In a Steamer Chair, and Other Stories Part 2

"You forget that I have known you for a day only."

"That is true, chronologically speaking. But you must remember a day on s.h.i.+pboard is very much longer than a day on sh.o.r.e. In fact, I look on you now as an old acquaintance, and I should be sorry to think you looked on me as an enemy."

"You are mistaken. I do not. I look on you now as you do on your own age--sort of between the two."

"And which way do you think I shall drift? Towards the enemy line, or towards the line of friends.h.i.+p?"

"I am sure I cannot tell."

"Well, Miss Earle, I am going to use my best endeavours to reach the friends.h.i.+p line, which I shall make unless the current is too strong for me. I hope you are not so prejudiced against me that the pleasant effort will be fruitless."

"Oh, I am strictly neutral," said the young lady. "Besides, it really amounts to nothing. Steamer friends.h.i.+ps are the most evanescent things on earth."

"Not on earth, surely, Miss Earle. You must mean on sea."

"Well, the earth includes the sea, you know."

"Have you had experience with steamer friends.h.i.+ps? I thought, somehow, this was your first voyage."

"What made you think so?"

"Well, I don't know. I thought it was, that's all."

"I hope there is nothing in my manner that would induce a stranger to think I am a verdant traveller."

"Oh, not at all. You know, a person somehow cla.s.sifies a person's fellow-pa.s.sengers. Some appear to have been crossing the ocean all their lives, whereas, in fact, they are probably on s.h.i.+pboard for the first time. Have you crossed the ocean before?"

"Yes."

"Now, tell me whether you think I ever crossed before?"

"Why, of course you have. I should say that you cross probably once a year. Maybe oftener."

"Really? For business or pleasure?"

"Oh, business, entirely. You did not look yesterday as if you ever had any pleasure in your life."

"Oh, yesterday! Don't let us talk about yesterday. It's to-day now, you know. You seem to be a mind-reader. Perhaps you could tell my occupation?"

"Certainly. Your occupation is doubtless that of a junior partner in a prosperous New York house. You go over to Europe every year--perhaps twice a year, to look after the interests of your business."

"You think I am a sort of commercial traveller, then?"

"Well, practically, yes. The older members of the firm, I should imagine, are too comfortably situated, and care too little for the pleasures of foreign travel, to devote much of their time to it. So what foreign travel there is to be done falls on the shoulders of the younger partner. Am I correct?"

"Well, I don't quite cla.s.s myself as a commercial traveller, you know, but in the main you are--in fact, you are remarkably near right. I think you must be something of a mind-reader, as I said before, Miss Earle, or is it possible that I carry my business so plainly in my demeanour as all that?"

Miss Earle laughed. It was a very bright, pleasant, cheerful laugh.

"Still, I must correct you where you are wrong, for fear you become too conceited altogether about your powers of observation. I have not crossed the ocean as often as you seem to think. In the future I shall perhaps do so frequently. I am the junior partner, as you say, but have not been a partner long. In fact I am now on my first voyage in connection with the new partners.h.i.+p. Now, Miss Earle, let me try a guess at your occupation."

"You are quite at liberty to guess at it."

"But will you tell me if I guess correctly?"

"Yes. I have no desire to conceal it."

"Then, I should say off-hand that you are a teacher, and are now taking a vacation in Europe. Am I right?"

"Tell me first why you think so?"

"I am afraid to tell you. I do not want to drift towards the line of enmity."

"You need have no fear. I have every respect for a man who tells the truth when he has to."

"Well, I think a school teacher is very apt to get into a certain dictatorial habit of speech. School teachers are something like military men. They are accustomed to implicit obedience without question, and this, I think, affects their manner with other people."

"You think I am dictatorial, then?"

"Well, I shouldn't say that you were dictatorial exactly. But there is a certain confidence--I don't know just how to express it, but it seems to me, you know--well, I am going deeper and deeper into trouble by what I am saying, so really I shall not say any more. I do not know just how to express it."

"I think you express it very nicely. Go on, please."

"Oh, you are laughing at me now."

"Not at all, I a.s.sure you. You were trying to say that I was very dictatorial."

"No, I was trying to say nothing of the kind. I was merely trying to say that you have a certain confidence in yourself and a certain belief that everything you say is perfectly correct, and is not to be questioned.

Now, do as you promised, and tell me how near right I am."

"You are entirely wrong. I never taught school."

"Well, Miss Earle, I confessed to my occupation without citing any mitigating circ.u.mstances. So now, would you think me impertinent if I asked you to be equally frank?"

"Oh, not at all! But I may say at once that I wouldn't answer you."

"But you will tell me if I guess?"

"Yes, I promise that."

"Well, I am certainly right in saying that you are crossing the ocean for pleasure."

"No, you are entirely wrong. I am crossing for business."

"Then, perhaps you cross very often, too?"

"No; I crossed only once before, and that was coming the other way."

"Really, this is very mysterious. When are you coming back?"