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You tell me you've been to sea a good part of your life. You must have seen shady things done on ships, and heard of more. Well, what is this? is it insurance? is it piracy? what is it about? what can it be for?" "Mr. Dodd," returned Nares, "you're right about me having been to sea the bigger part of my life.
For many weeks after this "Dodd" continued as he had begun, and grew in favor with the pupils in general and with Mr. Bright in particular. He came regularly to school, studied fairly, and advanced quite rapidly in his work. This was very satisfactory to his parents, who saw their son, whom they had mourned as worse than dead, once more "clothed and in his right mind."
But at the brink line flung himself into a sitting posture, and dipped his white handkerchief into the stream, then tied it viciously round his brow, doubled himself up with his head in his hands, and rocked himself hike an old woman minus the patience, of course. Mrs. Dodd and Julia, sitting but a few paces behind him, interchanged. a look of intelligence.
The table looked like a wedding-breakfast when we got there, with flowers and printed menus. The sportsmen were not long in making their appearance. It was a rather warm day, and Mr. McCormack and Mr. Dodd, who were not accustomed to much exercise, I suppose, without ceremony mopped their heads.
Augustus raged, his face flushing darkly. "Write at once and say we shall be delighted to accept." "You are engaged to shoot with Mr. Dodd for that date," I informed him. Mr. Dodd was sent to perdition, and Mrs. Dodd, too, and then he said, more quietly: "Sit down now and write to the Duke. I would not miss this for anything." I did not stir from where I stood. "Listen, Augustus," I said.
That deprecating glance did Mr. Dodd's business. It shot him with remorse, and made him feel a brute. "Ha! ha! That is the way to speak to her, Mr. Dodd; the other gentlemen spoil her." "It was very unbecoming of me to speak to her harshly like that." "Pooh! nonsense; these girls like to be ordered about; it saves them the trouble of thinking for themselves; but what is to become of me?
He noticed the impression, and quickly drawing me to him, said half timidly: "'Dodd, that sort of laugh and those words of mine just used, are not Martian, they don't belong to these rarefied beings here. They have a human or earthly taint, and they frighten me. I seem so lonely sometimes. My stray fun which I once enjoyed on earth must somehow be forgotten here.
I was waked about midnight by the splashing of rain in my face and the sobbing of the rising wind in the tree-tops, and upon crawling out of my water-soaked blankets found that Dodd and the Major had brought the tent ashore, pitched it among the trees, and availed themselves of its shelter, but had treacherously left me exposed to a pelting rain-storm, as if it were a matter of no consequence whatever whether I slept in a tent or a mud-puddle!
Dodd looked at the bills, carefully straightened in their packet, and giving every evidence of having been hoarded with an old man's caution. There was something about that money which impressed him with the sincerity of Mr. Breed's belief in his own cause. The young man grew visibly white around the mouth. "I'll see you later, Breed," he gulped.
"Fresh," he said. "Only rain-water." "You don't object to that?" I asked. "No," said he. "Well, then, what ails you?" I cried. "In plain United States, Mr. Dodd," he returned, "a whaleboat, five ash sweeps, and a barrel of stinking pork." "Or, in other words, the whole thing?" I commented. "Well, it's this way," he condescended to explain.
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