Tubbs, under his lofty and polished dome of thought, watched us
knowingly. You saw that he was getting ready to assume a
bless-you-my-children attitude and even to take credit somehow as
match-maker. He related anecdotes, in which, as an emissary of
Cupid, he played a benevolent and leading role. One detected, too,
a grin, ugly and unmirthful, on the unprepossessing countenance of
Captain Magnus. I was indifferent. The man my gaiety was intended
for sat at the far end of the table. I had to wipe out the memory
of my wet eyes that afternoon.
Directly dinner was at an end, remorselessly he led the Honorable
Cuthbert away. I retired to Huckleberry Finn. But a face with a
scar running to the eyebrow looked up at me from the pages, and I
held colloquies with it in which I said all the brilliant and
cutting things which had occurred to me too late.
I was thus engaged when a cry rang through the ship: "Land ho!"
IV
THE ISLE OF FORTUNE
I dropped my book and ran on deck. Every one else was already
there. I joined the row at the rail, indifferent, for the moment,
to the fact that to display so much interest in their ridiculous
island involved a descent from my pinnacle. Indeed, the chill
altitude of pinnacles never agrees with me for long at a time, so
that I am obliged to descend at intervals to breathe the air on the
common level.
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