and
stop sniveling!"

He stooped and took the poor boy by the collar. His brutality roused us
all out of our stupor. Tish and I rushed forward and commanded him to
stand back; and Aggie, with more presence of mind than we had given her
credit for, brought a glass containing a tablespoonful of blackberry
cordial into which she had poured ten drops of seasickness remedy. Tufik
was white and groaning, but he revived enough to sit up and stare at us
with his sad brown eyes.

"I wish to die!" he said brokenly. "Why you do not let me die? My
friends go on the canal! I am alone! My heart is empty!"

Tish wished to roll him on a barrel, but we had no barrel; so, with
Charlie Sands standing by with his watch in his hand, refusing to assist
and making unkind remarks, we got him to Tish's room and laid out on her
mackintosh on the bed. He did not want to live. We could hardly force
him to drink the hot coffee Tish made for him. He kept muttering things
about his loneliness and being only a dirty dago; and then he turned
bitter and said hard things about this great America, where he could
find no work and must be a burden on his three mothers, and could not
bring his dear sister to be company for him. Aggie quite broke down and
had to lie down on the sofa in the parlor and have a cracker and a cup
of tea.

When Tish and I had succeeded in making Tufik promise to live, and had
given him one of his own silk kimonos to put on until his clothing could
be dried--Charlie Sands having disagreeably refused to lend his
overcoat--and when we had given the officer five dollars not to arrest
the boy for attempting suicide, we met in the parlor to talk things
over.

Charlie Sands was sitting by the lamp in his overcoat. He had put our
railway and steamer tickets on the table, and was holding his cigarette
so that Aggie could inhale the fumes, she having hay fever and her
cubebs being on their way to Panama.

"I suppose you know," he said nastily, "that your train has gone and
that you cannot get the boat tomorrow?"

Tish was in an exalted mood--and she took off her things and flung them
on a chair.

"What is Panama," she demanded, "to saving a life? Charlie, we must plan
something for this boy. If you will take off your overcoat--"

"And see you put it on that little parasite? Not if I melt! Do you know
how deep the lake is? Three feet!"

"One can drown in three feet of water," said Aggie sadly, "if one is
very tired of life. Peo