Page:MacGrath--The luck of the Irish.djvu/78

 "You can't scare me," said William, as he turn-stiled himself out of the chair and made for the upper deck.

Could anything have scared him that glorious morning, his appetite satisfied, his lungs full of fresh sea-air, the blood bounding through his veins? I doubt it.

William hurried away to his chair, but, finding that the school-teacher's was unoccupied, he immediately lost interest in the spot. He next turned into the smoke-room; nobody home there. Where were they all, anyhow? It was after nine, and not two dozen souls were up and abroad. Could anybody possibly be seasick on a day like this? There was only what the chief engineer called a fair beam sea running up from the south-west; not enough to spill the cat's milk.

He began to worry. Supposing she was seasick? That would mean a long, lonesome day for him.

A fit of restlessness laid hold of him. He tramped up and down the decks, explored the library, the barber's shop, and the steerage. In the end he found temporary anchorage against the weather rail, near the entrance to the smoke-room. He blinked in the dazzle of the leaping blue water, took out a Partaga, turned it over and over in his fingers, and grinned pleasurably. Back of that little roll of Havana was a twenty-thousand-dollar interest in Burns, Dolan & Co., master plumbers, about four thousand in the Corn Exchange, and a letter of credit for three thousand in his inside pocket, la-de-dah.