different and dreadful world.

"What ... what ... what...?" he gurgled.

Sam squinted at himself in the glass and added a touch of black to his
nose.

"How do I look?"

Eustace Hignett began to fear that his cousin's reason must have become
unseated. He could not conceive of any really sane man, looking like
that, being anxious to be told how he looked.

"Are my lips red enough? It's for the ship's concert, you know. It
starts in half an hour, though I believe I'm not on till the second part.
Speaking as a friend, would you put a touch more black round the ears,
or are they all right?"

Curiosity replaced apprehension in Hignett's mind.

"What on earth are you doing performing at the ship's concert?"

"Oh, they roped me in. It got about somehow that I was a valuable man
and they wouldn't take no." Sam deepened the colour of his ears. "As a
matter of fact," he said casually, "my fiancee made rather a point of
my doing something."

A sharp yell from the lower berth proclaimed the fact that the
significance of the remark had not been lost on Eustace.