Read Christopher and Columbus for Free Online Page A

along a wall for a door
they knew was there and not be able to find it, that they began to
laugh; and the undiscoverable door cheered them up more than
anything that had happened since seeing the last of Uncle
Arthur.
    "It's like a game," said Anna-Rose, patting her
hands softly and vainly along the wall beneath the shuttered
windows.
    "It's like something in 'Alice in
Wonderland,'" said Anna-Felicitas, following in her
tracks.
    A figure loomed through the mist and came toward them. They left
off patting, and stiffened into straight and motionless dignity
against the wall till it should have passed. But it didn't
pass. It was a male figure in a peaked cap, probably a steward,
they thought, and it stopped in front of them and said in an
American voice, "Hello."
    Anna-Rose cast rapidly about in her mind for the proper form of
reply to Hello.
    Anna-Felicitas, instinctively responsive to example murmured
"Hello" back again.
    Anna-Rose, feeling sure that nobody ought to say just Hello to
people they had never seen before, and that Aunt Alice would think
they had brought it on themselves by being conspicuous, decided
that perhaps "Good-evening" would regulate the situation,
and said it.
    "You ought to be at dinner," said the man, taking no
notice of this.
    "That's what
we
think," agreed Anna-Felicitas earnestly.
    "Can you please tell us how to get there?" asked
Anna-Rose, still distant, but polite, for she too very much wanted
to know.
    "But
don't
tell us to ask the Captain," said
Anna-Felicitas, even more earnestly.
    "No," said Anna-Rose, "because we
won't."
    The man laughed. "Come right along with me," he said,
striding on; and they followed him as obediently as though such
persons as possible
böse Buben
didn't exist.
    "First voyage I guess," said the man over his
shoulder.
    "Yes," said the twins a little breathlessly, for the
man's legs were long and they could hardly keep up with
him.
    "English?" said the man.
    "Ye--es," said Anna-Rose.
    "That's to say, practically," panted the
conscientious Anna-Felicitas.
    "What say?" said the man, still striding on. "I
said," Anna-Felicitas endeavoured to explain, hurrying
breathlessly after him so as to keep within reach of his ear,
"practically."
    "Ah," said the man; and after a silence, broken only
by the pantings for breath of the twins, he added: "Mother
with you?"
    They didn't say anything to that, it seemed such a dreadful
question to have to answer, and luckily he didn't repeat it,
but, having got to the door they had been searching for, opened it
and stepped into the bright light inside, and putting out his arm
behind him pulled them in one after the other over the high wooden
door-frame.
    Inside was the same stewardess they had seen earlier in the
afternoon, engaged in heatedly describing what sounded like
grievances to an official in buttons, who seemed indifferent. She
stopped suddenly when the man appeared, and the official took his
hands out of his pockets and became alert and attentive, and the
stewardess hastily picked up a tray she had set down and began to
move away along a passage.
    The man, however, briefly called "Hi," and she turned
round and came back even more quickly than she had tried to go.
    "You see," explained Anna-Rose in a pleased whisper to
Anna-Felicitas, "it's Hi she answers to."
    "Yes," agreed Anna-Felicitas. "It's waste of
good circumlocutions to throw them away on her."
    "Show these young ladies the dining-room," said the
man.
    "Yes, sir," said the stewardess, as polite as you
please.
    He nodded to them with a smile that developed for some reason
into a laugh, and turned away and beckoned to the official to
follow him, and went out again into the night.
    "Who was that nice man?" inquired Anna-Rose, following
the stewardess down a broad flight of stairs that smelt of
india-rubber and machine-oil and cooking all mixed up together.
    "And please," said Anna-Felicitas with mild severity,
"don't tell us to ask the Captain, because we really do
know better than