I don't know why it should have suddenly occurred to me, apropos of
nothing, that Billy Kemper was unusually handsome. Or why I should
have turned and looked at the pretty waitress--except that she was,
perhaps, worth gazing upon from a purely non-scientific point of view. In
fact, to a man not entirely absorbed in scientific research and not
passionately and irrevocably wedded to his profession, her violet-blue
eyes and rather sweet mouth might have proved disturbing.

As I was thinking about this she looked up at me and smiled.

"It's a good thing," I thought to myself, "that I am irrevocably wedded
to my profession." And I gazed fixedly across the Atlantic Ocean.

* * * * *

There was scarcely sufficient breeze of a steady character to bring
Kemper to Sting-ray Key; but he got out his sweeps when I hailed him and
came in at a lively clip, anchoring alongside of our boat and leaping
ashore with that unnecessary dash and abandon which women find pleasing.

Glancing sideways at my waitress through my spectacles, I found her
looking into a small hand mirror and patting her hair with one slim and
suntanned hand.

When Professor Kemper landed on the coral he shot a curious look at Grue,
and then came striding across the reef to me.

"Hello, Smithy!" he said, holding out his hand. "Here I am, you see! Now
what's up--"