There were Barker and the Duke in the pretty smoking-room forward with the windows open and a pack of cards between them.

Every now and then they stopped to chat a little, or the Duke would go out and look at the course, and make his rounds to see that every one was all right and nobody sea-sick.

But Barker rarely moved, save to turn his chair and cross one leg over the other, whereby he might the more easily contemplate his little patent leather shoes and stroke his bony hands over his silk-clad ankles; for Mr.Barker considered sea-dressing, as he called it, a piece of affectation, and arrayed himself on board ship precisely as he did on land.

The Duke, on the other hand, like most Englishmen when they get a chance, revelled in what he considered ease; that is to say, no two of his garments matched or appeared to have been made in the same century; he wore a flannel shirt, and was inclined to go about barefoot when the ladies were not on deck, and he adorned his ducal forehead with a red worsted cap, price one shilling.
Margaret, as was to be expected, was the deck member, with her curiously-wrought chair and her furs and her portable bookcase; while Miss Skeat, who looked tall and finny, and sported a labyrinthine tartan, was generally to be seen entangled in the weather-shrouds near by.

As for the Duke's sister, Lady Victoria, she was plain, but healthy, and made regular circuits of the steamer, stopping every now and then to watch the green swirl of the foam by the side, and to take long draughts of salt air into her robust lungs.