ht
the water again.

"Have I been making an ass of myself, Arthur?"

"No, Jack; but you are laying yourself open to some wonder. For three
or four days now, except for the forty-eight hours on land there,
you've been a sort of killjoy. Even the admiral has remarked it."

"Tell him it's my liver," with a laugh not wholly free of
embarrassment. "Suppose," he continued, in a low voice; "suppose--"
But he couldn't go on.

"Yes, suppose," said Cathewe, taking up the broken thread; "suppose
there was a person who had a heap of money, or will have some day; and
suppose there's another person who has but little and may have less in
days to come. Is that the supposition, Jack? The presumption of an
old friend, a right that ought never to be abrogated." Cathewe laid a
hand on his young friend's shoulder; there was a silent speech of
knowledge and brotherhood in it such as Fitzgerald could not mistake.

"That's the supposition," he admitted generously.

"Well, money counts only when you buy horses and yachts and houses, it
never really matters in anything else."

"It is easy to say that."

"It is also easy to learn that it is true."

"Isn't there a good deal of buying these days where there should be
giving?"

"Not among real people. You have had enough experience with both types
to be competent to distinguish the one from the other. You have birth
and brains and industry; you're a decent sort of chap besides,"
genially. "Can money buy these things when grounded on self-respect as
they are in you? Come along now; for the admiral sent me after you.
It's the steward's champagne cocktail; and you know how good they are.
And remember, if you will put your head into the clouds, don't take
your feet off the deck."

Fitzgerald expanded under his tactful interpretation. A long breath of
relief issued from his heart, and the rending doubt was dissipated: the
vulture-shadow spread its dark pennons and wheeled down the west. A
priceless thing is that friend upon whom one may shift the part of a
burden. It seemed to be one of Cathewe's occupations in life to
absorb, in a kindly, unemotional manner, other people's troubles. It
is this type of man, too, who rarely shares his own.

It would be rather graceless to say that after drinking the cocktail
Fitzgerald resumed his aforetime rosal lenses. He was naturally at
heart an optimist, as are all men of action. And so the admiral, who
had begun to look upon him with