Pressman, controlling a slight shiver.

“Children have queer tastes,” said the Second Officer. “And it’s as well Old Spots is lively, as Bingo’s dead.”

“Bingo?” queried the Pressman.

“Bingo was the elephant,” said the Second Officer, passing the palm of his brown right hand over his upper lip as the Pressman made a few rapid notes. “And if the particulars of the deathbed scene are likely to be of any interest to you—why, you’re welcome to ’em!”

“You’re white!” said the Pressman warmly, licking his pencil. “What did your elephant die of?”

“Seasickness!” said the Second Officer calmly.

“I’ve seen a few things worth seeing—myself,” said the Pressman enviously, “but not a seasick elephant.”

“With a professional lady-nurse in attendance,” said the Second Officer; “all complete from stem to stern, in her print gown, white apron, fly-away cap-rigging, and ward shoes.”

The Pressman grunted, but not from lack of interest. Doubled up in the corner of the smoke-room divan, his notebook balanced on his bulging shirt-front, he made furious notes. The Second Officer waited until the pencil seemed hungry, and then fed it with a little more information.

5“When that girl came aboard at Liverpool with her mackintosh and holdall and little black shiny bag,” he went on, “I just noticed her in a passing sort of way as a fresh-colored, tidy-looking young woman, rather plump in the bows, and with an air as though she meant to get her full money’s worth out of her eleven-pound fare. But our cheap tariff had filled the passenger-lists fairly full, and I’d a long score of things to attend to. A special derrick had had to be rigged to sling the elephant’s cage aboard, and a capital one it was, of sound Indian teak strengthened with steel—must have cost a mint of money. We stowed it, after a lot of sweat and swearing, on the promenade deck, abaft the funnels, bolting it to rings specially screwed in the deck, passing a wire hawser across the top, which was made fast to the port and starboard davits, and rigging weather-screens of double tarpaulin to keep Bingo warm and dry. The other beasts we shipped under the lee of the forward cabin skylight; and I’d just got through the job when a quiet ladylike voice at my elbow says:

5

“‘If you please, officer, with 

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