Page:Dave Porter at Oak Hall.djvu/330

306 "Recovering? Is he in his right mind?"

"He appears to be—and yet he talks in a very strange way."

"About me?"

"About you, or somebody that looks like you. He wants to see you very much. He claims that you are his old friend. But of course that can't be. He is sane enough on other subjects, so the doctor told me."

"I'd like to see him."

"Well, I'll take you to see him this afternoon. I have already arranged it with Dr. Clay."

They started directly after dinner, and by three o'clock Dave and Mr. Wadsworth were at the private sanitarium to which the old tar had been transferred. When they entered the sick man's room they found him walking the floor with a true nautical swagger.

"Hullo, my hearty! so you've hove in sight at last!" he cried, as he took Dave's hand and gave it an earnest grip. "I thought I was stranded here and abandoned."

"I am glad to see you so well," answered Dave, and looked the tar squarely in the eyes.

"Been many a year since we met, ain't it?" queried Billy Dill. "Must be fifteen or twenty, eh? But you don't look older—you look younger."

"Do you really think you met me before? I