Adventure Magazine Cover — page 148: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

138 “At ten minutes past five Joe waked me by stumbling into my cabin and sitting down on my stomach. He couldn’t help it, you know. He was a sorry spectacle. “*VYou will have to take the bridge, George,’ he wheezed. ‘I am sick, deathly sick.’ “T helped him into his cabin and put him to bed. Oh, he was in a bad way. He thought he was going to die. “T had to leave him. ‘““*Hope you will be better soon, Joe,’ I said. ““*T don’t care,’ he wheezed, rolling his head from side to side like a scared turtle. ‘Maybe I'll have peace from that blessed female now.’ “But he didn’t, of course. And of course he couldn’t help himself. She might have done anything she wanted to him. And maybe she did. He certainly was in no condition to object. But his recovery was marvelous. Brinkman took the bridge at eight and I stayed below until four in the afternoon. The Old Man had hardly dis- appeared before Joe joined me on the bridge. He was a sorry sight but he kept on his legs. He wore pajamasanda bathrobe. He looked like a lunatic. “* “Hey! Isaid. ‘Get down from here, you lumbering idiot. Pack yourself off to bed!’ “He looked all about him in a scared sort of way. ‘“*She is down there!’ he whispered. “* ‘She?’ I said. ‘What she?’ ‘¢ ¢S-s-s-she-e-e-e!’ he hissed. ‘You know what I mean, you blockhead.’ That wasn’t the way to talk to one’s superior, but I for- gave him. ‘She’s been down there all day!’ he said. ‘She is washing the floor now.’ *“* ‘Well,’ I said, ‘what more do you want her to do, you ungrateful wretch? Are you never satisfied?’ : “That was too much for him. That fin- ished the conversation. He crept under one of the boats and cried. “She tidied his cabin every day after that. It looked like a—a—boudoir and Joe, poor fellow, never set his foot in it without fear and trembling.” George stopped to refill his pipe. “T see,” I remarked. ‘“That was one of the things we passed temporarily a while back.” “T thought you were asleep,” said George. “You kept still so long.” “There was another thing, too,” I re- Adventure minded him, “that we passed temporarily.” “TI am coming to that,” said George, light- ing his pipe. “Shut your trap and listen and don’t interrupt me. “That tobacco business was a fizzle, we had to admit that. The effects weren’t lasting enough to do any real good. And of course it wouldn’t do to repeat that stunt. Joe would have found it out and that would have queered the whole business. “And we didn’t have all the time in the world. We were getting somewhere, even at six knots—or maybe seven. Old Hawkins was a speed maniac, so we were probably making seven. I don’t remember. I had a notion that if Joe once set foot on shore, in his present state of mind, we’d never see him again. “The Old Man was pulling long faces and it made me creepy. I began to sleep badly. ““*You fell down on that business, Mr. Carey,’ said he one day. ‘You didn’t make him sick enough.’ ““His constitution was a little too much for me, sir,’ I said. ‘It got rid of the stuff too fast. And your daughter is a good nurse, I am sure, and that probably helped him, too.’ ‘““*T have almost come to the conclusion, Mr. Carey,’ said the old lunatic, ‘that I ought to substitute you for Mr. Davis in this matter.’ t) said, creepy all over. ‘I’d never get through a ceremony anywhere with- out some other lady butting in with a prior claim.’ “‘“T could marry you at sea, Mr. Carey,’ said the raving lunatic. ‘That is within my powers.’ “* ‘That is not to be thought of, sir,’ I said firmly. ‘I am not fit to marry anybody’s daughter, least of all yours, sir.’ ‘You are a good sailor, Mr. Carey,’ said the madman. ‘A good sailor and a poor husband, sir. Like my father. Many a time I heard my mother say so. She knew, and my grand- mother knew, both to their sorrow. You might ask them, sir.’ I was nearly frantic, you understand. “““Maybe you are right, Mr. Carey,’ said the old fool. ‘But I would like to see my daughter disposed of.’ “* “Certainly, sir,’ I said. ‘But marriage Is a pretty serious business, when you come ‘“*“THAT would never do, sir! I GOMIIGooOo S (© iin