'Now for some ground rules, said Jill. 'On such short acquaintance, I'm not about to crawl into bed with you, but I will share the bed — or, I suppose, the bunk, for it's really not a bed. Like the captain and the mate, we'll take turns in it. You can use the can — on board such a ship as this, I think it's termed a head. We'll eat our meals together and we can sit and talk and play my music crystals. I'll ignore a pass or two, being naturally good-natured and more kindly than is good for me, but if you get too heavy, I'll heave you out.

'I shall not get too heavy, said Tennyson, 'however much I may be tempted. I feel something like a stray dog someone picked up.

He used half a slice of bread to mop up his plate, sopping up the gravy left over from the stew.

'In my ravenous hunger, he told her, 'this meal was tasty, but it had a strange tang to it. Stew, of course, but a stew of what?

'Don't ask, she said. 'Just shut your eyes and eat. Holding your nose helps, too, if you can do that without strangling. There is a deep, dark suspicion that when one of the pilgrims die — and some of them do, of course, packed into steerage as they are…

He waved a helpless hand at her. 'Please, Jill, desist. My body needs the food and I'd like to keep it down.

'I would not have thought a doctor would have a queasy stomach.

'Doctors, my dear, he said, 'are not total brutes.

'Put the plate away, she told him. 'You've mopped it shining clean. I still have the captain's bottle-