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Even Isobel failed to draw him further, and she said one day, in a

temper, after a spirited attempt to extract some of his stored

impressions: "The man reminds me of one of those dummy books you see

occasionally, bound in calf and labeled 'Gazetteer of the World' When

you try to open a volume you find that it is made of wood"

So they nicknamed him "Mr Wood," and Elsie once inadvertently

addressed him by the name

"What do you think of the weather, Mr Wood?" she asked him at

breakfast

He chanced to notice that she was speaking to him

"Rotten," he said

Perhaps he wondered why Miss Maxwell flushed and the others laughed

But, in actual fact, he was not far wrong in his curious choice of an

adjective thathad been

justified on the second day out Leaden clouds, a sullen sea, and

occasional puffs of a stinging breeze froe for the sunny skies of Chile

Though the Kansas was not a fast ship, she could haveof the fourth day were not

Captain Courtenay wishful to navigate the ht His intent, therefore, was to pick up the