Page:Arthur Stringer - Gun Runner.djvu/282

 thankful for, great hazards to be gladly faced, great ends to be attained.

Then his thoughts came down to more material things, as he looked about and beheld a dirty-jacketed and heavy-eyed steward carrying a pewter coffee-pot and a tray of fruit and toast and eggs along the deck to the captain's stateroom, but who veered about to the wireless-room door, at a sign from McKinnon.

"Couldn't you leave that with me?" asked the operator.

"It's the captain's," said the steward, moving impassively on.

"Wait!" said McKinnon, taking a bill from his pocket. "Your captain's not even awake yet. And you could have a second trayful up to him in ten minutes."

The heavy-eyed steward willingly enough surrendered his burden when McKinnon thrust the bank-note into his hand, and went shuffling below-stairs again, to replace the coffee-pot and replenish the tray.

McKinnon closed and locked his cabin door, before he set down the breakfast thus caught on the wing. When he looked up he saw Alicia Boynton regarding him with wide-open and vaguely wondering eyes. He felt glad that he had escaped the brutality of waking her to the troubled world that still encompassed them.