"Thank you," said the German, helping himself to the whiskey. "Have you
seen the new lodgers?"

"Those in the room behind me? Yes. I saw them at the front door as I came
in."

"They're a queer pair--the youngest I've seen in this house. I've been
wondering what tempest wrecked them on this forlorn coast so early in the
voyage."

"Why wrecked?"

"My dear sir, we are all--except you--wrecks here, all unseaworthy at
least."

"One of them was quite pretty, I thought," said Howard, "the slender one
with the black hair."

"They are not mates. The other girl is of a different sort. She's more used
to this kind of life, at least to poverty. I fancy Miss Black-Hair looks on
it as a lark. But she'll find out the truth by the time she has mounted
another story."

"Here, to go up means to go down," Howard said, weary of the conversation
and wishing that the German would leave.

"They say that they're sisters," the German went on, again helping himself
to the whiskey; "They say they have run away from home because of a
stepmother and that they are going to earn their own living. But they
won't. They spend the nights racing about with a gang of the young wretches