bothered by the spelling of the messages he sent her, but on the whole she understood them very well, with only occasional promptings.
A number of people were now on deck, for the most part guests of the Harbor View House, who had been trying to carry on an interrupted night’s rest by huddling themselves into the stiff, plush-covered chairs in the cabin. These passengers seemed to be much edified by the signaling, and several of them were gazing at Joan and Garth, who remained unconscious of the sensation they were creating. Garth, his hair rumpled and his eyes shining, was sending quite a hard sentence, with wildly waving arms. Joan, wearing a perfectly unintentional scowl, was trying to put down the letters on the back of an old envelop. "Dousuposeucoldunderstandabatleshipnow?” It took her some time to decode this into, "Do you suppose you could understand a battleship now?" and when she looked up, to answer with a very emphatic "No!" she found fixed on her the glassily amazed eyes of a prim elderly lady.
"I suppose we did look rather as though we were crazy," said Joan, as she pulled her camp-stool up beside Garth’s, "if people didn’t know what we were doing."
