Rudyard Kipling

Captains Courageous Rudyard Kipling

The weather door of the smoking-room had been left open to the North Atlantic fog, as the bigliner rolled and lifted, whistling to warn the fishing-fleet."That Cheyne boy's the biggest nuisance aboard," said a man in a frieze overcoat, shutting thedoor with a bang. "He isn't wanted here. He's too fresh."A white-haired German reached for a sandwich, and grunted between bites: "I know der breed. Ameriga is full of dot kind. I dell you you should imbort ropes' ends free under your dariff.""Pshaw! There isn't any real harm to him. He's more to be pitied than anything," a man fromNew York drawled, as he lay at full length along the cushions under the wet skylight. "They'vedragged him around from hotel to hotel ever since he was a kid. I was talking to his mother thismorning. She's a lovely lady, but she don't pretend to manage him. He's going to Europe to finishhis education.""Education isn't begun yet." This was a Philadelphian, curled up in a corner. "That boy gets twohundred a month pocket-money, he told me. He isn't sixteen either.""Railroads, his father, aind't it?" said the German."Yep. That and mines and lumber and shipping. Built one place at San Diego, the old man has;another at Los Angeles; owns half a dozen railroads, half the lumber on the Pacific slope, and letshis wife spend the money," the Philadelphian went on lazily. "The West don't suit her, she says. Shejust tracks around with the boy and her nerves, trying to find out what'll amuse him, I guess. Florida, Adirondacks, Lakewood, Hot Springs, New York, and round again. He isn't much more than asecond-hand hotel clerk now. When he's finished in Europe he'll be a holy terror.