Page:Cornelia Meigs--The island of Appledore.djvu/157

Rh was made all along the coast, but without bringing any news to light. The millionaire purchaser of an estate on Appledore Island seemed to have vanished completely.

Almost the first words that Captain Saulsby spoke were to ask what had become of that  “son-of-a-gun of a friend of the Kaiser’s.” When he learned that in spite of all possible  efforts the man had got clean away, he announced at first that he was too disgusted to  try to get well; but altered his decision a little  later.

“If the whole United States Navy can’t catch a man like that,” he said weakly to  Billy, “I guess it’s Ned Saulsby’s duty to keep  in the world a little longer, and try to be a  match for the rascal.”

The doctor said that the old sailor’s recovery was miraculously quick; the Captain himself, that it was “slower than a wet week.”

“That woman,” he would say, indicating the long-suffering nurse, “that woman that’s  all rustles and starch and has no real heart,  she keeps me down, when the only thing I  need to get well is to walk out along the garden path and feel the good, warm sunshine on  my back.”