Part 24 (1/2)

”Why, you _are_,” answered Paul in a surprised tone, and then with a rather sad little laugh, he added, ”I wish I knew one tenth-one _hundredth_ as much as you do. I'm a dunce, I don't know as much as Lottie does-not nearly.”

In the face of this humble remark, Carl remembered rather uncomfortably the innumerable jibes he had directed at his cousin's ignorance.

”Well, you can teach yourself a lot,” he said a little patronizingly.

Paul laughed.

”I try to. But I-I can't even read decently, and it takes the d.i.c.kens of a long time.”

”Can't _read_!” cried Carl.

”Well, not enough to boast of. I never went to school in my life. A long time ago my mother or somebody must have taught me something, and then I picked up what I could here and there. There was an old fellow I knew years ago,-he was a pa.s.senger on a little coast trading vessel-we were going from Ma.r.s.eilles down to the south of Italy, and on the voyage, which was pretty slow,-because we sometimes stayed for two or three days at different ports,-he taught me a few things. And then I learned to read French pretty well, and a little Italian, and a young Englishman-a college fellow, who'd given up studying for the ministry and run away to sea-even taught me some Latin, though what under Heaven he thought I'd do with it I don't know. He was a funny one,” said Paul, chuckling reminiscently, ”a thin little chap, with a long nose. He used to say that every gentleman should have a knowledge of the cla.s.sics, and you'd see him was.h.i.+ng the deck, with copy of some old Latin fellow's poetry sticking out of his back pocket.”

”What did he go to sea for?” inquired Carl; for the first time he had deigned to listen to some of Paul's adventures, and he found himself getting very much interested.

”I don't know. His uncle was a lord or something-at least he told me so, and I daresay it was true. He said he was a younger son, though what that had to do with it I don't know. Anyway it seemed to be an awfully important thing for me to remember. He wanted to make something of himself, he said. I told him he'd do better as-well, anything but a cabin boy, or deck hand or whatever he was. But he said he loved the sea-though he was just about the worst sailor I ever saw.”

”What happened to him?”

”I don't remember. Oh, yes, I do. The poor little cuss died-got typhus or something and off he went. Bill Tyler told me about it. They buried him at sea.”

”Who was Bill Tyler?”

”Bill was-everything! He was an old bird-older than father. He'd done everything, seen everything-you never knew such a man! He couldn't write his own name, but he was the canniest, drollest-and talk about strength!

Next to father, I guess I liked him better than anyone on earth!” Paul's face glowed, and he launched forth into an animated account of his friend's virtues and exploits, urged on eagerly by Carl, who made him go on every time he stopped. There were no absurd exaggerations, a la Munchausen, in his tales that day. He was thinking only of amusing the sick, feeble boy, and making him forget his own dreary thoughts. Nor did he once reflect that it was this same boy who had told him so pa.s.sionately that he ”hated him, and always would.”

Elise appearing at the door with Carl's tray stopped short at the sound of his laugh-the first spontaneous laugh she had heard from him in many a day.

”How much better you seem, dear,” she said, setting the tray on his knees, and shaking up his pillows. ”Paul, your lunch is waiting for you.” She sent him a grateful glance.

”If you haven't anything special to do, come on up when you've fed,”

suggested Carl elegantly. Elise nodded eagerly, and following Paul to the door, said in a low voice,

”I wish you would, cousin. There isn't much to be done to-day-I can take care of it, and it seems to have done him so much good.”

So Paul spent the afternoon, a long, sunny afternoon, in that dark room, talking to his cousin, telling him about people he had seen-and what a heterogeneous collection they were!-places he had visited, adventures he and his father had had together. A whole new world he opened to the young bookworm, who listened with his hands folded, and a keen but detached interest, to all these tales of action and happy-go-lucky wanderings.

”All that's great to hear about,” remarked Carl, ”but I don't think I'd like to live that way. Too much hopping about, and too-uncomfortable.”

”I suppose it was uncomfortable-but I never knew what it was to _be_ comfortable-that is, to be sure of a good bed to sleep in, and plenty to eat, and all that-so I never minded.”

”It must bore you to be cooped up here-baking cakes! Ha-ha!” Carl laughed outright. ”I never thought before of how funny that was!”

”I have,” remarked Paul, drily.

”What do you suppose that Bill Tyler would say?”

”I can't imagine,” replied Paul, smiling glumly. ”He'd probably say it was a good job, and that I ought to thank Heaven for it. He was a practical old egg, or he pretended to be. He was forever preaching what he called 'hard sense'-and getting himself into more tight squeezes-he was worse than father. He had more common sense and used it less than any man I ever saw.”

”Do you really want to be a painter?” asked Carl suddenly. ”That's such a queer thing to want to be.”