om. Joe had evidently stolen away after
he had dozed off. That was considerate of Joe, he thought. Then he
closed his eyes and slept again.

In the days that followed Joe was too busy organizing and taking hold of
the laundry to bother him much; and it was not until the day before
sailing that the newspapers made the announcement that he had taken
passage on the Mariposa. Once, when the instinct of preservation
fluttered, he went to a doctor and underwent a searching physical
examination. Nothing could be found the matter with him. His heart and
lungs were pronounced magnificent. Every organ, so far as the doctor
could know, was normal and was working normally.

"There is nothing the matter with you, Mr. Eden," he said, "positively
nothing the matter with you. You are in the pink of condition. Candidly,
I envy you your health. It is superb. Look at that chest. There, and
in your stomach, lies the secret of your remarkable constitution.
Physically, you are a man in a thousand--in ten thousand. Barring
accidents, you should live to be a hundred."

And Martin knew that Lizzie's diagnosis had been correct. Physically he
was all right. It was his "think-machine" that had gone wrong, and there
was no cure for that except to get away to the South Seas. The trouble
was that now, on the verge of departure, he had no desire to go. The
South Seas charmed him no more than did bourgeois civilization. There
was no zest in the thought of departure, while the act of departure
appalled him as a weariness of the flesh. He would have felt better if
he were already on board and gone.

The last day was a sore trial. Having read of his sailing in the morning
papers, Bernard Higginbotham, Gertrude, and all the family came to say
good-by, as did Hermann von Schmidt and Marian. Then there was business
to be transacted, bills to be paid, and everlasting reporters to be
endured. He said good-by to Lizzie Connolly, abruptly, at the entrance
to night school, and hurried away. At the hotel he found Joe, too busy
all day with the laundry to have come to him earlier. It was the last
straw, but Martin gripped the arms of his chair and talked and listened
for half an hour.

"You know, Joe," he said, "that you are not tied down to that laundry.
There are no strings on it. You can sell it any time and blow the money.
Any time you get sick of it and want to hit the road, just pull out. Do
what will make you the happiest."