Page:A Literary Courtship (1893).pdf/147

 Peak according to your original programme?"

"Yes," said he, "I always hate to have heights continually before my eyes that I can't climb."

"But you might go up if you liked," said I, ready to humor him.

"Yes, and get frozen to death at the top. Thanks, it doesn't tempt me."

"Did you ever hear of any one getting frozen to death up there?"

"No, but I have an idea that the summit is strewn with corpses."

It always refreshes Jack to talk in riddles, and when they are transparent enough for my comprehension, I sometimes join in. A vision of Ned and Benny frozen stiff in characteristic attitudes in the "lucidity" of a certain high altitude visited my imagination, and a sympathetic shiver accompanied it.

We were to start for New York soon after Christmas and I began to think John was likely to be poor company on the journey. He had got absurdly morbid