"What name?" he asked Viaburi, who had just come out of the grass house.
"Big fella sick," was the answer. "White fella Mary talk 'm too much
allee time. Allee time talk 'm big fella schooner."
Sheldon nodded. He understood. It was the loss of the _Martha_ that had
brought on the fever. The fever would have come sooner or later, he
knew; but her disappointment had precipitated it. He lighted a
cigarette, and in the curling smoke of it caught visions of his English
mother, and wondered if she would understand how her son could love a
woman who cried because she could not be skipper of a schooner in the
cannibal isles.
CHAPTER XX--A MAN-TALK
The most patient man in the world is prone to impatience in love--and
Sheldon was in love. He called himself an ass a score of times a day,
and strove to contain himself by directing his mind in other channels,
but more than a score of times each day his thoughts roved back and dwelt
on Joan. It was a pretty problem she presented, and he was continually
debating with himself as to what was the best way to approach her.
He was not an adept at love-making. He had had but one experience in the
gentle art (in which he had been more wooed than wooing), and the affair
had profited him little.
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