why will you be
such a boy?"

"Oh, well," he grumbled, and without more ado drank off the balance.

"Now I'll read to you if you have everything you want. Adler, I think
you can open one of those windows; it's so warm out of doors."

While he ate his breakfast of toast, milk, and eggs Lloyd skimmed
through the paper, reading aloud everything she thought would be of
interest to him. Then, after a moment, her eye was caught and held by a
half-column article expanded from an Associated Press despatch.

"Oh!" she cried, "listen to this!" and continued: "'Word has been
received at this place of the safe arrival of the arctic steamship
Curlew at Tasiusak, on the Greenland coast, bearing eighteen members of
the Duane-Parsons expedition. Captain Duane reports all well and an
uneventful voyage. It is his intention to pass the winter at Tasiusak,
collecting dogs and also Esquimau sledges, which he believes superior to
European manufacture for work in rubble-ice, and to push on with the
Curlew in the spring as soon as Smith Sound shall be navigable. This may
be later than Captain Duane supposes, as the whalers who have been
working in the sound during the past months bring back news of an
unusually early winter and extraordinary quantities of pack-ice both in
the sound itself and in Kane Basin. This means a proportionately late
open season next year, and the Curlew's departure from Tasiusak may be
considerably later than anticipated. It is considered by the best arctic
experts an unfortunate circumstance that Captain Duane elected to winter
south of Cape Sabine, as the condition of the ice in Smith Sound can
never be relied upon nor foretold. Should the entrance to the sound
still be encumbered with ice as late as July, which is by no means
impossible, Captain Duane will be obliged to spend another winter at
Tasiusak or Upernvick, consuming alike his store of provisions and the
patience of his men.'"

There was a silence when Lloyd finished reading. Bennett chipped at the
end of his second egg.

"Well?" she said at length.

"Well," returned Bennett, "what's all that to me?"

"It's your work," she answered almost vehemently.

"No, indeed. It's Duane's work."

"What do you mean?"

"Let him try now."

"And you?" exclaimed Lloyd, looking intently at him.

"My dear girl, I had my chance and failed. Now--" he raised a shoulder
indifferently--"now, I don't care much about it. I've lost interest."

"I don't believe you,