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Read Ebook: Little Miss Grouch A Narrative Based on the Log of Alexander Forsyth Smith's Maiden Transatlantic Voyage by Adams Samuel Hopkins Crosby Raymond Moreau Illustrator
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Ebook has 1513 lines and 36359 words, and 31 pages
"Go ahead!" he encouraged her. "Take it out on me. Relieve your feelings. You can't hurt mine."
"I haven't even got a maid with me," mourned the girl. "She got left. F-f-father will have a fu-fu-fit!"
"Father was practicing for it, according to my limited powers of observation, when last seen."
"What! Where did you see him?"
"Wasn't it father who was giving the commendable imitation of a whirling dervish on the pier-head?"
"Heavens, no! That's the--the man I'm running away from."
"The plot thickens. I thought it was your family you were eluding."
A reiterated word of the convulsive howler on the dock had stuck in the Tyro's mind. "What about the pilot-boat?"
"Many thanks, gentle maiden," returned her companion, unperturbed, "for this testimonial of confidence and esteem. With every inclination to aid and abet any crime or misdemeanor within reach, I nevertheless think I ought to be let in on the secret before I commit myself finally."
"It--it's that Thing on the dock."
"So you led me to infer."
"He wants to marry me."
"Well, America is the land of boundless ambitions," observed the young man politely.
"But they'll make me marry him if I stay," came the half-strangled whisper. "I'm engaged to him, I tell you."
"No; you didn't tell me anything of the sort. Why, he's old enough to be your father."
"Older!" she asseverated spitefully. "And hatefuller than he is old."
"Why do such a thing?"
"I didn't do it."
"Then he did it all himself? I thought it took two to make an engagement."
"It does. Father was the other one."
"Oh! Father is greatly impressed with our acrobatic friend's eligibility as son-in-law?"
"Well, of course, he's got plenty of money, and a splendid position, and all that. And I--I--I didn't exactly say 'No.' But when I saw it in the newspapers, all spread out for everybody to read--"
"Hello! It got into the papers, did it?"
"Oh, cheer up!" counseled the Tyro. "I've got an awfully decent stateroom--123 D, and if you want to change--"
Now the Tyro is a person of singularly equable temperament. But to have an offer which he had made only with self-sacrificing effort thus cavalierly received by a red-nosed, blear-eyed, impudent little chittermouse , was just a bit too much.
"You don't have to accept the offer, you know," he assured her. "I only made it to be offensive. And as I've apparently been successful beyond my fondest hopes, I will now waft myself away."
There was some kind of struggle in which the lachrymose maiden's whole anatomy seemed involved, and then a gloved hand went out appealingly.
"Meaning that you're sorry?" inquired the Tyro sternly.
Some sounds there are which elude the efforts of the most onomatopoeic pen. Still, as nearly as may be--
"Oh, in that case." The Tyro turned back.
There was a long pause, while the girl struggled for self-command, during which her squire had time to observe with some surprise that she had a white glove on her left hand and a tan one on her right, and that her apparel seemed to have been put on without due regard to the cardinal points of the compass. Through the veil she perceived and interpreted his appraisal.
"I'm a dowdy frump!" she lamented, half-voiced. "I dressed myself while Marie was packing. But you needn't be so--so supercilious about it."
"I'm not," protested he, conscience-stricken.
"You are! When you look at me that way I hate you! I'm not sorry I was nasty to you. I'm glad! I wish I'd been nastier!"
The Tyro bent upon her a fascinated but baleful regard. "Angel child," said he in sugared accents, "appease my curiosity. Answer me one question."
"I won't. What is it?"
"Did you ever have your ears boxed?"
"Never!" she said indignantly.
"I thought as much."
"You'd like to do it, perhaps."
"I'd love to. It would do me--I mean you--so much good."
"Maybe I'll let you if you'll help me get away. I know they'll find me!" At the prospect the melancholy one once more abandoned herself to the tragedy of existence. "And you don't do a thing but m-m-make fu-fu-fun of me."
Contrition softened the heart of the Tyro. "Oh, look here, Niobe," he began.
"Well, your nature's distinctly Niobish. I've got to call you something."
"Now you're talking sense. The pilot-boat is your play."
"Oh! And you said you'd help me." And then the last barrier gave way, and the floods swept down and immersed speech for the moment.
"Oh, come! Brace up, little girl." His voice was all kindness now. "If you're really bound to get away--"
"I am," came the muffled voice.
"But have you got any place to go?"
"Yes."
"Where?"
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