aptain Boynton frequently consigned his duties to the first officer
in order to devote his energies to holding Mrs. Weston's worsted. When
he was not holding the skein, he was holding the ball, and during
the endless process of winding and unwinding he spun his own yarns,
recalling tales of wild adventure that alternately shocked and
fascinated his gentle listener.

The young people, meanwhile, were not by any means immune. Elise Weston
had discovered that the Scotchman's voice blended perfectly with her
own, and through endless practising of "Tales from Hoffman" they had
arrived at a harmony that promised to be permanent. Andy Black and Bobby
Boynton romped through the days, apparently wasting little time on
sentiment, but developing a friendship that might at any time become
serious.

Only the blighted being wandered the decks alone. Since that morning in
the wind-shelter he had decided to take no more risks. Alarming symptoms
had not been wanting to indicate the return of a malady from which he
never expected to suffer again. The grand affair with the Lady Hortense
had been a dignified, chronic ailment which he had learned to endure
with a becoming air of pensive resignation. The present attack
threatened to be of a much more disturbing character. It was acute;
it responded to no treatment, mental, moral, or physical. It was like
toothache or mumps or chicken-pox, an ignoble, complaint of which one
is ashamed, but before which one is helpless.

It was only at table that he found it impossible to maintain toward
Bobby that attitude of indifference which he had prescribed for himself.
With the arrival of the new passengers at Honolulu the places had been
slightly changed, and now that he found himself seated between Bobby and
Andy Black, the temptation to turn his chair slightly toward the former,
thus presenting an insolent and forbidding back to Andy, was more than
he could resist. Moreover, it afforded him unlimited satisfaction to
know that by the glance of his eye or a whispered half-phrase he could
instantly center all her sparkling attention upon himself.

The captain viewed these elusive tete-a-tetes with growing disfavor. One
morning when he was alone at breakfast with Mrs. Weston he unburdened
his mind after his own peculiar fashion.

"A seaman has to cultivate three things, my lady, a Nelson eye, a Nelson
ear, and a Nelson nose. I've got 'em all."

Mrs. Weston smiled with, flattering expectancy.

"I