Old Reliable in Africa

Front matter

OLD RELIABLE IN AFRICA

BY HARRIS DICKSON Author of "Old Reliable," "The Siege of Lady Resolute" etc.

NEW YORK FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY PUBLISHERS

Foreword

FOREWORD

WHY THEY WENT TO THE SUDAN

OLD RELIABLE never did rightly get the hang of that white man's name—the one with the single-barreled specs who came to visit the Colonel on Sherwood Plantation. And 'twarn't only negroes that couldn't understand; even the white folks had a mighty lot of trouble. Zack heard Doctor Paulding laugh and inquire, "Look here, Colonel, I don't know what to call your English Lord. Can't quite get my tongue twisted around 'Your Lordship' or 'Your Serene Highness.' What's the correct thing, 'My Lord'? or 'Lord Meadowcroft'?"

"Reckon so," chuckled the Colonel. "This 'lord' business kinder got me for a while. I sasshayed around it until he commenced calling me 'Spottiswoode' and I called him 'Meadowcroft.' Fine fellow, isn't he?"

Zack cocked his head on one side and listened to everybody before addressing the distinguished stranger as, "Oh Lordy," and the problem of courtesy bothered Zack no more.

"Oh Lordy" rambled all over the plantation, horseback and afoot, poking into everything, just like that Health Officer who used to come spying around the Hot Cat Eating House. Oh Lordy would stick up his eyeglass and ask a million questions a minute about cotton and seed, and ginning and picking, and mules and negroes. When he switched off to "soil" and "climate" and "precipitation"—Zack knew there wasn't nothing like that on Sherwood.

"What makes Lord Meadowcroft so inquisitive?" Dr. Paulding asked.

"Business," the Colonel laughed. "He wants to learn how we raise cotton. You see, Doctor, it's this way: the British Cotton Growers' Association is making experiments all over the world, trying to find a soil and climate adapted to cotton culture. Meadowcroft is particularly interested in the Sudan——"

"Where's the Sudan?" for Dr. Paulding had hazy geographical ideas.

"Don't know, exactly—somewhere in Middle Africa. Ask your geography. Anyway, Meadowcroft thinks the Sudan will produce cotton. They've got all kinds of theoretical experts on the ground—and want some experienced planter who understands the practical side of it—just to give them a start, you know. I've agreed to go—for six months."

"You? Go to Africa?"

"Sure, why not? I've always wanted to see the negro at home—had a curiosity to know if he's like our negro."

"Heavens, Colonel, that's a mighty long trip."

"Yes, I know; but there'll be several British officers at the Concession. Of course, I'll take Zack along, to shave me and look after my baggage, so I won't get lonesome."

Dr. Paulding glanced at Old Reliable, "No, Colonel, you won't get lonesome—not if you have Zack."

Many a time before he got home again Colonel Spottiswoode remembered how Doctor Paulding had laughed and said, "You won't get lonesome—not if you have Zack."

Chapter 1

CHAPTER I

THE OCEAN GAMBLERS

THE S. S. Trojan floated the sailing signal at her New York dock. Thin smoke curled upward from her funnels. Sea men laced her loins with many a ring and eyelet; deck-boys rubbed her windows and polished her brasses. Electricians, mechanics, cooks, and quick-stepping lads in white jackets hurried through hidden pasages within. Sooty-faced men in her grimy depths toiled at boilers and bunkers, heedless of what went on above, like coral insects that build beneath the waves. Officers ran their eyes along spar and rigging; tested every life-boat and davit—grooming their racer for the long, long track. Alertly still she lay, keel and wheel, breathing from the bottom of her lungs, holding her steely muscles in leash, calm without, but trembling through every nerve and fiber, like a Kentucky thoroughbred at the starter's post.

In contrast with the crew's strict discipline, masses of unorganized, undirected people surged back and forth across her decks. Like breakers they ebbed and flowed, congesting in the corners, and rushing out again. A mingled stream of comers and goers jostled each other along her gangplank, restless, excited people who spoke all tongues and wore all garbs. Some for the first time launched their adventures upon the deep; others, drawn by the lure of intangible horizons, longed for strange lands and craved the salt odor in their nostrils.

Through that motley throng upon the dock came a ruddy-faced man, with broad white Panama covering his gray hairs, and a linen suit that flapped like sail-cloth around his sturdy legs—Colonel Beverly, Spottiswoode, cotton-planter, of Vicksburg, Mississippi. Beside him walked two top-hatted Englishmen, men of affairs in their tight little Island.

At the head of the gangplank the Colonel turned, "Zack!" he shouted, "Where's Zack?"

"Comin', suh." Old Reliable tore through the crowd as if untangling himself from a wire fence, a half-sucked orange in one hand and a brand-new suitcase in the other. New store-bought clothes hung upon him in corrugations; a new, flaming red necktie climbed the back of his neck. He took out a new handkerchief, removed a new hat, and mopped the same old bald territory underneath. Everything was new except Old Reliable.

"Cunnel," he panted, "I never stopped a minute, 'cept jes to git dis orange; whole bunch o' trunks got me blocked off. Reckon dey don't know I'm gwine over to larn dem niggers at Africky Landin'."

"Get aboard, Zack!" the Colonel gave him a shove, "unless you want to swim."

Both Englishmen deferentially indicated the gangplank for Colonel Spottiswoode to descend. After them came Zack, followed by a couple of English servants with hand-luggage.

"May I venture to suggest, Colonel, that we inspect your cabin at once. Lord Meadowcroft instructed us to see that you were entirely comfortable."

They inspected in force. The cabin was more than comfortable; it was luxurious. The English men dissected it in detail, even to seeing that the magazines and newspapers were the very latest. "We hope you like your cabin, sir."

The Southerner glanced around him—sleeping room, sitting-room, bath, and quarters for Zack. "But I don't need all this," he laughed. "I'm not going on a wedding trip."

"Lord Meadowcroft's instructions, sir. Our government is your debtor, sir." The English men bowed together.

"His Lordship hopes, sir2," The older Englishman indicated a stock of books, pamphlets and official reports piled upon the table. "His Lordship would be pleased, sir, if you see fit to examine these reports on our cotton-planting experiments in Nigeria, Uganda and Egypt. Then, sir, you might advise our Honorable Board of Governors more intelligently on the affairs of our new syndicate in the Sudan."

Both the Britishers stepped back while Colonel Spottiswoode ran through the documents. "I've read most of these," he said. "Your trouble seems to be lack of water, and the inefficient labor. I never saw an irrigated cotton-field—we have too much water, overflow, you know; our levees break. And nobody can understand a labor problem until he gets on the ground. That's why you long-distance planters go broke."

"Yes, sir," agreed the Englishmen; "our Honorable Board of Governors are a jolly good bit away from their plantations. But you will set all that to rights, sir."

Zack stood in the middle of the sitting-room, holding his grip-sack and pasting down the edges of a hotel label. "Huh!" he muttered. "Dat Irish feller at de eatin' house didn't want to paste nary tag on my grip-sack; huh!"

"Zack," remarked the Colonel; "there's your room; walk in and hang up your hat."

At first Zack peered gingerly into the servant's quarters, then like a pet coon he began to projeck with its glittering appliances. "Dis sholy is one curious wash-bowl—gotter spout like a pitcher. Seliny ain't never gwine to believe dis."

"Here, Zack," the Colonel called; "let's go up on the guards and see her shove off."

On deck again his English friends plied him with mature and deliberate suggestions while Colonel Spottiswoode watched the arrival of belated passengers. A tall young man, dressed in extreme fashion, halted at the upper end of the angplank. Two servants carried his small bags, while another held in his arms a bored-looking bull dog with spike-studded collar. The young man paid attention to nothing but the dog. His chauffeur inquired, "Shall I put your luggage aboard, sir?"

"No; beastly nuisance," the young man addressed the dog; "Jack, old fellow, do you want to go? I leave it to you. Shall we go or stay?"

The dog seemed more wearied than the master, with no hopes for a novelty on either side of the Atlantic. "Warren," asked the young man, "is it going to rain?"

"I think so, sir."

"Then put the baggage aboard." Mr. J. Blair Eaton ordered, as with languid indifference he and the dog descended the gangplank. Be Mr. Eaton stepped Joe Sloan, the gambler. While Eaton hesitated whether to go or stay, this man never removed his shifty eyes. Joe Sloan's nose wasn't straight with his face, and Joe wasn't straight with anything. Nature never put such a crooked sign on straight goods. Mr. J. Blair Eaton didn't believe in signs.

At the lower end of the gangplank waited a burly man with a blue cap and hand satchel. "You're late, Joe," he whispered; "I thought your chicken had flew the coop, so I was fixing to get off this boat."

"Yes, Cap," Joe Sloan replied. "Eaton changed his mind forty times in twenty minutes—slippery fish; but mighty good when you catch him."

"Well," whispered the big man; "cabin's all ready; cigars and liquor, brands that he likes. We've got to make a killing." Cap Wright strolled off while Joe leaned casually against the rail.

In passing Cap Wright nudged his partner. "Look who's here! Prince Jim," pointing to Colonel Spottiswoode, between the Englishmen.

"Prince Jim," Joe Sloan exclaimed. The younger gambler turned to gaze admiringly upon a man of whom he had long heard as the acknowledged king of their craft—who had enriched their traditions with so many niceties of skill and daring.

"Don't the Prince put up a stiff front?" whispered Cap. "Tain't no other man in the business would be smooth enough to bring them respectable-looking blokes to the steamer, and stand 'em up before everybody. Them's his letter of credit. There's good pickin's on this ship, or he wouldn't be here. Jim ain't no tin-horn piker."

Reflecting upon Prince Jim's exploits set Cap's reminiscence mill to working: "Well, well, I ain't seen him for twenty years. Once in a while we'd get word of him working them P. & O. Steamers, out of Sydney to Ceylon. He's changed a heap, but I'd know him; linen clothes, Panama hat, Southern Planter style—that's Prince Jim."

Zack did not mean to get separated from the Colonel, but those people were doing so many interesting things, it was like a one-eyed boy watching a three-ringed circus. He just naturally drifted along deck and got caught in a jam at the foot of the gangplank. People shoved him backward until a timid voice spoke at his elbow. "I beg your pardon, sir, but I am in your way." It was a young girl, Miss Stanton, who wriggled around until she saw his black face, then laughed, "Oh, it's you, Uncle—Uncle Zack."

Zack beamed. "Yas'm, it's me. How come you know twuz me?"

Miss Stanton laughed again; "I heard that gentleman speak to you, the one in the linen suit; both of you are from the South, aren't you?"

"Sho is! Us come from Vicksburg, Mississippi. You come from down yonder too! I knowed dat de fust minute you spoke 'Uncle'."

"Aren't these people rough?" she nodded. "I'm afraid they'll break my violin."

Zack saw that Miss Stanton was hugging a violin case, so he reached out a lean arm behind her and braced himself against the rail. "Stand right still, Missy. Dey ain't gwine to shove you no mo'."

"Thank you, Uncle Zack."

Taint nothin' 'tall, Missy, an' not much o' dat. Is you gwine on dis 'scussion?"

"Yes," she smiled, "I'm going on the excursion, Uncle—what is your name?"

"Zack Foster, Miss; but ev'body, white an' black, calls me 'Ole Reliable'."

Miss Stanton giggled, which opened Zack's confidence. "Yas'm, all dem big bug white folks, up an' down Cherry Street, dey knows me reel good. And 'tain't nary one of 'em but what gives Ole Reliable a mighty high name. You know—Missy2"

"Hush!" she said. "Look!" pointing to the dock.

On Doris Stanton's last night in New York, she had gone to hear a wonderful Italian woman sing her farewell to America, amidst a glitter of lights, a deluge of flowers, and an audience that cheered like mad. How the girl's heart beat! Jealously she maintained her position at the gang plank to watch this famous singer come aboard the Trojan.

Others were waiting too. The dock bristled with leveled cameras like cannon from a fortress. Dozens of reporters stood with notebooks ready. The world hungered to hear in detail what this woman wore, how she talked and walked—what colored ribbons were on her dog. Was the Count di Castelleone really her husband? or was she going to marry Reifenstein? Everything, anything pertaining to the celebrity. "Look, Uncle Zack!" Miss Stanton gasped as men began to clear a passage for the diva. She was going to see the Signorina Certosa, off the stage. The second officer of the Trojan waved his hand for people to stand aside. A retinue of men-servants stumbled along beneath their boxes, bags and bundles which had been forgotten until the last moment. Others came with arms full of flowers, gorgeous roses dropped their petals and made a path for the singer's feet.

A shrill-voiced duenna gave orders to the maids; Count di Castelleone held aloft a gay stack of American Beauties, marching in the van of her ladyship's escort. Signorina Aurora Cer bowed herself along, between a swarthy young Italian with her pet dog and a blonde German who bore her parrot in its cage. Click! click! click! went the cameras. Aurora smiled and bowed so that the American newspapers might print very pretty pictures of her very pretty self. Miss Stanton clapped her hands, and joined in the general cheer.

When Castelleone put his foot upon the deck he turned to make some gallant remark to the Signorina. But he did not dare. She had wearied of his following her from Italy, all over America, and he knew it.

"Look, Cap," whispered Joe Sloan, "I saw them three fellows rollin' 'em mighty high in Washington. Maybe the Prince is after them."

"Hope so; then he'll let our chicken alone."

The great singer being safely aboard, an officer gave orders, "All ashore." Miss Stanton watched the tearful, laughing, hysterical good-bys; husbands and wives, parents and children, friends who were separating from friends—with farewell gifts of roses, boxes of candy, bundles of magazines. She glanced at the crowded dock. "There's nobody here to tell me good-by," she sobbed. "Nobody cares."

A stream of people poured back to the dock; a late passenger tumbled over them to get aboard. Chains rattled, ropes creaked—the vessel began to move, a thousand handkerchiefs went fluttering. Everybody was waving to somebody. For a moment the girl's eyes blurred. "Doris Stanton, you're a fool; you're going to cry," she gulped in her throat and lifted her head defiantly.

The ship began to tremble and groan. The hazy smoke from her funnels changed to dense black. A widening crevasse yawned between deck and dock. The jagged skyline of New York became visible, a vague and spectral city against a vague and spectral sky. Miss Stanton wormed her small self away from the rail, got clear, and fled with her precious violin. On the way to her modest cabin she passed an open door; the odor of flowers stopped her. She paused and stared inside, at a wilderness of roses, masses of carnations, beds of violets—a profusion of orchids, silk hangings, silver trappings. The singer's maids were setting things to rights.

"I don't care; I don't care, I'm happy," she insisted, then rushed into her own room and snatched a shriveled bouquet from the basin. These were not the kind of flowers that florists pack with purple ribbons, but the kind that come from country gardens, tied up by country girls. Doris remembered every bush, and knew where every blossom had grown. She darted to the right hand deck, which was almost deserted, hastily picked her flowers to pieces and began scattering petals on the water. One by one they fluttered down, and her dim eyes followed them as they drifted past.

"Dat's jes fer luck, ain't it, Missy?" Zack's sympathetic face at her elbow looked very homey and very kind. The old negro from home understood the girl from home.

"Yes," she smiled bravely, "and for pluck too—we all need pluck."

"Dat's jes what Selina keeps a-sayin' to me. She argufies dat I sets too much sto' on luck. But Lordee, Miss, when I gits in hard luck it mought rain twenty dollar gold pieces, an' ketch me wid boxin' gloves on—so I couldn't pick 'em up."

Miss Stanton laughed merrily, while Zack straightened up and responded to her encore. "Ole Uncle Aaron, he prophesy to me like dis, 'Zack,' he say, 'ef Luck's agin yer, you mought jes as well lie down flat er yo' back an' say 'Here I is, Luck; what yer gwine do wid me?"

Miss Stanton flung the last of her bouquet over board. "Now!" she announced, "I'm all right again."

"Yas'm, 'twarn't nothin' but luck when I seed you comin' round here wid dem flowers, an' sumpin' jes popped in my min', 'Missy is feelin' po'ly; Zack, you go an' talk to li' miss; she ain't likin' it much 'bout gwine so fer away from home.

Miss Stanton listened gladly, and made a fatal mistake, unless she wanted Zack tagging along. He was itching to talk; so he deserted Colonel Spottiswoode and followed the girl from home, who would laugh at his time-worn stories.

Chapter 2

CHAPTER II

THE YOUNG VIOLINIST

WHEN Colonel Spottiswoode stuck out his head from a door, glanced up and down the deck and beckoned for Zack, the negro never saw him. Zack had his hat in his left hand, gesticulating with his right; Miss Stanton, half a yard ahead, kept turning and laughing as she walked. "Missy, I'm gwine to wait right here till dis here boat makes her fust landin'. I wants you to see how dat mate gwine to boss dese rousters. You ain't never been on no steamboat befo'—jes wait till us gits to de fust landin'."

"The first landing? We won't land for six or seven days."

"Six or seven days? Lordee, Missy, I sho' would love to be roustabout on dis boat—or git de job o' callin' stations. I got a friend what's porter on de A. & V. Railroad, an' I 'lowed he had er sof' snap. But, Lordee! Calling stations on dis boat, dat would be all right, all right."

"So you don't like hard work?"

"Yas'm, Missy, I ain't skeered o' work. Like Uncle Aaron he say about a triflin' nigger: 'dat nigger ain't what you call skeered o' work; he'll lie down beside de bigges' kind o' job an' go to sleep, jes ez nacheral.' Huh! you know Cunnel ain't gwine to take me way yonder to Afriky Landin', to larn dem niggers how to hoe cotton, 'cept I's a mighty good worker myself."

"Who is the Colonel?" Miss Stanton inquired with genuine interest.

"Lordee, Miss, he jes de Cunnel. How come you ain't heard o' Cunnel? Whar you been all yo' life?"

"I live in Virginia; in the mountains."

"Must be mighty high mountains, and mighty fer, ef you don't know Cunnel. Most ev'body knows Cunnel what knows me, all dem rich white folks up and down Cherry Street."

"Cherry Street? Where is that?"

Zack gazed upon her at first with a benevolent pity—then the smile broke: "Shucks, Missy, now you's prankin' wid me."

"No, really2" Miss Stanton settled herself in a steamer-chair, and felt deliciously guilty at encouraging the gossip of a servant.

Zack gave an enthusiastic sketch of his most intimate friend, Colonel Beverly Spottiswoode, with personal details of all the rich white folks up and down Cherry Street. Then he launched into a description of Sherwood and Kathleen Plantations, cotton and negroes, bear hunting and levees breaking. Neither he nor the girl noticed that their vessel had passed into open sea. On either side, before, behind, lay the shoreless water, nothing but water. Zack looked up, then ran to the rail, gripped it with both hands and stared. "Lawd Gawd, Missy! levee's done broke; river's all over ev'ything! Never seed sech a overflow. Dat's why dem folks was all huddled in N'Yawk—to keep out o' de high water. I got to run tell Cunnel." Zack disappeared through a doorway, and dived down the stairs. Then Miss Stanton had a half hour to herself.

When Zack sneaked up the staircase again, and poked out his black face from the door, there was a humorous twitching at the corners of his mouth. He gave a sidelong glance around him before venturing on deck.

"Dat sho' is one big buzz on me. Huh! I oughter knowed 'twarn't nary overflow, 'cause tain't no houses, an' no levees. No trees ain't floatin' down, nothin', nothin' 'cept water. Dis is a mighty good place fer Baptists."

Zack grinned to himself, and watched for Miss Stanton. Then he leaned over the rail and gave himself up to a contemplation of the sea. "Well, well, well," he mumbled, "tain't nobody seed de beat o' dat. Jes like ole Missip was runnin' up an' down, an' sideways too—ev'y-which-way. Ef dis levee did break, hit's been a mighty long time ago, an' things got kinder settled down."

Zack hung over the rail and watched the fog that swirled upon the sea; a fine mist blew from the south. A sailor with rubber mop scraped the water from the deck, a deck as clean as Selina's kitchen table. Zack scarcely dared to step upon it. Other sailor men were beginning to hang strips of sail-cloth from the roof, and lash their flapping bottoms to the rail. The deck looked like those dripping lanes of canvas which led from the main circus to the side show. Zack couldn't remember a time when it hadn't rained on circus day in Vicksburg. Suddenly he straightened himself, and paid no more attention to the water; Miss Stanton came tripping along with a violin case under her arm. In order to shut off all allusion to overflows, Zack took first shot at the conversation: "Missy, is you gwine to play? Oughter hear ole man Jake play dat fiddle on Sherwood Plantation. He sets dem niggers crazy wid dancin' itch."

"No, I am not going to play; I only want to be sure that my violin is not strained: The case was bent this morning."

"Yas'm, dat's de time when I kep' 'em from shovin' you."

Doris Stanton wore a fur turban, so softly brown it seemed a part of her eyes and hair, and sun-tanned face. Zack rambled along behind her to the music room, stepped one foot inside the door and halted. The room was all white and gold and crimson, sparkling with pendants and mirrors; the furniture was so gilt and bench-legged, the carpet so crimson and Zack's foot sank so deep, that he instinctively drew back. "Huh! mighty few white folks oughter go in dere—an' no niggers a tall!"

But nobody hindered him. Miss Stanton had disappeared in a corner behind some kind of a gingerbread screen. Zack glanced around him, cautiously deposited his hat on that crimson car pet, passed inside the door, and followed her—picking up one foot after the other, like a rooster walking in deep mud.

Her violin case now lay open on the table, and Miss Stanton was taking out a green cloth. She wiped the instrument affectionately, and began to look it over in every seam and string and crevice. Zack turned his head this way and that, craned his neck and twisted his eyes in harmony with her movements. She drew her sigh in the treble, and Zack drew his in the bass. "It's all right, ain't it, Missy?" he asked.

"Yes," she nodded, then drew the bow, ever so lightly, across a string, and laid it down again. "What a tone you have!" she whispered and patted her best-beloved friend. The instrument rested against her shoulder and she caressed it with her chin; two slender fingers danced along its unawakened strings. Presently she picked up the bow and with a movement indescribably graceful stroked the chords so gently that they only purred.

"Ain't you gwine to play none, Missy?" Zack's inquiry was a prayer, yet Miss Stanton shook her head and glanced around at the shaded lights, through the crimson-and-gold silence of that deserted room. Outside the fog gathered like twilight; when twilight had settled in the valleys at home she always played her violin.

Unconsciously she lifted the bow and roused one long low note, as the sigh of a sleeper who begins to stir. Zack caught his breath, then begged, "Missy, play 'Ole Black Jo'; jes, a teeny bit."

Without dissent or volition the violin responded, inaudibly but distinctly, when Zack bent closer. He could almost hear the murmured words, "I'm comin'—I'm comin'." When it was quite done he whispered again, "Now, Missy, play 'Swanee Ribber.

Miss Stanton forgot, forgot the ship, and forgot these stranger-people, forgot the dismal evening, the raucous fog-horns, forgot everything. Out from her soul, and the soul of her violin that tender melody ebbed and flowed, lapping like the waves at the vessel's side; it filled the room with shadowy music; creeping out into the mist, it floated along deck, stopping men at their steady tramp, tramp, tramp—drawing them to the port holes, and in at the door. The girl's figure swayed imperceptibly, like a slender column of smoke on a windless day. Zack stood silent, bowing his gray bald head in unison with the old familiar song. His lips moved, but made no sound.

Their backs were to the door. They did not see man after man, woman after woman, slip in and sit upon the edges of their chairs. They did not see one glorious figure, standing erect in the center of the room, glittering in black and silver, with a scarlet rose in her hair—Signorina Aurora Certosa dressed for dinner, one jeweled hand upon her bosom, the other commanding silence from those behind her. Reifenstein had stopped midway the room, half starting forward, like a blond giant from his North German forest, listening. Doris Stanton did not see the groups of eyes that peered in at every port hole, nor the wall of faces massed at the door.

"Dar's whar my heart is turning ebber2" the clear notes rose like a rocket and came back again in a shower of broken stars. Then something snapped. "Oh, I can't play it2" The little Southern girl stopped short, laid down the violin and flung herself across the table. Zack wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. "Dar now, Missy, dar now2" Then Zack stared at those people who rushed suddenly toward them, like water bursting through a broken levee.

Signorina Aurora ran forward impetuously, fell on one knee, and put her arm around Miss Stanton's waist. The girl struggled to her feet, amazed. "Oh! I'm so ashamed," she said, "so sorry—I—I—forgot."

"Sorry? Ashamed? You glorious child; Bellissimi! Magnifica!" Then the homesick girl broke down completely. Aurora looked up at the thronging passengers. "Go away," she ordered, "avanti. Go2" Reifenstein bent low, kissed the tiny brown hand that trembled so nervously on the table, then turned with uplifted arms and cleared the room.

Signorina Aurora led Miss Stanton to a divan, and drew the brown head upon her breast. "La mia piccina—now tell me all about it." The self-contained and close-lipped Southerner could not have imagined herself talking so freely to a stranger—all about the homesickness, all about the loneliness, and the going away to Milan for five long years.

"Your mother," the sympathetic diva inquired, "is she with you?"

"No; mother's at home."

"Your sister; your2"

Doris shook her head, "Nobody."

"You're not alone? Ma che! Bambino! That will never do—never. So young, so beautiful, and alone."

This same question had been so maddeningly discussed at home that Doris Stanton answered sharply, with all the confidence of a kitten spatting in a corner, "Yes, I'm alone, and quite able to take care of myself, thank you."

The wiser woman only smiled, and stroked the child's arm, "Going to Milan for five years; ah, but you Americans have so ridiculously much money, and2"

Miss Stanton shook her head, "I have very little, very little. I shall support myself while I study." The great singer smiled again, and whispered, "Carissima fanciullo! Impossible."

The Signorina Aurora was very practical. She knew what it meant to support herself and study. She, like Doris, had been far too pretty for Milan, Vienna, Leipsic, Munich. So she held the girl very close, patted her brown hair, and talked of ways and means. Nobody could resist this woman: Doris Stanton told her exactly how much money she had in that scanty wallet which was entrusted to the purser—not the price of one song from the Signorina Aurora.

"Now, now," the singer said, "we shall mend that. I give you a benefit; I, Aurora Certosa, I have promised. You shall play. Ah, so wonderful you play; I shall sing once, twice, three times. There! In Milan you will live like one little brown princess—and when I come to Milan—ah, when I come, we shall see what we shall see." With her arm about Doris, the singer led her new-made friend away.

The first dinner on shipboard is apt to be a key-note affair. Acquaintances may be formed or not. Ultra-fashionable ladies, crossing to be measured for gloves, make known their missions and their exclusiveness at this function. One stiff bow at the table sets no precedent for another bow on deck.