regard to my patient, I wish to know——’

“‘Ask the purser, ma’am,’ I said, rather snappishly, for I was hot and worried ... ‘or the head-stewardess.’

“‘I have asked them both,’ says the voice in a calm, determined way, ‘and have been referred to you.’

“‘Well, what is it?’ says I.

“‘By mistake,’ says the young lady—for a young lady she was, and a hospital nurse besides, neatly rigged out in the usual uniform—‘by mistake I have had allotted to me a bedroom on the ground-floor, so far from my patient that I cannot possibly hear him should he call me in the night. And,’ she went on, as the breeze played with her white silk bonnet-strings and the wavy little kinks of soft brown hair that framed her forehead, 6‘and I want you to move me to the upper floor at once.’

6

“‘You mean the promenade deck, madam,’ says I, smoothing out a grin, though I’m well enough used to the odd bungles land-folks make over names of things at sea.”

The flying pencil stopped. The Pressman looked up, turning his shortened cigar between his teeth.

“When do we come to the elephant?” he asked.

“We’re at him now,” said the Second Officer. “‘You mean the promenade deck,’ says I. ‘Does your patient occupy one of the cabins on the port or the starboard side, and may I ask his number and name?’ Then she smiled at me brightly, her eyes and teeth making a sort of flash together. ‘He doesn’t have a cabin,’ says she; ‘he sleeps in a cage. My patient is Bingo, the elephant!’”

“Great Pierpont Morgan!” ejaculated the Pressman. His previously flying pencil became almost invisible from the extreme rapidity with which he plied it. Drops of perspiration broke out upon his sallow forehead. “Glory!” he cried. “And not another man thought it worth while to run out and tackle this wallowing old tub but me!”

“I touched my cap,” went on the Second Officer, “keeping down as professionally as I could the surprise I felt.... ‘Do I understand, madam,’ I asked, ‘that you are the elephant’s nurse?’ And at that she nodded with another bright smile, and told me that she was Nurse Amy, of St. Baalam’s Nursing Association, London, specially engaged by the American gentleman who had bought the elephant——”

“Shadland C. McOster,” prompted the Pressman, without 

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