Page:Rowland--The Mountain of Fears.djvu/228

  entertainment there is in him, and while we were talking Claud came up and requested a few words with him.

" 'Anything personal?' I asked. Claud hesitated for a moment, apparently embarrassed.

" 'Oh, no,' said he, and went on, stammering like a school-boy who had forgotten his recitation. 'You see, Doctor Leyden,' said he, 'when I engaged my passage I was afraid that I might be seasick, so I made an arrangement with Captain Deshay by which he was to drop me at Honolulu if I wished it. He—he—told me that there were to be no other passengers.

" 'But you are not seasick, are you?' said I.

" 'No,' he answered, 'but I am—I am—I am homesick.' Upon my word, he gulped like a little girl the first day in school and his blue eyes filled with tears; he could not have been under twenty years of age.

" 'I do not think that you have dealt quite fairly with me, Captain,' said he, in a voice [ 212 ]