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  hand, and began to pour the liquor slowly into Claud's glass, while I with difficulty repressed an inclination to knock the vessel out of his hand—not that I laid much importance on Claud's breaking his resolution, but because he was in danger of breaking it not through his own will, and I knew that if he sagged at this moment he would have an up-hill fight to get back his own while aboard that schooner, and the agonizing part of it all to me was that Deshay was not a strong character; he was a pine post painted to look like granite, and Claud had not enough knowledge of men to recognize the paint.

" 'No, thank you, Captain,' said Claud, in a voice of such weak determination that it positively brought the blood to my face. 'I'm off for good,' he said, and threw the inflection on the wrong words, as a man will when trying to show a determination which is lacking in him.

" 'Of course you are, ' said Deshay, in a big, good-humored voice which seemed to jar the [ 209 ]