Page:Rowland--The Mountain of Fears.djvu/139

  without becoming unpopular. He had a manner of loud and blatant camaraderie, was ready to give way in trifles, and I have even known him to loan out a good round sum without any security whatever. He was a friend of the friendless and had the reputation of being honest and liberal.

"Between them the pair should have done very well had Jacob been designed on the large scale of Isidore, but he was not. I think he envied Isidore's physique and manner and popularity, whereas the elder brother loved Jacob devotedly and would nurse him like a mother through his occasional attacks of illness, for one of Jacob's lungs was far gone with tuberculosis. I remember Isidore's boarding the steamer once in Vera Cruz when I was returning from an expedition into Yuca tan. It seems that he had heard of my being aboard, and he came to me haggard with watching and worry and told me that he feared that Jacob was dying of fever.

These doctors are a set of fools!' he [ 123 ]