Part 3 (1/2)

”I'm never quite well,” answered Arthur. ”The doctor says I'm very delicate, and steamers always make me ill.”

”What a shame,” said Mr. Kalisch. ”There's lots of fun on a steamer, too, for a jolly boy. There's shuffle board, and hide and seek, and animals.”

”What is animals?”

”I'll tell you all about it after lunch. In the meantime, you're going to take a fine nap and when you wake up you will be feeling like a fighting c.o.c.k, and then we'll play the game of animals. Perhaps the young ladies will join in, and Feargus and the others. Do you ever take medicine?”

”Lots of it,” replied Arthur proudly.

”Here is a pill. It's not a bit nasty. These ladies have all taken the same kind of pill. It cured them of seasickness.”

”I don't mind medicine,” said Arthur. ”I'm quite used to it, I have to take so much. What will this do?”

”It will make you well. You will sleep for an hour and then you will wake up hungry and happy, and the first thing you'll say when you come on deck will be 'Telemac,'-that's my name, you know,-'what about animals?'”

Telemac Kalisch then drew forth one of the small brown pellets and put it between the boy's lips.

”It's not an opiate, Doctor?” asked one of the men uneasily.

Mr. Kalisch shook his head without taking his eyes off the boy's.

”You feel better already, eh? The blood is coming back to your face.”

”I do feel better,” replied Arthur. ”I think I'll go in now, Bobbie.”

”Shall I carry you?” asked the young man called Bobbie.

”No, I'll walk,” said the child starting down the deck and then turning back. ”Thank you, Telemac,” he called. ”I like you very much. Don't forget-after lunch.”

There was an air of authority about the child that was as pathetic as it was amusing, as he moved away.

”Poor little man!” exclaimed Telemac Kalisch. ”Poor little fellow!”

”The suggestion pellet, again,” thought Billie, smiling slightly. ”Was he really ill?” she asked aloud.

”He's delicate,” answered Telemac. ”Continuous nursing and doctoring would make an invalid of Atlas, himself.”

”The Le Roy-Jones, of Castlewood Manor, Virginia,” began the languid personage of that name with an elegant drawl,-but the elements themselves prevented her finis.h.i.+ng her aristocratic recital, and Mrs. Le Roy-Jones became the sport of the breezes. A mischievous little puff of wind lifted the brim of her youthful hat, with invisible fingers plucked one of her false curls from her hair, and blew it along the deck.

”Oh, mother, why will you wear those things?” exclaimed Marie-Jeanne blus.h.i.+ng, as she chased the wisp of hair followed by Feargus and the Motor Maids, all of them glad to find something to laugh at.

Her mother clinched her bony hands angrily.

”Insolent girl!” she said, under her breath.

Miss Campbell turned coldly away. There was something very pathetic to her about this poor battered creature, who looked, as Nancy had said, as if she had been hanging on a hook with her clothes in an old forgotten closet for a long time, so faded she was and full of wrinkles. But when she scolded her unhappy daughter, Miss Campbell could not endure her.

”She is a splendid young woman, ma'am,” said Telemac Kalisch. ”She has a fine, serious face, and if she were allowed to pursue her bent, she would probably grow beautiful.”