ith?"

"We didn't pick up with him, father," said Mark sourly.

"What, sir! Don't tell me that! I distinctly saw you with him out of
the window."

"He picked up with us, father--" began Mark; and then he caught the
doctor's eye and changed his lone, saying hastily, "He was a poor fellow
in distress, father."

Here Mark stopped short, for he had returned to the hotel with the full
intention of pleading the poor invalid's cause, and he felt that he had
commenced by speaking in a way that must increase his father's
irritation, for Sir James had been quite upset by the heat of the place
and the discomforts of the miserable hotel to which he had been directed
when on board the liner as being the best in the port.

He literally glared at his son, and Mark shrank and turned to look at
the doctor.

Sir James waited till he saw his son lower his eyes, when he too turned
to the doctor and looked at him fiercely, the two men exchanging a long
questioning glance.

It was a painful silence, but there was virtue in it, for when it was
broken it was by Sir James, who said after drawing a deep breath, "See
if you can open that window a little farther, Mark. This place feels
like an oven."

Mark sprang to his feet and drew the window a little forward, and then
pushed it outward again, but only back in its former place.

"Hah! That's better, my boy," said his father, quite cheerfully. "Why,
doctor, what a blessing a bucketful of ice would be here--if it wasn't
lukewarm, Dean, eh?"

The boy addressed tried to laugh at his uncle's joke, but the production
sounded hollow, and the silence recommenced, the doctor cudgelling his
brains the while for something to say that should thoroughly change the
conversation; but he cudgelled in vain.

At last, though, to his great relief, feeling as he did at the time that
all the responsibility of the unpleasant voyage rested on his shoulders,
Sir James cleared his throat as he sat back in a wicker chair mopping
his forehead, and said quietly, "A beggar, Mark?"

"No, father," cried Mark eagerly jumping at the chance of saying
something to divert his father's smouldering anger; "a poor English
sailor."

"Well, the same thing, my boy, and I hope you relieved him--that is, if
he was genuine."

"Oh, he was genuine enough, father," cried Mark, and his words almost
tumbled over one another as he related something of the poor fellow's
plight.

"Tut, tut, tut, tut!" ejaculated Sir James