if you'd like to go below I'll
stay with him."

"Thanks, no," was the reply; "I prefer the deck. How beautiful the
chalky coast looks, Lawrence!"

"Yes, lovely," was the reply; "but I was trying to look forward to see
France. I want to see health. Looking back seems like being ill."

The professor nodded, and said that the French coast would soon be very
plain, and he stalked up and down, a magnificent specimen of humanity,
with his great beard blown about by the wind, which sought in vain to
play with his closely-cut hair.

"I'm sure you had better go below, professor. You look quite white,"
said the lawyer again; but Mr Preston laughed.

"I am quite well," he said; and he took another turn up and down to look
at the silvery foam churned up by the beating paddles.

"Look here!" cried the lawyer again, as the professor came and stood
talking to Lawrence; "had you not better go down?"

"No. Why go down to a cabin full of sick people, when I am enjoying the
fresh air, and am quite well?"

"But are you really quite well?"

"Never better in my life."

"Then it's too bad, sir," cried the lawyer. "I've been waiting to see
you give up, and if you will not, I must, for there's something wrong
with this boat."

"Nonsense! One of the best boats on the line."

"Then, there's something wrong with me. I can't enjoy my snuff, and
it's all nonsense for this boy to be called an invalid. I'm the
invalid, sir, and I am horribly ill. Help me below, there's a good
fellow."

Mr Burne looked so deplorably miserable, and at the same time so comic,
that it was impossible to avoid smiling, and as he saw this he stamped
his foot.

"Laughing at me, eh? Both of you. Now, look here. I know you both
feel so poorly that you don't know what to do, and I'll stop up on deck
and watch you out of spite."

"Nonsense! I could not help smiling," said the professor
good-humouredly. "Let me help you down."

"Thank you, no," said the lawyer taking off his hat to wipe his moist
brow, and then putting it on again, wrong way first. "I'm going to stop
on deck, sir--to stop on deck."

He seemed to be making a tremendous effort to master the qualmish
feeling that had attacked him, and in this case determination won.

A night at Boulogne, and at breakfast-time next morning Lawrence seemed
no worse for the journey, so they went on at once to Paris, where a
day's rest was considered advisable, and then, the preliminaries having
b