Page:The Iron Pirate 1905.djvu/279

Rh his saner moments that I have ever met. We both laughed heartily, and then he said— "But I'm forgetting, you've got no trunk, and I must lend you one. You're rather short of duds, I know, but we can rig you out until we get to Paris, and there the skipper will see to it—any way, so long as you've a coat thick enough, we won't criticise you in these parts; and I don't suppose you're thinking of garden parties."

"Anything but," I answered, as pleased as he was at the prospect of it all, and especially at the thought of quitting the ice-prison, if only for the winter; "I have neither clothes nor cash."

"Well, I don't see what you're going to do with the latter, just yet; but, man, you can just help yourself from the first Cunarder we stop—pshaw! don't look like that; wait until you feel the excitement of it all. Why, what is but one ship against the world, big men on their knees to you, money enough to wade in, and a fig for all the navies and all the fleets that ever left a port? I defy 'em to put a hand on the ship if they spend a million in the process. Come with us and see it all, and you'll say it's the most daring, the grandest, the most stupendous enterprise that man ever conceived."

It was no good to lift up one's voice against enthusiasm of this sort, so I let him lead me to his room, and took from him a trunk with some linen. As he said, it was more convenient