Page:Rowland--The Mountain of Fears.djvu/220

  habit. I suspected that there was a girl in the case—that Claud was in love and had conceived that he was in danger of becoming addicted to the vice because he sometimes drank a glass of beer when in college.

"As we were chatting together the hound walked suddenly to me and raised his hand some head as if inviting a caress.

" 'That is unusual,' said Claud. 'His reception of people is often embarrassing. He will not go near Captain Deshay. He is too polite to growl; he simply gets out of the way, but he can't keep his hair from bristling a little.'

"I asked Claud presently if he had met the mate, and he said that he had not, that he had not even seen him, which I thought rather singular. Claud told me that we had another fellow-passenger, a Professor Lentz, a scientist, not a mere collector like myself. He added that Professor Lentz was below, engaged in storing a wagon-load of instruments for recording everything from a falling star [ 204 ]