“That’s better.”

“It was like this.”

“Good!”

Jimmy wriggled himself into a more comfortable position and took a sip from his glass.

“I didn’t see her till the second day out.”

“I know that second day out. Well?”

“We didn’t really meet at all.”

“Just happened to be going to the same spot, eh?”

“As a matter of fact, it was like this. Like a fool, I’d bought a second-class ticket.”

“What? Our young Rockerbilt Astergould, the boy millionaire, travelling second-class! Why?”

“I had an idea it would be better fun. Everybody’s so much 18 more cheery in the second cabin. You get to know people so much quicker. Nine trips out of ten I’d much rather go second.”

18

“And this was the tenth?”

“She was in the first cabin,” said Jimmy.

Mifflin clutched his forehead.

“Wait!” he cried. “This reminds me of something—something in Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet? No. I’ve got it!—Pyramus and Thisbe.”

“I don’t see the slightest resemblance.”

“Read your Midsummer Night’s Dream. ‘Pyramus and Thisbe,’ says the story, ‘did talk through the chink of a wall,’” quoted Mifflin.

“We didn’t.”

“Don’t be so literal. You talked across a railing.”

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