she said--

"Then pray allow me to present you with this steamer chair."

"I--I--really, madam, I do not understand you," stammered the young man,
astonished at the turn the unsought conversation had taken. "I think,"
replied the lady, "that what I said was plain enough. I beg you to
accept this steamer chair as your own. It is of no further use to me."

Saying this, the young woman, with some dignity, turned her back upon
him, and disappeared down the companion-way, leaving Morris in a state
of utter bewilderment as he looked down at the broken steamer chair,
wondering if the lady was insane. All at once he noticed a rent in his
trousers, between the knee and the instep.

"Good heavens, how have I done this? My best pair of trousers, too.
Gracious!" he cried, as a bewildered look stole over his face, "it isn't
possible that in racing up this deck I ran against this steamer chair
and knocked it to flinders, and possibly upset the lady at the same
time? By George! that's just what the trouble is."

Looking at the back of the flimsy chair he noticed a tag tied to it, and
on the tag he saw the name, "Miss Katherine Earle, New York." Passing to
the other side he called the deck steward.

"Steward," he said, "there is a chair somewhere among your pile with the
name 'Geo. Morris' on it. Will you get it for me?"

"Certainly, sir," answered the steward, and very shortly the other
steamer chair, which, by the way, was a much more elegant, expensive,