprisoned between decks for four weeks, with
this heterogeneous collection appalled him. His only safety lay in
maintaining a rigid and uncompromising aloofness. He would discourage
all advances from the start, he would promptly nip in the bud the first
sign of intrusion. He had left the only country an Englishman regards as
the proper place for existence, to cross two abominable seas and an even
more abominable continent, for the sole purpose of privacy, and privacy
he meant to have at all costs.
As the Saluria weighed anchor and steamed out of the Golden Gate,
he went below to see that his valet had made satisfactory disposition of
his varied belongings. His state-room was at the end of a short passage
leading from the main, one, and he was displeased at finding the deep
ledge under the passage window completely filled with flowers and fruit
that evidently belonged to some one occupying a room in the same passage.
He rang for the cabin-boy.
"Remove that greengrocer's shop!" he commanded peremptorily. "It is
abominably stuffy down here. We can't have the port-holes filled up like
that, you know."
The bland face of the young Chinaman assumed an expression of mild
inquiry.
"Take away!" ordered Percival, resorting to gesture.
"No can," said the boy, calmly. "All same b'long one missy. Missy b'long
cap'n."
Percival turned impatiently to his valet, who was coming through the
passage.
"Judson, get those things out of the window, and keep them out. Do you
hear?"
"Yes, sir. But where shall I put them, sir?"
"On the floor--in the sea--wherever you like," said Percival, as he