The Honorable Percival

								

the table. "Isn't that like a woman? When I have ordered this calm
weather especially for Mrs. Weston's benefit! I've a good mind to
whistle for a hurricane."
"No, no, please!" she protested in mock terror.
Percival turned away from the foolish chatter. Matters of a deep and
sinister nature occupied his mind. He felt within him wars and rumors of
wars. He wished that the curtains would stop swinging out from the wall
in that silly fashion. It was deuced uncanny to see them hang at an
angle of twenty-five degrees, then slowly and mysteriously fall back
into their places. He tried not to watch them, but it was even more
dangerous to look at the man next him breaking soft-boiled eggs into a
glass tumbler. He took another olive.
An electric fan overhead whirred incessantly, and the bright, flashing
blades smote his eyes with diabolical precision. The circular motion,
instead of cooling him, brought beads of perspiration to his brow.
"Who'll have some Chinese chow?" asked the captain. "I always order a
dish or two the first night out. Can't give you any birds'-nest soup--"
A violent shudder passed over Percival, and he made a lightning
calculation of the distance from the table to the stairway. In doing so
he noted that it was a spiral stairway. Why in the name of heaven was
everything round? The port-holes, the revolving-chairs, the electric
fans, the plates, the olives--
At the thought of olives, all the pent-up possibilities became imminent
certainties. He rose dizzily, collided with the Chinaman bringing his
tea, and made blindly for the stairs. Half-way up, he staggered; each
step rose to meet him, then fell away from his foot the moment he
touched it. He grasped the baluster-rail, and stood wildly clinging,
like a shipwrecked sailor to a mast. He was dazed, dumb, paralyzed with
fear of the inevitable, and aware only of the burst of uncontrollable
laughter that had followed his abrupt retreat. Somebody from above held
out a succoring hand, at which he grasped frantically. Stumbling, half
blind, this unfortunate victim to atmospheric conditions was guided up
the remaining stops and out on deck, where he was anchored to the
railing and kindly left to his fate.

III
CONVALESCENCE

During the monotonous days that followed, the Honorable Percival
Hascombe discovered that the satisfaction of being exclusive is usually
tempered by the discomfort of being bored. So lofty and forbidding had
been his manner that no one had ventured to intrude even a casual good
morning. A bachelor under thirty, with a competence of such dimensions
that it had entailed incompetency, and a doting family that danced
attendance upon his every whim, he was figuratively as well as literally
at sea in this new environment. At times he faltered in his stern
determination not to allow any one to become acquainted with him. It was
only the fear that any leniency might result in undue liberty on the