for what appeared to be its personal malevolence in deceiving him. This incessant vertical and lateral voyaging, then, was that "luxury of ocean travel" to which the "Duumvir" had invited him in its little pamphlets illustrated by photographs of smiling ladies reading in steamer chairs, placid stewards offering cups of tea or broth, and even of lively couples dancing upon a horizontal ballroom floor—lying photographs which he was now convinced had been taken when the ship lay in harbour.
But even thus betrayed, he was not able to understand how he could have been so gullible as to place himself in his present horrible situation;—"horrible" was his own half-stifled word for it. "Voluntarily!" This was another of his words. "Voluntarily I put myself into this horrible condition—voluntarily!" For he remembered with amazement that he had been not merely willing, he had been eager. He had looked forward not only to other continents, but to the ocean voyage. Chuckling and gloating, how he had bragged of it to unfortunate friends unable to leave their bleak customary work in wintry New York; and only that very afternoon he had taken leave of some of them with what jolly superiority!
That afternoon now seemed to have been an after-
