Page:Ballantyne--The Battery and the Boiler.djvu/423



, it is not in the nature of things that man, in his present state, should attain to full satisfaction. He may, indeed he should, attain to contentment, but as long as there are higher and better things within his reach, he must of necessity remain in some degree unsatisfied.

Some such idea must have been passing through Robin Wright's brain one fine morning, as he slowly paced the deck of a small schooner with his friend Sam Shipton, for he suddenly broke a prolonged silence with the following remark:—

"I don't know how it is, Sam, but although I am surrounded with everything that should make a fellow happy, I 'm—I 'm not happy. In fact, I 'm as miserable as it is possible to be!"

"Come now, Robin, don't exaggerate," said Sam in a remonstrative tone. "Hyperbole is very objectionable, especially in young men. You know that if you were tied to a huge gridiron over a slow