Page:MacGrath--The luck of the Irish.djvu/349



ILLIAM sat sprawled in a comfortable canvas chair before the door of his room. The long veranda-gallery was deserted except for himself. He smoked, but only enough to keep the coal alive in his pipe. He was watching the rickshaw road through the interstices of the veranda rail. It was difficult to believe that this was the middle of March. All over New York State, including the great city, there would be alternately rain, snow, sleet, sunshine, and blizzards. If you had offered William his choice he would have selected a blizzard of Wyoming dimensions. This weather here in Singapore took the starch out of a man. No matter how strong and healthy you were, you got tired quickly, the least exertion enervated you. At this moment it was picturesque enough—a bit of blue sea out yonder, and all the rest of the world dusted with gold of a late afternoon.

He fell to musing. He was always doing that nowadays. His wonder was undiminished; in fact, it went on growing and growing. He, William Grogan, here in Singapore, with scarcely a dream left unfulfilled! He worried a little. Things didn't work out that way, not even in his favorite novels.